Ezra woke up slowly, gradually becoming aware that he didn't recognize his surroundings. There was no feeling of urgency or worry though, so he took his time coming to full consciousness, blinking up at the unfamiliar ceiling before turning his head to take in the rest of the room. His half formed fears that maybe he was captured again vanished when he spotted Hera in a chair nearby, focused on the cup she was drinking from
"Hey." Ezra formed the word with a little more surety than he had in a while and then paused, taking a deeper breath and swallowing. His throat and chest felt a little strange, heavy almost, but there was no pain. It took a little more effort to talk than normal, but it didn't hurt his throat.
Hera looked up immediately when he spoke, a relieved smile appearing on her face. "You're awake. Kanan said he thought it wouldn't be too much longer, even if the medical droid insisted you'd be out another day. How do you feel?"
Ezra cleared his throat experimentally, trying to sit up. He was laying on a bed with the one half already tilted up so it wasn't as far to go, but it was still more of a struggle than he expected. "Nothing hurts, so that's better. Much better. But it's hard to move." He made a face as he did manage to get to a sitting position, trembling with the effort.
"That's normal, considering you were tied up and drugged for almost a week." Sabine's voice cut in as she entered the small room carrying a food tray.
Ezra smiled, then blinked. "Wait, I was gone a week?"
"Not quite a week, four days before we found you, then you fell back unconscious." Hera clarified.
"Oh. Where is everyone else? And is that for me?" Ezra eyed the tray Sabine was carrying, now that he was starting to feel more alert and he could smell the food he was quickly becoming aware that he was so hungry it almost felt nauseous.
"Sorry, this is for us. Doctors orders are that you're going to be getting something easy on your stomach at first." Sabine held the tray down, so Hera could grab a bowl off of it.
"Zeb's still sleeping, it's early morning right now. Kanan's currently stalling the officials who've been investigating your kidnapping. They've been wanting to wake you up and talk to you since yesterday afternoon, but thankfully Doctor Tana's kept them out." Hera filled him in.
"And Chopper's watching the ship." Sabine added.
"He's not back at the barracks?" Ezra rubbed over his chest, clearing his throat. At least talking seemed to be getting easier.
"No, we're heading off planet in a few days, our replacements have been trickling in as they get transportation." Hera said.
"Because of me?" Ezra asked, feeling guilty.
"No, we're all tired of the rain and wet, and it's headed into fall. This location almost never gets snow, but it gets tons of cold rain and sometimes sleet and ice. Plus it seems a little dumb to keep one of the best pilots in the galaxy grounded too long." Sabine said.
"We do what we must." Hera smiled at the compliment, setting her mug and bowl aside. "I'm sure Doctor Tana would like to know that you're awake and she can clear you for getting something to eat."
"She's agreed to come with us . Well, not with us specifically. She's going to be joining us later. Having someone with her skills will make a big difference." Sabine looked pleased, and Ezra couldn't blame her. It was great news.
"For now though, try not to let her or anyone else know that you know she's made plans." Hera cautioned, as she stepped out to find the doctor.
Ezra took the small cup, eyeing the contents skeptically. It was brown and somewhat thick looking and reminded him of the liquid contents of the sewage pipes, just without the smell.
"It tastes much better than it looks, I assure you. Otherwise I'd never get anyone to drink it." Doctor Tana sat down in the chair near the bed.
"Thanks." Ezra took a careful sip, it was warm enough to be comforting but not so hot to risk burning his tongue. And she was right, the taste wasn't bad. He didn't need to be warned to take it easy. There had been times on his own where he's gone days without eating and if he ate too much at once it would come right back up.
"The good news first. Your pyrethroat is completely cleared and all your cuts and bruises were superficial and are well on their way to healing. How does your throat feel?"
"It doesn't hurt, but it feels… weird." Ezra reached a hand up to rub at his neck, habit at this point.
"That's normal and it will pass. There's a small amount of lung scarring from the pneumonia, it doesn't affect your overall lung function, but you will be more susceptible to further lung infections in the future. Basically, if you get a bad cough, get it checked out sooner than later." The doctor said.
"I can do that."Ezra took a deep breath, wondering if all the odd feeling was after effects or if some of it was from the scarring. "What's the bad news? Or was that it?"
"That was part of it. Thankfully the rest of the bad news isn't too bad. You've been sick for a while and the captivity was hard on you, you'll need to take it easy and build your strength back up. Just don't be surprised if it takes longer than you expect." Doctor Tana paused, tapping her datapad "If you feel like you're not making any progress, or backsliding, get it checked out. But I don't want you thinking you're going to be stuck feeling weak and out of breath forever when it takes time to get well again."
"So I need to be patient. I've been doing a lot of that, I think I've gotten pretty good at it." Ezra joked. Even if he was weak he had his voice back, and that was worth it.
"Will you be up for meeting with the Imperial agents? They want to ask you questions about your captivity." The doctor asked.
Ezra paused, thinking. He hadn't been able to ask Hera if there was anything he should or shouldn't say, but there shouldn't be anything he could give away as long as he followed the mission guidelines.
"Could someone sit in with me? So I if I need a break, or some water or something." Ezra asked. "And are my clothes around here somewhere?"
