A/N: I know either character would kill me if they ever saw this, so please, don't tell them. This popped into my head after I read Durge's bio on Wookiepedia, and the plot gods had to be appeased.

"Ouch!"

One piece.

"Ow!"

Two pieces.

"Ah!"

Three.

Wincing with every movement, Ventress wryly dipped the bloodied tweezers back into the small dish of disinfectant.

Stupid Jedi. She should have known Kenobi would pull something like this. Blowing up the entire ship as a distraction. A knavish trick so typically Jedi.

Biting her raw lip to prevent a scream, Ventress dug the sharp instrument back into her shoulder, pinching a large piece of metal and pulling.

"Argh…"

The flesh made an ugly squelching sound as the piece of ship came free, stained with red and dripping. Ventress glared at it, the consequence of being bested once more by that infernal Jedi, before dropping it with a loud CLANG into the metal trash bin by the examination table.

The medical wing of the star destroyer smelled clean and like bacta, usually unpleasant to her, but not today. She was just happy Dooku had sent reinforcements. It was quite possible that she could have been killed on that planet, or worse, escaped injured, but left to rot in the blazing suns of the desert world.

Her master still hadn't taken the news well. The news that she had failed once more. She could tell that he was beginning to lose faith in her. Her missions had become more and more challenging, as though Dooku was trying to test her, to make her prove her worth.

She tried. Fighting Jedi was always difficult.

Especially when said Jedi pulled stupid stunts such as exploding ships, throwing shrapnel and flames and Force-knows-what-else into the air, and into any being unfortunate enough to be standing in the way.

Such as her.

Growling again, Ventress once more cleaned her tweezers and slowly inched towards the messy wounds in her left shoulder.

Suddenly, the door hissed open.

Durge strode through, tall, hulking, massive in the doorway. Ventress glanced at him, nodded, and acknowledged his presence with a curt, "Hello, Durge."

The bounty hunter said no greeting in return, only murmuring in a low voice, "I thought I might find you here."

"Yes." Ventress cackled without humor, returning her attention to her injuries. "Just cleaning myself up a bit. Kenobi."

The name was all the explanation he needed. Durge nodded in understanding. "He is a slippery one, he is."

"Indeed. He wouldn't have escaped if only I had…ah!"

That one was deep. The shard of metal was poking through her skin, but she could tell it was buried at least an inch into her flesh. Touching it with the tweezers hurt.

Durge approached. "Come, Ventress, let me help you."

"I'm fine." She waved his hands away stubbornly, lifting the tweezers once more to the wound. "Pain is part of strength. We cannot grow stronger if we do not accept the pain."

Durge backed away, but was obviously uncomfortable with Ventress tending to her own injuries. The sight of the blood made him shift slightly. He crossed his massive arms over his chest. "What happened?"

She winced as the tweezers took hold of the shrapnel. Breathing hurt, but maybe speaking with her friend would take her mind off things. "Kenobi…distracted me with a…a duel. I didn't notice the detonator on the ship."

"That sounds painful."

"Only for a moment." Ventress hissed as she coaxed a good third of the metal from her pale skin. "Generally, fragments of sharp metal careening towards you at one hundred parsecs an hour does hurt."

He said nothing, but she had a feeling he smirked behind his helmet at the dry bit of sarcasm.

Finally, after a few more seconds of painful wheedling, Ventress managed to coax the last piece of metal from her shoulder. "There!"

She sighed with relief, triumphantly tossing the shrapnel into the trash. "Finished."

"Not quite."

The assassin glanced up at the bounty hunter sharply. She narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me?"

Arms still crossed, Durge nodded towards her. "Your back."

She blinked a few times. "I…I have shrapnel…in my back?"

Stunned, Ventress seized hold of two mirrors and held them at such an angle that she could definitely see the ugly red wounds on her shoulder blade.

"Brilliant," she sighed, lowering the mirrors and gingerly reaching for the little medical droid on the counter. "And I was hoping I wouldn't have to use this. They're not very gentle at all."

