in this house we love and appreciate 622

[h2no]

WHO: poe, rex, archie and 622 (sorta)
WHERE: an hospital™
WHEN: when the mars people are back™
WHAT: fussing over 622
WARNINGS: radi...ation... sickness? sad star wars boys.



[archie's on his way out when he runs into poe on his way in. he'd dropped by to see how the space crew were doing and check to see who exactly had been admitted. he's being a little overbearing and nosey, sure, but... you know. anxiety's a bitch. he doesn't see niko's name listed anywhere. he'll have to figure that out some other time.]

Oh, Poe-- [he's jolted out of whatever he was thinking. it doesn't take a genius to figure out why the other man is here. or why anyone who's visiting is here.] --I...

[no, he expected to see him here. e can't say that. archie rubs his forearm.]

Yo. [i guess] You alright? I mean... obviously not, but...

[good job, idiot. should've just walked past 'em.]

Comments

[flightforfreedom]

They won't let me in.

[ He said it like this was probably the deepest affront he had taken in a while. ]

It's not like I'm going to stab him, so I don't get why they won't let me in.

[ Apparently someone doesn't understand intensive care. So instead he just gets to pace agitatedly in the lobby. ]

[h2no]

It's--

[he stops, brow furrowing. 622, right. no, they didn't divulge much information to archie, either. he's just some random lookieloo, right?]

--Complicated. Did they at least say how he's doing? Is he stable?

[flightforfreedom]

They won't tell me anything.

They keep saying that I'm not next of kin, and I keep telling them that rule doesn't make any damn sense for imPorts.

Who the hell is my next of kin? Or yours?

[h2no]

I don't know, [he says, shaking his head. it's true, there's no... real basis for that here.] Just-- I couldn't ask them anything for Aegis stuff, either.

[he runs a hand over his face. this is far more stressful than it needs to be.]

How long have you been here?

[flightforfreedom]

I don't know. A couple hours?

I came as soon as I could. [ He ran a hand through his hair, letting out a huff. ]

He really wasn't sounding good, Arch. He just - he stopped making any kind of sense. I know we've got nanites, and I know logically he'll be okay, but--

[h2no]

[he nods-- waiting so long like that... it must've been torture. must still be torture. it's rough for him, too, but that doesn't matter right now. he puts his hands on poe's shoulders, giving them a squeeze.]

--It doesn't make it any better, I know. [he's still... suffering. it doesn't matter if you're going to be okay, someone you care for - possibly even love - being in pain is fucking horrific.] Rex? What about Rex?

[flightforfreedom]

[ Poe stared confusedly at him for several seconds until his brain finally kicked back in, and he started scrambling for his communicator. ]

Shit. Right. I was going to call him, I just --

come and get 'im boys

[loyal_soldier]

Something had happened. All he could remember was wild dreams about--everything. He was in a medbay now, though. Maybe he'd been sick. Everything hurt.

But that wasn't right. Couldn't figure out why. He opened his eyes, but they weren't quite focusing right. Neither was his brain.

Gravity. He could feel gravity holding him down. Not station gravity, either, you could always tell the artificial stuff. Wasn't the same pull as Ralltiir.

The ceiling was wrong. It wasn't gray, and it had those light tubes Earth had everywhere.

He hadn't dreamed that.

He managed to figure that much out before he fell asleep.

When he woke up, the ceiling was different again. He could see the wall now too, the bed was propping him up. Had a hell of a headache on top of the rest of the pain, it was still difficult to think.

He turned his head slowly, feeling the pull of an oxygen tube on his face and neck. He was on an IV of blood, and patched into one of those massive heart monitor things they had here, and his skin didn't look quite right. It was peeling off great big sections of dead skin. Looked pale underneath, too.

That was odd. Shouldn't all the radiation have made it red?

He'd forgotten about that too. The radiation. That was why he was sick. Maybe he'd died, even, he had no idea. The nanites had held him together, though. His skin had already healed a lot, apparently. He turned his head back to face forward, and realized he couldn't feel any hair rub on the pillow behind him. Guess that wasn't finished coming back, then.

Over the next few hours--or at least he thought it was hours, he kept falling asleep--he slowly pieced more things together. Saw a nurse, even. The man said he was in Heropa, he'd woken up faster than they'd expected, but his systems were still all a complete mess. Immune system was shot, internal bleeding had stopped but he'd had about six different infections before he'd even gotten back to Earth, had a few seizures for good measure, and his lungs were buggered up too.

