Chapter 26

"Anakin," came an urgent whisper. "Anakin they're coming down the hall."

Anakin was conscious in seconds, wincing as his sore muscles protested his getting up. Therapy, falling, and sleeping on the ground gave him the unpleasant feel of a wooden doll—stiff, splintery, and not good for much else but sitting.

Obi-Wan was staring intently at his former Padawan.

Anakin stared down at his pantsless legs.

The door to their cell was wrenched open, revealing Hondo holding a steaming tray of mugs and bowls. His emotion was unreadable.

"Gentlemen!" Hondo cried graciously, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. He was watching Anakin, his every breath, every blink. Anakin tried not to squirm under the intensity. "I thought you looked hungry."

Anakin's stomach growled on cue. He was starving.

Obi-Wan, though, declined. "Thank you, but I'm not hungry."

Hondo shrugged and handed the platter to Anakin, who took the hot mug in his shaking hands and sipped. It soothed his parched throat almost immediately. After draining the liquid he moved on to the bowl of mysterious content. Eyeing it warily, Anakin cleared his throat.

"Uh, Hondo?"

"Yes, Skywalker?"

"What's in this?"

"I don't think you are in the position to be asking questions, my boy."

Anakin made a face, just once catching Obi-Wan's gaze. It told him everything their bond could not tell him: You need food to keep you strong. Eat it. Eat my portion too.

He answered back with a forlorn look. No, Obi-Wan! You need you're strength too if we're going to get out of here—

"Are you going to eat it?" Hondo snapped. "Or not?"

Anakin took a sip cautiously, finding the mealy stew to be burning hot, and almost tasteless. With less caution, he took another. And another, another, until his tongue was stripped of all of its taste buds and the bowl was empty. Hondo moved to grab the leftover food.

"Wait!" Anakin moved to stop him. Hondo looked up. "I'll drink that too."

He could give it to Obi-Wan when the idiot came to his senses.

Hondo glared. "Greediness is not becoming, Skywalker." And he knocked the mug and bowl over, its mysterious origin spilling all over the cell floor. Anakin winced. The stew and liquid soaked slowly into Obi-Wan's tunic. The smell alone was unbearable, but the heat…the steam rose off of it in lazy clumps as they stared. Obi-Wan said nothing, moved nothing. He sat straight and still, refusing to trigger the electric.

Hondo dipped his head, clearly and sickly amused. "Kenobi, my friend! Do you mind me borrowing Skywalker for a moment or two?"

No response.

"Wonderful!" Hondo held out a hand for Anakin to take. Anakin couldn't believe he was seeing it. "Come, now, Skywalker! I gave you food, opened up my home, and you still don't trust me?"

"Take off these chains and ask me again," Anakin replied.

Hondo smiled, and with a nod two pirates pushed through the door, picking Anakin up under his armpits and hauled him, struggling as much as his tense body would let him, out of the cell.

"Obi-Wan!" he shouted, more out of instinct than necessity. What could Obi-Wan do? For once in a long time, his elder was less fit to help him than he was himself. "Obi-Wan, I'll be back, I swear, just wait—"

But his was forced into his wheelchair, still grinding with sand and wetness, with such abruptness that the air was knocked out of his lungs. Obi-Wan didn't answer, his stone-like form meditating or the like. Anakin couldn't understand that calm Obi-Wan could adapt—he clung to it, yes, but couldn't understand it.

"Let's get going, Dagg," Hondo said and motioned for the pirates to push Anakin out of the containment area. The pirate on Anakin's left ran a nimble finger discreetly down his leg, buckling him into the wheelchair. Anakin seethed, gritting his teeth and whipping out with his arms, linking the chain between his hands over the pirate's head and yanking him close.

"Don't touch me," Anakin hissed.

"Boss!" the pirate—Dagg—whimpered, wriggling to get out of Anakin's surprisingly strong hold. "Boss, help! He's got me, he's got me!"

The other pirate grabbed a fistful of Anakin's hair and yanked backwards, Anakin's neck snapping back. Finding his chance, Dagg slipped out of the chains around his throat and coughing horridly, pedaled away. Hondo tapped his foot impatiently.

