Alright, so this may carry on longer than I originally projected...but that's not necessarily a bad thing, eh? Maybe I can do some one-shots in between or something.. but I definitely plan to do stories after this one...but I have to reach the end of this one first!

Now this is going to be the first time I copy-paste onto , because I am FAR too lazy to switch from one laptop to the computer then back again. If it so turns out that it looks horrific copy-pasting, then I will find another way of getting it up.

I do apologize for not updating this quickly, I am just in the middle of finding myself. After finding out that I have chiraptophobia it's been a tad bit of a fight to keep my purpose in mind, so I'm doing a bit of soul-searching. It just so seems that writing actually helps me to relax and focus.

Please enjoy, feel free to PM and review. I own nothing and am quite happy to admit so, but I would appreciate some nice comments. :D

Enjoy folks, I'm hoping I can get the next one up fairly swiftly, but no promises.

Happy writing,

~Eliana

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOI

It was mid-morning by the time Tocarra was able to finally make her rounds, and that in and of itself was far from pleasing to her. When things were to be done, they should be done in a timely manner so that everything had its own little time slot for the exact amount of time needed. Oh, but of course thing could never once go as planned in her schedule – It was layed out simply in her mind every morning when she woke up, the well-worn gears of her mind methodically laying out the overly-detailed schedule of her day that would, of course, somehow go awry. Was it so much to ask that for one day – A single, solitary, beautiful day, she could actually start working with her current patients first? Oh well, one could never say no when a person was wheeled in from an emergency. It was good to be open-minded and helpful, but being overly helpful had kept her from the padawans' room for a full day (to which she promptly informed the nurses and aides that if they even dared to interrupt her for one moment today she would find a new use for her medical knowledge.

Yes, she did indeed sign the doctrine to do no evil, but nowhere did it say that she couldn't have her own way with the rather annoying twittering of her interns. With a bit of a sigh she entered her favorite patients' room, noting that Ahsoka was awake and sitting up in her bed, actually reading. The curtain between the children's beds had been draw hours ago (Eddy believed it to be better for Ahsoka to focus on herself rather than her friend). The doctor crossed the few steps to the bedside, finding herself actually smiling for the first time in a few hours.

"Hi!" the girl chirped, raising one hand to wave rather enthusiastically at the doctor who raised one eyebrow ridge in mild amusement.

"Hello child," she responded, grasping the other thin wrist for the child's pulse, "I would ask how you're feeling today but I do believe I've already seen a good bit of it."

"I'm really good, actually," Ahsoka stated with a surprising amount of calm, the rush of energy that had surfaced briefly replaced by the prized facade of the Jedi.

Eighty-four beats per minute, the doctor told herself in her mind, not the ideal ninety yet but a far cry from the near-death pulse that the youngling had upon arrival. Truthfully, overall she had begun to recover quite well over the past week, regaining her strength (or enough of it to endure two rounds of physical therapy a day) and determination to survive. In the end, that's what it all boiled down to...that she could say with certainty. How much of a patient's recovery was rooted within the patient's own belief that they could recover?

It was that snag that had held the recovery of the two void for so long...but now that at least Ahsoka was feeling better, she grew steadily stronger by the hour. She was far from fully recovered, but her core temperature had increased to only three degrees shy of a healthy core temperature, and in all actuality her slight increase in weight was doing wonders for her overall health. In a fight against starvation, every single pound was precious. The meager three that Ahsoka had managed to grasp a hold of could easily spell the difference between life and death for her. The light in her eyes was back, even if it was just a bit diluted by the still-painful muscles in her body.

"No headaches? Nausea?" The doctor pressed calmly.

"Nope!" chirped the padawan, happy that the doctor didn't seem at all worried about her observation, "But I'd reeeeeaallly rather sleep in today."

"Nice try, child. You're going to therapy, then you can sleep."

Her response was a puffing of pink cheeks, pale young lips creating a pout.

"Oh you stop that now," the adult chided playfully, tapping the cheeks that were full of air, "Don't make things too hard."

"The way to Ahsoka's heart," came Eddy's voice from the door, "Is through food it seems. If I promise a certain young lady that if she comes with me, we'll get...hmmm...maybe some frozen fruit popsicles, maybe she'll come for a ride in this lovely hover chair I've brought."

