A/N: A huge thank you to Z4lan who alerted me that the first upload of this chapter uploaded with HTML code. I blame the Separatists.

Sly glanced into his micron-electroscope and hissed in frustration.

Coric glanced over and raised up an eyebrow.

Sly buried his face in his hands. He was too frustrated to even come up with the words at their current stalemate in research.

Coric raised his head from the adjacent molecular inverted digital biological microscope. "Do you need a sedative?"

Sly rolled his eyes and leaned back against the lab counter. "We are so close to figuring out this bioprocessing. But, somehow we can't seem to fully replicate what happened with Echo."

"Then, we aren't anywhere close to figuring it out."

"No! We are! I know we are! What am I missing?" He tugged Coric by his sleeve.

Coric bumped his face on his scope and glared at his fellow medic. "You're missing basic manners, obviously. Have they stopped teaching etiquette to cadets on Kamino?"

"Cadet?! I'm not that much younger than you." Sly's frustration found an outlet in some verbal sparring with Coric.

Coric gave him an unimpressed look. "And, you're how old?"

"Nine."

Coric rolled his eyes.

"And a half. Nearly ten!"

"I was still on Kamino when I was nearly ten. Can't believe they let you tubies out into the field." Coric yanked himself free and returned to his scope.

"I was at ArmyMed for almost 18 months and I learned plenty. Just because I'm not Gen1 like you doesn't mean I'm useless!"

Coric heaved out a tired sigh. "I didn't say you were useless, Sly. You're a talented medic. You just…" He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"What?"

"You don't know when to curb your enthusiasm sometimes."

Sly's expression was a mixture of hurt and confusion. "What's wrong with enthusiasm?"

Coric stared at the wall behind Sly, his eyes slightly unfocused. "Enthusiasm gets new troopers killed. I've seen it too many times to count. Rex and I try to warn them, yell at them, train them, but–" his eyes focused on Sly, "-some troopers don't listen." Coric couldn't hold back a huge yawn. "I, on the other hand, am an old clone who doesn't suffer from all the enthusiasm. Can we get back to work?" He pointed to his scope, unable to suppress another yawn. "We've established the substance Echo was exposed to utilizes fibrous anion exchange to efficiently separate cells-"

"-and pull away cell debris-"

Coric shot the younger medic an annoyed look. "This would go faster if you wouldn't interrupt me." He sighed. "We know we're dealing with a precision quaternary ammonium functionalized polypropylene fiber-"

"-combined with a 0.2 µm PES membrane," Sly clarified, and then gave Coric a helpless look. "Sorry."

Coric rolled his eyes, but let it go. "Yes, but we've been unable to provide predictable clarification."

"And, without it, we can't establish a proper route for chromatography."

"Until we do, there's no way to make our findings scalable enough to create a viable vaccine." Coric peered into his scope, scowling at it like it was the enemy. "If we don't figure this out in the next few days, we'll miss our chance to slip this in with the next set of vaccinations."

"So, we'll get it in with the next one."

"This isn't Kamino! Routine field vaccinations only happen once a year!" Coric rubbed at gritty, bloodshot eyes. "I don't know, brother. It's not looking good."

Sly tried not to hold back his bursting smile at the way Coric so easily and casually called him 'brother.' Coric might get annoyed with him sometimes, but he still spoke to him with the same easy familiarity he used with Rex, Denal, Hez, Kix, and Attie. For all that Coric basically just called him a tubie, he treated him like any other brother in the 501st. He couldn't even begin to put into words the warmth blossoming in his chest.

He studied Coric carefully, noticing how often he was blinking and scrubbing at his eyes. Sly reached over for his medpack, something he'd learned to always carry with him now that he was officially a field medic. Granted, he'd never actually been out in the field. But, still, he'd already memorized the location of every item in the pack. He slipped his hand in and located a bottle of eye drops without looking. "Keratoconjunctivitis sicca."

"I do not have lacrimal keratoconjunctivitis," Coric objected, his bloodshot eyes belying his words.

"You clearly have an evaporative tear deficiency from staring too long at that screen–" he pointed accusingly at the digital display next to the electron microscope, "without allowing your eyes some relief." He pressed the bottle of drops into Coric's hand. "Put the drops in. Now."

Coric's lips twisted with amusement as he accepted the drops. "You're very bossy." He tilted his head back. "It's a good quality in a medic." He added a generous portion of drops to each eye. "Oh wow, OK, I should've done that hours ago."

"I won't add a note to your medical file, but allow your eyes to get to such a state again and I'll be forced to add some documentation."

Coric snorted with amusement again. "I could delete those notes, you know." He tried to hand the drops back.

Sly pressed them back into his hand. "I'd add them again."

Coric chuckled. "Alright, message received." Obviously deciding it was wisest to change the topic, he gestured to his 'scope. "If we're going to make our deadline, we have less than two days to get this formulation out to the other medics.."

