Author's Note: This is really more of a warning. This is one of my favorite chapters, but it gets fairly graphic. Ryn is in bad shape. There's a lot of blood, and it's not pretty. So take that into account before you forge ahead.
Disclaimer: Even after all this time, I still do not own Star Wars (Ryn, however, remains mine, and I am quite possessive of her). I am not making any money from this story, which is purely a work of fanfiction.
Chapter Playlist:
When You're Gone (Avril Lavigne)
Anakin's Betrayal (John Williams)
l'Arena (Ennio Morricone, from the Kill Bill Vol. II soundtrack) -- Ryn's theme, in case you were wondering.
CHAPTER TWO
They reached the infirmary in what had to be record time, and asked a Healer in the hall where to find Ryn: in a small room at the end of the hall, near Vokara Che's workstation. It was part of the Temple infirmary Obi-Wan had never had a reason to visit, where only the critically injured were taken.
They nodded to Master Che and stepped through the door.
Even in the dim glow from the bedside lamp., Ryn looked ... bad. Her skin was a pasty, sickly white, and there was blood at one corner of her mouth. Her face and arms - every square centimeter of exposed skin -- was bruised and scored and raw. Her eyes were closed, and her chest was so still that ObiWan had to reach out with the Force to confirm that she was sleeping, not dead.
It took Obi-Wan a minute to register that the Padawan who stood as they entered was Ferus Olin.
Siri's ... no. Enough.
"Master Kenobi," Ferus said with a bow. "Anakin."
Anakin's eyes were narrowed unpleasantly as he stared at his fellow Padawan. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, an edge of belligerence in his tone that was going to be no defense against his pain if the girl in the bed was as close to dying as she looked.
Ferus took the implied insult in stride. "I wanted to be here in case she said anything else. She hasn't been able to tell us much -- out cold, most of the time. But I thought she might wake up. And I ... she's not a Jedi, I didn't think it was right for her to be alone, if ... well, if she didn't recover."
"Can you tell us what happened?" Obi-Wan asked, staving off whatever ill-conceived comment Anakin would no doubt wish to make.
Ferus shook his head. "I was in the garden, talking to a Temple visitor. He was Force-sensitive, but he didn't feel dark -- he told me that he was born on an Outer Rim world and wasn't found until he was much too old to train. He asked me a lot of questions, about Jedi philosophy and how to achieve inner balance, mostly. I told him what I'd been taught, and he seemed satisfied. Then ... then he began to ask me about outer balance, in the Force: what it was, and how it was maintained. I told him about the prophecy of the Chosen One, and he asked me if we had any idea who it might be." The boy was more troubled than Obi-Wan could ever remember seeing him, his face tight with chagrin.
"I gave him Skywalker's name. I'm so sorry. I swear, I had no idea what he was really planning ... but I should have sensed it. If I'd sensed it, she wouldn't be ... He thanked me for the information and started raving about how Anakin was too dangerous to be allowed to live. That's when this girl -- Ryn, I mean -- jumped out of nowhere and drew her lightsaber. He ran and we both pursued, but ... she yelled at me to go get Master Yoda. I left her in pursuit of the rogue Force-sensitive, but ... that was clearly a mistake. By the time Master Yoda and I found her, she was fighting two of them. We arrived just in time to see her tackle the one I'd talked to in the garden and go flying off the back of an airspeeder with him." Ferus shook his head, swallowing hard. "I saw him stab her with his lightsaber, but she kept fighting. She killed him, the one she tackled. Got in one good blow after he thought she was done for. But they were both falling, fast, and I ... I caught up to them in time to cushion her impact with the Force, but it ... it wasn't enough. I heard bones breaking when she hit."
He turned regretful, haunted eyes on Anakin. "I'm sorry, Skywalker. I know ... I know you were close. She kept saying your name, even when the Healers were trying to put her under, even when she couldn't ..." He broke off, choking, and Obi-Wan touched his arm lightly in support.
Anakin was less gentle. "We're still close," he snapped. "Don't talk about her like she's dead. Ryn's not dead, and she's not going to die, I won't let her."
Ferus bowed his head, more in acknowledgement of Anakin's fierce pain than in agreement.
Silence fell in the room. And maybe that was why Obi-Wan could hear, now, a soft, weak whisper of a sound.
"...nobi."
From the bed.
"Keh ... no ... bi. K'no ... bi. Kenobi. Ke ... no ..."
Obi-Wan crossed the room in one long stride and put his hand to the girl's cheek, livid with bruises. "Ryn?"
