Time passed and the healers still said nothing new. Anakin was frustrated with the lack of answers. Oh, the healers were good at speaking, but they said nothing he hadn't heard already, more than once.

We keep hoping…

he's held on this long, that's encouraging...

he has a rough time ahead of him...

few patients survive with such extensive injuries…

we don't know… we hope… we wait.

Anakin paced restlessly, longing for something he could do. He tried to meditate, but he always found calmness of mind elusive and now more than ever. He hated inactivity and now he was reduced to nothing but watching and waiting.

He whirled; had he heard a sigh? He leaned over his master, but nothing had changed from the minute before, the hour before – the days and weeks and the entirety of his life before.

When he closed his eyes at night, he no longer saw his master's sharp eyes or wry grin, or his frown of concentration. The face creased in pain, white and drawn with a fine sheen of sweat covering it – that was the face now imprinted on his heart. The Force had allowed a strong and gentle Jedi to be transformed into a mere mortal being.

He heard it again, a soft whisper, and realized it was the soft whisper of a breeze coming through the partially cracked window across the corridor. How dare it taunt him, make him think Obi-Wan was stirring? With an irrational hate, Anakin strode to the window and shut it firmly. That room would hear no sighs, but those of the fallen Jedi, if the Force were ever to grant that.

The Force did not grant him his wish. It did not make Obi-Wan open his eyes, or lick his lips, or even mumble in pain. It let the Jedi sleep in a silence that was not sleep: neither death nor life but something in between.

The silence screamed at Anakin, echoed in his mind. Failure! He had failed again to protect one he loved. He wasn't strong enough, powerful enough – perhaps he didn't love enough.

He was the Chosen One – yet when he chose to protect those he loved, the Force would not obey him. Perhaps his scream would break that endless silence. He opened his mouth – and closed it again. The Force could not be commanded or cowed. Obi-Wan would only slumber on, oblivious to his padawan, unable to admonish him to release his emotions.

With a strangled sob, Anakin flung himself in a chair and leaned forward, fingers tapping absently on his thighs as his eyes bored into his master's closed eyes.

It's not fair, he raged at his master. You lie there, not caring how much pain you're causing me. Your padawan needs you, master, and you - aren't – here - for me.

Even before his mind finished formulating his thoughts, he felt ashamed. Obi-Wan had nearly been killed, might still die for all he knew, and here he raged at the injured man for not waking to comfort him.

It's okay, padawan, I won't leave you. I'm here.

For a startled moment, Anakin thought Obi-Wan had spoken the words aloud, and then shook as he realized his mind had pulled the words from his memories. Words he had heard on more than one occasion – when he had been sick, when he been in trouble and expected to face the Council for a reprimand, when he broke down after Geonosis and told Obi-Wan his mother was dead…yet how many times had he turned away from his master's offered support and comfort?

Obi-Wan had never pressed him to open up, letting Anakin decide what to reveal and what to keep inside. Pride too often kept Anakin silent. He had wanted Obi-Wan to sit him down, force him to speak what was on his mind and console him with a hug, and his master waited for him to feel comfortable speaking. The result, too often, was silence.

Despite the silences, he had always been comforted by the knowledge that Obi-Wan would be there for him, waiting. He had never stopped waiting. Obi-Wan's patience was endless.

Was Obi-Wan patiently waiting for Anakin to give him permission to go? The thought startled and scared Anakin as soon as it crossed his mind.

"Master, am I being selfish in needing you to remain here? You have to recover; I don't know if I can go on without you. I can't lose you, too. I just can't. I won't let you go - I can't let you go. Please, please wake up, Master," Anakin whispered, but the unconscious man did not respond; he just lay silent and unmoving.

Waiting exhausted him; he needed action, movement, but no amount of pacing would hurry Obi-Wan back to consciousness. NothingAnakin could do would make any difference. It was all up to the Jedi himself. Ordinarily, he knew, this alone would ensure success, but even Jedi had limits, and a Jedi at the brink of death had no more recuperative powers than any ordinary being.

It took a certain amount of strength to turn the Force to recuperation, and Obi-Wan had none left; it took all his waning energy just to survive, let alone begin the path to healing.

But even as his body deteriorated, his will seemed to grow stronger. Anakin could see the disbelief in the healers' faces, each time they rushed to respond to a softly trilled alarm.

Each time they stabilized his heart beat or brought his blood pressure back up or administered oxygen, they would shake their heads at each other before giving Anakin a nod of the head as they left the room, assuring him this particular crisis was over.

Each time Anakin would stand out of the way, face intent and hands clenched at his side willing life into the silent man with every cell of his body. The healers could do what they could for the body; he would do what he could for the life energy so diminished within.

His master might not be capable of giving his padawan what Anakin needed from him, but he knew his master would give everything he could, including his own life, to protect him. He could do no less for his master.