"We'll get it done," Sly said confidently. "I work well under pressure."

Coric ' hmmed' and stretched his back until it cracked noisily up and down his spine. "I've been under pressure since the day I deployed. Way before you, of course." Coric walked over to the caf pot in the corner, trying to determine if the contents inside were drinkable. He held up the contents toward Sly, offering to share.

Sly rolled his eyes. "You know, I can't help when I was decanted. But, I do appreciate that you don't call me a shiny. Yes, I'll have some of that awful sludge you call caf around here."

"You don't act like a shiny." He handed the oily-looking brew over to the other medic and took a sip from his own cup. "Have you ever been in battle?"

Sly's face fell. "Outside of sims, no." He immediately grew defensive. "Not by choice, though. I put in for assignments at the 187th, 104th, Galactic Marines, 127th, 313th, 35th Infantry, 2nd Airborne, 327th, 41st Elite, 43rd Battalion, 416th-"

"Most of the 416th was wiped out at Teyr. The first iteration of the 104th was wiped out at Abregado. All of the 43rd was wiped out at Shelter Base- "

"I didn't say they were all good decisions. The point is I wasn't at ArmyMed by choice. I was stuck at ArmyMed because… because…" Sly's lips twisted and he sighed.

"Because what?"

"I was too good at my job and they wouldn't get rid of me," his lips twisted in disgust. "I considered sabotaging my own file, but in the end, I couldn't do it because it would've ruined my chances to get transferred. So, I was stuck. More than anything, though, I wanted to get out of there."

Coric finished his caf and went back to the pot for a refill. He split the gritty remains on the bottom of the pot between their two cups. "Watch for the grinds. They can be a bit chewy." He gave Sly a considering look. "I had no idea you didn't want to be dirtside."

Sly tugged a ration bar from his belt pouch and split it with Coric. "Everyone assumes Corrie-bound troopers are avoiding combat." He chewed slowly, washing it down with caf. "I don't know any brother who doesn't want to be out in the field. Most of us are trying to make the best of a shit assignment." He looked thoughtful. "OK, except for the newer troopers, no idea what's up with them. They're weird. They don't seem to care where they're assigned or what they do." He made a dismissive gesture. "Very different." He leaned in toward Coric, shyly bumping shoulders with him. "Thank you, though, for accepting me here."

Coric snorted. "You earned your place here, brother."

Sly couldn't hold back the grin that split across his face. He stared down into his caf, knowing the stuff was awful compared to what they drank at ArmyMed, and not caring in the slightest. They worked quietly side-by-side for several more minutes until Sly broke the silence again. "Hey, uh… Coric?"

The senior medic was reading through his notes as he slowly chewed the grinds on the bottom of his caf. "Mmmmm?"

Sly glanced down at his newly issued field medpack. "You think I could be assigned out to the field?" He winced as his voice cracked. That was not the way he meant for that request to come out.

Coric inhaled sharply. "Now? We lost 500 men in the first battle down there. I don't think it's a good idea."

Sly's shoulders' slumped. "Yeah, I get it."

"Hey, it's not that I don't think you're a good medic. You are. But, we can't even safely get troop transports down there yet. Everything is being shot down."

"I know," Sly brushed his pack with the toe of his boot, the weight of it reassuring.

"We need to finish our work here first," Coric reminded him, multi-tasking as he made a notation on his pad.

"I know and what we're doing here is critically important. But, when we finish here, would you consider it? The Captain will listen to you."

Coric finished up his caf and tossed his cup at the flash disposal. It hit dead center and the cup disappeared. "Let's see how far we get and then we can talk about it, alright? This may not be a good first assignment for you-"

Sly put up a hand. "Forget I mentioned it." He buried his face in his scope again.

Several minutes later, Coric heaved out a heavy sigh. "Sly, I'm sorry. I hadn't realized how important being out in the field was to you."

"Coric, we're short on time. Let's focus. I'm sorry I brought it up." Sly thought he did an admirable job keeping the bitterness out of his tone.

How could his brother both accept him as an equal in the medbay, yet think he was not fit to go out into the field?

He buried himself back in his work, and eventually let go of his bitterness. They worked in companionable silence for several more hours. Silent, that is, until Coric couldn't hold back a huge yawn.

Sly frowned, his earlier annoyance with his brother forgotten. "Take a break." He hooked a thumb over one shoulder toward one of the empty bunks in the auxiliary medical lab.

Coric gave him an exasperated look and picked up his datapad. "We just took a break." His exhausted eyes took on a teasing glint. "Is this some Coruscant thing-"

Sly raised up an eyebrow. "I will avoid taking offense at that comment since it is true for most Coruscanti. And, no, it is common sense." He reached forward and snagged Coric's datapad out of his hands, deftly avoiding Coric's grab to get it back. He glanced at his chrono. "Our break was five hours ago. We're out of caf and you're falling over." Sly tried a softer tact. "We've been at this for two days straight. Come on, vod. Take twenty. I won't let you sleep any longer. You rest." He gave a sly grin, the type that earned him his name. "Medic's orders."