But his prognosis was apparently good. Also, did he want visitors?

...Sure. He just couldn't quite remember at the moment who would want to come see him.

[flightforfreedom]

In the end, he had let Rex go first. Probably because he knew better than to try to get in the way: Rex was scarily efficient when he was worried. But also a little because a weird sort of nervousness had kicked in, and he wanted to sort his head out a little before trying to face it.

By the time he got his turn, he'd managed to stuff some terrible hospital food down his gullet, but not get his head any clearer. He'd spent an hour debating some stuffed animals in the gift shop and then hadn't ended up getting anything.

He didn't think 622 was that big on things anyway.

When he finally stepped into the room, 622 looked like he was asleep. The lack of hair made him look even more like Rex, though the raw healing skin didn't. It was half a relief and half a terrible pain to see him like this. Pain because of the state he was in - relief because he'd gotten home at all.

He had a sudden very visceral flashback to seeing Finn in the medbay, eyes closed in a coma as the bacta worked on him.

He tried to shove the memory away and couldn't, even as he stepped closer.

"Hey, bud," his voice was so quiet as to almost not be audible. He stepped up to the side of the bed and then let his fingers trail a little on the sheets, not quite coming close enough to touch 622 himself. "You up?"

[loyal_soldier]

He'd drifted off. It was easier to just close his eyes and not think, sink into the haze behind the pain. Every inner surface felt raw and sick, a literal bone-deep ache. Propped up in bed, he could breathe freely, and stop existing for a while.

Dimly, he heard something that pulled him back up, eyelids fluttering as he worked up the initiative to move. Had he imagined the sound?

Then he heard it again, more clearly. He opened his eyes, giving Poe a small, tired smile. "'m up." His voice was rough. His throat had cleared a little when he'd talked to Rex, but it had settled back down to sounding awful again by now. "Bed's doing the work, though."

[flightforfreedom]

Poe smiled back, or tried to, but the worry was still etched deeply into his features.

"Yeah, well, it can take it," he joked lamely. He turned his head, reaching behind him for a chair and then dragged it up closer to the clone's bed. He settled down into it, high enough to still keep full view of 622's face.

"I hate to tell you, but you both look and sound like hell," he informed him in what he hoped was a cheerful, teasing tone. "Couldn't quite undo that jawline, though, so I think you'll pull out fine."

The forced smile faded a little. "And you sound more like yourself, so that's good. How're you feeling?"

[loyal_soldier]

It was obvious Poe was worried. If even he could tell, it had to be obvious. And putting on a brave face was only going to help so much. Especially when his face was a mess.

"They've done a good job scraping me back together," he settled on that. "It's been rough, but we didn't go up there for a pleasure cruise."

[flightforfreedom]

"I think if they hadn't, Rex may have fed them their own limbs," he replied mildly. "He might still do that anyway. And that sounds like something someone who has never been on a pleasure cruise would say."

He wouldn't really know, it wasn't his thing either. But. Even military missions were usually meant to try to bring the majority of everyone back in one piece. At least he wasn't rambling about how every causality furthered the cause.

He reached out without thinking about it, but his hand halted a few inches above 622's and then hovered there. "If I give you a squeeze would I just make everything hurt worse?"

[loyal_soldier]

"We went to a beach once. Does that count?" Because honestly, it was just an expression. He had no idea what a pleasure cruise entailed, exactly.

"Do it." He hurt a lot, and everywhere. He was weak, too. But he still wanted to hold hands. They were allowed to here.

[ct_7567]

When Rex had been admitted to 622's room, the man had still been either asleep or at least fitfully dozing, unaware of his presence. That had been fine by Rex. It gave him time in silence and relative silence to look him over, get used to his haggard appearance, and sort himself out. He feels sick with guilt that he hadn't been there - though if he had gone, he would have spent the whole time sick with guilt over Martin; he can't be in two places at once, more's the pity - but at least he's here now, and he's determined to take care of things from this point forward.

When 622 stirs awake again, Rex is in the process of fixing his rumpled blankets, smoothing down the corner as though that makes any difference whatsoever. "Hey kid," Rex says in a low voice, though he doesn't necessarily expect a cogent response. That's all right. He can wait.

[loyal_soldier]

Someone was in the room again. Probably. He'd heard someone come in, then nothing else. Maybe he'd imagined it.

Eventually he felt something, enough to rouse him. A familiar voice, too, one that went right past conscious thought and fit neatly into a predetermined place.

