Author's Note: I'm sorry about this, but responding to each reviewer individually is starting to take up a lot of space and time, which I'm sometimes short of, so I'm not going to be able to do it every chapter. Thanks so much for reviewing, though! I'm so thrilled I have so many. And because I'm also too tired tonight to write individual replies, I'm just going to say--thank you all. I really appreciate it. It just makes my day to get reviews and to find out what you all think, and I'm not joking. I even have a life--really, I do!--and it still makes my day. The reviews are the reason this story keeps getting written.
So here we go
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The Flanneled One owns everything.
Sixteen
"I think we should check on Skywalker before you go after Onasi, Obi-Wan," Shian was saying.
I raised my head. I had been staring, unseeing, at a random spot on the floor, arms folded broodingly across my chest as I racked my brains for rational strategies as to how I was going to—confront, Kenobi, not punish—Onasi over what he'd done to Anakin. I wasn't having much success; my mind kept spiraling out of focus as I remembered Anakin's tormented face and red-hot rage welled up within me all over again, setting my teeth on edge. "Why?" I asked, managing somehow to keep my voice calm and steady.
Shian shifted uncomfortably and ran a hand back through her short, loose hair. "First of all, it'll give you some time to cool down and get . . . things back under control, General. I don't want you to end up doing something you'll regret."
I took a deep breath, frustrated at the proposed delay but all too aware of how right she was. "Yes," I said grudgingly. "You're right. Good plan." I ran a hand over my face, thinking. "Anakin came out of bacta earlier today, correct?" She nodded. "I'd like to talk to him about this Onasi, anyway," I added under my breath, the memory of Anakin shaking and teary and frantic rising in my mind again. I took a deep breath and tried to focus.
"You're not the only one," Padmé broke in. "You make sure Onasi's never going to do anything like that to Anakin ever again, Obi-Wan, understand?"
I gave her a quick smile. "Understood, Senator."
"Secondly," Shian continued, "I—wanted your opinion on something, Obi-Wan."
"Hmm?" I asked, meeting her eyes again.
"I don't understand it," she started, her mouth beginning to curve in a slight smile, "but it's amazing. I've never seen anything like it, even in the other Jedi I've tended over the course of this war—General Skywalker's condition has rapidly improved. I was worried about his lungs healing; they were scorched pretty badly and at first he didn't respond well to the bacta, but then it took this giant leap forward in effectiveness." Her voice was bemused, her expression bewildered, but her smile only widened. "I took him off the breather after his treatment this morning, while you were in meditation with Master Yoda, and he's breathing fine. And his overall condition is just a lot stronger—it's like he's slept naturally for a week straight, not just a few days drugged, and the shock of his injuries has eased quite a bit. I'm starting to think he'll make a fairly complete recovery."
"Really?" The word slipped out before I could help myself, and I could hear my voice trembling with suppressed emotion. I felt as if the bubble of hope that had lodged in my heart after my meditations with Yoda had suddenly swelled, buoying me upward and pulling me out from where I had fallen along with Anakin in the pits of Mustafar. "A complete recovery?"
Shian nodded. Padmé gave a low cry and covered her face with her hands as tears welled in her eyes and began to slip down her face.
"Padmé?" I asked worriedly, going immediately to her side. I rested my hand on her shoulder. "Padmé, are you all right? What's wrong?"
"I'm fine," she said, her voice shuddering and thick with tears. She sniffed and started wiping at her eyes. "I'm fine; I'm sorry. I'm just—I'm so relieved—I thought—I thought I'd—thought I might—lose him—"
I realized just how much of her brave words earlier had been for my benefit, and I felt my throat close up. "You're not going to lose him, Padmé," I promised recklessly. "We're not going to lose him."
"That's right," Padmé said shakily, and she smiled through her tears and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Go on, Obi-Wan," she said, and shoved me lightly away. "Go to Ani."
I nodded and stepped back from the bed. "I'll take care of him for you," I told her, and she smiled.
"I know you will," she replied. "That's how I got through the wars. Now go."
I went.
Shian followed me out into the hall. "I can see how she became a Senator," she remarked with a smile.
I nodded in agreement. "Padmé is very strong. Stronger, I think, than I sometimes."
Shian reached up and squeezed my shoulder. "I don't know about that," she said. "You're not doing so bad yourself, Obi-Wan."
