Quick note - I've been doing some tinkering with previous chapters, not changing anything significant to the plot, just rearranging and fixing some issues. In this chapter, you may notice a sentence or two that have 'migrated' here from somewhere else!
"You," says Anakin as he guides Obi-Wan to sit down on a nearby crate, "Never get to tell me off for hiding an injury again."
"Anakin, I simply lost my balance for a moment."
"Jedi don't 'simply' fall over in the doorway."
"Nobody fell—" Obi-Wan is interrupted by Anakin nudging against his mental shields. The younger Jedi crouches on the floor, eye-level with his former master, waiting with annoyance and concern. Obi-Wan has not yet recovered the full strength of his defenses, but for Anakin to barge through would be an insensitive breach of the privacy and trust between them. Anakin waits until he is (hesitantly) invited in.
The sensations that flow into Anakin's mind are complicated and confusing – there's the stab wound, yes, that pain is deep and pronounced compared to the vaguely warm, achy discomfort that radiates out from around it. He feels his eyelids drooping, and snaps back into his own reality.
Obi-wan blinks and looks away, but not before he glimpses Anakin's frown.
"And I was supposed to believe you were shielding to teach me a lesson?" Anakin hisses. Whether he had been wrong to shut Obi-Wan out while he was investigating the bounty hunters or not, there's clearly something else going on here.
"No. I was angry, and you didn't deserve for me to take it out on you." Obi-Wan braces against the wall, preparing to push himself to his feet.
"Don't – get your bearings for a minute," says Anakin. "What do you mean angry?"
"It was not at you – not for anything that was your fault, anyway. I control my emotions, Anakin, that does not mean I do not have them."
"I know that." Anakin says, too quickly. He is of the distinctly un-Jedi-like opinion that if something hurts you should be allowed to make it feel better, and that includes acting angry when one is angry. He only pretends to understand the part of the code that says otherwise. As one of the few things he has ever been unable to succeed at despite his best efforts, it's a sensitive subject. It would help if Obi-Wan didn't make it look so easy.
His face a perfect mask, Obi-Wan gets to his feet. "See? Not so bad."
"You're sure?"
"I overtaxed myself earlier and it's caught up to me, that's all." He moves past Anakin to retrieve pain tabs from the medpac on the table and retreats slowly, stiff but not unsteady.
Anakin watches him leave with a frown. "Obi-Wan – dry clothes?" he suggests.
"I know."
Anakin returns to stirring the food. R2-D2 stations himself in the corridor. He still pretends not to hear when asked why he climbed aboard the bounty hunters' ship (cheeky little thing), but Anakin is thankful to have him nearby. R2 is using his full range to scan for sentient lifeforms - They won't allow themselves to be snuck up on again.
A few minutes later, just a touch of another mind's uneasiness flickers in Anakin's thoughts. Then, as if on cue, "Anakin, come help me with something? Do not panic."
The last order paradoxically makes Anakin heartrate spike. He finds Obi-Wan half dressed, pressing a wad of gauze to his chest.
"Must have reopened sometime today. It's under control," Obi-Wan explains quickly. "I just don't have enough hands to hold this and unwrap a new patch. Do not panic." Obi-Wan explains quickly.
To his credit, Anakin does not. The panic is on a back burner, ready to flare up if Anakin deems it justified, but simmering quietly for now. He takes the gauze from Obi-Wan's hand and blots away the fluid that's pooling in the puncture. After a moment's pause, a trickle of blood starts to well up again. Obi-Wan is right, it's well under control. New pink skin surrounds the edges with the telltale shininess of bacta healing but the center of the wound is grotesque, a bumpy purple-and-red indent oozing just below Obi-Wan's collarbone.
The bacta patches have healed all that they can, so adding another one on top seems futile. They do it anyway. Anakin thinks that Obi-Wan's skin feels a bit warm, and the wounded area is swollen – but more swollen than the day before? He doesn't know. Pain tabs are supposed to relieve mild inflammation and fever, so Anakin does his best not to worry about it. Running about in the rain sometimes warrants a bit of a chill. It will go away now that Obi-Wan is no longer shivering in wet clothes. Speaking of which—
"You know Master, you set a terrible example sometimes."
Obi-Wan, who has been silent throughout the procedure, tips his head back in a sudden return to full alertness. "Thought I might get some slack after the day I've had," he smirks softly.
"Don't know where you got that impression."
Obi-Wan sinks down onto his back and scrubs a hand over his face, sighing.
"Are you going to sleep?" Anakin asks.