Her eyelids fluttered briefly, but refused to open. "Ana ... kin. Dan ... ger. Danger." Obi-Wan had to strain to pick out the syllables, to hear the weak thread that was Ryn's voice. "Kill ... him. Cho ... sen One. K ... kill him. Fa ... fana ... tics. An ... akin." There were some noises Obi-Wan couldn't decipher, and then, directly into his mind with surprising strength and clarity: Anakin. Danger. Keep him safe. Ryn's presence faded from his mind.
On the far side of the bed, a row of indicator lights went dark and a high-pitched alarm signaled that Ryn's vitals had suddenly ceased to register.
Anakin gave a choked cry and flung himself at the bed. "Ryn!"
"Anakin, she's --"
"No!" Anakin shouted, throwing himself on the the still, battered form. "She's not gone. I can feel her!"
He pushed Obi-Wan aside and gripped Ryn by the shoulders, shaking her. "Ryn! Listen to me! Breathe! You just have to keep breathing ... don't go, Ryn don't go."
Something like a sob choked in Anakin's throat, and Obi-Wan flinched from the rawness of his pain. "Please don't die, Ryn. Just ... take one more breath. Please. For me."
He let go her thin shoulders to cradle her face in his hands. "Stay with me, Ryn."
Obi-Wan reached out a hand to Anakin's shoulder, in comfort as much as restraint. He could feel the Force gathering in the boy, filling him ... if Anakin reacted now, in grief, he might well lose control and jeopardize everything he'd worked so hard for ...
A horrible, gurgling, rasping sound erupted from Ryn's throat, down into her chest. Her eyes opened weakly and locked on Anakin's.
The rasping sound came again, with slightly less gurgle, and a mixture of blood and water burst from Ryn's mouth. She didn't have the strength to cough and clear her airways, but the Force stirred, a new gush fountained from Ryn's bloody mouth, and suddenly Obi-Wan realized what Anakin was doing. He was using the Force to clear the settling blood and water so that Ryn's lungs could process air.
There was no possible way that it could work ... but Ryn stubbornly hung on, apparently determined to go down fighting, for Anakin's sake if not her own.
"Let her go, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, trying to sound stern yet compassionate. He could feel Ryn's pain and exhaustion in the Force, her misery even as she struggled for another breath, another heartbeat, another instant of life.
She was going to lose.
And then the Force stirred again, something new, and power welled in Anakin and spilled into Ryn, and with the eyes of the Force Obi-Wan saw him set the full weight of his concentration on her, willing her to live, dragging her cells into action with nothing to draw on but the sheer strength of his determination.
This was wrong. It had to be wrong. It shouldn't even be possible. But Ryn's eyes were still locked on Anakin's, burning in that bruised white face, and Anakin stared back, holding onto her with everything he had. "Let her go, Anakin! Let her join the Force."
A disturbance at the door alerted him to the presence of Vokara Che. "Master Kenobi!" she snapped. "Restrain your Padawan. At once!"
Obi-Wan grabbed Anakin by the shoulders and pulled. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ryn's fingers slip between Anakin's, clasping his strong, tanned fingers with her bloodstained ones. His glance flicked to her face in time to see Ryn's eyes fly wide open and her lips move silently, shaping Anakin's name.
He felt the strength of her will in that moment, the power of her simple unwillingness to quit. Her determination to stay, whatever the cost, because Anakin had asked her to.
Obi-Wan had always known Ryn was a beautiful girl. But now he looked at her in the Force, and she was radiant, even dying. Even fighting for life when by all rights she should have been gone into the Force minutes, hours ago.
This was what Love looked like, in the Force.
It took his breath away.
Ferus lent his strength to Obi-Wan's and together they hauled Anakin to his feet, away from the bed.
Tears were streaming down Anakin face.
Obi-Wan didn't think he had ever seen his Padawan cry.
Vokara Che was working with un-Jedi-like haste over Ryn's battered -- but breathing -- body.
Ferus stepped back and looked at the bed as though seeing something new -- but Obi-Wan could not begin to imagine what.
He put an arm around anakin's shoulders ad pressed him tightly, for just a second -- and to hell with Vokara, or Ferus, or anyone else who felt like objecting. "Come, Anakin. We need to give Master Che room to work. And we ought to contact her brother."
It certainly wasn't the Jedi way -- Obi-Wan could only imagine what Master Yoda would have to say about the kind of family attachments Ryn routinely exhibited -- but it seemed like the right thin to do, and it distracted Anakin from his misery.
A little.
He stared dully at Obi-Wan without speaking, but he allowed himself to be led out of the infirmary.
Ferus trailed after them, equally silent.
Obi-Wan made himself keep walking.