"Leave it."

Once more, Ventress glanced at the bounty hunter sharply. "What?"

"Leave it," Durge reiterated, uncrossing his massive arms and pushing away from the counter. "I'll take care of it."

With each step he took closer, Ventress found her heart beating a little bit faster. She shook herself. Idiot. He's nothing more than a comrade, remember? Nothing more than a friend.

"That's not necessary, Durge, thank you," she quickly murmured, beginning to fiddle with the droid's 'on' switch. "I'm sure that you have better things to do than play nursemaid with me."

"Quite the contrary," he corrected, his deep voice making shivers shoot down her arms. He was behind her now, his warmth radiating onto her back. "There is nothing I would rather be doing. Please, hand me the tweezers and that towel."

Swallowing, Ventress anxiously toyed with the droid in her hands. She could force him to leave. She wasn't quite sure she could handle this, not with Durge. Even if he was just a friend.

Apparently sensing her hesitation, a slow grey tendril of muscle snaked around her shoulders, took the droid, and placed it safely on the counter. "The tweezers, if you please, Ventress."

Trying desperately to slow her pulse, Ventress wordlessly passed him the instrument. Did he notice the metal glinting as her hand shook?

"Thank you."

Tenderly hunching her shoulders, Ventress allowed him access to the wounds. She winced, expecting a sharp stab of pain at any moment. Durge was simply too huge to be gentle.

She waited. And waited. And waited. No pain came. She wondered if he was really working on her injuries at all.

Her answer came with the noisy rattle of another bit of shrapnel joining its brothers in the trash bin. "There's one."

She blinked in shock. "I didn't even feel that."

Durge chuckled. "If there was one thing my master taught me, it was to be good with a sword, but better with a scalpel. Of course, medical treatment was rather superfluous what with my species' ability, but I learned anyway. I'll let you judge whether it has paid well or not."

"Very well," Ventress smiled softly with appreciation, an expression unfamiliar on her harsh face. "You're very gentle."

"Practice makes perfect. There's two."

The conversation trailed off. The only noise was the sound of Durge prying the shrapnel from Ventress' flesh, each conquest ending with the sharp fanfare of a CLANG in the trash bin.

She couldn't believe someone like him, someone so brutal, such a trained killer, could also be so gentle. She almost forgot he was psychotic. Perhaps they were all a little psychotic. Pain did make everything stronger, unless it broke everything first. Maybe they were all a little broken.

They all kept their pasts a secret. No one wished to share, and no one asked. It was like an unspoken rule of the Separatists. Keep your stories to yourself. She had never told anyone the tales of her past, how exactly she came to know the lightsaber, the Force. No one had ever asked. No one had ever told her anything either. The only thing she knew about Dooku was that he used to be a Jedi, before he had seen the light and abandoned that failing order. Grievous could hardly remember his past, only knowing that he had once been a great Kaleesh warlord. Perhaps it was best for him that he couldn't remember. The pain had faded.

The real ones suffering were the ones like her. Like Durge. The ones that could still remember. She knew nothing about him. Absolutely nothing. Except that he enjoyed killing, Mandalorians specifically.

Suddenly, she had a thought. She should ask about it. She assured herself it wouldn't lead to anything, any silly confessions, any relived memories that would be better left buried and forgotten. It was an innocent enough question.

"Durge?" she probed.

CLANG. "Hmm?"

She bit her lip an instant before asking quietly, "How old are you?"

She felt the tweezers jerk a little on the piece of shrapnel he was removing, and she winced. Well, at least she knew he was working on them.

He remained silent for a moment, before continuing with his work. "What makes you ask this?"

Ventress shrugged the uninjured shoulder. "Just a question. Grievous is probably thirty standard years old, I'm only about twenty, and I know Dooku's older than time…(he laughed at this, making Ventress smile slightly)…but I have no clue how old you are."

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him twirl a piece of bloody metal in the tweezers for a moment, before dropping the shrapnel in the bin. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, young one."

