Title: Between the Scars
Author: snootiegirl99
Summary: Obi-Wan is seriously injured by Count Dooku on Geonesis. His injuries redefine his relationship with his Padawan, Anakin. AU to the end of AOTC.
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters and make no money through the writing or publishing of this story. Disney and George Lucas own everything.
Chapter 1
"Anakin!" Obi-Wan yelled as he saw his apprentice launch himself toward the Sith Lord. He threw his lightsaber to the young man hoping to give him some sort of advantage.
As he watched the duel, Obi-Wan became aware that his leggings and tunics felt wet. He pried his eyes away from the scene to search for the cause. Several barrels of fuel were leaking all over the floor of the makeshift hangar. And he was lying right in it.
He tried to move himself to higher and dryer ground, but it was awkward and slow-going with only one useable arm and one leg. He groaned as he pulled and scraped through the fuel mixed with sand.
Stopping every few seconds to check on Anakin's progress with the Count, he noticed that Anakin's Force signature seemed to have stabilized itself from the tumult he had seen earlier. Good, he thought. He's calm and centered. So Obi-Wan kept moving, creating a trail of the liquid despite his efforts to clear the largest of the puddles.
The next sound that drew Obi-Wan's attention was that of an engine firing. He nearly panicked until he saw that Anakin was safely standing behind the solar sailer ship trying to dislodge Dooku from the landing ramp which was rising up and out of the cave.
Just as the engines fired a final time to propel the ship forward, Anakin leapt out of the range of the jet stream, rolling to a crouch to watch his quarry escape with a scowl of frustration on his face. Obi-Wan's relief at his apprentice's escape from harm at the hands of a Sith caused him to close his eyes and hiss out a breath he hadn't noticed he was holding with great difficulty.
Then there was nothing but the color red and pain. Searing pain. Burning pain. Somewhere in Obi-Wan's mind, he understood what was happening. But the rest of him was dealing with the very real fact of the fire which had engulfed him from the engines igniting the fuel.
He could dimly hear someone calling his name. And then everything was black as a canvas tarp was thrown over him. He felt movement beneath him. Then the blinding light of the desert again. Anakin had rescued him from the pool of flame in which he rested, broken and unable to escape himself. Anakin had risked himself within a potential explosion of fuel to stay and help his Master. Oh, Anakin.
The scorching pain that was shooting through every nerve ending in his body from the burns numbed every other thought after he was put to rest on the landing platform. He couldn't process the clone troopers who hovered over him as Anakin shouted orders for evac and medical treatment. Anakin looked so frightened and so far away.
And then there was sweet release in unconsciousness.
Anakin was taking large gulps of oxygen. The fight with the Sith Lord had been nothing compared to the fear and anger he was experiencing seeing Obi-Wan with so many burns all over his body. He fought back tears and attempted to think, think! about what to do next.
As Master Yoda appeared in a gunship, clones raced onto the landing platform. They carried medical equipment. An oxygen mask was immediately placed over his Master's nose and mouth. Another medic was feeling for a pulse.
"He's alive!" Anakin snarled at the man. "I can feel him. He's alive," he added the second exhortation in a near whisper.
And then they were rolling him onto a stretcher and moving toward the ship. Anakin, kneeling next to the spot in the sand which bore the blood and skin left by his Master, looked up into Master Yoda's eyes with a question.
"In good hands, he is, Padawan. A battle we still have to fight," Yoda told him gently.
Anakin hung his head in shame, knowing that he would turn his back on anything but accompanying Obi-Wan if only it were his choice.
"Yes, Master," he said in a quiet, meek voice. He stood and placed Obi-Wan's lightsaber onto his belt, running his hand over the familiar hilt. "I am ready," he announced.
Another gunship had arrived to take them back to the Command Center. Anakin boarded after Master Yoda, grabbed a handle to steady himself, and realized that he was trembling violently from the loss of adrenaline and the shock.
Anakin closed his impossibly-blue eyes tight. He pictured Obi-Wan as he had seen him in the arena. Strong, self-possessed, achingly Jedi, even in the face of almost-certain defeat time and again. He forced himself to acknowledge that his bond to Obi-Wan was as strong as it had ever been. His Force presence was reassuring, and Anakin was able to control the shaking.
By the time the gunship left them off at the Command Station, the battle was all but over. Anakin was tasked with leading small groups of clones to search through the rubble of Trade Federation ships and battle droids to search for survivors and droids in need of further dispatching. He moved automatically, using the Force as his guide, shutting down his higher brain functions to keep from thinking about the one thing that would paralyze him completely.
Obi-Wan.
A week later, Anakin was still standing watch next to the bubbling bacta tank where his Master floated, unconscious but whole. The Healers said that he would recover once the dermal damage was repaired. However, the extent of the damage meant that there would still be scars on Obi-Wan's whole body. He would live; he would be whole; he would carry a reminder of the fire forever.
And it would take time for him to regain a semblance of his former physical strength, coordination, and stamina.
When Obi-Wan opened his eyes for the first time, he saw Anakin through the murky liquid. He understood that he had been injured, but he couldn't remember all of the details. He watched Anakin rise, place a hand on the side of the plasticene tank, and mouth the word 'Master'. Obi-Wan could tell even through his disorientation that the tone of voice Anakin used to utter that familiar moniker was nothing familiar.
It sent his mind reeling to wonder just what had happened to chasten his brash apprentice so completely. Apparently, he had been badly injured-but was that it? Was that enough to impact the young man this much? Obi-Wan began to discipline his mind toward calm and serenity, to commune with the Force and let go of the anxiety for the moment. Time would reveal all.
An hour after regaining consciousness, Obi-Wan was gently removed from the bacta tank. He breathed for himself, but found himself coughing roughly and often. He had been immersed in bacta before, after a mission to Bondus Prime had left him riddled with animal bites that had threatened to infect. But he did not recall coughing so hard after emerging from the tank.
The Healer next to him laid a soothing hand on his shoulder. "Try to slow your breathing, Master Kenobi," she said. "Your lungs will need to become used to working on their own again."
He tried to answer her, but found no voice issuing from his throat. He looked to Anakin who stood hovering on the opposite side from the Healer. He could read every single emotion crossing Anakin's face, but none of them gave him the clues to what he really wanted to know.
How bad?
How long?
What happened?