Chapters: 2/?Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The High Republic: Light Of The Jedi - Charles

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The High Republic: Light of the Jedi - Charles Soule, Star Wars: The High Republic: The Rising Storm - Cavan Scott Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Loden Greatstorm, Gardulla the Hutt, Stellan Gios Additional Tags: Alternate Timelines, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst, Eventual Fluff, Work In Progress Summary:

What if Anakin Skywalker was born 200+ years earlier in the timeline? What if he was raised in the Jedi Order of the High Republic? What if he was able to get the help he needed to save himself from the Dark Side?

And what would be the consequences?

I just read this and now all I can think is how much better it would be.

The author deserves more kudos.❤

Prompt #8 - Mace Windu carries a can of Mace

Mace had a can of mace and just sprayed palpatine when he started trying to fry his ass with lightning

‘what’s in the hilt of your lightsaber?’ ‘pepper spray’ 

(We all know Samuel Jackson would thoroughly approve)

He would’ve also used his lightsaber as a lighter for an impromptu flamethrower.

Mace Windu can turn anything into a weapon

“You see this tissue, Skywalker, I can kill a man 50 different ways with this tissue. See this can of mace? Why do you think they call me "Mace” Windu?“

Mace got his name because he once accidentally maced yoda when he was a padawan and that’s that on that

He doesn’t regret a single thing

And people are too shy to ask because for all they know "Mace” might be a normal Korrun name

Anakin asks. He asks because he’s a little shit and this is how their animosity actually starts

Yoda knows his real name but he ain’t snitching

“—and that’s the story of how i got my name.” “Why did you tell me?” “Because no one will ever believe you.” “MOTHER—!”

And of course, the entire temple knows in three hours flat that Skywalker called master Windu a motherfucker but is absolutely refusing to say why and master Windu is looking smug

To this day it is still something they speculate over

Obi-Wan: Anakin! Anakin, care to explain why you called Master Windu— that!?

Anakin: He knows what he did!

 Mace: I do. 

Obi-Wan: Is anyone going to tell me??

 Mace and Anakin: No.

Desert Twins: part 4

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

***

Padme and Qui-gon (and Jar-Jar) come to Watto’s shop, and meet Anakin, and we have the familiar words (“Are you an angel?”, “I’m a person and my name is Anakin”). Anakin doesn’t mention Bentu. He’d never spoken of her out loud, not since he’d left. They’d been sold on, and chances were that the twins would never see each other again.

The trio leave the shop, Anakin saves Jar-Jar, invites them to their quarters for shelter from the sandstorm (and the desert is happy, they are here for you), and Anakin is going to pod-race. Shmi is not happy, but the desert tells her, I will protect him, and Shmi obeys. Qui-gon, seeing so much and yet so blind, sees the way the force curls around Anakin, sees that Anakin is chosen, but doesn’t hear protect, safe, mine. Anakin will win, that much he knows: the force is with him (the force is him).

That night, Anakin tells Bentu that a jedi and an angel have come to Tatooine, that he’s going to pod-race. Bentu tells Anakin that he is going to win. She goes to bed that night and can’t sleep, wondering if this is going to be her last conversation with him: either he will lose, or he will leave. Either way, she would likely lose him.

Then Anakin hears Qui-gon’s bet: Anakin’s victory against Sebulba; the pod-racer, or Anakin. 

Anakin knows that if he wins, he will be separated from his family. But he knew that it would happen eventually; it happens to almost every slave family. Qui-gon would probably be a kinder master than Watto, and the angel can save her planet.

The biggest problem in the universe is no one helps each other.

He will leave Tatooine behind; it’s the only solution that helps anyone instead of no one (except his depur; and Anakin will always fight his Depur, however he can).

And so he wins the race, and he goes to the slave quarters, and says goodbye to his mother. He closes his eyes as he’s hugging his mother, and he whispers in Bentu’s mind, Goodbye, Ikkali.

Goodbye, Upanda, she whispers back, relieved and resigned. 

***

TBC

Jiliu AU 2

A/N

Warnings:

Blood, blood transfusions, allergic reactions, fake medical practice (I did my research, but google hates me. Also, I need science to Not Work for plot, so…), competent medic who is Not Panicking, bad personal care, implied nudity (?), the clones’ situation, mention of decommissioning (How would a normal person phrase that?), Kaminoans (who really are their own warning), ruthless misuse of the em-dash

The usual host of bad spelling and grammar errors.

Don’t do any of this at home folks. Kix is a professional. I very much am not.

