#lmao you THINK im gonna make obi-wan go through the report when he's surrounded by people

[jasontoddiefor]

HMM WATCHA SAAAAY Chapter 5

Kix was incredibly thankful that Master Che – Call me Vokara, Kix – had given him unrestrained access to the Halls of Healing. While it had been necessary for his research, learning more about physical therapy as a whole, it also came with the great bonus of access to the pills that made your mind clear up a little after crashing. It was supposed to be taken after long shifts, but Kix had gathered that it was usually given to anybody in a less fortunate state of mind that needed to get a clear head, such as Senior Padawans who had been out all night in the Lower levels and had a mission on the next day.

The last week had been hellish between accumulating whatever insights they could get from General Skywalker on his and trying to put together a physical therapy program for somebody who should be as healthy as a bantha. The fact that the Council had called upon them for the final report and Kix as the head researcher was supposed to lay out their findings was also not the highlight of this week.

“Medic Kix,” one of the Council members greeted him. “Master Che, Master Erin, Medic Coric, thank you for taking the time to present us your findings.”

Most Council members were off-world again already so the circle in front of him wasn’t particularly large. Kix wished that General Kenobi would be here at least, but he and the 212th had to be called back to battle. The 501st was to follow soon, but whether their General could come with them relied on Kix’s report. He had sworn not embellish anything, to pretend his General was better off than he appeared to be, but he was tempted to do so. He couldn’t help it, he didn’t want to go anywhere without knowing that his General had his back. He didn’t mind working with another Jedi, they were all equally kind and good, but they weren’t Anakin Skywalker.

And Kix would rather have Anakin, exhausted and terrified out of his mind, with him, than a stranger, no matter how kind.

“It is of no trouble, Master Jedi,” Kix replied.

This was another thing Kix had noticed during his stay at the temple. The Jedi refused to use military titles for themselves inside of it. They were Masters, Healers, Knights Padawans – but they were not Generals or Commanders. Kix and his brothers, of course, got addressed by their proper titles, spoken with honor and an edge of regret, but that was it.

“You have been taking care of Anakin from the beginning?” General Koon asked.

Kix liked Plo Koon. The Kel Door took good care of the men under his command and he was always ready to make sure Kix’s little Commander was in good fighting shape when she was in his care.

“Yes,” Kix replied. “Coric and I were the ones who oversaw the General’s transport back to the ship and then consequently watched over him for the week he was comatose.”

“Were the injuries he gained in the battle so severe?”

Kix shook his head. “No, not at all. It was an easy campaign all in all.”

“From my understanding of the events, as Kix elaborated them, Knight Skywalker experienced an immense shock when he was hit by the vision,” Vokara explained. “Consequently, he was disorientated and must have experienced sensory overload. His collapse was his body’s attempt at shutting him down to give himself time to deal with the onslaught of memories and unfamiliarity of his body.”

When they had attempted to figure out why muscle memory alone wasn’t keeping Anakin upright, Vokara had brought up pieces of Jedi philosophy so far unknown to Kix. Jedi viewed bodies as conduits of the Force. Only in a healthy body could rest a healthy mind and only a healthy mind could access the Force. It was the reason that Anakin’s one prosthetic was already viewed with so much heartbreak. Kix supposed it made everything that came after only worse.

“Can Skywalker be sent back with the 501st?” Master Koon continued, directly cutting to the most difficult part.

“Under normal circumstances, I’d say no. I don’t think he should ever actually handle combat at all again. While physically he will be back on top of his game within a few weeks, if not surpass it still, I cannot condone such an action when taking his mental health into account.”

While the Jedi all tried to keep a neutral expression, Kix had been trained to deal with the most stubborn no-I’m-not-injured-I-promise brothers and I-can-hold-off-an-army-on-my-own Jedi and he could easily spot when somebody was starting to slip. The Jedi were surprised, not at the latter aspect, it was clear as day that the General was far from possessing a healthy mind, they wondered about his strength.

“Councilors, if I may suggest, I believe it would be best if we started with our report now,” Kix inserted. “It will answer a lot of questions as to Master Skywalker’s precise condition.”

