Chapter Text
"Don't go," Cody slurred. His hand grasped loosely at Obi-Wan's sleeve.
Obi-Wan paused and leaned back over the bed. The clone commander reached out again, this time curling his hand around Obi-Wan's forearm and tugging him closer with ... surprising strength for someone laid up with two blaster-fire wounds.
With one eyebrow raised, Obi-Wan relented; he sat back in his seat and adjusted his arm along the bedspread so that Cody could enclose Obi-Wan's fingers with his own.
More tactile than usual, thought Obi-Wan, amusedly—though it was likely just a byproduct of the fact that Cody currently had enough painkillers pumped through him to tranquilize a bantha. Perhaps two.
"I need to file our mission report with the Council," he said.
"Don't go." Cody peered up at him, squinting against the overhead lights. "It hurts."
"I know.” Cody—normally so steady and formidable and unflinching, always the last man down and the first to rise—now looked worn and almost fragile in his sickbed, washed out under the clinical white light of the medbay.
He couldn’t help but to chide: “We would have used the bacta tank for you, Commander, but you requested otherwise. I recall you saying some nonsense about needing to stay alert. What you need is to rest."
Cody snarked, "There's a war on, in case you haven't noticed."
"And the war can wait." He lifted Cody's hand and brushed his thumb slowly over Cody's knuckles. Then, impulsively, he bent his head slightly and traced the same path with his lips.
Across the room, Wooley stared unblinkingly at the datapad in his hands. Another trooper, groaning and sitting up in his bed, made eye contact with his commander and abruptly lay back down. Obi-Wan almost smiled.
"I am tired," Cody admitted. "But it hurts less when you're here."
Obi-Wan knew that in the morning, Cody would be markedly less drugged and also much less willing to let the word hurt, never mind tired, pass his lips. Duty awaited. And the war dragged ever-on.
"Then rest, my dear commander," said Obi-Wan quietly. "And I will be here when you wake."