Chapter Text
The sky glimmers, and you can make out the distant shine of stars and planets curtained by the trees. The sky dims, faster and faster, and it's a strange, terrifying sort of beauty to watch a star die. There's clamoring behind you, calls to arms -- TIE Fighters have taken down another Resistance ship! Where is the Captain?! Follow the traitor! -- and one of the nurses rushes to stabilize a stormtrooper quickly carried in and left by a comrade.
You turn away from the window just as the nurse removes their helmet and the patient cries out, hand clutching their head and white armor stained red. Three quick strides and you're by their side as they breathe heavily, slowly, and then not at all, eyes blurred by the look of death.
Many of the wounded that have been nearly dumped into the medical bay since the start of the emergency sirens have met similar fates, and, you think, it has only just begun. Perhaps some part of you is superstitious -- stars are not meant to be sucked dry, and people were not meant to tear each other apart -- but it is your job to save them regardless.
You help the nurse move the stormtrooper to a cot before grabbing the blood-washed helmet and searching for their number to input into the records terminal. It takes moments; FN-3020 logged - Killed In Action.
Then the world shakes. Alarms that had previously been going off in sectors below now blare a warning throughout the Base.
"2-1B, quickly," you order the surgical droid, pointing to the emergency evacuation equipment. You run through a mental list of the patients still in the recovery ward, wonder how many you can reach with just the help of the surgical droid and two nurses.
Outside the med bay, the heavy boots of stormtroopers running down the corridor saves you from speculating. They march in and stop short in front of you.
"Doctor, you've been ordered to evacuate."
You drop the dead stormtrooper's helmet and cross your arms. "There are still patients--"
"The General says you are required. Immediately. Enemy pilots have critically hit the thermal oscillator. The Base is not expected to last more than a few minutes," he rattles off quickly, bridging no room to argue. You turn to your nurses who are already shoving medicine, cauterizers and bandages into already stuffed evacuation packs. You grab your own bag, and though the two stormtroopers stand still at attention, you can feel their agitation, their anxiety to move to safety.
With a quick motion of your hand and a nod to the waiting soldiers, you usher the nurses and 2-1B ahead of you, following one stormtrooper out the med bay and into the hall, while the other brought in the rear behind you. The ground continues to shake, and you smell smoke, hear yells and calls for backup and--
And you're back to wondering: what can you do? You think, in the chaos, that doctors are meant to save people, heal and guide and protect, but there are eight lives in the recovery ward that you've abandoned to their death, when you had already worked once to save them from it. Perhaps they know it already, perhaps they think someone will return for them, surely.
It is not the first time the agenda has outweighed lives, you tell yourself. It will not be the last, undoubtedly.
When you first began your medical training, studying under a Republic doctor, you had braced yourself for the reality of death. Every patient could not be saved, and you would not spend your nights sleepless from guilt, trying to convince yourself that if you'd only been faster, more knowledgeable, more determined, that you could pry death away from every person's soul.
But the needlessness of it, the abandonment of life, left you clenching your fists as you approached the evacuation shuttle. Even more, you wondered, why have you rushed to safety, alongside the higher ups within the First Order. Doctors were as replaceable as soldiers when your regime was as large as the Order. Important enough that the General had sent for you. You were fairly sure that could only mean one thing.
You're led to a small alcove with seats and security belts, but nowhere to lay your equipment except at your feet. A few other people you recognize only in brief passing are also quickly boarded, and the entire shuttle gives one creaking tilt before it lifts into the sky. Your small medical team stays together, seated and waiting for the push of light speed, but it doesn't come.
Instead, the ship seems to roam, low and searching, until--
"Doctor! Now!"
You're up in a flash, but you don't have to go far. You can already feel the pump of adrenaline. This is why you were called aboard, why you were saved when so many were left scrambling and deserted. There is no sign of General Hux, and if it is not him in need of a doctor there is only one other you can think of that they would command you to save.
