Title: A Certain Point of View
Author: SakuraTsukikage
Characters: Shian, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme, though Yoda, Palpatine, and the droids make appearances too
Timeframe: During and after RotS
Disclaimer: The Flanneled One owns all, not me.

Author's Notes: So, this is just a little thing I've been working on as a companion piece to A Resolution Between Shadows and Light--the events from the point of view of one of the major OCs. I'd just write random scenes from her point of view to help me with the writing of ARBSL, but they were good enough I decided there deserved to be a story . . .

One

Healer Shian Risto hadn't been having a very good day.

She hadn't been having a very good week, actually, but she hadn't actually had what she would have classified as a good week in quite some time, so it was just this particular day that registered as being worse than average.

First of all, she hadn't slept well the night before. Strange dreams of lava and fire and darkness, of two men fighting suspended over a river of flame, had disrupted her sleep, and so she had overslept—which never happened—only to be awakened by Supervisor Grenned's impatient voice over the com, demanding that she get herself down to trauma now because they had a seriously injured new patient and an expectant mother coming in, and where the Sith had she been, anyway?

Shian had bitten back the acerbic comeback she had wanted to hurl at him and obediently hurried down to incoming.

She was one of the healers waiting when the royal Naboo yacht docked in the rudimentary Elanna starport, and she was still yawning and blinking sleep out of her eyes and trying to make sure that her healer's jumpsuit was fastened correctly without being obvious about it when the ramp descended and the Jedi walked down it.

The old bitterness welled up within her at the sight of him, slicking the back of her throat with a sour taste and twisting her heart painfully with a burning, angry pain. It was the same whenever she saw that familiar silhouette, and Shian had learned to live with the anger and the resentment. She pushed it into the back of her mind, tamping down the roiling feelings that surged to life at the sight of that tunic, that weapon, even those boots, and tried to get herself to focus. Obviously this wasn't one of the patients they were waiting for; he must have brought the others, whoever they were, here.

It surprised her when he swayed, halfway down the ramp, and steadied himself with one hand on the landing strut. There was exhaustion written in every line of his body, and he wasn't exactly youthful; though Shian was far away she could see that much. He had a beard, anyway, and he didn't move like a young man. She moved forward automatically at his almost-fall, but Jorik Thann, the other medic who had accompanied her, stepped up to the ramp before she could.

"General Kenobi?" he said, and the man nodded wearily as he finished making his way down it and stopped in front of the other Healer. He wasn't a big man—in fact, the top of his head barely came up to Jorik's shoulder, but there was something about him that warned you not to underestimate him, a sort of presence that made him seem much bigger.

General Kenobi? Shian thought. The Negotiator? The Jedi Master and Republic hero? Here, on Elanna? It was almost too incredible to be believed.

"Yes," he said quietly. His voice was soft, with a classic Coruscanti accent that made his words rounded and precise. "You are . . . ?"

"Healer Jorik," the big man responded with a slight bow of respect. "And this is Trauma Specialist Shian Risto."

Shian gave a short, jerky bow, then was immediately ashamed of herself for letting the old anger affect her enough that she resented showing everyday respect for someone.

Kenobi nodded in her direction, and Shian noticed that his eyes were a light changeable blue-green color that drew one's attention, clear and piercing. "Thank you for meeting me on such short notice," he said. "I have two patients who desperately need your attention. I have done what I could, but I—I am not gifted when it comes to healing."

He sounded sad and drained, his voice tight with emotion, and Shian wondered what had happened to this man to leave him struggling to stay on his feet and with that sort of hollow aloneness in his voice.

"Well," Jorik said, and she knew the other healer had noticed the slight waver in Kenobi's voice as well, "that's what we're here for. Lead on, Master Jedi."

Kenobi nodded distractedly and started into the ship, Jorik following. Shian stayed outside, waiting and wondering about why a Jedi Master and Republic General would fly to Elanna in a Royal Naboo Yacht, with a pregnant woman and a wounded companion, no less.

Jorik returned a few minutes later, alone, and crossed over to speak with Shian where she stood with the two hover-stretchers they had brought. "Look," he said, "I don't know what happened here, but it's not a pretty sight. I'll take the woman—Senator Amidala, by the way, you know, thebeautiful one? You take the other. It's Kenobi's partner, Skywalker. He's got some severe burns and an amputation, as if the poor kid needed another one. It's a job for you if I ever saw one, sweetheart."

"Skywalker?" Shian repeated, recalling the young man's handsome features and cocky grin from the latest HoloNet report they'd gotten on remote Elanna. "The Hero With No Fear or whatever the Sith they call him? But—he killed Count Dooku. How'd he get—"

"I don't know," Jorik replied, "but I don't think I'd like to see the other guy. Go on now."

Shian nodded, feeling as if icy water was trickling down her spine as she took one of the hover-stretchers up the ramp. Something was very wrong here.

Kenobi met her inside. He was practically stumbling as he led her from the entry ramp to a small room off the man corridor, and Shian had to bit back the lecture rising to the tip of her tongue. Right now wasn't the time to tell the Jedi what exactly she thought of him driving himself into exhaustion. She looked at the slumped curve of his shoulders from where she followed behind him and wondered if all Jedi were like this.

