Kanan Jarrus (spectre01) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-05-25 17:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, agent carolina, kanan jarrus |
Who: Kanan and Carolina
What: Carolina tends to Kanan's injury
When: May 6th, after this phone call
Where: Chateau Katou
Rating/Warnings Mediumish for a bad injury, also some feels
Status: Complete!
It was May and Orange County had become the battlefield of yet another Star Wars invasion. The three Freelancers had been fighting droids, clones, and pretty much everything else the Empire felt like throwing at them. When Carolina had woken up to a goddamn forest outside, she had known that today was going to be especially difficult. She had stopped back at their home base - or rather, her and Wash’s apartment - in the afternoon to grab some extra ammo when she got Kanan’s call.
There were very few people in this world that Carolina would drop everything for. Especially when she was in the middle of fighting her way through one of Orange County’s infamous invasions. Kanan Jarrus was one of them.
Cyan armor was quickly covered under a blanket in the back of her station wagon. A military duffle bag and tool-box-sized first aid kit quickly followed. Carolina was not sure exactly what she could do to help heal a lightsaber wound, but if there was, then she would be prepared to do it. She had also sent Wash a message that she was taking his bottle of pain pills and to go pick up the refill at the pharmacy when he had the chance. ’And take your damn meds, Gunney.’
The drive was made only slightly difficult by the alien terrain that kept popping up at every other intersection. Minutes later, the dark green wagon was pulling up to Chateau Katou. Carolina climbed out of the car, still wearing the black kevlar bodysuit that went beneath her armor. The duffle on her shoulder, tool box in one hand, she headed up to the door.
Keys at the ready, Carolina paused for a moment at the door to take a deep breath and center herself emotionally. The last thing Kanan needed right now was to deal with a frenzied or overly worried friend. Green eyes were steely calm when she opened them again. She unlocked the door and let herself in.
“Kanan?” The redhead called out into the dark house. She found him inside beside someone - an alien? with lightsabers? was she another Jedi? - unfamiliar. This must be Ahsoka. The look in the woman's eyes, however, was all too familiar and told her everything she needed to know. It was not the first time she had dealt with life-changing wounds on the battlefield and it would likely not be the last, but none of that made it any easier. Carolina nodded her thanks and understanding as Ahsoka headed out. There were still battles to be fought out there, but the Rebel forces would simply have to deal with two less in their number tonight.
Once Ahsoka had left, Carolina sat down beside Kanan. She placed one hand on top of his and squeezed lightly. The last few months had taken at least part of the edge off of her bedside manner. “I'm here, Kanan.” Her other hand moved to carefully cup his cheek so that she could get a better look at the wound.
Kanan sensed the shift of presence, Ahsoka leaving and Carolina arriving. Outside, he could feel the the tide of the war was shifting in favor of the Rebels of Orange County, but for Kanan it was over. Unlike in his Dreams he didn’t have anything to focus on. There was no Padawan to save and no Sith holocron to recover.
It was all like a cruel fucking joke. The Dreams had let him witness what Maul was capable of and let him believe he’d managed to escape the same fate of the Jedi in his Dreams. Now it seemed as though Kanan had no control over his life whatsoever and he’d paid a high and heavy price to learn that lesson.
He felt Carolina’s hand on his, slightly calloused from years of holding a gun, but warm and comforting. “Carolina,” he croaked, his voice tight and shaking with pain. An angry line of blistering skin was scorched across his face from temple to temple, surrounding both of his eyes. The eyes themselves had taken quite a bit of damage and he could barely keep them open.
Carolina could feel her heart twist at the sound of Kanan’s voice, but she refused to let it show in her voice or her face. Not that he could see her. Dammit. Her heart twisted even more. She studied the wound in the dim light, wincing as it only seemed to get worse the longer she looked. The Agency and the Network had a lot of technology and powers at their disposal, but the only thing she had ever heard of working in terms of healing was vampire blood. Given the fact that the wound had been cauterized by the same weapon that had done the damage, she doubted even that would help.
“At least they had the good sense to miss your beard.” Soldier’s humor. The truth was, there was very little Carolina could do other than clean and bandage the wound. Tomorrow, she would make discreet inquiries. As for tonight… she let her hand fall from his cheek to pull over the first aid kit where she had stashed the pain pills. The sooner they kicked in, the sooner that edge could leave his voice. Her other hand never left his. “I’m going to give you something for the pain first, and then I’ll start cleaning the wound.”
