POV: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Our negotiations with Jabba ended considerably well. I had to contact the Council and have them send a fleet to Nal Hutta where a new gang of Hutts resided and threatened our alliance with them. Throughout the conversation with Jabba, I had lost Anakin's Force signature. It bothered me, but I knew he hadn't left me here. Well, I knew he wouldn't leave regardless. I turned and saw Ahsoka standing behind me. Alone. Surely Anakin would have come back from wherever he'd recklessly gone off to by now. "Where did Anakin go?" I inquired, looking at his young Padawan. She had to have known where he was going.

She shrugged, worry in her eyes. "I don't know where he is, but I can't sense him, Master Kenobi." She bit her lip and looked back at the palace. "We felt something odd and he went looking for it. He told me to stay with you." I nodded and asked her to lead me in the direction he'd gone, assuming she knew which way he went. She led me down two hallways before I picked up his signature in the halls. I followed its trail, only to find his lightsaber and com-unit on the cold ground. My heart immediately leapt up into my throat. "No," she whispered.

I moved to pick his lightsaber and com up, holding them both tightly in my grip. Anakin did not leave intentionally. As I rubbed my thumb along his saber hilt, I sensed distress and pain. He must have at least touched his lightsaber prior to whatever had been done to him. I spun to face Ahsoka. "Who was that man around Anakin in the throne room?"

She trembled at the harshness of my tone. I hadn't intended to be so harsh, but I was truly worried about him. Without his lightsaber, he would only be able to wield the Force as his weapon, and I wasn't even sure he was able to do so considering I couldn't sense him right now. "He was c-checking him out, Master."

I felt cold after she said that. That man was looking at my Anakin in a way that only I should- Oh, damn. Here I go on my possessive tangent again. I sighed and nodded. "Did he say anything about a name or did he say anything specifically to Anakin?" She told me how the man called Anakin a pretty boy. Yes, Anakin was a very beautiful man and he had been called that many times behind his back, but no one ever said it to him directly. "Did he look like a slaver?"

She looked horrified as I asked that, but anything was possible on Tatooine. Slavers ran amuck here and I wouldn't be surprised if anyone wanted to take Anakin as their own. I should have paid more attention to him. I should have kept a closer eye on him. I blamed myself for his capture because I had let him slip away while I was distracted by my conversation with Jabba. She came closer, her eyes very sad. "Do you think he enslaved Master Skywalker?"

"I believe it to be a possibility, Ahsoka. Anakin was…once a slave." I realized that other things had happened over the course of his apprenticeship to make that statement a lie, but I wasn't sure how much of this Anakin would want his Padawan to know. Anakin had been captured when he was sixteen and had been…abused. Fortunately, he was never penetrated in such a way, but horrible things had been done to him that he never shared with me. The abrasions he'd acquired prior to me rescuing him were…nerve-wracking for sure. He was bruised and scarred. The bruises went away, of course, but some of the scars still remained.

"Master, I don't-" She paused and I looked up at her once again to see her staring over my shoulder, wide-eyed. "That's him, Master Kenobi!" She pointed at a man who looked to be roughly around Count Dooku's age, give or take a few years.

I did not hesitate as I moved towards him and held my lightsaber to his neck. "Whoa! Jedi!" he cried out, looking hysterical as I glared at him. "I didn't do whatever it is that you think I did, I assure you."

"I assure you that you will face dire consequences if I find out you've taken my…friend." Friend, yes. That's what I had to call Anakin right now. The man laughed in my face, even with my lightsaber to his throat. "Where is he?" I growled, growing angrier than I imagined I could possibly be. Even when I had lectured Anakin over the years, I'd never been this angry.

"The pretty boy, I assume?" There was some devious look in those dark eyes of his and I knew he must be behind whatever happened to my beloved Knight. "He's gone. I don't know where he's gone to, however. You damn Jedi, release me."

"Tell me where he is!" I yelled, pressing my lightsaber ever so slightly against his throat. He cowered beneath the death grip I had on him and his boldness was now reduced to fear. I wanted Anakin back and I would not play games in order to get him. I wanted him before any harm came to him. I had been too late before. I refused to be too late this time.

"I'm telling you I have no idea where your precious boy is, Jedi," he sneered. Ahsoka's hand rested on my shoulder and I knew that was a sign she gave Anakin when she knew he was losing control. I deactivated my lightsaber and let him go. I glanced over at Ahsoka and nodded her in thanks. "He's got a pretty face and a beautiful body," he said, laughing.

