Chapter Text
“Is he awake yet?”
Kal looked up as Mij entered the room, his eyes bloodshot. “Naas. He’s … not doing well, still.”
It had been three days since Fi’s disastrous accident, two days since Mij and Kal got word that the Republic was refusing him further care. They’d flown straight to Coruscant to get him, and it was thanks to Bardan’s small healing abilities that Fi was still alive when they arrived. The clone had been brain dead – no hint of activity, only his heart continuing to pump and an occasional breath – but now, now he was at even higher risk, with what little brain function he had mostly consisting of seizures.
As Mij watched Fi’s vitals, another seizure started up, and he sighed. “We need to get him to CMA, instead of leaving him here.”
“I agree,” Bardan said, walking in and offering Mij and Kal hugs. “I’ve done what I can, but I don’t honestly know that much. I can keep pushing, see if I can get him stable enough for transport.”
“Please,” Mij begged, letting his birgaan drop from his shoulder as he began to pull meds out. “Would it help if I stop the seizures, or will that mess things up for you?”
Bardan hesitated, then shrugged. “Do it. If nothing else, it’ll keep more damage from happening as I’m trying to reestablish what connections I can.”
Mij nodded, slamming a hypo of high-dose seizure meds into Fi’s thigh. “That should cover you until I can get the IV meds drawn up.”
“Vor’e,” the young Jedi said. His accent when speaking Mando’a was still atrocious, but Mij knew Kal adored the man nonetheless.
Mij set to work, watching Fi’s vitals closely as he prepared a pile of medications, things the clone hadn’t received since he’d been declared brain dead and the med droid had tried to – to murder him. His heart was working far too hard, making up for what his brain couldn’t do, but that was something Mij could fix. He had the meds in his bag. He’d grabbed everything he could when he got word of what had happened.
As he administered one medication after another, trying like hell to get Fi’s body to respond, he saw Bardan out of the corner of his eye, pulling a chair over and setting a hand on Fi’s temple. “You’re still in there,” Bardan murmured after a moment. “Ready to come out? You don’t have to, but it would make Mij and Kal a lot happier.”
Fi didn’t respond in any way Mij could see, though for just a moment, his pulse dropped into range before rising once more.
Things continued like that for a while, with Bardan focused on Fi’s mind, Mij administering meds as needed, and Kal kneeling at the end of the bed, one hand resting low on the clone’s leg. Mij hadn’t noted the time when they started, but it had to be at least an hour, possibly far longer, by the time that Bardan opened his eyes.
“Need food,” the Jedi muttered, his eyes glazed over. Mij lurched across the bed to get a hand on his shoulder, keeping him upright as Kal pulled out the muja juice Mij had packed for exactly this reason.
When Mij sat back, he noticed Fi’s much calmer vitals, his brain waves finally approaching normal. “I think we’re safe for transport,” he murmured, grabbing his bag and pulling out the wrist comm he’d kept off in case he needed to pull Fi into surgery. “Bardan, write down a list of what you’ve done, if you can. The other doctors will likely need it.”
Bardan nodded slowly, his hand drifting back to rest lightly on the top of Fi’s head. “I don’t think I got everything,” he admitted quietly.
“I don’t care about that,” Mij promised. “I care that Fi is alive, and that he’s safe, and that we can give things some time and see how he’s doing in a few years. Not all recoveries are perfect, Bardan, and that’s alright.”
As Bardan thought over what Mij had said, the doctor typed in the comm code for the neuro wing of Coruscant Medical Academy, where he had once gone to school and still had connections. He sent a short message over with Fi’s status, Bardan’s report, and a request for a bed.
The message returned almost immediately – Neuro bed, not hospice?
Neuro bed , Mij replied. Force osik. We’re looking at potential history of status epilepticus when he couldn’t be monitored, coupled with probable memory and motor issues. We have the resources to care for him in the long term, if he’s stable enough to make it to Mandalore.
They’d discussed that on the flight over – Mij had agreed, almost instantly, that if it came down to it he’d resign his commission to keep watch over Fi. Mereel had hacked the Treasury. The reduction in the household income would be a drop in the bucket in comparison with what they had access to, and Mij had no qualms about taking full advantage of Republic funds to help a living being created with Republic funding and abandoned by that same Republic later on. He had the experience, and he was more than willing to spend years helping Fi relearn how to exist, if that was what it took.
It was a minute before the next message came through to his comm. When it arrived, Mij let out a sigh of relief. “They’ve got a bed, and I’ve got full permission to summon a CMA ambulance to get him there. He’s gonna be alright.”
“We can’t say that yet,” Kal said quietly.
