Lost Property Box

Chapter 13

44 BBY

There is a moment. A held breath that seems to go on and on, stretching passed comfortable thought into near madness before something snaps back. The air ringing with the sound of a broken spring.

But Ahsoka doesn't notice anything different about the universe at the time, she was too busy trying to stop Boba Fett from screaming. The Bounty Hunter was gripping his helm with both hands, wailing.

"It burns! It burns! It's everywhere!"

"Vod!" shouted Din, wrapping an arm around the other's waist to stop him from thrashing hard enough to hurt himself.

Another broken wail peels from the older man's chest, but his voice sounded different than it had a moment ago. However, Ahsoka cannot focus on such things right now. She leaps forward, wrapping one hand to the back of the collapsed Bounty Hunter's head, feeling for anything that could be wrong.

"Take off his helmet!" Orders the dark-haired woman who'd come with them. "Quickly!"

Ahsoka does her best to divert the consuming, burning, acidic pain to the Force as the Mandalorian reaches up the give Boba air. They freeze at the sight of his face – at thick curly brown hair and reforming and disappearing scars and open wounds – before returning to action.

"He's not drawing full breaths," Din mutters worriedly, loosening the straps of the Bounty Hunter's plating.

"Get me some water!" Ahsoka barks at Fennec. The other woman startles into attention, and bolts back to the Hunter's Fire-Spray. "And no Bacta! We can't heal what shouldn't be there! Din," she addresses the other Bounty Hunter when he finishes pulling the armour weave Kute from around the man's neck. "Were his scars like this before?"

"No," the Mandalorian chokes. "They were old, healed. He didn't have any hair – it's like he's being killed and brought back over and over again."

Ahsoka frowns, the convulsing man between them shuddering with another broken cry.

"Get it off! Help! Get it off me, it b u r n s!"

"I'm going to put him to sleep, hold him tight." Din shifts behind the downed Hunter, and wraps both arms behind Boba's back, causing the other to thrash weakly with direction. Ahsoka tries her best to ignore shifting muscle and flesh beneath her fingers as she places them upon the other's temple.

"Sleep, Boba." He just sobs.

"It's okay Boba, we've got you." She coaxes again.

Din places his helmeted chin on the other's head. "Vod it's okay, it's okay. You got out, remember?"

"Sleep, Boba." She tries once more.

The man stills briefly. And then;

"...Red? ...Red, are you there? ...The nightmares... they've come back..."

...And Boba sleeps.

Ahsoka sits back with a sigh. Emotionally exhausted. The dark-haired woman returns with a water cannister and a clean rag, dropping lightly to her knees, hesitantly but with great care, wiping blood from the unconscious man's face. Ahsoka watches, morbidly fascinated by the way wounds stretch than reseal without a mark on Boba's face. She knows that the same is happening everywhere – with a strange wound-echo like this, the effects wouldn't be limited to just one place. She makes a decision.

"If we are to travel together," She announces. "You will call and know me only as Fulcrum. Are we understood?"

The dark-haired lady nods in agreement without looking at her. The Mandalorian tilts his head.