The nurse brought the hover chair to rest by Ahsoka's bed, both adult getting a hearty laugh from just how eager she was in getting the blankets off of her lap. Sugar was the way to any child's heart – and since it was such a rare commodity for rewards within the homes of the Jedi, the girl was perfectly happy to get as much of the substance as possible. After having done it many times by this point, the method of moving the IV bags and the girl herself to the hover chair was hardly a task, and it did give Tocarra an odd sense of satisfaction as she watched the happily giggling youngling float away with the aid of the doctor's hand-picked student.

But just as quickly as the small surge of joy had hit her, it fell away when she turned to look at the curtain hanging from the ceiling behind her. Ahsoka had made an outstanding amount of progress in such a short amount of time after surgery, but in her success, the small shadow of another poor creature loomed. It took a lot to make Tocarra upset, but she could feel the tears bit her eyes ever so briefly at the thought of Djibourdi.

If ever there was a person doomed to suffer it was him – but just the fact that he was so young and still so kind at heart made her feel such a heartache that it felt as though it was forced into her by an outer-worldly being. Gathering up the courage within herself, she crossed the distance to the edge of the curtain, peering into the small gap between the curtain and the wall, just a force of habit before encroaching on private space.

It obviously had no purpose here as the tiny child lay eerily still, the only obvious signs of life being the heart monitor screen's portrayal of the slow heartbeat that kept the frail body alive. She had placed him on two bags of caloric fluid to desperately try to supplement the calories he wasn't eating, but it would all be useless if he chose to give up. Ahsoka had sided with life – she fought for it and slowly but surely she was winning. She had found her reasons to live again...but Djibourdi seemed to be the opposite. He wasn't necessarily self-destructive so to speak, but he certainly wasn't fighting to stay alive either...and quite honestly the adult couldn't really blame him. She herself fully admitted to the silence of her own soul that if their places would be mercifully exchanged, she would be fully prepare to give up life at the drop of a hat.

But this boy, the little child who lay so prone, grey skin covered in white gauze blending with the sheets, this boy was far from a weakling. Even now, through the dead silence, the strength of this one could be felt with very little effort. With gliding footsteps Tocarra crossed to the bedside, observing with keen eyes every detail of the boy who lay so still there – still as if sleeping...but none of her tests proved that. He was out alright, he didn't bother to so much as twitch when herself and Eddy were forced to wash his cold skin and clean the painful wounds. He didn't give the near-silent whines at being moved or twitch his lips in a tiny frown when the IVs were removed from his skin, only to have more of the small needles pressed back into his skin later. No eating, no crying, not even blinks of his eyes – he was just prone.

It was not a coma – she certainly wouldn't have chanced putting him so deep into a condition like that with his body being in the condition that it was. It was the entire purpose of a medical-induced coma to help the body heal on its own, but if it was at the potential cost to a life it certainly wasn't a decision that Tocarra was willing to make. If by pure happenstance the child had slipped into a coma on his own,

by now his brain waves certainly would have suggested so. As it was at this exact second, his brain waves were in a state of calm, but not so much a calm that would suggest the youngling was indeed in a coma.

Yet it wasn't sleep either. His eyelids hadn't moved (aside from when the doctor gently pulled them back to check his eyes), which suggested no dreams. He had been lying like this, rhythmic breathing forcing the bony chest to rise and fall with precision, for three days and hadn't so much as twitched any muscle in the time. In sleep the mouth would fall slightly open, yet his jaws remained fully and tightly shut.

A trance, it seemed, was the most likely of all three to be the culprit of Djibourdi's sudden state of extreme silence. Quiet to words was the boy's obvious forte, but this was...

Tocarra shook her head, reaching to the glove box suspended on the wall, pulling a couple medium-sized gloves from the container and slipping with ease onto her hands. It was with an air of purpose that she first reached to lay her right hand onto the child's forehead, whispering quiet words in her native tongue to the little boy – whether he was listening or not, she was indeed working with a child. In her years of working with such young ones she had learned well that a calm hand was needed in such situations, even ones bordering far away from this.

Passing her tongue over her lips for moisture the woman reached down to slowly undo the medical tape securing a piece of gauze on the grey right arm – its purpose was to try and protect the large, open sore that had caused more than its fair share of pain to the child. The final bit of medical tape pulled off gently and Tocarra moved to slowly remove the gauze, her aim to gauge the stage of healing of the wou-

She stopped cold. Her mouth opened and closed several times in succession as she tried to speak, only to settle on swallowing hard at the vision her eyes gave her. With a note of carelessness she tossed the used piece of gauze on the bedside table, using trembling fingers to trace over the flawless patch of cold skin – surely her mind was playing a trick on her, she desperately told herself, reaching over the prone body to the other gauze-covered arm. Methodically plucking away at the tape on another piece, it fell off as well, revealing no hint of a wound beneath it. Another was removed. No welts, no sores, no open wounds.