I can finally close the blood loss tab on my browser. It will be another chapter before I can get rid of the Transfusion tab, though…

~~~~

The medbay was quiet. The loudest noises were the Vod’e who wheezed with every breath, or when someone twisted in their bed. The lights were dim to allow the patients to sleep while letting the medics on shift move around freely. Everything was calm, and clean, and not even close to mirroring Kix’s mental state.

He stared sightlessly at the durasteel floor between his blood and dirt smeared boots, elbows to knees, head in hands. If he had enough hair to grab he’d probably be pulling on it. As it was, he settled for digging the pads of his fingers into his scalp. Something hot and heavy was draped over his hunched shoulders, prickly against his neck and the gaps in his armor. Somehow, that weight made it both easier and harder to breathe.

Kix wondered if this was what resignation felt like.

It wasn’t defeat. Kix was well and truly familiar with what defeat felt like. He was a clone medic in a suicide company made of expendable clones, in an army of other clones owned by a Republic that didn’t care if they lived or died, only if they completed their missions. Defeat was a weight Kix kicked off with his blanket every morning before he rolled out of his berth.

This was…heavier. Draining.

He kept replaying the last seven hours in his head, trying to see where he went wrong, could’ve made a different choice.

It had been Kix, his unconscious General, his Captain, and two injured shinies on top of a sheer sided Pilar of Rock with no foreseeable back up. His General was bleeding out right in front of him, because of course the self sacrificing di’kut had run on a leg with a cut artery then proceeded to tear it further open when he landed wrong after an impossibly high jump carrying two entire troopers all by himself.

Kix had needed to preform field surgery to close up the artery with his depleted supplies. There was no way around it, the injury was too severe to simply slap a bacta patch on even if Kix had had a patch big enough to work. Even if he wasn’t half certain bacta didn’t work half as well for General Skywalker as it should.

By the time he had stitched the site shut, the General had lost too much blood. He was laying in a puddle of the stuff, not to mention however much was caked in his clothes and what he’d left behind when they were running.

His skin was as pale as anything Kix had ever seen, though perhaps that shouldn’t have been so surprising since the General did have a lighter skin tone then any of Kix’s vod’e. A quick check marked the General’s heart rate as weak, and way too fast. Slower then it had before he had passed out, but still not good. His skin was clammy.

Kix’s skin was clammy too, but that was fear-sweat, not blood loss. Why hadn’t he noticed that the General was injured? He was going to die—the thought was crushed before it can do more then trace claws of fear down his spine.

He needed an IV. Kix’s medpack didn’t have an IV bag of anything, much less ringer solution.

“Kix.” The Captain’s voice sliced through the buzz of Kix’s thoughts.

Kix’s eyes snapped up and collided with determined brown eyes. His update comes tumbling out of his mouth by route. “I’ve repaired the cut artery, treated the blaster burn with bacta, along with the scratches on his side. He’s lost too much blood, and is going into hypovolemic shock. He needs fluids.” Kix snatched up his scanner from where he’d dropped it to treat the General’s leg, and tapped the screen sharply with a semi-clean knuckle. “I don’t have any to give him.” The device beeped, and the screen showed it was till set to the default natborn setting. Kix ran the wand over the General’s body again, hoping against all sense of logic that this time, this time the thing would find some injury, internal bleeding, stab wound, something for him to treat.

Kix made himself stop. Breathe. Reassess.

General Skywalker had three injuries that the scanner and Ki’s hands had been able to find. All of them have been treated to the best of his ability. The General was dangerously low on blood. He needed fluids. Kix did not have fluids.

Where can Kix get fluids?

“Check in with me, vod.” The Captain ordered.

Kix’s eyes darted back to his eyes. Something clicked together deep down in Kix’s mind. A very very tiny part of his mind noted that something broke to make that possible. This was easily swept aside in favor of the crash of realization rattling through his body.

He shied away from the idea.

He didn’t know enough about blood transfusions. This could go horribly wrong. He only knew this was a thing because of one class, from the single mention made by the sole Mandalorian medic trainer he had, and the resulting eight minutes of research Kix done after.

Even as he thought this, his traitor brain pulled up everything he’d found in those measly eight minutes. Variables, risks, everything blared out at him in warning—there was a reason why blood transfusions are considered a primitive practice.

There was testing. Kix didn’t have any sort of lab with him; he didn’t even have a ph tester kit.

The General’s red blood cell markers match the Vod’e’s.

But the consequences of a bad blood transfusion—

Kix cut his thoughts off there. That way lead panic, and death.

But Rex is right there.

“I will do what I must to save who I can.”

Kix forced the words through his teeth, because he had a vow to keep, and he would follow through. “The General needs fluids.” Or he will die, he didn’t say. “The only fluids we have to give him—” just say it“—is our own.”

Rex had blood. He could spare some for their general, if he was so inclined. If he wasn’t, or if he was, and the General needed more, Kix could spare some.

Kix dismissed the possibility of ‘68 and ‘57 giving blood, because ‘68 was at risk of an infection with how his knee had been skinned then buried in mud, and ‘57 with how his forearm had been filleted with a dirty vibroblade wasn’t any better. Who knew what kind of contaminants they were carrying? Certainly not Kix.

He pushed that from his mind, and reached back into his pack to remove the coil of clear tubing meant for— not this. He will do what he must. Next came the needles. Rex watched silently.

Kix arranged the tube in his lap, and hammered the words that needed to be said together ruthlessly.

“Do you want to go first, or shall I?”

Rex was very still for a very long moment. Then he sighed, and started removing his left vambrace. “I’ll go. If he goes critical, it’d better if you have a clear head.”

Kix nodded sharply, and got to work. He cut the sleeve on the General’s left arm, then cut Rex’s blacks away. A quick bacta wipe, then the first needle went into the crook of Rex’s elbow. Kix moved the tubes until there aren’t any bubbles he can see, and cleaned the crease of General Skywalker’s elbow. He slid the needle in and taped it down.

Just until pick up came.

Within six minutes of Rex’s blood reaching the General’s, hives had formed around all three of his injuries. The three injuries Kix had treated with bacta. Bacta, Kix was eighty-four percent certain the General had a biological resistance to. The hives even showed where traces of the bacterial gel had clung to his gloved fingertips before being smeared onto the skin surrounding the injury he was treating.

General Skywalker is allergic to bacta. This fact was not in his medical file. It is not mentioned anywhere in the rather extensive list of injuries he had raked up over the last decade, or in any of the many, many doctor’s (Healers, Jedi called them healers) notes.