"Now, boys?" The two pirates nodded vigorously, glaring daggers at Anakin, as if he was the sole offender, the instigator, the thug. Dagg even having the audacity to whistle while he went to the back of the wheelchair to grip the handles.

"I'll get you for that, Jedi," Dagg snarled in Anakin's ear. Anakin gave him an even look in return. Pirates were all talk, he assured himself.

Anakin let his eyes slide closed, relishing a few more moments of rest. He didn't have to watch where he was going, he knew. His arms and core remembered, his eyes remembered, his mouth remembered.

The therapy room.

Buuca stood at the door, floatation devices in hand.

Before they entered, Hondo stopped the party and dismissed the two pirates, who slunk away looking over their shoulder, firing curses with their gritted teeth. Hondo watched them retreat before pulling out the same flask as before. He held it out, toasting to the air.

"My offer is the same," Hondo said slyly. Anakin frowned.

"I don't want you're kriffing alcohol."

Hondo smiled fondly before pouring the acid-looking drink down his throat, wiping his lips with a smack, and pushed him the rest of the way into the room.

Buuca pulled the tunic off of Anakin's body, and Anakin sat shivering in nothing but his briefs on that same metal stool against a wall. His chains had been let and force inhibitors left on just like before.

He surveyed the sand, the pool. No Rex. No Master Che.

He almost snorted, thinking how he was sentimental for that woman.

"Floatation devices, my Jedi friend! One around your chest, the other two around your thighs. Buuca, help him," Hondo ordered. Anakin muttered about remembering the stupid things.

Buuca strapped the thick black fabric around his legs and chest, Anakin grunting as he pulled and tugged at them to make sure they were the right fit. The pirate was humming. The lowering chair loomed before Anakin's sight, taking on every characteristic of evil as he remembered the ice cold water.

"Comfortable?" Hondo asked.

"Not really."

"You're a funny man, I'll give you that."

Buuca and Hondo then each took a side and Anakin's feeling skin trembled at the promise of a freezing bath. As the chair started to lower deeper into the water, moving at its ridiculously slow rate, Anakin looked up at the men above him.

"My chair was still wet when I got in it—"

Hondo cut off his question. "It is not a high quality chair."

"How long ago was the last time you made me swim?"

Buuca and Hondo exchanged a complicated look. Buuca bristled. "Seven hours ago." Hondo's frown deepened.

Anakin, reaching shoulder-deep water and shivering to the point that he thought his teeth might chatter out of his mouth, couldn't bring himself to skitter out any more syllables. The cold and dread of what was to come was enough to push the injustice out of his head.

The two pirates argued silently between them for another moment before separating, Hondo to the metal stool at the wall, and Buuca into the water. His long gray ponytail dipped into the water and went black in its depths. His chest was bare and scarred, his long, loose pant legs swaying with the water's pull. Anakin resisted flinching as he reached behind him to place his hand on the small of Anakin's back. Buuca guided him out of the chair and into a free-floating, just-above-water lying position. The water rushed to fill his ears, cold and loud.

"How does this feel?"

"Fine," Anakin answered, the routine coming back to him quick. The beautiful lack of pressure on his achy arms and abs, no sweaty clothes or tangle of the catheter. The sip of free will.

"Now?" Buuca held his legs at a ninety-degree angle, bending at the knees. The burning sensation flared in his body, and Anakin fought against crying out, channeling his pain into one, forced:

"Bad."

The exercises went faster that day, hard but manageable, his sore body warming up to the water as he sat up and crunched, stretched, pushed, and fell. Buuca guided him through the pool with unbearable patience, altering the exercises as Anakin gave feedback, Buuca's rare pieces of praise letting Anakin do one more set, one more round, one more exercise. One more hour.

Anakin's body felt healthy.

He felt honorable, doing exercises like he could do with his eyes closed back many months ago, before his injury. Ahsoka laughing as he would do push up after push up, reciting pieces of the Jedi Code with her to study as they trained.

"There is no emotion!" Anakin would shout with gusto as his pressed his body barely to the ground, grunting coming back up with a lock of his elbows.

"There is peace!" Ahsoka would answer back, pressing down and back as well.

"There is no ignorance!" Grunt.

"There is knowledge!"

"No passion!" Grunt.

"Serenity!"

