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“He gave me a full respiratory exam, sir. I coughed. People cough sometimes. It’s not like I was sp—” Regris pauses and casts a glance around, lowering his voice, “It’s not like I was spitting up blood or anything.” Regris’s tail flickers and the facial markings that frame his eyes and mouth glow a dim blue. If that hadn’t been a clear sign of the initiate’s concern, the hunch of his shoulders and his ears pinned back are a surefire sign.
It’s not the first complaint Kolivan had gotten either. Tirok had voiced his concerns after he’d sneezed in front of Ulaz and found himself giving a blood sample and taking a prescribed combination of antihistamines and fever reducers. Pyri requested a pain reliever for a headache and was subjected to a full neurological panel.
“Let him be, Regris. It’s a comfort to him.” One that now, even Kolivan must recognize as more harm than help.
It had been one thing when Ulaz was treating the Blades’ hurts with a bit more of an eye for detail and chasing down initiates to conduct the mandatory post-operative exams that most of them forewent unless they’d been injured during their time off-base. Even his insistence that the Blades came in to complete overdo physical exams was excusable.
Kolivan blames himself. He should have intervened sooner. He knows as well as anybody else the effect that losing a mate has on a galra. Typically, the grief manifests in the form of skipped meals, poor health, exhaustion.
Ulaz hadn’t shown any of the signs – save for the skipped meals, but then he’d always had trouble remembering to take meals anyway. If anything, he’d been more efficient, more thorough, catching many injuries and strains in the initiates that would have ruminated and gradually led to more permanent injuries among the ranks.
Occasionally, the grief is offset. A galra loses their mate and the loss doesn’t settle in for something of a grace period. Then the haze is lifted and the truth settles in. It’s been almost three weeks since the explosion – almost three weeks since Thace’s comms went dead shortly before an explosion tore through the ship.
Kolivan finds Ulaz in the infirmary, running calculations on what looks to be Tirok’s blood, looking for signs of potential viral or bacterial infections. Every few seconds, a negative indicator pops up on the holo screen. Kolivan catches a negative indicator for what looks like an illness that hasn’t been observed in galra in over fifteen thousand years. On another screen, a neuro-scan is mapping out brainwaves, graphing out any potential inconsistencies.
“Ulaz.”
The doctor looks up from where he’s sitting and rubbing sensation back into his leg. “Leader. What can I do for you?” By the looks of the bags under his eyes he hasn’t had a good sleep recently.
“What are you doing, Ulaz?”
“The Blades can’t afford an outbreak right now. Often, the worst outbreaks present as inconspicuous symptoms. And by the time anybody realizes it’s not just a bug, it’s already had time to spread.” The doctor stands and crosses the room to check the progress of the analysis of the neuro-scan. “Best to catch any neurological inconsistencies soon. A headache could indicate a –”
“Ulaz.” Kolivan has to interrupt him before he convinces himself any of the lengths he’s gone through are justified. “Regris tells me you gave him a full respiratory exam.”
Ulaz doesn’t quite meet his eyes and for a long moment, he’s silent, staring at an arbitrary spot on the wall. “Kolivan,” he starts, and there’s a near imperceptible waver in his voice, “Please don’t ask me to talk about this.”
“Ulaz.” It’s firm, this time. Unyielding. He crosses slowly to stand in front of Ulaz. “I am sorry for your loss.”
The doctor stiffens, tenses. Then, he furrows his brow, sets his jaw, and punches Kolivan in the face. The force behind the strike is hardly enough to faze Kolivan, but there’s a ringing numbness in his jaw that reminds him that Ulaz is a force to be reckoned with in his own right.
The rage behind Ulaz’s eyes burns for a passing moment and his hands, curled into fists, are shaking at his side. All of him is shaking. Kolivan reaches out and catches Ulaz by the arms as the fight leaves him.
Ulaz wails and the sound twists something deep in Kolivan’s chest. It’s the sound of a defeated man. A terrible broken sound. Ulaz’s claws dig into Kolivan’s arms as he eases them down. He’s pulling in a ragged breath and it’s all Kolivan can do to just hold on to him.
“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t –” His head is bowed and he’s choking on quick ragged breaths that provide him with little air.
“I know. I know.”