Smile

Touch 2.

"Let me."

She knelt, trying to be reassuring, while at the same time keep him from grabbing her hands and preventing her from doing what was needed. Gree struggled, sitting on the grey floor of the cave, visibly working to keep from writhing in pain. With his helmet on, no sound came from him, and it stood in strange, silent contrast to his pained struggling. He batted Barriss' hands away from him, kicking his feet in her general direction without actually kicking her; then a spasm came and he doubled over, clutching at his shoulders.

Barriss took the opportunity to press forward, to grab him while waving off one of the clone medics. "I will take care of him," she said sharply. "See to the others." He nodded and turned sharply, moving on to the next man down.

Most of the wounded had the usual injuries: plasma burns from blaster fire and detonators, lacerations and broken bones from being thrown by the overpressure of exploding grenades. A few, though, were in Gree's situation, with small, red tufted darts protruding from the vulnerable points in their armor, in the joints and chinks where black jumpsuit was visible under the barrier of white. She slid her hands up over his dented shoulder plates, over the buckled fastenings and down again, pulling him against her to both restrain and comfort. "Shh," she whispered. "Shh."

For a moment, Gree rallied and grew still, his body only twitching and slightly rocking. Then his hands reached out and grabbed her, high along her spine, gauntleted fingers digging into the back of her ribcage. Barriss gasped, flinching, but continued her work, leaning up and over to find one of the blowdarts lodged in the seam where the back of his chestplate ended and his spaulder began. "I've found it," she told him, and slipped a hand up to his neck, into the black-clad space between helmet and cuirass. He felt warm, almost hot, even through the thick jumpsuit. There was not enough space to caress with the whole of her hand, so instead she squeezed, pressing in harder with a thumb and drawing it up and down along the side of his neck, massaging. He clutched tighter, and she curled around him, letting him press the front of his helmet into her belly.

She let her other hand hover over the blowdart, and she closed her eyes. He was a core of heat, far too hot for normal, and the locus of the heat was in his shoulder, burning red and inflamed. Tendrils of black were wrapping around the inflamation, dark as night and just as airy, stretching outward into muscle and sinew, pooling in joints before sending out fresh whorls into bone and flesh.

His fingers grasped at her, raking across her shoulder blades, and she felt the black tendrils contract before expanding again, this time more aggressively. Barriss winced in sympathy, then focused again, opening her eyes. "Gree, I need to remove your helmet."

Still for several seconds, he grasped at her again, this time lifting his hands up for several seconds before clutching at her shoulders. Barriss eased back and reached for her medical kit, keeping one arm out, braced. Gree wrapped a hand around her forearm, squeezing, and Barriss tried not to wince again. One handed, she pulled a hypospray out of her kit and set it in her lap, then pulled out a tube of anti-toxin, braced a corner of the packet in her teeth and pulled, unsealing it. She set it in her lap and pushed the hypospray into the clasps on the end of the tube until it clicked.

She reached out and pushed against the underside of his helmet. "Let me remove it. You have to let go, Commander."

His hands slid down her arm until they were around her hand; she clutched back for a moment, squeezing with as much strength as she could muster, then pulled it away from his. Gree doubled over, his hands clamping down around his ankles. Quickly, Barriss slipped her hands under the edge of the helmet, depressurized it, and slid it over his head, setting it aside. His face was cramped in pain, eyes squeezed shut and head bowed. She could not see the tension in his neck and shoulders, covered as they were with dirty white and green armor, but it was obvious by the way he held himself, that they were severely cramped.

"This is a broad spectrum anti-toxin." It took only a moment for her to push down the high collar of his jumpsuit and find a vein, plunging the tip of the hypo in and letting the plunger inside drop with a hiss. "It will take a few minutes to spread through your system." Moving quickly, she discarded the first tube and reloaded it. "This is a painkiller." The hypospray hissed again as she injected it.

He was shaking; it was not the convulsions of a rejection, but instead the trembling of one trying to control pain. He was breathing through grit teeth in hard pants. She leaned forward, pulling him against her; he buried his head into her shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her again, clutching at her back and hanging on. "Almost done," she reassured, slipping her arms around him, one below his right armpit, the other around his neck. "Almost done." She let her hand run through the hair at the nape of his neck, pausing for just one moment while she ran a thumb along the tense tendons where his spine met his skull. His skin was dry but smooth, his hair soft. She squeezed her eyes shut and repeated herself. "Almost done."

This time, her fingers sought out the dart. She scanned him again with the Force. His body was still hot, though battling a healing coolness pouring in from outside it, the black tendrils struggling to take hold where a minute ago they were clambering for more and more of him. Her hand wrapped around the red fluff of the dart and gently pried, wary of any changes. Gree gasped, jerking against her as he fisted his hands in the hem of her black hood. She felt the dart give a little more, and she opened her eyes as the last of it came out, a nasty little barbed spiral on the tip of it. Scowling at the thing, she tossed it next to her kit. She'd destroy it soon.

Placing a hand over the hole it left in his jumpsuit, she closed her eyes again and breathed, letting the Force do its' work. She soothed his nervous system, loosened muscles, dispelled the disturbing coils of darkness that were waging a now-losing battle against the anti-toxin and her healing methods. Gree, pressed hard against her, was still shaking. Without his helmet, she could feel a sheen of sweat where his temple met her jaw.

"Breathe with me," she told him. He made a half-groan, which she took for as uncertainty as much as pain. She bent her head closer to his ear, letting him feel her breath there. "Breathe in when I do. I know it's not so clear with your armor. Match my breathing. In when I do, out when I do." He gulped and nodded.

She took in a deep breath, and in turn she felt Gree's chest swell. She released the breath, slowly, much more slowly than she took it in, and he mimicked her. In and out, slow and slower. She breathed deeply, deliberately, letting him feel her inhalations through his hands as her back expanded and contracted. They twitched, relaxed, tensed, then slid an inch downward before clutching again. Barriss tilted her head, setting her cheek against his matted faux-red hair. She moved a hand back up to the nape of his neck, just above the jumpsuit, the short curls there brushing against her fingertips. Still softer than she should be noticing.

Her hand moved back to the jumpsuit collar as her lips curled downward for a moment.

Gree shuddered, his body slowly unclenching as he relaxed. Barriss caught her breath as the embrace eased.

Neither moved. Gree lifted one hand and slid it, just a few inches, down along the curve of her back. Just enough to be considered a caress. She shivered, and he stopped.

His voice was thick when he said, "Thank you, Commander."

"You are welcome."

In the furor of triage and perimeter building, no one stopped long enough to notice the extra moment they spent lingering, nor the way one Commander buried a weary smile into the other's shoulder, or the way the other Commander seemed to press her lips into the other's close cropping of hair.

Then they were apart, the one in armor falling onto his back to rest, while the other grabbed up her kit and moved on.