Work Text:
He woke to a shrill beep and something nudging against his hand. When he managed to pry open his eyes, a small vial with bright green fluid rested in the palm of his limp hand and he could see two more in the grass next to it. It was familiar, he knew he needed to do something with it, but the pain radiating up and down his spine and around his torso was too intense. A little droid bounced from one foot to another until it squatted down and pushed against his fingers with its head again. He curled his fingers as much as he could and tried to bring it closer to his face to investigate with blurry eyes.
The tiny movement made pain explode through his neck and he succumbed to the blackness again.
The next time he wakes there’s a voice in his ear, slightly out of breath but speaking calmly. A woman's voice, he knows she sounds familiar but he’s so disoriented he can’t put a name or a face to it. The words don’t make sense either, like his brain isn’t keeping them in the correct order as they travel from the device in his ear and all the way into his mind. Slowly it starts to fall into an order that makes a little bit of sense.
“It’s okay, Cal. I just need you to wake up. Merrin and I are almost there.”
There? Where is there? Does she mean here? Where he is? Where is here? It’s dark, wherever here is. Or are his eyes closed? He can’t gather the strength to even test that theory. Is she even talking to him? She said Cal, is he Cal? That sounds right…
He hears that beeping and trilling again, somewhere nearby. It makes the pain in his head spike, a little bit too loud. Somehow the woman must be able to hear it and her voice returned. “BD, he’s awake? Are you sure? Cal, can you hear me? Say something, please.”
She had to have been talking to him, right? Now if only he could put words together…
He managed a groan, which was apparently all she needed to hear. “Cal!" Too loud, which makes him groan again. "Hey, stay awake for me, okay? We’re here, we’re right above you!”
Above? That doesn’t make sense… And there goes that beeping again…
There were two soft thumps, one in front of him and the other on the ground behind him where he felt a presence there moments before a hand landed on his upper arm. “Oh Cal…” The voice he heard in his ear was real this time, not being distorted by the comm link anymore. She was right here, he could see who it was if he just managed to open his eyes. But he was so tired, and everything hurt, it would take too much effort…
A warm hand gently pried his fingers open, removing the small vial he had forgotten about from his hand and shortly after there was a hiss and warmth flooded his arm. He sighed as the painkiller worked quickly, the sharp pains in his head and spine turning to a dull numbness, and relaxed further into the grass. Even without being able to move he hadn’t realised how the pain had kept every muscle in his body so tense.
He revelled in the numbness for a few minutes, feeling like he was almost floating somewhere above his own body, separate from the injuries that still riddled his body. He could hear quiet murmurs nearby and the occasional trilling beep.
Slowly he came back to himself and noticed the sensation of someone rubbing their hand up and down his arm. The same person was quietly pleading with him to wake up again. He heard more than felt the quiet hiss as they administered another vial, this time in his thigh. Opening his eyes didn’t feel like such a daunting task anymore and he finally managed to drag them open just as the voice said something else he didn’t quite catch. His field of vision was mostly green grass and black dirt, some of which was wet with red. He couldn’t think of why, but it didn’t seem like a good thing.
He managed to turn his head ever so slightly and the little droid leapt nearly a foot into the air, beeping happily. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned further to see two blurry figures quickly swapping places around him. The figure in front of him dropped to their knees and leaned close to his face. Recognition followed by relief flooded his mind as her face came into focus and he let his head thump onto the ground again. “Cere…”
A pained smile flickered across her face and she squeezed his arm. “We’re here. Try to stay still.”
In spite of her request he craned his neck to see who knelt behind him and he caught a glimpse of Merrin’s familiar green magick. She conjured a small cloud around her right hand and placed it against the back of his neck, placing her other hand on his cheek so he wouldn't turn any further. The hand on his neck slowly trailed downward, he could feel the magick slipping along his spine, like the pins and needles feeling he got in his legs when he meditated for too long.
