Anakin was aware of the Resolute.

He was also, of course, aware of the turn of the galaxy, the deep-river flow of the Unifying Force, and something far away that felt very... wrong. But the Resolute and its many crewmembers was the first specific, smaller thing he could pinpoint. It felt like there were ants crawling over his skin and all of them were having a lot of very loud emotions, and in general was unpleasant and overwhelming.

He wished he could go back to not being aware of the Resolute.

A minor suspicion, though, had surfaced as well. Anakin was pretty sure there was something he was supposed to be doing right now. Somebody who needed him. Was it Ahsoka?

No... Ahsoka was nearby and she was kind of upset, but he could tell that she was safe. As a matter of fact, she was probably one of the ants. He wondered if he could ask her emotions to be quieter.

She didn't really need him, so Anakin looked for other bonds. He checked on Rex, who was fine although distracted. Master Windu was somewhere far away, tired and annoyed, but that was all. There was another bond, old and inert, that he ran over and over anxiously, like worrying the space where a lost tooth had been. Why couldn't he find Obi-Wan?

Obi-Wan.

Suddenly, Anakin's awareness shrunk. He knew what he needed to be doing, and the Resolute's crew no longer felt like shouting ants. He was here, and Ahsoka was here, and for some reason he was laying on a table—

"Whoa, slow down, Master."

Abstractly, Anakin became aware that he was dizzy. He was fine, though. The dizziness was too distant to really impact him.

"Uh, no, you're not fine," said Ahsoka. "You're totally out of it. A minute ago you were ranting about ants."

The ants. "They were so loud," Anakin heard himself say. They were quieter now that Anakin's consciousness had narrowed down to just his immediate surroundings. That was good.

"Exactly." Ahsoka was thinking about explosions, for some reason. "Now — how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Three," said Anakin, plucking the answer instantly from her mind.

Wry irritation leaked into the Force. "Use your eyes, Master."

Eyes, Anakin thought. Right. He needed to inhabit his body.

Falling back on the memory of long-ago guided meditations, he tried step one: breathing. His body, assuming it was alive, should be breathing. If he could find that function, that feeling, he could get back there. Focusing on this room and the immediate moment, he looked for that measured in-out rhythm, the unconscious pulse of individual, minuscule life that was Anakin Skywalker — distinct from the Universal and Living Force.

He found Ahsoka's breathing first, and then he found himself. There were his lungs, and his heart, and his brain; Anakin concentrated hard and felt his chest rise and fall, the wind of an exhale passing out of his mouth. There was a medical bed beneath him, and it was cold where his hands gripped under the metal edge. He was very dizzy.

Anakin opened his eyes.

Ahsoka was standing there, watching him with a careful wince. She held up both hands, one with two fingers raised and the other with only one. Anakin blinked. "Three," he said deliberately.

"Are you really there?" Ahsoka waved a hand in front of his eyes, like he was blind or something.

"Yeah," said Anakin. He felt like his body wasn't exactly his own; he was floating somewhere else — everywhere else, almost — and his body was sitting there all on its own like a dead lump. But he was looking out of his own eyes, which seemed like it was helping with the dizziness, and aware of himself as a singular human being. "Mostly."

Ahsoka didn't look totally convinced, but he felt her relief. "Can you lift your arms?"

Anakin did.

"Wiggle your fingers?"

Doubtfully, Anakin looked at his hand. His fingers were tiny. Moving them individually seemed a little unrealistic.

"Okay, we'll table that one for now," said Ahsoka, sighing.

Glad that Ahsoka seemed willing to move past such pointless details, Anakin turned to a more important subject. "Where is Obi-Wan?"

"Obi-Wan Kenobi?" Ahsoka hesitated, frowning. In the Force, dread pooled around her like ink-stains. "Master—"

Behind her, a door hissed open and Commander Neo stepped into the room. He wasn't preoccupied, not like Ahsoka was. Maybe now Anakin would get someone to finally talk sense to him.