They have him pulled up on their shoulders, dangling between two soldiers by his arms, and are quick in handing him off to you, barely conscious and stumbling over his own feet in an attempt to keep himself up.
"Lucidan," you call for one of the nurses, "hemosponge, now. And after, the cauterizer. Wrehin, a repulsor gurney. 2-1B, please stand-by."
You turn back to the Knight, hands hovering and assessing. Lightsaber wounds, you surmise. You hadn't treated many. Most that saw the red of Kylo Ren's lightsaber didn't tend to need a doctor's help afterward.
The most obvious wound is the blood still dripping down his face, and despite his previous efforts, Ren's left leg seems to be nearly useless at this point. His shoulder is wet and the material of his clothing around it is burnt and frayed, but you can't tell much else through his armor. Wrehin helps you lift him onto the gurney, and Lucidan dabs at the slice along his cheek and between his eyes as you work at removing his clothing. You glance at the nurse's fixed pressure kept to Ren's face and grimace. Head wounds always bleed so much more than other places, and you already know he will scar, but the gravity of what you cannot see at the moment pulls at you more.
"Clean that up, but prepare for whatever's underneath here," you instruct.
The ship lurches at last, but your team stands steady.
Black armor is lifted from his torso, and you cut away the shirt underneath. You've worked the material away from his shoulders, peeling it as delicately as possible away from his wounds. There's a shot to his torso that is already clotting, as blaster wounds are wont to do, but it is wide and the layers of skin and tissue are burnt and an angry red. It is not overly deep, just shy of reaching any of his organs, but the skin and tissues have already fused together. Not a clean wound, and it looks aggravated, but his shoulder and leg are still bleeding at alarming rates.
"Bacta patch this one for now, please," you order. "2-1B, you take the shoulder and I'll take the leg."
The ship goes quiet as your team works. Stormtroopers stand nearby, waiting, and the stars are forgotten things. The Starkiller Base, as quickly as it had consumed the dying star, bursts and fades from view in fire and smoke.
It takes just under an hour to stabilize him, and your nurses are beginning to wrap bandages around his torso when you finish cauterizing and wrapping up his leg. 2-1B is reorganizing the medical supplies and disposing of the bloody clothing and hemosponges.
You step back, finally, your skin feeling tight and neck stiff.
The ship is directed to a larger space base, one that you had not been stationed on before and seems nearly deserted when you disembark. Similar to most you'd been on, however; bright lights, long halls, wide windows. Stormtroopers escort you to the designated med bay, and you keep a close eye on your patient as he is moved from the gurney to a bed.
You start to remove your own stained coat, dropping it into 2-1B's outstretched metal hand. "Thank you," you say softly to your team. "Don't worry about unloading at the moment. Get some rest. He seems stable for now." With a nod, the two nurses leave their packs and follow one of the stormtroopers back into the hall. 2-1B remains at your side.
"Can you help me hook him to a machine to monitor his condition?" you ask the droid, "I'll set him up on an IV now that he won't be jostled." You hope. How much more can happen in one day, you reason, but quickly dismiss it. Best not to even tempt trouble.
You work efficiently, and the beeping of the machine lets you know that 2-1B is finished. After making sure each wire is plugged in and there is a constant drip for the IV, you pull a blanket out to cover him. He'd been cold when pulled from the woods of the Starkiller Base, and blood loss certainly didn't help.
Finished at last, at least for the moment, you pull a chair to the side of the bed and nearly fall into it with a heavy sigh.
"Doctor, you should rest as well," 2-1B suggests. "I will remain with Kylo Ren in the case of any changes in his condition."
Although you hum in agreement, you make no move to get up. Instead you look towards the stormtrooper standing guard by the door. They don't appear to acknowledge you, standing at attention with a blaster ready. You wonder whose protection it is for; Ren's or your own.
