Chapter 1 – Missing
Plot: When the Invisible Hand crashes to Coruscant during Anakin's duel with Dooku, Anakin is thought to be dead. The reality is much worse. Injured, memoryless, and in the hands of the Sith, Anakin is incredibly vulnerable to manipulation. As the Sith's plans reach a climax, revenge is finally within their grasp, while the galaxy spirals into chaos all around them.
Author's Note: I started this fic over a year ago for Angstpril, and now that it's done, I'm posting it. There are seven chapters plus and epilogue, and I'll be posting every week on Wednesday. :)
I really hope you enjoy this... unusual ROTS AU! :D
~ Amina Gila
"You have hate. You have anger, but you don't use them," taunts Dooku pressing against Anakin's blue blade with his red one. Anakin narrows his eyes, letting his emotions flood through him, filling him with power. He pulls back and lunges at Dooku anew just as the floor tilts beneath his feet. The Force shrills a warning at him, and he glances desperately at the viewport. Crashing. They're crashing. Not good.
He can see the surface of Coruscant growing closer and closer as alarms begin to blare. The Star Destroyer must have been damaged too badly to be steered away from the planet's gravitational pull. Anakin knows that their chances aren't good. His top priority is the Chancellor... and Obi-Wan. He'll never let anything happen to his former master. He Force leaps across the room, landing near Obi-Wan's prone form, checking him quickly with the Force for injuries. A few bruises but nothing major. Good.
Anakin brings up his lightsaber to drop Dooku's downwards strike, which would have been far more effective had the Count not been balancing precariously on the rapidly sloping floor. Lifting his left hand, Anakin pushes him, and he flies backwards, crashing into the viewport and falling to the floor. Anakin turns his focus back to Obi-Wan, pulling him out from under the debris, and jumping across the room so he lands against the chair where the Chancellor is secured. Dooku might escape, but there's not much he can do about that.
Reaching through his bond with Obi-Wan, Anakin prods at him, urging him to regain consciousness. "Master," he sends. "I need your help." Obi-Wan stirs, and Anakin turns to survey the room, looking for Dooku. The Count is standing on one of the exits from the room far below them on the place which is rapidly becoming the new floor.
With his mind, Anakin touches the components of the lock, trying to figure out how to open the door and drop Dooku through it. At the very least, it might give him enough time to get Obi-Wan and Palpatine out of here. Dooku scoffs and steps away. "I thought you had more than petty tricks, Skywalker," he sneers. "Did you really think I wouldn't sense you?"
Anakin smirks. "It was worth a shot."
"Did I miss something?" mumbles Obi-Wan, shifting to wakefulness in Anakin's arms. He raises his head and looks around, eyes widening when he realizes what's happening. "This is not good."
"No," Anakin agrees, "It's not. We have to get the Chancellor out of here."
"I think not," Dooku retorts, igniting his lightsaber again.
Anakin exhales harshly. There are two exits, one of which is near Dooku. He doesn't know how much longer they have until the Star Destroyer crashes, but probably only a minute or two. If nothing else, Obi-Wan can get Palpatine to safety. They'll all die here if they try to destroy Dooku who will most assuredly stop them from escaping.
"Obi-Wan, take the Chancellor and go," Anakin orders. "I'll hold off Dooku."
Obi-Wan looks at him searchingly, something pained yet resigned in his expression. He flicks his hand, pulling open the doors of the turbolift which they'd entered from. It will be a bit of a jump, but Anakin knows that with Force enhancement, they can make it. Or at least Obi-Wan and Palpatine can. "I'm not leaving you behind for no reason," he states firmly, opening the Chancellor's restraints and grabbing his arms so he doesn't fall.
"You go first then," Anakin says, glancing at Dooku. The Count is still standing there, watching them with amusement flickering in his brown eyes. He thinks this is amusing for some reason, and Anakin isn't sure why.
