blood bag - sauntering_down - Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order Series (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter Text

By the time Cal finally reaches the front of the obscenely long queue for the drink shop, the Balosar running it looks like she’s one more stupid request from tearing the stand apart with her bare hands, setting its remains on fire, and jumping up and down on the ashes. “Next,” she says tonelessly as Cal steps up to the counter.

“Sour zherry, no toppings, small,” he recites. He does not spend five minutes hemming and hawing over his options, ask how much more liquid fits in each subsequent size cup, or start arguing over the price, and the poor woman’s relief almost bowls him over. He even gives exact change when she punches his order into the till and extends a hand for payment. The woman looks at the credits, counting them with her eyes, looks back at him, looks at the next wave of tourists (identifiable by the neon shirts emblazoned with Lurania Luxury Travel) who may or may not treat a hapless drink stand attendant like their personal slave. Who buys a carbonated drink and then complains because it's bubbly? If Cal had been some sort of feral child who’d never interacted with another sentient being before, ten minutes in this line would’ve taught him what not to do.

“Just for that,” she says, yanking a cup from the dispenser, “I’m givin’ you a medium.”

“Thanks.” Cal and BD-1 watch her mix sour zherry syrup and water, dump it over ice, and shove a tube into the cup to carbonate it until the drink almost fizzes over. She pops a lid on and hands it to him with a straw. “Thanks,” he says again, because he had manners drilled into him as a youngling. “Uh. Good luck.”

She shoots him a wry look, says, “Have a nice evening,” and he gets out of the way before the horde descends in an unruly mob that apparently never learned how to form a line.

Some people, BD huffs, watching the carnage behind them as Cal heads down the street.

“Seriously.” He thinks everyone should be forced to work a low-wage menial job for a year. That would solve a lot of the galaxy’s problems. Cal (who is one of the galaxy’s problems, as far as the Empire is concerned) sticks the straw into his mouth and takes a sip. It’s properly sour. Best possible flavor, too. He’s going to savor it.

They should start heading back to the Mantis soon, BD says. It’s getting late and this part of the city is not exactly… reputable.

“Once I’m finished with this,” Cal says. BD buzzes disapprovingly. “Look, you know what’ll happen if I go back to the ship now?” he asks, and continues without waiting for an answer. “I will walk through the hatch and Merrin will say, ‘what’s that?’ I’ll say, ‘sour zherry soda’, and she’ll go, ‘I’ve never had that. Can I try it?’ And because I’m nice, I’ll say yes… and if she likes it, I’ve seen the last of it.”

So just don’t give it to her, BD suggests.

“You know as well as I do that never works. Sometimes it’s really obvious most of the Nightsisters were older than her, because she has the ‘annoying younger sibling’ routine down to an art.” BD’s reply sounds skeptical, pointing out Cal himself has no siblings to compare her to, and he says, “No, but I was one of the oldest kids in my Initiate Clan. I know how it is. She’ll wear me down. And this is my favorite flavor.”

BD concedes the point. In exchange, Cal starts wandering back in the general direction of the docking platforms, though he chooses a somewhat roundabout route that’ll take about half an hour on foot, giving him plenty of time to finish his soda. Xami is a bit run-down and perhaps not what BD-1 calls ‘reputable’, but Cal’s seen worse places – lived in one for five years, no less – and some attempts have been made to spruce this area up somewhat. The big sculpture garden a block away just closed for the night (hence the onrush of tourists) and that had been pretty cool to stroll through. It’d featured an accurately-colored replica of the system constructed from tiny chips of drink cans. Cal’s a classic scavenger who likes seeing junk recycled into art.

They’re going the wrong way, BD says a few minutes later.

“No, we’re not,” Cal replies, sensing the old argument resurfacing. He isn’t completely hopeless with directions, despite what the droid would like to believe.

The docking platforms are northwest, BD insists, and they’re walking east.

“We’ll be going northwest in a bit.”

Cal always says that, BD grumbles. And then two hours later they’ve seen the same stalagmite formation six times, but they’re totally not walking in circles….