"Only if you stay." Obi-Wan whispers, his tone accusatory. It's more or less untrue; Obi-Wan's exhaustion is going to have its way no matter what Anakin does. But he doesn't want the boy running off again, and he's not above utilizing any means available to elicit guilty promises.
If Anakin sees the bluff for what it is, he doesn't show it. The tips of his ears turn pink – does Obi-Wan have so little faith in him? "I'll stay."
Rain continues to hammer down through the night and into the morning. When the first sunrise of day seven-or-eight wakes him, Anakin expects to find Obi-Wan back on his feet, either the same as the morning before or perhaps a little bit better. No such luck. Obi-Wan's face is drained of color, all his strength recovered in the past four days erased. He only shrugs when Anakin asks how he's doing. With a very bad feeling indeed, Anakin presses a hand to his forehead.
"Your hand's cold," Obi-Wan murmurs.
"No, you're just warm." He tosses the medpac onto Obi-Wan's lap. "Take your temperature."
Obi-Wan obligingly places the thermogauge under his tongue. The tiny device pips once as it begins its measurement, then twice as it displays the result. It's a little less than 100 degrees standard, which is really only a touch of fever. Probably nothing.
Obi-Wan's condition neither improves nor worsens as the day wears on. He seriously considers throwing up after breakfast, avoiding it only through careful meditation. Anakin looks on with concern. Finally, neither can continue to suspend disbelief that all these symptoms are unrelated. The panic that's been lying dormant in Anakin sparks to life and sets his Force signature abuzz with activity. He uncovers Obi-Wan's wound to look at it again, under the pretense of changing the dressings. The fluid leaking from the puncture isn't bloody anymore, it's clearly pus.
"Obi-Wan, that is infected." Anakin wants to hit something. He was fine, he was getting better. Yesterday they'd been discussing how soon they could begin hiking towards the nearest settlement, but it's looking more and more as if Obi-Wan won't be going anywhere, unless carried.
"Anakin," Obi-Wan's tone is a warning. He's not feeling perfectly calm himself, but Anakin beside him is toeing the line of a full-blown panic episode. He really must control this kind of behavior. "Don't make this more theatrical than it needs to be."
Infection is often overdramatized in historical fiction holovids, where characters can perish or lose limbs from injuries of any size because bacta hasn't been invented yet. It's especially prone to happen in really old-timey ones where people use peculiar blasters that shoot bits of metal. But in the real world, nobody dies of infection. The mere thought is ludicrous.
"Don't tell me you've never seen pus before," Obi-Wan continues. "Breathe, Anakin."
Anakin has seen pus before. It's hard not to when bacta supplies run low in the field and all but the worst wounds must be left to heal the old way. Once in a great while, those cuts do get infected. The concept isn't foreign to Anakin, but this is different. Obi-Wan won't understand because he's a proper knight who isn't tangled up in attachments. He won't understand why this is different to Anakin because it's him. It's Obi-Wan, and no one else matters quite this much.
"You need to…you need to f-fix it." Anakin stammers.
"Breathe."
"Is it really bad?"
Obi-Wan pauses. It's hard to gauge the severity, actually. Obi-Wan's strategy thus far has been to focus on day-to-day details and entrust the rest to the Force. There are too many variables for him to be able to speculate on the big picture, above all when and how he and Anakin will be found. Anakin still struggles with the need to control the big picture, so that advice isn't going to be helpful to him. Obi-Wan sticks with an honest assessment of the situation.
"It's just this area that seems infected," he gestures to the swollen corner of the wound. "I don't know whether it's going to spread, but I'm okay for right now. Though it hurts like the blazes." He punctuates the last remark with half a chuckle. He is reaching out for Anakin in the Force.
Anakin accepts the calming energy flowing through their bond and feels his mind relax somewhat. He turns his gaze to the floor. If he were a proper knight, he wouldn't need anyone's help to control his emotions.
"You don't," says Obi-Wan.
Drat. Anakin hadn't intended to share that thought.
"I have faith that you could work it out yourself if you needed to. I only wanted to help."
Anakin changes the subject. "I can't wait til we get home so they can dip you for a week."
Obi-Wan grimaces at the thought. "Force willing, that won't be necessary."
"At least a week," Anakin insists. His fingers drum uncontrollably on the side of the mattress but he is taking deep, slow breaths.