Anakin would laugh tightly, his arms pounding with lactic acid, forgetting where they were in the Code. He'd start to make up verses, Ahsoka laughing until she cried, rolling onto her back from the excessive work out and Anakin's pure idiocy.

"There is no good food! Only mush! There is no such thing as privacy! Only extreme togetherness! There is no comfort! Only starchy tunics!"

Ahsoka would laugh and laugh, punching him lightly to make him stop. Anakin would do a few more push ups, just to make sure he beat her count, before standing up, giving Ahsoka his hand, and pulling her up to her feet as well. They'd move on to stances, crunches, or weights. They wouldn't stop until breakfast.

"Anakin?"

Buuca was talking to him. Anakin craned his neck out of the water to listen better. The pirate raised his eyebrow, questioning him silently. Anakin cleared his throat, giving a flitting smile.

"Sorry! Wasn't paying attention. Must be the lack of sleep."

With a few words of instruction, the slim bars were moved into the water. Anakin's burning body screamed at the sight of them.

Not feeling.

"No sand?" Anakin asked hopefully, his mood getting significantly better. Buuca let out a low chuckle.

"No, Anakin. No sand. Not right now."

The bars were lower than his waist in the water, the smooth metal threatening to cement to Anakin's wrinkled skin if he kept in one place too long. They were slippery, but yet waxy and firm. He looked down at his green and blue shoulders, bruised from his falls and mistakes. They didn't hurt, only acting as shame-filled reminders of his failures. He steeled his will, looking to Buuca for the go ahead. The old pirate smiled softly, nodding ever so slightly, clearly impressed. Anakin's heart warmed, scattering the freezing temperature for only a second.

He glanced at Hondo, whose frown was etched so deep into the pirate's already wrinkled face; Anakin assumed it must have been permanent. With a cocky grin to hide his nerves, Anakin turned back to Buuca.

"Is he always like this?" He jutted a shaky thumb Hondo's way.

"Since birth," Buuca replied, nodding again to urge Anakin to start the exercise. Biting his cheeks in concentration, Anakin started in, the water guiding his feet instead of weighing them down, his falls cooling him off, not frustrating him. Buuca would catch him under his armpits, encouraging him to try again. His fingers went numb against the cold metal but he didn't stop to think of them. He tucked his head in, dragging his body across the pool, muscles taut and determined.

And by the Force, did he walk.

The next session, Anakin walked further, fell less, earned more compliments.

"That's it, my boy!" Buuca would cry, clapping his hands as Anakin struggled to place his unfeeling foot in front of the other. The water felt cool against his hot skin. "A little farther!"

Anakin had reached the end of the bars. He froze.

"I-I'm not strong enough," he stuttered out. "Not yet, let me keep using the bars."

Buuca shook his head, nudging him forward. "You are stronger than you think."

Looking straight ahead, Anakin thought of Ahsoka. Of Rex. Of Obi-Wan.

Of Padmé.

Anakin let go.

The water was as still as glass—clear and void of any ripples. He could look down and see his feet, looking so small and far away. He flung his arms out to the side as if he could reach for the edge of the pool.

"Good! Keep your balance!" Buuca cheered. Anakin bit his lip, pouring all of his focus into his feet.

Drag with core and hip. Gain balance. Place foot down. Repeat.

One step. Two steps. Three. Four.

Five. Stumbling harshly on his own feet, Buuca held out his arms to catch him. The old pirate grinned childishly.

"Well done, Jedi Knight," he praised, using his title almost as a nickname. Anakin tried to push himself out of his grip.

"I can keep going," he insisted. Buuca waved Hondo over to the scene.

"You're toes are becoming bruised. Lets continue with another exercise," Buuca suggested. Hondo disagreed.

"Let him walk! I've got something for him." Hondo turned and walked out the door, disappearing for several minutes. Buuca didn't let go of Anakin even at his return. "This."

Anakin looked at the three objects Hondo held in his hands: two sticks, and one strange looking contraption. With two legs, and two wheels.

"What is it?" Anakin asked, eyeing the shiny metal and dark cloth handles.

"A walker."

Anakin snorted. "Doesn't look like a Walker to me." In his head he saw the almost animal-like machines, tromping down forests and snow piles. Buuca chuckled.

"A walker, not AT AT walker, Anakin. You push it in front of you to keep your balance. Once you're out of the water, we'll try it. By next week, if you keep progressing like you have been, you'll be more than ready to try on land again."

