cure
1.7k words. kirnet/atton kind of. set right after Telos
As much as she wanted to, Kirnet could not cross the threshold into the garage.
All it would take was one measly step and she would be in the same room as Bao-Dur, who was slowly picking his way through the damaged mass of the Hawk’s internal organs, his new arm illuminating his profile in the dim light. Once, she would have walked in without a second thought, tapped his flesh arm to get his attention, and offered to change the drying kolto patches that covered his fresh injuries.
Kirnet stepped back.
The shuttle crash had taken its toll on the engineer, but Atris and her handmaidens had helped with the worst of the injuries. He would be just fine for now.
The thought of Atris filled Kirnet’s mouth with a foul taste as her feet led her through the ship. Bao-Dur had been a bittersweet surprise, a familiar smile that made her slink away every time it called her by her old title. But reuniting with Atris had just been sour. All of the old scars that Bao-Dur nicked open had poured out on the academy floor, staining Atris and her too-white robes with a crimson that only Kirnet could see.
She would have just loved that analogy.
Sith. Jedi. The footage of her trial. A handmaiden sparring with air in her cargo hold. All of it was quickly becoming too much, building to a binding pressure that didn’t allow Kirnet’s lungs to fully expand. She spent a decade preparing for when she would have to return to the Republic, but she never expected her past to catch up to her all in one day.
The Force worked in strange ways. Though for Kirnet, “worked” was a strong term.
“Shutta!”
Kirnet paused outside of the medbay, unsure how she had even ended up there. The room was turned over; drawers were half-open and medical supplies were strewn across the bed where Atton sat. He was turned away from her, his head bowed as he struggled to open a small plastic packet in his hands. With a huff, he grabbed the packet with his teeth and tore.
“You talkin’ to me- Oh, space.” Kirnet breathed as Atton spat onto the floor, the corner of the packet slightly ripped. He whipped his head around, his expression as bitter as the kolto now leaking from the packet. But Kirnet was fixated on his temple where an ugly plum bruise was spreading to his eye. “Shit, what happened to you? Did the handmaidens do this?”
“What? No.” Atton wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as Kirnet snatched the packet up. “I must have hit my head during the crash. I’m fine. I can, uh, deal with this.”
The plastic gave some resistance, but Kirnet was able to fully tear a side off and remove the kolto patch. “Whatever you say,” she mumbled as she passed it back. Atton fumbled to get it unfolded for a moment, grumbled a complaint about the sticky texture, and attempted to place it onto his wound. Kirnet remained in place as he hissed, his fingers bumping against a particularly swollen section of skin. “Or maybe I should-”
“Yeah.” Atton’s head snapped back, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Kirnet gritted her teeth at the slime that now coated her fingers, but she easily adjusted the patch with feather-light touches to better cover the bottom half of his bruise. Atton squirmed underneath her, his knees knocking against the sides of her thighs. “You’re gonna need two. You look like shit.”
Atton scoffed as he leaned back to look at her better. “I think you mean to say ‘rugged and charming.’”
With a noncommittal hum, Kirnet pulled back, mentally preparing herself for the journey through the medbay’s meager supplies. But then she paused, hand half raised, her thoughts from earlier creeping back into her skull. “Would you mind if I tried to-” she vaguely gestured, her gaze glued to her feet, “- if I tried to heal it?”
“With what? The Force?” Atton cocked an eyebrow. “No offense, Kirnet, but knocking an assassin droid when it’s already standing on ice over doesn’t exactly make you the most capable.”
“More than you can do.” She braced, the hair on her arms raising, but Atton didn’t question further. Instead, he just tilted his head back and mumbled something about not wanting to grow a third eye. He shivered slightly as Kirnet’s fingernails trailed up to the edges of the bruise, though he kept himself remarkably still afterwards.
Kirnet was always more of a talker than a fighter, and she was even less of a healer. But war demanded innovation, so she learned as she did best: hands-on on the battlefield, her own skin marred with blaster burns and cuts. And while Kirnet had never been as skilled as a true Jedi healer, she had prevented plenty of soldiers under her command from bleeding out, and she was sure that they didn’t mind the gnarly scars she left while she did it.
