Anakin nearly drowned once.
It was shortly after he began his Jedi training and things between him and Obi-Wan were tense.
They went on a mission to Alderann, a planet with water and lakes just like Naboo. Like all their missions, things went sideways quickly, and Anakin ended up tackling a terrorist into a deep river in order to save Obi-Wan and a handful of Senators.
Neither the padawan nor the master had considered that Anakin didn't know how to swim until it was too late.
He still remembered the feeling of the cold current dragging him deeper and deeper as his lungs screamed for air. He also recalled it was the first time he ever realized just how much Obi-Wan truly cared about him when his master dragged him from the depths, resuscitated him, scolded him soundly for being so reckless and then fussed over him like a mother hen for the next three months. The older Jedi had demanded they be given a sabbatical from missions after that incident, focusing all their time instead on teaching Anakin to swim, fixing things in the temple's repair bays and bonding properly for the first time since they met.
Overcoming his fear of water with Obi-Wan's compassion and patience was what cemented Anakin's trust in his master and truly allowed him to start growing as a padawan learner.
Now, as he drowned in a new way, Anakin was like a child again and needed his master. He clung to him as though he were the only thing able to anchor him as his world fell apart around him.
"Padme-" He wept, rocking again with the force of reality and begging the universe to wake him up. He didn't dare beg The Force. Ever since the child, Leia, had kicked him in the shins he'd blocked himself off from it completely. He couldn't risk it. Not after seeing Obi-Wan nearly fall apart at the mere hint of his anger. Instead, he sank into himself with only Obi-Wan's presence to comfort him. "Padme. No...please…please…not Padme…and my home…they're all gone…please, they can't be all gone!"
Obi-Wan didn't speak. He just held him tightly and cried with him. The rawness and honesty was something they'd lost somewhere in his early teenage years, but right now Anakin drank it like someone dying of thirst.
"She died thinking I was a monster!" Anakin wailed bitterly at the thought, his heart breaking into a thousand pieces at the idea that his wonderful Padme was attacked by someone who she thought was him and that she died because of it.
"No. No she didn't" Obi-Wan's words were honest and true. "She believed in you until the end, Anakin. She insisted there was still good to be found in him."
That knowledge only broke him further, because of course his sweet, kind, merciful wife would have held out hope for the impossible.
"Ahsoka?" Anakin mumbled hoarsely after a long while. He leaned his head on Obi-Wan's shoulder now as they sat side by side against the wall. "You said she came back with Bo-Katan right before it all happened...hunting Maul on Mandalore. What happened to her?"
"I don't know." Obi-Wan sighed, weariness etching every line in his face. "I like to think she got out, but I also know she was on a Republic cruiser full of Clones when the order was given."
Anakin nodded grimly.
"She was a fighter and survivor. If anyone could have made it…it would be her." Obi-Wan said quietly. "She was your padawan after all."
"I should have followed her when she left the Jedi Order," Said Anakin flatly. "I should have given it up and lived the rest of my days at Padme's side."
"I should have done the same with Satine…yet here we are." Obi-Wan said, gently reminding Anakin that he knew all too well the grief he was experiencing. There was bleak comfort in it.
"I thought about it so often," Anakin rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand as he settled into a numb stage of his turmoil. "Stuck in that box. I promised myself when I got out that would be it. I'd stop Palpatine, then I would leave the Jedi. No more missions. No more trying to hold the galaxy together because of some prophecy. I wouldn't be The Chosen One, or the Hero Without Fear. I would just be Anakin. Padme and I would live together as we always dreamed. We would start a family on Naboo…she would have been a wonderful mother, and I would have put everything I had into being a good father. We would have had the perfect life."
Obi-Wan shifted uncomfortably, so subtly that Anakin nearly missed it.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. It's just, I'm still trying to pinpoint exactly when you went missing. If you don't recall meeting Clone Force 99, it had to have been somewhat early on in our last few months of the Clone Wars, during the Outer Rim Sieges."
"We'd just hit a Seperatist Outpost on Sullust," Anakin sighed, running his hand down his mechanical arm and poking at his fingers.
