A Jedi's Journey

A Past Revisited

Cai floated in the bacta bath for a good three hours and he hadn't moved at all. His wounds were healing but everyone was more interested in the scars that covered his body. Sheema hadn't left the side of the tank since they dropped him in and Obi was getting worried.

"Sheema! Come away from there! You'll only worry yourself to death waiting for him to waken!" He put his hand on her shoulder.

She shook her head. "No. I need to be here when he wakes up. He needs to know that I'm here for him. That I didn't abandon him...." Her voice trailed off as the boy stirred in the thick yellow liquid.

Cai opened his eyes to see the world in a yellow tint. He was floating and had a hard time moving his arms. Bacta. He must've been in a bacta bath. But that wasn't the problem. What worried him the most was that he could see Sheema's worried face throught the glass. She was holding his now ripped tunic. Great. He would have now to explain, not only his actions, but the scars that were now visible to everyone. Not even Ami had known about them. Wonderful. Just wonderful. He heard the lid being lifted off the bath and a lift hooking him under the arms. He was lifted out and rinsed in very very cold water. He blinked it out of his eyes as he was set down in a nearby chair.

"Cai!" Sheema ran up to him.

He coughed but let her embrace him. He was never a touchy-feely person so he tensed his upper body when she hugged him.

"I was so worried about you! We were beginning to think you wouldn't make it!"

Cai smiled but mumbled something under his breath. "I've survived worse." The good thing was that they hadn't found out that his one arm was cybernetic. That would open a whole-nother Pandora's box of questions he didn't feel like answering.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing." He sneered. He wasn't in the mood for this but because he had been injured he had no choice but to deal with it.

Obi-wan came up to the platform. "He said that he's survived worse. And judging by those scars, I believe it."

Sheema's face screamed worry. "Cai, how did you get these?" She ran her hand over the deepest scar. It ran diagonally from his ribs on his right side to his left hip. Vadar gave it to him when he found out that Cai just sent his father to prison instead of killing him. While most of his scars were from electric whips, that one was made by a vibro-knife.

He flinched as her fingers made contact with his skin. "It doesn't matter how I got them. It can't be changed. So why bother revisiting it?" He removed her hand from his stomach. "By the way, I will never think of you as my mother."

Her eyes registered the deep hurt that his words brought. "But... why?"

He smiled. "You will always be my Master to me. The one who showed me what I could do. Who gave me hope. Whenever I was getting tired of doing as I was told by my Master, I remembered your promise to find me. And rescue me. So I held on for a bit longer. I didn't think I'd held on to it anymore but seeing you again reminded me. You will always be my Master."

Sheema smiled but quickly came back to her original question. "That's very sweet of you Cai but you better tell me how you got these scars right now or I'll tear you a new one. Do you hear me?"

He nodded his head. "Almost all of them are from my Master. A few are from some talented marks of mine. Not many thought. Most of the ones from my Master were to keep me in my place or because I was getting cocky." He smirked. "I did that a lot."

Sheema smiled. "What about these ones?" She pointed her finger to the one on his cheek and the one across his stomach.

He grimaced. "The one on my stomach was from when my Master found out that I spared my father's life and only had him arrested. I was supposed to kill him."