“Yes, we can,” Mij said. “There’s no indication he’s going to get worse, especially not while Bardan’s here to help.”
Kal looked at Mij for a moment before his eyes returned to Fi. “We’ll see, then.”
Mij brushed one hand against Kal’s shoulder where he sat, then moved to the room’s small window and sent the comm to ask for an ambulance to transport Fi to the place he actually trusted.
The room Fi was placed in was bright, airy, not the dingy metallic mess of the Republic’s preferred medical facility to dump injured clones in. By the time they’d arrived, Mij had gotten close to twenty messages, all offering to assist. Some of them were from old colleagues and people he’d met in medical school there at CMA; some were from Jedi healers, with far more training than Bardan had. But perhaps the ones he most treasured came from the clones themselves.
Aura was with the Coruscant Guard, waiting for Quinlan to return from a complicated mission. His comm wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact: he’d be up to CMA in a few hours, when his medbay shift ended, so that Mij could get a break. Along with his message came one from Garnet, offering to review scans since she knew clone anatomy so much better and could recognize if anything besides Fi’s brain would need urgent treatment. It hadn’t even occurred to Mij, but indeed, after declaring him brain dead the med droid hadn’t bothered to actually document any other injuries. The messages from the Nulls – all of whom were supposed to be on a highly secretive mission in the Outer Rim – were marked for Fi’s eyes only, unless he needed help. Mij would get them copied onto flimsi in a larger size so Fi could read them sooner, and if he had to read them aloud he would.
As the CMA medics got Fi transferred to the bed, Mij quickly moved to silence all the alarms. Fi wasn’t breathing on his own consistently yet; Mij wasn’t sure if that was from the brain damage or the heavy medications it had taken to stop the seizures. Either way, that could be fixed, given time.
But what couldn’t be fixed as easily was the spike of activity indicating that Fi might be waking up, still intubated with paralytics running through his system for his own safety. He’d be panicked, no doubt; Mij darted to pinch the IV, stopping the paralytic even before he could pause the pump. It was the least he could do.
“Get where he can see you, Kal,” he called out, grabbing another dose of seizure meds and getting ready to add it to Fi’s line if it proved necessary, if waking up was too much for his body just yet.
But Fi’s eyes flickered open, landing on Kal, giving him a desperate look. The ventilator gave a flashing alert as the younger man tried to resist its help, the paralytic burning off fast in his panic.
“Ad, we need to know you can breathe on your own before we can take it out,” Mij said firmly.
“I’ve got flimsi right here,” Kal told Fi, pressing a pencil into his hand. “You’re not silenced, not muzzled like the shabuire kaminiise threatened. You’re just hurt. We’re going to do everything we can to get you healed up.”
Fi’s eyes closed for a moment as he tried and failed to grip the pencil. The panicked look returned, and his eyes darted between Mij and Kal.
“How about this, Fi?” Mij offered, instantly recognizing the problem. “We can have you blink once for yes, twice for no. You seem to have control of that. If you’re up for it, we can try some dadita later, but we can keep it simple for now, okay? Once for yes, twice for no.”
Fi relaxed minutely, blinking once.
“Good, good,” Mij murmured, grabbing the chair that Bardan offered him and sitting down next to Fi’s head. “Is it okay if I do a quick exam?”
Fi’s brow furrowed, but he blinked.
“It’s always your choice,” Mij assured him, double-checking the position of the monitor stickers. “You can always tell me no, Fi. No matter what.”
Even that didn’t seem to help the clone much, because he just blinked again, the confused look remaining on his face.
“Alright,” Mij agreed, holding one hand up over Fi’s face. “See if you can follow my finger, first of all.” Up, down, left, right, distant, closer up. Fi managed all the directions, though he struggled with the final bit, blinking hard to try to get his eyes to cooperate.
Kal smiled. “That’s pretty good, Fi.”
“It really is,” Mij said, grabbing the pencil Fi had dropped. “I’m going to poke you, okay? Blink once if that’s alright, Fi.”
It took a moment before Fi blinked. Mij noted to himself that the exam would have to stop after this.
He gently poked Fi’s hand, drawing a line down one finger and across his palm. “Can you feel that?”
Fi blinked once. He was starting to get tears in his eyes.
“Just checking the other side, if that’s okay,” Mij said, and waited.
Fi hesitated, then blinked twice.
“Okay, ad. We’re done for now. I’m going to give you meds to help you rest, and to make sure the ventilator can breathe for you if you have another bad seizure, if anything else happens. I want to keep you safe, Fi. So I’ve got to medicate this.”