"Try me," she smirked, her interest piqued. He was always so secretive. Could he actually be about to tell her his age? Something about himself that she couldn't already guess apart from the psychosis?

He snorted, gently extricating a smaller bit of metal. "As you wish. I lost count some time ago, but I do believe that I am around two thousand standard years old."

Ventress almost fell off the table. "Two thousand years old?"

"Older than your master, I'd chance."

"Two thousand years old," Ventress raised a hand to her head, eyes wide. "Are you serious?"

He remained silent, even humming a little as he dropped yet another piece of ship from her shoulder.

"No. You can't be serio—two thousand years old?" Ventress' tongue was getting dry from gaping so much. "How is that even possible?"

"Considering my species' uncanny ability to regenerate any damaged or lost tissue, Ventress," Durge explained patiently, raising a particularly large bit of shrapnel to the light and examining it with a frown, "The capacity for my kind to survive well into the millennia is not that far of a stretch. Good heavens, woman, you are lucky you weren't ripped to shreds!"

Ventress was still stunned at Durge's age. Was it truly possible for a being to survive to be two thousand years old? That was simply ridiculous!

"You've lived so long," she whispered in wonder, turning slightly to look him in his masked eyes. "Does it get tiring?"

"Does what, young one?"

"Living."

This gave the bounty hunter pause. Staring into space for a moment, Durge finally shrugged his massive shoulders and returned his attention to her back. "Certainly. As I'm sure it does for every creature. But I have goals in my life that I feel I must meet before I finally die, and so those thoughts keep my will to live strong."

Ventress shook her head, momentarily in awe of the creature behind her. "Durge, you're rather amazing, aren't you?"

Yep, definitely a jerk on that piece. Ventress bit back a slight scream, as Durge hastily apologized. "W-Well, I…I do try, Ventress."

The rest of the surgery session passed in silence, Ventress, hunched over on the table, Durge hovering at her back, working tentatively now at her wounds.

She stared ponderously at the white tile floor, swinging her feet back and forth like a child. Come to think of it, she was a child compared to him. He was a hundred times her age! Perhaps more. Even he said that he had lost count.

She glared at her shoes sourly. Well, there's another reason it would never work out. He's probably way too old for me—what am I thinking?!

Shaking her head minutely again, Ventress marched straight up to the part of her mind that kept thinking those thoughts, bunched it into a ball, and tossed it straight into the trash bin. She would not be thinking about such things, especially not about Durge.

"Finished," he announced triumphantly, a final piece of the shrapnel clanking into the trash.

"Thanks." Ventress rolled her shoulders, slipping her sleeve back into the proper orientation. "Maybe I'll blow Kenobi up with a ship next time and see how he feels about it."

Durge chuckled, but when Ventress began to slide off the table, she felt his hand on her arm.

"A moment, child," he said, taking some bacta from the countertop. "This needs some ointment."

Of course it did. Ventress did her best to roll her eyes exaggeratedly. "Sure, it does, but I am quite able to handle it myself, kind sir."

"On your back?"

"I have very flexible limbs." The assassin swung her legs over the table so that she now frowned up at him, and was once again stunned by just how big he was. She recovered quickly, and held out a hand with a glare. "Give me the ointment."

She could practically see the smirk behind his helmet. "What's the magic word, dearest?"

"Give me the ointment, moron."

"Not quite the word I was looking for."

"Give me the ointment, idiot."

"No."

"Give me the ointment or-I-will-tear-you-into-a-million-tiny-pieces."

"So violent. And no."

"Give me the ointment or so help me, I will—"

"You know, Ventress, at this rate, you'll die of infection before you get the ointment." Durge leaned casually against the window, tossing the container nonchalantly with one hand, and still smirking. "The magic word, if you please."

She wanted to strangle him. Maybe she would. As soon as she finished with the bacta, she'd ram the whole thing down his stupid throat.

Snarling, Ventress' hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Please."

