Chapter Text
Boba refused to lose hope. Days had passed, and though he stopped by the med bay every day to see perfectly healthy vitals — which still took a few hours too long to appear — his father still hadn’t stirred.
Boba sighed, using one of the rough tissues to wipe the drying blood off of the scar on his father’s neck. Boba knew that lightsabers cauterized wounds, but he wasn’t surprised to see the blood as the wounds healed. It was a sign of health, which meant his father had to wake up.
He had to.
Boba hadn’t noticed that tears were falling until a warm drop fell on his hand. He sniffled and wiped his hand on the fabric of his pants, using his sleeve to wipe his eyes. He hated crying. Especially with the Kaminoans’ beady eyes watching him.
He took his father’s calloused, non-mechanical hand in both of his own.
“Please, wake up, Dad,” Boba whispered, blinking as tears prickled his eyes once more. “I…. You can’t leave me.”
His voice broke, and he cleared his throat, letting go of the warm hand that still made Boba’s seem small after years of holding it.
Unable to look at his father’s uncharacteristically-pale face any longer, Boba’s eyes drifted to the medical equipment, all state-of-the-art, like everything on Kamino. A steady heartbeat was shown on a monitor, small high-pitched beeps syncing with every beat.
Boba sighed, his eyes fixed on the screen. His vision shifted out of focus as he thought.
What if his father never woke up? Would that mean he’d be in some sort of coma? Would the Kaminoans pull the plug? Even worse, what if the monitor went silent? What if all the work to bring him back was for nothing? What if-
“Boba?”
His head couldn’t turn fast enough. His name hasn’t come from the thin lips of a Kaminoan doctor - the voice was too low for that.
Boba’s eyes were wide with hope as he turned to face the bed. He hadn’t hallucinated; his father’s eyes were open, his lips parted in a small smile.
“Dad!” Boba exclaimed, his voice louder than he intended it to be. “I knew you’d wake up. I knew it.”
He climbed into the bed, the mattress as firm and uncomfortable as he knew it’d be, though that didn’t matter as he wrapped his arms tightly around his father, the now-familiar stinging warmth of tears burning his eyes.
“Hey, son.”
Boba felt his father’s chest rumble as the latter spoke. His voice sounded slightly hoarse, but Boba didn’t mind. He could hear the smile in his father’s tone.
“I-It’d been so long, I started thinking maybe you wouldn’t—” Boba began, but stopped himself, taking a deep breath. “But I knew you’d wake up.”
“Of course I did,” his father said, groaning as he wrapped his arms around Boba.
“I wasn’t about to leave you. No chance.”