[He's no stranger to death. Even before the war, life in the Outer Rim was a matter of hardiness and lucky. There was never enough food or water, never money without conditions, never survival without sacrifice. It wasn't strange for anyone to die, let alone a slave. And then when he wasn't a slave anymore, when he became a Jedi, for a while death was something that happened to other people. It was something they encountered briefly when they were called to places mired in internal conflict, when a planet or a people wanted external support. And in the last two years it's become a piece of daily existence.

They've lost so many that there are some nights now that Anakin can't- can't comprehend it. It isn't real when he's just staring down stretches of months on end and that's what feels so wrong. As if he's crossed some kind of invisible boundary between Before and After.

Does that make him relieved now? To find himself part of a dying world and to be grateful that he doesn't feel nothing?

He doesn't know these people, they aren't his patients or anything like that. But Anakin recognizes what it means to be scared and have nowhere else to go. To not want to be alone. It's crowded but relatively quiet inside. A few locals talk to each other in low voices from their beds, others try to sleep. Anakin changes a few cool cloths and brings water here and there, but mostly he's just trying to give this other guy space while he does- whatever weird magic he's doing. When they finally reunite its at the far end of the room, and the corner of Anakin's mouth tugs thoughtfully.]

Do you think we should stake out more than one place? Some of the locals say it's safer to die in the clinic than in their own houses.