“We’re – okay, wait.” There’s a display on the corner and Cal makes a beeline for it. “I’ll pull up a map and show you.”

That’s easier said than done. The planet of Respera has only recently and with great reluctance embraced Basic as an official language, and their particular variant of Aurebesh is… perplexing. It’s like someone took all the punctuation from a regular sentence, tossed it in a blender, added a few extras as seasoning, and then turned it on without closing the lid, redistributing the commas and asterisks and accent marks with no rhyme or reason. Cal theoretically understands the jagged apostrophe is a long aurek and the regular one is a short aurek, the double trill with the swirly accent is a soft ‘th’, and the question mark is, appropriately, some sound Cal isn’t capable of producing, but it’s a chore. That’s not even getting into the nigh-unreadable typeface this city splashes everywhere – he’d thought BD was being insensitive when he called it ‘Dementia’, only to be informed that is the actual name of the font.

Luckily, BD-1 has no issues parsing the typographical nightmare on the screen. He tells Cal which inputs to tap and finally a map of Xami blows up before their eyes. “Look, this is us,” Cal says, jabbing a finger at the screen. “We follow this street east until we get to this one here, get on this path called the ‘riverwalk’, and take that all the way to the end, and then it’s just two blocks west to the docking bay. See?”

For the second time that night, BD’s forced to admit Cal is right. He hadn’t noticed that path along the river on the previous map, he says sulkily.

Cal pats him and takes a triumphant pull of his soda. “And now we get to walk by the river! You like rivers. Maybe we’ll find some frogs you can tease.”

That would repair his wounded pride, BD says. So off they go, drifting down the meandering little alley to the next road Cal mentioned, and from there it’s only another minute before they reach a gate with a large sign mounted on it. Cal looks at BD, who translates the words as ‘all pets and children must be leashed beyond this point’. Who puts their child on a leash, the droid wonders.

“Well,” Cal says reasonably, opening the gate, “you don’t want your toddler to drown, right?”

The riverwalk turns out to be a wide, winding street, backed by close-knit buildings on the left and the river on the right, which they both check out immediately. Actually, BD says, peering down towards the water, first your toddler would fall over the edge of the gorge and plunge about seventy feet. Then they would smash into the rocks, then tumble into the river, and then drown, assuming the rocks didn’t get them first.

“You’re not kidding,” Cal mutters. Over time, the thundering river has carved a giant ravine like a scar into Respera’s surface, and for some reason there isn’t a railing or even a bright painted line to indicate where the riverwalk ends and open air begins. The leash requirement makes perfect sense, all of a sudden.

Still, the white noise of the river echoing through the canyon is nice. The only other people in sight are a pair in the distance, arm in arm, heads tipped close together, and a guy trailing behind them, studying some flimsi in his hands. Cal and BD aren’t expected back to the ship quite yet, so they take their time – no frogs for BD, but he keeps close to the cliff edge and watches the whitewater flow, and Cal drinks his soda until there’s nothing left but zherry-stained ice to crunch between his teeth, finding his way by lit windows and blue globes mounted on poles every ten meters and the skyglow.

Just as he’s dropping the empty cup into a trash bin, there’s a piercing spark of terror in the Force, followed by a girl screaming.

Cal’s head snaps up. The ravine curves sharply ahead and the other people he’d noticed have disappeared beyond it, but he’s pretty sure that was one of them. “Come on,” he says to BD, who leaps onto his back, and Cal (who’s been scolded many, many times for leaping before he looks), quickly peers around the corner to see what’s going on.

The reading man has dropped whatever he was holding and grabbed one of the others – a Theelin girl, probably only a teenager – by the fancy sash she’s wearing around her waist. She’s struggling, but he’s stronger; he practically rips her off her feet and into his muscled arms, catching her in a bear hug she can’t escape. “Go!” she shrieks at the second girl, Rodian, frozen by another gate. “Kate, run!”