Indeed, Anakin did. I was tempted to spit on this pathetic life form. Anakin certainly would have. "Come, Ahsoka," I said quietly, turning on my heel to head out of the palace. Anakin was not in the palace, nor was he on the planet, I'm sure, but we needed to formulate some kind of plan to rescue him. I would not let him become a toy as he had become before. I would not allow Anakin to be traumatized once again by his life as a slave.

We got back to the landspeeder and Ahsoka chose to drive it, so I hopped into the passenger side and she drove us back to Owen and Beru's home. Beru came up to greet us, only to falter as she realized Anakin was missing. "Where is he?" she whispered as I leapt from the landspeeder.

I frowned at her and shook my head. "I have no clue as to where he's gone, but I strongly believe he was captured by a slaver." She looked horrified and immediately called for Owen, who, in turn, ran up from the sublevel home and asked what was wrong.

"Your brother was captured," Beru said hastily. "Obi-Wan doesn't know who took him or where he was taken, but he said it may have been a slaver." Owen looked at me and nodded, asking if I knew what the slaver looked like. I called Ahsoka over and informed her that she needed to give Owen all the information she could on Anakin's possible captor. Beru watched me with saddened eyes and she took my hand gently. "We will find him. I promise."

I sighed heavily, worrying very deeply. "I fear for him," I said quietly. She could still hear me and she nodded. "I know it is against our Order, but I love him. I have loved him for quite some time and I have failed and betrayed him one too many times. I don't want to fail him again."

I felt a tremor in the Force and I tried to focus on it. It felt like something was…ripping through the Force. That was followed up by said tremor ripping through the bond between Anakin and me. "Obi-Wan!" surged through my shields and echoed repeatedly.

"Anakin," I pleaded aloud and in my mind. "Anakin, where are you?" He was in agony and he was afraid. It took a lot to make him fear as he was right now. "Ani, please, tell me where you are." I could feel that he was struggling to hold onto our connection. It was draining him, but I needed him to at least give me a clue as to where he was right now.

"Slavers…Outer Rim…Obi-Wan, please…" He was begging me to help him and now it was confirmed that slavers had indeed taken him. I tried to soothe him through our bond, but it wasn't helping very much. It was hardly doing anything for him. I felt a shuddering pain slide down my spine and I cried out as I felt whips crack down on my back. They were hurting him. Those Force damned bastards were hurting my Anakin.

"I love you, Anakin. I will come for you. I promise." No, I couldn't just promise him that. I had promised him last time that I would come for him and save him before he was hurt too horribly and I had failed. "I swear to you I will come for you, my sweet Ani."

"I-" Again, he was struggling. He wanted so desperately to hold onto the bond with me. I could feel him wanting to stay with me. He was afraid of losing me entirely as he feared he had when he was captured as a teenager. "I love you." He tried to shove his pain aside and focus on me. He tried to feel how I felt so he could ignore his pain and his emotions.

"I won't let you down, Anakin. Not again." I could hear him suffering through our bond and I knew he was fighting back. It wasn't in Anakin's nature to become submissive. As my Padawan, he was solely afraid and had lowered himself so he wouldn't take as much of a beating as he would've had he fought. Now that he was older and slightly more experienced, I expected him to put up a fight.

"Don't forget how much I love you, Obi," he said hurriedly. That worried me, even more so as our bond was severed. It was not severed by him, however. It was sealed shut with no way of reopening it at this particular moment in time as a result of, more than likely, Force suppressers. Whoever had him knew he was a Jedi and knew how to contain him as such.

I lapsed back into reality and looked down at Beru. "He's hurting, but he's alive," I said solemnly. I wasn't entirely sure if his being alive was a good thing right now. I didn't want him dead. Never would I wish for him to die, but I didn't want him to suffer either. Ahsoka came up from their home with tears in her eyes. She must have felt him as well. "Did you sense him?" I asked, whispering.

She nodded and rubbed her eyes. "He didn't reply to me through our training bond and I'm worried." I frowned. I couldn't tell her that Anakin had spoken with me because her suspicions of the relationship between Anakin and me would heighten once again. If it came down to it, however, I would tell Ahsoka that the two of us are in love and have bonded. If it meant we could save him, so be it. He could yell at me as he had done once we'd returned from Naboo after my deceptive mission. That was one of the first moments that led to where we are right now.

His pain, his suffering, has always been my weakness. I hated when he hurt, when someone or something hurt him, and I wanted to be his safety net. He was angry with me for keeping him in the dark on that specific mission, but he had crawled into bed with me, crying angry and hateful tears until he fell asleep. The next morning had been awkward, for him at least. He apologized for sleeping in my bed, but he hadn't left either.