Now, with adrenaline seeping out of your system, you have a moment to think. Before this, you had never really come into contact with Kylo Ren, except in very brief passings as he billowed down halls with heavy steps and hands clenched. But you had heard and, rarely, seen, what the Knight was capable of. You knew little about the Force, only the stories nearly everyone born after the Galactic Empire's defeat had grown up with -- of chaos and Jedi and sacrifice.
Looking at him now, you see no Force, no helmet or cape or lightsaber, only the body of a man with dark hair and angry, red wounds beneath white bandages.
He is younger than you'd imagined, though; perhaps around your own age.
You sit there for a very long time, contemplative, until you find yourself dozing.
You dream of a planet of green. When you were young there was a bird that had built a nest in a tree not far from your home. It was a small, gray thing with a loud voice; afraid of nothing, not even when you climbed up the branches of the tree to sketch its feathers.
You climb the tree and the bird keeps chirping loudly, calling, calling, but you've never seen another like it, so you try and imitate the noise. It's high-pitched and for a moment the bird almost looks startled, and you believe it will fly away. But it doesn't. It opens its mouth.
"Doctor."
You shift in your seat, jarring yourself awake, and remember where you are.
2-1B rolls up behind you and repeats itself. "Doctor, I believe he is regaining consciousness. His chart shows signs of changing heart and brain activity."
It felt as if you were asleep only for a few minutes at the most, but when you glance up you see that the surgical droid is correct. Ren's heartbeat begins to increase, and you push yourself up from the chair.
"Will you find the mediscan unit for me? And prepare some Symoxin, smallest dose for now," you order, back to being on alert.
Kylo Ren gives out a low groan when he finally stirs moments later, and upon finding that that only brought more pain, groaned again, lower and hoarser, and clenched his fists around the blanket at his sides.
"You're safe, sir," you try to comfort, "and I'll be giving you some painkillers in just a minute." You put one hand on his forehead and find it clammy and cold. You wished there were a bacta tank. He would heal so much faster, with so much less pain that way. But the both of you will have to make do without, and you try your best to soothe him as he awakens more fully.
"Where are we?" he grinds between his teeth.
"I could not tell you the system, or even the proper name of the base, to be honest. We were evacuated from the Starkiller Base." You pause to scan his shoulder first, and 2-1B's work holds up as expected. Next the blaster wound, which seems no better or worse since he was brought to you. "My team and I have treated you the best we can considering the circumstance. I need you to answer a few questions and then I'll give you something to help with the pain and to sleep."
He groans again, this time with an edge a little more desperate, like a wound hurts him more deeply than you can see.
"I promise," you reassure. "But your leg is badly damaged, and I want to make sure you have feeling in your foot before you sleep." You keep a steady hand on his forehead and call for 2-1B. "My surgical droid is going to test certain areas of your foot. After each one, I'll ask if you can feel it. Do you feel like you can speak?"
"Yes," he says without hesitation, but closes his eyes.
"All right. Go ahead, 2-1B."
The first test makes his foot twitch slightly -- a good sign -- but you still ask if he felt it.
"Yes," he replies again, this time more controlled. His breathing seems to be easing as well, and you suppose he is relaxing himself as best he can.
He ends up having no problems with the nerves in his foot, so you slip away from your spot by his head to cover his leg back up with the blanket. Then, you move across the room to get the Symoxin to put into his IV.
"As promised."
The drug takes immediate effect by the way you judge how his body loosens up, but he still hasn't opened his eyes.
"Sleep," you order softly, finding your seat at his bedside. "You'll feel better the next time you wake up."
It's silent again, and you're tempted to doze off yourself.
"What's your name?" Kylo Ren asks suddenly, and you can tell he's fighting sleep for one reason or another. But you tell him, and you reassure him that you're a doctor with the First Order, and that you will stay until he wakes up again.
He repeats your name, and for a second you wonder if he's about to thank you.
He doesn't.
But as the next silence falls upon the room, there is a peace to it that there hadn't been before.