Chaos. It's a noun defined by complete disorder and confusion. It's also formless, sometimes dark, sometimes feisty, often carrying a negative tone, always causing confusion, sometimes causing insanity, and truly puzzling. It doesn't belong.
Anakin looks at darkness and he thinks, chaos. There is no rhyme or reason to darkness, no purpose for its existence except to give the light something to fight against, and he wonders where it comes from. It's the quiet moments, he muses, smirking a little. No one notices. The battle had been fierce and their makeshift med-bay is bubbling with activity. Apprentice healers (just three because that's all the Temple could spare to send with them) are busying themselves with about two dozen injured clones and one Jedi master barely clinging to life.
Anakin watches the Jedi's face, outwardly impassive, inwardly terrified. Obi-wan can't die. Not yet, not now, and certainly not at the hands of battle droids. Obi-wan is too good for such a mundane death.
He deserves better, he thinks. It should be a duel. The duel. This man deserves nothing less than a glorious death, so why not the death that ends all wars? A noble sacrifice. Anakin is certain that this war will not be decided by sprawling battles or political debates. It is dark versus light. Jedi versus Sith.
And the Jedi will win.
Obi-wan's breaths are coming in ragged gasps. He hears one healer mutter something about broken ribs, punctured lungs, and blaster bolts and he decides he can't watch. The inner workings of his durasteel arm groan as he pushes off from the makeshift table, rising to leave the shelter of the rickety structure. Perhaps he should do something about that. Grease it or something… "Master Skywalker!"
Turning, his eyes lock with the dark, anxious gaze of a woman at least six years his junior, still a teenager. He doesn't answer, merely holds her gaze.
"It – he's – you need to stabilize him. I'm not st-strong enough," she stammers.
He's watched her work since he arrives and knows she's not lying. A few more years, and she'll make a fine healer indeed, but right now she's not enough. Not enough for his master. Not enough.
Anakin grits his teeth and brushes back past her without a word. Chaos. Obi-wan is in a cold sweat now, struggling for every breath, gray-blue eyes clenched tight with pain, barely holding on.
Because of battle droids. Even as he places a hand on his master's chest, his mind wanders again. There is no point, no purpose, he decides. There is no point to darkness and yet it continues to rear its ugly head and wreak havoc on the people he loves. What can I do with something that can't be beat?
A pulse of warmth leaves his hand and shoves its way into the older man's chest, right above the lungs. Anakin isn't really sure what to do except to try and shift the bones away from the lungs, even out of the lungs. He knows that's not the best thing to do, but what else can he do? Obi-wan can't breathe, for Force's sake! "What should I do?!" he hears himself say, and he truly does sound terrified. Panicked, even.
The healer is at his side, both of her hands reaching to match his. "Stabilize his heart, slow the blood flow," she says, voice calm despite the anxious waves rolling off of her. "Don't touch the bones. I'll deal with those. Take care of his heart."
His heart. Take care of Obi-wan's heart. Why is this happening? Why Obi-wan?
Struggling to calm himself, Anakin gently wraps Obi-wan's heart in a cocoon and slows its frantic rhythm just a touch. He can almost see the cautious shifting of bones as the healer works. When she lets out a startled gasp, Anakin loses focus and his master's heart resumes its rushed cadence. "What happened?" he demands, turning to fix her with a dark, accusing gaze.
She doesn't look at him, but is staring at Obi-wan's chest in shock. "I – I – I missed," she stutters, seemingly frozen. In seconds, she's turned and is calling for another of the healers.
Obi-wan is gasping, gagging on what can only be his own blood, and Anakin is helpless. He's dying. He'll be gone, just like my mother, and I can do nothing. He backs away from the scene and leans heavily against the same table he had been sitting on before. A second healer sprints over to Obi-wan and begins asking questions and barking directions.
There is no light in this place. No light in the universe. Just darkness. Chaos.
A flash of green and a startled cry jerk Anakin from his thoughts. Another man is shoving his way in between the two healers and bending over his master's ragged form. In this battered shelter, full of wounded soldiers, rank smells, and blood-crusted armor, the man's deep emerald robes stand out.