He wondered if he was already crossing lines, trying to make it all out to be better than it was just by taking their attention away from how the General was right now instead of how he could be, had been.

“Proceed you may,” Master Yoda said grimly.

Hearing how much stronger their enemy was, how he was luring them all towards their death, must have greatly disturbed the old Master. Kix thought of the old clones back on Kamino, those who hadn’t made it to the front lines and watched the Shinies instead. And he thought of the war veterans, those who had been on Geonosis. They all had the same look in their eyes when they assigned the should-be-still-cadets to the frontlines. The sadness for being responsible for the deaths of so many young lives, it was not easy to bear.

“Three months ago, in the aftermath of a campaign, Knight Anakin Skywalker collapsed,” Kix began to say, his eyes not even flickering to the text on the datapad he was holding. “He froze, then Force-pushed the nearest troopers away from him and lost consciousness. He had no visible injuries and was brought to the medbay for further examination. After twenty-four hours, he woke for the first time. He reacted with similar panic and it took multiple sedations as well as Master Obi-Wan Kenobi using a Force-suggestion to put him to sleep again. This manner continued for another five days.”

Those five days had been some of the worst Kix had to experience during the entire war so far. Coric and he had run themselves ragged to keep an eye on their General, never mind how exhausted Master Kenobi had been after staying awake for so long.

“He was catatonic when he woke up after this time period. Even while awake, he didn’t react to anything. He needed a breathing machine and we fed him intravenously. He snapped out of it after another three days…”

Kix trailed off. When they had discussed how they would present their findings, they had decided that Kix would speak of all events he had been there to witness with Vokara contributing the Jedi perspective. Bant and Coric didn’t actually need to be present for this, but they had all worked through this report together, they should do this together as well.

“As, at the time, no professional mind healer could make it to the 501st-“ Vokara’s voice was professionally cold, but after all these evenings spend in her office or apartment, Kix could hear the bitterness that was seeping into it. “Master Kenobi decided to take it upon himself to help Skywalker’s splintered mind. He was successful, though I believe that is largely due to the bond the two share and want it noted on Master Kenobi’s file that he is herby prohibited from attempting to do the same with any other Jedi. It could have backfired incredibly easily and then we would have lost two Jedi instead of one.”

The Council nodded in agreement and Vokara quickly swiped away their open report to replace it with her file on General Kenobi. She added a small note there, then changed the documents once more.

“When Master Skywalker finally properly woke up then, he was still confused and disorientated. It took a full day before he could breathe and speak on his own, both aftereffects of what he experienced in his vision,” Kix continued.

The General’s hoarse words had been difficult to understand. For one because it had felt like he hadn’t known how to string them together properly, on the other because of the low volume. The General was always loud which made it easy to spot him in a crowd. To hear him speak so silently was the first sign that something had been wrong.

“I have so far classified his experience as a new type of vision,” Vokara explained. “Our research on temporal physics is limited, I do not know if his claims of time travel are accurate, but it was certainly no normal vision. Not even Master Sifo-Dyas had experienced a vision as such. Skywalker has experienced twenty years’ worth of memories, hence his body being uncomfortable to him.”

“Forgive me my question,” Shaak Ti said. “But from the brief account Master Kenobi gave us, I had gathered that Skywalker was experiencing something more akin to body dysphoria than merely feeling uncomfortable.”

“That would be correct,” Vokara retorted and then sighed in defeat. “Or as correct as it can be. I will be honest, we are missing terminology to properly definite Skywalker’s condition. To put it simply, Skywalker is hardly used to having a body. From his account, and what we have gathered based on physical reactions, Skywalker spent twenty years with about 65% of his body having been replaced. In other words, only 35% of himself was still organic.”

“What!?” The hiss of one of the Councilors rang like an accusation through the room.

Horror, shock and nausea washed through the air so strongly that even Kix could feel it, be it though that he wasn’t even the slightest bit Force-sensitive. He understood their recoiling even without the pain that their understanding of life and the Force brought them. He half-expected the windows to crack under the might of their outrage, used to such displays from his General.

