🥪

The words hit like a slap. Not cruel, exactly—but stripped of the warmth you had expected. No trace of the boy you remembered lingered in them. Only cold assessment.

“You’re in charge of the camp?” you asked finally, your voice steadier than you felt, trying to anchor yourself in the present. His eyes flicked to the rows of injured behind you, taking in the camp with clinical precision before returning to you.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” he said, flat. “I expect reports on triage efficiency, resource allocation, and any civilian complications. Start at the northern quadrant. I’ll review your findings at 1800 hours.”

“Bryce—”

“Doctor Halven, if you will.” he wasted no time to correct you, glaring at you like you’ve made a grave mistake. “Focus on your assignments. I’ll need your reports in order.”

Your hands, gloved and trembling, clenched at your sides. You wanted to reach out, to bridge the gap, to find the Bryce you remembered—but a part of you hesitated. That part whispered that maybe he wasn’t there anymore. That it wasn’t him. Not the Bryce you remembered. The warmth, the reckless energy, the spark of mischief—gone. Replaced by a cold, calculating stare that seemed to measure every inch of you, as though you were nothing more than a variable in some strategy you couldn’t understand.

Your hands curled into fists at your sides, knuckles whitening beneath your gloves.

Each step you took toward the northern quadrant felt heavier than the last, your boots scuffing the cracked stones, stirring the dust that settled on ruined walls and broken cots alike. You passed a child with a scraped forehead and a grimace that mirrored your own internal panic, and your fingers twitched, wanting to reach out, wanting to fix what could not be fixed. But you pressed onward.

You reminded yourself of the rhythm you had relied on in the past—the methodical assessment of injury, the triage priorities, the calm detachment that allowed you to act when chaos threatened to swallow you whole. You counted out the steps in your mind, noting the medics moving like shadows, the stretchers being shifted, the wounded being stabilized. You catalogued the damage in cold, clinical terms even as your heart protested.

The juxtaposition twisted inside you. Duty demanded focus, yet every instinct screamed at you to reach across the invisible gulf he had erected. You pressed your hands against your thighs, willing the tremor to stop, willing the nausea of betrayal, disappointment, and disbelief to fade. You had to focus. You had to be useful.

Memories you had tucked away—laughter in sunlit courtyards, arguments that had ended in teasing grins, shared secrets whispered under the stars—clashed violently with this new, disciplined version of him. How had he become this?

You forced yourself to inhale slowly, feeling the dust cling to your lungs, feeling the weight of the sun-scorched air in your throat. You repeated the mantra silently, over and over: I am here to help. I am here to help. I am here to help. Not for nostalgia—but for the people scattered across the camp.

*******

I am here to help, I am here to help….

You repeated the mantra until the work swallowed you whole.

Not all at once—not like a wave, not like something dramatic and clean. It crept in through your hands first. Through the rhythm. Through the quiet, relentless demand of one more patient, one more wound, one more life balanced on the thin edge between enough and too late.

Gavos Minor had become a convergence point. Not just of suffering—but of response.

You began to notice it in fragments.

Accents that didn’t belong to this system. Techniques you hadn’t seen before. Instruments too finely made for a backwater relief effort. Robes, armor, insignias—some worn openly, others tucked away beneath necessity. The galaxy, it seemed, had answered. Not with armies.

With healers.

With hands.

With people who had chosen, in the middle of a war designed to break things, to put them back together.

You learned it fully when you reached the third row of the northern quadrant, where the triage shifted from chaos to something almost resembling order. A cluster of medics moved with precision that caught your eye—not the frantic efficiency of overstretched personnel, but something… practiced. Harmonized.

You stepped closer.

And saw her.

The Tholothian woman stood at the center of it, her silhouette unmistakable—tall, composed, her cranial tendrils wrapped in functional, minimal bindings rather than ceremonial ones. Her hands moved with fluid certainty, fingers stained faintly with antiseptic and blood alike, her voice low and steady as she directed those around her.

“Rotate him—no, support the head. Yes. Good. Now breathe. Slowly.”

The patient obeyed.

So did everyone else.

You hovered for half a second too long—long enough for her to notice.