The Rodian snaps out of it, spins, and charges through the gate. The Theelin girl tries to sink her teeth into the man’s arm. Cal, taking advantage of their distraction, jogs up behind them on silent feet. “Quit it, girlie,” the Human man grunts, clamping a hand on the back of her head and forcing it down at an angle so she can’t bite him – and then jerks around. “Get lost, kid!”

So much for going unnoticed. Cal skids to a stop and holds up his empty hands. He has his lightsaber, stuck horizontally through the belt at his back so his shirt conceals it, but that’s a last resort. There are an awful lot of security cameras in this city and they’ve managed to stay under the radar in the Imperial-aligned system thus far, protecting the fledgling pockets of resistance the Mantis crew is nursing. “I don’t want any trouble,” he says, projecting calm, mostly at the guy as he thoroughly supports the Theelin’s strained attempts to amputate his hand with her teeth. “Come on. It’s a nice night. Just let her go.”

The man’s laugh hisses through his teeth, and he releases her head… only to yank a little holdout blaster from his jacket pocket and press the barrel up beneath her ear. She freezes, wide eyes finding Cal’s. “How about this?” the man says. “You piss off and I don’t blow her brains all over the canyon.”

The girl’s copper skin is bleached a mottled beige with fear, but her voice sounds surprisingly steady when she says, “If it’s money you want, fine. I can get it for you.”

He yanks her backwards a few steps, pushes his nose against her hair. Cal sees her shudder. Whatever he says to her is lost in the rush of the river, but it’s not hard to guess – a couple of girls walking alone on an isolated street? Easy targets. She was probably just the closest. Cal swiftly browses through his bag of magic tricks, thinking fast; they’re way too close to the cliff and he can’t risk anything that might send the girl toppling. Guy’s got a death grip on the blaster and if Cal’s not fast enough on the Force-pull he might manage to hit the trigger. He could slow the man, but he’s not yet mastered precision with that ability and it would probably capture both of them… still, it’d give him time to close the distance and get the Theelin away. “Look,” he says, raising his hands again and gathering the Force to him, “you don’t actually want to do this, pal. It’s not gonna end well for you.”

The guy laughs again. “Sure thing, pretty boy.”

“Aw,” Cal says sweetly, “you think I’m pretty?”

The man’s response devolves into a shout as BD, who’s been sneaking up behind him, abruptly leaps and lands on his shoulders. He twists around wildly, trying to see his attacker, and the Theelin girl takes advantage of his distraction – she goes limp and slips out of his hold, crashing to her knees. Cal’s already running. He pushes with the Force and the man’s thrashing lags. Gets BD, too, but it can’t be helped. Cal leaps over the girl, grabs the guy’s arm, tries to pry the blaster from his hand. His skin brushes the metal and he staggers, for a second – the Theelin is not the first girl this monster has hunted.

Even in slow motion, the man realizes what Cal’s attempting and closes his fingers tighter. He’s strong. Fending off the free hand sluggishly creeping towards his throat, Cal thinks about what Cere’s been teaching him, opens his mouth, preparing to layer the Force over his words and tell the man to sleep – but then he feels the girl scrabbling at his belt. He glances down and she yanks his good knife from its sheath and plunges it into the guy’s foot with all her might.

The man howls in agony. The effect of the Force-induced slowdown is diminishing and he grabs at BD-1, who dodges his fingers, leaps from his shoulders to Cal’s. Cal twists out of the way when the man raises the blaster, thinks screw this, reaches for his lightsaber.

“Hey!” Another man comes sprinting down the riverwalk. “What are you doing?! Stop it!”

The guy drops his blaster. “Help me!” he cries. “Help! They’re mugging me!”

“Wait –” Cal begins, but before he can make it clear who is the real victim here, the guy kicks at the Theelin girl, sending her sprawling, seizes Cal by the collar, and gives him a powerful shove… and Cal stumbles one step too far and his stomach lurches as his boots meet empty air.

For one long second, Cal is weightless, tumbling through the air like a scrap of flimsiplast.

