Chapter Text
Kix hates being useless. Kix hates all of this.
Tup struggles weakly against his bindings, pain and anger flickering across his face. His hair has come loose sometime between leaving the medical bay and returning to it - not surprising, really. In the intervening hours Tup’s been the lone survivor of a medical transport, been captured by Separatists, and been recaptured by a Jedi, a Captain and an ARC.
It’s been a long day.
The other patients from the day’s engagements are all about as treated as they can be. Kix should probably be asleep, but the second transport is leaving as soon as they can scramble the pilots for it. He can keep Tup company until he goes - that’s a bad choice of words - until the transport leaves. He can make sure the sedative is properly administered once the tox scan is done. Hand over to the medic on duty. It’s something.
The most in-depth tox scan they can manage out here turned up nothing last time. Kix has got the medical droid running it again just to make sure - there’s no telling what the Separatists could have done while they had him. In the meantime, no sedatives in case they react badly to whatever’s potentially already in his system.
As a result, Tup’s been gradually coming back to consciousness over the last five minutes. The muttering and wriggling is offputting, but he’s not seizing or hurting himself. He’s not lucid, and his vitals don’t improve, but at least his deterioration seems to have slowed down.
Kix is slumped next to him in a chair, checking reports on a datapad and hating all of this. There’s nothing he can do. He’s pretty comprehensively trained as a medic, but Tup’s vitals just keep dropping further and further from acceptable in tiny increments, and he hates this. It requires specialisation he just doesn't have.
The medical droid stops humming and straightens. “Scan complete.”
Kix already suspects that the answer’s going to be of no use whatsoever, but he still sits up and glances between Tup and the droid. “Find anything?”
Tup frowns at him. “Good soldiers follow orders.” His voice is weaker now. Kix nods, just to acknowledge that he’s heard him. Even if he doesn’t understand what he’s hearing, and likes it less each time he hears it.
“Expected trace levels of sedative. No other foreign substances detected.” The droid is impassive. “Will that be all?”
Kix waves it off. Sighs. Wonders if he should sedate Tup now, or wait until the last minute - he might get more stressed and end up hurting himself, or he might get his head together again for a while, might explain something. Might miraculously recover. (Might say goodbye, or leave a message. Sometimes the chance of that is all that Kix can give.)
(He hates this. )
“You feeling any better, Tup? Wanna talk?” He even sounds tired to himself. Tup keeps frowning, doesn’t answer. His eyes slide away.
The door hisses as General Skywalker chooses that moment to appear. Again. He should also be asleep. Kix really needs to just ban him from pacing in and out like an indecisive tooka and send him to rest, but part of him is still somehow hoping that Skywalker is going to wave a hand and pull Tup back from the depths of his brain, or suddenly recall that he learned about something relevant to undetectable murder-inducing ailments at the Temple. (Kix entertains more unrealistic optimism than most suspect, because in his experience the other option is giving up entirely.)
“It will be done, Lord Sidious,” Tup says, focused and nonsensical. That’s a new one. It’s… Well, it’s not quite as immediately alarming as kill the Jedi, but it still puts Kix’s hackles up. Who’s Sidious?
(Skywalker’s gone still.)
“I don’t know who that is.” Kix brushes curly hair out of Tup’s face. Tup doesn’t seem to notice. He pulls against the bindings again. Raises his right hand, like he’s trying to salute.
“I do,” General Skywalker says. That’s not a good tone of voice. Maybe Kix should be paying more attention to him. “How does Tup know? What’s - Tup, do you know where Sidious is?”
Tup’s silent as he looks over to Skywalker. Kix uses the moment of stillness to catch his hand and guide it back down.
Then Tup snarls. It looks wrong on his face. He’s not shiny anymore, hasn’t been for a long while, but his face is still too rounded - still younger than Kix’s had been at deployment.
He hates this.
“Kill the -” Tup growls, and loses track mid-sentence. His eyes shift from Skywalker to Kix, his face goes soft and his tone goes neutral. It’s happened enough times by now that it almost doesn’t hurt. “I - what’s - good soldiers, follow orders, good soldiers follow orders good - soldiers -”
“Tup.” He squeezes the hand he’s still holding. There’s no response except the uneven mantra. And it hasn’t worked yet, but maybe this is the time that it does: “Tup, it’s okay. You’re on the Resolute, in the medbay. You’re safe.” He can practically feel the fire of Skywalker’s intent glare. He’s often protective, but this is something else. Kix isn’t fond of it.
