Squinting above at the blinding light, he winced in pain. Humming to his left made him turn his head, trying to orient himself. The pain in his head had receded, thank the Force. All but a small ache at the base of his skull. In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time. Like he was on a cloud. His sight was still patched and blurred by whatever light he was surrounded by. His mouth felt dry. He licked his lips and a rustle to his left made him turn that direction. Red orange blue blur. Ahsoka. hmmmmmm...Padawan. Safe here. Wait...bond. Silent. Why is it silent. She's blocking me? She held something in her hand, moving it towards his face.
"Drink."
He lifted his head up from the-Wow that is a soft pillow-and tried to grab the cup from her, but his wrist wouldn't move away from the mattress.
What the kriff
His head turned to look at the mattress where a cuff circled either wrist and attached it to the edge of the bed.
Panic.
He jolted up and he felt something rip across his back.
Adrenaline spiked, all his senses returned. His nose twitched, it was sharp and chemical and salt and cold and bacta. No, no nononononoononono
Medbay. Not the medbay.
The monitors to his right went erratic, spiking and blaring alerts.
"MEDIC" Ahsoka ran out of the room.
Kark, he had to get out of had to get out of here before they found him, before she found him. He couldn't go back, he couldn't go back. If he had gone on record, she would find him. He had to get out.
He pulled and bucked at the restraints. Something slick was building up behind him. He'd worry about it later. His wings fanned out in the confined space. One of the monitors was knocked over by the limb.
Ragged breaths tore through him. He had to get control, he needed to get out of here. He leaned back, chest heaving and focused on his wrists. The cuffs were Force resistant, but he'd freed himself from restraints before.
He manipulated his thumb until he could feel the first knuckle pressed right against the edge of the cuff and jerked hard.
KARK
It hurt but it was worth it. He pulled his right arm free and reached over to his left, beginning on the second.
Heavy footsteps were approaching the room. He had to be quick.
Damnit
He couldn't get the second loose now that he'd dislocated his other thumb, He'd have to repeat the maneuver and relocate them later. He'd nearly finished when the door burst open. Four troopers and an orderly rushed in. They circled they bed and he flipped his weight so that the bed flipped to its side and he made a barrier between himself and the troopers. The orderly approaches where iv bags were located. He hadn't even noticed the needles in his arms yet.
Nononononono
They were reaching to add something to one of the bags. He used his free hand to reach the IV in his arm.
"Halt!" The troopers had blasters cocked and ready at their shoulders, trained on him. ready to fire. Whether stun or kill he didn't know.
He didn't care. he just needed these damn needles out of his arm. Needed them gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone gonegonegonegonegone
"SIR please."
NO this wasn't happening again. Anakin grabbed the iv lines and jerked the machine over and then worked on removing the needles from his arm. But he could barely look at them. Why couldn't they just disappear. Just disappear.
He could taste the salt running down his face. Why were they doing this to him. He was fine. He was fine. The red streaks on the mattress were nothing. It was nothing. Feathers were scattered around him. He pulled his wings forward KARK they were visible. The cloak was gone. He kicked the bed away and it knocked into one of the troopers.
"He needs to be sedated, now!" No. NO. The orderly could go kriff themselves.
He popped his other thumb out of place and both arms were free. More salt and iron coated on his tongue. He pulled back to the corner of the room, readying to use the wall to push off of and propel himself at the troopers, knock them down before the could fire. With a force push, the orderly was knocked back against the wall, skull connecting harder than Anakin had intended.
The troopers stepped back on step and reaimed.
"Final warning."
Anakin didn't care. He would rather die than stay in this room a second longer. With a wave of his arm, the blasters flew out of the troopers hands and across the room. He jumped up and kicked his legs against the wall, using the force to dive through the troopers and out the door. He rolled sloppily out into the corridor, knocking against the far wall.
"SCHUTTA" He braced the wall trying to stand but he couldn't get all the way upright. Blind from the pain momentarily, he stumbled forward. Hands gripped his shoulders and he tried to pull away but it didn't work.
"NO, I won't go back, you can't make me!"
He Jerked his right shoulder back out of their grasp, rearing his right arm to punch whoever it was holding him back. Her heard a clang as his fist connected with armor. He screamed in anguish.
"Let me GO! Please just let me go!" He pulled and fought and bit and clawed but the grip remained the same. Never easing. He fell to his knees and the grip remained there. Why wouldn't it leave... Just leave...Just leave me alone...
The grip adjusted, not just holding his shoulders but embracing him. They leaned against the wall and he couldn't stop shaking. Kept shaking. "Please...just let me go..."
The embrace only got tighter.
"Please..."
His head collapsed against the armored chest. he tried to push them away with his fists but he was so tired, so tired. A prick against his shoulder made him jolt.
"Calm down Skywalker, everything is going to be alright."
"No no no no" more tears streamed down his face "I can't be here...she'll find me and i'll have to go back there and I can't go back there I promised mom I'd stay safe and i promised i wouldn't show anyone because she would find me and now she's going to find me-"
"No one is going to find you. Just relax."
Anakin felt himself slipping. He slipped into the Force and felt the person in front of him. Tried to read their intentions. Oh. It was Rex. He should have noticed that. There wasn't any sign of malice. But he needed to get out of here, he needed to hide.
He reached out with the force toward Rex's mind, put him to sleep, or at least get him to relax enough to slip out of his hold. Just for a little whi…
Everything felt fuzzy and cold. Why was it so cold? He saw Ahsoka circle around, tears in her eyes and kneel next to Rex. She had a hypo in her hand.