He and I still had to work on our relationship since he'd lost trust in me. I knew he trusted me again, but I wanted to prove to him that I would never lie to him or hurt him as I had ever again. I knew faking my death would hurt him, but I couldn't have imagined how hurt he would be upon learning that I was still alive and that I was disguised as the bounty hunter who had supposedly killed me. That was the first and only time he intentionally hit me as Obi-Wan instead of Rako Hardeen. He called me a deceitful, traitorous bastard and told me he could never trust me again. Had I known that that was only the beginning to him wanting to be with me, I would have found a way to let him in on the secretive nature of my mission.

"He's strong," I whispered finally. "He'll hold on for as long as he can. We just have to make sure we get there before he loses all sense of hope." She nodded and looked at me with the same spark of hope in her eyes that I had seen in Anakin's numerous times. The love of my life was hoping his loving Master would save him before he was hurt to the point where he would close himself upon being rescued again.

It took nearly two months to even have him tell me some of what had been done to him. Anakin has never been one to hold things in, but he had held as much of the details of his capture in as he could. It hurt him more to close himself off, but he willed himself to suffer so no one else would suffer with him or pity him. "Has something like this happened before?" I focused on Ahsoka and saw her curiosity and pain. "Has he been taken like this?"

I wanted to tell her that he had, that he'd suffered, and that I'd failed him, but I wasn't sure that Anakin wanted her in on it. Only the Masters of the Council, Anakin, and I knew that he had been taken by slavers when he was a teen. "Ahsoka, his personal stories are not mine to share."

She let it go at that and I was thankful for it. Owen called us down into his home and we were able to use his holoprojector to contact the Council. "New information, you have, Master Kenobi?"

I nodded sadly. "Anakin has been captured by slavers." Only Mace and Yoda were in the room as far as I could see. They both looked equally disturbed. "I don't know who has him or where he is," I whispered.

Yoda looked very unhappy with this. "Hm," he began. "Troubling, this is. Trembling in the Force, young Skywalker is." As if that hadn't been evident before. I knew Anakin's emotions were rolling like ocean waves crashing against the shore prior to him closing off, whether it was forcefully or done on his own accord. "Find him, we must."

"That is why I have contacted you. Anakin…" I looked at Ahsoka and frowned. I had to tell them that he'd contacted me, but I could only say that it had been done through the Force, not a bond. "Anakin spoke to me by means of the Force. He is already in pain. I fear that they may do far worse to him this time."

I grew sick as I said it. He was older now and I'm sure slavers would find it amusing and more pleasing to have a pleasure slave react in a sexual manner that they expected. He wasn't that scared, little boy anymore. Anakin was now a Jedi Knight and General of the Grand Army of the Republic. The slaver or slavers who had taken him would use him for their entertainment if we didn't hurry. "Disturbing, this is." He shifted his gimmer stick in his hands and nodded. "Finding Skywalker, your next mission is. Padawan Tano, go with Master Kenobi, you will. Transmit, I will, a list of slave planets."

While we conversed with the Council, Owen went into the market to find the parts we needed to fix the ship. Fortunately, Anakin taught Ahsoka everything he knew about power convertors and such. I couldn't entirely understand their technical language as they bantered on about engines and various other parts of a ship. This was the same ship we had used when we'd been pulled into Mortis, so Ahsoka knew how to fix it up without a problem.

Owen brought our parts back and I promised I would pay him back every last credit he'd spent as soon as I returned to Coruscant. Ahsoka took the parts from him and began to fix what needed repairing. I looked at the listing of planets known to allow slavery. Tatooine was one, but Anakin wasn't here, so that was one to cross off. Balun, a neutral planet, was known for its industrial slavery. It was very rare that a slave was used for pleasure there, so it may be a starting point. There were plenty of planets to go to and I wasn't sure where to start. Balun seemed to be a good choice, but that would be followed up by Thandra, Reanu, and several others.

My back still stung from the opening we had in our bond earlier. It felt like my back was bleeding and throbbing, but I knew it wasn't. The pain was superficial. I sat down in the pilot's seat and rubbed the armrest slowly. It had Anakin's signature all over it. I smiled as I traced where his elbow would sit. "Master," Ahsoka said, announcing her reentrance. "I've thanked Owen and Beru for their hospitality and they wish us luck." I nodded and she sat beside me in the co-pilot's seat. "I hope he's okay, Master Kenobi."

I rested my hands on the controls and sighed. The ship was repaired and fully functional, so we could now be on our way to find my lover. I worried about him. I worried about what might happen to him. I couldn't bear seeing my Anakin so broken… "So do I, Ahsoka. So do I."