Exhaustion made his limbs feel like lead, but he had a feeling not even sleep would ease it. Grief didn't cure itself overnight. That morning before Sullust had been the last conversation he would ever have with Padme. He remembered she was looking tired and complaining of stomach upset, but when he pushed her to see a medical droid, she brushed it off as over working. They'd had a mild quarrel about it. He could tell she was hiding something from him. Something had been bothering her, and now he would never know what it was.
"That was three weeks before they sent in Clone Force 99 to aid us." Obi-Wan said, bring him back to the present.
"Hmm." Anakin winced as he tried to shift his long legs. "Just before we left to rejoin the fleet, as things were wrapping up, I sensed something. The Clones were occupied with setting up in the captured outpost, so-"
"So naturally you went to investigate your bad feeling without telling anyone. Not even Rex." Obi-Wan finished, looking at the ceiling as though it had some infinite wisdom for him when it came to dealing with him.
"I didn't realize how bad it was until I discovered the underground lab deep within a fissure in the planet's surface. By then it was too late."
"What did you find? What sort of lab?"
"Looked like a Kaminoian cloning facility mashed together with an ancient Sith temple." Anakin shuddered. "Palpatine was there. He was extremely surprised to see me, shaken even. I guess he hadn't had any foresight into the encounter. He tried to make up a half baked story about why he was there. When that didn't work, he started to try turning me to the Dark Side. His arguments were…almost compelling at first, twisted truths as they were. But he made a mistake. He tried to hint that Padme didn't matter, that I should forget my feelings for her because they made me weak. I guess he didn't realize we were more than just casual lovers and are- were- actually married. Then he told me that the Jedi all had to die in order to stay with her. By then I was clear headed enough to realize what was happening."
The medical droid came to hover over the pair for a moment, holding out a cup to Anakin and chirping at him sternly. Anakin obliged the little droid and nodded thanks to it.
"When I made it clear I wouldn't turn, he tortured me," Anakin drew a deep breath again and took a sip of the clear liquid. "I…I don't remember much after that. All I know is he thanked me for sticking my nose where it didn't belong and for being such a young fool. He said that it had given him the opportunity to seize a second chance at destroying the Jedi. The last thing I heard him say before…well, before it felt like my soul was ripped from my body and then stuffed back in again, was that I would follow him the next time. I guess he meant my clone…or whatever he is."
Obi-Wan sat quietly, next time him, arms folded in his robes, staring at his feet as he listened. Anakin could feel the turmoil rolling off the man in waves of pain and he fought down the nausea that came with it.
"What happened next." Obi-Wan prompted, voice tight and choked.
"I woke up in the same case you found me. Tubes running in and out of me." Anakin shuddered, closing his eyes at the memory and rubbing the raw marks on his arms. "He kept me and took a steady supply of tissues and bodily materials. I was like a living tissue donor. Something about the box weakened my connection to the force, blocked it off from me…I don't know how it worked, but I thought I would go mad in there when I woke up all alone. I think that's what Palpatine wanted. Two mindless slaves to do his biding."
"What kept you sane?" Obi-Wan whispered. Anakin could feel the tension in the man's shoulders growing.
"My Stars." Anakin answered instantly, a small smile lighting on his lips as the comfort of the thought brought him some sense of warmth even amidst the crushing pain in his heart. "I don't know how many days had passed. Whatever they were pumping me full of made me drift in and out of consciousness. Maybe it was months, but somewhere along the way The Force reached me again. It was weak, and distant, but like two beautiful pin pricks of light in the black sky. I felt The Force and suddenly I wasn't alone anymore. Those stars in the night, whatever they were, kept me sane. I grew stronger, slowly and my moments of consciousness grew more within my command. Time lost all meaning. I…hah…I didn't have much else to do but meditate, shocking as that sounds. Even with those tiny spots connecting me to The Force, I couldn't escape. I was too weak. So instead, I learned a great deal about The Force. About balance. About patience and serenity. After a while, I learned to put myself into deep healing trances while making it look like it was the drugs keeping me weak. And then I waited for the right moment."
"For someone to come…someone who was never coming." Obi-Wan murmured, guilt radiating around him as he ran a hand through his dirty hair. The man looked older than he was.