"Alright," he relented, grumbling the whole way as Sly pushed him toward the nearest bunk. He rolled into the bunk. "You come aboard this ship and start ordering the other medics around."

"Not all of them, just you. Kix seems to have some sense-"

Coric snorted. "He doesn't." His lack of grace as he flopped the top half of his body onto the nearest medbay bunk was a testament to his exhaustion.

"He's not here and I don't have to worry about him."

"You don't have to worry about me either…" Coric muttered, already half asleep.

"Right. I won't worry then," Sly lifted up Coric's legs with a grunt and settled him more comfortably on the bunk. He returned a moment later with Coric's pad. "I need access to your notes."

"Mmmwwwaaah," Coric muttered, half-asleep as he clumsily lifted a hand against the pad. His hand slid back off as his soft snores filled the space.

Sly shook his head, giving his brother a fond smile, before retreating back to the lab table. He started reviewing their notes, occasionally glancing up to check on his 501st brother. He frowned as Coric shifted restlessly in his sleep, his brow creased in agitation, as he murmured the names of brothers. Neither Coric or Kix had opened up to him about what it was really like to be a combat medic. But, he knew they were both haunted by the brothers they hadn't been able to save. He rose after a few minutes to place a blanket over Coric and brushed a hand over his brother's brow. "You're safe, Coric. You… saved a lot of brothers. They're… all safe. Back in the barracks." Coric took a deep, halting breath before he finally settled.

Sly studied him one more long moment, making sure he was okay before he went back to his notes. His stomach growled and he pulled out another ration bar. Coric's even breathing made a soothing background noise as he worked. He chewed slowly, reading his notes softly aloud. The rations bar was dry, crumbly, and tasteless, as always, and he washed it down with several chugs of water from his canteen. Comfortably full, he read through the notes again, this time making quick calculations on the side. He checked his Chrono.

20 minutes had already passed.

Coric is sleeping so peacefully. I can give him another ten minutes.

He needs the rest.

"Immune response… antigens…" Coric murmured in his sleep.

Sly shook his head again.

Coric is even working in his sleep.

Antigens...

What are we missing?

Echo got sick because he was exposed to an antigen. We can't afford to make the entire GAR sick. All at once. Or, not at all. Not if we're trying to slip this in under the radar.

We need to create a blueprint for producing antigens, rather than the antigen itself…

What if we created a gene-based vaccine? Use the genome of the virus to create a blueprint…

His eyes lit up with excitement as he compared his notes to Coric's datapad. His body language buzzed with excitement. His head whipped back and forth as he checked the notes again. He ran over to the larger terminal by the 'scopes and furiously typed in data. The screen lit up his face with a flurry of results and his eyes widened.

"Coric!" Sly shouted, startling the older medic so much he bolted upright and then fell off the side of the bunk. "Get over here!"

Coric was immediately on his feet, looking for signs of a threat. Seeing none, he blinked away the last vestiges of sleep and stared at Sly in confusion. "Are we under attack?"

Waving his hands so excitedly that he accidentally smacked the terminal. With uncontained enthusiasm he suddenly seemed to be acting his chronological age, he gestured for Coric to come over again. "Look at this data. These selected antigens are the key to unlocking the virus."

Caught up in his fellow medic's enthusiasm, Coric hurried over and stared at the screen. He leaned in, looking at the complex formulation. "Show me Echo's scans again."

"This is what happened with Echo when his body attacked and disabled the organic chip." Sly grinned, swiping through screens on his datapad. "And, this is what our 'vaccine' is doing in the simulations."

Coric studied the data on the 'pad carefully, and then looked back at the terminal. He projected a simulation into the area. "This blueprint will need to be made of selected DNA-"

"-or RNA-"

Coric shot Sly a look again for interrupting. "Fine, RNA then, something that holds the genetic instructions. But, something that we could inject back into clone cells, and then it would…" He tapped on the datapad. The cells spun around before they attacked the ugly mass that represented the organic chips. The two clones watched with bated breath as the mass… dissolved.

Coric and Sly exchanged a wide-eyed glance before they both threw their arms around each other.

Sly grinned. "We did it!"

Coric cast him a look. "I took a nap. Somehow, you figured out the final piece."

Sly shook his head. "You helped. It was based on something you muttered in your sleep."

Coric raised a puzzled brow. "You'll have to tell me the story later. We still have to test this. We have a lot of work to do yet."

"I'll test it on myself."

"You are not volunteering, because you are critical to this project."

"I can't give something to another brother if I don't believe in my work," he stared Coric down, making it clear he wasn't budging on the issue.

Coric nodded slowly and squeezed Sly's shoulder. "Alright, but I monitor you every step of the way." He paused, interrupting his brother who was already deep in concentration at the terminal. "You may never have seen battle, but you have the heart of a combat medic."

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