There is no use wishing for bacta when there is none to be had. Anakin finds himself daunted by this new enemy that cannot be cut down with a lightsaber. A man of action, nothing is more aggravating to him than not knowing what to do. Obi-Wan isn't sure of the best steps to take either, but he makes his educated guesses with forced confidence for Anakin's sake. He is the master, Anakin is the padawan – in this at least, Anakin is grateful for the security of that role, the responsibility that is not on his shoulders. They clean the surface of the wound as best they can and Obi-Wan decides not to re-bandage it. He reasons their best bet is to expose the wound to air to keep it dry.
"There," says Anakin with an air of finality as he adds a final dab of antiseptic. They have done everything they can think of, and Obi-Wan is relieved. He curls up with a datapad and reads until he falls back asleep. Anakin almost rolls his eyes – it's not even midday yet, honestly– but he wishes he could be that calm. Gears in his head still whirring away, Anakin goes to stand sentry with R2-D2, scheming desperately for a new way off this Force-forsaken rock.
When Obi-Wan was making progress it came in slow, steady steps ahead, but now that he's stumbled Anakin is shocked by how fast he slips. The fever is slight but persistent, and seems to sap the energy from Obi-Wan until even sitting up is a chore. He sleeps more often than not and subsists on small amounts of tea, broth and pain pills. The last time Anakin bullied him into a handful of crackers he spent half an hour heaving into a bucket, so neither of them are keen for him to try any more solid food.
Draining the wound is a daily ordeal that they both come to dread. Obi-Wan holds a basin and prods the wound open with alcohol-soaked tweezers while Anakin flushes greyish pus away from the infection with water. Anakin can never seem to get used to it; the sight and smell make him gag every time. Obi-Wan mumbles resigned apologies, which Anakin waves away even with the other hand clamped over his mouth. ("Not your fault it's so—ugh, kriffing gross—")
Despite their best efforts, Obi-Wan's chest seems to grow more inflamed day by day. Although it's a low fever, it doesn't seem to respond to the medicine at all. Anakin just hopes that that doesn't mean the infection is spreading to the rest of Obi-Wan's body.
"I wish we had a droid with a medisensor,"
Nearby, R2 beeps sadly.
"You're perfect the way you are, bud. It'd just be really nice to know if it's a superficial thing, or—" …well.
Obi-Wan's condition is deteriorating fast. Anakin pushes him to take all the fluids he can, but between fever sweats and vomiting he's still dehydrated. He's tired all the time, Anakin can see it in his eyes. He now relies on Anakin for even the smallest tasks, like pouring tea and arranging all the blankets he's gathered in his bunk. Anakin doesn't mind, truly, because his hands don't fidget when they have something to do.
"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan whispers one evening as Anakin is reapplying antiseptic ointment to the wound after another pus-draining session.
"Don't be. I told you, I'm getting used to it," says Anakin.
"Not just that." Obi-Wan can't shake the feeling that, as usual, he's slowing Anakin down. He isn't much help to the boy anymore, and certainly not like this. He's sure Anakin would have found his own way home by now if Obi-Wan were not a distracting dead weight. "I bet you'd devise some brilliant plan if you weren't stuck with all this."
"You're not making any sense, Master." Anakin rolls his eyes. "Go to sleep."
Anakin sits beside R2-D2, his legs dangling from the side of the ship. He's meant to be keeping watch, but the stress of the past several days is weighing on him. He's pretty sure it's now day ten-or-eleven, but it might be eleven-or-twelve…either way, he hasn't slept in a couple sunrises. His eyes droop as he unthinkingly starts to lean into the droid.
R2 honks indignantly at being used as a pillow. Anakin sighs and retreats back inside, the astromech at his heels.
As Anakin is pulling a sleep shirt over his head, R2 begins to whistle and swing his dome around.
"Shh!" Anakin snaps. He glances across the cabin, hoping the racket hasn't disturbed Obi-Wan's much-needed rest.
R2 ignores Anakin and continues to chatter until a burst of static cuts in, followed by a grainy voice that sounds remarkably like a clone's:
"…kywalker…CC-2439 and crew responding to the message sent from this system through an R2 unit…medical evac and currently performing a secure scan…We have just entered the range of your equipment…continue to experience interference from hostile crafts. Do not respond unless you are equipped to do so at the frequency encoded…In absence of a response we will continue safely scanning the Rion system to determine your location."
A hopeful grin has snuck across Anakin's face. "R2, you did it, buddy! D'you hear that?" He turns to Obi-Wan, shaking the sleeping Jedi's shoulder. "Obi-Wan! We're going to be rescued."
Another big "Thank-You" to Maeve Pendergast and SpencerBrown for their help!