Her eyes flicked up to meet yours. Assessing. Not unkind. Just… immediate.

“You’re from Alderaan?”

You shook your head. “Field medic.”

“Good, you’re with me then.”

No ceremony. No hesitation. Just absorption.

You stepped in.

Time lost meaning after that.

There was only motion.

Hands passing instruments. Voices calling vitals. The low murmur of pain, the sharper edge of panic, the quiet—too quiet—of those who had slipped beyond reach. You worked beside her—Alma, you learned, between one patient and the next—your movements gradually syncing with hers.

She was… extraordinary.

Not in a way that demanded attention. Not like a flare or a spectacle. More like gravity. Constant. Unavoidable. The kind of competence that didn’t need to prove itself because it simply was.

She anticipated before problems formed. Adjusted before mistakes happened. Where others reacted, she guided.

And you found yourself matching her.

Not perfectly. Not effortlessly. But enough.

Enough that the work began to flow.

“Hold that,” she said once, pressing your hand more firmly against a compress you hadn’t realized was slipping. Her fingers lingered for half a second—correcting angle, pressure, intent.

“There,” she added. “You’re thinking too far ahead.”

You blinked. “I—”

“You’re anticipating the next crisis,” she said, already moving to stabilize a breathing mask. “It’s useful. But not if it costs you the present one.”

You exhaled slowly.

“…Right.”

A pause. Then, quieter: “You’ve done this before. On a large scale.”

You hesitated.

Images flickered—dust, blasterfire, white armor streaked with ash.

“Yes,” you said. “With the 212th Attack Battalion.”

That got her attention.

Not outwardly. Not dramatically. But you felt the shift.

“Frontline unit,” Alma said. “High casualty rotation.”

You huffed a faint, humorless breath. “That’s one way to put it.”

“What’s your survival rate?”

You glanced at your hands.

At the blood that wasn’t yours.

“…Depends on the day.”

She accepted that. Just a slight nod, as if you’d given her a precise statistic instead of something fractured and human.

“You learned efficiency,” she said.

“I learned not to freeze,” you corrected.

A flicker—something almost like approval.

“Good,” Alma said. “Freezing kills more effectively than most weapons.”

Hours passed.

Or minutes.

Or something in between.

You stopped trying to measure.

Instead, you worked.

A child with a collapsed lung—stabilized.

A man with shrapnel embedded too deep to remove—managed, not saved.

A woman who wouldn’t stop asking for someone who wasn’t coming—you held her hand anyway, because sometimes that was the only treatment left.

And through it all, Alma moved like a constant.

At one point, during a rare lull—if the word even applied—you found yourself sitting back on your heels, flexing your fingers, feeling the tremor you had suppressed finally begin to surface.

Alma crouched beside you, passing you a canteen without comment.

You took it.

Drank.

The water tasted like metal and something faintly medicinal. It grounded you anyway.

“You’re far from your unit,” she said.

You stared ahead at the rows of cots, at the endless procession of need.

“…Yeah.”

“By choice?”

That question lingered.

You thought of General Kenobi—of a presence that steadied and unsettled you in equal measure. You looked back at her.

“Not really. I’m 50% sure he guilt-tripped me into this.”

“He?”

“My supervisor.”

“Ah, yes. They tend to do that. Lucky for you, everyone in this camp is their own boss.”

“Really? What about the leading Doctor?”

“Who?”

“The guy that coordinates the sector?” you hopefully tried again.

“Never seen him.” Alma shrugged.

You wished you could say that.

You hovered for a moment before stepping closer.

“Did you finish the report?” you asked, your voice quieter than the chaos warranted. “The one we are supposed to give him?”

“No,” she said.

Just that.

You blinked. “No?”

Now she glanced at you. Not defensive. Not dismissive. Simply… direct.

“I didn’t have time.”

Your gaze flicked briefly toward the command post at the far end of the camp, where order was supposed to be compiled, quantified, translated into something legible for those making decisions far removed from this dust and blood.

“He will ask for it,” you said. “They need those numbers. Triage efficiency, mortality rates, supply usage—”

“I know what they need.”

There was no edge in her tone. No irritation. Just certainty.

