Purple Skies in the Morning

Summary: Obi-Wan comes to find Anakin, at the end. Anakin watches a sun die. Set in the Destroyer of Worlds universe.


The world as he knew it ended on a Tuesday, with a bruised indigo sky overrun with bright tongues of orange flames from Coruscant's swollen sun. Anakin watched the sky brim with lumps of misshapen rock after rock, from the balcony of his apartment, transfixed.

It was so silent.

The Force was eeriely quiet, as if it had thought to hold its breath in the minutes that stretched on and on and on as ships tore themselves out of the sky. It was a perfect silence. The klaxons hadn't sounded. Maybe they never would, the wind whispered.

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan called out urgently. "Anakin!"

He'd never heard his former Master sound so frightened before. But he'd never seen a sullen purple sky before. It was a day of firsts, Anakin concluded. It was impossible to feel afraid. He should feel afraid.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said, calmer now, but his eyes and the way the Force hummed around him, tightly-controlled but like the buzz of static turbulence over an old comm system told a different story. He grabbed Anakin, spun him around. "We have to leave. Now."

It was the same tone he'd used, worlds and ambushes ago. A war ago, when the sun was just a few shades brighter than fresh blood. A world that Anakin could barely remember and hardly forget, blinking through mud-splatters.

"He told me," Anakin said quietly. He stared up at the invading fleet, at the spectacular flare of light that could only come from a dying sun. Even stars burn out. Once, the thought had filled him with fear. Now, there was nothing but the dim resignation that the passage of fear had left in its wake.

Obi-Wan took a cautious step closer, eyebrows raised. Anakin read the question, and answered it. He was going to anyway. "Palpatine. He told me about them."

But we didn't believe him.

"Anakin, it is not your fault –"

You don't know that, he wanted to say, but the Jedi Master knew that there was a time for guilt, and Anakin shoved it away, stuffed it into the small corner of his mind where he put all the things he didn't want to think about. And he was too old. Too drained.

"It doesn't matter now," Anakin said tiredly, "He told me what they do best." He stared at the sky again, trying to lose himself in the vapour trails, and wondering what happened to Coruscant's defense systems. But of course he knew. Obi-Wan did too. They'd all been compromised.

Obi-Wan's urgent hand grabbed his shoulder, shook him. "Anakin, pack what you need. We're leaving."

"They destroy worlds," he whispered, echoing the words of a man…of a man long dead. "They break worlds, and shape them in their own image."

How do you fight an enemy that can kill a planet?

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said, and this time, his voice was durasteel. There was a trace of understanding in his clouded blue-grey eyes. "We don't have time."

They had just enough time to watch the streaking solar flares from the dimming sun, bright against the deep violet sky. Anakin found he'd packed a long time ago. The Jedi training reasserted itself as he grabbed a survival pack, checked it to make sure the devices still functioned. Jedi didn't accumulate too many possessions, and he had little he could truly call his own. After a lifetime, habits stuck.

That was what training was for. Training kept him moving and certain, even as he tore his eyes away from the destroyers of worlds.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked. He would not betray his diplomatic training by slouching, or leaning against the duraplast walls of Anakin's apartment, even now. His arms were folded across his chest in a motion that Anakin remembered so well and that he'd been copying for so much of his life. What he meant was, are you ready?

Anakin swallowed. He glanced back at the framed holo on the living room shelf. All four of them smiled back at him: Padme, holding Luke's hand. He was ruffling Leia's hair. His whole family, all of them together for the holos.

His hand – the one of flesh – clenched around the holo. He'd had to consciously remember to do that. Now, the mechanical hand failed him on occasions. It must have been something with the servomotors, he'd meant to get it fixed, but always kept pushing it back until…well, there wasn't a point now.

Obi-Wan was still watching him. Still waiting. In one decisive motion, Anakin shoved the holo into his survival pack, secured the flaps, and then engaged the sealing mechanism.

"I'm ready," he said roughly, to hide the way his voice threatened to betray him.

As ready as he would ever be.