Then his arm smacks something and he scrabbles at it wildly, wraps his hands around a jutting rock, gasps as his shoulders nearly pop out of their sockets, and swings above the river by his fingertips. Swearing under his breath, Cal cranes his neck to look down just in time to see BD fire up his boosters and land lightly on a ledge.

“What the hell’s going on?” asks the nervous newcomer from up above.

“Those kids were gonna rob me!” the first guy replies indignantly. The other man says something else Cal can’t hear, and the first adds, “Yeah, got me with a karkin’ knife – thanks –”

“Are you kidding?!” the Theelin girl blurts, shrill with adrenaline and anger. Gritting his teeth, Cal works the toe of his boot into a crack in the wall and boosts himself up, reaches for another handhold. “I’m on a kriffing date! That guy was trying to kidnap me! I don’t even know that boy – he came running when I screamed!”

Nobody’s looking in Cal’s direction when he grasps the edge of the riverwalk and wriggles up onto the street. The first man is crouched, hand hovering over the knife in his foot like he’s afraid to remove it. The second man is inching towards a gate. “Listen,” he says, “I don’t wanna get involved in anything. Everyone just… walk away, and I don’t have to call the police, okay?”

“No, call them!” The girl jolts to her feet, her white stockings torn and stained with the blood seeping from her knees. She points to a little brown bag lying on the ground. “Go ahead. I’ve got a comm. Call them. And then I’ll call my parents, and when they get here, we can –”

The guy yanks the knife from his foot and lunges.

Cal hits him so hard he bowls them both over. They go down in a tangle of limbs and profanity, and Cal feels a hot burst of pain in his thigh as the blade gets wedged between him, but he caught the man off-guard and the Theelin kicks her assailant so hard she probably caves in a couple of his ribs. He shouts. Cal gets a hand up and shoves.

He maybe puts too much into it. The guy goes flying into the air, hits the ground again, and the momentum sends him rolling right over the cliff.

He doesn’t scream, and for a second all Cal can hear is the river thundering, almost as loud as the rush of blood in his ears. The Theelin buckles to her knees, looking stunned and shaky. “Uh,” Cal says, staggering upright and glancing around, “what happened to the other guy…?”

“Ran,” the girl spits. “Wimp.” She crawls to the edge of the riverwalk, gives a choking gasp. “Oh, gods – he hit the rocks –”

A real tragedy, Cal thinks. And then he slumps against the wall of the closest building, slides back down to the ground, and looks at his thigh, where blood pulses from a ragged stab wound with every heartbeat.

Okay. That’s bad.

“Oh,” the girl says again, and Cal spares one glance to see her reaching into the ravine before he presses both hands to his thigh, one over the other, and leans on it as hard as he can. Femoral artery. He has minutes if he’s lucky. “Oh,” she says a third time, and now she’s holding BD-1 in her arms and they’re both staring at Cal’s bloody leg in horror.

“Can I borrow that sash you’ve got?” Cal asks.

She practically drops BD and rips her sash off. “Slimy bastard touched it anyway –” She shoves it at Cal and he removes one hand from the wound, bends his knee just enough to work the length of fabric beneath his thigh, takes both ends and twists and twists until he starts cutting off the circulation to his entire leg. His other hand is already completely coated in blood and it’s puddling on the ground beneath him. “BD,” he says to the droid, who sticks a stim into Cal’s leg without prompting, “I need you to get on my comm and get me Cere, now.”

The girl spins on her heel, runs to grab her bag. “I’m going to call emergency medical,” she says.

He hopes they’re quick. Despite the awkward maneuvering – Cal can’t move his hand for easier access, he’s not getting the tourniquet tight enough as it is – BD contorts enough to activate the commlink in Cal’s wrist cuff and select the correct frequency. “Cal?” Cere says.

“I need your help,” he says. His voice quivers. He’s beginning to feel lightheaded and isn’t sure if that’s the hemorrhage or simply panic.

“I know,” Cere replies, because of course she knows. It’s a Jedi master thing. “I’m coming. Where exactly are you?”

BD pipes up with their location and tells her to hurry. Run. Steal a speeder, if she must. Cal will be unconscious from blood loss very soon.

