Something inside her didn't want to go into the darkness. What about Anakin and Rex? She would break their hearts.

Her mind was still buzzing through the strange nothingness. The darkness was gone now. She had chosen the light. Ahsoka just had to find it.

And just at that moment, something blinded her and her eyes snapped open. A figure was kneeling in front of her, holding two fingers to her wrist.

"Rex?" she breathed, straightening her head.

He looked into her glazed eyes. A stone fell from his heart as the cerulean glared at him.

"H-hey, Kid" he smiled a little uncertainly. Her heart beat slowly but regularly and with natural strength. Her breathing seemed so calm, as if she was no longer in pain at all.

And indeed, the tremendous pain seemed to have numbed itself, for Ahsoka felt nothing but the rough but pleasant skin of the clone on hers and the warm strip across her leg.

Somehow she had not yet returned to reality.

"Rex?" It stung his heart to hear his friend's voice so abandoned of any power. Still he couldn't quite understand how she survived. But either way, as long as she didn't stop doing it, whatever she wanted was fine with him.

"Yes?" he answered with conviction this time.

"Can I-" Ahsoka struggled to bring the words past her lips.

It went against everything she stood for, her strength, her confidence, to ask it.

Even if there was nothing big about it. Especially not in her condition.

"Can... I still... rest?" Her gaze fell on the bright rays that penetrated the cave. 

"Do... we... have to... already-" Rex interrupted her, placing a finger on her lips. "No, there's still time. Rest, but stay alive."

The clone had dropped all formality towards his girl for good. At a moment like this, he just couldn't see her as Commander, but as Ahsoka. As his Ahsoka.

With his words, the girl closed her eyes again and sank into a restful, if short, sleep.

And it wasn't long before Ahsoka regained consciousness, sensing a presence beside her- and continuing to rest.

For the numbed aches and pains she had just experienced didn't last long, forcing her to stay awake. So she also heard the conversation between two voices that were all too familiar to her.

Rex made sure that Fives was watching over his Commander without interruption until he finally accepted the connection via his insistently flashing comlink.

"Captain Rex?", he answered in his usual manner, but quietly, not wanting Ahsoka to hear.

"Rex? Kix is on his way, it shouldn't be long before he arrives. How is Ahsoka?"

A shiver ran down the clone's spine as he thought back to the second her heart had stopped.

"Better now, but who knows for how much longer, her condition is changeable. Right now she's sleeping, Fives is watching her."

Anakin didn't like his first sentence at all.

"What do you mean 'now'?"

Rex sighed. "Her... Her heart stopped for a short time and she stopped breathing" He spoke so fast it was just barely understandable.

Silence on the other side. The young Jedi had forgotten to breathe himself until his body demanded oxygen again and he sharply sucked in the air in his fighter.

"It's okay, it wasn't long," Rex tried to reassure his general. But they both knew that Ahsoka was unlikely to wake up next time.

And they both imploringly hoped that there would be no next time. That Kix would arrive soon. That Ahsoka would survive....

Rex looked at the girl, who had begun to breathe harder in pain. She gasped and opened her eyes, Fives gently stopping her from getting up, but she didn't resist.

Rex was further concerned by the steadily bleeding wound. Litres of blood seemed to have already flowed from the young Togruta, but not enough yet to take away her energy to live altogether.

'Hold on Kid, hold on.'