Anakin eyed him and tilted his head to the side. "No. I knew you were coming. I just didn't know when you were coming. But I knew you would."
"How?! How could you have known?" Obi-Wan turned on him suddenly, frustration and pain edging his words like a sword as his voice trembled. "I thought you were DEAD. I thought I KILLED you Anakin. I thought you had betrayed us all and-and I still don't know if this is some trick!"
Anakin shrugged, consciously trying to ease Obi-Wan's mood by saying lightly, "I just knew. I told you. I had a lot of time to meditate and learn through a mere trickle of The Force. For all I've been strong in The Force my whole life, I've never really understood like I do now. In a way I suppose I should thank Palpatine. Being weakened has made me stronger in the long run. I had no choice but to listen."
"What did you learn?" Obi-Wan asked almost hungrily.
"More than I can tell in one sitting, but I think the most important thing I learned was how to look at myself objectively and see things for what they are. In doing so, I learned the nature of Balance. Not in the sense of bringing Balance The Force as a whole, but deep within myself." Anakin closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, drinking in the warm shoulder next to him. "It's difficult to explain. Harder still to live by."
"Ironic that you should spend just over ten years meditating and I spent those years utterly abandoning my Jedi training."
"Does that mean I'm a master now?" Anakin asked dryly as he fought off another dense wave of grief. Reality kept crashing into him like a steady flow of waves. Somehow bantering with Obi-Wan was helping to ease the pain just a little. "Or am I still just a Master of Getting Caught."
Obi-Wan nearly laughed, instead he fidgeted with his hands again.
"I should have known Vader wasn't you. I should have come for you."
"Master…to be fair, my track record leaves much to be desired." Anakin's throat tightened up with bile as he thought of the times he'd gone too far, the times he'd acted on his arrogance, hate and suffering. They were things that would follow him to his grave and that he could never take back. "I absolutely have the potential to fall. I knew that after how close I came when Palpatine tempted me. I even knew it before then, though I didn't want to admit it. If he figured out the right buttons to press with the copy, I'm not surprised he turned."
"Then I failed you both." Obi-Wan whispered.
Anakin laughed humorlessly. "You don't get to take that blame. I made my own choices. You did your best and you were a great teacher despite your own flaws."
Obi-Wan stared at him almost incredulously.
"Are you sure you're Anakin? You sound too grown up and wise to be my Anakin."
"I hope so." Anakin said, showing a tiny smile. "I suppose ten years will change a man."
"I suppose it does." Obi-Wan murmured, reaching up unconsciously to rub at his right shoulder and arm.
"What happened?" Anakin asked. "I know you faced him once, but you feel raw…like it's more recent than ten years. Did you fight him again recently? Did he hurt you?"
"It's not important right now."
"Obi-Wan…"
"Please…please, I can't yet. Not yet. I will tell you eventually, but not yet."
Rage tried to rear up, screaming inside for justice. Vader, who or whatever he was, had tormented his master so badly that the man was shattered.
Not having the heart to press the matter, Anakin nodded.
"W-we'll be alright again…somehow." Obi-Wan said tiredly. "There's still hope…at least I have more hope now than I have in ten years."
Pain washed over Anakin fresh, and he closed his eyes, clinging to Obi-Wan's words.
"Yes. We will. Someday."
"General? I'm so sorry to disturb you, but it's Leia." Sully told them, flicking her eyes between each grief ridden man uncomfortably. "She's had a terrible nightmare and won't be consoled. Tala can't get her to calm down. She just says she wants you."
"Oh," Obi-Wan was rocking to his feet as though he'd been stung, flustered and seeming ashamed that he'd forgotten about the child. "I- Anakin-"
Anakin smiled weakly and made a shooing motion. "Go. I'll be alright. I'm long overdue for my meditation anyway, and the only way I'll get used to being so connected to the force again is to immerse in it. I can't block it out forever."
"You're sure you'll be alright-"
"Stop fussing over me, old man. I need some time alone to think. Please. Go look after that little gundark…she's been through a lot and I'm sure I didn't help things earlier."
Obi-Wan stared at him, his face working with emotion once more as he clearly debated something with himself, then he just nodded and left.