“I’m coming,” Cere repeats.

Cere is coming for him, Cal tells himself, like a meditation mantra. Or a prayer. She didn’t leave him behind on Bracca, she didn’t leave him on Ordo Eris, she didn’t leave him on Nur, she’s going to show up and help and everything will be okay. He may be a Jedi Knight now, but he still hasn’t shed that childish belief his master can fix everything.

“Deera!”

All three of them look towards a gate further down the street. “Deera!” The Rodian girl comes running back onto the riverwalk, followed by a massive security droid whose armor puts the stormtroopers to shame. Her head swings around wildly, and then she spots the sorry little party huddled by the wall and races over to the Theelin. “Are you okay?! What happened to –”

“I’m fine,” Deera interrupts, stuffing her commlink back into her bag. As the security droid clanks up to them, she adds, “A man grabbed me and tried to drag me off. This guy came to help and got stabbed, but – the man, he tried to get me again and lost his balance and fell over the cliff.”

The droid executes a precise 90º turn and walks to the ravine. Panting, Cal tries to yank the tourniquet tighter, but he can’t do it one-handed and he’s afraid taking pressure off the wound will make the situation worse. “TX-193 to base,” he hears the droid rumble, “body retrieval team required at coordinates 14, 284, 300….”

Cal licks his dry lips. “Hey,” he calls. The droid turns smoothly to face him. “Can you – I can’t pull this tight enough to stop the circulation. Think you could…?”

The security droid hesitates, and Cal expects it to refuse and claim that request falls outside its programming… but it strides over, instead, lowers itself to a crouch, and Cal relinquishes the ends of the sash to its hands. The droid promptly does what Cal cannot, tightening the tourniquet until Cal gasps in pain. “Wait,” Deera says, “you’re hurting him –”

“It’s okay,” Cal says, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Has to hurt to work properly.” His foot starts going numb inside of a minute, and he’s still conscious after a minute, so clearly something’s going right. The blood welling up between his fingers hasn’t stopped, but it’s not gushing anymore.

A moment later, Cere comes hurtling around the corner. Cal has never been so happy to see her in his life, and he’s been very happy to see her a number of times before. “We keep meeting like this,” he jokes weakly as she drops to her knees next to him, wide-eyed, regarding the pool of blood he’s sitting in with a sick flush of horror that curdles in his belly.

“If I haven’t seen or heard from you in fifteen minutes, I know there’s trouble,” she says. She takes her knife from her belt (that reminds him to grab his before he leaves, if he leaves), adds, “Sorry for being forward,” and starts cutting away the material of his pants to access the wound. There’s a quick breath, a spike of panic when she gets a better look at it. “All right,” Cere says, glancing up to meet Cal’s eyes. “This might hurt. I think – I’m going to reach in and clamp off the artery.”

Cal nods. He pointedly does not watch Cere jam her fingers into the gash on Cal’s thigh and grope around in there, searching for his femoral artery, because he already feels woozy and nauseated. He puts a hand on BD’s head, more for emotional stability than physical (he’s not ready to die), and watches Deera and the Rodian – Kate, he thinks Deera called her. They’ve drawn close together, hand in hand, whispering.

“Got it!” Cere says. “I think – yes – can you let up on that a little?” she asks the security droid, who obligingly loosens the tourniquet. Cal holds his breath, waiting for the blood to spray, and nothing happens. “Good,” Cere mutters, “good.” The wound’s still oozing, but it’s a bad stab now rather than an arterial bleed.

“I am being ordered to return to my headquarters,” the droid says.

Cere nods. “Thanks for the help.” As the droid releases the sash and stands, Cere watches the blood dribble out of Cal’s thigh, then calls, “Could one of you come over here? Just in case we need the tourniquet again?”

