Author's note: This is a really long chapter, and I thought about cutting a lot of it down, but I really like it, so I didn't. I guess there's a lot of extraneous dialogue, and if, you know, I had the rest of the story written, which I don't, then I might be able to come back to this chapter and figure out what I need to keep of it and what can go. But whatever-I like it, and this is supposed to be fun, right? So I hope it's not too much.

Also, I did some research on "death sticks," which are clearly different in canon than in my stories, but I decided to start using the term for canon death sticks' active ingredient, ixetal cilona, to talk about which kind of spice I mean specifically-I shorten it to ixetal. The drug hasn't changed, it's just that I'd been feeling like the word "spice" was kinda vague and cumbersome for awhile now. I realize that it's kinda late in the game to start using that word, and I'll still usually just refer to it as spice, but I think I like this so I'll keep doing it. If that's okay.


"Fifty-two-point-six," says the medic, entering it into her data pad.

I cringe. I'd thought it was more than that. "Are you sure?" I ask.

"Don't worry," she says. "The machine says that you have a high muscle density for your weight, so it's really not that bad."

"I guess I pick up my kids a lot," I murmur in explanation, though my mind is elsewhere. Not that bad. My usual doctors told me they wanted me between fifty-seven and sixty-eight.

She takes my height next. "One-point…seven." She shrugs. "Six-nine," she amends, and enters it. "I'd be much more worried about your weight if you weren't so slight. Before your substance problem, you were already very thin, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

"I can tell by your build. How old were you when you started using?"

"Twenty-three." I was twenty-five when ixetal cilona-my drug of choice, the hard sticks-started to be a real problem, but I was already on something or other most of the time by twenty-three.

"Do you know how much you weighed at twenty-two?"

"Um…fifty-eight. But I had fast metabolism. I was just a kid. I ate constantly."

"And you don't have an appetite now?"

"It's just stress."

"Mm-hm."

She asks me to hold my right palm to the reader, and I hesitate. After being asked why, I admit, reluctantly, that it's a prosthetic. Hardly anyone knows about that. I guess I'm embarrassed or something, or maybe it's just bad memories. She scrolls down her datapad and says, "Oh, I see. War injury?"

"Kind of."

"Left, then," she says, making an adjustment to the reader, then nodding to me.

It indicates several other stats. "Heart rate is good. Blood pressure is a little low, but within safe levels. Blood sugar is good for someone who claims to eat so little."

"I had breakfast today." More or less. I ate something, anyway.

She nods as she enters something "What are you so stressed about, Luke?"

I shrug. "I talk to my therapist about that stuff," I don't need yet another person in on my insanity and its causes.

"It says in the records from your therapists' office that you have severe depression, which seems to be compounded by intense anxiety attacks at times."

I nod.

"But she's not allowed to tell me what about. And it might help me okay your reenlistment if you explain to me."

I shake my head. "The anxiety is…circumstantial."

"Caused by stressful situations?"

"Yes."

"But you react more strongly than those around you?"

"It makes me want spice. Really bad." I could never put how badly into words.

"And the depression?"

"I guess I feel like…I failed."

"What?"

"I don't know." It's too complicated and personal to go into. "Everything."

She sighs and leans in closer. "I'm wondering if you might be misdiagnosed."

I frown. "I'm depressed. And I have anxiety attacks. How could I be….?"

"Do you find your moods to be unstable? I mean, do they change suddenly, even reverse from very good to very bad in the span of a few minutes?"

My therapist never asked me that. I nod.

"Do you get bored easily?"

"Yeah..."

"Do you lash out at those around you?"

I swallow. "I'm trying not to."

"In addition to the drugs, are you reckless with other areas of your life?"

I think of my impulsive heroics during the war. "Like what?"

"Money, sexual relationships, stealing….?"

"I don't know. Not the first one…well…except I used to spend all my money on spice and have nothing left. And…I guess when I first left my ex-wife, I was pretty…sexually reckless."

"Have you ever tried to kill yourself?"

I glance at my wrists and make sure my sleeves are covering my scars. I hesitate, trying to convince myself to lie and say no. But at some point in the past year, I decided that I need to be honest with doctors, even if I don't want to be, even if I don't think it will help. "Yes…."

"Was your overdose last year intentional?"

I nod, looking away.

"Was that the only time?"