"You're not going to be able to feel the Force for a little while. Please, stay calm and we won't have to do that again. We need to talk."
His mind tried to reach out to hers, but it was gone. The presence of Rex and the other troopers nearby had disappeared too. He couldn't feel anyone. He barely whispered, the muscles in his throat relaxing along with the rest of his body, "No...I can't be here." His head lolled back and he tried to pull away again to no avail. Rex's grip around him loosened but didn't disappear.
"Ahsoka, open the door to the next room over. He can't stay in the last one."
He couldn't move anything. He limbs might as well have been holos. Rex's arms lifted him up off the ground, one arm under shoulders, the other under his legs.
"Fierfek, you're as light as Ahsoka"
Any other time, Anakin might have laughed at that statement.
"Please…" He could feel the drugs coursing through his system.
They moved through the doorway, but the frame pulled at his wings as Rex moved through. Pain shocked through his right wing, the one he'd slammed into the hallway on. He gasped and Rex took a step back into the hallway, thank the Force.
"REX! What in hells are you doing with my patient?" a voice that wasn't quite Rex echoed down the hall, steps trotting toward them.
"I'm making sure that he doesn't injure himself even more than he already has."
The medic, it must be Kix, scoffed, "By having 4 troopers point blasters at him? I don't think so. And you're going to break his already dislocated wing, I can see it bent nearly backwards from here." Kix grumbled something under his breath that Anakin couldn't quite decipher.
He could feel hands gently folding his wings behind him so that he'd fit through the doorway. Rex moved forward and laid him down on the mattress. The orderly he'd hit walked in with another pair of cuffs and he felt his heart rate rise again. His sluggish limbs wouldn't obey his command to run away.
"No cuffs this time. He's not a prisoner." Rex turned to look at Anakin, "Providing you don't try to run away again until you're at least half healed. Think you can handle that General?"
Anakin wanted to nod no. Tell them that he would leave the second he had the Force back. But then he'd have the cuffs again. And he wasn't unused to lying.
He couldn't see into the Force, but he could feel Ahsoka poking at the edges of his mind, probing at his intentions. He slammed his walls up. How could she have injected that awful serum into him?
Ahsoka tilted her head to the side. "He's blocking me. And frankly, those restraints aren't going to keep him in that bed. They didn't work before and they won't work now."
"The Commander has a point. And if you injected as much serum into him as I think you did, I think he'll be fine for a while." Kix had moved from the doorway and retrieved rolls of gauze and packs of bacta from a cabinet in the room. "Orderly, round up anyone who has seen the General since his arrival on ship. I have a feeling that we may need to talk with them soon."
"Sir, yes sir."
Kix pulled a chair up next to the bed with the bandages in hand. "Anakin, I trust you with the lives of my brothers in battle, and after the battle you trust me with their lives. Do you trust me with yours?"
Anakin gave the slightest of nods and prayed he wouldn't regret this.
Kix put hand just behind Anakin's neck, pulling him forward slightly. The movement sent tiny rips of pain across his back. "I tried looking into your medical records, but there wasn't anything recorded since your first arrival into the temple. Basic immunizations, blood test, midichlorian count, that sort of thing. Then I ran a blood test today."
Kriff no. If that had uploaded into any database...
Anakin closed his eyes, he didn't want to hear anything right now.
"You're not human," Kix eased him back into the pillows and looked him in the eye, "at least not completely. I don't know how you kept yourself hidden but it is damn impressive."
Anakin could only stare ahead in silence.
"Right now, what I need to know is if you are allergic to any medications or drugs." The glare that was pointed at Rex and Ahsoka was beyond any that Anakin had seen on Kix's face before.
He shook his head no. Even if he was, he wouldn't know. All he'd ever used was bacta and...and the Zone. It had been a long time since he'd used up the last of his supply though.
"Alright. I'm going to rebandage your back now."
Rex mirrored Kix, holding Anakin forward while they removed the old bandages. He shivered at the bacta Kix spread across his back, restraining memories. His lungs burned at the antiseptic.
Anakin focused on Ahsoka, memorizing every scuff on her boots and tear in her leggings. Every speck of mud on her tunic and every scrape and cut and bandage on her arms and face and even her montrals.
Kix's arm moved into his peripheral vision, "Ahsoka, why don't you go get yourself some caf, Rex and I need to talk to Anakin privately."
She nodded stiffly before leaving the room. It hurt that he couldn't sense her walking out of his sight.
He didn't need the Force to see the two brothers hesitation to speak. "Just spit it out, Kix." He was tired of this day.
"It might be easier to show you."
Piece by piece, Rex's upper armor was removed and placed at his feet.
The brothers sat bare chested before him. He touched his right hand just below his left collar bone, tracing faded script.
"You have tattoos like I do."
On Rex, CT-7657. On Kix, CT-6116.
"In the early batches, there were brothers who wanted to be pilots or medics or in artillery. So, they'd get a scalpel and bacta and trade ID chips." Rex's weight lifted from the bed and paced at the foot of it. "The long necks didn't like that. Started giving us tattoos."
Anakin shuddered. Old memories swirling into new stories, echoing lives and pasts, similar and terrifying.
"The men don't trust you right now. They need to understand why they've been lied to, we need to understand," Kix pointed at the door, "Ahsoka needs to understand."
The medic inched closer across the mattress, looking Anakin directly in the eyes. "You may not have our blood, but you are our brother too. And we will work together to make sure you never have to go back to whatever it is you are hiding from. We just need to understand."
"Okay." Anakin heaved breath and eased back into the pillows. "Okay. I'll tell you everything."