"That's a good girl," he purred, extending the container compliantly. "Now, what do we say when someone gives us what we want?"

Ventress held out a hand. "Thank you—" Just when he was about to drop the bacta in her hand, she donned a wicked smirk She couldn't resist. "Moron."

He was too fast for her.

Ventress' body realized what was happening even before her mind did. Fast as a whip, she snatched for the container, but missed. With a slight laugh, Durge jerked the ointment back into his palm.

No, really, into his palm.

With an awful squelching noise, the bounty hunter's muscles wrapped around the container until all traces of the plastic disappeared, before the entire thing vanished into his left arm.

Ventress' empty hands curled into fists before her as she tried and failed not to look sick. "That's disgusting."

He smirked. "It's a living."

She shuddered. "It's not natural for you to be able to do things like that."

"Certainly it is. If it wasn't natural, how else would I be able to do it?"

She groaned, shook her head a little to rid herself of unpleasant images, and extended a hand. "Can I please just have it back?"

"How badly do you want it?" he sneered, rippling a patch of gray muscle.

"Not badly enough to go looking for it!" Ventress turned an unsightly shade of green at the idea of pawing through his tissue, and whirled, determined to go find a source of antiseptic elsewhere. "Forget it. You can choke that up whenever you want to, but I refuse to be here."

"Ventress, wait."

She froze, pivoted, and crossed her arms, fixing him with a sharp glare. "Well?"

He was still a moment, before his right arm began to move. He turned his right palm towards the ceiling, and the muscle pulled away, revealing the apparently unharmed ointment.

He smirked at her barely disguised shiver. "Here."

He flung the container at her, and, without thinking, she caught it.

She instantly wished she hadn't.

"Ew, gross!" she complained, lifting one hand from the plastic, sticking her tongue out when long strings of mucous followed. "It's slimy!"

Durge laughed harder than she had ever heard him laugh before. He practically bellowed with laughter. He had to clutch the edge of the empty examination table to keep from falling over with laughter, hunched over, one hand on his stomach, the other on the metal.

Ventress fumed, holding the sticky container with her fingertips. So, he thought it was funny, did he?

Without thinking, she lobbed the ointment.

It collided with his helmet with a sharp clang.

That sure stopped him laughing.

He looked up at her as though he was in total shock. Ventress merely crossed her arms and smirked a daring smile. So, take that.

After a moment of silence, he began to chuckle, low and dangerous. Ventress' smirk twitched a little. This couldn't be good.

"Oh, my dear," he rumbled, slowly tracing a finger on the metal examination table as he rounded the corner. Ventress took a step back, lowering her arms, her smirk fading into a worried frown. He wouldn't hurt her, would he? They were comrades, right? Friends?

"That was a mistake."

Friends or not, she knew that pose. He was pouncing.

With a very un-Ventress-like 'eep!' the assassin shot away down the length of the medical bay, Durge very hot on her heels.

She dove under a gurney, kicking the equipment as she went. Durge ran full into it, grunting with the impact.

"Take that!" Ventress crowed triumphantly, scrambling away to the back of the room, hiding behind the medical table. "That's what you get for acting so ungentlemanly!"

"Ungentlemanly?" Durge molded his body completely around the gurney, taking slow, menacing steps towards the smaller assassin. "I do believe, my dear, that I was the one who patched you up, just now. Perhaps you have forgotten how I painstakingly removed every last piece of ship from your shoulder? 'Gently' I think you might have even said?"

Ventress smirked. "That was before you began chasing me around the medical bay like a lunatic. Poor Durge, just can't keep his hands off me."

"Truly?" He was on the opposite side of the table now. Ventress could see him grinning through the helmet. "Or might it be the other way around, my dear?"

She froze, the smirk dying on her lips. Had he noticed--?

"Your hands shook when you handed me the tweezers. You barely wanted me to touch you, let alone help you. You said I was gentle." He dodged for the left side of the table unexpectedly, and a stunned Ventress only barely managed to evade him.

