Kiara sat in the room that had become too familiar to her. The others had to leave out on the Ghost earlier that week, already. That meant that she knew no one else on the Med-ship other than the unconscious man lying on the bed in the room. They had promised to contact her as frequently as they could, and she equally promised to send word the moment that there was any change in Alex's condition.
She'd settled in her seat with her datapad in her hands as she read over more information regarding the purgill. The only thing she really had to fill her time. She had read aloud to Alexsandr the reports that she sloshed through; including Wolffe's report from the battle of Lothal and was interested in the mentioning that Ezra had sent the Ghost with orders through Mart that they were to send out a message on frequency zero.
She wondered...
She looked through the report and others from after the battle and couldn't see where anyone had duplicated the call. Or if they had, they didn't put it in the reports. Which was possible.
"I wish you could tell me what you know about the days after that battle," Kiara sighed. She knew that he and the rest who had joined the Ghost crew had stayed on the planet to help the citizens learn to fight in case they needed to for the following weeks so if anyone had attempted to recreate the call Alex may know about it.
She leaned her head on her hand as she continued to read the files that she'd downloaded onto her datapad and had been reading for several hours, knowing that she could hear the exhaustion in her own voice. That meant that she was going to have to return to her cabin to sleep, soon. She reluctantly stood and gave Alexsandr a light kiss on his lips.
"I'll be back in a few hours. Hopefully, I didn't bore you with all of this research." Kiara then walked toward the door and just as the door was about to close behind her, she heard a very slight groan coming from inside. She spun on her heels and her eyes found Alex's form on the bed immediately. She heard another ever so slight groan, and she was back at his bedside, grabbing his hand, before she could even compute what she was doing. "Alex? Take your time. I'm right here."
She saw as his eyes moved behind closed lids and watched on with anticipation. Her heart wanted to beat out of her chest from the stress of waiting. Against her palm she felt a slight movement under her hand which only heightened the excitement. When both movements ceased, and Alex went silent once more, she felt her heart sink. She'd been sure that he was going to finally wake up. But it was a good sign. He was fighting to wake up. She just had to be patient.
Alexsandr could finally distinguish a voice instead of muffles. A voice that he knew well. He couldn't do much other than to lay there and listen. She sounded tired. So tired. Nearly as tired as he was.
He wanted to do something. Anything. He was so frustrated; not being able to move, speak, or anything. He wanted to leave this soft bed that he felt under him. Wanted to open his eyes. Wanted to close his hand when he felt something, a hand perhaps, in his own.
He heard her tell him that she'd be back later. Felt the soft kiss that she left on his lips before he suddenly felt alone once more. Staying in the darkness of the haze alone was disconcerting and he tried to groan in frustration. This time it felt different. He heard a sound that he'd not heard before while in this shadowy world between life and death; awake and unconsciousness. Was that him? He worked to make the sound again and he heard it once more. A very soft and slight groan but he'd made it.
In response a comforting touch returned to his hand, and he knew that she was back. She spoke to him, and he did his best to let her know that he could hear her. That he didn't want her to leave. He wanted to open his eyes. Wanted to see her. His eyelids refused to lift the veil that kept him in darkness, however. He instead concentrated on where he felt her presence and absorbed its warmth once more. He tried to embrace that warmth. Still, he felt as if he was trying to move his limbs through durasteel.
Exhausted, without any success, he had to stop. He had to return deeper into the darkness. Staying near the surface for long was too difficult and he'd used so much energy. Wasted energy, he felt, since he'd not been able to accomplish anything.
Kiara fell asleep with her head on Alex's arm the night before. After his brief display of trying to come around she hadn't been willing to leave. Still, as she straightened from where she'd slept, her neck aching from the position she'd left it in for hours, she knew she had to leave, even if briefly. She needed to get cleaned up and she had promised to send a message to the others about any change.