Obi-Wan nods, leaping from the side of the chair where they've braced themselves, reaching out towards the railing which he can grab onto for support. Anakin pushes him with the Force, and he catches it, swinging over and jumping through the turbolift entrance. He nods once, a signal that he's ready. Heart pounding, Anakin turns to Palpatine. "Your Excellency, I'm going to use the Force to lift you to Obi-Wan," he tells him.
To Palpatine's credit, he doesn't look – or feel – scared, simply nodding though his apprehension is palpable in the Force. Anakin lifts him with the Force, pushing him through the air towards his former master. Obi-Wan grabs him halfway, and together, they lift him to safety. At that moment, Dooku leaps upwards, moving towards the pair and Anakin panics. There's no room for them to fight there, not without serious risk of injury, especially to the Chancellor. He doesn't even think, he just acts, leaping down towards Dooku and bodily tackling him to the wall which has now become the floor.
"Go!" he yells to Obi-Wan before igniting his lightsaber and attacking the Count. It'll probably be suicidal – the Force's hum of warning is increasing steadily to a crescendo – but he won't let them get hurt.
Their blades crash repeatedly, and Anakin forces himself to throw every shred of concentration into the duel. He won't let Dooku kill him. The Force screams around him as the Invisible Hand crashes into the surface of Coruscant, ripping into a mass of fire and debris. The viewport behind – beside? – them shatters and the walls seem to buckle as an inferno sweeps through the room in the wake of a violent explosion.
Anakin is thrown sideways, colliding with something – or many somethings – head slamming into the floor – or whatever – hard enough for him to see stars. His last conscious thought is that he probably won't survive this before darkness swallows him.
**w**
When Obi-Wan opens his eyes again, he's met with the familiar sight of the Halls of Healing in the Jedi Temple. He's been here so many times throughout his life that he could probably recognize the place by the sounds alone. Slowly, bits and pieces of memory come back to him. After Anakin had tackled Dooku – he's going to give him a serious lecture for that momentarily – he had run down the now horizonal turboshaft with the Chancellor, hoping to get to safety before it was too late. Then, the ship had crashed, and he'd been knocked unconscious.
"You're awake," states Vokara Che, one of the healers, looking down at him. She's frowning, an unimpressed look on her face, but he thinks he can sense something more like sorrow hidden just beneath the surface. She looks at a few machines nearby, glancing at whatever is displayed there. "No serious injuries," she informs him after a moment, "Except a piece of metal which was lodged in your right arm during the crash."
Obi-Wan vaguely remembers feeling a sharp pain in his arm before he'd been knocked unconscious. "Can I leave then?" he questions.
She huffs but nods. "Take it easy though," she cautions. "You don't need to strain yourself. You've been through something traumatic already. You're lucky you weren't injured more seriously."
"The Chancellor?" he queries. "What happened to him? And Anakin?" Slowly, he sits off, blinking away some lingering dizziness.
"The Chancellor is safe thanks to you," Che tells him. "The Invisible Hand caused immense damage when it crashed, and injuries are thought to be in the tens of thousands. At least a thousand people were killed on impact, but it could have been much worse had it happened in a more populated area."
Obi-Wan winces at the thought. So much death and destruction, and for what? "Anakin?" he remembers. "Is he alright? And did we capture or kill Dooku or Grievous?"
"One of Grievous' limbs was found, burned almost beyond recognition, so we're under the assumption that he's dead," Che informs him. She hesitates again, and Obi-Wan feels his heart drop into his stomach, a cold wave of dread washing over him. "Dooku was not found, so we believe he may still be alive, but it's unlikely. He was probably killed during the explosion along with Skywalker. I think the only reason you and the Chancellor survived is because the turboshaft shielded you from the worst of the explosion." Her eyes are filled with sorrow and sympathy. "I'm sorry, Obi-Wan."
