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shadestepping · 3 years ago

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Good afternoon, mutuals and followers 💕

If you’re here for my Bad Batch posts, I would like to remind you that I am working on starting up a series called “The Bad Batch: Trespass”!

It is a canon-compliant Alternative Canon following the exploits of The Bad Batch and their new friends, the crew of a ship known as the Trespass!

This is set pretty far in, but once this chapter is through I will be backtracking and starting from the beginning, with Crosshair being picked up off that platform on Kamino.

Please give my work a read, I just know you’ll love it 💕 Thank you for your time and have a good Wrecker Wednesday!

And since he appears in this chapter, here’s a Bonus Trespass/Night Watch Fives!

The Bad Batch: Trespass- “A Statistical Loss”, pt. 7

Word count: 2,282 Characters: Tech, Hunter, Echo, Fives, Reina Darr (original), Noei Darr (original), Fae-Rao Viszla (original) Date: between 18 and 17 BBY Tech and Noei console Reina in their grief and promise to find a cure for their vision loss, while Fae-Rao deliberates over whether or not she should use the Force to speed along the process. Part 1: [ link ] -- Part 2: [ link ] -- Part 3: [ link ] -- Part 4: [ link ] -- Part 5: [ link ] -- Part 6: [ link ] -- Part 7: (you are here)

Archive Link: [ Ao3 ]

Their reaction to the prognosis was harder to endure than previously quantified with the data he possessed.

Despite his expectations, the one thing he couldn’t account for was the degree of emotional dysregulation from his concussion exacerbating his own response. He had seen grief like this in the eyes of displaced civilians and retired veterans, but he had never held it in his arms, never felt it deconstruct a soul as he did when Reina reached around his body with their good arm and clawed at the fabric over his back. Tension rippled through their shoulders, despondent sobbing rattled their chest, the mass expulsion of melancholic energy permeated to his very core… the true weight of it was inescapable. ‘Crushing’ turned out to be his greatest understatement in recent memory.

It was unclear how much time passed as he waited for them to speak again. Tech was too busy mentally cataloging every last micro-expression of their manifested grief, processing his emotional reactions, and filing the information away for future insight to pay it any mind; but he did notice when the shaking started to subside.

“How… how did… this happen?” Reina struggled to ask.

“Retinal detachment from mass deceleration,” he replied, calm and rehearsed.

Silence took them as they searched for reason in this explanation. “But… my retinas partially detached in the last crash… can’t that be repaired?”

Tech drew in a shaky breath and swallowed hard, his eyelids fluttered threateningly. “It could… if there wasn’t also damage to the macula.”

Reina’s brows crinkled. “What… what does that mean, I don’t-…” “The macula is the part of the retina at the back of the eye, about five millimeters in diameter, responsible for processing central vision, color, and fine detail-“

“Tech…” Reina gently interrupted before he could get too carried away with defining, rather than explaining. “I appreciate your knowledge… but what does that mean?”

Tech exhaled a quiet puff through his nose. He was avoiding a direct answer and they knew it. He knew it. “It’s… not something that can be fixed, dral kar’ta…” he admitted, tone dropping with the term of endearment he rarely used. “… at least, not with any known treatment. It’s too small and too delicate to operate on.”

The tremors in their chest started up anew.

“Noei says the previous retinal detachment likely contributed to the extent of the damage this time. It was just bad luck, I’m afraid… like everything else.”

The information didn’t help to slow their spiral; if anything, it made it worse. A low cry forced its way out of their lungs on a frequency that was uncomfortable to his ears. He cringed at the itch it triggered behind his eyes but tightened his grip and tucked his chin over the top of their head as their back curled forward. “I’m sorry Reina…” he whispered, throat quivering, stomach gnarled, and heart heavy with empathy. “I’m oh, so sorry…”

Tech jumped and turned halfway around as Doctor Darr burst into the room behind him moments later, anticipating the worst. Noei’s disheveled appearance greeted him with bruised, sleep-deprived eyes, unbrushed hair, freckles bleeding through smudged makeup, and clothes now three days old. Her blue-green gaze stared through him at her sister, as if she had been ripped from one nightmare and thrown into another. He’d been so fixated on his research he’d forgotten to check on her to make sure she was as okay as she’d seemed, so he hadn’t realized just how exhausted she was until she was standing five feet away from him. For a moment he was ashamed, because Doctor Darr was, after all, a good friend and confidante, regardless of his irritation with her.

Despite her emotional reservations for the last few days, hearing Reina’s cries unearthed instincts long-buried and set her back on auto-pilot. Noei wordlessly crossed the room and climbed up into the bed next to Reina, tucked Lula into the crook of their slung arm, and wedged a cold bottle of water into their right hand. Tech had had enough extensive academic talks with Noei in the past about how to care for psychological and emotional trauma to know that these were grounding techniques, but he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to put the practical application to use.