Deera hesitates, looking almost as queasy as Cal feels when her eyes find the wound again, but Kate – who barely comes up to her shoulder and is dressed like she’s headed to a wreckpunk concert – takes a deep breath and walks over to sit in the droid’s vacant spot. “Deera said it should be just a few minutes before EMS gets here. Oh, I saw your bodyguard on my way back, by the way,” she informs Deera, picking up the stained sash, an antenna twitching. “Bet he’s looking for you.”

“You have a bodyguard?” Cal says faintly.

“…my father’s the former senator from Thellessa,” Deera admits, stepping closer. “He has enemies. Jav’s supposed to protect me when I go out… especially in the bad part of town.”

“It’s not the location that bothers him so much as the company,” Kate mutters.

Deera’s expression flickers. “He’ll tell my parents who I’m with, if they ask,” she says, glancing at Kate. “They… wouldn’t approve. So –”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Cal interrupts, “but I’m going to throw up.”

Kate scuttles backwards like a crab. Cal leans as far as Cere will let him and pukes sour zherry all over the pavement (and ewwww, it’s still carbonated). “It’s okay,” Cere says calmly, one hand on his shoulder like this sort of thing happens every day and he isn’t vomiting from blood loss while her fingers are inside his leg. He really enjoyed that soda, too. Would’ve been better off letting Merrin monopolize it. “Cal. You’re hyperventilating. You need to slow your breathing.”

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve smears blood across his face. Gently, Cere tips Cal upright again and presses his back against the wall. He tries to breathe a little more steadily, clutching one of BD’s antennae like a lifeline. Cere’s free hand cups his cheek. “Try to stay awake,” she says. “You’re doing good.”

“Humans bleed so much,” Kate says quietly.

The world tilts and Cal has to close his eyes for a second so he doesn’t throw up again. “Yeah, we do,” he slurs. “We’re just… walking blood bags.”

“Here!” Deera suddenly shouts. Cal opens his eyes to see her waving frenetically at a speeder descending from the sky, its strobing red light flashing across her face. “Right here –”

The speeder lands on the riverwalk and its pilot, a standard 2-1B medical droid, climbs out. “Human male, injury to the thigh, significant bleeding,” it recites, walking over. “I assume this is you?”

Cal nods. “I’ve got the artery pinched off,” Cere says, and the droid kneels next to her, setting down a portable medkit. “He had a tourniquet on before I arrived, but he’s still been bleeding for much too long.”

The droid aims a scanner at Cal’s leg. “The femoral artery is sliced, but not severed,” it reports, studying the display. “Unfortunate, perhaps – were it severed completely, it would have constricted, limiting blood loss.” It puts the scanner away. “I am capable of repairing the damage here and now, but I will require payment first.”

“What,” Cere says flatly.

“It’s fine,” Deera says. She shrugs. “Just how things work around here. Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

“We can’t ask you –”

“You’re not; I’m offering. Tonight would’ve gone a lot worse for me if he hadn’t been there.” She unearths a credit chit from her bag and drops it in the droid’s hand. “I get one hell of an allowance and my parents don’t usually care how I use it. Just – help him.”

The droid sticks the chit into a datapad. “That seems to be in order.”

“Cool,” Cal breathes. “Can we do this before I pass out…?” He feels like he’s floating. This isn’t the first time he’s almost bled to death, so it’s not even an unfamiliar sensation.

“When I tell you to let go,” the 2-1B instructs Cere, holding a laser, “do so quickly. I will seal the artery and then close the wound.” It hits Cal’s thigh with a hypospray first – some kind of anesthetic, he realizes, because his leg isn’t entirely numb and the deep throb begins to fade. The laser in one hand, something that looks like a blunt pair of scissors in the other, the droid says, “Let go.”

Cere yanks her hand away from Cal’s leg. The droid swoops in, unbothered by the spurt of blood, and sticks the scissors into the gash. Of course, Cal realizes, it’s an actual clamp.

And then he blacks out for a few seconds. More than a few – when he comes back around to Cere tapping his cheek none-too-gently with her hand and demanding he open his eyes, the medical droid is lasering Cal’s thigh shut. “Don’t do that again,” Cere orders, shoulders sagging. She tucks a lock of hair behind Cal’s ear. He needs to cut it. He let his hair grow out once on Bracca, but it was just too annoying to keep up with. “Cal.”