Except for Bao-Dur. She had been so caught up in her own agony that she hadn’t even noticed the bleeding stump bumping against her as he dragged her to safety.
She didn’t have to be a Jedi to sense the anger simmering under his skin. It had always been there during the war, threatening to burn Kirnet every time they bumped shoulders, but she had never felt it at this intensity before. Bao-Dur, with his quiet words and soft eyes, hated. And he had every right to when she was onboard.
Kirnet sucked in a deep breath, closed her eyes, pretended she was in command again. Atton’s skin was warm under her fingers as she focused, a pleasant cool like a Dantooine breeze spreading down her limbs. She tuned out the sound of Atton’s sudden gulp, focusing only on the the way the recycled ship air tickled the back of her hands.
The Force was still foreign to her, but it could never be a stranger. Kirnet had forgotten exactly what it had felt like during her youth; maybe it had been a warm and comforting heat, or maybe it had been light like the tall blades of grass that tickled your palms on the plains around the Enclave. Now it was cold and heavy, all too similar to the Telos ice cap, and though it teetered on the edge of growing frigid, it never did.
The edges of the bruise lightened, turning from deep wine to an sickly green before her eyes. It inched forward, slowly working its way to the dark center of the injury.
And then it stopped.
It was like getting picked up and shook around by a kath hound. Kirnet’s vision swam as she pulled her hands away. She breathed, ragged, though she had sense enough to wave Atton’s hands away before he could steady her. “I’m fine,” she coughed, Atton’s face doubling as she shook her head.
Atton dizzyingly rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m really convinced. Just let me handle it, alright? Go meditate, or whatever it is you do.”
“Atton.” The pilot paused just before standing up, his arms braced on the edge of the bed. Kirnet wanted to hate the way her voice trembled, but she simply didn’t have the energy. “Let me try one more time, please. Unless it hurt?”
“No, no. It’s more like an itch, if anything.” It took much longer for the temperature in her hands to drop then before, so they both waited in silence, her fingers in Atton’s hairline. “You don’t have to do this, you know. Not that I’m complaining, but Bao-Dur looks a lot worse then me.”
Kirnet’s hands warmed up.
“Oh.” Atton frowned, his gaze stuck on a spot on Kirnet’s forehead. “Is that what this is about? What, are you two that close?”
“No,” Kirnet mumbled, the feeling slowly ebbing from her fingers. “He was just a tech. I just- I used to be able to do this.” Atton remained silent as her tongue fumbled with the words. “A lot of people I used to know have been popping up lately, and you’re just… you. So far.”
“I- thanks?”
“I mean to say that I can’t disappoint you, not truly. You never knew me as a general. As the General.” And Bao-Dur did. He might have just been an acquaintance, but he had been by her side right up to the end, for all the good it did the both of them. What would he think if she offered to tend to his wounds and failed?
Just another failure out of many. Kirnet couldn’t take any more of his blood on her hands.
“Maybe. But I meant what I said about that glow on Telos.” Atton straightened up, pressing his bruise a little harder into Kirnet’s fingers, though he didn’t make any pained noises. “Sure, you’re in a bad spot now, but unless you start swinging around a red saber and talking like that old witch, I think you’re doing alright. See?” He took her near-frozen hands in his, winced at the contact, and pulled them away from his face.
Kirnet blinked. The bruise, though still visible, had shrunk miraculously. Atton stood, his chest brushing against her still-outstretched palms. “I honestly didn’t think that this was going to work,” she half-laughed as he glanced down at her.
“Great. Glad I’m your test subject. I’ll be in the cockpit, as per fucking usual.” Atton pulled back. “You gonna talk to Bao-Dur?”
“Not now,” Kirnet responded, already busying herself with tidying up the medbay. She spared Atton a small smile. “But I will soon. And Atton?” He paused by the door. “Set a course for Dantooine.”
“I can’t convince you for Nar Shaddaa?”
Cold fingers grazed her brow as Kirnet brushed her bangs back. “Not yet. But soon.”
Not a failure, then.
A promise.
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