"No," I breathe. "I overdosed…a few times. I don't know how intentional it was. I slit my wrists once."

"When was that?"

"Eight years ago."

"Before the drugs?"

"Yes."

"Why did you do it?"

"I dunno."

"Just a few more questions. Do you see things in extremes, black and white, good and bad?"

It's all I can do to not laugh at the irony. I shake my head to myself. "I can't tell you how right you are."

"Does that effect the way you see yourself?"

"It bothers me constantly. But…I have good reason..."

"So you see the reasons for your behavior as being out of your control? Brought on by something that happened to you or was done to you?"

"Absolutely."

"Does it bother you to be alone?"

"I like being alone, but I think I do better-emotionally-when I'm not."

She rises. "I think you have Borderline Personality Disorder. No, I'm sure of it."

I frown. I guess I don't like being told what's wrong with my head. It was so much easier when what was wrong was that I was angry and high. "What's that?"

"It's defined by unstable mood, dysfunctional and chaotic relationships, and impulsive risk-taking behaviors in areas that have potential for self-harm."

It doesn't matter what I "have." She's just pretending that my problems make me fit into a box so I'm easier for her to deal with. At the clinic they just thought I was depressed. That was their box. Either way, I feel the same. It doesn't matter.

"Did all those questions I asked you…did it all sound familiar?"

"Well, yeah…."

"It's very common for people with BPD to turn to spice. And to resent authority figures-like your therapist, who I gather from your tones, you don't like much. And to develop eating disorders-"

"I don't have an eating disorder!"

She smiles in that tight-lipped way that people smile when you said something ridiculous, and you'd know it if you only thought about it. I shut my mouth. I guess I never thought about it that way. In my head, people with eating disorders are obsessed with being thin to be attractive. I stopped eating because of the spice-one of the more consistent symptoms of ixetal addition is loss of appetite. I would literally forget to eat for days, just because I didn't feel hungry at all. And I guess now it's a combination of stress and habit. I'm not anorexic. But I guess not eating does make my eating habits disorderly. I sigh in annoyance.

She nods. "Has your therapist ever suggested using pharmaceuticals to help you break out of this?"

I recoil physically. "Drugs? I'm a drug addict-"

"So she hasn't said anything about it?"

"No, she has. But I said no, because I don't know how anyone could think that's a good idea. And she never brought it up again." I shrug. "I thought she agreed with me."

"Luke, the right prescription could balance out the brain chemistry that brought on your depression and made you turn to spice in the first place."

"Spice did that, too."

"Did it? Did you feel better? Or just high, or numb?"

I sigh. "Numb, mostly."

"And when that wore off?"

"Worse than before."

She nods. "See. And there's nothing wrong with using medication to treat a chemical imbalance. It's a medical condition just as much as…high blood pressure, for example."

Sounds like bantha shit, but I don't respond visibly or audibly.

"Would you be willing to try something?"

"You really think I should?"

"I think it's worth a try. And you might find it makes your feelings make more sense again."

That would be nice. I sigh. "Um…well, what would I be…?"

"It's a mild antidepressant. In pill form. You'd just take two every morning, and up to two more per day when and if you feel that you need it. Or just the two in the morning if that's enough. If you want to start on just one, to see if that's enough, you could do that, too."

"What does it do?"

"It causes your brain to produce higher levels of serotonin, as the most common cause of chemical depression is either that the brain's serotonin receptors are partially inactive, or that the brain doesn't produce enough."

"Shouldn't you check to see which one I have?"

"We'd prescribe the same medication either way."

How irresponsible. I could have something else wrong with me. And it's not as if we don't have the technology or money-the New Republic covers all of their veterans' medical costs-to do a proper investigation of my brain chemistry. Actually, I'm surprised they didn't check all that when I was in rehab, but I guess it's not really standard procedure. So this medic with whom I've been speaking for seven minutes thinks she knows what's wrong with my brain and that she can give me a pill that's going to fix it, and not the way ixetal did. "You think if I take it, I can be okay enough to serve in Rogue Squadron?"

She smiles awkwardly. "If depression, BPD, or PTSD were enough of a reason to be excluded from military service, we would have very few soldiers."

That's fucked up.

"But yes, I do suggest antidepressants."

"What if they're not helping, or they make me uncomfortable…can I stop taking them?"

"Of course! Well…slowly."

I laugh bitterly. "There's a withdrawal."

