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Echo couldn’t be sure of what happened. His head was pounding, and his helmet had shifted to partially obscure his view, but he found himself unable to move and fix it. It was dark out, wherever he was, so he really couldn’t see anything at all.
After a disorienting second or two, he forced himself to get his bearings. He was on solid ground, somewhere outside. Cold. Maybe a little wet, but that wasn’t his focus. He was more distracted by the fact that he seemed to simultaneously feel like his back was burning up from the inside, and also seemed to rapidly be going numb to having no feeling at all. It was a strange contradiction, and his body couldn’t make sense of any of it.
He took a breath in, trying to calm his rising panic at these sensations or lack thereof, and was met with a sharp and agonizing pain in the left side of his chest. In some ways, this was a relief, because he could at least still feel that, but he also couldn’t… he couldn’t breathe.
He tried to move to sit up, but his upper body immediately protested any attempt at that, and his lower body, his legs, refused to move at all.
He took another short breath in again, despite the agony in his chest. He was fine. He was fine. Someone would be coming. Any second now. But what had he been doing, and why couldn’t he remember it? Had he been on a mission on his own?
Where in the galaxy was he?
A horrific sense of deja vu began washing over him. He felt constricted. Trapped. Disoriented. He couldn’t feel most of his body, and the rest of it hurt. Hopeless. Nobody would come, or those who did would mean him harm. Any second now, someone would come and plug his head into something, or issue him an order.
Was he in a stasis pod? He really couldn’t feel his body much anymore. It was still so hard to breathe, too. Was he even still breathing? Was he dying? Any sense of time that he had completely vanished. Who knew how long he had been in here.
He had a feeling he was supposed to be sending a signal somewhere… but he couldn’t quite remember how. He wanted to speak, but considering how the rest of himself felt, maybe that was a bad idea. He felt like everything was somehow getting darker, so maybe he was going unconscious…
“ECHO!”
The darkness around him faded, though only marginally, and there was a flash of light briefly. Maybe he wasn’t in a stasis pod, though he still felt cold. And numb. And his back was on fire.
“Echo! Can you hear me?” Someone gripped his shoulders, then one of the hands moved to his neck. Definitely not a stasis pod. Where was he again?
“Alright, I’m going to remove your helmet,” the person said. He sounded vaguely familiar, and Echo guessed he should probably know who this was….
The helmet came off. Cold air hit his face. He could see a little more of a dark and rocky landscape around him. Someone in armor in front of him, carrying a light and wearing… white and… blue? Yes. White and blue. Those were nice colors.
“Echo, hey— talk to me.”
The recognition and a bit of memory came all at once.
“Rex…”
“Yeah, it’s me— we need to move to where Howzer is coming with the—”
“Can’t move.”
Rex stopped, shining his light over Echo again, apparently spotting something different this time. He pressed his hand against Echo’s side, and suddenly Echo couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. His vision faded out for a second as the pain overwhelmed him. Maybe he made a noise, because Rex must’ve stopped and said something, but he just… he couldn’t…
“Whoa, stay with me,” Rex’s voice cut through his confusion and pain as it began to fade slightly, but only slightly. Echo met his captain’s eyes, swallowed, tried to calm down. He was in the same spot. It was still dark. His chest and back still hurt…
“Are you breathing okay?” Rex asked, frowning, “What hurts?”
Echo’s mind could barely keep a coherent thought, but suddenly he remembered someone else asking him the same question from a time before, and he wished he were anywhere, anywhere… no… he wanted to be there.
Sun. Sand. Quiet. Gentle waves.
“Echo?”
The pain was too much. Maybe if he just closed his eyes he would wake up there. He could hope.
“Echo, stay with me…”
“Echo? Are you coming to the beach with us?”
He closed his eyes, thinking about more pleasant memories.
***
“Echo? Please open your eyes.”
Echo came to slowly and obediently forced his eyes open, grimacing as his head pounded, and he was met with harsh white lighting… medical equipment… but that voice...
“Omega?”
“No, it’s Emerie,” Emerie said, and he managed to turn his head just enough to look at her, “What do you remember?”
Echo tried to think back. He was with the Clone Underground. A mission with Rex, Howzer, a few others… his head started to hurt at the effort, and then a sudden pain laced from the back of his head and down his back, like an electric shock. He grimaced, closing his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Emerie asked.
“Something’s not right with my processor and my back…” Echo managed.
“Well, that is the least of your problems. You managed to fall and break several ribs, leading to a punctured lung, in addition to being shot twice….”
Echo swallowed, his headache seeming to grow worse at the intake of information, the shock of whatever was going on, and beginning to wonder why he wasn’t feeling any of these injuries very much, besides his back. Emerie was a good medic, but….
“I need Tech.”
Emerie paused in her explanation, her expression changing the slightest bit from its usual neutrality into something that looked hurt, “... Am I doing something wrong?”
“N-no… you can…” he took a breath. Breathing was still harder than expected, “Treat the physical ones… but Tech… knows my prosthetics…?” He tried to explain.
Thankfully, some understanding dawned into Emerie’s eyes, then she said something about his lung and his other injuries. But Echo’s head still really hurt, as did his back, and he was beginning to lose track of what she was saying….
***
He was attached to something, in the side of his chest and at his wrist. Why would he need to be attached to anything? He felt his heart begin to race and felt the room grow hot. Something in the background began beeping. He was so disoriented. How much time had passed? Was he with the Separatists? Why…
“Easy, Echo,” said a voice he would know anywhere, even if couldn’t place his name right away. That someone was gently stopping him from moving about with hands on his shoulders. He laid back, even if he could barely remember sitting up, “This tube is to reinflate your lung, and this other wire is an IV. You are safe.”
“Mm,” Echo grunted, and realized most of the pain he had felt earlier was gone. Was he on something?
“Yes, you are being medicated for the pain, but from my understanding you also had a concussion, so you are likely still confused. Emerie said you woke up multiple times calling her Omega.”
“It was only one time,” Echo said, fairly sure of that. He opened his eyes and realized he was in the same room as earlier, and recognized the individual wearing yellow-tinted goggles beside him. Tech.
“No, there were at least three instances,” A pause, “The pain you had when you first woke up here was the result of an issue with the artificial nerves in your spine due to being hit in proximity, but that will be a simple fix once you no longer have a tube in your chest…”
Echo blinked slowly as Tech’s diagnosis and treatment discussion continued, feeling himself relax for the first time in what felt like forever. Eventually, he interrupted.
“Tech…”
It came out in a thick and heavy tone, and he wondered if it was because he hadn’t been using his voice that much, or if his throat was tight due to something else. Tech paused.
“Yes, Echo?”
“Thanks… for coming for me,” he choked out. Tech smiled slightly, then sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Would this be an ideal time to embrace you?”
“Y-yeah, you idiot.”
Tech gently wrapped him in a hug. Echo could barely return it, with one arm attached to an IV and the other prosthetic, but it was enough. He pressed his face against Tech’s chest. He felt warm and safe and like it was going to be okay.
***
A few days later, he was there. On the was on the warm sunny island with Omega giving him gentle hugs, his brothers banter in the background, his breathing getting better every day.