"Certainly, we'll get something set up and get you dressed." The doctor stood, letting herself out.
Ezra didn't have too long to get bored before a medical droid came in, carrying his clothes. They were clean, which was a relief. He didn't really remember what state they'd been in when he'd woken up, but he really doubted he'd have wanted to put them back on like that.
Tugging the medical gown off he could see more injuries that he didn't remember. Bruises that were healing, scrapes that looked to have been treated, and while the bruising wasn't as visible around his wrists he could feel the deep ache when he pressed on them. He wouldn't have wanted to get dressed without the droid, his limbs felt heavy and uncooperative. Thankfully the droid was fairly efficient at tugging the fabric into place, fastening and unfastening as needed, until Ezra was finally fully clothed. He would have managed it, but he never wanted to face Imperial questioning without pants if he could help it.
The droid didn't wait for him to walk the distance, shoving a wheelchair behind him until he sat and then pushing him out briskly to the next room.
Kanan was already there facing the two supply officers, and Ezra's first thought was he looked like he needed to be the one in the wheelchair. He looked exhausted, circles under his eyes dark enough to be bruises, but he straightened up when he caught sight of Ezra.
"Good to see you up. Ready to tell 'em what you remember? If you remember anything. The doctors have all been sayin' you might not remember much." Kanan moved to take the seat beside him, sitting down and leaning back, crossing his ankles and looking a lot more relaxed than Ezra knew he was.
"I don't remember much. I was at the information terminal and then the next thing I knew I was waking up somewhere I didn't know." Ezra paused to catch his breath, coughing into his hand. It felt like his chest was sore, but the cough itself wasn't wet or painful.
"Why were you there? According to reports you were unable to work due to illness." The officer on the left eyed him at the cough, like he was something gross to be avoided.
"I was, but he forgot his ID, left it behind." Ezra nodded in Kanan's direction. "You're supposed to have your ID on you, and I thought I'd be ok making the trip."
"And you couldn't just have called to tell him?" The officer arched an eyebrow.
"Have you ever tried to make a com call with pyrethroat?" Ezra rubbed the front of his throat in memory. "I woke up tied to a chair and heard two people talking, one was talking in Basic, the other wasn't. One came in and I pretended to still be asleep. They jabbed something into my shoulder, it hurt, then left. I remember getting the ties off my wrist and finding an open window to go out. And that's all I remember before I woke up here."
"Do you remember what they were saying?" The officer wrote something down.
"Not really. I was more interested in getting out of there." It wasn't that much of a lie, Ezra thought he remembered the gist, but he couldn't be sure.
"Do you think you could identify the voices if you heard them again?"
"Maybe? I couldn't say for sure. Everything was really hazy." Ezra shrugged a little
"And you didn't recognize where you were?"
"No." Ezra had been kind of hoping it would be quick, but it didn't look like it was going to be.
The questioning went on for a while, with a lot of backtracking Ezra guessed was to try and trip him up. He did find out eventually that they'd caught two people who'd been ordering a large amount of the same animal tranquilizer they'd used on him. He also found out that he'd gotten caught up in a popular scam. A wanna-be bounty hunter found someone who came close to fitting the description of someone with a bounty on them, grabbed them up, and then tried to convince someone, usually a low ranking Imperial trooper, to turn the captured person in for a share of the bounty. The idea was that the trooper would get the recognition as well as half the bounty, and the bounty hunter got half and didn't have to deal with the paperwork. The reality was, if the scam worked a trooper was left with a kidnapped person with no bounty on their heads, and the bounty hunter had taken off with the payment.
He kept quiet on the fact that with the wrong ID they'd mistaken him for Kanan. There was no reason for anyone to look too closely into why Kanan's false persona would be close in appearance to someone on the Imperial wanted list.
Finally though the doctor herself stepped in that the questioning had gone long enough. Ezra was glad. Kanan had tried a few times to interrupt, but the supply officers had just ignored him.
Ezra sagged back in the wheelchair, not even trying to stay sitting up on his own as Kanan wheeled him out of the room. He coughed dryly into his hand, then took the glass of water the doctor pressed on him. "Thanks." He sipped, his mouth dry from all the talking.
"The good news is that with that over with you're free to go." Docor Tana gave him a pat on the shoulder.
"I can go? Just like that?" Ezra perked up at that, despite how tired he was.
"Does he need any medicine? Anything else?" Kanan looked skeptical.
"Just time, rest, and good food. I'm sure you can manage that easier than having him stuck here." Doctor Tana waved a hand.
They met up with Hera, Zeb, and Sabine back near the room he'd woken up in and Zeb took over pushing the chair. After a minute Ezra noticed he was being pushed onto a lift, not out towards the waiting room.
"Where are we going?" Ezra asked, looking around the lift. It was much larger than he was used to, probably for moving large medical equipment.
"After all of that, we're not taking the bikes back. Hera and I made a trip out while Zeb and Kanan stayed with you." Sabine answered, as the lift opened up onto the roof.
There on the landing pad and tucked right up to the covered walkway was a welcome sight. The Phantom.
"You guys are geniuses." Ezra grinned. He'd not been looking forward to the long wet ride back trying to stay behind someone on a bike, even with all of them crammed in on the Phantom it was still going to be a far more pleasant trip.