She went to her ship and left a message with Chopper when he answered for the Ghost and informed the others of the brief, yet frustrating, moment that it appeared that Alex was waking up. She then went to the refresher to get cleaned up with a fresh jumpsuit and tamed her hair back down since it looked as if she'd spent the night having a much more enjoyable time than she had. Her eyes looked sunken from the weeks' long vigil but there wasn't much that she could do about it. She was worried and tired, and her eyes didn't hide it one bit.
When she was ready for the rest of the day, she asked Tac to monitor frequency zero for her. She didn't want him to send out any messages, just to monitor and record any data that he could. She didn't know what she expected to find but it was the first real clue that she had to pursue so she figured that it wouldn't hurt to at least monitor the channel for a while.
With that done, she returned to the room in the infirmary where she'd left Alexsandr. The doctors planned to perform their daily exam while she was gone. They had been encouraged by the report that she'd given them of the activity of the night before. However, it was their experience that it was best to observe their patients without any friends or family around. Kiara figured that she'd been gone long enough to allow them to perform their tests when she headed back.
In the room, Kiara was surprised to find that while Alex wasn't awake, he did appear to have the doctors' attention. He was moving, twitching, and groaning. He sounded aggravated. She raced to his side while feeling somewhere between excitement and concern.
"Is he alright?"
One of the doctors in the room nodded. "As long as he's been out, it'll take time for him to wake up. He seems to be trying to do just that, but it won't be easy. Just give him time. Let him go at his own pace."
Kiara acknowledged the doctor's words and clung to the hope that the man was really on the verge of waking from the nightmare that he's been trapped in. She waited until the doctors finished with their exams and then left her alone once more with the man who seemed to be struggling to awaken.
With his energy restored, Kallus felt as if the weight of the thick haze around him seemed to lighten. Not much, but a little. He could hear men and woman standing around him, talking about him. Speaking of him as if he wasn't in the room. Hearing them frustrated him immensely since they acted as if he was nothing but an intriguing case. He was more than an oddity for their amusement, though.
Frustrated, he wanted to shout at them. To tell them to leave him alone. That he wasn't a medical experiment. He was able to find his own voice, again. A groan, a bit stronger than it had been before. How long ago was that? Still, the groan didn't encourage the men and women to leave him be.
Eventually, he heard their voices mix together, but one joined them.
"Is he alright?"
She was back. He felt the warmth spread from where his hand came in contact with hers and he focused on where they met. He used it as if it were a lifeline to pull himself out of the darkness that surrounded him. He also could sense that she was trying to find him in shadows that kept him prisoner. Using the force to guide him back to where she was?
Kallus did his best to flex his fingers, do anything to let her know that he could sense her, knew she was there. That he was trying to break away from the haze that still held him back.
Too soon, he was forced to stop his fight. He no longer had the energy to keep going. He'd have to wait. Wait until he was stronger. He couldn't give up, though.
Kiara watched as Alex's movements and groans stilled and sighed. Close but not quite. She then settled into the chair next to the bed and wondered if this was going to become the new normal. Waiting for moments of hope only to watch it fade when he eventually goes quiet again for the rest of the day.
She swallowed. She'd realized something that she couldn't tell the others yet, but she had to give voice to it. Kiara closed her eyes as she paused while trying to formulate the words that she needed.
"This was all my fault. And I don't mean because I flew the ship out before you were onboard. Which I'm still angry that you tricked me into doing, by the way. But- But it is because I was at the base at all. I'm the cause of so many deaths and I should have seen it before." Kiara furled her brows as she thought back to the events of that day that changed everything.
"Elios wasn't even the Moff of the sector where Suaren is in. He went there looking for me. He wanted me and he took it out on you when he didn't get me." She brushed a hot tear from her eye and blinked back the rest. "And he's not going to stop trying to find me. Which means that I can't go back and join the others at this new base of theirs. If I go there, then they won't be safe. So that means when you get well-enough, I won't be joining you there."