Kix wasn’t entirely certain why he expected anything else.

He makes short work of removing the allergen with a fresh wad of gauze and reached back into his nearly empty medpack. Thankfully, Kix had had the foresight to pack four hypo cartridges of antihistamine when he was putting his medpack together for this mission since the debriefing package on the local plant life included a fern he could name no less then eighteen Vod’e to be allergic to off the top of his head. Kix had, miraculously, not had the need to use any of them since his boots hit the ground. Partly because he had only been in range of a a squad of shinies, Rex, and the General, and possibly because the filters in their buckets had decided to do their job this mission. Which was good, because he would end up needing all four cartridges to keep his General from asphyxiating before pick up.

Kix gave the General the first dose of medication with a hypo to the neck, then checked his heart rate again. Slower then before, likely because the General had actually allowed himself to sleep when Kix had told him to, but still weak. His breathing was still shallow, if more regular.

There was… nothing else Kix could do.

He shared a look with Rex, before settling down at his general’s side. They had time.

Pick up had been a long time coming. Kix gave the General another hypo when the hives started spreading again. Rex had given enough blood that he had started to show symptoms of blood loss, so Kix was forced to transfer the needle to his own arm. He gave General Skywalker another dose of antihistamine.

Time passed, marked only by the changing clock on his HUD, the beat of his own heart in his ears, and when ‘57 went to drag ‘68 closer. The shinies settled on the other side of Rex, who was actually following orders and laying down to allow his blood loss weak body time to rest.

It wasn’t long before Kix started to feel the blood loss himself.

It took ‘57 jumping to his feet, waving his one uninjured arm wildly for Kix to notice that the gunship converging on their position. Rex, he notes with concern, had only sat up instead of getting to his feet. Too much blood. Kix added fluids for him to his ever growing list of things to do.

The gunship landed, the disruption from the stabilizers kicking up clumps of grass and long dead leaves from the sole tree clinging to the top of their Pillar. The door slides open and four Vod’e jump out. One of them, Kix saw, was bright enough to bring out a medpack and a stretcher. The red medic symbol on his spaulder said why.

Kix was on his feet before he could think. A tiny part of him took a sliver of energy to be very glad that the tube connecting his circulatory system to the General’s was long enough for him to do that without ripping anything out. The rest of him just called up the list he’d been making since the mission began, and started rattling off demands.

“You with the medpack, help me get the General on that stretcher. You,” he pointed at the Vod in the lead—who is thankfully not a shiny, small mercies— with his free arm, “help the Captain to the ship, then get a bag of ringer solution ready for him.” Kix pointed at ‘68, who ‘57 was helping to his feet. “He needs to stay off his leg. I need a bag of ringer solution for the General, asap.”

“Sir!” All four of them break to do as they were told.

The medic trotted up, and dropped to his knees. He situated the stretcher in front of him and started prepping the General for transfer. Kix paused for a moment, watching, to just take a moment to gather himself. Then he applied himself to getting the General packed up for pick up.

They are airborne within three minutes.

The moment General Skywalker was settled on the medical rack, Kix set about replacing the tube connecting their arms together with an IV of ringer solution. To the medic he said “Run a scan on him. He’s bleeding from somewhere and my scanner couldn’t find where it is.” He smacked a plaster onto his own elbow, and clamped his forearm to his bicep in hopes of staunching the blood flow.

The moment he had one of his hands free he turned to looking over the other three Vod’e he’s had with him. He checks the needle one of the others had stuck into Rex’s arm, the fluids he was attached to to check it was actually ringer solution. Rex endured his check over stoically.

Satisfied, Kix moved on to the shinies. He only paused long enough to check that the plaster had adhered to his needle puncture, before checking them over. ‘68’s knee was showing early signs of infection, so Kix gave him a hypo of antibacterial to hold him off, and handed him off to the Vod who had carried him onto the gunship. Kix rattled off instructions on how to change the bandages and which antibacterial gel to apply while he did a quick check on his work with ‘57’s hastily relocated elbow.

Kix was back at his general’s side just as the Vod’s scanner beeped.

The other medic didn’t even look up from his scanner as he read off the findings. “A blaster burn, cut and sutured artery that is no longer bleeding, some shallow cuts on his right flank. All of them had been treated with bacta, and all of them are showing signs of a bad allergic reaction. He has some minor bruising as well, and he may have strained his right elbow at some point. He’s running a fever of a hundred and one degrees, and has all of the symptoms of heavy blood loss, sir.” He tapped at the scanner’s screen, and continued. “The fluids will solve the blood loss, but he needs more antihistamines, and we need to bring his temperature down.”

Kix scowled. “Yes, except I’ve spent the last hour and fifteen minutes pouring over a liter of blood into him, and he still needs more blood.” That managed to drag the medic’s visor up to Kix’s. Kix made sure the Vod didn’t look away. “Something is wrong, trooper. Eventually fluids will be all the General has left if we don’t find out where it’s all going.”

The Vod stared at Kix, dumbfounded. His bucket jerked back and forth between him and the comatose General laid out between them. The next second the Vod yanked his vibroknife from his hip, and started cutting off all of the general’s clothing. Kix pulled out his own knife and set about helping.

They find nothing Kix wasn’t already aware of.

Even before they had arrived to the hanger of the Resolute, he and the still unnamed medic had restarted General Skywalker’s heart twice. Immediately after, on both occasions, he had dropped into shock. They managed to stabilize him each time, but only just.

The tingle of passing through the hanger shields washed over Kix as the pilot maneuvered the gunship to a landing. He ignored this in favor of checking his patient’s vitals again.

The General had been doing okay before, so why—

Kix glared at the man’s sleep slack face. Then his eyes slid to one of the Vod’e who had picked them up.

No. This won’t work.

Does Kix want to risk the General on something as mundane as logic? Something asked.

Kix ground his teeth together, eyes narrowing. It was probably a good thing he still had his bucket on; his vod’e didn’t need to see him like this. He looked back at his General. His eyes lingered on the sweat streaking through the dust that had gathered on his skin from their dash through the catacombs, planting the bombs that would hopefully— and had— end the battle. Stop the death, of only for today.

Kix made his call.

Kix gestured for the trooper who had helped the shinies onto the ship to get closer. “Come here, vod. What’s your CT number?” His other hand reached for a new IV line.

