There would come no soft rains on Coruscant. There was at least a pleasant breeze, but Asajj did not pay much attention to it. There was the awful glare of sunlight, and the saccharine sweetness of the fuzzy blankets caressing her shoulders - two things she had rejected long ago. But there was also familiar and oddly comforting pain.
Someone else was in the room, she managed to figure that out - though it was mostly because of the small sound of his snoring. The Force was still bleary and distant in a way that made her feel vulnerable. A small noise escaped from her lips as she clawed her way back to reality. There would be no gentle waves to bear her back to the shore of consciousness. She wouldn't let them.
"Ventress?" Whoever else was there had woken up. The voice was warm and familiar - disarming in a peculiar way. It took her a moment to place it, and by that moment, there was the warm weight of his hand on her shoulder. "...Asajj?"
One deep breath, then another - then in a flurry of movement she scrambled out of the bed. Thankfully the clinic had given her somewhat modest attire. Every fiber of every muscle immediately screamed at her in pain. The world pitched and swayed dizzily. It was all bright light and blurry movement, but among the plain cream and white there was a streak of brown. Robes. Jedi's robes. Brown hair.
General Kenobi.
She sucked in a breath and her lungs burned, body aching. Rest, she needed to rest - her body was about to give out, any moment now. But she pushed it further, reaching out, clawing for the bedside table blindly - grabbing the vase - holding it like a club while she flattened herself against the opposite wall.
Obi-Wan was standing, now, arms out. "Ventress, please - I'm not going to hurt you -"
"Liar!" It was the only thing she could think of to say. But as she bristled, she knew it was true. "Liar, get away from me - get away -"
She was all confused fear and pain. Obi-Wan could feel it clearly.
Nobody needed to tell her about the innate danger that came from a woman, weakened and vulnerable, left alone in the same room with a powerful man. Whether or not he would do such a thing was irrelevant. She knew that danger because she had experienced such a thing many times before.
Her voice was raw and strained even as she gasped for air. Obi-Wan took a step forward and she swung the vase wildly as if it would be some sort of protection. The flowers - fresh, brightly-colored marigolds - were tossed out across the room in a neat arc. Half of them were scattered on her bed. The others were on the floor. She did not notice how fresh they were, or how two of them were different from the rest - from the Jedi gardens, not the clinic's.
The world swirled around her again, and she gasped, trying to stay on her feet. The intravenous line feeding into her arm wasn't long enough to reach: it had been torn out of her arm completely. Now a thin line of blood trickled down her arm, winding like a red ribbon around her white flesh.
"Asajj, please." His voice held real and genuine worry. This she noticed, and immediately tried to deny. It was some ruse, some trick... it would have to be. "You're injured, you need to rest -"
There was a soft blur of blue at the doorway - a nurse. The tight knot in her stomach unwound, though not by much. "You're lying," she spat out again, gulping desperately. Her mouth was far too dry to actually spit at him, though she dearly wanted to. "If you - if you brought me here, it's for some reason -" She gasped desperately, almost as if drowning. The mental barricades fell all at once, like dams overwhelmed by flooding waters, and she crumpled to the floor, barking out a sob.
The pain was consuming, smothering, and - most importantly - it was simply pain. She could not find the ability to turn it into anger, to harness it for any greater use. Instead it was paralyzing.
Hands were lifting her up, guiding her back - one pair slim and delicate, the other rough. The nurse and Kenobi, respectively. With a sick sense of fatalism, she waited for one pair, if not both, to take advantage of her current state. Instead the nurse's hands darted around her with professional efficiency, tucking the blanket around her again, hooking up the IV so that medicine started to dull the pain she was fighting against. Kenobi's hand never left her shoulder, despite her fear that it would stray at any moment.
It was rougher than she would have thought. The hand of a man who was not afraid of physical work or constant practice. Someone who understood how mind and body could be unified in lightsaber swordplay. Asajj respected that. She always had, but now it seemed appropriate to admit as such.
"Master Kenobi, I..." The nurse spoke quietly, though nervously.
"I understand. I should go; she will need to rest." The warm weight of his hand left her shoulder. Despite the lingering fear gnawing at her, she felt a dull sense of loss, as if in that short a time she had already gotten used to him being there. "When she next wakes, would you please give her the datapad on the bedside table...?"
"Of course, sir."
"Thank you."
She tried to hold on as long as she could, but as he left, there was nothing more to keep her attention. There was just the pain eroding into exhaustion, and the bone-deep weakness dragging her back down. And so Asajj Ventress slept.