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Jesse was shaking. Not just his hands, his whole body. The tremors started when Maul let him go. Although, he couldn’t remember much. His mind was, maybe broken? He couldn’t remember where he was a lot of the time. Rex, Rex had to remind him a lot. Certain things that used to be there for him were just, gone.
Jesse knew he was missing a brother, someone important. But he couldn’t put his finger on it. He tried to ask Rex a few times, but because he couldn’t remember any details Rex couldn’t help him.
It was one of those rare moments when Jesse was alone that the name came to him. Kix. Jesse hadn’t seen Kix in...well it had been a while. He thinks.
Jesse stood up and made to leave the room before he forgot what he was doing. He sat down with a vague sense of unease and sadness. Jesse furrowed his brow and sat on his bed. He closed his eyes and focused on kicking the frame of his bunk. Kicking, kicking.
Kicks! No, that’s not quite right. Jesse growls in frustration. The door opens and he looks up. But he doesn’t stop kicking. It helps him to focus down his mind.
“Hey, vod , how are you doing today?” Rex sits down beside him.
“I-” Jesse shakes his head. “I’m trying to remember…”
“Where we are? We’re on the Negotiator, Kenobi picked us up. The rest of the vode are with Skywalker.”
“No, not that,” Jesse focuses intently on the swinging of his feet. “A vod , my vod , his name, I can’t-” He chokes on his words.
“Hey, Jesse, it’s okay. Is there anything else you can remember?” Rex leans over and bumps their shoulders together, keeps them pressed together instead of pulling away. “A word, a haircut?”
“There’s...the colour red I think? And this?” Jesse gestures at his feet and looks up helplessly.
“Red…” Rex mumbles. “The guard? Are you thinking of Fox? You wouldn’t’ve had much to do with him, maybe Thire?”
Jesse keeps kicking the bed.
“No, and I had it, I had his name but it slipped away!” A few stray tears leak from his eyes. “Kix would know what to do if he were here.”
Jesse stopped kicking when Rex grabbed his shoulders.
“What?” He stumbled over the word, feeling pain and sadness at the thought of a best friend he couldn’t even remember.
“ Vod ! Kix! That’s who you’ve been missing!” Rex jumped off the bed and raced to grab his holo-whatever it’s called. “You two talked a few times, right after you...came back to us. But not since you really came back into your mind again! Hold on. C’mon, pick up pick up pick up! Kix!”
“Rex?” A familiar body popped up onto the call. “What’s wrong? Is Jesse okay?”
Jesse took in a sharp breath and rushed forward. His hands reached up to meet the hologram gently. This was his brother, his best friend. He was sure of it.
“Jesse? You alright?” Kix’s concerned voice filtered through the comm. “I’m sorry I haven’t called in a few days, Skywalker pulled another one of his stunts, and you know how those end up.”
Jesse couldn’t find his words. He looked to Rex, silently begging for help.
“Kix, Jesse’s mind is still pretty messed up. Maul got him good. He’s having some trouble remembering things.”
“Oh?” Kix tried to meet Jesse’s eyes, but he was busy looking at his feet again. “Jesse, it’s okay. When a force user messes with your mind, it takes a while to come back from that.”
Jesse peeked up through his eyelashes and focused on the red medic’s symbol on his brother’s shoulder.
“ Vod , we’ll be meeting up with you in a few hours. I’ve got some time off if you want to do something?” Jesse closed his eyes. “We could watch that holodrama, the one Boil is always talking about.”
Before he could sink any further into feelings of shame and sadness, Jesse made the field sign for okay and turned back to his bunk. He felt Rex move close to him and heard the two brothers sign off.
“Jesse, hey, it’s okay vod ,” Rex pulled him into a hug. “He’s okay. He’s alive.”
Rex stayed with him until just before the docking, but he had to stand with the General Kenobi and Cody for the actual disembarking. Jesse stayed holed up in his room, the one that was his during recovery. He brought his arms up around his head as he tried to remember who was coming to see him. A brother, he knew, but which one?
The door slid open and he looked up, expecting to see Rex. Instead, there was an unfamiliar vod with a closely shave head and what looked like medic’s armour on.
“Hey, vod ,” Came the easy voice. Jesse looked down again and desperately wished Rex hadn’t left him. He sat up a bit and started rubbing his hands together.
“Mind if I join you for a while? All these homecomings with the generals, they give me a headache,” The
vod
shook his head. “All I can think about is how many stupid ideas they’ll come up with. Name’s Kix, by the way.”
“Jesse,” He mumbled. “You can stay. I-I don’t like crowds much either.”
Jesse looked up into a compassionate face.
“Want to talk about it?”
Surprising himself, Jesse found once he started talking he couldn’t stop. He explained how Maul had captured him, how he ripped pieces of him out of his head. He talked about trying to hold on to memories, but having them slip out of his hands. Lots of times, he said, all he could remember was that he was forgetting something.
“There are holes in my head that weren’t there before.”
While they were talking, the two gravitated together. Jesse was leaning on Kix’s shoulder with an arm across his knee. Kix had brought his arm up to hold Jesse close.
“Kix?” Jesse turned to look up at his vod . “We knew each other before, right?”
The other man closed his eyes and nodded.
“I wish I could remember.”
“It’s okay. We can make new memories. I’ll help you remember them,” Kix opened his eyes and smiled down at Jesse. “Whatever it takes.”
The next morning when Jesse woke up, the first thing he noticed was his brother in bed beside him. The second thing he noticed was that the shaking had stopped.
“Kix!” Jesse shook his shoulder. “Kix, wake up!”
“Jesse?” He blinked and sat up. “What’s wrong?”
Jesse pulled Kix into a tight hug.
“Nothing I just-I really missed you vod .”