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.

The answer was too many.

Not that the Council or the GAR cared.

"What are you thinking about?" Anakin asked, his voice softer as he wrapped the bandage around her arm with the tenderness of a crèche Master soothing a grazed knee.

Ahsoka sighed, "How much longer do you think we'll have to go on like this?"

In an instant, Anakin's eyes snapped up to meet hers. His concern in the Force was almost overwhelming.

"Like what?"

"Like…" her bottom lip suddenly wobbled, and it felt like there was a lump in her throat, "Watching each other get hurt."

Anakin was quiet. She immediately felt stupid for saying anything in the first place. They'd had similar conversations before, and it always resulted in Anakin lecturing her that they were doing this for the good of the galaxy.

As a Jedi, she wasn't supposed to put her comfort over the comfort of others. She wasn't supposed to grumble or complain.

They were taught in the Temple that there were always people suffering worse.

She watched as he tied the bandage around her arm, finally releasing his grip so she could draw her hand back, though his own hands hovered like he wanted to hold onto her.

"This is war, Snips," he eventually said, his voice flat and eyes lowered. Like it pained him to tell her. "I'd rather patch you up, than plan your funeral."

She had to look away, her heart aching from all the grief she'd felt the last few times she was in the Jedi Temple.

The last six months of the war had been terrible.

The GAR was low on almost all resources, which meant there were never enough rations, bacta, or ammo. The Jedi were running at such low numbers that they didn't even have time for leave between missions.

The grief in the Temple had felt suffocating recently, with two Padawans having been killed on the front lines.

One was killed quickly by a stray shot to the head, but the other was captured and tortured by Separatist Intelligence to give up information that she didn't even have.

By the time she was rescued and brought back to the Temple, it was too late.

That death hit Ahsoka hard.

She knew the girl who had been captured, they were in the same clan and classes together. The 501st was on a long-term campaign, so she didn't even get to attend the funeral.

She tried to pretend that it didn't bother her, not being allowed to pay her respects or say a final goodbye, but it did.

A warm hand touched her cheek, and Ahsoka shuddered out a breath.

Anakin wiped her tears away with his thumb, his mechanical hand curling around her body. In a second, she was lifted and deposited into his lap. It was an uncommon gesture, but Ahsoka didn't push her Master away.

Instead, she turned her face into his tunic, breathing in the smell of smoke and sweat as she started to cry.

"I'm sorry I don't have the answers, little one," Anakin murmured, his lips pressed against her montrals. He rubbed soothing circles on her back, which only succeeded in making her cry harder. "I wish you didn't have to think about such things."

"It's not fair," she said into the fabric of his clothes, sniffling. "I don't want to lose anyone else."

Just last week, Master Plo had a near brush with death whilst commandeering a team of fighters.

She had felt the moment he crashed in the Force, the shock had caused her to vomit. Anakin freaked out until she was able to tell him what she'd felt through their bond.

Ahsoka hadn't been able to visit Master Plo in person, but Anakin set up a comm connection so she could speak to him whilst he remained at the medical station.

Seeing him so weak and in pain had left her petrified. It took Anakin two hours to convince her to get into her own starfighter to complete a training simulation.

A month ago, they'd almost lost Obi-Wan after a sniper got a lucky shot. The medics warned that had it been two inches to the left, he wouldn't have made it.

Watching Anakin sit at a silent vigil next to Obi-Wan in the medbay had frightened her. Even when Obi-Wan was discharged back to his quarters, he was fast asleep every time Ahsoka visited him.

"There's so much pain and death," she whispered against his robes, "Every time we go back to the Temple, it feels emptier. M-Master, I'm scared." She looked up at him, "What if we're not so lucky next time?"

Anakin's jaw was stiff as he processed her question, and his grip tightened around her body.

The thought of losing her Master was almost too much to bear.

"Ahsoka, I'll speak to the Council when we're off this rock," he began slowly, "I'll see if they'll let us to go on a short meditative retreat, maybe somewhere like Naboo, so we can get a break and-"

"No, no, no, no!" More tears fell as she raised her voice, and she tried to hit his chest, "A holiday isn't going to stop people from dying! We can't just hide whilst everyone is killed!"