I didn't know how to respond to that, or to the blush suddenly warming my cheeks. "Th-thank you," I said uncertainly.
She just smiled at me again and started down the corridor. I followed. "So he could have put himself in a healing trance?" she asked. "I've heard Jedi reference that skill before, and that's what I wanted to ask you about. Do you think that's how he healed so quickly?"
"I—I don't know." I ran a hand back through my hair as I considered it. "Healing trances have never been Anakin's strong suit, and drugged that heavily—" But then my mind returned to Qui-Gon, and I could feel a slight smile of understanding touch my lips. "On the other hand, it could very well have been one."
"Well," Shian said. "Whatever it was, it takes a huge weight off my mind, let me tell you." She turned a corner and started off down the next corridor. "He's really a lot more stable. I was afraid we were going to have to delay surgery for the prosthetics, but he should be ready on schedule—another day or so. It's a real relief." She looked back at me as she stopped by Anakin's door and began to key it open. "For you, too, I'm sure." She gave me another grin and this time I smiled shakily back.
"Indeed. That's . . . good news." It was all I manage at the moment.
"You are well-versed in understatement, Obi-Wan," Shian said with a laugh, and the door slid open. I followed her inside.
The sense of wrongness immediately hit me through the Force. The drugs had dulled and distorted it, but here in the same room with Anakin it churned nausea in the back of my throat, made me feel vaguely off-balance. My eyes focused on him at once, lying on his stomach at the side of the bed, the sheet twisted up around his torso and legs and his face buried in the crook of his one good arm. His still-bandaged shoulders were shaking and the fingers of that arm had clenched around the edge of the bed so tightly his knuckles were livid white and his muscles so taut with strain they stood out in sharp relief all the way up his arm to his shoulder.
Healer Risto glanced over at the monitor by his bedside that kept track of his vital signs, then skirted the bed at a pace so quick it was almost a run. As she did so, I heard a groan that hadn't come from Anakin and hurried forward to join her.
Aerdin Onasi was only now sitting up, holding a hand to the back of his head. It was the first time I had seen his hair disordered, and the thick dark locks fell onto his forward in unruly waves. The entire right side of his head was a swelling violet-dark bruise that looked as if would be absolutely awful in the morning, the worst bruises around his eye and ear and across his cheekbone where the skin was bruised so dark it was almost black.
I saw crimson. My hands were on his throat, slamming him into the wall, before I even realized what I was doing. "What did you do to him?" I demanded. My voice shook with fury. The rush of emotion made my hands tremble. "What the Force did you do to him?"
There was a small hand on my arm, drawing me back. I tried to shake it off, but Shian only tightened her hold. "Obi-Wan," she said. "Easy. Easy, General. This won't do us any good, all right?"
Clarity returned to me with a rush. I took a deep breath and let Onasi sag back against the wall, but as soon as my hands relaxed their grip on his tunic, his face twisted in anger, and he lunged forward. I ducked out of the way of his fist easily, and he overbalanced and fell to the floor once again.
I stared down at him, my breath coming in rapid, uneven gasps, and felt sick. So this was what it had come to—the Emperor had brought us all this low. Stress and worry and fear and pain and loss had turned both of us into uncivilized louts brawling on the floor of a medical room.
And Force help me, I still wanted to kill him.
"Talk fast, Commander," I managed more calmly. "What did you do?"
"Do?" Onasi asked blearily. He brought his hand up to the back of his head again and then stared down at the blood coating his fingers. "I didn't do anything—that little Hutt-slime threw me into the wall!" I stiffened at the insult to Anakin, but Healer Risto tightened her hand on my arm again, steadying me before I did so much as draw in a quick breath. Onasi looked up and gave me a glare of pure fury. "And then you come in and start tossing me around, Kenobi—what the kriff do you think you're doing?"
I opened my mouth to respond, but Shian beat me to it. "I can't believe this," she burst out. "Will you two start acting like adults and not posturing adolescents! Do you think beating the Force out of each other is going to solve anything?" She gave me a look that said, Wait, we can confront him over this later, and went to kneel by Onasi's side. "Commander Onasi," she continued, "do you think you have any serious injuries?"
He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "No," he said, his tone sullen, almost grudging.