Activity. Focus. Tending to his wound would keep her mind on task, but Kanan had no such luxury. She needed to find something that would help distract him, but all she could think about was the fact that the only thing she could see was white every time he tried to open his eyes. Could he see anything when he did that? Light or shadow? “Can you take pills without water?” Carolina asked instead, opening the childproof bottle with one hand.
“Right?” Kanan breathed. He found a bit of solace in Carolina’s dry humor. Had it been anyone else, it likely would have been lost. “All my charm is in my beard.”
He’d turned his hand over and was more or less clutching Carolina’s hand as if she were some kind of lifeline to the real world, the only one he had left. He heard movement, the sound of something being dragged across the table in front of him. Supplies, he figured. Carolina was nothing if not prepared. He then heard a rattling. Pills in a bottle. Carolina had said she was bringing pain killers. Her brother’s. Kanan would never say so, but he was glad Wash had opted to avoid taking his pain killers because right now, Kanan needed as many as Carolina would let him have.
He kept trying to open his eyes. It was more reflexive than a conscious effort on his part as if his body was convinced that if he could just open his eyes, he’d be able to see something, anything. But even if he was able to – and the injury itself wasn’t allowing him to get his eyelids open very far – there was nothing to see. No light, no shadow. No darkness, no blocks of color. Just nothing. The best thing Kanan could compare it to was staring out into the vast emptiness of space without stars to light the way. That was the most frightening thing of all.
He was desperate to hear noise, any noise at all. “Yeah, I can,” he confirmed about the pills. It was probably a bad idea to attempt to take them without water in the condition he was in, but he was loathed to let go of her hand. “What’s going on out there?” He asked even though he could feel what was going on.
The fight. Always concerned about the fight. Carolina flashed back to a memory of a man in fatigues clinging to her arm and begging to go back and fight, even as she improvised a tourniquet for a leg that was no longer there. Gritting her teeth, she forced the memory away. This was Orange County and as much as it may resemble a combat zone, she was needed here and now. She squeezed Kanan’s hand reassuringly. “The usual. Nothing they can’t handle without us.” Because there was no way in hell she was going to let him back out there right now. Nor was she about to leave him undefended by heading out herself.
Sliding two pills out of the container, Carolina considered her options. The way he kept trying to open his eyes worried her more every time he did it. Telling him to keep them closed, however, might not help either, especially if it was more of a psychological reaction to being unable to see. Easier to improvise another way of getting him to close his eyes. Better, it might also help distract him.
She put the pills in her mouth instead, resting them on the side of her mouth as she reached for her bottle of water. “Scratch that. By the sound of your voice, you could use the water. I’m going to feed you the pills with some of mine.” Carolina took a small sip before setting down the bottle. Her free hand brought Kanan’s other hand to her cheek so that he would not be surprised when she closed the distance to kiss him.
Even if Kanan had been able to see what Carolina was doing, it would have surprised him. Or at least caught him a little off guard. As it was, Kanan barely registered what was happening as Carolina had him touch her face. What was she doi-?
The sudden pressure of Carolina’s lips to his explained everything. Had this been under entirely different circumstances, it would have been fun, even playful. Instead, those possibilities were the furthest thing from the Jedi’s mind.
The water in Carolina’s mouth was still slightly chilled as it entered Kanan’s and along with it the pills. Kanan knew they felt larger in his mouth than they really were, but he struggled to swallow nonetheless.
Pills and water delivered, Carolina pulled back slightly to let Kanan finish swallowing. That was how it was done, right? She had never tried the whole mouth-to-mouth feeding thing before, but it hadn’t seemed that difficult. It certainly had been far easier to deliver the water than to let Kanan fumble with the bottle on his own. “Let me know if you need more water.” She studied his face. It certainly showed a bit of the surprise she was going for. Good. Maybe it would also keep him distracted too.
Nodding to herself, she turned back to the first aid kit. “Keep your eyes closed. I’m going to clean the burns.” There was nothing that covered lightsaber burns in any first aid handbook Carolina had ever found, but hopefully the same basic principles still applied. “Did you run cold water over them?”
With her free hand, Carolina pulled out one of the antiseptic wipes and began cleaning the burn from the outside in. She was careful not to burst any of the blisters still forming across his skin. There was burn salve in the kit, but nothing that would help something as serious as this. Hopefully, the pain killers would have at least partially kicked in by the time she got to his actual eyes.