"General Skywalker, I'm glad to see you're awake," said Neo. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," said Anakin. "Not dizzy anymore."

"Commander, I'm really worried. He's incoherent. He just asked me where someone is, but that person has been dead for years. Does he have some kind of amnesia?"

Something about Ahsoka's question was really funny, but Anakin couldn't quite pinpoint what.

Neo nodded at Ahsoka, acknowledging her, but continued addressing Anakin directly. "Do you remember what happened just before you ended up in the medbay, General?"

After thinking for a minute, Anakin said, "I won."

Standing near Anakin's table, Neo lifted his wrist and held it for a minute. Then he took Anakin's face in his hands and looked carefully at both his eyes. "You won what?"

"The race," said Anakin. "I got my asteroid before Ahsoka."

Raising an eyebrow, Neo looked over his shoulder at Ahsoka. She crossed her arms and aimed a narrow-eyed glare at Anakin.

"Do you know why you're in medbay, General?"

Anakin did not. As far as he could tell, his body was in perfect working order. Even his fingers were feeling easier to use at this point. "Gonna have to say no to that one."

"From what I've been told, one of the asteroids exploded, and you contained the explosion somehow with the power of the Force. You were catatonic afterward from the time we picked you up until now — about half an hour. I don't claim to know anything about how the Force works, General, but does that seem normal to you?"

No! Ahsoka was thinking, as loud and distinct as a shout.

Taking a purposeful, deep breath, Anakin tried to explain. "I blew out. Happens sometimes. Overreach. Dangerous, but. I couldn't let the asteroid blow."

"You've experienced this before?"

Anakin nodded. Blowing out too far at once used to happen a lot, back when Obi-Wan had first taught him to open himself to the Force. That was part of the reason he'd developed an early hatred for meditation. Control was hard. Drowning was easy.

"Well, all your vital signs are normal. There's no sign of concussion or any physical trauma. This is really above my pay grade, General. I recommend you see a Jedi Healer next time one is available, but for now I'm keeping you here for observation at least until your full motor functions return. Take time to rest," said Neo. "How's your nutrition, General?"

"Bad."

Neo actually smiled — briefly, but it was there. "That's what I thought. Let's take care of that, also. Rest, and eat. I'll send someone in to check on you periodically, but comm me if anything changes."

Neo, Anakin reflected, was a good and useful man.

Before leaving, he told Ahsoka, "As far as I can tell, he's physically fine, Commander. His memory is intact, and he should start showing increased alertness and mobility over the next several minutes. If not, comm me."

Ahsoka agreed, but wasn't totally satisfied. When Neo left, a clone medic came in and hooked Anakin up with some IV fluids and gave him a nutrient-packed drink with instructions to finish all of it. He didn't really feel like eating, but it wasn't hard — the most difficult part was not dropping the cup. "How long until we get back?" Anakin asked in between swallows.

"We're already back above Centares. My asteroid was destroyed, obviously, but your techs got all the data from yours. It'll take time to analyze, but I doubt we're going to wait around."

She was right. This whole Centares mission had only been made possible by a strange lull in the Separatist offensive. They would have a new priority assignment soon, if they hadn't been assigned one already. Anakin had a lot of things to do and limited time. "You? The men?"

It was an unclear question, but Ahsoka understood him. "Everyone's fine. Not even a scratch."

Good. They needed to talk about Ahsoka's slow response to his orders, though. In the field, they couldn't afford to have an argument every time she received an order she didn't understand. "Debrief," he said, but Ahsoka's facial markings lifted doubtfully.

"Why don't we wait to do that until you can speak in full sentences."

"I can speak in full sentences," Anakin said. "Case in point."

"Look, maybe Neo hasn't heard of psychic shock, but I have." Ahsoka sighed. "Master... do you even know what you did?"

"Protected you."

Pressing her mouth into a line, Ahsoka smiled tightly. "That's for sure. You crushed an entire exploding asteroid with the Force, Master."

