Chapter Text
It had been a good day, until the stroke. Actually, considering all that stroke led to, perhaps it was still a good day.
Luckily, the battle of the day had been almost done. Cody had just handed his General back his lightsaber again , dryly commenting that General Kenobi shouldn’t lose his “life” so often, playing on what he often told General Skywalker about his own lightsaber. Kenobi had laughed.
“Ah, but my dear, I could never lose my ‘life’ for good with you around to pick it up!” He had grinned, and Cody had smiled back. Or at least attempted to. He was told later that his smile was distinctly lopsided, but he couldn’t tell at the time. All he could notice was the alarmed look on his General’s face.
The next thing he had noticed was he was on the ground. For some reason, he was sitting on the ground, his General kneeling in front of him. He had watched as his General turned away and opened his mouth and some kind of noise happened somehow, but Cody couldn’t figure out how all those things connected. His head had felt strange, like it would up and detach from his neck if he didn’t pay attention.
Then, he had been looking at the sky. His head had been resting on something soft, and ooh , that had felt much better. He couldn’t see the sky anymore, only his General. His hair had looked soft. It always looked soft. Cody had tried to reach up and touch it, but his arm wouldn’t move. He had been pretty sure it was still there, but it was okay if it wasn’t. The idea of losing it hadn’t really bothered him then.
There had been more noises, and more things had appeared in his vision: white and black and gold and the colors moved and then all he could see was brown and black and same but different .
Then he didn’t see anything for a while.
He woke up. He frowned. He wasn’t in the same place he last remembered. This new place was white and shiny and cold and smelled weird.
He heard some simple sound over and over and over and over and over again. Then he saw some new stuff again. He thought these things looked familiar, like he’d seen them a billion trillion times before. But he couldn’t quite catch it.
He didn’t like that feeling. He started moving, and his right side wasn’t working, but he could make the left side do what it was told. He swung his left arm out, trying to push the new/familiar stuff away. His arm stopped for some reason, and then that couldn’t move either, but it was different than his right: this felt like stop rather than can’t .
Then his General was there. His General had come, and he looked sad and mad and like he was trying to cover those up with happy. But Cody knew better.
He made a noise somehow, trying to get his General closer. But it didn’t work. His General actually lost any happy and just looked sad and mad now.
So, Cody closed his eyes.
He woke up. He frowned. He was in the strange place still. But there weren’t any new/familiar colors over him anymore. He turned his head. His General! His General was here!
He made a noise again, trying to get his General closer. It worked! His General came closer, still looking sad and happy, but no mad anymore. All he was was beige and pink and red-orange and bluegraybluegrayblue .
Something touched his hand. He looked down. It was his General’s hand! He flopped his own hand until he could grasp his General’s hand, and that made the sad go away!
Something touched his head. He tried to look up, but couldn’t see very well. All he could see was his General’s other wrist, then it disappeared somewhere above his head. The thing was moving back and forth on his head. It felt nice.
So, Cody closed his eyes.
He woke up. He frowned. He was in the strange place still, and now his General was gone. He decided to get up and go look for him. It was strangely hard because something was wrong with his right side, but he managed to swing his legs around until they touched the ground. He was just about to get up when the new/familiar colors came back. He tried to stand up faster, but suddenly he couldn’t. It felt like stop rather than can’t .
He didn’t want to stop! He wanted to find his General! He made some more noises and pushed against the stop , but it just got harder and harder.
So, Cody closed his eyes.
He woke up. He frowned. He was in the strange place still. His General wasn’t here.
So, Cody closed his eyes.
He woke up. He frowned. He was in the strange place still. His General wasn’t here.
So, Cody closed his eyes.
He woke up. He frowned. He was in the strange place still. His General wasn’t here.
So, Cody closed his eyes.
Cody’s eyes snapped open. He could hear voices somewhere close to him, but he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. He focused all his attention, hoping he could find out what was going on, and finally they started making sense.
“...Che for the treatment. Even if it doesn’t work, it’s still incredible she devoted so much time to this.”
“It will work, Helix. We have to trust in the Force.”
“I know, I know, but not all of us have this personal cosmic reassurance. Most of us have to get by on hope.”
“An equally powerful force, I think. And who knows? Perhaps the treatment will be even more effective than Healer Che believes. He could wake up any time now.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath, General. Even if it does work, he’s been out for weeks now. Chances are it’ll take a while longer to have any effect.”
Well kark, what poor bastard were they talking about?
“Commander Cody will beat those odds.”
Oh. He slowly lifted himself up from the med-bed. His right leg was numb, and his right arm was worse, but he managed to sit up. He reached out and was just able to reach to push the privacy curtain aside.
The two stopped talking immediately, and both their jaws dropped a little.
“So,” he said hoarsely, then cleared his throat. “What are my winnings? If the odds were stacked so high, it must be a big pot.”
He was amused to see bugged-out eyes join their dropped jaws.