"In the sand?" Anakin asked, already disgusted.

"Yes, in the sand, Skywalker," Hondo answered. Then he turned to Buuca. "We try the walker today."

"Next week," Buuca pleaded, his voice even and firm. "He's not—"

"I'm ready," Anakin blurted. He didn't want to hear those words. Not from Buuca. "I want to try it. What's the worst that could happen?"

Silence.

"Anyway," Anakin pressed on, working past the two pirate's glaring at each other. "What are the sticks for?"

Buuca, sighing, helped Anakin into the lowering chair and took the remote, carefully raising him to dry ground once again. Anakin shivered, but more out of excitement than cold. His body was warm and energized, his mind clear.

"What are the sticks for?" he asked again. Hondo only smiled.

Buuca, under Hondo's thumb completely, took the walker from the brigand's hands. Almost in a whisper, Buuca leaned into his minor's shoulder.

"Sometimes, brother, I do know what I am doing."

Anakin went pale. "You-you two are brothers?"

Now that the word had been spoken, he could see the resemblance without a doubt. Their eyes crinkled around the edges in the same way when they smiled, their vocabulary impeccable in comparison to the rest of the crew. They dressed similar—though Buuca's pants were still needlessly baggy—and gestured the same. They shared that look brothers share when they need to say something but don't have any need for words.

"I can't believe I didn't see it before!" he exclaimed jovially. Hondo rolled his eyes, motioning for Buuca to hand Anakin the walker. "Who is the older one?"

"Me," Buuca said as he, with a few different tries, helped Anakin hold onto the grips correctly. "I was here when the galaxy was formed."

Anakin smirked. He suddenly felt as if he had stumbled into a safe space. Nothing had changed—one single word had changed the look of the whole room.

"Oh ho!" Hondo protested with an idle wagging finger. "The galaxy doesn't even remember you—me on the other hand, they'll know me as a legend."

"You read too many brain-frying books."

"And you read too little!"

Anakin watched the brothers chortle and fire dialogue, their lack of attention making him feel daring. Dragging himself forward on the lowering chair, Anakin clutched the handles and heaved himself upright, just like he had practiced with the bars in the pool. He stood.

Three mouths dropped open, one of them being himself.

"I did it…" he murmured, his success fresh and almost confusing. "Did you see that? I did it!"

Hondo clapped Buuca on the back, Buuca shook a fist in triumph. Anakin laughed, not daring to take much more than a step or two from the chair in case he felt weak, and had to sit down. All of his body's weight rested on his two, skinny, feeble legs.

"What now?" Anakin inquired, feeling immortal once again. He was standing on his own will and power. Hondo threw one of the sticks and him, but too afraid to let go of the walker, Anakin let it hit his bare chest and then clatter to the floor. He also didn't dare bend over to pick it up. Buuca, giving an exasperated look to his brother, walked over to pick it up for Anakin, weaving it between his clenched fingers.

"Know your body," Buuca admonished quietly before walking away to sit where Hondo usually sat, on the metal stood against the wall. He looked tired, lost in thought. Hondo on the other hand, looked delighted.

"Now, my very young friend, we fight!"

Anakin almost laughed at Hondo's words before he was hit five times in quick succession: chest, leg, face, arm, chin. The word ow was at Anakin's lips, but didn't dare come out.

He needed a defensive stance, he decided looking at his feet for back up. They were unsteadily keeping him upright—he had no confidence in their ability to react as part of his reflexes.

Using the walker like he would the bars in the pool, Anakin shuffled out his right foot in front of him, then his back. He moved his hand slowly to a grip in the middle of the walker's two bars, steadying himself so that he held the stick in his lightsaber hand. He tried not to think about the clear quiver in his stance.

"You're enemies wouldn't give you that much time," Hondo tsked. "Faster. Use what you know and adapt."

Anakin blocked the next three blows, ducking and clashing with his weapon. His legs, unable to respond to his brain's commands, stayed locked in his original position, causing him to twist and lose his equilibrium. With a last second decision, Anakin let himself fall, grabbed onto Hondo's shirt, and used it to push himself back into his footing. He held his stick in front of him.

"Is that all you've got?"