BD headbutts his side. “I’m awake,” Cal mumbles. He can taste sweat on his lips, which is admittedly preferable to zherry soda vomit.

“He will require further medical attention once I am finished,” the 2-1B cautions. “A blood transfusion may be necessary. I can direct you to several respectable facilities, if you would like.”

“We’re over on Jaxis,” Cere says. “We’ll take him back to our ship and fly straight there, keep him close to home.” Her fingers drum against Cal’s cheekbone, drawing his wandering attention. “Stay with me,” she reminds him. “Soon as the droid’s done I’ll see if I can get us a cab.” He opens his mouth. “You are not walking.”

“Oh!” Kate says, bouncing slightly. “If you guys need a lift to the port or something, I can go snag us a nice ride!”

“Kate, this is why I’m not supposed to see you,” Deera says.

“Chill, I’m joking.” The Rodian girl hops to her feet and looks at Cere. “Seriously, my brother lives down the road – I’ll even ask before I borrow his speeder, make Deera happy. But it’s no trouble. I kinda owe you too, right?” She gestures to Deera. “I know she’s posh and all, but I like her.”

“Well – if you don’t mind –” Kate’s already turned and started jogging towards the gate. “Okay,” Cere says, squeezing Cal’s shoulder. “Still awake?”

“Mhm.”

“I am nearly finished,” the medical droid announces, putting down the laser. It tears the backing off a bacta patch and smooths it over the raw, bloodstained, puckered tissue. “There. Your treatment is complete.”

“Thanks,” Cal murmurs. He brings a shaking hand up, rubs his eyes, gets blood in those too. “Ow… Cere, I think you ruined my pants.” He’s just now realizing she hacked a giant hole in the inner thigh. Cal can’t walk around in these – they look like an ad for something he’s not selling.

“I’ll buy you another pair.”

“If you do not need my assistance with anything else,” the droid says, “I must be on my way. Do check into a medcenter within the next few hours.”

“Thank you for the help,” Cere says. Once the 2-1B has packed up its equipment and walked back to its vehicle, she quietly adds, “However much it cost….”

“You don’t wanna know,” Deera advises her.

Within a minute (which Cal spends shivering so hard Cere pulls off her jacket and drapes it across his chest like a blanket), Kate returns in a very sleek, open-topped, gunmetal-blue four-seater. Cal has a feeling speeders aren’t supposed to be back here, seeing as the gates aren’t wide enough to admit anything besides the slimmest of bikes, but she takes a shortcut over a building and parks right in front of them. “Your limo has arrived,” she says brightly, running her hands over the controls. “Gods, I love this thing. It runs like a dream.”

“Sorry about all the blood we’re going to get on the seats,” Cere says, grunting as she tries to heave Cal to his feet. What little blood is left in his body goes straight to the ground; his vision winks out and he just barely clings to consciousness as she practically drags him into the speeder.

“Oh, it’s my brother’s,” Kate says. “I guarantee – ” her voice disappears into the whine that floods Cal’s ears for a few seconds. Then Cere gets him on a seat and props his legs up in her lap and, slowly, his sight and hearing come crawling back. “– think this is less disgusting. Where are you headed?”

Cere gives Kate directions to their docking platform and Cal tips his head against the door, blinking hard until BD’s six optics reduce to two. “Hey, bud,” he whispers weakly.

Don’t ‘hey, bud’ him, BD retorts. Does Cal have some kind of exsanguination fetish? This happens entirely too often.

“I know, I know… Cere?” Cal says. She looks at him, leans closer to hear. “Jaxis?”

“I’m not sure how much I trust the medcenters on this planet,” Cere says in a low voice, nodding to a billboard as Kate takes them back down to street-level – it’s a recruitment ad for the Imperial military. “And Dante did say to drop by if we needed anything….”

“I don’t think this is what he meant.”