“He had lost both his legs as well as his remaining arm. It is the reason Master Skywalker spend the first days after his awakening in a wheelchair, though he refused to use it for long. He had to relearn how to walk. His fine-motor control is also still lacking slightly, his current prosthetic arm being the one he has the best handling of. His digestive system was also severely damaged and barely anything remained from his lungs. He was dependent on intravenous feeding and a breathing machine that he could manually override, but only at great cost to himself. Additionally, to his lungs, his vocal tract was also damaged to the degree that he needed a vocoder to speak.”

“And how did he sustain those injuries in his vision?” Master Koon asked. He had his hands laying folded on his lap. No movement betrayed him, but Kix distinctly got the impression that he was attempting to hold himself back from doing something rash.

“We aren’t entirely sure. Master Skywalker has been reluctant to share how exactly he came to be injured in such a way,” Kix stated. Reluctant was the most diplomatic way of describing how haunted General Skywalker had looked when Kix had just alluded to the topic. He hadn’t shut down, but the expression on his face, utter terror bathed in fear, had been enough. “The event must have been highly traumatic and evidence points towards him being burned alive, likely while he was completely conscious for it. He mentioned needed skin grafts on multiple occasions and is extremely uncomfortable around fire.”

Kix felt a little like he was betraying his General by sharing such information behind his back. Of course, Skywalker had been made aware that there would be an extensive report on his condition, but he likely thought it was just about his capability to return to the battlefield. The General didn’t seem to really consider that his mental health mattered as well. Kix was not one of the medics particularly schooled in psychiatry, Coric had started looking more into it and so he and Master Erin had been the one to draft a psychological profile on Skywalker, based on what they knew about his future-past.

They hadn’t gathered much yet, but that part of their report was about as pretty as the rest.

“And he lived with all those injuries for twenty years?” The hopeful disbelief, the want for it all to be a lie, was apparent.

Jedi were not in the habit of being in denial, speaking the harsh truths the senators seldom wanted to hear, but that didn’t mean that they wanted to accept it all.

“A little more, actually,” Kix was forced to admit. “I believe it was around twenty-five. He had made references to such years existing. The cause of his own death is unknown as well, though it was possibly the result of his failing health.”

“And, additionally, we have been led to believe that he spent most of those years being extensively tortured by the Sith Lord keeping him.”

“Master Kenobi had already mentioned so,” Plo Koon said.

Kix nodded slowly. He wished General Kenobi would be here now, listening to them give the report instead of reading it on his own onboard the Negotiator. The paper they had written was clinical, factual, but Kix had long since realized that there was a time and place for hard facts and gentle truths.

“I am aware, but Master Kenobi is not aware of the extent we believe this torture to have reached. Skywalker has mentioned Sith Lightning and apparently knows how to disperse it within the body instead of just bearing it and survive. This implies that he was exposed to it multiple times, likely not with the intention of killing him, and learned from those sessions.”

“How have you concluded all that?”

Kix and Vokara shared a look. Their report had already been all over the place, more a discussion than a systematic rundown of what looked like hell come alive.

“Perhaps, best we start at the beginning?” General Yoda spoke up.

The Master, though powerful he was, appeared so old now, almost frail like every gust of wind could swipe him away. And yet there was this determination in his eyes, the willingness and need to know what harm would come to them.

“That would be the easiest,” Vokara replied and began anew.

Kix had written this report, read it about a thousand times and repeated it to others as well. Its content was familiar to him, the words he knew by heart, and still, at times, he found himself caught off-guard. Worst was when Vokara, though she kept a distance to the topic at hand, would sometimes need to read a sentence twice. The two of them had seen gruesome injuries, Jedi and Brothers alike die of less than what General Skywalker had lived through.

Which was the precise reason why they needed to put him back on the battlefield.

“I am prejudiced in this,” Kix admitted freely, finally finishing. The sky had turned dark by now and he desperately needed to drink something. “I want my General at my back. However, there is also the matter that he survived all of this. I do not actually believe that we stop him from going out on his own should we attempt to keep him away from the fighting. He might even decide to face Sidious head-on, and we can’t allow that to happen.”

The Jedi looked troubled by his assessment and so Kix was not too surprised when they sent him and the other three out of the room to make their decision. Kix had done all he could at this point to protect his General.

He had done his job and fulfilled his duty.

Now he could only hope that it had been enough.