That sure is a face the kid is making. "Battle droids are the worst idea. Of course letting one slip the wipes and not socializing him at all is going to cause problems. DZ's not a risk."

"All right."

She nods sharply. "Not a risk," she asserts again.

"It's all right, ma'am," the droid says, just a little more firmly. "You won't let anything happen."

She scowls, and then shakes her head, just briefly, as if to clear it. "Yeah, I won't." She takes the droid's hand, and calms further.

"We have traveled through the darkness," she recites, slowly at first, with an air of feeling out the situation, but getting more confident as she goes -
"   She and I, for many days;
Till we wondered at the sunshine,
   When at length we felt its rays.

Chill and lonely is the pathway,
   Only lighted by the snow,
With the cutting east wind only
   To declare how we should go.

On our right, the frozen river,
   Where the drowned lay asleep;
On our left, the rocky mountain,
   So precipitously steep;

All around the gloomy shadows
   Of the failures gone before;
While the leafless branches whispered,
   We should do no less, no more.

We should falter and should stumble,
   And should fail to reach the end;
And should die in the beginning—
   Die together, O my friend!

Die together?—'twas a jewel
   Which they threw us, for a stone:
Come what might, we could remember
   That we should not be alone;

So, with hands entwined the closer,
   We pressed on against the blast;
And we bided for the daylight,
   And the daylight came at last.

First, the darkness grew to blackness,
   And we shivered in the cold;
And we trembled, lest our fingers
   Should not keep their faithful hold;

Then a strange grey veil fell on us,—
   Was it darkness? was it light?
And we questioned each, "What is it?
   Coming day, or coming night?"

Then upon the far horizon
   Came the faintest tint of gold;
Then the cloud became a glory,
   And the mystery was told;

Richer, deeper, grew the radiance,
   Till our eyes could hold no more.
We had traveled to the eastward,
   And our journeying was o'er.

Now the light is round about us,
   And the sun to guide our feet;
And along the mountain pathway
   Shine the flowers, pale and sweet;

And we pluck us each a blossom
   To remind us as we go,
How we went, we two together,
   Through the darkness and the snow;

And, whate'er may be the friendships
   We may gain in after years,
None can come between the compact
   Which has been annealed by tears."

[source]

"- yeah."

Nod, droidhand squeeze. "Yeah."

"You two remind me a little of me and my best friend. We got to know each other... kind of in the middle of a war."

Nod. "Sure is a thing, huh."

"Yeah."

"Yours - ended all right?"

"Yeah. I won."

"Good."

He smiles slightly.

"Think I would, too, but - better not to need to, this kinda bullshit."

Nod. "If I could've just convinced everybody to stop being terrible, I would've."

"...never does work."

"Not nearly as often as I'd like, anyway."

Shrug. "Sith."

Nod.

She considers for a moment, and then picks her book back up.

"Sorry, sir."

"I can go take another Infirmary shift if you don't need me for anything and don't want to go to my world right away."