The light is bright, painful. It hurts his eyes, and makes the screaming pain in his head worsen. He just wants to fall unconscious again, because waking up hurts too much; but the calm, gentle voice above him won't allow that.

"No, Anakin, stay awake. Wake up. Anakin? It's me, wake up. Anakin?"

The voice is so sad, so pleading… he can't just ignore it. So he forces his eyes to open just a little more, and sighs in relief when a shape blocks out the painful white light. The shape then clears up, and he smiles weakly when he sees the face looking down at him. "… 'soka…" His speech is slurred, he doesn't know why, but she gets the message. She grins, the wet sheen in her eyes disappears a bit, and she nods.

"Right here, Skyguy," she whispers. "Master Kenobi is too, see?"

She moves out of the way so he can look, and he cranes his head just enough to see Obi-Wan sitting in a metal chair nearby, smiling warmly at him. He returns the gesture before turning back to Ahsoka. He notices the white sheet covering him, the lights, and suddenly the smell of disinfectant is heavy on his nostrils. "Wait… where ar' we…?"

Boy, and he'd thought she'd been smiling big before. "We're safe," she answers quietly. "Relief ships came in yesterday, got us off Naboo. We're on the ship now, in the medbay. We're safe." Her grin dims a bit. "You were shot, grazed on the forehead. Any deeper and you'd be dead now."

He doesn't hear anything she says except the word safe. Is that possible? After the months of running and fighting and panicking and worrying, all the long hours spent trying to keep Ahsoka and Obi-Wan alive while the galaxy went to hell… was it even possible to be in such a place? Relief ships? Probably from Christophsis. And now he realized his mind was foggy because of painkillers. Medical supplies. They had medical supplies here. And Ahsoka and Obi-Wan were all cleaned up and smiling. Maybe, maybe they were safe…

He lets his eyes droop closed once more, and when he feels her rest her head on his chest, he smiles. He wonders how long he was out.

She sense the question, and answers softly, "It's Life Day, Master."

But he's already sleeping once more.

They don't realize that in the other part of the ship's medbay, a human patient with a gaping bite wound in his chest dies. The nurse caring for the man panics, and starts CPR. The man reopens his eyes soon after, and she breathes in relief; that is, until the patient jumps onto her and rips out her throat.

Safe.

*end*