(A/N)- Hello again dear readers!
Let's get right to it, shall we?
Disclaimer: Ha ha I wish. Sadly I don't have several million with which to purchase the rights lying around.
Disclose
Sabine slept in the bunk with him for two more nights before she was called away to Krownest by an urgent message from her mother. Zeb took up her place for the rest of the week, having Ezra curl up in the lower bunk with him a couple nights, before Ezra insisted on having a bed to himself again.
He had wanted to protest more, feeling mothered by their worry, feeling like a kid who had to crawl into his parents' bed during a thunderstorm. In spite of how embarrassed it made him feel, though, he couldn't say no to Sabine and he couldn't argue with the results. He'd slept better in the past week than he'd ever slept the first few days he'd been released from the medbay back to the Ghost.
The effect vanished almost immediately upon his return to sleeping alone. His nights were once again restless, sleep eluding him for long hours as he tossed and turned.
He didn't always wake Zeb, but when he did, Zeb offered plenty of suggestions.
Chief among them was talking to Kanan.
"How's that gonna help any more than talking to you?" Ezra had groaned.
Zeb had shrugged. "You're his padawan. Worrying about you is kind of his job, isn't it? If nothing else he's a good listener."
He had a point. But Ezra didn't want to talk about it, not to Kanan, not yet.
He just needed some time, that was all. Leslynn said his body was still recovering. Still healing up. If he gave it a few more weeks, the sleepless nights and anxious thoughts would stop and he'd be back to normal.
No need to worry Kanan over something that was going to go away, right?
It would go away. It would.
He hoped.
-SWR-
"Okay, now flex."
Ezra breathed in slowly, curling his arm, squeezing the ball-shaped metal sensor in his palm.
Dr. Leslynn stood behind him, her hands gentle on his arm and shoulder, fingertips prodding, feeling how the muscles moved. "Good. Good. Very good," she said absently, checking the data readings on her datapad.
She had him hold position for about thirty seconds, then she straightened and stepped back.
"All right, you can relax," she told him.
Ezra did so, feeling an achy relief pool through his arm. He set the sensor down on the nearby tray and worked the kinks out of his fist.
He waited while Leslynn looked over her readings, his eyes wandering around the room. A medical droid worked methodically in the corner, cleaning off some equipment. There was a clean, sort of antiseptic smell in the air. He caught sight of a row of empty syringes laid out on a tray and flinched, immediately looking elsewhere. Leslynn hadn't had to take any blood samples in a while but...
He stirred as Leslynn cupped her datapad to her side, smiling brightly. "Okay, well, good news! Looks like you've regained about 90% of full muscle functionality," she said.
He nodded. That was good to hear, at least. He'd hated how much weaker he'd felt in the weeks following his capture.
"Blood pressure looks normal, scans aren't showing any signs of new tissue damage," Leslynn was reciting as she made a few notes on a piece of durasheet clipped to a wooden board.
"So am I cleared to start going on missions again?" Ezra asked, trying not to sound too impatient. His hands fidgeted, tapping the edge of the examination table.
Dr. Leslynn didn't look up yet. "Mmm, that depends," she said. "Do you have any new or worsening symptoms?"
Ezra stopped tapping. He bit the inside of his cheek, hesitating, reluctant. The words formed and reformed inside his head.
He was quiet so long it made Leslynn look up in concern.
"Ezra?" she called.
Finally, Ezra found his voice. The words pulled out of him slowly, every instinct inside him wanting to hold them back.
"There's this... sort of... buzzing... in my head," he explained.
Leslynn angled to face him. "What's it sound like?"
He grimaced. "It's not really a sound, it's more like..." The words to articulate the kind of feeling wouldn't come, and he gave a frustrated groan, throwing up a hand. "Ugh, I dunno."
The doctor's expression flattened. She set aside her clipboard and datapad, grabbing up a small pen light, which she flashed in Ezra's eyes.
"Any pain?" she asked.
"No."
She held up a finger and watched Ezra's eyes track it as she moved her hand back and forth. "Vision changes?"
He shook his head.
Leslynn frowned, stepping back and checking her datapad readings over again. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, she sighed, already dreading the upcoming conversation.