"I had to keep it small. If it exploded, there would have been too much death," Anakin repeated, not sure why this concept was so confusing for everyone.

"Yeah, I get that — but how? We were above the surface, not even a mile, and it was like the whole asteroid just turned molten. It just imploded into fire or something, like it was trapped in the bubble of some invisible ray-shield. And then when the fire went out there was just a crushed cluster of broken rock. I've never even heard of anything like that before. You held back fire? And something so big?"

"The Force is infinite, but you're right. I can't explain." Even on his best days, Anakin was only marginally capable of tackling detailed discussions on Force theory. He had just known what he had to do, and then he had done it. "Maybe it would be better to talk about it later," he admitted.

"Okay," said Ahsoka. "Did you finish the drink?"

When Anakin nodded, she pulled a nutribar from a pouch on her belt and waved it in front of his face. "Here. Eat this next." When he was slow to move, she grabbed his hand and closed it around the bar herself. "Eat it! You just expended a basically impossible amount of energy. There's no way that one nutri-shake was enough."

"I did it, though. So it can't be impossible."

She ignored him. "Master Vokara Che says that nutrition is incredibly important. You have to eat, or the Force will eat you."

Anakin squinted at her. "Master Che said the Force eats people?"

"Well, no. I mean, not exactly in those words. But that's basically what she meant." Crossing her arms, Ahsoka added, "You're not eating."

The nutribar was still in Anakin's hand. With intense concentration, he moved his fingers to rip open the packaging. His body was responding pretty well now, but these things were sometimes hard to open even normally.

"Is this one of your bars?" Being from a carnivorous species, Ahsoka needed a nutrition balance slightly different from that of a human. Hers were also, somehow, even grosser than normal nutribars.

"No."

"It's one of ours? Why are you carrying around human nutribars?"

"For Master Plo, obviously," said Ahsoka. When Anakin just looked at her in blank confusion, she rolled her eyes. "For you, Skyguy. Why else? Rex doesn't forget to eat."

"Rex is a soldier. They specialize in boring stuff like discipline," Anakin said. He finally got the packaging fully torn off, and Ahsoka took it from him and crumpled it up into the trash chute. Much better. Anakin lifted the bar to his mouth and took a bite. Easy.

"So if discipline is too boring, what is it you specialize in, then?"

Pondering the question, Anakin finally said, "Miracles."

"Oh my stars." Ahsoka pressed a thumb and finger into her closed eyelids, hard. That looked like it hurt, Anakin reflected. "Okay, you can shut up and eat your nutribar."

"Thanks."

Anakin finished the bar quickly. It would have been better to have eaten it earlier, when most of his senses were still offline but, unfortunately, he could taste just fine at this point. Ahsoka stepped closer, leaning up against the table and watching him; her thoughts and feelings didn't jump out at him quite as clearly as they had minutes ago, but she seemed more peaceful than before.

After a minute, Ahsoka asked in a tone that made it clear she was inquiring against her better judgment, "So... why exactly did you have to launch yourself into space?"

"Fewer distractions. That explosion was huge, and it took a lot of concentration to control it. Plus, I had no idea how it was going to turn out. It wouldn't be too smart to do something unpredictable and dangerous right next to my squads and our own pockets of explosive gas." Anakin had been flexing his hands, shaking out his arms, and rolling his shoulders as he spoke. "I'm going to stand up now," he announced.

"Good luck."

Standing, it turned out, was not that hard either. Ahsoka seemed a little disappointed when Anakin's legs held him just fine. A slight expansion of their bond told him that it was partially not getting to see him fall down, which would have been funny. But it was more that she dreaded having to try and keep him in the medbay now that he was ambulatory. Both valid thoughts, honestly.

Wincing, Ahsoka sharply pushed back at him in the Force. "Stop, please."

Anakin withdrew, hurt. Why didn't she just close off the bond if she wanted to avoid him?

