Mina blots a washcloth over Sierra's face while Steela rips the covers off her bed and lays them over Sierra.
"Is that better?" Mina asks.
Sierra mutters something so slurred, it's inaudible. Mina stops.
"Did you hear that?"
Steela nods.
"It didn't make sense, Mina."
Mina looks at her daughter, and it hits her.
"Steela," she orders. "Get Captain Rex."
…
"Do we know what we're going?" Lux demands, nearly dragging Saw behind him as they race across the landing platform.
"Rex and Tandin are taking care of her right now," Saw says. "Korkie's had medical training too, but I think he's pulling it out of his -."
"Get in the ship!" Ahsoka orders, waving us up the boarding ramp.
"Ahsoka, what is this? What's wrong with Sierra?" She used to work with the clone medics, she has to have seen this.
"It means Sierra's blood pressure is too low to keep her alive." Ahsoka shuts the ramp and sends an all-clear ping to the cockpit. "I should have seen this coming. We knew she wasn't getting fluids. If that didn't do it already, then the stress from her injuries put her body over the edge."
Steela rushes past them, her arms full of towels, and Lux locks stride with her. "Stee, how bad is it?"
"It happened so fast. Mina and I were cleaning her up while Rex and Tandin were getting the splint for her leg and out of nowhere, she crashed." She opens the door to her and Sierra's cabin with her hip.
Sierra's skin is ashen, like candle wax. Tandin's struggling to find a vein in her skinny arm to start an IV while Mina sits at her head, petting her hair.
"Steela, put the towels under her feet." Rex orders, hooking supplemental oxygen around Sierra's nose. "We need to get more blood to her head."
"What about anti-shock trousers?" Korkie asks.
"Don't have any. They won't fit over her leg anyway." Rex says. "Steela, towels."
"Watch her leg," Mina says.
Lux lifts Sierra's feet and Steela places the towels under them.
"We have this under control, right? We can fix this?"
Tandin hooks a bag of fluids to the IV line. "We need to get to a medical station right away."
"Why didn't we see this immediately?" Mina demands.
"My brother Kix told us that pediatric patients, they hide shock well." Rex says. "One minute they look perfectly fine and the next…"
And the next, they're gone.
"Can't we give her something to drink? Won't that help speed this up?"
"No!" Mina raps out. "We can't give her anything by mouth, Lux. That would kill her for sure."
Lux looks down. "Sierra, it's Lux. You're home, you're safe now. And Mom and Steela are here too."
"She can't hear you, Lux." Steela says. "When we first brought her here she would respond a little, but it was…wrong."
"Wrong?"
"Tandin would ask her a question, and her answer wouldn't make any sense."
Tandin covers Sierra with a blanket. "Rex, how does her blood pressure look?"
Rex glances down at the cuff. "Systolic's 82. Hang in there, kid. We'll be to Alderaan soon."
Mom runs her fingers through Sierra's hair. "I love you," she whispers.
"How far are we from the nearest medical station?" I ask.
Korkie looks at the clock. "One and a half standard hours. Senator Organa says he has a medical team on standby waiting for her."
…
"Do you know what made these marks?"
Ahsoka really doesn't want to answer Mina's question, but Mina isn't taking no for an answer. "Those are electric burns. She's been on the table."
Steela clears her throat. "To be honest, I'm more worried about these…"
She traces the puncture wounds on Sierra's arms, then the matching scars on her own.
"Those are track marks, from an IV. If she wasn't getting fluids, I can only guess that they were drugs."
"Oh, gods." Mina moans. "What have they done to her?"
…
"The patient is a sixteen-year-old female removed from an interrogation chamber an hour and a half ago. She lost consciousness on the way back to the ship and we've been running normal saline wide open and supplemental oxygen at six liters per minute." Rex briefs the medical staff, carrying Sierra. Mina is right beside him with the IV bag.
"There's a fracture in a lower right leg that needs an X-ray and a better splint." He lays Sierra down on a gurney.
One of the nurses showing the way is impressed. "Were you a medic?"
"No, but I helped them."
A bald doctor presses his stethoscope to Sierra's chest. "We've got good breath sounds. Temi, draw a CBC, CMP, and tox screen; get an EKG, a CT of the head, and shoot an X-ray of that leg."
"Got it." The nurse nods and shouts over her shoulder "Maddie, get me the glucometer and call CT. I'm starting another IV."
"You can save her, right?" Lux asks.
"You did the right thing. She has a fighting chance." The doctor says, rushing Sierra into the Med Bay.
…
Bail Organa arrives in the foyer, where some handmaiden finally decided to take the con men. "Mina?"
Mina exhales. "Bail, thank goodness you answered."
"Of course. How is your daughter?"
Everyone looks at Mina. She was the only one allowed in the Med Bay with Sierra.
