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Lex stares at the medication cabinet until the cabinet starts breathing.
She blinks.
It stops.
That probably means it isn’t real.
Probably.
“Do you ever get so tired you start seeing spiders?” she asks.
Boba sits on the edge of an examination cot, swinging his boots while Scalper runs a scanner over his chest. He’d come in with a cough, a low fever, and the firm belief that Mandalorians couldn’t get sick because illness was cowardly.
His immune system had disagreed.
“Yeah,” Boba says. “That happens after I take dexalorphan hydrobromide.”
Lex slowly turns away from the cabinet. “The cough medicine?”
“The little blue tablets.”
Scalper stops moving.
Lex frowns. “Those are five-milligram pediatric doses.”
“I took six.”
Scalper’s head snaps toward him.
Boba shrugs. “The first one didn’t work.”
“So you took five more?” Lex asks.
“I wanted it to work faster.”
“That isn’t how medicine works.”
“It worked.”
“You’re still coughing.”
“Yeah, but then I started seeing the Hat Man.”
Lex stares at him.
Scalper stares at him.
The scanner continues beeping between them, the only object in the room still committed to professionalism.
“The who?” Lex asks.
Boba pulls his blanket higher around his shoulders. “The Hat Man.”
Scalper lowers the scanner very slowly.
Her damaged voice comes out rougher than usual. “Explain.”
“He stands in the corner.”
Lex looks toward the corner.
There is nothing there except a waste bin and a supply cart.
She doesn’t feel reassured.
“What does he look like?” Lex asks.
“Tall. Black clothes. Big hat. Looks like he hasn’t slept since the Ruusan Reformation.”
Scalper glances at Lex.
Lex glances back.
That description also applies to Fox during budget season, but Fox doesn’t wear a hat indoors unless he’s in dress uniform.
“Does he talk to you?” Lex asks carefully.
“Sometimes.”
Scalper sets the scanner down and reaches for Boba’s pupils.
Boba leans away. “I’m fine.”
“You’re hallucinating.”
“I’m bored.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” Lex says.
Scalper shines a light into one of his eyes. His pupil contracts normally, which is more than Lex expects considering this conversation.
“What does the Hat Man say?” Lex asks.
Boba thinks about it.
“Mostly stuff about wolves.”
Scalper’s expression goes blank.
“Wolves?” Lex repeats.
“Yeah. Wolves, hats, fathers, and how everything connects if you wait long enough.”
“That sounds threatening.”
“He’s nice.”
“Boba,” Lex says, “shadow figures caused by cough medicine are generally not friends.”
“This one is.”
Scalper retrieves the medication packet from the bedside table and turns it over. The recommended dosage is printed in large Basic letters.
ONE TABLET EVERY SIX HOURS.
She holds it up.
Boba squints at it. “That seems low.”
“It’s for children,” Lex says.
“I’m not a child.”
“You’re ten.”
“I’ve killed people.”
“That doesn’t make your liver older.”
Boba folds his arms.
Scalper points toward the dosage instructions, then toward him.
“I know what numbers are,” Boba mutters.
Scalper points more aggressively.
“I just didn’t respect them.”
Lex presses both hands over her face.
She has been awake for sixty-six hours. She has treated two blaster wounds, a prison guard who swallowed a key to win a bet, and Commander Thorn after he attempted to prove a Senate banister could support his body weight.
Now a feverish bounty hunter is discussing his cough-medicine demon.
Lex lowers her hands.
“Does the Hat Man have a name?”
Boba nods.
Scalper and Lex wait.
“Dave Filoni.”
The medbay goes silent.
Scalper looks at Lex.
Lex looks at Scalper.
“The kriff kind of name is Dave?” Lex whispers.
Boba glances toward the empty corner.
“He says you’ll understand later.”
Scalper grabs the medication packet and throws it into the locked disposal bin.
Boba groans. “That was mine.”
“No,” Scalper rasps. “Never again.”
“But Dave said—”
Scalper points toward him with enough force to threaten several generations of his family.
Boba stops talking.
Lex looks toward the corner one final time.
For half a second, she thinks she sees the brim of a wide hat disappear through the wall.
She decides her eight hours off duty need to begin immediately.