Fi blinked once, understanding clear in his eyes. Kal wiped the tears from his face, and Mij pushed the meds. Together, the two of them watched as Fi shut his eyes, pulse dropping slightly as sleep overcame him.
Kal looked up and took a deep breath. “I can’t repay you, Bardan,” he said, shifting his weight to allow Mij to give him a hug. “You’ve saved my ad. That’s one of the greatest debts I can take on.”
“I don’t do it for the debt,” Bardan insisted. “I do it because that’s what’s right.”
Mij sighed. “You were, without question, the only one who could have saved Fi’s life. If not for you, we would’ve been coming to Coruscant to get his body. And yet we’re here with him, and from what I can tell most of his functions are either intact or at least at a stage where we can help him heal further.”
Bardan stared. Mij knew the emotions that were likely running through his head – Mij had felt them himself, back when he was a medical student, those first few times he’d saved lives. He wouldn’t push Bardan. But he’d be there whenever the Jedi wanted to talk about it.
Just then, a Kiffar doctor knocked on the open door, catching Mij’s eye. “Need to get a full scan of Fi Skirata, if that’s alright.”
Fi Skirata . He was the first of Mij and Kal’s motley crew to legally use the surname, and he only did because it was a requirement to get him any care at all.
“Go right ahead. I’ll come with you,” Mij said, unlocking the bed from where it sat against the wall and ensuring that the ventilator unit was attached. He didn’t want to leave Fi alone with anyone else, even with the medications increased to ensure he wouldn’t wake up. Things had gotten too close.
The Kiffar man fell into step alongside him. “Gabri asked me if I’d mind taking this one,” he murmured, just loud enough for Mij to hear over the general din of the hospital. “He ended up mentoring me a bit, a few years after you left for Mandalore. Happy to finally meet you in person. Rigan Pel.”
“Ah, you’re the one he sent me comms about, warning me,” Mij said, feeling a smile appear on his face for what felt like the first time in a tenday.
“You know Gabri. He was the one who asked me to stay on as a neurologist. Got my interviews set up and everything,” Rigan said, pointing down a side hallway. “Here, there’s a new scanner room down this way. Then we don’t have to take him as far. I’m guessing you’ll be staying with him in there?”
“Lek, you guess correctly,” Mij said with a nod, turning the bed carefully where Rigan directed. “Fi is … precious, to Kal and myself.”
Rigan shot him a look, the red qukuuf at the sides of his eyes distracting Mij for just a moment before the younger man spoke. “You try to protect him, don’t you?”
“We do. We try with all the clones. But we haven’t always succeeded. This time …”
“This time, you will,” Rigan murmured. “Here, this is the scanner. We can just wheel the bed under the scanner, it’s got settings for that.”
Mij was relieved. He’d had to help get Fi into the ambulance, and for all that he was in decent shape, the clones were still heavy. Putting the hospital bed into place under the lens of the scanner was a much simpler answer, one he was happy had arrived at CMA since his years there.
Rigan dodged out of the room to get the scan itself started as Mij moved to Fi’s legs, letting one hand trail over them as the scan of his brain got rapid images. After that was his chest, and then his abdomen, all done at high speed and without any emergency squeals from the monitor next door.
“Switch to his head,” Rigan requested, and Mij walked over to smooth down Fi’s hair as the last scan got imaging of the clone’s legs. The ventilator’s noise was oddly soothing – it wasn’t the same model he’d had on Kamino, or in Keldabe before that. It was too expensive, too fancy, and Mij had only ever used one at CMA. He didn’t have near as many bad memories there on Coruscant.
Soon enough, Rigan stepped back into the room, holding out a pad with the data chip sitting on top. “You’ve got everything you need there. Preliminaries were clear, everywhere but his skull and brain. Bacta got all bleeding under control early enough.”
“Good,” Mij breathed, slipping the data chip into its slot and scrolling through the results. “Let’s get him back, see if we can keep him sedated enough for comfort but encourage him to breathe on his own. We know there were some spontaneous breaths early on.”
Rigan smiled. “Yeah, that’s likely to turn out well. I’ll ask around, see if anyone has any advice on that. Some of us have treated more than our share of clones at this point. We know what works.”
“I can’t thank you enough,” Mij murmured, letting Rigan push the bed.
“No need,” the Kiffar man insisted. “We’re happy to do whatever we can. You took care of them their entire childhood, didn’t you? We’ve heard plenty about Kamino. We know how much you care. It’s our turn to prove it.”
Mij was silent for the rest of the walk back to Fi’s room and the process of settling him back in, trying to process what Rigan had said. He cared – Kal cared, too – and they weren’t the only ones. But now, with the entire galaxy available, the clones had more support. More danger, too, yes. But also, they had a chance.