“Commander!” Helix found his voice first. To this day he still doesn’t quite remember seeing Helix move. It was like he blinked and suddenly, the medic was right up next to him, shoving a straw into his face. He took a sip, swallowed, and watched both Helix’s and Kenobi’s faces slack with...relief?
“What happened?” he demanded. They were all silent for a moment, then Helix stepped forward again.
“Sir, first I’d like to know what you remember.”
Cody described the end of the battle, handing Kenobi back his lightsaber, then he trailed off.
“I don’t really know how to describe anything after that. It’s just a jumble of colors and noises,” Cody finished. “So, I ask again, what happened? I heard you saying something about me being unconscious for weeks, but I don’t remember taking an injury.”
Helix took a deep breath and straightened his already good posture. “You had a stroke, sir.”
They all paused again, the other two maybe to give him time to process, while he was just shocked.
“What,” he stated.
“Sir, a stroke is when the brain-”
“I know what a kriffing stroke is, di’kut!” Cody snapped. “What I don’t understand is how I, or any other clone for that matter, could have gotten one! Wouldn’t the long-necks have caught something like this?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Helix said. “I would have thought so, but clearly we were both mistaken. Fortunately, the Jedi healers have been working on treatments for strokes and other ailments so that non-Jedi doctors can help others better. If it weren’t for Healer Che’s work on fixing it for our biology, you would probably still be...” He trailed off, looking away. When he looked over, Kenobi, who he just realized hadn’t spoken a word since Cody’d revealed himself, also had his eyes averted.
“What? Still be what?” he said. “It couldn’t have been that bad. Even though I did somehow have a stroke, surely what they did to make us the ‘perfect product’ had some benefit.”
“You didn’t see yourself, sir, not like we did,” Helix murmured. He opened his mouth to continue.
“Helix-”
“All respect, General, but he deserves to know,” he said, then simply stared at Kenobi until the other snapped his mouth shut. He turned back to Cody. “It’s been 25 solar cycles since you collapsed in the field. At first, you seemed to be experiencing vertigo and were very confused. You couldn’t seem to make eye contact with any of us or maintain any sort of physical awareness. That’s when we noticed the lack of control was contained to your right side. We transported you back to the Negotiator as fast as we could and got you settled in the medbay. You woke up soon after, but again didn’t seem to recognize any of us. You tried to escape, and only calmed down after we restrained you. You also didn’t seem to recognize speech or even be able to make any coherent communication of your own. You were docile for a couple days, then tried to escape again, this time escalating in violence.”
“Did I hurt anyone?” he said, interrupting Helix’s thorough and horrifying report.
“A couple of shinies, but you hardly did anything. Both are already fully recovered,” he assured. “Nothing much left to tell, really. After that last episode, you were pretty docile. It seems the worst is over,” Helix finished, smiling like he was trying to infect Cody with optimism.
He was not so easily swayed. “My right leg is still pretty numb, and I can’t feel my right arm at all. Can that be fixed?”
Helix didn’t say anything for a second. “Yes, at least somewhat. I can’t and won’t guarantee a full recovery, but according to my research, many stroke patients recover some level of coordination after their experience.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Also, sir, I haven’t mentioned it yet, but how does your face feel?”
Cody immediately lifted his hand to his face, groping around like he could find some kind of exterior wound. He didn’t find one, but what he did find is that he couldn’t really feel his fingers when they went to the right side of his face. He froze, slowly lowered his hand, and focused back on Helix. “Most of the right side, I can’t feel anything. Can that improve too?”
Helix grimaced. “Truthfully, sir, that might be a little trickier. Recovering muscle control after an injury on an arm or leg is familiar, even if not to the same extent you’ll need. And I couldn’t find much on therapy for facial muscles. But it could get better on its own over time, we just need to give it that time.” He paused again, then clapped Cody on his good shoulder (gods, he had a good shoulder now). “Try to get some rest, sir. I want to keep you at least overnight for observation, so get comfortable. Let me know if you need anything.” He walked away.
Cody looked back at Kenobi, only to find the man gone. He frowned. When had he left? He sighed softly. Of course, he probably has even more to do now that you’re not there to help him, utreekov.
With no one else to talk to, he settled back and looked around, not ready to sleep again. He spied a handheld mirror on the small table next to his bed, thankfully on the left side. He reached out and grabbed it, then hesitated before bringing it up to his face.
He stared. The whole right side of his face was slack. From his forehead where any wrinkles had disappeared, to his bottom eyelid falling down, to his lips in a downward slant he couldn’t change no matter what he tried. Kark, even his nose was lopsided now, pulled down by the weight of that side of his face. Between all of that and the scars around his left eye, he was even uglier than ever.
He put the mirror down and laid down. He suddenly didn’t want to be awake anymore. He didn’t want to think about his new incompetence, his hurting of his brothers, whether he might be decommissioned for this.
So, Cody closed his eyes.