"Well, there's nothing physically wrong with you," she told him. A look of pity settled onto her face. "I'm afraid it's probably mental."
"So I'm a headcase." Ezra's shoulders slumped. "Great."
Leslynn chewed on her lip as she looked at him. He stared down at the floor, dejected. Like the light inside him had dimmed.
She set aside her datapad.
"I'm not much of a psychologist," she said, tone apologetic. She sat down next to him on the examination table, reaching to hold his wrist. "But I do know it can be hard to... adjust after a particularly unsettling experience."
Ezra gave a tired exhale. He'd known this talk was coming the moment he'd opened his mouth, but that didn't make facing it any easier. He was silent a moment longer, stalling, trying to delay the inevitable.
A tick or two passed.
"So how are you feeling?" Leslynn prompted gently.
Tired. Anxious. "Frustrated," he decided upon. "I can't relax. I can't... I'm always jittery and tense. Like there's something wound tight inside me that I can't shake loose." He didn't look up at her as he spoke, heat crawling across his face, making him hot with shame. "It feels like there's this constant comm static in my brain. Like I'm hearing something just soft enough that I can't ignore it, but I can't make out what it is. It's hard to concentrate."
"And your physical symptoms?"
He gave a shrug. "Trouble sleeping. Bad dreams. Cold all the time. Tightness in my chest." His hands began to curl into fists on his legs. "Hands keep shaking."
She squeezed his wrist, feeling the slight tremble in his hands for herself. "Well, first off I want you to know that what you're feeling is perfectly normal," she told him.
"That doesn't exactly make me feel better," Ezra said dryly, earning a smile from the doctor.
"I know," she said. "I'm afraid only time and a good support system can make your symptoms fade. I know that could be difficult to find in the middle of a rebellion, but you need to know that you aren't alone. A lot of people here go through exactly the same thing." She thought through the list of her patients, seeing their names and faces. "Especially after being held by the Empire."
"Kanan was tortured," Ezra pointed out, saying bluntly the word she was trying to euphemise around. "And he was just fine afterwards."
She pursed her lips. "I wouldn't be so certain of that," she muttered. "And anyway, people react differently to trauma," she told him, speaking a little louder. Her eyes were full of sympathy. "From what Captain Kallus told me, you were subjected to a particularly intense form of interrogation."
"But I don't even remember half of it!" Ezra groaned, pulling his wrist from her hand. He pressed his palms to his eyes in aggravation, slumping over with exhaustion.
"Maybe not consciously." Leslynn placed a hand on his shoulder. "But it was a trauma nonetheless. You need time to heal from it, same as with any other kind of injury."
"So I guess you're not clearing me for duty then?" Ezra guessed, sounding absolutely miserable about it.
She thought a moment. "We'll give it a week or two," she promised. "I want to let you have some space away from the fighting, for a little bit." Away from mortal perils and further traumatizing experiences, was her unspoken actual thought. "Then I'll clear you." She turned to her tray, beginning to stack her tools and put things away. "You'll let me know if your symptoms get worse?"
Ezra looked up from his hands, smiling in relief. "Sure, Doc," he told her.
But as he hopped down from the examination table and headed into the dank tunnels that made up the underground labyrinth of the Rebel base... he couldn't help but feel like he'd been lying to her.
(A/N)- Here I be with the chapter notes!
1. There Are No Therapists, but Leslynn tries her best dammit. I wanted there to be a distinct difference between the methodology of the Empire versus that of the Rebellion when it came to handling traumatized fighters. So whereas the Empire will just make sure you're physically fit and then send you on your way (something I mentioned briefly in "Cracks In The Mirror" via Kallus), the Rebellion will at least attempt to encourage you to chill for a bit and heal up and talk to people. It doesn't always work, since the Rebellion is full of martyrs and workaholics with hero complexes who constantly put their own traumas aside on a shelf for the sake of the mission but hey, they at least try.
2. I could not for the life of me remember what the normal Star Wars equivalent of paper was. Eventually remembered it but not before getting lost in the bowels of Wookiepedia. (Wikis will eat your time up like nothing, believe me.)
3. Ezra's avoidance issues multiply. Seems like he's also developing a particular aversion to needles. Boy oh boy have we got things to look forward to on that! :D
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