You hesitated, then pressed, quieter still, “Then why—?”

Alma exhaled through her nose. Not quite a sigh. Not quite impatience. Something tighter.

“Because,” she said, turning back toward the next cot, already reaching for fresh gloves, “saving lives is not about checking if the numbers are right.”

The words landed heavier than they should have.

You followed her, slower this time. “It’s not just numbers,” you said. “Those reports decide where resources go. Who gets reinforcements. Who gets left behind.”

Her hands stilled for half a second as she adjusted a patient’s bandage.

“I am aware.”

“Then why are you—” You stopped yourself, then forced it out anyway. “Aren’t you worried about the consequences?”

That did it.

Not a dramatic reaction. Not anger.

Just a small, sharp huff of breath.

Alma glanced at you again, and this time there was something in her eyes—something harder. Not directed at you. At the question. At the premise of it.

“I am worried,” she said.

Then she pressed her hands gently but firmly against a patient’s chest, guiding their breathing back into rhythm.

“I am worried,” she repeated, quieter now, more to the space between actions than to you, “that if I spend the next ten minutes documenting the last ten minutes, someone in front of me will die while I am being correct.”

The word carried weight. Not contempt—something more complex. Experience, maybe. Or the memory of having chosen differently once.

She reached for a hypospray, checked the dosage without looking, administered it with steady precision.

“You think the consequences come later,” she went on. “From missed reports. From incomplete data.”

Her gaze lifted briefly, meeting yours.

“I see them here.”

A shallow breath. A failing pulse. A hand that goes slack because no one was there quickly enough.

Another beat.

Then she broke eye contact, already moving on.

“If they want numbers,” she said, voice returning to that calm, grounded cadence, “they can count the ones still breathing.”

The conversation ended there. Not abruptly—just… conclusively. Like a door that had never really been open.

You stood still for a moment, the weight of her words settling into the same space Bryce had hollowed out earlier. Different, but not unrelated.

Duty. But defined differently.

Measured differently.

You looked down at your hands again. At the faint tremor still threading through them. At the dried blood caught in the seams of your gloves.

Reports mattered.

Structure mattered.

But so did this.

You stepped away when the moment allowed it—not because the work was done, but because it never would be. Another medic slid seamlessly into your place, hands taking over where yours left off, and you forced yourself not to look back.

The command post stood at the far end of the encampment, a fragile imitation of order amid ruin. A folding table, its surface cluttered with datapads and half-organized stacks of supplies. A flickering holo-display cast pale blue light over everything, its projections stuttering faintly with interference.

You approached it like crossing a threshold.

From immediacy into abstraction.

From blood into numbers.

Your fingers hesitated only once before reaching for a datapad.

Then you began.

At first, the details came too quickly.

Faces instead of figures. Voices instead of vitals. The child with the soot-streaked cheek. The man whose breathing had rattled like something broken deep inside. The woman who had clutched your wrist with surprising strength, as though anchoring herself to you alone.

You forced it away.

Not erased—just… translated.

Severe thoracic trauma. Stabilized.

Multiple fractures. Non-ambulatory.

Burns, second degree. Responsive.

You reduced them. Compressed them. Filed them into categories that felt too small to contain what they represented. Your stylus moved steadily, even as something in your chest resisted the act—resented the neatness of it, the way it stripped the human edges from everything you had just witnessed.

Time blurred again.

But differently.

Quieter.

The chaos dulled to a distant hum as you worked, the sounds of the camp filtering through in fragments—distant calls, the metallic clatter of instruments, the low murmur of voices that never quite stopped.

You checked and rechecked your entries.

Triage efficiency.

Mortality projections.

Resource depletion curves.

Cold, clinical, necessary.

By the time you finished, your hand ached—not from strain, but from the strange tension of holding two realities at once.

The droid was waiting near the edge of the station, its photoreceptors glowing a soft, neutral blue as it processed a steady stream of incoming data.

You approached it, datapad held a little tighter than necessary.

“These need to go to Doctor Bryce,” you said, your voice steadier now, worn smooth by repetition and restraint.

The droid turned its head with a soft mechanical whir.