Her hand on his cheek was cool and grounding. He tested moving his hand and when nothing instantly screamed in pain at the movement, he raised it to wrap fingers around her hand, holding it in place. She squeezed his fingers in response and he closed his eyes again, waiting for her to finish.
“He has broken ribs and strained muscles, but I don’t sense any damage to his spinal cord.”
He heard Cere exhale heavily, as though she had been waiting with baited breath for the Nightsisters report. He had to agree with her relief, he couldn’t tell on his own, numb as he was. The pain had been overwhelming and blinded him to any particular focal point, and now with the painkilling numbness of the stimpack, he couldn’t say for sure. His head still felt floaty, as though if he just allowed himself to, he would fall asleep right then and there.
He felt Cere’s hand on his forehead, pushing his hair back and he wearily opened one eye to look up at her.
“Can you move your legs?”
He closed his eye again and let his head turn back towards the dirt, brow furrowed as he thought about it. “‘m tired.”
“I know you are, but I just want to check. Can you try?”
It took a moment for him to focus, but he managed to wiggle the toes of his boots, scratching divots in the mud.
“Good, that’s really good Cal.”
He hummed and started to drift off, satisfied in a job well done, as little as it had been. One of them was carefully moving his hair, and the familiarity was a lulling comfort. Before he could fully fall asleep again the side of his head was suddenly shrouded in warmth and his eyes flew open in surprise, looking up to find Merrin’s hand gently pressing down the edges of a bacta patch over his head wound.
“Sorry,” She shrugged sheepishly. "I should have warned you."
“‘s ok,” he said, lifting his hand to wrap around hers again, capturing her fingers to keep her hand pressed against his cheek. Her skin was cool against his own, his whole head felt like it was too hot and her contact gave him some relief. “‘s ok,” he muttered again and relaxed into the mud again, content for the moment to stay exactly where he was.
He could hear Merrin and Cere talking above him, but he was starting to float away again, unconcerned about whatever they were talking about. Occasionally Greeze’s voice crackled through the comm link, but Cal was too out of it to listen to him either. It was comforting hearing their voices, reminding him of quiet downtime on the ship, exhausted after a long day spent on a planet and relaxing on the couch around the table, drifting off to their conversation. Back on Bracca, silence was rare, even off the jobsite. In five years, he never had a room to himself, and none of the others living in those rooms had much care for what everyone else's schedules were like, if they were sleeping or not. Loud conversations and disagreements and clambering about while getting ready for their shifts were something Cal learned to sleep through, so much so that after his first exhausted night on the Mantis, he found it hard to fall asleep in silence. The thrum of the engine below his bed helped somewhat, but some of the best sleeps he had on the ship were on the couch surrounded by his crewmates as they engaged in conversation. Sometimes they would lower their voices if they noticed him nodding off, but usually by then he was well on his way to a deep sleep.
Cere’s voice got louder in his ear, as though she leaned down to speak directly in his ear to wake him up. “Cal, we’re going to try moving you, ok? Greeze is almost here, he’s going to land as close as he can, but Merrin and I will still need to get you up.”
At some point Merrin’s hand had escaped his grasp and he found his hand flopped back into the mud in front of his face. Cal couldn’t think of when that might have happened. He must have fallen asleep without even realising.
He felt Merrins hands on him, one on his hip and the other looping under his arm from behind. In front Cere cradled a hand under his jaw and the other on his side and together they started to slowly roll him onto his back.
As soon as they did, pain shot through his rib cage and his jaw and eyes clenched shut with a strangled groan. He reflexively reached for his own chest, as if he could do anything to stop the pain or keep himself from falling apart. Someone was pushing his hair back from his forehead, gingerly avoiding the bacta patch and apologising in his ear. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Cal, but we need to keep going.”
Before he could protest he was being pulled into a seated position and from there his companions hooked one of his arms over each of their shoulders and hauled him to his feet. He choked on a scream, his chest felt like it was on fire and his head spun with every small movement. They barely made it three steps before it became too much and Cal felt himself slip off into the blackness.