"Triage"
Med bay at Solara HQ is fast.
Not because the world is kind—
because Dr. Nina Elias refuses to let it be otherwise.
Lights hang in clean rows above polished steel and rune-lined glass. Monitors hum with steady tones. Personnel move with the kind of practiced urgency that doesn't panic, because panic wastes time and time is blood.
Weaver, Jax, and Cassidy arrived an hour ago.
The air still smells faintly of dust and scorched glass clinging to their clothes, but the med bay doesn't care where you've been. It only cares what needs saving.
Rose lies on a reinforced table beneath a field of soft blue light.
Her chest is open—not grotesque, not messy, but clinical. A hole that shouldn't exist sits near her right shoulder, the edges cauterized by survival and violence. Medical hands move over her with reverence and precision.
Stitching begins.
Not with needle and thread—
with light.
Thin strands of luminous filament are drawn across the wound, pulling tissue toward itself with gentle insistence. A blue liquid is poured carefully into the opening before the final seams close, thick and shimmering like cooled Virel water.
It sinks in.
And the healing begins.
Not instant.
Not miraculous.
Slow, steady, earned.
The stitched line tightens.
A fraction closes.
Then another.
Rose sleeps.
Deep.
Sound.
The contrast is cruel—her stillness now against the fight she had to keep herself alive in order to earn that rest.
Across the med bay, another team works on Thane.
A deep cut runs across his scalp, swelling raised and ugly under bright light. Every time a cloth wipes across the wound, he twitches. Every time the blue fluid touches it, his jaw clenches so hard it looks like his teeth might crack.
He doesn't look at anyone.
He stares past the ceiling lights, eyes distant, as if he's still somewhere on the cliff, still hearing stone break, still tasting blood and grit.
Weaver stands between them.
Watching.
Not hovering. Not interfering.
Just witnessing the cost.
His threads hang low near his wrists, trembling from exhaustion, as if even they are trying to decide whether they still belong to him.
Dr. Nina moves with clipped efficiency, tablet in hand, eyes sharp as instruments. She circles Cassidy next—stopping in front of the faintly glowing Virel mark on her wrist.
" You said this happened after the trial," Nina says, not asking—confirming.
Cassidy nods once. Her voice is hoarse, drained of its usual bite.
"Yeah. It was glowing blue… and it somehow let me see the future ahead by a couple seconds." She swallows. "Each time I used it, it burned more. The visions got shorter."
Nina lifts Cassidy's chin and examines her eyes with a small light, watching the dilation, the micro-flinches, the stress she's trying to hide behind stillness.
"I'd suggest you never do that again," Nina says flatly.
Cassidy's mouth opens, but Nina continues before she can speak.
"This level of trauma is similar to ten Gs of force." Nina's voice doesn't soften. "If you could do it again after that last one, you'd be dead."
Cassidy's eyes widen.
The words land like ice.
"That doesn't sound like a gift, Weaver," she mutters, staring down at her wrist like it might bite her.
Weaver's gaze lingers on the mark.
He looks older under the med bay lights.
"Perhaps it's not its intended use," he says quietly. "But you doing it allowed Rose to live."
Cassidy doesn't smile.
Her throat tightens.
"She still got stabbed," she says, voice small and furious with herself. "I couldn't see far enough."
Jax steps in beside her and places a hand on her shoulder—firm, steady.
"You helped us dodge death," he says. "That's the truth, Cass."
Cassidy blinks.
Then she smiles—not big, not bright, but real.
Jax's brow tightens slightly.
"What?" he asks, as if suspicious of tenderness.
Cassidy tips her head.
"You called me Cass."
Jax's jaw tightens, then relaxes like a man letting go of a habit he didn't realize he'd formed.
"Yes," he admits. "It's rubbing off on me." His eyes flick away. "Heard it back on the hovercraft."
From across the room, Thane's voice scrapes out, rough with pain but present.
"Cass suits you," he says. "I think it's pretty cool."
Cassidy's smile softens.
"I think it's pretty cool too."
For a second, the med bay feels… almost human.
Then a beep cuts through it.
Sharp.
Clean.
The scanner housing Allium confirms it's done.
Weaver moves first.
Not running—he doesn't have the energy—but the urgency in him is unmistakable. Jax and Cassidy follow Nina as she pulls results onto her tablet, eyes scanning line after line with rapid comprehension.
Weaver stands too close.
Nina doesn't comment.
She reads.
Then turns the tablet outward and hands it to Weaver.
"He is stable," she says. "Muscle density has increased by three times his last scan. His nerves are firing rapidly—responsive." She pauses, eyes narrowing slightly at the numbers like they shouldn't be possible. "If he was human… he'd be a miracle compared to his original scan."
Weaver's shoulders drop.
Relief hits him so hard it nearly buckles his knees.
His threads sag.
The adrenaline that carried him through the desert finally releases its grip, and exhaustion pours into the space it leaves behind.
Nina watches him.
"Need me to take a look at you?" she asks, almost bored, like she already knows the answer.
Weaver straightens reflexively.
"I'm fine," he says.
He isn't.
Nina rolls her eyes and turns as if to walk away.
Weaver's voice catches her—quiet, unwilling, honest.
"I feel fine," he says, and then he exhales, the words changing as they leave him. "But… I wouldn't mind your care."
Nina pauses.
A small smile forms—barely there, but real.
"Right this way," she says.
She leads him to an empty bed. Weaver lies back with the careful stiffness of someone unused to being the patient.
Nina begins her exam.
Professional. Efficient.
But not cold.
Across the room, medical personnel move Allium to a reinforced bed of his own, adjusting stabilizers, anchoring restraints designed for heavy impact rather than comfort. They position him between Rose and Weaver—like a quiet statement the med bay doesn't speak out loud:
You are all part of the same storm.
You recover together.
Monitors settle into steady rhythms.
Rose sleeps.
Thane breathes through pain.
Cassidy sits with her bandage and her burning wrist, shoulders finally lowering.
Jax stands near the doorway, eyes still scanning, still calculating, still guarding even here.
And Weaver—flat on white sheets under soft light—lets himself be held by the simplest thing in the world:
care.
The team rests.
For now.