~~~~~

Kix had been replaying everything again and again in his head. One of the benefits of an eidetic memory. The replays would follow him to his dreams now, but he couldn’t do anything else. There was no one else to treat, and even if there were, every time Kix tried to focus his eyes back on the real world, he was seeing double. For that same reason, he also couldn’t do the small mountain of datawork that was doubtlessly piling at his desk.

Kix needed to sleep, eat, to take care of himself, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to push against the hot, prickly weight draped over his shoulders. Every time he tried to do more then think about it, it almost got heavier, near dragging him back to his hard, uncomfortable chair. Kix didn’t need much encouragement to stay put.

He was going to have to explain, in words, why he chose to give his General a blood transfusion. Why he kept giving him blood, even after he had access to all of the ringer solution one human man could hold in his body. The blood was obviously harming him, what with the one hundred and three point eight degree fever, and his resulting delirium. IV solutions don’t do that to patients. IV solutions are as neutral as anything possibly can be in the medical field.

They hadn’t been working.

So Kix went back to the thing that had been ‘sort of’ working. The blood that had been half killing him, half sustaining him, instead of the fluids that were letting him die.

Rex had given too much blood. If Kix’s calculations, done after they had gotten back on the Resolute, were correct, Rex had let Kix drain almost a liter of his blood into their dying General. It was too much. Kix himself had given about half a liter. That had been pushing it, and he wasn’t too sure how much of his current exhaustion was from the missing blood.

While the General hadn’t shown signs of improvement from all that blood, he had gotten worse when Kix had switched him over to the fluids. Almost as if he was still loosing blood, for all that the only other injuries they had been able to find was a slightly twisted knee that really only needed rest and an ice pack.

In the end, General Skywalker was given just over nine point three liters of blood from no less then nineteen Vod’e before he stabilized. Besides Rex, all gave a little under half a liter.

He had a high grade fever of one hundred and three point eight, delirium, excessive sweating, shallow breathing, and pale, clammy skin. High iron content in the blood to the point of being almost dangerous, an extremely high white blood cell count though they had no way to know if they were his cells or one of his donors’, more then a few inflamed organs, and hives. Hives anywhere bacta touched him, including the spot some bright soul had decided to test Kix’s ‘theory’. On top of it all, he was officially unconscious. The only reason none of them gave him painkillers to ease his rest is due to the promise he had extracted from Kix on his first pre-battle examination. The only reason.

By the time the small team of medics working on him had gotten him stable, Kix was numb to everything except the yawning void of fear pulling on his bones. A silence settled on them as they stood around their patient’s bed, staring.

Coric was the one to shatter it. “Well.” He peeled off the sanitary glove, and balled them up in a fist. Kix felt him turn to look at him. “There isn’t anything else we can do for him. The rest is up to him.”

Kix washed his hands on habit, then found himself sinking into a waiting chair at General Skywalker’s bedside. He’d had to feel around for the soap dispenser, and he wasn’t entirely certain how he’d found the chair after, but…it was nice, to be off his feet.

It had been…a few hours since then.

Kix had been reduced to trying to think of how he could have done more, done better. Absolutely nothing comes to mind. Considering the options he had at the time, a tiny corner of Kix’s mind was actually kind of amazed the General had survived to this point. All that meant, however, was that he would die a long, slow death from bad blood, instead of a relatively painless one from blood loss.

Kix couldn’t do more for him. It was up to Anakin Skywalker and his rather impressive will power to decide if he could overcome this. If he didn’t—well.

The 501st would be without a General once more, and Kix would be decommissioned for his failure. The Kiminoans would make sure of that. On the bright side, Kix wouldn’t have to worry about much of anything anymore, so there’s that. Another nice thing is that lethal injection is a very quick way to die. On the other hand, it meant he would be leaving his di’kut vod’e behind to look after themselves, and the most experienced medic after himself is Coric, who is only a first aid specialist.

Kix rubbed his face tiredly. The weight curled more around his shoulders, like a really half-hearted prickly hug.

The only thing Kix could do right then was wait, hope, and—maybe—pray in hopes that something greater then one exhausted medic would save his general when he cannot.

The door of the medbay opened, then closed. Quiet steps, with a deliberate toe smack with each impact, moved toward Kix’s position.

Kix could recognize those steps in any state of mind.

Jesse’s boots scuffed the durasteel flooring right in Kix’s line of sight. Kix noted with a mildly concerning level of apathy that his boots are much cleaner than Kix’s. Freshly cleaned, if his unreliable vision can be trusted on even this small thing. Kix was going to need to clean his own armor soon.

“Kix?”

Kix focused back on the world around him, unclear on when he’d zoned out. He found Jesse crouched in front of him. If Kix knew anything in that moment it was that Jesse had a worried expression on his face, even if his bucket hid it from view. Gloves hands hovered near Jesse’s chest plate, palms toward Kix like they wanted to grab hold of him.

Kix blinked at him. He should move, acknowledge that he had heard Jesse at the very least, but it didn’t seem like the message was leaving his skull much less reaching his muscles.

Jesse moved closer, but still made no move to actually touch him. Kix dropped his eyes to those hands, and waited.

“What do you need, Kix?”

Kix counted each breath in and out of his lungs. He held that question in his mind, and waited for an answer. He did not know what he needed but something in him probably did. It came.

He needed the war to end, brothers to stop dying. He needed a life long vacation someplace safe and comfortable. He needed his datawork to be done, preferably by someone else. He needed food, a shower, and a really long nap. He needed the General to be okay.

Jesse couldn’t help with most of that.

So Kix rolled his jaw until he felt it reconnect to his brain, and said what Jesse could help him with.

“Shower.” It was almost slurred beyond recognition, but it left his mouth, and that was as good as it was going to be right now. Kix let it pass. “Food.” That was clearer. He hesitated on the next bit, because he knows what he will find in his dreams, and it wasn’t going to be him saving General Skywalker’s life. Kix also knew that he would have to face the firing squad eventually. The question was whether or not he wanted to do it on his own terms with company, or when he inevitably collapsed.