“Acknowledged.”

You hesitated for a fraction of a second.

Bryce.

No.

Doctor Bryce.

The distinction sat heavily in your throat, but you let it remain there, unspoken.

The droid extended a manipulator arm. You placed the datapad into its grip, watching as it secured the device with precise efficiency.

“Transmitting to command authority,” it intoned.

Just like that.

Done.

Reduced to transfer, to signal, to delivery.

You exhaled slowly, a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

Then you turned away.

Your comm beeped sharply against the dull hum of the camp. You froze mid-motion, hands still on the patient’s arm, and glanced at the device clipped to your belt.

You straightened, letting the posture fall into habit—the reflex of years under the weight of leadership.

“General,” you acknowledged, voice steady despite the tight coil of exhaustion in your chest.

“How is the situation in the camp?” he asked and your heart fluttered in your chest at the sound of his voice.

Your mind flicked across the triage zones, the medics, the injured, the relentless work that had stretched into hours that felt like days. You catalogued the facts—the number of patients stabilized, the number in critical care, supply levels, rotations—but left the raw truth unspoken. The shock, the despair, the small, personal tragedies that had clawed at your stomach—those remained behind a careful barrier of data.

“Casualty stabilization at seventy-nine percent. Northern quadrant under control. Supply rotation on schedule. No critical failures in triage operations,” you recited, the words precise, clinical. Enough to assure, enough to satisfy.

You tilted your head, a faint edge of mirth threading through exhaustion. “And how are things in the capital?”

The reply was quieter. Measured. “I… found something. But not enough. Nothing actionable yet.” A beat. “I’ll have to meet you.”

You swallowed, the weight of that simple acknowledgment pressing in. Not a report. Not a request. A recognition that whatever he had found demanded presence.

“When should I expect you?”

“Not very soon,” he said, letting the words fall easy, neutral, almost detached. “But I’ll try my best.”

Another pause. Then:

“Understood.”

You released a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, returning your hands to the patient before you. The hum of the camp reclaimed your attention—the dust in the shafts of late afternoon light, the shuffling of medics, the low moans of those too injured to rest.

Even as the weight of the conversation settled in, a quiet thread of anticipation wound itself beneath your ribs. Not fear. Not hope. Just awareness.

You didn’t notice how slow your hands had become until Alma caught your wrist mid-motion.

“Stop.”

The word wasn’t sharp. It didn’t need to be.

You blinked, refocusing, realizing you’d been holding the same compress in place half a second too long—long enough for hesitation to creep in where instinct should have carried you forward.

“I’m fine,” you said automatically, adjusting your grip, trying to move past it.

Alma didn’t let go.

“No,” she said, calm and immovable. “You are functional. That is not the same thing.

You exhaled through your nose, a faint edge of frustration flickering beneath the exhaustion. “There are still patients waiting.”

“There will always be patients waiting.”

Her gaze held yours—not unkind, not harsh. Just… certain.

“You are slowing down. Your reaction time is slipping. You are compensating with effort instead of clarity.” A slight tilt of her head. “That is when mistakes happen.”

“I don’t make mistakes,” you said, too quickly.

Alma’s expression didn’t change. That, more than anything, made something in your chest tighten.

“Everyone does,” she replied. “The question is whether you make them on your feet or because you refused to sit down when you should have.”

Silence stretched between you, filled with the distant sounds of the camp—the low murmur of voices, the clatter of equipment, the ever-present undercurrent of pain.

You wanted to argue.

You wanted to insist.

But your hands betrayed you, a faint tremor threading through your fingers, impossible to ignore now that it had been named.

Alma released your wrist.

“Go,” she said, already turning back to the patient. “Someone will cover your rotation.”

“I can still—”

“Go.”

You weren’t the one to argue when your knees almost threaten to buckle beneath you. Maybe, you thought yourself, maybe this time it’s a good idea to rest.

The tent felt… wrong.

Too still.

Too contained.

The canvas walls muted the chaos outside, turning the world into something distant, almost unreal. The air inside was thick with the scent of antiseptic and stale fabric, the ground beneath your boots uneven but mercifully free of debris.

