A medic came, at Rey's insistence. The Twi'lek woman glowed with impatience as an armed guard escorted her in. Evidently she did not think Ben was worth her time, and honestly, Rey couldn't blame her. Waves upon waves of pilots had been arriving at the base since she'd woken. If their places were exchanged, Rey was certain she'd chafe at being asked to care for the enemy who'd committed so many atrocities against their cause, too.
To her credit, the Twi'lek was efficient and professional once she got to Ben's bedside: checking his vitals and frisking his body for undetected wounds. Rey watched her movements with some measure of possessiveness.
"Right leg is broken," the medic said. "Along with several ribs. His pulse is too faint for my comfort and his breathing too shallow."
"Can you help him?"
The Twi'lek cast a reprehensive look at Rey, who bit her lip to keep anything else from coming out of her mouth.
"Of course I can." She rose from her perch on the cot and turned to the human guard who had followed her in. "Go get Reeves or Abani. Ask them to bring in the big medkit. I'm going to need help setting this bone."
"But Shanvuras," the guard said with a shifty glance at Rey, "I'm supposed to stay with—"
Shanvuras waved a dismissive purple-skinned hand. "I could drop an entire transport on him and he wouldn't even twitch. I'll be fine."
Too intimidated to argue further, the guard scuttled away to carry out her orders. Rey decided she rather liked this woman. They probably would have been friends under different circumstances.
"I could do it, you know," she said. Shanvuras looked at her expectantly. "Set the bone. With the Force." Zero expression disturbed the Twi'lek's features. Not easily impressed, then. "If you wanted to spare supplies, I mean. I'd need to rest first, though."
Shanvuras shook her head, her lekku swaying gently with the motion. "I'd advise against waiting too much longer. Unless you don't mind leaving him with a permanent limp, of course."
Rey made a weak hand gesture that was supposed to resemble surrender. It must have communicated it well enough, because Shanvuras returned to her patient, rolling up his sleeve and disinfecting the pale skin of his forearm with a swab.
"Thank you," Rey said into the awkward silence. "For helping him."
"It's my duty to look after people," Shanvuras said curtly. "I take it very seriously."
"And I admire that."
She saw the medic pause, ever so slightly, then resume her work. Rey had a question to ask, but she wanted to be deliberate in how she posed it.
"He did something with the Force I've never known anyone to do before," she said. "The effort of it knocked him out. Do you—do you think it's possible he might not wake up?"
"I don't know." Shanvuras slid a needle into Ben's arm—an IV for fluids, judging by the small tank attached to the end of it. "I don't treat a lot of Force users, no surprise there. But if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say that if the damage was done by the Force, it would have to be mended with the Force, too."
Rey was still chewing on that answer when the guard returned with another medic, a young man carrying a much larger medical kit than the one Shanvuras had brought with her. His hesitation was scrawled plainly across his face, but he obeyed the senior medic's commands, and together they set Ben's broken leg with a spectacular crunch, splinted it, and added supportive bandages to his ribcage. Rey hovered nearby, wringing her hands and biting her nails in turn, breathing easily only when they had finished and Shanvuras was packing up her kit. Rey moved to Ben's side and took his hand in hers, not thinking about what it might look like to the Twi'lek.
"You should get some rest yourself," the medic said pointedly. "I'm going to have someone come in and take away most of the cots for our own wounded, but I'll have them leave one for you. Don't think I haven't noticed how run ragged you are."
"Thank you," Rey said, genuinely touched by this woman's no-nonsense concern. "I think I could rest now."
Now that he's been seen to, she thought but did not say. She stayed holding Ben's hand as the medic and her guard departed, several people came in to carry the other cots away, and at last they were left alone. It might have been Rey's imagination, but Ben's breathing seemed fuller and more natural to her now, more relaxed. She hoped that meant he was in less pain.
She had been so preoccupied with helping him, she had barely noticed her own pain. Her body ached all over. Nothing was broken, thankfully, but she had a feeling she'd be covered in bruises tomorrow. Worse than that, though, was this marrow-deep exhaustion.
I guess dying takes a toll on you, Rey thought to herself with grim humor. Reluctantly she let go of Ben's hand for a moment to drag the cot they'd left for her closer to his, so they could be within arm's reach of each other.
"I'm not going anywhere," she told him as she settled down on the cot and drew the covers up around her chest. "I'm right here with you."
She reached out and laced her fingers lightly through his, giving herself permission at last to go to sleep, comforted by his touch, knowing that he was safe.
_
A/N: Thank you all so much for your continued enthusiasm! Every single one of your reviews makes my heart so full. I originally intended this just to be a one-shot to soothe my soul but now I have so many ideas and I'm excited to share them with you. Some of you have remarked on how fast these updates are coming out-I happened to have a really open weekend, so it was just perfect timing and the lightning of inspiration! On that note, things will probably slow down now, but I'd still like to keep up the pace of 1 or 2 content updates a day until school starts again. Thanks so much and I hope you continue to enjoy!
