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Fox has decided that the couch is personally responsible for his suffering.
Riyo can tell because he has glared at the same cushion three times in the last ten minutes.
His head rests in her lap, one arm folded across his stomach and the other hanging over the edge of the couch. A neat bacta dressing covers the small incision near his right temple, partially hidden beneath his hair. Scalper had warned them that the sedative would leave him drowsy, irritable, and sensitive to light.
Fox had informed her that he was always irritable and therefore unlikely to notice a difference.
The migraine arrived twenty minutes later and proved him wrong.
Riyo threads her fingers carefully through his hair, keeping clear of the dressing. Every curtain in the apartment is closed. The lights are off except for the dim strip beneath the kitchen cabinets, and even that seems to offend him.
“You’re frowning again,” she murmurs.
“My skull hurts.”
“It’s been hurting continuously. You don’t need to provide updates through facial expression.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re glaring at my couch.”
“It’s uneven.”
“It wasn’t uneven yesterday.”
“I had something in my brain yesterday.”
Riyo presses her lips together.
Fox cracks one eye open.
“Are you laughing?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re thinking about it.”
“I’m thinking about how brave you’ve been during this difficult conflict with upholstered furniture.”
He closes his eye again.
“The couch knows what it did.”
Riyo smiles and resumes combing her fingers through his hair.
The procedure had taken less than an hour.
Scalper had shown them the implant afterward, suspended inside a sealed sample container no larger than Riyo’s pinkie. The tiny organic chip had looked harmless. Soft, pale, almost translucent.
Nothing that small should’ve been capable of controlling thoughts, enforcing orders, or turning pain into punishment.
Scalper had refused to let Fox examine it for longer than a few seconds.
Then she’d ordered him home with instructions to rest for at least twenty-four hours, avoid bright lights, drink water, eat something substantial, and report any confusion, seizures, vision changes, or sudden desire to obey politicians.
Fox had tried to argue with the final instruction on a technicality.
Scalper had threatened to sedate him again.
Now he is sprawled across Riyo’s couch in loose black trousers and one of her softest sleep shirts, looking less like the Chief of Defense and more like a man who has lost a fistfight with his own nervous system.
“How bad is it?” Riyo asks.
Fox considers the question.
“Do you remember when Thorn replaced my caf with decaf?”
“Yes.”
“I tried to stop drinking caf because I thought it had stopped working.”
“You lasted eleven hours.”
“Twelve.”
“You threatened a vending machine during the twelfth.”
“It failed to dispense.”
“You called it a Separatist sympathizer.”
“It stole my credits.”
Riyo rubs her thumb lightly against his scalp.
“So this feels like caf withdrawal?”
“Multiply it by ten.”
“That doesn’t sound pleasant.”
“Thousand.”
She pauses. “Ten thousand?”
“Yes.”
“Fox, that’s not how pain scales work.”
“They should improve the scale.”
His voice is rough with exhaustion, but no longer crushed or strangely distant. Since waking from the procedure, he has sounded like himself.
Entirely himself.
Riyo hadn’t realized how much that would matter until Scalper asked him a direct question during recovery.
Fox had answered without flinching.
No right-temple drilling pain. No blood beneath his nose. No strange blankness swallowing his expression while something inside his mind punished the thought of refusal.
Only a terrible migraine and enough displeasure to destabilize a minor government.
Riyo would take the migraine.
Fox shifts his head against her lap and immediately regrets it. His hand rises toward the dressing.
Riyo catches his wrist.
“No touching.”
“It itches.”
“Scalper said not to touch it.”
“She says many things.”
“She also has access to restraints.”
Fox lowers his hand.
Riyo releases him once she is certain he won’t try again.
A glass of water sits on the table beside the couch. It is still mostly full. Next to it is a bowl of broth and soft noodles that Fox has declared structurally unsound.
“You need to drink,” she says.
“No.”
“You heard Scalper.”
“I heard her. I chose not to internalize it.”
Riyo looks down at him.
Fox’s eyes remain closed.
“You had brain surgery today.”