Tup isn’t listening. He’s back in his looped words, unresponsive.
“Sir?” Tup loses focus and stares emptily at the ceiling. Kix shifts his voice another notch towards authority. “Who’s Sidious?”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” All he can identify in the General’s non-answer is confusion. Kix catches movement in his peripheral vision as he strides forwards. He’s entirely too aggressive for Kix’s liking; instinct has him on his feet and braced to get between them. Tup’s not an enemy, not a prisoner, but Skywalker has the same look on his face as when they capture a tactical droid.
“Tup, tell me where Sidious is. Tell me how you know that name.” Kix stops his approach, catching him by the shoulder with one hand and a glare. The General allows it, but he still looms, radiating power. “That’s an order.”
Tup twists in his bindings and answers with nothing but good soldiers follow orders, good soldiers-
He can’t just stand here and watch this turn into an interrogation. “Sir.” Kix tightens his grip on the General’s shoulder. He’s so sick of not knowing anything about what’s happening. And Skywalker knows something. (And also he's about one unhelpful response from pulling medical rank, dragging Anakin out of the medbay, and demanding it outright.) “Who is Sidious? What’s going on?”
The General’s gaze finally moves and locks with his. “Sidious is the Sith Lord behind Dooku. Behind the whole Separatist movement, probably.” … Okay, not what Kix was expecting. Not something that makes any sense for Tup to know, but why would it? It’s been that sort of day.
Kix really hates this, but the only way out is through.
“And why’s Tup talking about a Sith Lord?”
“That’s a very good question, Kix.” Skywalker’s eyes dart back to Tup, but they’re not quite focused. Kix lets go of him, turns back to his brother. Tup’s head rolls to the left, then the right, further messing up the uneven pillow of his hair. The mantra is still going. Good soldiers follow orders. The words don’t sound real anymore.
Disoriented. Doing things he would never have otherwise done - killing a Jedi. Nothing showing on any scans.
Sith.
It’s not a virus. Not a toxin, not a stress-related breakdown.
“That mind trick thing you do. Could Sidious do that? Make it worse?” Kix presses a gentle hand to Tup’s forehead, stilling him for a moment. He can feel faint tremors, wonders if those are yet another side effect or just the exhaustion kicking in. It doesn’t line up perfectly, it should be fading rather than tearing Tup to pieces, but it’s the best fit he’s found for the information.
Skywalker frowns. “Maybe... Maybe. It has to be, right?” Suddenly the stormfront pressure of his presence is gone, rapidly retreating - he’ll be in a full sprint by the time he hits the corridor. Kix twists.
“Sir, where are you going?!”
“To call Obi-Wan!” Skywalker catches himself on the doorframe and turns back, lowering his voice and jabbing a finger towards Kix. “Cancel the transport to Kamino. They can’t treat this. The Jedi can. Get Rex. Get some guards. Keep Tup safe!”
Then he’s gone, in a swoop of hair and a clatter of running footsteps.
“... That’s my job, sir,” Kix tells his absence.
For a moment he tries to hang on to the frustration, to make it into an insulator against the dangerous swell of hope.
Then he gives up. This is progress, this might be an answer. Tup doesn’t have to go to Kamino, and Kix can’t deny that that’s a weight off his shoulders. He trusts the compassion of the Jedi more than that of the Kaminoans.
And if it’s a mind trick of some kind, it’s not contagious. He doesn’t have to worry about every other brother who was down there, about his own mind falling victim without warning. Even if Sidious can worm his way in like this - which is horrifying - there’s an exhausted part of Kix that’s guiltily relieved it’s not something he needs to fix. It’s not his failure as a medic that’s been killing Tup. (He hates that there’s nothing he can do to help him, still, but at least now he has more hope that someone can.)
Well. There’s nothing medical he can do, but - cancel the transport, call Rex, protect Tup.
He’s not useless.
He sinks into the chair, lifts his comm, and makes a promise. “We’re going to get help, Tup. Hang in there.”