"They're monitoring her vitals and gave her fluids and some sugar to replace what she wasn't getting. The doctor says she doesn't have any head injuries and there's no sign of damage to her heart." Mom says. "They did an X-ray of her leg and it's a clean break. They'll put a cast on it and she'll be on crutches, but she'll live."
"Thank goodness," Organa says, and looks to Lux. "It's Lux, isn't it?"
"It is." Lux extends his hand, and they shake.
"The last time I saw you or your sister, I was holding you like this," he pantomimes holding a baby.
Ahsoka clears her throat. "Senator Organa."
"Padawan Tano," he regards her. "It's good to see you again. I just wish it wasn't under these circumstances."
"I would have to agree with you, Senator." Ahsoka says, smiling and bouncing Tav on her hip.
Organa smiles. "And who is this?"
"Goooo." Tav gurgles, his fingers in his mouth. "Gooooo."
"His name is Tavin." Ahsoka says. "We call him Tav."
Organa waves at Tav, who pays no more attention to him than he does the wall.
"What an adorable child," Organa says. "My daughter Leia was the same way when she was that age. It was only a few months ago!"
"You have a daughter?" Mom asks.
"Breha and I adopted her shortly after Empire Day."
Ventress clears her throat. "That's very sweet, but to be honest I don't care."
"Hush," Hondo says. "The sentimental, they always pay more."
Ahsoka grits her teeth and smiles. "Of course. Hutch?"
"I'm just finishing up now." Hutch makes a few quick keystrokes on his comm device. "The money's been transferred to your accounts."
Ventress uses her comlink to check her bank account, then leaves without another word.
"Thanks for all your help!" Ahsoka yells after her.
Hondo strolls up to Hutch, Hero, and Katooni. "Stay strong, tiny Jedi. Keep stealing."
"I will," Katooni says. "Thank you for helping me."
"Of course old Hondo will help you!" Hondo bellows. "Now hug me before I start to cry. I hate goodbyes!"
Katooni hugs him. Hondo smiles at Hutch and Hero.
"Take good care of her, Tiny Jedi's parents." He says, grabs his credits, and walks out the door. "So long, Katooni! Now that uncle Hondo is rich, I will send you a big Life Day present…if I remember when it is!"
Before he leaves, he cranes his neck to look at the Mandalorians. "You know, what I said about hiring –."
"No," Bo-Katan cut him off. "We're leaving right after we take care of the other matter."
"Other matter?" Ahsoka asks.
Senator Organa smiles. "Right this way. She's been drawing up a storm ever since you dropped her off."
He leads them down a hallway and opens a door, revealing three people. Breha Organa is sitting in a rocking chair, holding a baby. A toddler lies sprawled across the floor, surrounded by a halo of flimsi and crayons. At the sound of the door opening, she jumps.
"Bo!" she shrieks. "Mrs. Breha let me use her crayons!"
"I see that, Sabine." Bo says, gesturing to the mess.
Sabine grabs her drawing and hops over to Korkie. "Look! I drew you. Mrs. Breha says it's good enough to put on the fridge!"
"The fridge?" Korkie mutters to Soniee. "Isn't our fridge a bit -?"
"Of course," Soniee says.
Sabine bolts back to the crayon box. "There's light blue, and dark blue, and normal blue, and blue that looks like purple, and greeny-blue, and three kinds of orange and lots and lots of other colors, and Mrs. Breha said I could use all of them!"
While Sabine gushes on about all of her drawings, Ahsoka looks over to Bo. "Is she -?"
"Mine? No. She's a friend's kid, and she's staying with us. It was Korkie's idea." Bo tells me. "We didn't have anyone to watch her while we went on the job, so Senator Organa volunteered."
Breha hands the baby to Bail, and then asks "Sabine, would you like to keep the crayons?"
Sabine's eyes are like moons. "Really?"
"You love them so much, and Leia is still too young to play with them," Breha says before adding "They're all worn down to nubs anyway" under her breath.
"Wow!" Sabine marvels. "Wow!"
"What do you say?" Korkie prompts.
"Thank you Mr. Bail and Mrs. Breha!"
Bo turns her attention to Bail and Breha. "Thank you for watching Sabine."
"Oh, she was no trouble at all," Bail says. "She just colored the whole time."
He turns the child on his hip toward the con men. "This is our daughter, Leia."
The tot blinks, and her presence in the Force nearly knocks Ahsoka over. She's only felt one like it once, years ago…
She hands Tavin to Lux, afraid she'll drop him.
Bail sees the look in her eyes, and nods.
This is Anakin's daughter.
"May I hold her?"
"Of course," Bail says, handing Leia over.
Leia is older than Tav. Old enough to shriek "Da-ee! Da-ee!" over and over while kicking Ahsoka with her chubby little legs. She hands her back to Bail, the contact all too short.
Just then, a handmaiden walks in through the door.
"Mina Bonteri?"
Mina all but shoves her way to the front of the room. "Yes?"
"Please follow me to the medical bay. Your daughter is awake."