“Minor neurological procedure.”
“A medic cut into your skull.”
“Scalper insists there’s a difference.”
“Drink the water.”
“My head hurts.”
“The water isn’t going into your head.”
“It’ll require movement.”
Riyo reaches for the glass.
Fox senses danger and opens both eyes.
“No.”
“You don’t have to sit up.”
“That’s worse.”
“You’ve survived sieges.”
“Sieges have clear objectives.”
“So does this. Hydration.”
“They don’t involve you pouring water into my mouth while I’m horizontal.”
“That depends on the siege.”
Fox stares at her.
Riyo lifts the glass.
He makes the smallest possible movement away, which only presses the back of his head more firmly into her thigh.
“Traitor,” he mutters.
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You’re considering it.”
“I’m holding a glass.”
“With intent.”
Riyo laughs despite herself.
Fox’s eyes soften at the sound.
There it is, even beneath the pain. That quiet smile he rarely bothers moving to his mouth.
She slides one arm beneath his shoulders.
“Come on.”
Fox grumbles, but he allows her to raise him enough to drink. He takes three reluctant swallows before pushing the glass away.
“More.”
“I drank.”
“You dampened your mouth.”
“That qualifies.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Under Guard hydration regulations, any measurable reduction in thirst qualifies as progress.”
“You wrote those regulations.”
“Yes.”
“That explains why they’re terrible.”
Fox takes two more swallows purely to end the argument, then drops his head back into her lap with a pained exhale.
Riyo places the glass down.
“You’re very dramatic.”
“I had part of my brain removed.”
“You had an unwanted implant removed from beside your brain.”
“Semantics.”
“You told Scalper it wasn’t brain surgery.”
“That was before the headache.”
Riyo’s fingers return to his hair.
For several minutes, the apartment settles into silence. Traffic moves beyond the covered windows, muted by thick glass and distance. Fox’s breathing gradually evens out.
She thinks he has fallen asleep until he says, “It’s quiet.”
Riyo looks down.
“In the apartment?”
“In my head.”
The humor leaves his voice, though not the calm.
Riyo’s hand stills for half a second before continuing.
“What does that feel like?”
“I don’t know.”
He frowns, searching for the right explanation.
“The pressure’s gone.”
“The migraine suggests otherwise.”
“Different pressure.”
Riyo understands.
Not completely. She never could.
But she has seen Fox stop midsentence while pain drilled into his temple. She has watched blood run from his nose because he considered disobeying an order. She has watched his entire face become empty around the phrase good soldiers follow orders.
Now the thing responsible sits locked inside Scalper’s laboratory.
Fox is here.
Miserable, drowsy, sarcastic, and free.
Riyo bends and kisses his forehead, well away from the dressing.
Fox’s brows draw together.
“What was that for?”
“You’re cute when you’re moping.”
“I’m not moping.”
“You’ve declared war on my couch.”
“It started it.”
She smiles.
Fox closes his eyes again.
After another moment, he says, “Can I have caf?”
“No.”
“Scalper didn’t forbid caf.”
“She specifically wrote ‘no caf’ on the discharge instructions.”
“That seemed personal.”
“You asked her for some while she was stitching your head.”
“I was awake.”
“You were calling Lex ‘Commander Blonde.’”
“She is blonde.”
“You asked Boba whether he’d stolen the ceiling.”
Fox goes quiet.
Riyo waits.
“Did he?”
“No.”
“Then the question resolved itself.”
His mouth shifts into the faintest smug smile.
Riyo gently scratches his scalp beneath her fingertips.
“You can have caf tomorrow.”
“At what time?”
“When Scalper approves it.”
“That isn’t a time.”
“It is in this apartment.”
Fox sighs with the tragic weight of a condemned man.
Riyo leans back against the couch and lets him settle more comfortably across her lap.
Within minutes, his breathing deepens again.
This time, he really does fall asleep.
His face gradually smooths as the migraine medication pulls him under. One hand remains curled loosely against her knee, as if some part of him needs proof that she is still there.
Riyo keeps running her fingers through his hair.