Without prompt, he fell into step with her efforts. Tech tapped Reina on the back of the head with two firm, two-fingered taps, and felt the trembling in their core weaken. This was a tactile reminder Noei had established to remind them to take pause and recalibrate their focus, that he and Reina had worked into their routines. They normally used it to alert each other when they were hyper-fixating and hadn’t eaten, slept, or taken a break in too long, but he was relieved to see it had the same effect when they were spiraling.

Reina clutched Lula tight against their chest and took in a deep, calming breath, while Noei counted out loud in sets: inhale for five, hold for seven, and exhale for eight. Each time they exhaled, their symptoms dissipated a little more. Tech felt the vibrations in their shoulders cease about five minutes later and loosened his hold on them once the sobbing subsided.

“Reina…?” he called in as soft a tone as he could, though they just burrowed further into his embrace, wishing to disappear. They still weren’t ready to continue the conversation. He repressed the anxious strain in his occipitals with a deep breath in and exhaled slow and even as Noei followed up.

“Reina, listen to me,” she coaxed in a motherly tone, one hand on her shoulder.

This time they lifted their head and turned halfway toward her, and Tech finally saw Noei’s composure crack. Her head dropped, her lip quivered, and the corners of her eyes wrinkled. Maker, how had he been so blind to her pain? She’d been struggling with her grief, same as he.

“There’s no way we’re going to let you lose your purpose to this.” Every negative thought plaguing him for the last three days evaporated the moment the words left her mouth. Finally, they were on the same page.

“No,” he agreed, more emphatic than intended. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes, we will find a solution.”

Reina’s grip on him relaxed, though when coupled with the question that followed, it felt more like disappointment. “How can you be so sure…?”

Tech paused before answering and lifted his gaze to look Noei in the eye. “Because, my dear,” he affirmed with a blooming, confident grin, “Your recovery is in the hands of the two most brilliant minds in the universe.”

Although she still doubted their ability to guarantee complete recovery, Noei returned his sentiment with a reserved smile and a determined nod.

“You will fly again- of that, I am certain.”

- - -

From the communications room three doors down, Hunter’s attention piqued. The two Night Watch rebels missed his brown eyes lift from the holo-table to focus with deliberate intent on what appeared to be a blank wall, but Echo knew better than to dismiss his tells. He’d heard something.

“What is it?”

Hunter set his jaw, sighed, and grunted a short reply. “Reina’s awake.”

Echo’s expression softened and he tossed a worried glance at Fae-Rao as she read between the lines of Hunter’s verbal and non-verbal cues.

“I take it Tech broke the news…?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer by the flattening of his tone and the tilted grimace in his cheek.

Hunter nodded crookedly, swiped around the data he’d been examining, and stowed it for the time being. “Yeah… and they’re not taking it well.”

“Understandably so,” Fae mused with quiet reservation, violet eyes staring unfocused before her. “I’ve been friends with Reina for four years- flying is their life. They’d rather die than hear that truth.”

“That’s a bit extreme,” Echo commented absently.

“You try telling a bird it will never fly again,” she huffed as she closed the data hologram and stepped away from the table. “Reina’s already had to fight tooth and nail to put herself back together once before- imagine how exhausted you would be to have to endure your trauma for a second time, and lose more of yourself than you already have…”

He let out a heavy-hearted sigh, then cast his gaze to the floor before circling back to the elephant in the room. “Have you given any further thought to my suggestion?”

The Jedi inhaled and lowered a dejected gaze as she leaned over the back of his chair. “I don’t know if it can be done, Echo…” she answered truthfully after a pause. “As much as I want to be able to help my friend, I was never trained to be a healer, and I wouldn’t want to accidentally make things worse.”

“Well… t’be fair,” Fives chimed in from her right, “I don’think a total loss of sight could really ‘get any worse’.”

Fae shifted her gaze like a silent prayer. “Force, how I wish that were true...”

Fives tilted his head and furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

“The kind of precision needed to restore such a small part of the body requires intricate knowledge I do not possess,” she reasoned.

“If I make even the slightest mistake, if or when Tech and Noei do find a solution… it could set back their recovery by months, years... maybe even indefinitely.”

Echo's gaze hardened, and Fae-Rao’s eyes fell shut with the weight of his screaming thoughts. She didn’t have to look him in the eye to know what he was thinking: “If it were me, I’d want that option.” Yes, she wanted to do her part to help, if possible, but she also did not want to bear the burden of responsibility if she failed spectacularly. It was selfish, but Reina was a dear friend, and she didn’t want to lose them to resentment.