"I can tell you're feeling better because you're not filling the whole room anymore," explained Ahsoka. "But you're still being way too strong."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's okay. I know you can't control it. Just be gentle until you feel more normal."

Experimentally, Anakin walked a narrow half-circle beside his bed, careful of the IV line that more or less tethered him. He already felt pretty normal, but apparently couldn't trust his own perception if Ahsoka was to be believed. "I assume you reported in to Master Plo?"

"Of course. He said the ministers would certainly be relieved to hear the details of our success."

Ahsoka smirked, but Anakin was too distracted to smirk back. He kept pacing; it was good practice for his legs. They still badly needed to debrief, but that would have to wait. He needed to get down to the planet. "I want to talk to him. Where's my comm?" Another thought struck Anakin, and he froze. He was only wearing his pants and an undershirt, so— "Where's the rest of my stuff?"

"I don't know. I'm sure it's nearby."

"Where?" Ahsoka was watching him carefully, as if he were a rabid nexu on the end of a chain, and Anakin rolled his eyes. "I promise to stay here if you'll go find me the electronic reader I had in my utility belt."

"This sounds like an agreement I would be foolish to enter into."

Shaking his head at her, Anakin said, "It grieves me to see how cynical you've become at such an early age, Padawan."

"I'm merely trusting my instincts as a Jedi should, Master."

"Then perhaps your sharp instincts could lead you to my utility belt?" When her only response was a flat stare, Anakin sighed and reached for the tube in his arm, "All right, I guess I can do it myself. I'll just have to remove this IV for a minute..."

"Fine!" Ahsoka growled softly and jabbed a threatening finger into his ribs. "You better still be here when I get back."

"And if you could also get me my boots, a tunic, and my 'saber, that would be great."

"You know what? I've changed my mind," intoned Ahsoka as she theatrically slapped the door pad. "I liked it better when you couldn't speak full sentences."

Anakin grinned, and then sat down on the bed to think.

There was a lot to tackle in the next short while, but before everything else: Obi-Wan.

It was time to get his master back. That slave implant had to come out. Irenia was a doctor. She would do it. With Obi-Wan's memory restored, they would fly back to the Temple together, and Anakin would finally be able to tell Obi-Wan everything he had stored up — that he was sorry for their fights, for every unfair and ungrateful thing he'd ever said.

That he was so, so sorry for leaving him on Jabiim.

Anakin had so many questions to ask, too, about training a padawan. He had asked Master Windu some of them, of course, and had plenty of other people he could get advice from, but it wasn't the same as being able to ask your own master. Anakin had missed Obi-Wan's perspective sorely, and couldn't wait to introduce him to Ahsoka. They would like each other, he was sure.

He had kept so many secrets, last time. This time, he wanted to be totally honest with Obi-Wan. Anakin had been mostly honest with Master Windu since Jabiim, but he had still lied about one thing — Padme. Even that, he knew he would need to tell Obi-Wan. He couldn't really imagine Obi-Wan taking it well, but hopefully he would be able to see how hard Anakin had worked to be better. Hopefully he would be able to see all the progress Anakin had made.

Anakin hoped, in the hidden, fragile part of his heart that still belonged to a little boy from the desert, that Obi-Wan would be proud of him.

First, he had to get back down to Muracie, and Obi-Wan's little house, and for that he would need to be in better shape than he was now. His body was functional, but Ahsoka said his Force touch was still off, and Anakin could tell that he was a little laggy mentally. The fog that blurred his perceptions and made his thoughts thick and slow was a familiar one: exhaustion.

By now he had been awake for over forty-eight hours, and it was pretty clear that expending all that Force energy on the asteroid had blown through whatever reserves he had left. Nothing but a full night's sleep was going to get Anakin back to fighting fit, but he couldn't afford to sleep now. At the same time, though, he couldn't afford to be dragging when he went to get Obi-Wan.

