Fort Sexton, MedCenter
Hav's eyes were heavy, she tried to open them but found it too hard. Whatever room she was in it smelled sterile and must have been blindingly bright. The light she could see was shining red through her weighted eyelids.
Frowning, Havock forced her eyes open then had to immediately squint from the light. Groaning she noticed the awful taste in her mouth and recognized it, bacta. Hav's muscles ached, she was stiff from not moving for so long. Her heart rate started to increase. Why hadn't she moved in a while? What the hell had happened?
Havock started to look around the room. She could see Joamer's jacket thrown on a chair in the corner near an empty bed in the room with her. There was a chair pulled up next to Hav's bed and a familiar datapad on the table next to her.
Okay so Jae and Joamer were both here, but nobody is here now.
Memories from the mission started to flood back to her. The events were difficult to see clearly, but she knew that the last thing she remembered was blowing the communications array. After that, she just could not remember. Havock's heart rate increased some more.
Did they get off the command base? Were they captured? What the hell had happened? That same question kept coming to her mind, but now she was getting more and more concerned about her squadmates. The thought that anything might have happened to them.
No, Jae and Joa are okay. They were here, they got away...but the others...where is Karash? Havock could feel herself panic. She was just too tired to control her emotions. She fell back to the pillow with a thud, and tried to control her breathing.
The door being slammed open and some anonymous medic shoving lights in her eyes did not make matters any better.
“Who the hell are you? Get that fraking thing out of my face.” Hav flailed her uncoordinated arms at the man who shook his head and called for a nurse.
“Sergeant, you must calm down.”
Havock eyed the nurse who came to the other side of the bed, she was obviously getting ready to hold Hav down if need be. Then she brought her attention back to the medic, and part of her wondered why in the hell he called her sergeant. “Where is Karash?” Havock's voice was a growl.
“Karash? Oh the RAIDERS medic, Norgath?” Hav nodded slowly. “He went on leave for a little while. Your squad was given some time after the Thrawn attack. Most of them were injured, but there was only one casualty.”
“What!” Havock jumped out of the the bed, she ignored the pain in her abdomen as her arms reached for the medic's throat. She grabbed two handfuls of his physicians coat and yanked him to close to her face. “Who?”
“A private, Waulkure?”
Havock held on to him for another second, her brain searching to even remember the young private who was sent to them from the academy. It was Waukure, not Jae, Joa, Bacredi, Karash or Ferris. They were all okay. After a few settling breaths Havock let the skeptical medic go, and he fixed his coat with obvious irritation.
“Sorry.” Havock muttered as her arm came up to cover her eyes.
He glanced at the nurse, who set a syringe back in a cabinet next to Havock. “Right. Well Sergeant, you were stabbed with a poisoned blade. The blade caused some internal damage to your right kidney and back, we were able to repair everything and a dip in the bacta cleaned up the poison. After a few test you should be able to spend the night in your own bed, as long as you can manage to take it easy on your own.”
Havock was about to say something when the door slammed open for the second time. This time the visitor stood breathing deeply as he looked at Havock and started to smirk. “Hi Joamer.”
He did not say a word, he just shook his head and walked quickly over to the bed. Joa almost knocked the medic over as he leaned in and hugged Havock fiercely. “You are never allowed to do that again.” He whispered into her hair.
After a few minutes, Joamer finally let her go. Only when they separated did Hav realize that the medic and nurse had left the room. “Are you okay?”
“Yea, I got poked by one of those noghri bastards. So I had to spend a week in one of those blasted bacta tanks. But all better now.” Joamer eased over to sit on the edge of Havock's bed, his hand on her leg.
“Joa.” Hav glanced back over to the datapad sitting next to her on the table. “Where is Jae?”
Joamer's eyes glazed over as Havock laid there waiting for the answer to her question.
Joamer was pacing the hallway slowly, thirty two steps. No matter how many times he walked the length of the hallway it always took thirty two steps. He stopped counting, but continued pacing, pretty soon he found himself counting how many trips he had taken up and down the hallway. He stopped when Jaenna walked out of the door to Havock's room. She walked over to him, a second later they wrapped their arms around each other. Joamer felt her sob quietly into his chest, by force of will alone he was holding back his tears, or maybe he had none left.
After a long minute she said quietly "Joa, I can't stay here. Seeing her like that is more pain then I can bare. I caused this, it's my fault." He started shaking his head and opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "Don't argue with me, it is my fault. I'm the one responsible."
He leaned his head down and kissed the top of her head. She whispered against his chest "I'm going away." He stood frozen for a moment, long enough for her to remove herself from his embrace and walk away. He came out of it a second later and ran after her, but by the time he reached the outside door she had simply vanished.
“Joamer!”
His head snapped back to the now worried face of Havock. Joa's eyes danced back and forth, he was searching for the right words, which only made Hav's stomach turn more. “She had to get away for a little while. She was here every day, but...”
“But what?”
“She felt responsible for the mission failing, for the Ghost's dying, for you getting hurt, damn for everything Ayme. She just needed some time.”
Hav took a deep breath. The one person she wanted to see more than anything was not here. And now Ayme just wanted to hold Jae and tell her it wasn't her fault, it didn't matter if she believed Hav or not. The fact of the matter was that Hav felt incomplete with Jae not around, it physically hurt her deep in her chest to think about Jaenna out there someone in pain and alone.
“I want to get out of here, now.”
Joamer nodded and patted Havock on the leg before leaning over and kissing her lightly on the forehead. “Okay.”
He stood and walked out to the lobby to talk to the medics.
