"I've been here two months now." Hallin pointed out.
"Which is why I want you back aboard the Peerless. But it's a little difficult to rationalize sending my personal medic away when I'm still like this." Luke held up his pinned and immobilised arm, the frustration in his voice evident. "Which is why you're taking it off tomorrow."
"Two weeks." Hallin corrected.
"Tomorrow."
"I'll take the polymer forms off tomorrow." Hallin bargained, "The bars have to stay."
"All of them?"
"I'll look at the ones on your collarbones. And you'll stop doing lightsaber practice."
"Good." Luke said, and Hallin knew that he'd continue - he'd neither agreed nor argued the point, just passed it by. If he held true to form, he'd distract with a change of subject or disguise with a question.
"To get back to the point," Luke continued without giving Hallin a chance to reply, "I need to get a message out which means I need to influence a comm officer to get his code, which means I need to be far enough away from the Tower that Palpatine won't pick up on it. I can hide it to some degree, but I'd need to be in The Monolith to be sure."
The Monolith was the massive bulk of the Main Palace on which the four Habitation Towers rested, the central hub of the Empire where all information, reports and requests eventually ended up before being processed and delivered to the Emperor's Advice Council in the Cabinet of the South Tower for deliberation. All decisions controlling every aspect of life, military and civilian, passed through the the Cabinet before being returned to the Monolith below for implementation. Palpatine, ever paranoid of insurrection, kept this procedure close to hand, watching and listening, always searching for any betrayal.
"I'm uncomfortable with you sending illicit messages out so close to the Emperor." Reece fretted, always the bodyguard. But for him to voice this out loud, Luke knew he must be sincerely worried.
"Options are limited until I can get out of the Palace." Luke said firmly, not wanting this to devolve into an extended discussion, aware that time was short. "I can get down into the Monolith without being seen, you know that. But not with Mara Jade on my tail - and reporting it."
"Which is why you want her to be used to losing you for short periods of time." Hallin realised, of Luke's original assertion.
Luke nodded, "We just need to break her in gently. If it's happened several times and she always finds me quickly and somewhere reasonably innocuous, she won't bother to report it - or she won't want to admit it. I'll take either."
"Just another of your little personality quirks." Hallin said dryly.
"When tomorrow?" Reece asked.
"First thing." Luke replied. "First few will be very short - nothing unexpected except that I'm not in my quarters. She's smart enough to figure out where I am if I don't vary my routine. If she can find me within a few comms, with a little encouragement she won't bother to report it."
Reece nodded, understanding his role. "If I may, Commander, I think our time's up tonight." He glanced meaningfully at the door, and everyone knew he was right.
Luke stood, his companions automatically rising. They may be his co-conspirators, but protocol and etiquette were so deeply instilled here in the Palace that everyone still obeyed them even privately. The Commander was after all, Heir to the Empire, and despite his early misgivings at such protocol, it hqd slowly become routine that one did not sit in his presence unless invited to do so.
Hallin waited as Reece set forward to the door, Luke waiting until they were alone, knowing that the medic had something to say.
"I'd just like to clarify something, Commander," the slight medic said, "For my own edification."
Luke lifted his eyebrows in invitation.
"Yourself and Commander Jade..." He was trying so hard to be discreet, Luke knew. "I thought... I was under the impression that you and she were...."
"No." Luke said simply, saving Nathan the trouble of trying to continue.
"Ah. Then you should probably know that... the reason that Jade was so... upset by the termination of her position was..."
"I'm aware of why, Nathan. Thank you." Luke said, his dismissive tone indicating that the subject was closed.
Hallin remained still, eyes remaining on Luke.
"Are you telling me I should trust her?" Luke asked doubtfully, his voice indicating just how unwise he thought that was, "She remains what she's always been Nathan; Palpatine's prime agent and a thorn in my side."
"But her own feelings may..." Hallin fell to silence, suddenly realising the larger picture.
That was why Skywalker felt it was worth pushing Jade's reaction; he thought that she would back down and not report information because she knew it could jeopardise her position close to Skywalker. Not because he believed she'd fear a reprimand - that was nothing to Luke; withstanding the Emperor's volatile temper was such a way of life for him that he wouldn't consider it important to anyone else either.
No, he was gambling that Jade's interest in him would buy him some breathing room.
Yet their casual closeness in the medi-center had seemed so real to Hallin... had he been wrong - or was the man who had been so unremittingly taught by the Emperor that success necessitated a willingness to use any opportunity which came his way, now prepared to use his own feelings as ruthlessly as he was using Jade's?
"I wonder..." Nathan paused, searching for the right words...
"Come on then, out with it."
"I just wondered how you're sleeping at the moment?"
"Get to the point, Nathan."
Hallin glanced down tactfully, just a touch of nervousness in his voice, "I'm wondering if this is a good time for us to discuss the whole inadvisability of making major decisions following a traumatic head injury?"
"Meaning?"
"You remember our discussion about postconcussion syndrome - I said that you may find it necessary to manage certain... personality changes for a while. That you may find you are more irritable; short-tempered. That you may find it more difficult to come to an... unbiased decision. That your judgment may be impaired for a while."
Luke lifted his chin, mismatched eyes sharpening, as did his tone, "You think I've made the wrong decision?"
"I think, perhaps," Hallin began diplomatically, "You may find that.. you're taking a more aggressive stance."
Luke glanced away, voice losing none of its edge, "What I find is that I'm sick and tired of tip-toeing around Mara Jade. Let her do the hard work for a while, I'm done with it."
Again Hallin paused, "But its not really Mara Jade you're tiptoeing around, is it? It's Palpatine."
Luke didn't hesitate, "Perhaps I'm sick and tired of tip-toeing around Palpatine too."
Hallin remained silent, but Luke was in no mood to allow it. "Do you have some kind of problem with that?"
"No," Hallin said gently,
"Because it's nothing that I haven't said before."
"Absolutely. I just haven't heard you say it quite as... directly before."
"Which doesn't make it wrong."
"I'm just saying that perhaps you should hold off making any major decisions for a while. That you may be acting out of character and not know it. I just want you to understand that your sense of judgment may be slightly skewed at the moment; that you may take greater risks, that you may take action which wouldn't normally be in your character, though it may not seem that way to you."
"And in your professional opinion - as my physician - do you believe that's happened?"
Hallin hesitated, not wishing to place Luke in a position where he would constantly try to second-guess his every decision; when the slightest flaw was magnified and used by the Emperor's all-seeing eye, hesitation and self-doubt would kill. But under scrutiny from a Master who was famous for utilizing such subtleties, Luke's own abilities were honed to razor-sharpness and Hallin's hesitation had spoken volumes.
"You think I've lost my way."