“But… shouldn’t you at least try? I mean… isn’t it worth it to offer?” Fae-Rao placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You know I’d heal everyone if I could, but that’s just not how the Force works. It’s not a mystical cure-all, and it takes special skill to wield with medical precision.”

Echo’s lips drew thin in grim understanding. His hand lifted and settled over hers and he turned to lean his forehead against her forearm.

“I know you empathize with their plight… and I want to help, but this makes me uncomfortable.”

“She’s right, Ech,” Hunter echoed in agreement. “You can’t ask someone t’perform surgery when they’re not a surgeon- Jedi or not.”

“Why don’t you leave the decision up to Reina?”

Fives’ neutral suggestion gave a much-needed pause to the weight of the conversation. Neither of them was inherently wrong in their logic. Echo was right- that to try and fail was better than to not try at all, but Fae-Rao’s discomfort was also valid and not to be discounted. However, the decision wasn’t theirs to make, and there was no point in fighting over whether or not they should when the question was if they could.

Neither objected to his reasoning. Echo seemed pleased with the compromise but Fae’s expression remained troubled. Echo had missed it, but Fives had been by her side long enough to know even the slightest nuance in her expressions and body language. She was deeply conflicted over this matter.

Hunter could sense that something was amiss. His eyes shifted between Commander Vizsla and Echo for a few moments before he moved away from the communication center toward the door, and tossed a casual order over his shoulder.

“We’ll take a break and reconvene at 21:00. Echo, with me- Crosshair and the Kryze girls’ll be back soon, an’they’ll need our help.”

Echo stood with a quiet “Sir” and glanced down at Fae-Rao as she took back her hand, crossed her arms, and averted his eyes. He flexed his jaw as he stared into the pattern of her silver fishbone braids, wounded by her sudden cold-shoulder, and sighed. “I’m sorry, I don’wanna pressure you,” he breathed as he leaned down and planted a soft kiss atop her head. “Just… do what you think is right.”

Her composure wavered as he left the room, but Fives caught her before she broke. “Don’mind him…” he reassured, one hand lifted to cup the back of her head. “He trusts your judgment, even if he kin’ be a stubborn sheb.”

His teasing earned a quiet laugh as she turned her cheek into the palm of his hand, her expression longing. “I… would like some time to meditate with the Force, before I talk to Reina.”

Fives nodded, his thumb softly swiping across her face a few times before taking back his hand and getting down to business. “I’ll keep watch,” he confirmed and turned toward the door, but before he could step away, she caught his hand with hers. He froze at her touch and tossed a questioning glance over his shoulder.

“Would you, please… sit with me? It’s been so long since I’ve been able to commune with another-”

“Of course,” he replied before she could even finish. “Whatever you need, I’m at your service.”

Fae-Rao beamed back a grateful smile and motioned to the open side of the room. Fives sat down first, crossed his legs as best he could, and exhaled as she sat down behind him with her back to his.

“Relax- Clear your mind, and focus on the question,” she instructed, straightening her back and leaning her head against his backplate.

“And what question is that?”

“A request for clarity- for knowledge, and for empathy.”

———————- dral kar'ta = "bright heart"

** Special thanks to @hazardous-studios for being my point of reference for the proper terminology and treatment of macula-off retinal detachment!

World-building entries

The Night Watch: The name for the Mandalorian Resistance against the Empire, after the Imperial Reformation of Mandalore, which consisted of Bo-Katan Kryze and her Night Owls, the Protectors, what would eventually become known as “the Clan”, and most of House Viszla. This Resistance was led by a former Jedi Padawan named Fae-Rao Viszla —the first Mandalorian to enter the order since Tarre Viszla— and was aided by a group of non-Mandalorians and clone deserters, who sympathized with the plight of Mandalore. Commander Reina Darr: former Combat Transport Pilot of the Republic Navy (before the Clone Wars) who was discharged after a bad crash in which they lost both of their legs from the thigh-down. After their discharge, Darr continued flying a modified light freighter known as the Trespass for a smuggling operation based out of the Coruscant lower levels, which specialized in relocating anyone trying to escape dangerous situations and start a new life. Following the Imperial Reformation of the Republic into the Galactic Empire, Darr and their crew fled Coruscant to base their operation out of Ord Mantell, but joined the Night Watch at the request of Fae-Rao. For a little over two years, Darr Commanded a small Airborne Fleet, running tactical strikes against the Empire and evacuating non-compliant Civilians off-planet to the care of the Protectors on the third moon of Concord Dawn.

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shadestepping · 3 years ago

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