"Excellent," Shian replied briskly, reaching down and bracing her hands under his shoulder. I had no idea why a sudden spark of irritation passed through me at the sight of them so close together, except that we both knew what kind of a person he was and it bothered me that she was so close to a potential enemy. "All right then, up you get." She half-pushed, half-pulled Onasi to his feet, and under the guise of steadying him leaned toward me. "Check on Anakin," she whispered quickly. "See if there's any—" She reached up and brushed her fingers against her eye.
It was a strange signal and reminded me painfully of Anakin in a time before the fire, before the darkness, but I guessed what it meant and backed away until I was kneeling beside Anakin's bed. I stared down at him. This close I could hear his shuddering, uneven breaths and the wet swallows that punctuated them, occasionally a watery sniff that made him sound young and fragile, not at all like a Sith lord or mass-murderer. Some of the bandages on his back had been torn free, and there was fluid leaking out from under them, trickling down his the side of his ribs. He didn't seem aware that I was standing over him, and his lack of response when he should have been able to feel me through the Force the moment I had entered the room made my heart hurt. I reached down and pressed my hand lightly against the intact skin of his shoulder in an attempt to get his attention as gently as possible—
He jerked and erupted into a flurry of motion, body spasming uncontrollably beneath my hand, until he had rolled away from me and lay panting and trembling in the middle of the bed. "O-Obi-Wan?" His voice was frightened and uncertain and very, very small. "I-is that y-you?"
"Yes," I said quickly. "Yes, it's me." I felt my throat closing up and struggled to swallow as my eyes traced the path of the tears still dripping down his cheeks. I could see the evidence, now—his eye was as bruised and puffy as Onasi's, the skin broken over his cheekbone and still oozing blood, the skin on one side of his face mottled with bruises and swelling. His bottom lip was split and bleeding, and there was more blood trickling out of the side of his mouth. I hadn't done that to him; it was no left-over by-product of our duel, and that was fresh blood smeared across his cheek and dribbling out of his mouth.
And Onasi had said he'd done nothing. I took a deep breath, struggling to control the rage spiraling up within me. I closed my eyes for a moment, examined it, and then released it to the Force, blowing my breath out at the same time. After a moment, I opened my eyes again.
Anakin's eyes had closed, though tears still slipped soundlessly down his cheeks. I didn't think he was even aware of them. He flinched as I reached out to take hold of his shoulder again and threw my arm off, his eyes flying open again and blazing topaz fire up at me. "Leave me alone," he growled. "I—I don't need your help."
"Anakin," I said as gently as I could, "don't be ridiculous." I reached out to him again and was again repulsed with a convulsive swat of his good arm.
"N-no," he bit out. "No! I don't need your help, Obi-Wan. L-leave me alone."
I rubbed my hand across my eyes, drained and defeated. "What do you want me to do then?" I asked quietly.
Anakin swallowed thickly. "J-just—just go 'way and leave me alone." He sniffed back tears. "I d-don't need anyone's help. I should be strong enough—'m a Sith, I'm the kriffing 'Chosen One'—" His voice was sullen and almost pleading, as if begging for my reassurance.
Reassurance I could no longer give.
"I'm not going to leave you here like this," I said, and I reached forward once again to slide one hand under his shoulders, easily controlling his weak, abortive struggles. His mouth settled into a resentful line as I ran my sleeve carefully across his face, wiping away sweat and blood as gently as I could, but he allowed me to steady him against the pillows so that he was supported on his good side. As I reached down to straighten the blankets that covered him, though, he knocked my hand away again.
"I said leave me alone," he wrenched out. "Is 't so hard t' listen, M-Master? Just 'cause I'm too weak to stop you, you do whatever you want t' me, huh?"
"I'm trying to help you," I whispered.
"I don't care!" he suddenly shouted, sounding as if he were close to tears. "You could be here to beat th' Sith out of me and I wouldn't be able to stop you! Because I'm still not strong enough!"
At the sudden outburst Shian stopped at the door, Onasi still leaning on her shoulder, and turned to stare at us, her eyes wide. I barely noticed. "Anakin—" I started.
"I don't want to hear it!" he burst out, and shoved himself up on his good arm so that his hair fell forward into his eyes and his tormented yellow gaze burned into mine. "Y-you're going to say something about how the light side is always stronger than th' dark, and you're wrong because I've felt it—but you don't have t' say anything, don't you understand? I already know I'm a failure! I'm a f-failure as a Sith an' I was a f-failure as a Jedi—and I wish I knew whatthe kriff iswrong with me!" His voice was hoarse and tormented and breaking and at those words his strength seemed to flood out of him all in a rush.