"A bit."

"Right." I sigh. "I…I don't think it's a good idea."

"Because there's a withdrawal?"

"Withdrawal means chemical dependency. I'm not doing it. I've worked too hard."

"I promise the pros outweigh the cons. Don't you want to feel normal? Like you used to?"

"Not that way."

"It's medication."

"That's a word. As far as I'm concerned, it's spice."

She sighs. "Alright. Well, here." She inserts and pulls out a card in the prescription slot on her medical datapad, and passes it to my hesitant hands. "Here's the prescription. You don't have to fill it. If you do, I want you to come see me half way through the pack, and let me know how it's going. If not…." She shrugs.

"Isn't there a more permanent fix for the serotonin thing?"

"There are some, but this is far less invasive, and it's entirely probable that your brian will eventually get better on its own. Very few people have depression for their entire lives. We just need to treat it in the meantime."

I eye the card uncomfortably. "So…that's it?"

"That's it."

"And…you think I'm okay?"

"I think you need to eat a lot more. Three or four times a day. And if you take the antidepressants, you should feel less anxious, which, according to you, will help your appetite. Other than that, I think you're fine."

I'm utterly bewildered. She just re-diagnosed me. And now I'm fine. "Fine?"

"Your intentions are to be clean and sober and turn your life around. You want to go back to an old job at which your talent is legendary. Despite your low weight, I don't find you to be inordinately unhealthy, physically. If you lose any weight, I might have to change my mind, but for now…you have my permission."

I want to argue with her. I want to tell her she's wrong, and that this can only end in disaster. I remember with conviction the times I'd had to be hospitalized from spice abuse and the way I'd behaved at the rehab clinic. I remember every time I got sick or injured during the war. I think about my therapist. In every case I can think of, in all those situations, it's me insisting I'm fine, and the medics or whoever telling me I'm not. And suddenly a medic is telling me I'm fine, and I know to my core she is wrong. "You don't think…."

"What?"

I shake my head. "That I'm too weak? Or crazy?"

"I don't think you're crazy."

I blink, looking at the card in my hands.

"Your therapist said it was alright as well. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here."

There's a part of my brain that is being very insistent that both my therapist and the military medic are not doing their jobs properly. It's like when I was a kid in school, and I got good reports sent home to my aunt and uncle when I knew I'd drawn starships through class and done the bare minimum of actual work. I was relieved, though bewildered and concerned, because if my teachers didn't know how little I'd achieved, they really weren't very good teachers. So these two professionals think I'm fine, when I know I'm not. They're clearly not very good doctors.

But I'll take it.

"Thank you," I murmur, rising.

On the way home, I fill the prescription with the pharmacist in the Palace. I carry the pills home in their little cylindrical container, feeling them in my pocket, unable to think about anything else. When I get home, I sit alone in my room, holding the bottle, rolling it in my artificial right hand, thinking. Trying to convince myself to take one even though I'm bothered by the very idea on principle. Trying to convince myself to never take one though there's a part of me that promises that I'll feel better. In the end, I realize that if I did take one, it would be for the wrong reasons-it would be because I can't have ixetal but I can have this-and I shove them into the back of a drawer. I wonder why I didn't just throw them away.

They're medicine.

There were a lot of things I took back in the day that were "medicine," too. Medicine misused is no different than spice. I somehow got my hands on tranquilizers, prescription pain killers, attention deficit drugs, sleeping pills, muscle relaxers…all kinds of stuff. Some that are now illegal in the New Republic, like amphetamines. Sometimes they were easier to get than ixetal, because people would find ways to get prescriptions and then sell them on the street. Easier than smuggling narcotics like ixetal cilona, glitterstim, even ryll, or what have you.

But I never took antidepressants. I don't know how they'll make me feel, or for that matter what any of the prescription drugs I've taken feel like in their actual prescribed dosage.

I take the pills back out of the drawer and open the container, let a few slide into my hand. I look at them for a long moment, then pour back in all but one. I hold it closer, reading the brand name on the pill, thinking about how barbaric it is that in this day and age, mind-altering drugs are still used to treat emotional imbalances. Just lazy. Or maybe greedy on the part of the drug manufacturers.

I can't buy into that. I can't willingly dull my mind now that I've broken free.

I put the pill back and cover the bottle up with a few shirts, slamming the drawer shut. I don't tell anyone I have them.