Not How Your Stories End

Chapter 18

Physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy. A whole lot of therapies. Those were the next steps, according to the medics.

Of course, this brought an entirely separate set of challenges with it. The crew of the Ghost had already been hiding out on Mandalore for far too long at this point, and now that Ezra was stable enough to move, arrangements would need to be made to continue their hiding without jeopardizing any of his progress. But that was much easier said than done.

According to his surgeon, Ezra's progress so far had been tremendous. He had suffered notable damage to cerebellum and temporal lobes of his brain due to the intracranial pressure from his illness and the resulting stroke. The majority of the damage was localized to the cerebellum, affecting his ability to move and sense of balance, effectively leaving him bed bound for most of the day. Which, for someone like Ezra, would be frustrating enough on its own. But add in an impaired ability to regulate emotions due to a brain injury? Tensions were definitely running high amongst the crew at the moment.

So far, thanks to the around-the-clock assistance of the droids and doctors at the medcenter, Ezra had been able to reach several important benchmarks in his recovery, despite his frequently fluctuating mood. He was now able to sit up as well as make it to the edge of the bed entirely on his own. With help, he could stand up and even walk short distances around the room. He could use the refresher on his own (a benchmark that Ezra was extremely relieved to have reached), although bathing still required supervision and assistance.

Ezra's speech ability had returned more or less to a conversational level, although his ability to interpret other's speech still had a ways to go. On good days, as long as you spoke slowly and clearly enough and were willing to repeat yourself on some occasions, the crew could hold some semblance of a discussion with Ezra, and normalcy felt like it was within reach. Bad days ended with screaming and tears and flushed faces and reminding each other that this was all temporary. Or at least this level of bad was.

But the clock was ticking, and soon the Ghost Crew knew that they would have to leave whatever semblance of a routine that they had forged for themselves on Mandalore and move to a more long-term safe house. Whatever long-term looked like for them.

That's what Sabine and Zeb were working on at the moment. Working the rebel channels, trying to find a safe space and - just as importantly - a safe way to get there. It made Hera antsy, being so hands-off about the entire process, but she quickly discovered that her limit was exactly one crewmate who couldn't manage their emotions at a time. And after Zeb and Ezra's umpteenth spat this week, resulting in Kanan having to kindly remind Zeb that he cannot throttle a brain-injured, emotionally compromised teenager, they needed to give him some sort of task to get him out of the medcenter for a while. Sabine was sent along to assist (read: babysit).

Hera walked back towards Ezra's room in the medcenter, two cups of hot, mediocre caf in hand.

The door slid open with a soft woosh, Kanan stepping out into the hallway with a sigh that didn't speak well of her situation to come.

"That bad?" Hera asked, Kanan's head tipping up towards the sound. He reached up a hand, massaging the back of his neck, the corner of his lip quirking upwards just a bit.

"You know, I think I take back every complaint I ever made about training him when he first joined us?" His tone was light enough for Hera to know it wasn't too serious, but quiet enough that it wasn't a total lie, either.

She chuckled under her breath, mostly out of sympathy, before pressing one of the cups of caf into his free hand. Kanan smiled, the tension bleeding from his shoulders.