It would take a few minutes for the painkillers to metabolize into his bloodstream. Fortunately Carolina’s attempt to feed him the pills and water had forced him to focus on something other than his face and eyes. If only for a few moments. It as nearly impossible to ignore the pain and strangely, Kanan needed it in order to focus on something other than the nothingness around him.
“Ahsoka kind of did,” he answered. Unless the girl was going to hold Kanan’s face under the tap, running cold water over his eyes was not easy. She had given him a clean cloth soaked in cold water to hold in place. It was not ideal, maybe, and Kanan had no way of knowing if it actually did any good, but it had eased the burning somewhat.
Kanan kept his eyes closed as Carolina had instructed. The antiseptic stung like a fucking bitch. It was almost instinct that caused Kanan to suck in a breath through his teeth and pull his face away. He held his breath for half a moment before letting it out shakily. He forced his shoulders to relax and his breathing to even out. “Sorry,” he murmured softly.
Carolina had expected a bit of flinching, but seeing Kanan pull back so quickly made her want to wait until the pills had kicked in before continuing. A moment later she kicked herself back to the present. She was not sure how to reply to his apology. It wasn’t okay. It needed to be done and prolonging cleaning the wound would only hurt things in the long run. So she chose to let it pass.
“I’m going to continue as gently as I can,” she warned, not unkindly. “You can pull back if it hurts too much. I’ll wait. Nod when you’re ready and I’ll start again.” Hopefully whatever Ahsoka had gotten him to do would be enough to wash whatever particulates might have gotten into his eyes. Carolina narrowed her eyes. He would need to see a doctor eventually. If for nothing else but to get some antibiotics and make sure nothing was infected. That was not going to be a fun conversation.
Kanan took another breath and tried, in vain, to will his heart to stop pounding so hard and so fast. He swallowed and nodded his head. It was best to get this over with as quickly as possible. The painkillers would kick in soon, and with any luck they would start to make him drowsy.
He flinched again and sucked in a breath when Carolina resumed cleaning the wound, but he didn’t pull away this time. The hand holding her’s tightened and he forced himself to breath. The last thing either of them needed was him passing out because he wasn’t breathing correctly through the pain.
Carolina did her best to clean as quickly and efficiently as possible. She could tell that his mind had drifted back to the pain. Slowly but surely she could feel the anger building as her own shock wore away. She wanted to ask what had happened, but she didn’t know if that was the right distraction for him at the moment. There was no doubt in her mind that Kanan and Ahsoka had finished off the person who had done this, but she wished she could drag him back so that she could kill them all over again. Slowly.
“Done.” She tossed the last wipe to the side and squeezed his hand. Bandages, though, that was going to be a trick. Tearing open the package with her teeth, she brought Kanan’s free hand to the side of his head. A moment later an end of the bandage was placed against his fingers. “Hold that.” Once she was sure he had a hold of it she began to wrap it around his head. Carolina made sure to keep the pressure gentle but even as she wrapped so that the eyes themselves experienced little to no pressure at all. The bandage was more to help him remember to keep his eyes closed and to keep it from getting infected than anything else.
It took a bit more fumbling, but she managed to clip the bandage in place with the help of Kanan’s hand. Carolina let out a soft breath once it was done. There. The white strips covered most of the burns, but even a layman like her could tell that the damage to his eyes was most likely permanent. Her face twisted for a moment before she caught herself again. There wasn’t anything she could do. No one to kill. Nothing to smash with her fists. She wasn’t good at being the caring one. What was she supposed to do now?
As a child, she had always heard her friends say their mothers had ‘kissed it better’. She had no memories of her mother in this life and her father had certainly never done such a thing. It wasn’t proper. Still, even into her college years she would hear the phrase uttered as if the mere act would somehow ease the pain. After a short hesitation, Carolina moved forward to carefully place her lips against the bandages, placing a kiss over each eye in turn. It had absolutely no scientific basis, but if it eased even a little bit of the pain Kanan was in, then she would do it.
The painkillers had started doing their job by the time Carolina had finished cleaning the wound. The intense sharp burning pain that seemed to sear directly through his skull and into his brain, hadn’t gone away completely, but had dulled to a level Kanan was more prepared to deal with.