"Oh, very good, Eiken," Hondo applauded. "Well—" He stopped. Dropped his stick.

"Who's Eiken?" Anakin asked slowly, judging by the reaction Eiken was someone important. "Is that who all of this stuff is for? The friend you knew?"

Buuca looked steadily from Hondo's shocked from to Anakin's. "Our brother."

Hondo turned away, feigning carelessness. "We're done for today. Clean him up and take him away."

Buuca started to say something, but sighed instead. With resignation, he helped Anakin back into his tunic, and the sticks and walker were cast aside.

Vokara Che stood in front of the Jedi Council, hands clasped behind her back. Master Yoda stared at her with such ferocious, unblinking intensity that she cleared her throat twice, convinced he had simply perished on the spot.

He hadn't, she knew, because he kept giggling.

"Much to say, have you, Master Che. Speak, speak," he chided, motioning with his small green hand. "Listen, we do, to your concerns."

She smiled graciously, not caring how fake it looked.

"Master Jedi," she said, addressing the seated chair members with a flourish. "I stand here before you today with more requests than I dare voice. Nevertheless, one is more desperate than most: I'm sure you all have noticed Anakin Skywalker's absence."

There was some general mumblings.

"Master Healer, do you have any idea what you are addressing us with?" Mace Windu asked, incredulous. Vokara strutted in a circle, her eyes never leaving the Jedi's. She was the picture of confidence.

Of course she knew what she was addressing the Council with.

It was all she could think about for the last three days.

Anakin Skywalker going missing was more than just her own personal failure. It was a failure for the Jedi Council, for Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, for the galaxy itself. Him going missing surely meant another important battle lost, another battalion dead, his Padawan in jeopardy.

"Yes, Master Jedi. I do."

Master Yoda giggled again, sliding down from his chair to hobble toward her. She stopped pacing, fearing him simply walking extra steps might push the old Master to overexertion.

"Erher, care for the young Jedi, you did. The best you could. Now, he walks alone, hm?"

Vokara protested. "That is the wrong saying, Master Jedi. The original problem being that the young Jedi cannot walk at all." The Council bristled. Vokara collected herself quickly. "What I mean to say is that Skywalker's whereabouts should be one of our utmost concerns. The assurance that Kenobi is with him means nothing to—"

"Our utmost concern is, Master Healer, that we end this war. Skywalker being in it, or being missing from it, is not our concern," Mace Windu argued, his eyes dark and forceful. Vokara sniffed.

"As his primary caregiver, I feel obligated to heal him to my best ability. I was not able to complete Skywalker's treatment."

Yoda held up his hand once again, stopping her rebuttal. "The Kaminoans had plans, yes? Risky plans. Unfortunate, Skywalker's disappearance is."

"Where are the Kaminoan plans now, Master Healer?" Ki-Adi-Mundi asked, leaning forward in his seat. Vokara blinked.

The Kaminoans pricey experiments sat on her desk pointedly rejected, their torture device looking braces and medical procedures scribbled out and refuted with ink on page. She was not a fool.

Those treatments would kill him.

"I have not decided on any course of action yet. I am still convinced that the use of Force Crystals will be…" she trailed off, hearing the near-silent moans of the Council. How many times had she appeared before them, asking for advice on the use of the Force?

How many times had it been related to Skywalker alone?

"Do not negotiate any deals unless Skywalker is found," Master Windu ordered, pointing a finger at Vokara's chest. "We have no guarantees that he will."

"If we sent a pilot or Jedi to trace their steps, perhaps we could—"

"We will do no such thing!" Mace fired back, hands gripping the edge of his chair. The Council members stared. "Skywalker has used up more patience and resources from us than he deserves. He is stubborn and unyielding, not to mention crippled."

"Paralyzed," Vokara corrected through gritted teeth. "Skywalker is paralyzed."

Master Windu waved his hand, as if to say 'Same thing.'

"Dismissed, you are, Master Healer. Think on this, we must," Yoda said after what felt like stretching minutes of silence. He watched her carefully, studying her, analyzing her every breath. "Much research, you must have, hm?"

Vokara bowed stiffly, before whisking herself out of the Council room.

Away from Yoda's piercing stare.

How could a being make her—strong, overconfident, Vokara Che—feel so self-conscious?