“If he can’t help us, he’ll know where we can go for medical attention that won’t draw attention,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

“Nauseous.” And extremely dizzy, and cold, and also thirsty, but mostly he would feel terrible if he puked in Kate’s brother’s speeder when she’s doing them a favor. Even if the thing’s no stranger to disgusting bodily fluids. He shuts his eyes when Kate takes a sharp turn and the sky wheels overhead. “Thanks for… you know. Always patching me up. And sticking your fingers into my leg.”

“Please do not make me do that again anytime soon,” Cere says immediately. After a moment, though, she adds, “But I will, if I have to.” She pats his knee. “I always will.”

He smiles at her, blearily, and then focuses on staying conscious for the rest of the ride. It’s mercifully short – perhaps two more minutes before Kate pulls to a stop right next to the Stinger Mantis and whistles. “Nice ship,” she says, twisting around in her seat.

“Yeah,” Cal says, struggling upright. Greez’s baby. He’s going to be so horrified at the amount of blood Cere and Cal are trekking inside.

Deera turns around too, folds her arms on the headrest, leans her chin on them. “Thank you,” she says softly. “Guess I should start carrying a blaster, huh?”

“Or a knife,” Cal says. He wobbles out of the speeder with a lot of help from Cere. “Or… actually, I left my knife back there. You could go steal it….”

“Good idea,” Kate says. “And then I’ll drop you off somewhere nice – like the Dome Theater! Tell Jav you were watching opera or something and that’s why you vanished for four hours.”

“They don’t even show opera there,” Deera says, amused. “Bye, guys.”

“Thanks for the ride,” Cere says, steadying Cal as BD jumps from the speeder door to his back and almost knocks him over. “Let me get him inside before he collapses on me.”

“Shoulda warned Greez ahead of time,” Cal mumbles. One foot in front of the other, up the ramp. Cere’s taking most of his weight, which helps. “He’s gonna… what is that?” he asks, putting in the effort to lift his head. Cere’s punching in the door code, but there’s something else beyond the beeping, something –

“ – that’s why I need a SQUID LIKE ME! Need a SQUID LIKE ME!”

Cal looks at Cere. Her mouth contorts like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Take me back to the riverwalk and let me bleed to death.”

“No,” Cere says, and heaves him inside.

“Oh, hey guys –” Greez cuts off and his eyes practically triple in size, the datapad in his hand hitting the deck. “Why are you both covered in blood?!” he shrieks.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Cal says, at the same time Cere (loudly) counters, “Why are you playing Squid Like Me at max volume?”

“He lost a bet!” Merrin calls from the galley – Cal sees a blur of red before Cere dumps him on the bench by the holotable, and he wastes no time in making himself horizontal so maybe the universe will stop spinning.

“Thank goodness,” Cere says. “I thought you’d finally snapped.”

“I’m about to,” Greez mutters. “Merrin, please!” he pleads; she finally takes pity on him and shuts the music off, leaving Cal’s ears ringing. But that might just be the blood loss. He’s feeling very close to passing out again. “You didn’t answer my question. Blood?!”

“Not as bad as it looks,” Cal repeats.

“Yes, it is,” Cere corrects. “He’s not in immediate danger, but we need to head to Jaxis and ask Dante about finding him some discreet medical attention. Get moving.”

“All right, all right, hold onto your pants… Callie, you bleed out on my potolli-weave and I’m making Merrin resurrect you just to clean it up,” Greez says as he rushes past.

“I’m not actually bleeding anymore…” Cal says, but everyone ignores him. Greez gets the Mantis fired up and Cere seals the hatch. Cal blinks a moment too long and Merrin’s sitting next to him, covering him with his blanket, and Cere’s checking his pulse like it’s six months ago and his spleen’s leaking into his abdominal cavity. “I’m fine,” he mumbles. “Really.”

“You are never not fine,” Merrin informs him. “Which is why I don’t believe you. You keep shivering.”

Just relax, BD says, nestling against the top of Cal’s head. They’re going to take care of him.

“Yeah,” Cal murmurs, letting his eyes close. “Yeah. You always do.”