Kiara's face took a hard look before she added, "Not yet. I won't go anywhere until I know you are okay but-"
Her breathing labored as she tried to keep the fact hidden that she wanted to wail at the thought of walking away from what she'd found with not just Alex, but she'd also be leaving behind her brother and her friends that she'd gained since leaving the Empire. But if she wanted to protect them then that was exactly what she would have to do.
He heard himself groan softly and he tried to turn his head to the side. It moved ever so slightly. He listened to the quiet around him as he tried to figure out where he was. He cracked his eyes open but closed them when it felt as if he had blades stabbing him in them. They were incredibly dry. He did his best to blink to work up some moisture and then tried to open them again just ever so slightly.
It was dim. Not dark, just dim. He spent several minutes letting his vision adjust to the shadows that filled the room. As he did, he noticed that there was a slight weight on his left arm. He worked to move his head so that he could look to his left and saw that Kiara was asleep with her head on his arm; almost like she was using it as a pillow.
He struggled and reached his right hand over and rested it on top of her head and slipped his fingers into her soft hair. He then listened to her soft breathing as she slept and allowed the sound of it to lull him back to sleep.
Hours later Kiara began to wake up and felt something on her head. She lifted her head before she felt and saw Alexsandr's hand fall back onto himself. Had he woken up in the night and she missed it after several weeks' worth of showing indications that he was trying to come around? "Alex?"
There was no response, which was disheartening. She then sat and waited for the daily exam. When the medical staff came in to check on their patient, she explained how she'd woken up to find that he'd apparently at least partially regained consciousness during the night. Enough to place a hand on her as she slept.
She was then herded out so that they could perform their exam in peace, but she insisted that she'd return in a half an hour. She then rushed through her morning routine of getting cleaned up and changing into a fresh jumpsuit while Tac would download any data he had from his monitoring of the frequency that apparently the purrgil used.
Once that was finished, she walked back into the room that held Alexsandr and listened to the doctors finish up their examination and informed Kiara that he could wake at any moment for good or it could take many more days. They just didn't know. As they were explaining that a groan broke through and caught the attention of all in the room.
"I'm... right... here." Kallus tried to sound annoyed at the fact that they were acting as if he wasn't even present for their little confab, but his voice instead came out in a soft, yet gruff, whisper.
Kiara went to make her way to the bed but was pushed back as the staff reexamined Alexsandr, leaving her to wait across the room as they busied themselves with their work. When he spoke again, she had to smile.
"Stop... poking... me."
She saw as he tried to lift an arm to shove the people away from him, but he clearly was too weak to put much strength behind the effort. Still, Kiara couldn't help laughing at the attempt. As the staff annoyed Alex, she sent out a message with her datapad to Tac to have him contact the others to tell them that he was awake and that she'd fill them in when she knew more.
Once the two were alone again, she saw that Alex still looked so incredibly tired. She wanted to let him rest but at the same time a part of her was afraid that if he fell back to sleep that he wouldn't wake up again. Irrational, she knew, but the idea loomed over her anyway.
"How?" Alexsandr asked, wanting to ask how he'd gotten to the infirmary that he clearly was at. Kiara understood. Likely, her ability to read people.
"After Suaren," Kiara reflexively tightened her hand at her side. "We couldn't let you stay in the hands of the Empire, now, could we?"
He had so many questions, but he knew he'd not be able to ask them right now. He could feel the dark tide trying to take him back to the regenerative slumber. He listened as Kiara changed the subject and told him about how the others had left to help set up the next base but had promised to stay in touch. She also told him that they likely would return now that she had informed them that he'd woken up. Though she hadn't said how long it had been since he'd been rescued, he had the distinct impression, both from hearing what she was saying as well as what he'd heard from the doctors, that he'd been out for much longer than he was comfortable with thinking about.
For now, though, he intertwined his fingers with hers and listened as she spoke and allowed her voice to lull him back to sleep. He'll ask his questions later.
