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"Padmé, where's Obi-Wan?" Anakin's face was wrought with worry, as he thought of the man who was, in essence, his father, his brother, the other half of Kenobi and Skywalker.
His wife's eyes clouded with sadness. "Anakin, there was an accident. When we left Mustafar, our ship was attacked by clone troops inside the system. You were barely alive, and I was just barely conscious. Obi-Wan placed us into an escape pod and alerted Bail to his predicament. Bail picked us up, drifting in space. Obi-Wan..." her voice caught as tears threatened her composure once more. "Obi-Wan was captured."
Anakin closed his eyes in pain. The happiness that had run through his veins was all but gone, replaced by the cold feeling of despair. His Master, the man that had bandaged his wounds, soothed his tears, and had loved him purely and unconditionally. The one that had reached his hand over the edge of the dark and had pulled Anakin back from its grasp. Obi-Wan.
The touch of Padmé's warm hand removed him from his reverie. Her eyes, so full of love and empathy met his as he looked at her.
"I need to talk to Bail." he stated softly, almost to himself.
She nodded, and gestured towards the door. They both stood; he in his paper-thin medical garments, she in her flowing aquamarine dress. He reached his hand out to her as they walked, holding her close. The med facility was small and quiet; he suspected that they were in a private clinic far in the long reaches of the Outer Rim. There were no signs of war here; no blood-stained floors, no overwhelmed doctors, no men on the verge of death. Only quiet rooms and silent nurses filled the hospital, as Anakin and Padmé strode through it.
Near the end of a hallway, Padmé directed him to a large room occupied by a table and several chairs. Bail was already present, as was a certain Jedi Master.
Anakin forgot his worry for a moment as he recognized his teacher, alive and well. "Master Yoda!" he exclaimed.
The diminutive alien nodded his greeting to the young knight. "Glad to see you, I am." Yoda's bright eyes shone with genuine pleasure at seeing Anakin, but there was still the dullness of eternal mourning buried deep in his green orbs. Mourning for those that Anakin had killed.
He looked away, face reddened by guilt and remorse. Every time he closed his eyes, every time he looked into a mirror, Anakin could only see the screaming faces of the younglings, the apprentices, the knights that he had slaughtered in cold blood. Their innocent eyes seemed to bore straight into his soul.
"Murder them, you did not." Anakin looked up to see the Jedi Master staring at him, emerald eyes flashing. "Darth Vader, instrument of the Dark Side, did that."
Anakin nodded, finding solace in the Jedi's wise words. He exhaled, releasing a breath he did not realise he had been holding. Sitting down, he cleared his mind of all thoughts, determined to discover what exactly had happened to Obi-Wan.
Bail Organa, Prince Consort of Alderaan, cleared his throat, unsure if he could begin. Receiving no opposition, he clasped his hands together and addressed his three companions.
"Anakin, it is good to see you well. We..." he faltered a moment, the words catching in his throat, and Anakin realised that Bail knew exactly what had happened to him. "We thought that you were gone."
"Not yet, Bail. Thank you for rescuing us; Padmé told me how you retrieved our escape pod. But, what I really want to know is what has happened, and where is Obi-Wan?" There was a restrained passion contained in Anakin's words; he tried to control the impatience coursing through his veins.
Bail looked to Yoda for a moment, then back to the young Jedi. "How much do you remember?" he asked slowly.
Blood. Screams. Pain. Loss. Salvation. Anakin closed his eyes once more. "Everything." he whispered. Cerulean orbs snapped wide. "I need you tell me anything that has happened in the past two weeks. Since... since I returned."
And the Senator did. He told Anakin of how the war was ended, after Darth Vader's actions on Mustafar. Of how Chancellor Palpatine had become Emperor Palpatine of the newly formed Galactic Empire, and how the clone troopers that had once fought for freedom and democracy now battled for oppression and control. He explained that a week ago the Jedi Temple had burned bright in Coruscant's atmosphere, reducing to ash the bodies of a thousand men and women that had given their lives for the galaxy. Anakin heard of the construction of a new, extremely powerful weapon the size of a moon being built in orbit of Ord Cestus. And then, finally, he was told about Obi-Wan.
"From what little information we've been able to retrieve, we've ascertained that Master Kenobi is being held by the Emperor as a prisoner of war." It was then that Bail's eyes clouded over and he stopped, uncertain if he should continue.
Anakin waited, confused and irritated. "There's something else, isn't there?" Bail looked away. "Padmé, what it is?" he asked, knowing his wife would not lie to him.
Her features strained, she grabbed Anakin's hand once more and held it tight, pressing it against her warm body. "Obi-Wan was scheduled for execution three days ago, Ani. We've heard nothing since then. All the news stations, they- they called it the Revenge of the People. The death of the last Jedi traitor."
Anakin stood clumsily, the chair falling back onto the ground, clanging upon the white floor. "No. He-I-. I would have felt it."
Even as he spoke, Anakin was searching, looking deep inside of him, trying to locate the dormant bond between them that had existed for over a decade. Not the bond of Master and Padawan- that had been severed at Anakin's knighthood ceremony-, but the bond of brother and brother, father and son. It lay within him, damaged and battered from Anakin's descent into the dark side, but it was still there.
He looked to those seated around the table, all of them looking back to him. He placed his hands onto the table, one metallic and cold, the other warm and pounding. "I know he is still alive. Our bond has not been severed. I- I would know if he had died."
Yoda closed his eyes, and Anakin knew that he was searching the tumbling rapids of the Force, searching the waters for any sign of Obi-Wan. "If alive he is, sense him I do not. Clouds the current, the dark side does. Find him, we must, before he drowns."
Anakin nodded his agreement, and turned to Bail. "Where do we start?"