"What's wrong with you?" Onasi suddenly broke in. "I'll tell you what's wrong with you, you little vreldt, you amoral—"
I could see Shian shake him even as I opened my mouth. "One more word and I'll let the General rip your head off," she muttered. Onasi fell silent.
Anakin hadn't even flinched at his taunts. If anything his whole body had become even more listless and limp, collapsing in on itself, and he gave a broken, sobbing breath as Onasi was cut off. It hurt me to see that he wasn't even bothering to fight back, that he had let Onasi get to him like that.
"Anakin—" I knew full well that I had to say something, but I had no idea what I could say.
"Anakin, it's not like that—"
"Don't lie!" he nearly screamed. "You . . . always p-punished me, always lectured me. Th-the Council n-never trusted me. I was never good enough!"
"Never good enough?" I repeated in a whisper. "Anakin, you were always good enough. More than good enough. You were a joy as a Padawan, everything I'd wanted for you as a Knight. It was me—"
Anakin gave a hoarse, wild laugh. "You? Don' try t' be funny, Master. You never wanted me!" The frenzied words sounded as if they were torn out of some secret place deep inside his soul, and I froze as they struck me.
Had he carried that burden all these years? Force, what a fool I had been—what a fool I still was. I thought he'd understood how much I'd come to care for him over these years, more than I should have, more than I had ever expected to. The unwanted burden Qui-Gon had left me with had slowly turned into my closest friend, my son, my brother. He was the person I cared for more than anyone else in the world, one of the few tonics that soothed my war-torn soul. And the source ofyour greatest pain, the deepest loss you've ever had to face, another part of me whispered.
How could he not have understood the way I'd felt?
"It wasn't like that," I said helplessly. "I told you, Anakin. You were—you—" I trailed off, floundering for words, and took a deep breath. Maybe it would be better to start at the beginning. "I-it's true I didn't want you at first, and I'm sorry for it. I was a young, heartbroken fool, too lost in my own pain to see yours and I—will always regret that. But before long I realized that—that even if I had not made that promise I would have chosen you, Anakin. If some other, worthier Master hadn't chosen you first, that is."
I could hear Onasi give a snort of disgust and Shian's low, angry whisper in return. Anakin's eyes were locked desperately on my face, and he flinched visibly at the derisive sound. "But I—I'm a Sith now," he whispered. "I—Master, I—" He clenched his hand into a fist and squared his shoulders, the fire in his eyes flaring upward again. "I destroyed the Jedi. I would have killed you. I could kill you right now. Are you sure, Obi-Wan? D-don't you want to kill m-me, too?"
His voice was hard and unforgiving, his eyes filled with darkness and flame, but his gaze was fixed unwaveringly on my face, hungry and desperate. "I tried," I told him honestly. I felt raw and naked, as if all my defenses had been torn away and he was staring into my still-bleeding, still-broken heart. "I-I couldn't." I braced my hands against the side of the bed and stared down at them. "I—I wanted to." My fingers clenched. "I wanted to—hate you. I wanted to want to hurt you. I should have. But I—I couldn't."
"I killed them, Obi-Wan," Anakin said. No, not Anakin, his voice was far away and rough with darkness. Vader. "I slaughtered them. Even the younglings. I burned the Temple to the ground. I killed even those who begged for mercy. I killed Master Drallig. I killed Jocasta Nu. I killed the children. Can you still forgive me?"
I felt hot wetness on the backs of my hands and I realized I was crying. "I—" I started, and then my voice wavered out of control. "How could you do that?" I screamed. My voice was ragged and hoarse and sounded nothing like my own. I raised my head to look him in the eyes, but I could hardly see him through my tears. "The Temple was our home, Anakin! Y-you took everything away from me. How could you have helped that monster? You were my brother, Anakin! I trusted you!"
"I trusted you," came that dark voice, shaking with fury of its own, "and you betrayed me. Master. The Jedi betrayed me. E-even P-Padmé betrayed me!" His voice broke, and I could hear Anakin again, lost in that dark, angry shell.
I raised my hands and rubbed my tears out of my eyes. "How did she betray you, Anakin?" I asked. "I—I don't understand. She loves you. She loves you more than life itself; it may be a cliché but it's true." She loves you more than I do, and I love you like the brother I never had, like the other half of my soul.