"Snips," he caught her wrist, sighing hard when she continued to struggled, "I can't just fix the universe-"

"Well, then I'll die trying!" She spat back at him.

"Hey, hey," Anakin caught her head and brought her close to his body again. He started to rock them from side to side, "Come on, don't get upset with me."

She quickly melted against him, too afraid to fall out in case he was to suddenly die the next day.

She would simply never forgive herself.

"We can't just drop everything and leave," she still argued, feeling frustrated that he thought that would be the solution. "The shitty war will still be here when we get back."

Usually, he might scold her for her use of language, but he didn't tonight.

"We'll figure something out," he assured her, smoothing his thumb over her montral, "We'll make it, we always do."

They waited in silence for her tears to dry. Ahsoka could hear the wind gathering in intensity outside their tent. She hoped the storm didn't persist through the night, or else she doubted she would be able to sleep.

Though, with how tired she felt, maybe it would make no difference.

She focused on Anakin, on his heart thudding beneath her montral, on his tight grip around her shoulders. He was still filtering emotions through their Force bond, calming her subtly.

She felt bad for getting angry with him.

Anakin wanted this war to end as much as she did.

"Sometimes I-" Ahsoka wiped her nose on his tunic, "Sometimes I wish we weren't Jedi. We wouldn't have to fight."

"Ahsoka," Anakin sighed, "Who would we be if we weren't Jedi?"

She knew that the answer for him was a slave. Who she would be, she didn't know.

They most likely would've never met if not for the Order.

"Listen," he said gently, "I feel so much sympathy for you. I wasn't a Padawan during wartime, I'll never understand what it's like. But you are so unbelievably brave."

He was still rocking them, and her grip on his arm loosened ever so slightly.

"You lead those men out there with a confidence that could rival a Vice Admiral," Anakin told her, pushing pride and support across their bond.

"Even after awful battles, you help with the wounded and tell jokes to keep their spirits up. I have nothing but praise every time the Council asks how you're getting on. Even when you're injured, you still smile. That takes a hell of a lot of character, Snips."

Her tears had dried, but Ahsoka didn't contest being held in his lap. The last time she recalled being held like this was after the Blue Shadow Virus, when Ahsoka picked up a nasty strain that left her weak and feverish for days on end.

"The last few months have been terrible, I know," Anakin validated her feeling, "I'm so sorry that bad things have happened to the people you care about."

Her fellow Padawan, Master Plo, Obi-Wan.

"And I'm sorry your childhood's been taken away from you," he apologised, despite it not being his fault. "But believe me when I say, there is nobody else I'd rather have at my side than you."

She smiled against his tunic.

She knew Anakin was proud to have her as his Padawan, but hearing him say that out loud was incredibly reassuring. It gave her renewed strength.

They were a good team, on and off the battlefield.

Some of the other Padawans didn't even see their Masters when they weren't on missions, and though Anakin did spend a great deal of time away from the Temple, he made sure he set aside days to spend one-on-one with her.

They would spend hours on the sparring mats, or go for lunch at Dex's. More recently, Anakin preferred to take her off-world for day trips, visiting planets that the war would never take them to.

Her eyes fell closed, tiredness overriding her desire to stay awake. Anakin chuckled lowly, the sound vibrating in his chest.

"That was sneaky," Ahsoka murmured, referring to the sleep suggestion he had slowly been feeding her.

"Maybe, but you need to sleep," Anakin hushed against her montrals, gently lifting her relaxed form into her sleeping bag. "You deserve to rest, Padawan-mine."

She nuzzled into her sleeping bag as Anakin zipped it up, making humour pulse across their bond. The suggestion he'd given her was strong, but she managed to fight it for a moment longer, squinting in the low light.

"Master?"

He hummed, turning off the lantern which pitched their tent into darkness.

She could feel the exhaustion tugging at her eyelids, and sighed as she gave into sleep.

"There's nobody else I'd rather be on this shithole of a planet with."

Anakin laughed, then leaned over her to kiss her montrals. "Goodnight, Snips. We'll have a chat about your language tomorrow.

She grinned, then succumbed to the murky depths.