No. No. He refuses to believe that Anakin could die like that, in a simple accidental ship crash, when he's survived far worse odds. "Can I leave?" he asks numbly, unable to fully process or accept what she's saying. He doesn't want to be here when the reality finally crashes down on him, and he doesn't want to admit that she's probably right.
The healer frowns, but nods. "Yes," she concedes, albeit a bit reluctantly, "You are free to go."
He leaves, stopping only long enough to change into his regular robes and take his lightsaber with him. Obi-Wan isn't exactly sure how it made it through the chaos, but it did. Your lightsaber is your life. He doesn't want to even think about that phrase right now; he's told it to Anakin far too many times.
When he reaches his apartment – the one which Anakin still shares with him sometimes, because he'd never fully moved out – the overwhelming presence of Anakin hits him. The place is full of echoes, his former padawan's Force signature giving it a feeling of home. And now, everything is in chaos. Obi-Wan inhales slowly, hesitantly reaching out to his bond with Anakin. It's empty. It's as if it's devoid of life, as if it leads to nothingness. A strangled cry rises in his throat, but he holds it back, dropping onto the couch.
A distant part of his mind recognizes that he's shaking, that he's about to slip into an all-out panic attack, but he doesn't care. He can no longer feel that bright presence which shines like the sun. It's gone. Anakin is... Obi-Wan can't bring himself to finish the thought. It's wrong. It's so very wrong. The bond isn't fragmented like the remnants of the one he'd shared with Qui-Gon. Maybe it's because his master had died slowly. Anakin's death had probably – hopefully – been abrupt, severing the bond instantly.
Grief is a difficult emotion, one which Obi-Wan has dealt with numerous times throughout his life, but never has he felt something as acute as this. Nothing, nothing could hurt worse than this, than the knowledge that Anakin is dead. It's wrong. For some inexplicable reason, Obi-Wan has always thought that he would die before Anakin. He is older, after all. And more than that, he simply cannot imagine a life without his – his brother. Did he know? he wonders. Did you know how much I love you, how attached I am to you?
It's inconceivable that he has to find a way to put together something, anything, which doesn't also include Anakin. War is brutal, cruel, relentless. But never, never did Obi-Wan imagine that he might have to mourn Anakin in such a manner. He'd always thought that should Anakin die, it would be in defense of his men and all the others who are on a battlefield, likely including himself; he'd hoped that he'd be given the ability to be there in Anakin's last moments should the war claim him as another casualty. Never did he think that Anakin could die in a crash, any kind of crash, whether he was flying the ship or not.
Obi-Wan feels as if he might drown in his grief. He and Anakin were connected from the very beginning, their lives irrevocably entwined with one another. A part of him has always known, always accepted that they would always exist in reference to each other, that they could never be truly separated without both of them being destroyed.
That's what it feels like. It's as if his heart has been crushed into dust and broken beyond repair. Anakin has been the center of his world for years. He raised him like his own son, loved him like a brother. He had glowed like a sun in the Force, and Obi-Wan has taken comfort from his Force signature on many occasions; never has he had a stronger bond, and part of him is surprised that it didn't damage his mind when it was severed. Maybe it's a good thing he was unconscious so he didn't have to feel that loss, feel Anakin's pain as he died, but... no, that would be selfish. He wishes he did feel it. Even though it would have hurt, at least Anakin wouldn't have been alone.
He doesn't immediately realize that he's crying until the first tears drip from his face. What does he do now? What can he even do, except try to find a way to heal, impossible though it is? He can live for Anakin, do what his former Padawan would have wanted, and live the rest of his life by those values. And he has to go see Padme. The news of Anakin's death hasn't been released to the public yet, so she probably doesn't know. Obi-Wan doesn't know exactly how close they were, but she deserves the truth. Ahsoka too, whenever she contacts them next.
But that can wait. Now, it's his time to mourn, surrounded by the lingering presence of Anakin, knowing that nothing in his life will ever be the same – or as happy – again.
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