Let it never be said Kix was a coward.

He sighed, and let his eyes slide closed. “Sleep.”

Jesse shuffled forward until his poleyns knocked into Kix’s greaves. “Will you accept my help with those things?” He asked softly.

Kix knew he wasn’t going to be talking for a while, so he did the easier thing and tilted his body to the side until he could free a hand to hold out in reply instead. Jesse gripped his bare hand in his own gloved one, and dragged Kix’s arm over his armored shoulders. This threw off the careful balance Kix had been keeping to avoid crashing to the floor, but Jesse was prepared for that. He shouldered Kix’s slightly bulkier mass, and hulled him up to his feet, wrapping an arm around his waist. Jesse’s spaulder dug unpleasantly into Kix’s armpit, but it was keeping him from face planting, and Kix moved the discomfort so far down his priority list it fell off the end. He let himself sag against his side. Jesse swayed to absorb his weight.

He felt Jesse’s helmet move. “Where’s your bucket?”

Kix waited for the memory of where he’d put it come to him. It did not. He conveyed this to Jesse.

Jesse just squeezed his side. “Well, you can get it in the morning, or I can. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Jesse took a step and waited patiently for Kix to remember that he was supposed to move with him before taking the next. Sometime between one step and the hallway, the hot, prickly weight around Kix’s shoulder pulled away with a squeeze.

In what felt like half a lifetime and what was probably much less then that, Jesse half directed, half carried Kix’s dead weight through the medbay doors, away from his duties, and their dying General whom he could do nothing more for.

Jiliu AU 4

A/N

Introducing Nausea! Original Clone Character, Inventor of The Hand Cream, actual Medic, and Kix’s official second in all things medbay (unofficially it is def Coric, but even Torrent needs to follow some rules, okay?)

I keep forgetting about Denal. I’m sorry Denal. It isn’t on purpose.

Why did I decide to write this in past tense again? I don’t remember. I have regrets.

Warnings:

usual suspect grammar, typos, and spelling mistakes, fake medicine, fake medical practices, IVs, mentions of needles (?), feeding tubes, cafeteria food, mentioned throwing up, platonic cuddling between men,

~~~

General Skywalker’s fever still hadn’t broken by the end of the day. He also had not had another period of lucidity either. He was delirious, sweating, and weak.

About an hour and a half after the Command staff of Torrent had left the medbay to do what was needed, Kix had been hit with a truly inspired idea, if he said so himself.

A medic uses what they have on hand, and Kix will do what he must to save who he could.

Torrent Company had less then most, but they had bacta tanks. More importantly they had all of the tubes that went with them–including feeding tubes. Feeding tubes that weren’t currently in use.

It had taken some inventive jury rigging, but they had a system that would work up in about half an hour. It may have taken longer if one of the mechanics hadn’t been on shift as a draftee, but he had been more than happy to assist with the set up.

Once it was done, Kix called for the more medically certified Vod'e in the medbay to assist him with inserting the tube. It went very badly, and Kix would erase the entire experience from his mind if he hadn’t learned how to not insert a feeding tube. Thankfully, General Skywalker didn’t actually wake up to choke on his own vomit, so there’s that.

Needless to say, it was unanimously decided that it was a smart move to keep the General on the IVs for the time being. In addition to the two bags of fifty percent dextrose in his left arm he had been attached to for his excruciatingly low blood sugar, he was also outfitted with two bags of isotonic iv fluids in his right arm, specially mixed by Kix himself, in an attempt to combat the onset of severe dehydration.

It had begun to grate on Kix’s frayed nerves, how their limited supplies hadn’t even included the correct fluids for dehydration, much less the liquid nutrients that might have given General Skywalker the leg up he needed to overcome whatever was causing his fever. Dextrose was well and good, but blood sugar only had so many uses in the body. Not to mention mixing fluids was very hard to do without the proper equipment. Instead of being able to help, Kix was regulated to waiting for the General’s body to be ready to accept the feeding tube.

Kix did end up deciding to take him off oxygen, though. His oxygen levels were much better, in the medium-low normal for nat-borns if Kix’s scanner could be trusted, and it was smarter to save the supplies for when they might be needed more. Anyway, they didn’t have enough to last him all the way to Coruscant even if he had needed it. Better to save it incase of an emergency in transit.

Before he dragged the oxygen tank to storage, Kix took the time to sync his datapad to his General’s sensor discs and propped it up on his headboard with the sound linked to his bucket.

He left it there for the rest of his shift.

~~~~~~

Risk was normally the graveyard shift medic. He was the only medic who had a steady shift schedule, barring emergencies, partly because he needed it, partly because very little usually happened on the night shift which was only a good thing for their second shiniest medic, and partly because no one else wanted to do it.

Today, the first night shift after the battle, Risk was not the medic in charge. This was normal.

After all, not only had he been the sole medic on the entirety of the Resolute for just over twelve hours, and thus in charge, he had held the reigns in the medbay during the aftermath, earned his name with a truly impressive explosion (bacta was not inherently flammable, but he had managed it), and then continued right on working through the next graveyard shift to give his fellow medics time to recover. Altogether, Risk had been awake for a little over thirty-six hours, and was now recuperating. He was scheduled to take up his usual shift schedule night after this one, while being on call before that incase of emergencies before then. With only four Medics, Torrent couldn’t afford anything less, but that was beside the point.

With Risk essentially out for the count, and Kix pulling a double shift after Risk signed off–Nausea did not care what Jaded said, Risk owed Nausea his next sweet roll; calling Lieutenant Jesse had been the best idea Nausea’s had since the Hand Cream–leaving either Nausea or Jaded to take up the night shift.