He was exhausted now more than anything. It felt so strange to keep his eyes closed when their natural state while awake was to be open. He understood in order to keep them clean, he’d have to keep them closed and the bandages helped. He wondered if this was what the rest of his life was going to be like: hiding his eyes, keeping them wrapped in order to make sure they stayed closed. He knew his counterpart in the Dreams wore a mask. If a civilization that had the technology to fly into space and to literally have a war among the stars, but could not restore sight to a man, then on Earth he was royally screwed.
His mind was brought back when he felt the air between him and Carolina shift and he heard the rustling of her clothes when she moved. When he’d been a child no one had ever kissed his hurts to make them better. Not even the Chaplain’s Wife, who arguably had been the closest thing to a “mother” Kanan had ever had. She had loved the children in her care, but had always kept them just at an arm's’ length to avoid a certain kind of pain when those children aged out of the system and were gone.
The gentle kisses were a simple gesture, but an intensely meaningful one, especially from a woman as practical as Carolina. There may not have been any scientific evidence that a kiss had any pain relieving or healing qualities, but it was the love imbedded in the gesture itself --the kind of love both Kanan and Carolina had been starved of in their youths -- that was the healing factor.
Kanan tilted his face upwards slightly towards hers and his hand tightened around hers. When he spoke, his voice wasn’t nearly as tight with pain, but tired and thick with the emotion from that simple but caring gesture, “thank you, Carolina.”
Swallowing, Carolina nodded at the thanks. A moment too late, she added a soft, “you’re welcome, Kanan.” It was probably for the best that Kanan couldn’t see her face and the myriad of emotions playing across it right now. Her free hand double and triple checked the clips that secured his bandages, even though she knew they were fine. Something to focus on while she pulled her poker mask back over her emotions.
Finally, she returned the squeeze to his hand. “Scoot over. You need to rest.” Carolina would be fine in her underarmor for a while. The benefits of twenty-sixth century technology and the power of neural implants. It would be better for the burn if Kanan kept his eyes above his heart and the easiest way to do that would be if he rested against something. As there was no way she was letting go of his hand, it would be far more efficient if that something was her.
Kanan was exhausted and he knew he should sleep, but at the same time sleep was not going to come easily. At least the Vicodin had made him a little drowsy. Chemically induced sleep may not have been the best kind, but at least it was sleep.
He also didn’t want to be left alone. The house he had been living in for well over a year felt strange and foreign to him. Large and cold. There was so much going on outside. Chaos, fear, anger, fighting. Kanan felt so lost in it all that the idea of moving for a few moments was more than he could get his mind around. He reached out a tentative hand, carefully feeling around the couch. Then he froze as a thought he should have thought of ages ago struck him. “What am I going to tell Katou?” He asked.
Carolina set her Beretta within reach on the coffee table before moving onto the couch, just in case. The door was within her sight and she was not planning on sleeping at least until the chaos outside had subsided for the night. Nor was she planning on leaving at all until Kanan was comfortable enough to get around the house on his own. She trusted that Shepard or York would let her know if the situation was dire enough that they needed additional backup in the next few days. Wash would also understand if she checked up on him primarily through texts for a while.
Once Kanan moved over, Carolina pulled over one of the couch cushions to use as a pillow. Positioning herself at Kanan’s back, she looped her arm up and over him so that she would not have to let go of his hand while getting comfortable. Another reach and she picked up a second pillow for her head. She might not be sleeping, but that didn’t mean she had to get a crick in her neck as well.
“The truth.” Kanan may have frozen, but she had not, gently using her free hand to get him to lay back against her. “You survived a lightsaber to the face and you made the sonofabitch that did it pay.” Hopefully the soporific qualities of the pain killers would make up for the slightly rough texture of her undersuit. “Then he’ll probably invent a new curse, just for you.”
Kanan let Carolina manipulate him around on the couch so that he had her at his back. He was a little surprised that having her there didn’t bother him the way he would have expected someone at his back while he was defenseless should have. Carolina was there and he trusted her to not let him get lost.
He leaned back against her with a soft groan. The painkiller was forcing the tightly wound muscles of his body to uncurl and relax. The rough texture of her undersuit scratched slightly at the back of his neck and side of his ear, in a strange way reassuring and comforting. He would never have asked her to give up the fight to care for him, but he was so glad, so thankful, that she was there.
He chuckled softly. “He probably will,” Kanan agreed. Katou was very creative when it came to that sort of thing. He was quiet a moment, the painkillers and fatigue both pulling him towards unconsciousness. He squeezed Carolina’s hand tightly. “Thank you for coming,” he murmured.