"That's not true," the assassin denied quickly, wetting her lips. "Perhaps you, ah, perhaps you frighten me!"

"Perhaps," Durge grinned, lunging for the right. Ventress scuttled to the left. He smirked. "Or perhaps you do feel a spark for me, young one?"

"In your dreams, Durge!" Ventress laughed unsteadily, inching her way slowly towards the door. "You should be so lucky."

He said nothing, but she got the feeling that he was smiling knowingly. She frowned. Time to end this.

Fast as lightning, she streaked for the door of the medical bay. Ointment be damned, she had to get out of there now before something happened that shouldn't.

She didn't make it halfway before she felt a warm tendril of muscle wrap around her waist.

"Blast!"

He chuckled, reeling her backwards like a fish on a hook. "Got you."

Ventress crossed her arms stubbornly, refusing to give in. She sniffed. "Only because I let you catch me. I'm not so easily caught."

"Oh?" She could hear the smile in his voice. She was so angry she was steaming.

The instant she felt the muscle release her, she whirled to give the presumptuous bounty hunter a piece of her mind…

When she promptly tripped on the forgotten container of ointment and plummeted towards the tile.

Graceful, she groaned in her mind. This is all you need to convince him you're completely useless. A split lip. She braced for impact.

Suddenly, the falling stopped. She blinked a few times, realizing that she was leaning against something cold and metallic, but it was not the floor.

Durge's arms wrapped steadily around her back.

"Watch your step, young one," he murmured, righting her. "I don't need to patch you up again."

He had caught her. In the span of a few seconds from her stumble to her fall, he had reached out and snatched her from the floor. He held her against his chest.

The armor was cold, hard, unforgiving, but it was filled with him, warmth radiating from every chink and crevice. The close proximity made her stomach perform strange feats of acrobatics.

She swallowed. "Erm…th-thanks, D-Durge."

"No worries, young one," the bounty hunter removed her from his chest and held her at arms length. "Are you sure you're alright?"

She looked up at him, blinked a moment or two, before her face split into a wide, beautiful, unaccustomed smile.

"I am now," she murmured. "Thank you."

Comrades be hanged. In her innermost heart, Ventress felt something rising that she had never felt before. And she liked it.

Durge returned her stare a moment, arms still on her shoulders. She liked to imagine his own face, behind the helmet, forming into a half-smile.

"You're welcome, Ventress."

She grinned up at him, and he stared back, black holes boring into her silver irises. They might have stayed there for four hours, just grinning like the pair of idiots she knew they must look like.

The might have stayed there for hours.

Until a clearing throat interrupted them.

Both jumped, whirling towards the door to see a smirking Grievous leaning casually against the doorjamb.

"It appears this room is taken," the General snickered, idly examining a minuscule scratch in his metal arm. "Perhaps I shall check the other medical bays?"

"Oh, shut it, droid," Ventress hissed, wrenching away from Durge as though she had been burned. Marching through the doorway and smacking Grievous' shoulder, she growled, "Why don't you just go see that Jedi you keep dreaming about?"

The assassin was rewarded with a priceless expression of horror from the General, and, dare she say it, a slight reddening in the skin around his eyes.

She was also rewarded with a deft smack on the back of her bald head.

"OW!"

"Watch it, Grievous," Durge jumped in, pushing Ventress out the door as he faced a glowering General. "I just finished fixing her wounds, don't open them again. I think I've had enough of her for one day."

Ventress stared, open-mouthed and incensed between Durge and Grievous, than back again.

"You…You insensitive, horrible, awful…" She sputtered. There was no word to describe the two smirking beings before her. So she spat out the first thing that came to her mind:

"MEN!"

Stiffly, she pivoted on her heel and stormed off down the hall, the echoes of both sets of laughter chasing her.

FIN.

A/N: I know, I know! It's awful and gross! XP But a Durge/Ventress/Obi-Wan love triangle might add depth to the first Clone Wars cartoon plotline, wouldn't it? No? Review, please!