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He was sick, was the first coherent thought in Wedge’s head. He struggled to remember exactly why waking up sick was bad. Why the idea terrified him – much more than the blinding headache had, the kind that made him feel beaten and nearly paralysed from pain burning unsteadily behind his eyes. It did nonetheless; as he tried to blink away the haze, the dread churning low in his gut grew and grew.
He’d gone to sleep with his throat sore and eyes smarting, true, but that had been from tears of joy. Wedge couldn’t have stopped the scream he’d let out at the sight of Wes – right there, grinning at them from beyond the transparisteel wall of the quarantined bay, equally brimming-eyed and alive… – if he’d wanted to. He could have no less stopped himself from breaking down at that moment than he could get the wall to disappear. And, if he was frank, he wouldn’t care to. He still couldn’t bring himself to regret his reaction.
Wes was alive. He was alive.
Even now, the revelation left him reeling, helpless in the face of the miracle that he should have had grown used to, courtesy of Rogue Nine. But, at a guess, Wedge Antilles was a lost cause when it came to friends returning from the dead.
Even now, hours later, blood rushed in his ears, adrenaline making his heart work overtime. And oh boy, it wasn’t pleasant now.
Groaning, he tried to shift his head without causing it to split apart. Sparks still flew, and he’d grit his teeth against the wave of nausea, only it would have made everything worse. Instead, he sucked in air, tried to hold it.
It didn’t help at all.
He wasn’t sure how long he just lay there, sweating and shaking as chills raked through his body, trying to gather his thoughts together and at the same time to stop thinking, because thinking hurt, everything hurt, the warm scratchy linens against his skin, the cool air in his parched mouth. It was still dark, he thought mutely, maybe when the lights went up, someone will be by.
He hoped not.
Why would it be bad if someone happened upon him? Wedge didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of triggering blue code, but…
It was then that the lights overhead sprung to life, the white fire of them blazing across every inflamed nerve of his, and he probably cried out aloud, hand thrown jerkily up against the blaze, the horrible, roaring thunder slamming into his skull, and he finally remembered.
Blue code – a possible outbreak of infection – the quarantine – Wes, making faces and laughing from beyond an impenetrable wall – Wedge, waking up sick – his squadron.
Gasping for air, he wished that there was some monitoring system installed in their cubicles. That no one decided to come by to wish a good morning, or that the door simply wouldn’t open. They should have planned for this possibility, right?
Maybe not, he realised with the same distant, cold horror, as minutes ticked by and still no alarm sounded, no med droid appeared to encase him in some protective bubble and drag him away before the infection spread. Or worse, he wasn’t the only one affected. No, he decided stubbornly. That wasn’t happening. It wasn’t allowed to.
But it was quiet outside. So quiet.
He lost himself a little in listening to that silence. For some stretch of time, he almost forgot about the headache and the nausea, about the heat curling lazily under his skin. The silence captivated him thoroughly enough that he moved unconsciously, rolled his head on the too-hot pillow, shifted himself on his side. His limbs were heavy; his head was heavier still.
He lay there, slowly relaxing, and his eyes slid shut between one thudding heartbeat and another.
Some sort of outer pressure forced him awake again. He squinted, too tired, recognised a face looming uncomfortably close to his own. Tycho’s lips were moving, but his voice was so loud. With a groan, Wedge pulled away, or attempted to, and Tycho melted back into amalgamation of lights and unrelenting fire.
His bunk was moving. Wedge blinked, tried to focus on the movement, but it was too much, the heat overwhelming, the gentle rocking of the walls closing in on him sickening. The bunk lurched. Or he did. No, he was still burrowed into that ugly pillow, breath leaving him in fast, shallow bursts. There was a cool, slippery sensation on his back, a pressure around his thighs, and he was lifted, carried. It was done so gently, yet all he knew for those moments was the explosion behind his eyes sloshing, spilling, bursting. He writhed; if he could just force it down… – but the droid pushed him to lie on his back, the table firm beneath him, the surface cold. Something even colder settled on his face, blocking the light and the sounds of an angry swarm surrounding him.
Gradually, the heat and the pain receded.
Wedge couldn’t say how long it was this time. He swam in and out of hazy oblivion, and while he could have sworn he didn’t sleep, he wasn’t really conscious through all that. The cold table he was laid on remained a constant, but that was all. The thing on his face, some kind of medical equipment, had been taken away, then returned. The lights were dim, and when they weren’t, it didn’t hurt as much, but he still tried to look away. The Two-Onebee caring for him offered him food once, and the smell nearly made him gag; but water was somewhat alright, if tasted strange. After a conversation, one he participated in but couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was said, the haze returned in full force.
Tycho sat with him through half of it all, looking unconcerned. Wedge should have been offended; instead, he felt calmer, knowing that Deuce was watching his back.
“Of course I am,” Tycho answered warmly. The next time Wedge resurfaced, though, Tycho was watching his own dreams, sprawled in his chair inelegantly and even snoring. No; it was, in fact, Hobbie, he realised.
“I would clear you to return to your cubicle, General,” the Two-Onebee told him, Tycho and Hobbie gone, but a smaller neurological scanner sitting snugly around Wedge’s head. “Yet I hesitate to believe that you would be able to facilitate the necessary hours of uninterrupted sleep. I recommend that you stay for another night.”
“I really need a shower, doc.” He did. He felt gross; as if illness left him filthy, not merely made him sweat a little. But when he tried to stand, his legs gave out from under him.
“I will call for assistance,” the Two-Onebee said, reproach clear in its modulated voice.
To his further mortification, the droid returned with Tycho in tow. Deuce looked roused from his bed, but he grinned at Wedge all the same. He even brought a change of clothes – granted, those were the pajamas they were all provided for the duration of their stay, but they were new and fresh.
Turned out, he really needed help taking a karking shower. Tycho laughed his embarrassment off.
“You aren’t dying of a dreadful bio-engineered bug, Wedge, so you get some slake,” he said, his hands gentle and steady as he worked shampoo in Wedge’s hair. They sat on the shower’s tiled floor, Wedge too dizzy to stay upright and Tycho curiously lighthearted. “Although, what you really should get is an actual leave. Not a day or two on a second-rate beach in between lethal assignments.”
“Yeah, the Two-Onebee told me everything about that. I think.” Memories were still a little distant. Wedge talked with the droid a few times; he just hoped none of his medically induced confessions made their way onto Admiral Ackbar’s desk. Suddenly, he blinked and turned to give Tycho an indignant look. “Hey! So, if I were in fact dying because of some plague Isard’s created, it’d be less forgivable? How does it even work?”
“Wedge, you crashed with this mother of all headaches because you have been under stress for way too long,” Tycho reminded, as if Wedge needed it. He was the one wearing medical equipment while trying to bathe. To make things worse, Tycho continued, soft but unstoppable, “and you chose the moment you felt it was safe.” He waved a hand uncertainly, trying to encompass either the tiny shower stall or the entirety of the medbay, Wedge wasn’t sure. “Quarantined aboard the Lusankya after taking down two Isards and a wannabe overlord who nearly had us wiped. That’s not what I’d call safe. Not by a very long stretch.”
“I figure it’s the universe’s way to compensate for all those times we should have died and didn’t.”
Tycho punched him lightly in the arm. “Not funny, boss.” But he didn’t look upset.
Of course he didn’t, Wedge thought, irritated, when, ten minutes later, Tycho unceremoniously hoisted him back on the table and sicced the Two-Onebee back on him, saying there was no chance Wedge would be able to rest in the common area, smiling sweetly and terrifyingly all the way. So much for watching his back.