Nausea had graciously volunteered to take the shift, if only because he knew he would loose against Jaded in any sort of competition he might propose to brake the tie that didn’t involve cards, or knives. Jaded never picked either of those things as tiebreakers anymore. This was because Jaded was a quick study, and it served him well, but stars did Nausea wish he hadn’t learned to apply that knowledge to shift sorting. It meant Nausea was the one to get stuck with the awful shifts, because he was older, and thus didn’t get to pick the tiebreakers.

And so Nausea arrived exactly on time to accept the graveyard shift from Kix a little under two hours after he had left for dinner. He had at least managed to squeeze a decent nap in, but he was not at all looking forward to powering through the next eight hours on four hours of sleep. Especially when he touched on everything that had happened in the last thirty-six hours.

Which Nausea wasn’t in the mood to do right then, so he swiped his ident chip over the sensor, and made his way to where Kix was huddled at his desk, probably scowling down at some datawork or another.

“Sir.” Nausea stepped crisply into parade rest in front of the desk across from Kix’s.

“Nausea,” Kix returned, eyes firmly fixed on the screen as he scrolled.

Nausea waited for a bit, then rolled his eyes when nothing was forth coming. “Your shift is done, sir.”

Kix scrolled again. He still didn’t look up. “I figured. I just need to finish this report, then a post-battle medical exam.”

Nausea’s eyebrows twitched up. “You haven’t had that yet?”

“No. Risk was dead on his feet, for all that he didn’t look it, and you and Jaded were in and out of the medbay while I was usually wrangling a patient. I didn’t comm for one because I didn’t see the point of it.”

Nausea thought about it. With the General maybe dying, and Kix’s use of the unauthorized medical practice that was almost definitely responsible, Kix would be decommissioned if he died, never mind the blood transfusion had saved the General from hemorrhaging. With that hanging over their head, no one would be interested in protocol, never mind that it was a Torrent Protocol put in place by Kix himself to ensure optimum company health.

Given Kix had been with the General, he probably didn’t have anything worse then some bad bruising with how General Skywalker was with the clones he took with him. Likelihood of critical injuries went down by eighty-three percent for a Vod the closer he was to the General. Didn’t do much for death rates–he was often in the thick of it– but injury was less likely to happen if the Vod in question survived. Even then, Vod'e came out on the other side mostly okay from situations where they honestly should have died.

Still. “What changed?”

Kix glanced up, finally. “You haven’t heard?”

Nausea shrugged. “I was in the distillery most of the day. Only ones in there were Jaded and Vat, and neither of them talk much.”

“Ah. In the slow hours on your shift, ask after that.” Kix scrawled his CT number on the datapad with his stylus with prejudice, and flicked it across his desk the moment he was done with a clatter. He rose, grabbing his bucket. “Shall we?”

Nausea was debriefed on the current medbay situation and finished with Kix’s exam in eight minutes. He sent Kix away with instructions to use some of Nausea’s bruise cream, and to either get a drink or a massage to work out all of the tension in his back and shoulders. Kix, who was apparently more tired then he looked, just rolled his eyes, and only stayed long enough to fetch his datapad from where it had been acting as a monitor for the General before finally clocking out.

Nausea watched him long enough to see him swipe his ident chip off shift, before he began the first round of the night.

Forty-two minutes, and a mad scramble to replace a good chunk of the IV bags currently in use in a timely manner later found Nausea mid round in a game of sabacc with most of the on-shift draftees, while Coric and Krick looked on. The two first aid specialists were well versed in Nausea’s skill at cards and had opted out. The draftees were new meat and still haven’t learned their lesson, five hands in. Nausea had every intention of fixing that.

Just as he was in the process of ruining their day, someone sat up in their cot. His head turned unerringly to the offender. The creak came again, a protest of squeaking joints and creaking pleather. The sound died abruptly.

Nausea set his hand down on the little folding table, and rose, eyes still locked on the curtain blocking his line of sight. Someone had gotten up. No one was supposed to be up right now. It was napping hour in the medbay. He absently hand signed investigating that way, stay here at Coric, and made his way over.

He rounded a corner and stopped dead.

General Skywalker stood swaying in the center of the aisle, looking like death warmed over. Nausea looked away. Looked back

Skywalker was still there.

Right, then.

Nausea marched toward his wayward patient. General Skywalker generally didn’t resist medical attention once he’d been pinned down, so he shouldn’t resist Nausea insisting he needed to lay back down. It might take some coaxing, but Nausea was used to that anyway.

He’s only halved the distance between them, when the General swerved around to stare him down. Nausea almost missed a step, startled. The air hummed.

Have the General’s eyes always glowed like that?

Skywalker blinked, and Nausea was moving again, like he hadn’t almost stalled in place like a faulty droid. He reached the General’s side in short order, and telegraphed his move to put a supporting hand around the clearly feverish Jedi’s elbow. Glazed blue eyes followed the movement.

“Sir.”

The moment Nausea’s hand made contact, General Skywalker crumpled.

Nausea half stumbled back at the sudden dead weight toppled into his chest plate. The General’s head thunked heavily onto Nausea’s armored shoulder, fever sweaty forehead pressing against his neck and jaw.

Nausea jerked back, and its only muscle memory that got his arms up around the General’s ribs in time to keep him from dropping bonelessly to the floor. Dislodged at Nausea’s movement, the General’s head lolled back on his neck.

What??

Nausea scrambled to get a better grip on the entire limp person suddenly in his grasp.

He must have made a noise or something, because next thing he knew boots scuffed the ground behind him. He threw a wild eyed plea over his shoulder, trying to grapple with his armful of gangly noodle limbs unsuccessfully. Skywalker wasn’t much heavier than a Vod out of shell, but he was mostly arm and leg, and Nausea did not have the know-how to deal with this. Words die in his throat at the sight of a wide-eyed Coric.

Coric, the cold-blooded sha'buir, smirked, and pulled out his comm. Nausea glared balefully as he took he took his sweet time taking a holo, before even bothering to move to Nausea’s aid in Jedi wrangling.

