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Ahsoka sits a silent vigil beside her Master, clasping his hand tightly She has barely been Anakin’s Padawan for three months, but by now, their bond is strong. Master Secura, Bly, and Rex are keeping watch and Ahsoka waits, waits, waits, as Anakin lies beside her, motionless, still motionless.
The healer Wag Too returns to them. He is insistent in his aid to them, and Ahsoka is grateful for it. She has no skills in healing, and Master Secura is busy trying to get the rest of them home. Without Anakin, she’s just some stupid Padawan. No skills to speak of and no one to stick up for her.
“He’s healing well,” Wag Too says, checking Anakin’s bandages. “Better than can be expected.”
“He’s strong,” Ahsoka says. She knows that Wag Too is right. All the time she can feel Anakin growing stronger, coming slowly back to himself. Ahsoka doesn’t have anything to do besides wait. In battle, she and Anakin were strong together, but now her foothold on everything she knew has been loosened. Anakin remains strong, but Ahsoka is floundering.
Wag Too smiles at her. “Why don’t you help me?” he says, kindly. Ahsoka nods. She can tell he’s just being kind to her, offering to let her help with a task that’s better left to a trained healer in the hope that it will make her feel better, but Ahsoka needs to be doing something. Waiting here for rescue or for Anakin to wake up is torture.
Slowly, Wag Too unwraps Anakin’s bandages, revealing his bare chest. Underneath, the skin is red and raw with burns, yellow and black with bruises. She sucks in a breath between her teeth; without thinking, she reaches out to touch him, his skin hot.
“Here.” Wag Too holds out gauze for Ahsoka to take, and he applies some more healing oil to Anakin’s burns. “Wrap him tight.” So Ahsoka does. “He’s your teacher?” Wag Too asks, removing more of Anakin’s bandages.
“Yes,” Ahsoka answers. “He’s teaching me to become a Jedi.”
“I admire the Jedi,” Wag Too says. “Going throughout the Galaxy, helping those in need.”
Ahsoka bites her lip, her hand resting on Anakin’s chest, holding the bandages in place while Wag Too finishes. “Sometimes,” she says weakly. “We’re at war now.”
Wag Too hums, and grabs Anakin’s tunic for Ahsoka to dress him. “These are troubled times. I’d like to help people in need, wherever they were, whatever the costs. Like the Jedi.” He turns and smiles at Ahsoka. “My father does not agree.” Wag Too collects his things and scampers out of the tent.
Anakin struggles through the battle. While he’s up, Ahsoka can feel his pain building, but Ahsoka can’t stop him. It’s a testament to how much pain he is in that he doesn’t help set up the barricade around the village. Occasionally, Ahsoka can feel a pang, and once, in a moment where Ahsoka thinks Anakin nearly passes out, she can feel him grab onto her in the Force, drawing on her own power to keep himself upright, like a reflex. Ahsoka looks up, pausing moving the shell into position. Anakin grimaces at her apologetically and retreats back into himself.
Still, he hauls himself without a care through the trees and across the battlefield, moving so fast its hard to track his movements. Ahsoka’s been around Jedi all her life, but watching Anakin — even injured, even with his presence shooting through with breathless pain — isn’t like watching the other Jedi, faster than he brain can even comprehend, certainly faster than the Separatists can, and before she knows it, the battle is over. Anakin drags Lok Durd back to the village, his jaw clenched tightly.
“Do we have contact with the Republic?” he asks Master Secura tightly.
She nods. “On their way,” she says. “Good work, Anakin.”
Back on board the Resolute, Ahsoka sits with Anakin in the medbay. Clones mill about them. The ambient sounds of hyperspace and the functioning sounds of the cruiser are almost like a lullaby. It’s certainly better than the sounds of the battlefield. Now, in the lull between battle, Ahsoka settles into meditation while Anakin fiddles with a broken droid. They will not clear him for battle, but since Obi-Wan picked up some clones in worse shape than Anakin, he has to wait. Anakin is, therefore, stewing. But that, too, is becoming familiar to her. Anakin’s moods, Anakin’s insistence that he can power through. Ahsoka is pretty sure he can. But still —
Anakin winces. Ahsoka opens her eyes. “You okay, Skyguy?”
Anakin, who looks completely calm, even almost the right color again, fixes her with a glare that makes her blood run cold. “Aayla says you did good out there,” he says, pointing his wrench at her, and then returning to his task. “I’m fine. Promise. Soon as Obi-Wan gets down here, he’ll clear me himself.”
“Not sure he has the authority to do that,” Ahsoka says grimly. Anakin rolls his eyes. She watches him for a few more moments. It’s bizarre to see him sitting up so straight like everything is fine. Four days ago, Ahsoka had to drag his body out an imploding ship. He had been so pale and bloodless and awfully still.
“Your thoughts center on your anxieties, Ahsoka,” he chides her seriously.
“I thought you were gone for, Master.” She can’t even manage a glare. “And yet, you still kept going.”
Anakin looks at her hard, his eyes narrowing as he searches for the words. “I dunno,” he says at last. “I had to make sure you all got through.” He returns to his project —a mouse droid he’s taken apart and put back together at least four times in the time that they’ve sat here. He fiddles with it silently for a while and then looks back up at her. He just looks and looks and looks, like he’s taking her apart in his mind like the mouse droid. All she can think about is how frail he seemed when Wag Too was tending to him, when she was alone with him, and then suddenly, he wasn’t. “Thanks for taking care of me, Snips,” he says finally, and then he discards the mouse droid at his feet and closes his eyes.
“No problem, Master,” she murmurs, following suit.