Star Wars the Clone Wars - One shots

War is a hard place to raise a Padawan

Ahsoka jerked out of Anakin's grip, the pain breaching her tolerance. 

She would usually be more resilient than this, but tiredness combined with the lack of an audience left her feeling secure enough to broadcast her discomfort.

"Hold still," Anakin murmured, only slightly stern, as he tightened his mechanical hand around her wrist. "I know it hurts."

"It didn't hurt so much earlier," Ahsoka said, braving a look at the injury as Anakin threw the bloodied gauze aside and found a clean piece. "But now you're prodding it."

She couldn't even remember grazing the inside of her forearm. The abrasion was wide and long, but thankfully not deep enough to cause too much blood loss. It was mostly dirty and sore, which meant it was at risk of infection.

Her Master didn't scold her when he noticed the wound as they got settled in their tent. He didn't immediately drag her to the medtent where Tilly was on the night shift.

He just sighed and held his hand expectantly, his expression reading, 'What have you done this time?'

Anakin's smirk wasn't missed in the dim light of the lantern hanging above their heads. With the weather conditions worsening, every gust of wind made the lantern shake, casting dancing shadows on the canvas of their tent.

"Adrenaline," he explained, "It'll hurt more if it's infected. Now, brace yourself."

Ahsoka gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to rip her hand away as Anakin cleaned out the gravel from the middle of the wound.

He was doing this out of love, but she couldn't help but feel like he was purposefully applying pressure to the raw and weeping skin.

"Hey, you think this is bad, wait until the medics find out about this." He teased, getting another clean piece of gauze. "Zyme is much less gentle than I am."

Despite her discomfort, Ahsoka managed to snort, "You haven't seen him with babies, Master. He can rock them right to sleep."

"Yeah, well, I didn't feel very soothed when he reset my fibula last month." Anakin said, briefly letting go of her wrist to look for a suitable dressing in his personal medkit.

Ahsoka mulled on his words. She remembered it well, the sound her Master made when the medics had to splint the bones in his leg back together. He had tried to put on a brave face, but the pain was projected across their bond.

Even once Anakin was knocked out with sedatives in the Resolute's medbay, Ahsoka could still hear his screams as his bones were physically pushed into their former positions.

It still made her a bit nauseous to think about it.

She was with him when it happened.

She watched the tank crush him into the ground, heard his bones snap from the pressure. There was so much blood, she couldn't stop the bleeding even when she put all of her weight on the wound.

"Ah-ha," Anakin turned back to her, a bandage in one hand and a tube of bacta in the other, "This should do the trick. Now, keep still whilst I dress this, or else Kix will re-do it tomorrow."

Ahsoka let him apply bacta to the long graze on the inside of her forearm. Above it, she could still see the faint surgical scar from when she'd fractured her wrist a few months ago.

When it happened, Anakin had heard her whimper of pain and insisted on looking at it. She had stubbornly refused to let him near her wrist, which only served as confirmation that it was worse than a sprain.

Her eyes flickered toward her Master.

She made an attempt to recollect every time he'd been severely injured in the last year. How many bones had he broken, how many concussions had forced her to be in charge of the reports and Council meetings whilst he slept in his quarters.