“Any idea what this is about?” He asked quietly as he reached for a pale wrist just out of Nausea’s reach.

Nausea half shrugged, and lost his grip on whatever rib his fingers had been hooked into. He hissed out a swear. “Apparently,” he gritted, making a grab for the other arm, “a feverish Skywalker is prone to sleepwalking, or something close to it. Kix had told me about it, bet he’d also said it hadn’t happened during either of his shifts, so it might have been a one time thing.”

Coric looped his captive arm around his shoulders, and hauled the General more upright. “Guess not.”

“Yeah, guess not. Must’ve been the Kix Affect at work.” Nausea took advantage of not fighting a loosing battle with a goo-for-mass human, snagged the only frer elbow on the stump arm–he checked; the General only had two arms even though Nausea could’ve sworn he’d been fighting with eight until Coric had come–and slung the arm over his shoulders, taking some of the weight off Coric.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Coric agreed.

They half carried, half dragged the lanky General back to his cot, and tip him into it. Coric tucked his unending pile of limbs under the thin sheet being used as to keep every puff of cold air from rattling straight through his feverish body, while Nausea set about seeing what the man had done to his IV needles.

They were trailing on the floor.

That wasn’t sanitary at all.

Nausea checked in the usual places and found a stash of packaged butterfly needles tucked in the grip slot meant to make it easier to move the beds that no one ever used thanks to its extremely awkward position. No one wants to bend down so far when moving a bed unless they’re going up or down stairs. The Resolute didn’t have stairs. So.

In short order, Nausea has the first IV needle changed, with some alcohol wipes readied, and rolled the General’s nearest arm to inspect the damage. He ran a thumb over yellow-edged bruises i the crook of his elbow.

Huh.

No needle marks.

Nausea shrugged, and reached for the first wipe. He has all four IVs inserted in a couple minutes.

The General stayed down for all of an hour.

In a fit of what would later be called genius, but what he called desperation, Nausea had Coric help him move one of the more lightly injured Vod'e patients to General Skywalker’s cot with him. After all, if the General was getting up for the sole purpose of looking for cuddles, who better to deliver than someone who shouldn’t be moving anyway?

It took some doing arranging, but they managed to get the Vod who had been awake enough to volunteer on the cot with their feverish General without getting any of his tubes tangled.

Nausea and Coric watched, eyebrows inching up into their hairlines, as the General, still barely qualifying as conscious, wrapped himself like a cephalopod around the newly not-shiny ‘68. For his part, '68 simply wrapped an arm around him new cling-on’s shoulder good naturedly, staring down in bemusement.

Nausea and Coric exchanged glances, and shrug simultaneously.

“Guess we’ll see if that keeps him down, then,” Nausea muttered.

In the end, they needed to break up the cuddling session when their Jetii’s fever spiked from his close proximity–read: full bodied death grip–to '68’s high Vod-healthy core temperature. To make sure his patient didn’t go wondering again, Nausea had one of the draftees sit next to Skywalker’s cot and hold his hand. It was not hard to get a rotation of volunteers for that job. Since Coric had finally seen fit to debrief Nausea on what Kix had not told him, this wasn’t a surprise.