"Obi-Wan," he whispered in despair, but still, there was no response. "Please, wake up, Master. Please. I feel so lost, so alone. Don't leave me in such pain." Even his plaintive cry did no good.

By now, Anakin had few tears left. He had shed too many over the past days, at the side of the still figure. By now exhausted, he closed his eyes for a quick nap.

"A…Anakin…." A weak whisper, hardly audible, sighed through the quiet. A finger twitched against a bedcover. The injured Jedi stirred weakly, a glimmer of awareness awakening in a mind fighting off sedatives and wrapped in a memory of almost unbearable pain.

"An…akin? Pad…a…wan?" The voice was a thin thread of sound, no louder than the soft clicks and beeps of the machines by the bedside. The head turned, an inch perhaps, unerringly towards his padawan, leaning back asleep in a chair pulled up to Obi-Wan's bedside. The forefinger trembled, lifting a fraction of an inch in a futile attempt to reach Anakin.

But Anakin was slumbering.

He had been keeping vigil for what seemed an eternity, alert to any change in Obi-Wan's breathing or shift in body position, anything that meant Obi-Wan might wake up, hoping, praying and cajoling his master to no avail. He desperately missed Obi-Wan's scowls, affectionate grins, and dry humor - all the things that made his master dear and familiar to him.

This unmoving, shrunken figure who barely responded to stimuli was a stranger to him. The healer had told him to speak to Obi-Wan, even if he didn't appear to hear, stroke his hand, anything to connect him to the here and now, anything to anchor Obi-Wan to life. It was really the healer's attempt to sooth the young Jedi, more than hope it would aid in the patient's recovery. The healer had been honest, when asked about the patient's condition.

"By all rights, he should be dead. Some beings have an extraordinary will to survive and can beat incredible odds. Your Jedi is one of them. That he's still alive now is a testament to his willpower, but it's no guarantee. I'm sorry – he's failing and I honestly don't think he'll live much longer, but he's sure trying to prove me wrong. I've never seen a patient so stubborn and determined to live."

Anakin had closed his eyes at hearing the words; he didn't want to hear them. He focused on the positive - Obi-Wan was holding onto life with everything he had, and Anakin was holding onto him with all he had, or could offer. He had poured whatever he could of the Force into his master, but he was not a healer and would never be.

The Force, or the whisper, something nudged the young Jedi.

"Obi-Wan!" Anakin awoke and jumped to his master's side, enfolding a parchment-thin hand between his own and stroking it tenderly. The joy and relief in his voice was overwhelming; his eyes softened at the smile trying to tremble on his master's lips.

The barest hint of a smile, one that turned into a sigh. "I can't…be dead. I hurt. Ohhhhh…." Obi-Wan shivered with the pain. He still hadn't opened his eyes, or moved more than just that one finger of one hand, for what remained of his strength had been spent.

"You - okay?" A concerned wisp of sound reached out for reassurance.

"Yes, Obi-Wan, I'm fine. You'll be too, I promise." Anakin bowed his head over Obi-Wan's hand, brought it to his lips and laid his head against it. With infinite care, slowly, ever so slowly, Obi-Wan slipped his hand out of Anakin's grasp to brush the back of it against Anakin's cheek. One finger stretched out and touched a tear. It seemed to pause there, as if surprised.

"Master, I was so scared," Anakin confessed with a gulp. "You've been lying there, half dead, for days now. All anyone could tell me was that you were fighting hard to stay alive, that you had no right to be alive, even."

Obi-Wan struggled for words, finding tears welling up within him. He must have been in really bad shape to so badly scare his padawan that he would actually admit to it.

"I'm…sorry," he murmured. Only a hint of the tears that Anakin's confession had brought sparkled on his lashes, for even they could not fully escape the eyelids he had no strength to open.

Somehow, from some deep reservoir within, Obi-Wan found the strength to slide his hand down Anakin's cheek, to clasp his padawan around the shoulders and to pull him down into a weak one-armed embrace. Anakin collapsed against the frail body, weeping quietly into Obi-Wan's shoulder as the Jedi's hand gently patted him.

They both looked somewhat embarrassed, and deeply moved at the same time. Neither wished for the embrace to end. Anakin's world had all but crumbled, and now Obi-Wan was reassembling it with one soft, weak touch and weary concern.

"Sick?"

"Very sick," Anakin returned, smiling into Obi-Wan's chest even as he shuddered with the memory. "You had a terrible allergic reaction to the drug they gave you. You were also wounded, very badly hurt."

"I...I'll be… okay, Anakin," Obi-Wan whispered reassuringly, and tentatively sent a weak strand of comfort out to his padawan. The effort exhausted him. Anakin wrapped it with a strong strand of love and strength, and felt Obi-Wan sigh gratefully.

They didn't move, the padawan lying with his head on his master's chest, with a hand stroking the Jedi's temple, neither speaking out loud. They had no need for words. The touch spoke for them, more eloquently than mere words could.

