#inspired by one of the bounty hunters lobbing a stun grenade at cal during my last playthrough...

[breakfastteatime]

Cal staggers aboard the Mantis looking… well, he doesn’t look good. Perhaps he tangled with Zeffo’s wildlife and came off worse. Greez stares at him, cataloguing injuries. Cal's hand is torn up, there’s blood seeping from his hairline, and what is with that massive black eye?

And speaking of his eyes…

“Are you high?” Greez’s voice comes out at least an octave higher than he intended, causing Cere to stick her head out of the cockpit.

“No!” Cal does not help his case by bursting out into laughter. “I wish I was.”

Cere steps out. “Cal? What happened?”

He turns to her, but his eyes don’t quite meet hers. Cere frowns. Greez has a bad feeling wailing in the back of his mind. Whatever Cal’s about to say, he knows it’s going to be very, very messy.

“Uh, so someone used a flash grenade on me.”

Greez grabs the table to hold himself up. “Someone from the Brood?”

Cal winces. “Yeah…”

So, this is Greez's fault. “Oh, kid, I am so sorry.”

Cal flaps a hand in his direction. “It’s not your fault, Greez, don’t worry about it.”

“But –”

Cere interrupts, and she sounds nearly as incredulous as Greez. “Cal, are you blind?”

“Blind?” Greez feels sick. The kid’s blind?

“Only temporarily,” Cal insists. “Although it is lasting longer this time. Weird.”

Weird? That’s all he has to say? It’s weird being blind? And then a new terrible thought dawns. “Wait, how did you get back here?” Greez demands.

Cal shrugs. “Used the Force. Kinda, y’know, sensed where stuff would be.”

BD-1 issues a squawk.

“And BD helped. A lot. I fell over a few times to begin with. Gonna have to replenish those stims, huh?”

BD-1 warbles.

"You used them all?" Greez asks. Because if he still had these injuries, what else had happened?

"I'm absolutely fine, Greez, seriously, don't worry."

"You're blind and bloody!" Greez groans. "This is not fine!"

Cere steps up close. Cal accepts her ministrations with all the grace he can muster. “Your pupils have dilated,” she says. “What can you actually see?”

“It’s all very white,” he says. “And I guess whenever I’m looking at something bright, it hurts.”

“Right,” Cere says with the tone of a woman on a mission. “Let’s get you somewhere dark. You need to give your eyes time to readjust. And we definitely need to clean you up.”

BD-1 beeps something and Greez decides to interpret it as ‘I told you so!’

Sighing dramatically, Cal allows himself to be dragged away. Greez goes too, because he’s not going to relax until he’s sure Cal’s not permanently injured. He’s Cere’s assistant, grabbing supplies as needed, including a lengthy washcloth for Cal to rest over his eyes.

“I could meditate with my eyes closed,” Cal suggests as he takes the cloth and obligingly places it over his closed eyes.

“Later,” Cere says. “I want to be sure there’s no permanent damage.”

“It’s my own fault,” Cal says as Cere wipes out the massive gash hiding under his hair. “The bounty hunter threw the flash grenade when I knocked them off the cliff and, like an idiot, I looked right at it.”

“So the bounty hunter landed a few blows?” Cere asks.

“Nah,” Cal says. “I fell a couple times trying to get back up a cliff.”

Greez hears himself moan. Because of course Cal climbed cliffs while blind. Why wouldn’t he? A normal person might sit down and have a perfectly understandable panic attack. Cal? He climbed. “And you definitely hadn't gone blind before this?” Greez asks. “You’re not hiding some terrible brain injury?”

“Nope, definitely the flash grenade,” Cal says. He doesn’t flinch when Cere applies bacta to his head and moves onto his injured hand. “Promise.”

“How?” Greez can’t get his head around this. “How did…”

“Like I said, the Force and BD helped,” Cal says.

BD-1 is very proud of himself.

“Explains why your hand’s missing a few layers of skin,” Cere comments.

Greez figures he’s better off not looking.

“Yeah, that stings,” Cal chuckles, the sound strained.

“You did well to get back here,” Cere says. “Using the Force for such an extended period would not have been easy.”

Cal gives a huge yawn to prove her point. “Yeah, never done that before,” he eventually admits.

It’s not a comfort at all to know a blind Cal was out there experimenting with his abilities. Why are Jedi like this? “You didn’t think to call for help?” Greez asks.

“Nah, it was fine.” Cal yawns again. “Totally had it under control.”

“That hand says otherwise,” Greez says, daring to take a look at the strips of skin hanging loose. Oof, bad idea. Very bad idea. That’s gonna haunt his dreams. He draws breath to continue.

Cere nudges him, a silent note to keep quiet.

“Tell me all about it later,” Cere says. "I know we train without our sight, but not quite like this."

Cal’s only response is a grunt. By the time Cere’s finished, he’s fully asleep. She asks Greez to dim the engine room's lights to further help Cal's eyes to readjust. They leave him under BD-1’s watchful gaze until, precisely one hour later, Cere goes to wake him. Greez stays in the galley, chewing on a thumb. Cere returns without Cal a little while later. She reaches over, gives Greez a pat on the shoulder. “It’s blurry, but his vision is returning. He’ll be fine. His eyes need longer to adjust. And he probably needs to sleep for a while yet, so leave him be.”

“Alright. So he's gonna be okay?”

"He'll be fine," Cere says, heading back to the cockpit. "And picked up a useful skill."

Giddy with relief, Greez bakes sorry-for-bringing-the-Brood-down-on-your-head-but-hey-you're-not-blind cookies, ready for when Cal wakes up.