She couldn't hold back a gasp when he stood aside and she entered the small room, though. Skywalker was crumpled on the bed as if the brash young hero had been broken and tossed aside like a spoiled child's ruined doll. His back was covered with the white foam of disinfectant burn cream, his tunic in tatters around his waist, and she winced to see his left leg severed a few inches below the knee. His mechanical arm dangled off the bunk, sparking dangerously and nothing more than a twisted hulk of scrap metal, as if it had been dipped in fire. Most of the wires had been burned away, and she could see red, angry streaks of burns on the flesh section of his arm.

"You did this, Kenobi?" she asked shortly as she crossed the small room and bent over the boy's limp form, careful not to touch any of the hissing blisters and charred burns that covered his back as she reached down and lifted his real wrist to take his pulse.

Kenobi flinched visibly. "Wh-what?" he stammered.

Okay, that's a weird reaction; didn't think the Negotiator would be that unsettled by a simple question. Shian gestured at Anakin's back. "The cream, the tunic," she said. The young man's pulse was fast and light and shallow beneath her fingers, and his skin felt feverish and hot. Shian sighed and let his wrist drop back down against the bed.

Kenobi's shoulders relaxed. "Oh," he said. "Yes. Yes, I did that."

Shian sighed. "Should have left it to the professionals." Sithin' Jedi think they know everything. "Don't think it'll affect him much—looks like you did a pretty good job—but you should have just elevated his—uh—his legs—and covered him as much as possible."

Kenobi slumped even more, and Shian felt vaguely as if she'd just kicked a beaten cannoid. "Oh," he said again, "I'm sorry," and he threw a look at Skywalker that was so tortured and so full of anguish that even Shian felt her heart seize up. Poor man, she thought unwillingly. They said on the HoloNet news reports that he really cared about this kid.

"It's all right," she said, just trying to comfort him a little now. "You gave him a shock shot, right?" He had to have; Skywalker was in a lot better condition than he would have been otherwise.

Kenobi didn't say anything, just nodded lifelesslystared down at the floor.

Shian really felt bad now. Shouldn't have said anything, she berated herself. What you said was true, yes, but Force, the guy looks like he was punched in the stomach. When will you learn to keep your big mouth closed, Risto?

She laid a hand on the back of Skywalker's hair—slightly singed, she noticed, and stiff with dried sweat, and rolled his head to the side. He gave a slight, choking moan as she did so, his tongue swiping at his cracked, bleeding lips, then winced as the contact aggravated the cuts where they had split from the heat that must have given him those burns. Shian shook her head.

It made Shian ache slightly more than she usually did at injuries to see a young man so kriffing pretty he could have been a holo-model utterly torn apart like this.

"All right," she said. "Get over here, Kenobi. He's big, and I'm going to need your help to move him."

"I can do it," Kenobi said quietly.

Shian straightened up and looked at him with annoyance. "No, you can't, General, Jedi or not. No offense, but you're not exactly a bodybuilder yourself, and he's tall and broad across the shoulders, and I don't even want to think about how much a body that muscular is going to weigh." She shrugged. "And I'm not exactly a shockball player either."

Kenobi just shook his head. "That was not what I meant. Could you step backwards, please?"

Shian blinked, but obeyed—

And then felt her jaw drop open as Skywalker's limp body floated up into the air. She glanced over at Kenobi to see his eyes closed and his hand outstretched, and figured he must be using the Force.

Whatever it was—by all that was holy and Alderaanian, that was impressive.

Skywalker's eyes opened halfway through his journey to the hover-stretcher, and she could see his face twist in panic. His body began to twist and flail as he settled gently into the cushioning of the holo-stretcher, and then Kenobi was by his side, hands clenching on the rails so hard they were white. "It's all right, it's all right, Anakin," he murmured frantically. "Please, calm down. Everything is fine."

Skywalker just gave a low, frightened moan and edged away from Kenobi's outstretched hand, tossing his head fitfully. Shian realized in a rush that the presence of the other Jedi was upsetting him. She moved to his side as quickly as she could, pushing Kenobi out of the way so that she could try and calmthe young manbefore he injured himself too badly. She laid her fingers against Skywalker's cheek and stroked them back through his hair. "It's all right, kiddo," she whispered. "No one's going to hurt you."

His lashes fluttered upward, and then he was peering uncertainly at her, his gaze glazed with pain and shock. There was something weird about his eyes, but Shian couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. "P-Padmé?" he whispered, his voice breathy and rasping, then his head dropped back down as he passed out cold.

Shian looked back to see Kenobi standing there, head bowed, looking as if his heart had just been torn out of his chest and stepped on cruelly. Something in the defeat set of his shoulders made Shian's heart ache in sympathy, Jedi or not. Suddenly she saw just a man, heartbroken and exhausted and aching, and in that moment she felt no bitterness at all toward this particular Jedi.

"Hey," she said. "Don't take it so hard. He's delirious; he doesn't know what he's doing. He probably didn't even recognize you. He probably thought you were the one who hurt him."

Kenobi nodded, but it was a rote, unthinking motion, and when he raised his head Shian was shocked by the heartbreak in his blue-green eyes. "Yes," he said, exhaustion slurring his soft, accented words together. "I am sure he did."

It was the first time Shian had seen him straight on. He looked awful, dark bruises under his eyes, his face worn and drawn and pale with weariness.

And yet—Shian bit the inside of her lip. The thought that had just occurred to her was not at all appropriate.

But well, Skywalker wasn't the only one of the two who was pretty, even with the beard, and she couldn't help thinking that her day had just gotten a little better, even with the huge amount of work their presence here meant for her over the next few days.