Obi-Wan's body jerked with another sharp stab of pain; he moaned and rolled his head to one side. His hand tightened on Anakin's shoulder in a vise-like grip that nearly had Anakin grunting. He gasped weakly, trying to release it into the Force with soft shudders shaking his weak body.

Anakin lifted his head, half sat up and leaned over the Jedi, slipping an arm under his shoulders to tenderly wrap Obi-Wan within his arms, trying not to move him, yet encircle him within his embrace nonetheless.

He murmured soft sounds that meant nothing, yet everything, almost imperceptibly rocking the Jedi until the curl of pain crested and receded.

Then he settled the painfully thin shoulders back onto the bed, and studied his master's face. Anakin had never seen him so pale, bright spots of red staining his cheeks and dark circles ringing the eyes that had not yet opened, as if the effort of moving even an eyelid was too much. The silky hair clung in wet spikes.

"You have to keep fighting, Master. They've done all they can for you; the rest is up to you. You must fight hard." Overwhelmed with affection, Anakin kissed the damp forehead. Obi-Wan seemed to smile for a moment, a pleased sound escaping through lips not quite closed and nestled into his bedding.

Thinking the Jedi asleep, or again unconscious, Anakin reached for a cloth, wetted it and patted the beloved face - to pause as Obi-Wan's mind slid tentatively towards him.

You know that you held me here? a sigh wrapped the words.

Here?

Here, there, no matter. You held me here.

Would you have preferred I let you die? Softly teasing.

I am sure I would feel much better, if you had. There was a hint, just a hint, of his master's sense of humor.

But I would feel much worse. Have I ever told you I love you, Master, and I will never allow you to leave me?

Obi-Wan felt warmth reach through the bond and wrap itself around him. He sent a Force smile back at his padawan.

I do believe hearing that makes all this worthwhile. You've never admitted that before this.

Obi-Wan! There was hurt with the exclamation.

But thank you. I love you, too. This time, there was no mistaking the humor. Or the love.

Anakin?

Yes, Master?

Anakin never knew what Obi-Wan meant to say, for with a soft exhalation, Obi-Wan had slipped back into sleep.

Somehow, Anakin knew that Obi-Wan would survive.

Not just this time, or the next. But all the times. Obi-Wan would find a way to turn even death into life.

"Leave you do, with the transport?" Yoda asked, tapping his slow way to Bant's side as she stood watching a ship be prepared.

"I am his friend," she whispered. "Any healer could go, I suppose."

"No, no, good it is that a friend who is a healer too goes to him. Accompany you, I shall." Bant turned surprised silver eyes on Yoda. Surely he was too busy.

"A soft spot in my heart for our Obi-Wan, I have too," the little Jedi stated earnestly. "Why this is, I do not know. Why matters not."

"No. I guess not," she whispered.

"Yes, yes, a friend he is. But don't tell Master Windu, that," Yoda whispered conspiratorially, as he leaned closer to her and held a wizened claw up in warning.

"He won't hear it from me," a deep voice spoke up with an undertone of amusement. It was the dark skinned Haruun master himself.

"Oh," Bant softly squealed, scared to be in the company of the two highest ranking Jedi in the entire Order. She didn't want to be anywhere around the argument she was sure was going to develop. She was shocked when Master Windu winked at her and told her, "Yoda just wants a few days off."

Yoda was unperturbed, and lifted his gimer stick off the floor. "Wish you did that coming also you were. Waiting for word you find hard."

"It is never easy to sit in Council and wonder how any of our Jedi are faring, when any one of them is missing or injured." Mace returned grimly. "It is an exercise in patience that we are all getting more skilled at."

Yoda turned and smiled at the healer. "See, you do, that we also worry and wait. Sometimes, we do not wait but hurry to help."

"Y…yes, Master Yoda," Bant stammered.

"May the Force be with you all," Mace stated quietly as the two Jedi climbed aboard. "And don't forget to give us a progress report on Obi-Wan when you see him!"

Mace stood watching the ship slip out of the massive hangar until it could be seen no more. Then he sighed and returned to his duties. All too many Jedi had died in this war.

He felt each loss keenly, though he let the sorrow pass through him as a Jedi should. And now, Obi-Wan was severely injured; perhaps to live and perhaps to die. He found serenity hard to reach in such a state of uncertainty.

The two Jedi sat quietly in their seats as the ship lifted off, deep in their own thoughts. Bant stared out the window as Coruscant swiftly receded behind them. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought of Obi-Wan, injured and not certain to survive. If the worst happened, she wanted a chance to say goodbye first.

"Survive, our Obi-Wan will," Yoda leaned over and placed a hand on her knee. He sounded very certain. Bant wanted desperately to agree, but she didn't know. The future was always in motion. Nothing was certain.