"Sir," the word didn't properly come out, mostly got lost halfway up his throat. Didn't feel good. But at least he knew now he wasn't here alone.

[ct_7567]

"Rex," he corrects, though it's a gentle correction, as corrections go. He knows that there is some strange comfort 622 receives from thinking of him as a superior officer, and who is Rex to fault him for that now of all times? It's not as though he's wholly incorrect. Rex cannot claim that a superior officer wouldn't be looking out for him like this; if he had time on his side, this is what he'd do for all his men.

"Don't try to get up."

If they were in their rightful place in the galaxy, 622 would be in a bacta tank by now. But no - if they were in their rightful place in the galaxy, he doesn't know whether or not 622 would have been recovered at all. Clones in better condition had been denied treatment without their Jedi's interference. At least here, 622 can recover at his own pace, his only duty being the duty to recover.

"You took quite a beating up there. Just take your time, vod'ika."

[loyal_soldier]

That threw him for a moment. "Oh." Right. A feeble attempt to push himself upright died before it ever got acted upon.

"Mmn." His brow furrowed, trying to remember the words. "Mhi ru'parji." We won.

[ct_7567]

"Thanks to you, you did." Rex rests one hand atop 622's. Despite the unfamiliar medical equipment surrounding them and the lack of bacta tanks, it almost feels as though he's at home, walking through the medical wing and checking up on his men after a hard battle. After every one, they all wanted to hear the same thing. They're different, the lot of them, but in many ways they're the same: all they really want to know is that they did well, that they accomplished what they set out to do, and that they have the approval of their commanding officer. It's what Rex has always wanted too. He doesn't know if anyone is exempt from that feeling, no matter what rank they've managed to attain.

"You did well. You should be proud. I know I am." He considers apologizing for not being there - but no, not now. That would be more for Rex's benefit than it would be for 622's. It's a selfish impulse. "You acted with bravery, and with valour. You should know that that hasn't gone unnoticed."

[loyal_soldier]

He smiled, eyes drifting closed for a moment. He knew they'd done it. He could remember that much, before the haze of the radiation had sunk in. But to hear Rex tell him he'd done his part, it was... a relief. A compliment he'd hoped to earn, sometime.

And he was sorry Rex had been left out of it. "Save some for you, next time."

There'd been reasons Rex wasn't there, he was sure. Rex had his police duties. And there were only a few combat-ready imPorts on-planet, even fewer of them professionals. If things had gone bad, Rex would've been a perfect person to have on Earth, protecting the rest.

But sitting out a fight was always hard. So was watching troopers come back wounded, even if it was a victory. "Had to go through the reactor. Only way." There wasn't anything that a bigger force could've done.

JOINS THE CROWD

[h2no]

It's quite a bit after Poe and Rex have visited that Archie finally decides to slip in and see how 622 is doing. He has a coffee from the hospital café and a... small bear which he was guilted into buying. Proceeds go to the hospital. It's cute how it has a bandage on its head, right? Archie leaves it on the side table, near 622's jug of water and opts to sit in the visitor chair and just... wait.

He's stable enough for visitors, but Archie still doesn't want to wake him. He'll just... ignore that radiation damage, for now. Every time he catches sight of it, he winces. This bear needs more than bandages on his head.

PARTY IN WARD C

[loyal_soldier]

He's got so little energy. Just being awake is tiring. He's not quite sure where the conversations he's had even ended, or if they did at all. Maybe he just dozed off in the middle of them.

So when he wakes up again, he's not surprised by now that someone's sitting there. But he hadn't really expected... "Archie?"

this is so sad bb8 play jesse bloch take me home country roads remix

[h2no]

"Yo," he says, raising his hand in a greeting. Part of him isn't sure why he's here either, but... he cares, of course. He'd almost wanted to just leave the visit to Poe and Rex.

He's driven to want to help, and so here he is. At least he literally has the power to.

"I'm startin' to think you had a bit of a rough time," he jokes, though his heart isn't really in it.

[loyal_soldier]

He made a small huffing noise that might've been a laugh. "I've had worse." It wasn't a lie, and making light on it didn't quite feel right. But there was more to keep in mind right now.

"It was worth it, though. We got them."

[h2no]

Archie doesn't doubt for a moment he's had worse, seeing as 622 has literally died.

"Good," he says, though there's more to it than that. Now isn't the time to discuss it, though. Archie's not sure when the time will ever be. "How are you feeling now? Physically or otherwise."