A row of narrow cots stretched along the interior, some occupied by medics catching brief moments of rest, others empty—waiting.

You moved toward one without thinking, your body heavier now that it had been given permission to feel it. Each step dragged slightly, fatigue settling into your limbs like lead.

You reached the cot.

Paused.

Your hands hovered at your gloves, fingers slow, clumsy as you peeled them off. The faint imprint of pressure remained on your skin, a ghost of the work you had been doing for hours.

You sat.

The shift in weight sent a dull ache through your spine, your shoulders protesting as tension finally began to loosen its grip.

For a moment, you just… breathed.

In.

Out.

The quiet pressed in around you, unfamiliar, almost suffocating in its absence of urgency.

You leaned forward slightly, elbows on your knees, head dipping—

The tent flap snapped open.

The sound was sharp. Violent in its suddenness.

You looked up.

Bryce didn’t enter so much as invade the space, the canvas falling harshly behind him as his gaze locked onto you with immediate, unfiltered intensity.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The words hit before you could even process his presence.

You straightened instinctively, fatigue shoved aside by something sharper, more alert. “I—”

“Submitting incomplete reports?!” he cut in, striding toward you, each step precise and controlled in a way that only emphasized the anger beneath it. “Do you have any idea what kind of position that puts this entire operation in?”

Your stomach dropped.

“Incomplete—?” you shook your head, pushing to your feet despite the way your body resisted. “No, I filed everything. Northern quadrant, supply projections, casualty-”

“Partial data,” Bryce snapped, holding up the datapad as if it were evidence of something far worse than numbers. “Gaps in time indexing. No cross-sector comparison. You call this operational reporting?”

The words came fast. Clinical. Cutting.

Not loud but sharp enough to slice.

“I reported what I had,” you said, heat rising in your chest now, pushing back against the exhaustion. “I was working triage. There wasn’t time to—”

“There is always time to do your job correctly.”

Something in your chest twisted, anger flaring now, raw and immediate. “My job was to keep people alive.”

“And my job,” Bryce shot back, stepping closer, his presence suddenly overwhelming in the confined space, “is to make sure this entire camp doesn’t collapse because someone decided that procedure was optional.”

The distance between you closed to almost nothing.

You could see it now—up close.

The difference.

Not just in the way he spoke, or the cold precision of his words.

In his eyes.

There was no hesitation there. No flicker of the past. No recognition beyond utility and failure and assessment.

“You don’t get to improvise at this scale,” he continued, voice low, controlled, every word deliberate. “You don’t get to decide what matters and what doesn’t.”

Your hands curled at your sides, exhaustion and anger tangling together into something volatile. “And you don’t get to stand there and pretend those numbers matter more than the people bleeding out in front of us.”

A beat.

Sharp.

Tense.

Something flickered—brief, almost imperceptible—but it was gone as quickly as it came.

Bryce’s jaw tightened.

“This isn’t about more or less,” he said. “It’s about both. And right now, you’re compromising one for the other.”

Your breath came a little faster now, your pulse loud in your ears.

“I did what needed to be done.”

“No,” he said, flat. “You did what was easier.”

It landed harder than it had any right to. Because somewhere beneath the anger, beneath the exhaustion, you knew he wasn’t talking about the reports.

“Is that what this is about?” you asked, the lump in your throat swelling with each second. “It’s been six years, Bryce. We should be past that by now.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. I have every right to be in this position—”

“What position? The one you got because of me? The one I clawed my way to only for you to take it? That position? You’re a lot of things, Bryce, but liar should be top three—right up there with complete asshole and obnoxious jerk.”

He didn’t respond. His jaw clenched.

“This is the last time you pull a stunt like this. Next time…” His words hung in the air, each syllable heavy. “…you’ll be on the next shuttle off the planet.”

He turned on his heel and left, making the room even smaller. You let out a shuddering breath and lowered yourself on the cot that creaked softly under your weight. Your hands found their way to your face, getting the strands out of your eyes with a small tremor.

Get a hold of yourself! your consciense screamed. You are here to help those people!

But who will help you? the tiny voice at the back of mind whispered, forcing you to wonder if this was a good idea to come here at all…