Bruises were still mottling the pale skin with frequency, but the more horrific and worrying of the open and oozing sores were gone – and it was at that moment that Tocarra felt her body go numb as she turned to stare at the stoic face of the boy. It was a trance. A healing trance. Djibourdi was healing himself.

Without so much as a muscle spasm the youngling lay dead still, eyes still shut against the light coming from the holo-TV. Wait – holo-TV?

Tocarra turned around to look with a raised brow at the television. Why in the name of the universe was that thing on if he wasn't awake to watch it? Ahsoka wasn't the one with the love of animals, Djibourdi was. Every time Tocarra had come in to see the children he was either watching some documentary on wild creatures or was mindlessly fussing over the fur of the little stuffed canid named Bubbles. It was curious as to why exactly the holo-TV was on and the remote was on Ahsoka's side of the room – but it was even more so that, despite her sharp and scrutinizing mind Tocarra had missed the fact that it was even on in the first place. Giving a soft, amused sigh she glided to floor underneath the television and reached one arm up to press the power command, watching the screen go blank. A shake of her head in confusion let her absorb it all for a second before she turned on her heel, moving back toward the bedside, only to find herself stopping cold for the second time since she had come into the room.

"Oh my..." she breathed, astonishment making her eyes go wide for the longest moment before her lips curled into an excited smile, "You're awake!"

And he was indeed. The amber irises, though half-lidded, were peering straight at her with curiosity and a light of acknowledgment, pale lips shuddering a bit as they moved for the first time in days.

"Hello, little one," she spoke with a lowered tone, trying to be soothing to the probably-painful hearing of her patient as she neared the bed. Slowly she dropped into a crouch next to him, ensuring that the young eyes stayed fixed on her as she moved, "It's good to see you again. How do you feel?"

For a long moment Djibourdi did nothing, but then his lips twitched and he let out three soft clicks, his eyes trailing down to his fingers as he made them twitch slowly, as if testing to see if he had full range of motion or not. Tocarra gave him the time that he needed, taking her own notes in her head as she watched him move – first simple motions by his fingers, then slowly bringing his arms to full motion. Golden eyes slowly trailed up to meet hers her she gave him a kind smile.

"You can still move. I promise."

He blinked at her. In a momentary effort the thin legs under the blanket began to kick in a futile effort to move and the whole little body began to writhe underneath the blankets as the child grumbled low in his throat and created soft chirps – with all of the Togrutan sounds Tocarra knew, she did know that one.

"Shh-shh child," she whispered, reaching up to calmly place a hand on one side of the cold neck, not surprised at all when his left hand shot up to weakly touch hers. The motion did what she had aimed for, stopping the painful writhing just as quickly it had started, "Eddy will be back soon, I promise. The pain is just lactic acid from you lying still for so long. It will pass."

Two more soft, bird-like calls passed Djibourdi's lips before he relaxed again, his hand falling from hers in a small act of surrender.

"He's coming back," she told him once more, understanding who he was calling for, "You amaze me, Djibourdi."

She gestured to the gauze on one of his arms, slowly moving to take the white cloth off to show him what she meant.

"All gone, little one," she told him, running her fingers over the patch of skin that, not three days ago, had been layed open and bleeding freely – she noted the flash of relief in her patient's eyes at the lack of pain the ministrations caused, "How did you do that, hmm?"

He gave no response to her question, but the smallest change in his expression suddenly seemed to bring light straight into her being.

"It's been a while since you've smiled, sweetheart – can I see that again?" she teased him, clicking her tongue and tapping the side of his nose. There was a genuine smile – the most beautiful thing she had seen in far too long, "Ah! There it is! I see it."

The slightest airy giggle filled the air and Djibourdi moved to bury his face into his pillow, the overly-shy boy trying to hide the reason for his sudden rise in attention from the adult. The motion pulled a little too hard on the breathing tubes taped to his face.

"Alright now, Djibourdi," she told him, only to find herself stopping at the sound of Ahsoka's happy talking on the other side of the curtain, "I do believe he's back."