"She was with you," Anakin muttered resentfully. "She—didn't wait for me, she went to you and she brought you with her and all this time she—and you—and—and what if the child's not even m-mine, it's yours?" He was crying now, great gulping, helpless sobs that shook his entire body, and I couldn't do anything but stare at him blankly. I actually didn't understand what he was talking about for a long, frozen moment.
"What?" I burst out as soon as I realized what he meant. "Anakin, I—first of all, Padmé would never—and I—I am a Jedi!"
"Obviously that doesn't mean much," came Onasi's low murmur, and I'd had enough.
"Shut up!" I shouted, and reinforced it with the Force. I could see his head snap back with the power behind it.
Anakin wrapped his arm around himself and rocked back and forth, still breathing raggedly, tears coursing down his cheeks. "I—I had to—she betrayed me—you betrayed me—" he mumbled. "You hurt me, I—"
"No," I said, nearly shouting the words now. "It's not like that at all. Padmé and I have never—never thought about each other that way. She wasn't even aware I was on that ship. I was desperate to find you and I stowed away; she had no knowledge I was onboard, and it had nothing to do with her."
Anakin gave a quick, sobbing gasp. "N-no," he moaned. "No, that's—that's just not possible."
I could feel annoyance trickling through the shock now, building up inside my throat and giving my words a sharp, angry edge. "Not only is it possible, Anakin, it's the truth. Padmé did nothing but love you, and you turned on her, you nearly killed her in your anger and hatred. That is what the dark side did for you, that is the strength it gave you. The strength to slaughter innocents and injure those who only ever wanted to help you, to attack your wife and your own unborn children. Are you proud of yourself now, Anakin? Does it fill the emptiness inside to know that you are Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith?"
"No!" Anakin screamed. "No, no, stop!" Tears were pouring down his cheeks now, ever faster. "I—I didn't, I—I couldn't . . . I had to—to save her, that's all I wanted, to save her . . . . I never—I never—I couldn't have—" He fell forward, nearly tumbling off the bed again, and I caught him, steadying him. He grabbed hold of my tunic and pulled me close so he could stare into my face, scanning it frantically. "Y—you're not lying," he moaned.
"I'm not lying," I replied, and he let out a long, low wail, as if his heart had been utterly shattered.
"NO!" he shouted, wrenching away from me, out of my restraining hold, to fall weakly back against the bed and bury his face in the sheet that covered it. "N-no," he sobbed. "I—I—wh-what have I done? Oh, M-Master, w-what have I done?" He looked back up at me, and I realized that the topaz-yellow of his eyes was awash in streaks of cerulean. My anger left me in a rush, and I was left tired and empty, aching to see Anakin shaking and tortured. "Master, I—" another hoarse sob tore itself from his throat. "I—I hurt her." More yellow ebbed away, and another storm of weeping shook his body. "Oh, Force, I—I killed them. I killed them all." I could almost see him drowning in it, the darkness pulling him down, away from me, not the dark side this time but hopelessness and guilt and agony. I reached out to touch his shoulder, and he flinched away again. "D-don't touch me," he blurted. "Don't. I—I don't deserve it—oh, Master, I—what have I done?"
"Anakin," I whispered. My hands were shaking as I reached down to touch his cheek, messy and wet and hot with tears, unruly curls plastered to his skin with the warm wetness. He bit his lip and turned his head into my touch, continuing to shake, his weeping so soft now. "Anakin—"
He turned to me, but he was crying too hard to speak. In his blue eyes all I could see was my brother, torn and destroyed and bleeding, utterly broken inside, and I reached out to pull him into my arms instinctively, careful not to touch his back. He gave a shuddering cry and buried his face in my shoulder, his one strong, muscular arm encircling my neck so tightly I could barely breathe. "I'm sorry," he whispered raggedly against my throat, his voice thick and wet with tears. I could feel warmth and moisture slipping down my neck, seeping into my tunic. "I—I'm sorry, Master. I—I've done . . . such things . . . ."
"Yes, Anakin," I admitted, pulling him tighter with one hand against the good part of his back. It hurt to be holding him so close, to be held so tightly, but I wasn't letting go, not now. I pillowed my chin against the softness of his hair and fought the tears that were coursing down my own cheeks now. "You have. But I'm here. I'm here with you. And I'm not going anywhere."