When the door hissed open and Ahsoka reappeared, Anakin straightened up. He hadn't sensed her before she came in the door — a good sign that his perceptions were no longer hyperextended. Rex stepped through after her, and he was carrying Anakin's belongings.

"I distinctly remember sending Ahsoka to get those. Not that you don't make a top-notch valet, Rex."

"I don't know what that is," said Rex, setting the small pile of things on the bed beside Anakin and saluting casually. "Good to see you're up and about, General."

"You too. None of us were vaporized — I call that a good morning."

"Not exactly a 'quick day trip,' though. Your display was... impressive."

In the middle of putting on his boots, Anakin narrowed his eyes at Rex. The captain's face was completely serious, but his steady Force presence was shot through with bright sparks of irony. "Did you come by to talk about my display?"

"I thought you might want a report on the mission outcome."

Anakin couldn't put on his tunic without dislodging the IV drip, so he didn't. Exchanging a look with Rex, he said, "Ahsoka, would you go get Neo for me?"

Crossing her arms, Ahsoka didn't move until he made a pointed gesture at the door. Then she only went under protest, saying with asperity, "You think you're so subtle, but you're not."

Once she was gone, Anakin raised his eyebrows. "Concerns?"

"A few," said Rex.

"About me, or Ahsoka?" If it were one of the men or something else, Rex would have brought up the topic explicitly.

"Little of both, sir."

"Let's see if I can guess. Distraction, shoddy prep, poor oversight of the mission as a whole... that's all I've got for me. Is there something I should know about Ahsoka, beyond what went down on the comm?"

Rex smiled crookedly. "That's most of it. Our initial briefing indicated that there could be no retreat once we had committed to the assault. If retreat was an option, that should have been something we were made aware of earlier."

Extreme, emergency Force exploits couldn't really be included in a briefing, but Anakin knew what Rex was saying. It was due to Anakin's energies being much more divided than usual that he hadn't put more time into mission preparation beforehand, or kept a closer eye on Ahsoka's progress. He nodded. "You're right. I am distracted, and it was a problem. There's something going on that I can't talk about yet, but it'll be over by the time we leave Centares. You, me, and Ahsoka will definitely have a talk later."

"Yes, sir."

"Also, I want a commendation given to that new tech, Zero, and one to Attie," Anakin added thoughtfully.

"The tech I know about from Attie's report, but why Attie himself?"

"It was his quick thinking that had Zero working on the self-destruct instead of the data in the first place. The original orders indicated that the data was to be extracted as soon as the databanks were discovered, and he had no time to ask for order change or clarification in the moment. They both saved all our lives."

Rex nodded. "I'll make sure it gets done."

"Thank you. What do you know about our immediate plans, Rex? Are we deploying?"

"Yes sir, departure should be soon. Commander Wolffe actually commed a few minutes ago — General Koon has received orders to take the fleet to the Prackla Sector. I'll be heading down after this to coordinate the mobilization."

If it weren't for Obi-Wan, Anakin would have said, Finally. They should have been taking aggressive advantage of this rare break in the Separatist offensive a week ago; they had lost a devastating amount of Mid Rim territory lately, and the fact that the Separatist attack had faltered on its own was nothing short of a gift from the Force. Now was the best opportunity they might ever get to strike back. However, mobilization would take several hours, and Anakin would need longer than that.

He was relieved to find the OEI scanner still safely in his utility belt, and that it hadn't sustained any damage during the action. "I'll—" he began, but Ahsoka walked into the room with Neo, and Anakin pivoted to include her in what he'd been about to say. "Snips, you and Rex will handle mobilization?"

"Of course," said Ahsoka. "You need to rest."

"About that... Neo, I need this IV unplugged."

Neo barely reacted. "Going somewhere, General?"

"Yes, I have to return to the planet."

"Your secret project." Ahsoka's tone was one of tested patience, though Anakin didn't think there was call to sound quite so much like a long-suffering creche master.