The golden eyes went wide. Djibourdi chirped as Tocarra stood, moving the curtain a bit more aside as the voices on the other side of the curtain stopped dead, footsteps marking the approach of someone else. The doctor smiled at her student and cast an affectionate look to the padawan who gave another chirp at seeing Eddy peer through. Tocarra let him pass then stepped to Ahsoka's side, sliding the curtain shut behind her to give them privacy and to get Ahsoka settled once more.

Eddy wasted no time to cross to his favorite child's bed, more than pleased when the thin arms opened in a motion of request to be hugged – which was met with no hesitation either. Bony and cold he may have been, but the warmth of a young soul managed to bring tears of joy to bite at the man's eyes as he brought the exhausted body to his.

"Lene, iht seisin viede," he whispered to the boy, using one hand to undo the bedside latches so he could scoop up the sore body and cradle him in strong arms, leaning back so the cold being was caught between his own body heat and the mountain of blankets on top of him. At the fearful clicks he quick to hush him, even as the sounds fell silent in response to the warmth that relaxed his body, "Nei fefin, lene. Nei fefin, iht ber hier."

Just to see him awake for any amount of time was more than enough to bring peace to the nurse's heart, and no words could describe just how content he felt at that exact moment. With a chaste kiss to the crown of the child's head he let the calming rumbles leave his lungs before he spoke a bit louder than before.

"I'm going to take my break, boss," he stated loud enough for Tocarra to hear.

"Take however long you need, Ed," the doctor told him, busy working on a squirming Ahsoka.

"You're cold," Eddy murmured to his charge, gathering the little child closer to him by scrunching up the blankets to trap in as much heat as he could.

Hooking his hands under the boys arms he went to position the child against his shoulder, only to be met with a sudden surge of resistance marked with a sharp whine.

"Dji," he spoke somewhat-sternly, breaking through the vice of fear and meeting the golden eyes, "Trust me now, my little one."

He made the move again, this time without the resistance. Careful no to pull the IV lines he pulled the bony arms over his shoulders so the could hook around his neck, guiding the little head to rest on his own left shoulder. Body heat was always most easily transferred skin-to-skin, but even this was better than what it had been. It was worrying that he could feel Djibourdi's hip bones and ribs through the layers of cloth, but of course in this situation it was to be expected. He was awful small for his age, even in terms of height – so much so that it was hard to believe that he was the age the age that he was.

"See? This is all I wanted," he told the boy, running a hand down the prominent spine over the blankets, "Nothing bad. Nice and warm."

One small hiccup was all he got in return and just like that, the child fell asleep against him, causing him to chuckle ever so slightly. He jumped slightly when the curtain retreated from in between the beds, allowing him to see Ahsoka peering at them. Her eyes went wide.

"Is he okay?" She whispered, watching Tocarra calmly walk back over to the bedside.

"Oh yes, Ahsoka," Eddy assured her, still trailing a firm hand over his charge's back as he spoke, "He's just sleeping now."

"And having some sort of dream," the doctor added at seeing the fluttering eyelids on Djibourdi's face.

Djiboudi was obviously out against Eddy's shoulder, mouth slightly agape and eyes fluttering – oh how she wished she had a camera, Tocarra mused. He hadn't fully slept in four days – it was time to make up for it now. This fully crossed the professional limit, yet every one of them knew that such a rare thing as comfort was what this padawan really needed. The nurse used his free hand to pull the top blanket over the top of Djibourdi's head, just far enough to contain the warmth he was trying to share with him. Beginning his calming motions once again, he looked to Ahsoka.

"As for you, young lady," he teased her, "One of these days you're going to out-run me."

"Hardly," Ahsoka shot back, "I only made it down the hall."

"All the way?" the doctor questioned while she walked to monitor by her bed. While pulling of the used medical gloves, tossing them haphazardly into a waste bin.

"Yup," Eddy spoke for her, "No help, just herself. She makes me look bad."

"It's not my fault you're old," she told him with a huff, puffing out her cheeks.

"And now I see why your master calls you 'Snips'," the nurse chuckled.

"Yeeaaaahhh...It's a living."

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOI

There we are! Now this machine is younger than the other, but I'm using open office on here so it may or may not recognize some things and auto-correct them. I think I found them all, but no promises.

Translations:

Lene, iht seisin viede – (My) Little one, I am so happy to see you

Nei fefin, lene. Nei fefin, iht ber hier – No fear, (my) little one. No fear, I am here.

I hope you enjoyed it, please lemme know what you think. I know I said two more chapters but it juuuuuust might be longer than that.

Happy writing,

~Eliana