Notes: '"This was entirely Anakin's fault," he explained.'

An Ice Cave on Hoth

Obi-Wan would readily admit the situation did not look good.

Arctic wind – far below freezing and sending cold straight through to the Jedi Master's bones – screamed around them, stirring up the hard-packed ice on the ground and sending it stinging into their unprotected faces. Obi-Wan ducked his face further downwards, tugged his hood up as far as it would go, and then reached out to gently touch the back of Anakin's hand with his fingertips.

Night was rapidly descending on this ice-covered rock and with it went the little bit of warmth which would send it from dangerous all the way to lethal. Anakin, susceptible to the cold in a way only those raised in a desert could be, stuck to Obi-Wan's side like glue. His presence in the Force was miserable and his chattering teeth were audible even over the howling of the wind. Now, Obi-Wan directed his attention to a jagged line of hills or mountains just visible through the icy-snow and darkening sky.

Anakin nodded and then leaned closer to speak in Obi-Wan's ear. "Do you think we'll make it before we freeze to death?"

Obi-Wan shrugged, trying to keep his worry from his former Padawan. Anakin's lips were like ice against his ear and his Force presence felt alarmingly dim. He glanced up into bright, blue eyes under ice-covered eyebrows, and tried to smile. "Only one way to find out."

They took a few more steps before Obi-Wan added in a dry tone, "You realize that this is entirely your doing, my young, former apprentice, and if you had just followed orders we wouldn't be in this particular predicament."

"Hey, it's not my fault Grievous' guards had better aim than before! They must have been upgraded," he mused.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "It is your fault, Anakin, when you ignore Master Koth's direct order to return to the ship and then subsequently get shot down."

"Hey!"

Obi-Wan shook his head and trudged another few steps. "I can't believe you crashed another ship."

"It's not my fault!" Anakin had to half-run to keep up with Obi-Wan's strides. "That ship was too slow!"

"Yes, it was the ship's fault." Obi-Wan's sarcasm could have cut through transparisteel.

"It was!"

Obi-Wan snorted expressively and hid a smile. Anakin was so indignant that he seemed to have forgotten completely about the cold and was now striding across the landscape as though it had personally offended him.

Night fell just as they reached the line of cliffs. Obi-Wan and Anakin raised hands out as one and felt in the Force for any, potentially antagonistic and hungry, life forms, before mutually deciding on a rather smallish-cave situated some ways into the mountain range.

Obi-Wan breathed a sigh of relief as they finally moved out of the wind. He tried to shake the ice out of his beard and vigorously stamped his boot-covered feet to get some circulation. Anakin, meanwhile, poked around the caved suspiciously.

"You don't think this is a wampa cave, do you?" he asked.

Obi-Wan had only read about the fierce, carnivorous and – most importantly – large beasts that survived the frigid temperatures of Hoth. And he wanted to keep it that way.

"I don't think so. No bones," he explained. A wampa cave would usually be filled with them.

"I hate this planet," Anakin muttered, coming back over to Obi-Wan's side and sitting down next to him for added warmth. The Jedi Master was now attempting to massage some life back into his arms and legs.

"Not to worry," he said, "I'm sure Ahsoka is already looking for us. She knows how you operate." After a short pause he added," When she gets here I'm going to bloody hug her," surprising a short laugh from Anakin at his language.

"Oh, I don't know." Anakin sounded highly amused. "I think if you hugged her, Snips might actually die of shock."

"Come now Anakin," Obi-Wan reproved mildly, "our Padawan is made of sterner stuff than that."

Anakin's smile at the 'our' warmed him more than he would ever admit.

Some time later Obi-Wan murmured, "We should get up and move around a bit," but it was half-hearted at best. He was strangely lethargic, and Anakin was a warm weight along his side.

Anakin tried to burrow even further into Obi-Wan until he was half-way in the other man's lap. "Cold," he mumbled, almost a whimper, with eyes that refused to open and tiny icicles on his eyelashes.

Obi-Wan was suddenly, terribly, certain that they wouldn't last much longer; certainly not long enough to get through the night. Desperately he tried to reach out to Ahsoka through the Force.

"Too far away," Anakin murmured, barely above a whisper. "Tried already."

Obi-Wan shifted until they were both lying down, bundled bodies entangled tightly together so as to conserve as much of their internal heat as possible. Anakin placed his hands between them, wrapping his gloves around the fur on Obi-Wan's coat, sighing happily.

"Don't go to sleep, Anakin," Obi-Wan warned, visions of the other man freezing to death in his arms dancing before his eyes.

"Wasn't," Anakin mumbled rebelliously from somewhere around the region of Obi-Wan's throat, where he was attempting to burrow through layers of clothing in search of more warmth. Through their bond, he felt strangely…satisfied and guiltily…exhilarated?

Obi-Wan was amused. "I can feel you, you know," he commented, and the guilt intensified but a flare of stubbornness jointed it and Obi-Wan was even more amused.

"We're going to die," Anakin muttered, defensively, and Obi-Wan was no longer amused.

"Yes," he murmured, drawing Anakin closer. He had always thought he'd go down in battle, not from something like hypothermia.

"Always knew I'd die beside you," Anakin said quietly, a peace to his presence Obi-Wan rarely felt. His lips brushed over Obi-Wan's throat, causing him to shiver from how cold they were. For a moment he felt his mind wander to how those lips would feel against his own. Just once. Here at the end. Anakin had grown into an extraordinary young man, his best friend, the one person he…

Obi-Wan pressed cold lips to his padawan's forehead. "I always knew I'd die with you too." Beloved, he did not add aloud.

Ahsoka found them like that, unconscious and wrapped in one another's embrace. Her frantic cries roused them more effectively than the warm thermos-blankets the clones smothered them in.

And contrary to Anakin's dire predictions, when Obi-Wan folded her in his arms and placed a gentle kiss between her montrals, Ahsoka just hugged him back and sighed in relief.

"This was entirely Anakin's fault," he explained, and she laughed.

End Notes: The universal 'freezing to death' trope, haha. I read a really go one once from Anakin's point of view and I've been longing to know what Obi-Wan was thinking during it. Now we know. Also, Anakin has always struck me as a very tactile person. All those years without touch while in the suit must have been pure torment. Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and kudos. They make my day!

Oh, and Dooku was thinking in the last chapter… 'Typical. It would be those two'….and 'I'm evil, why do I still have to put up with this crap'…and 'Sweet Force, kill me now!'...and he thinks Kenobi could do much better than Skywalker (But Palpatine thinks Anakin could do much better than Obi-Wan, lol).