Life, Anakin immediately thinks. He blinks. Soft grass, tall trees, the Temple gardens… green is the color of life. He stands again, moved to action by the presence of this stranger. The two healers have gone silent and are concentrating on whatever the man is doing. Anakin draws closer and moves around to the other side so that he can see.
This new man, healer – Jedi? – is not doing anything different. His hand is on Obi-wan's chest and his dark eyes are focused on his master's face. His other hand reaches down to grasp the Jedi's hand in what appears to be a comforting gesture. It all looks no different from what the girl had been trying only moments earlier.
"Peace," the man whispers, smiling a little.
How can he smile? How can he stand there, watching my master die, and smile? Can't he see that there's nothing he can do?
Obi-wan stills. The sound of agonizing pain dissipates into the soft, even breaths of a man who is simply sleeping. Anakin blinks.
There had been no pulse in the Force, not even a hint of bones being shoved back into place. The man removes the hand from Obi-wan's chest, but his other hand is still grasping that of the wounded man. "He'll be fine," he announces, voice firm, but not unkind. It's a gentle reassurance.
"What did you do?" Anakin asks, unable to keep his astonishment in check.
And then the man turns, still holding on to Obi-wan's hand, and Anakin retreats a step. Only in Master Yoda has he ever been faced with such a look. There is age and youth, heaviness and humor, wisdom and joy, and an immense sorrow that Anakin finds all too familiar. And then the man smiles and Anakin feels something inside of himself break, shattering into millions of pieces.
He cries, turning away because it's silly, he thinks, for his own soldiers and the apprentice healers to see him vulnerable like this.
A hand grasps his shoulder, halting his retreat. It's firm, but gentle in a way that Anakin doesn't understand. "He will live," the stranger reassures him. "Death is not so strong an enemy as you believe, my friend."
Encouraging words, to be sure, but Anakin had seen it. Death had already claimed Obi-wan as one of its own, and only this man had torn his master out of its grasp. He dares to turn back and looks into the man's eyes one more time. The man doesn't look away from his searching stare. "What did you do?" Anakin asks again, though his voice still shudders with silent sobs that shake his strong frame every few seconds.
"I did my job, Master Jedi." Dark eyes stare into Anakin's soul for one heart-stopping moment before the man smiles again. "Now if you'll excuse me, there are others that need help."
Nodding hastily and stepping away to let the stranger (healer, not-Jedi…) pass, Anakin stutters, "Of-of course. Right. Sorry..." He watches the splash of color weave in and around tables and cots and pain-wracked men, occasionally stopping to offer assistance, before it (he… this stranger with life rubbed into his robes and sprouting from his hands) disappears from the tent.
Obi-wan.
Anakin rushes to his friend's side and smiles slightly when he catches the sound of soft snores cutting through the steady stream of more unpleasant sounds. He cannot bring himself to smile wider, because the ugly, garbled, hacking, choking, desperate attempt Obi-wan had made at breathing just minutes ago is still fresh in his memory.
Chaos… isn't permanent. He blinks, startled. Obi-wan is breathing like a healthy human is supposed to breathe, Anakin himself can breathe normally again as well (because his world is suddenly unshattered and mostly together), and things are okay.
Peace.
The opposite of chaos?
Anakin wonders at this (and now he's frowning), because peace is something that the Jedi lay claim to. But this peace, this permanent, very real peace… hadn't come from a Jedi. No Jedi healer, no Jedi master (because the master had been choking on his own blood on the table), no Jedi anything had brought about this sudden realization that everything is okay.
Anakin's gaze drifts towards the tent flap where that flash of green had last been spotted. He is still staring at it when Obi-wan begins to stir ten minutes later. "An'kin?" the older man mumbles sleepily.
Jerked from his thoughts, Anakin looks down and grins (even though he really wants to cry again, because…), "Master!"
Gray-blue eyes capture his and ginger brows furrow in confusion. "…yes?"
"You're okay." (… you should be dead.)