When Skywalker pulled himself out of his cot to sprawl across his hand-holder’s lap for the fifth time, no one on shift needed to say anything to draw up a schedule to switch off between handholding and cuddling. If only because it meant he actually rested, instead of fussing in his sleep.

~~~~~~

Kix entered the medbay three minutes before his shift started.

The prickly weight from before settled comfortably around his shoulders. The tingling quills felt a tiny bit less sharp, so that was nice. Maybe Kix’s neck and shoulders wont have gone numb by the time lunch rolled around. It patted at his cheeks almost affectionately, and curled close, happily.

He clocked in, and checked the time of his comm. He had a couple minutes before Nausea would even acknowledge his existence, much less give him a report on how the graveyard shift went, so Kix decided to go check on his General.

He pulled the curtain away, and stopped. Blinked. Looked away, then back again.

'68, one of the shinies from the mission, was still cuddling the General, both sound asleep.

Nausea dropped into parade rest to Kix’s left.

“Sir.”

“Nausea,” Kix said distractedly.

Nausea hummed. “The General left his cot twice last night. We got him horizontal again easily enough both times, but he kept taking his IVs out. Not real damage done, but not exactly something I wanted to risk.” Nausea jerked his chin at the cot. “'68 didn’t mind; apparently he slept like a tubie. No nightmares or anything.”

“Oh?”

That was…strange. '68 had never been in a battle before. This had well and truly been his first battle, his and his squad’s. First battles were always one of the worst a Vod would experience. Add that to the fact that '68 had lost three of his four squad mates, and he was going to have nightmares, guaranteed. That he hadn’t had even one was more than unusual.

“Yeah, didn’t dream at all. Like the General is a dream repellent, or something.” Nausea’s head tilted. “Jedi power, maybe?”

Kix made a speculative noise.

Nausea accepted that easily enough. “Yeah, I don’t know either. But it got both of them to sleep, so no complaints here. It’s just weird.”

Yes, it was.

Kix eyed his General thoughtfully.

He did look much better. Still sweaty and feverish, which couldn’t be the most comfortable to cuddle, but not so pale and unnaturally still. His face was sleep-slack, mashed into '68’s peck, but his limbs were almost bonelessly comfortable.

Kix would postpone inserting the feeding tube, then. Getting one put in was unpleasant even for the unconscious, and the General was finally sleeping for the first time since before the battle. Unconsciousness did not count. Kix wasn’t about to interrupt that. Not right now, in any case.

Things…go smoothly for the next few hours.

By the time Kix was due to break for lunch, he was more than a little wary.

Nothing went well for Torrent. Ever.

He ran mental fingers over the weight around his shoulders absently. With his mind. Again.

Kix yanked his traitorous mind into something like sanity for the umpteenth time, and foraged ahead with the…he was counting stims. Again. Right.

Better to do this than spend any amount of time thinking about how he was mentally petting a wriggly heaviness that was otherwise non-existent. Except he kept finding himself doing it, again and again, only to stop as soon as he realized what he was doing.

Surely he imagined how it slumped more heavily around his shoulders when he forced himself to stop.

Yes. It was all in his head.

Kix almost pat it goodbye when it was finally time for lunch against his better judgment anyway, because every time he had left the medbay before, the weight had dropped right off his shoulders. Kix had promised to eat lunch with Jesse again, so he was going to the mess hall. He didn’t pat it, because one doesn’t entertain hallucinations, but he did almost feel bad about it.

Except it didn’t go away when he walked through the door.

Or when he made his way down the hall to the elevators.

The weight stayed exactly where it was across his shoulders and draped down his chest all the way down to the mess. It barely did more than curl happily when he was in line to get his food, or tap against his spaulders after he started making his way to where Jesse, Rex, and Hardcase were sitting with their own meals. Seemed Denal had other places to be.

“Hey, Kix!” Jesse smiled extra bright. Hardcase waved enthusiastically with his fork, mouth full, and Kix took a moment to be very glad he had refrained from actually saying anything. Rex nodded, as relaxed as he ever was.

Kix tilted his chin in greeting, and set his tray down before swinging his legs over the bench.

Jesse knocked the spaulders together, grinning.

Kix smiled. Then, the moment he settles in his seat, the weight slid to flop heavily onto his lap. He half expected to hear it thunk into his leg plates, but was also not surprised when he didn’t hear a thing.

“You alright, Kix?”

Kix looked up to see all three of them were watching him with various degrees of concern.

He blinked, then shook it off. The weight could do what it wanted. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He picked up his fork and stabbed at his grain ration. “Has anyone else been having a weirdly smooth day, or is that just me?”

“I thought it might have just been me!” Hardcase blurted. Then he’s off at a hundred klicks a second, outlining all of the ways his day had been strange, from someone getting an entire speeder dropped on them, and not even getting a scratch, to the door to the armory that always stuck not sticking even once.

A little while later, when they are gathering their trays for cleaning, Rex caught Kix’s eye.

“We’re going in the same direction.” Rex said. Kix carefully kept his face blank. Since when was the medbay in the same direction as Rex’s berth turned office? “I’ll walk you there.”

“Yeah, sure.” There was probably something Rex wanted to tell him. Though why he couldn’t just say it, or send a comm, Kix will likely never know.

Kix stood, half hoping that the weight would obey physics and fall to the floor. Instead, it dropped of his lap and landed gently on his shoulders to curl under his chin.

Hrrrn.

Seemed he was stuck with it, then.

This didn’t bother him as much as he thought it should.

Once their trays are stacked in the drop bin next to the mess door, he and Rex walk into the hall. They make their way to the elevator, neither saying a word. They enter the first elevator that came.

The elevator dinged, and opened to the medbay floor. Strangely, the hall is deserted. The two of them step out, and make their way to the doors.

Rex is quiet.

Kix waited.

“We got a reply from the Jedi Council,” is what he finally started with. Kix swallows around the lump in his throat. The weight curled closer, and he was almost glad. When it became clear he wasn’t going to say anything, Rex continued. “We’re to report to the Temple, and transfer the General to the Jedi Healing Halls. I’m to debrief them in person on arrival.” He breathed deep, and then exhaled slowly. His mouth curved up ever so slightly. “We’re in the clear.”

Something went limp in relief in Kix’s chest, and his knees go wobbly. He managed to keep his feet without missing a step. The weight patted at his jaw, and Kix didn’t even try to fight the Hardcase-worthy grin off his face.

Looked like he won’t need to use all of his water ration after all.

Desert Twins: part 3

Part 1 | Part 2

***

When the twins are six, Watto comes to visit Gardulla, and the sabacc game happens. Gardulla bets Shmi and Anakin; Gardulla loses. Watto owns Shmi and Anakin. 

Gardulla keeps Bentu.

The hutt is angry. She lost two Skywalkers. She liked Shmi. The woman had always done her best to please Gardulla, because she knew her children would pay the price if she made any mistakes. Even the boy was useful, or was at least learning to be useful. And now all Gardulla had left was the girl.

Gardulla made Bentu her new server and announcer. At six years old, the girl hadn’t ever been trained to do this job, and Gardulla was counting on it. And Bentu made mistakes. Maybe her hands shook too much as she tried to carry heavy drinks without having drunk water herself. Maybe she forgot to call the hutt Mistress. Maybe her bow was too shallow. But Bentu was whipped, and her back was scarred. As she grew older, into her pre-teens, Bentu’s clothes grew more and more scant, her scars stood stark on her skin. She bore the scars proudly (hiding it deep, of course; slaves can’t be proud). Scars are survival marks to the Amatakka. They reduce their value to their masters, of course, but her scars tell her story, and she doesn’t try to hide them.

Now, Anakin and Shmi had been ‘sold on’, they had to move out of Gardulla’s personal slave quarters, into the quarters near Mos Espa. Gardulla forbade the Skywalkers entry, made sure the family was separated. Perhaps they did manage to meet, clandestine, when the twins were still young children. But Gardulla found that Bentu had left, or Anakin had come, and Bentu was punished for it.

So the Skywalkers stayed apart from each other.

I like to imagine, however, that Anakin and Bentu shared a force bond. They were a dyad in the force, and because they grew up together, it was strong enough for them to communicate even though they never saw each other. At this point, they communicated telepathically, without ever seeing each other.

Then the twins turned nine, and an outsider ship from Naboo crashed near Mos Espa, and a Jedi knight and an angel came looking for a hyperdrive.

***

TBC