"I'll be available on comm, in the event that departure time is approaching." This was not a discussion, and Anakin was not asking permission to leave the medbay. But there was one thing that he might have to actually ask for. Taking a breath, he quickly said, "And I need a stim shot."

At this, Neo raised his eyebrows. "I can't recommend you returning to duty at all, General. I absolutely cannot recommend you doing it under the power of stimulant drugs."

Concern spiking in her Force presence, Ahsoka said, "We're not in battle, Master."

Anakin shook his head. Stim shots were a tool for the field, when an immediate, short-term infusion of energy was the difference between life and death to a weary soldier. Used too much, they could be dangerous and addictive. Jedi hardly ever used them, since normally they were able to draw on the Force to defeat their bodies' limitations.

That wasn't an option for Anakin at the moment.

Give me the kriffing shot, Neo, he wanted to say, but while Anakin outranked him, as chief medical officer, Neo had authority over his patients' treatment. He could allow or withhold as he thought best, and Anakin couldn't technically overrule him.

"I know I need to rest, and I intend to rest," he said, wishing that for once he had a fraction of Padme's or Obi-Wan's skill in persuasion. "I know a stim shot is not a substitute for healing. But I urgently need to function for the next several hours, that's all, and that's what stim shots are for. This is something I need to do."

Neo didn't look moved. Ahsoka sighed, plainly waiting for Neo's inevitable refusal — give an exhausted, mentally unstable man likely suffering from psychic shock a stim shot when there was no desperate need for one? Ridiculous. But then Neo's eyes fell to the OEI scanner Anakin still held in his hand. He looked at Anakin, and then back at the scanner.

"One shot," said Neo. "Know that you will crash hard afterward, in proportion to your current fatigue, and it will likely delay your actual recovery."

Ahsoka turned to Neo, eyes wide and appalled. As he stepped forward to remove the IV tube from Anakin's arm, she watched him, gaze quickly turning contemplative. Anakin suspected that she realized Neo must know something she didn't.

Finally free, Anakin stood up and pulled on his tunic. With the OEI mapper safely stowed in his belt and his lightsaber hung on its clip, he felt more balanced than he had since he'd returned from the disembodied Force. Neo left and returned with a hypospray stim shot in its auto-injector case; Anakin pushed up his sleeve to offer his arm, but Neo only handed the shot over to him.

They were made to be easily self-administered on the battlefield, so Anakin stabbed himself without hesitation. Seconds after he'd depressed the trigger button and felt the needle pierce his skin, a warm lightning glow burned through his body. Anakin blinked. He didn't vibrate with hyper energy, like he'd half expected — instead, it was as though a film of corrosion he hadn't even noticed had been cleaned away.

Everything was clearer, brighter, more obvious, and the world seemed to have slowed down just a few fractions of a second. His thoughts were sharp, and he knew without trying that his muscles would respond to his will instantly and effortlessly. Taking the discharged injector case, now a useless hunk of plasticast, Anakin threw it across the room.

All three of them watched the injector case ricochet off the edge of a table and directly into the garbage chute.

"Wow." Anakin rolled his shoulders experimentally. "That's, uh. Effective."

"Yes," said Rex, in the tone of one who knew.

"How long 'till this wears off?"

Neo shrugged. "Up to four hours, but standard-issue stim shots are calibrated for our metabolism, not yours. I would imagine, given your use of the Force, that you might burn through it faster."

"Okay."

"Also — eat."

Anakin frowned. "I already did."

"Eat more," said Neo.

Anakin looked at Ahsoka. With a perfect, innocent smile, she pulled two more nutribars from her belt and shook them in his direction. Reluctantly, he accepted them, opening one right away. Might as well get it over with.

"Well?" he said, grimly munching. "I only have a couple hours left before I collapse, right? Don't we all have somewhere to be?"

There were distinct tinges of humor flavoring the Force, but Anakin couldn't quite tell where they were coming from. "Absolutely, General," said Rex, sharing a look with Ahsoka.

Ahsoka just sighed.