"Coric," Appo said. "Got the General to speak to you."

"You have?" Coric asked, then nodded in salute as General Skywalker entered the med-bay. "General. Is something wrong?"

He looked down at the Jedi Knight's hand. "Is there something up with the neural links?"

"No, it's, not that," Anakin replied. "Commander Appo, if you could leave us in private?"

"Of course, sir," Appo replied, saluting, and departed.

Anakin waited until he'd left, and as he did Coric gave Anakin a closer look.

The man looked… bad.

Not, wounded bad. Just, tired bad.

Coric had met General Skywalker before, occasionally, but he'd always seemed to glow with passion. Larger than life, and full of life.

Now… he looked enervated. More than that, he looked mortal, and that was something that Coric found he wasn't really equipped to process.

"Coric, uh," Anakin began. "There's a… thing. A medic thing."

"You're injured?" Coric asked. "If it's private and confidential, then I can go ahead and-"

"I'm not injured, I mean there's a different kind of medic thing," Anakin interrupted, looking like he was trying extremely hard to function at a level which was well above what he should be capable of, and was averaging out at roughly 'not yet had any caf'. "An, um. Oath?"

"...the Hosnian Oath?" Coric tried. "Are you asking about the Hosnian Oath? The one that says a medic should do no harm?"

"Uh," Anakin said. "Maybe? What does it say?"

"It'd take ten minutes to go through the whole thing," Coric said. "What concerns you specifically, General?"

Anakin looked like he was searching for a word.

"Confidential," he said, then frowned. "Not… what I'm searching for, that is. I mean, do clone trooper medics swear an oath that means they can't pass on anything about the patient to anyone who they don't get permission to pass it on to?"

"Well, unless chain of command needs to know," Coric hedged. "Why do you ask, General?"

"I need to know," Anakin replied. "Did you swear that oath?"

"That's in the Hosnian Code," Coric answered. "Section four, doctor-patient confidentiality, yes."

"Good," Anakin said, and suddenly he sounded like someone had thrown him a flotation device while he'd been busy drowning. "Coric, you're assigned to my wife. Your job is to make sure she doesn't die."

Coric blinked several times.

"Um," he began. "I have two guesses about who your wife is… is it Senator Amidala?"

"Yes, but that's, you know. Confidential," Anakin said, then yawned. "The whole doctor patient thing."

He looked momentarily worried, then deliberately stubbed his toe. "Ow! Now I'm a patient so that applies to what I told you as well."

"Well, I'm diagnosing you as being acutely lacking in sleep," Coric told him. "You need some."

"Can't," Anakin muttered. "If I try I dream about Padme dying."

"...I'm also diagnosing you with anxiety," Coric decided. "And possibly reactive insomnia… look, General, are you busy this afternoon?"

Anakin frowned, clearly processing.

"...the Supreme Chancellor's taking me out to see an opera?" he said.

"As your doctor, I advise you skip," Coric said. "I'll go and give your wife a once-over, I'll bring some dreamless-sleep drugs, and you can pass out while I examine her."

"Right," Anakin said, nodding. "That sounds like a good plan."

He yawned again.

"...who was your other guess?" he asked.

"Obi-Wan," Coric replied.

Anakin looked like he was processing that.

"I guess that's fair," he conceded.

AN:

Oh dear, seems like Palpatine will have to go and watch Squid Lake by himself.