Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to get this next part up. School ate my life. Basically. Oh well. The next update is here now.
Disclaimer: It belongs to the Flanneled One.
Twenty-One
Darkness. It was all around him, part of him now in a way that made Anakin shrink back inside himself where he was broken and bleeding and dying and hurt, that made him wish he had thrown himself into the molten rivers of Mustafar to sear the taint from his skin, his very soul. In a way that made him wish for some way simply to end it, some way he could put everything right, back the way it should be.
Because now, at this moment, everything was wrong. Everything.
Anakin's throat was tight and aching with tears that he would not shed, could not shed. His hand clenched tightly around the hilt of his lightsaber, metal grinding through leather to rasp against metal. The glowing blue blade shed a sickly ghost-light through the overwhelming darkness. Everything around him but the blade and the death-pale features of the forlorn figure kneeling before him was nothing more than a confused, ever-shifting blur.
Obi-Wan slumped on his knees, his eyes huge and bruised and glassy with a wet sheen in the darkness. He blinked slowly, tightened bruised, cracked lips, but said nothing as he knelt there, utterly helpless, his breathing coming in low, harsh pants and his shoulders heaving. He looked as if he had been systematically dismantled, taken apart, everything within him that mattered and defined him and made him Obi-Wan shredded and torn away until only this broken shell was left, kneeling and desolate and nearly a corpse already. His sad, battered eyes seemed to pierce the fabric of Anakin's very soul, and something in him wanted to weep at the expression in them, at the dead look on Obi-Wan's torn features.
"Do it, my young apprentice," came that hateful voice, an echo from the darkness in the rasping, clutching tones of a nightmare. "Kill him. Kill him now."
A thousand voices pressed in on Anakin with that one nightmarish exhortation, voices that yearned for Obi-Wan's blood, voices that begged him to kneel down himself and hold and soothe this broken figure of his master, voices that screamed at him to save Padmé, the voices of the Jedi accusing him, the younglings sobbing with their dying breaths, Padmé screaming his name, his mother dying and pleading for rescue, the hoarse screams of the Sand People as they were slaughtered, and a thousand, a million more, all demanding bits of his broken, defective, shattered soul.
Anakin closed his eyes and shoved them brutally away, closed the blast doors of his mind and shut them all out with a finality that seemed to ring and echo slightly in his head, and then, with a shaking breath, opened his eyes again.
Obi-Wan's eyes were drowned pools of sorrow, watered and hopeless, where they stared into his, his ginger lashes dark and starry with tears. "Please, Anakin," he mumbled, his voice weak and thready and gasping. "Don't . . . listen to him. Don't . . . do this to yourself."
His wavering plea only firmed Anakin's resolve.
He lifted his saber high above his head and brought it swinging down.
The raw, terrified scream brought me awake all at once, gasping and trembling and immediately alert, out of a sound sleep. Anakin's voice, and filled with pain and dread and so much despair it made my heart turn over and twist itself up in knots.
The scream came again, breaking like a wave against the insides of my head, shrieking with pain, and it was only then that I realized that that scream had been entirely mental, entirely through my bond with Anakin.
I surged to my feet and almost tripped over the hoverchair where I'd been waiting for Anakin's release from the short recovery time required after his surgery. I stumbled and nearly fell, but I recovered myself in time and stood there for a moment as my mind settled and my breath eased back into its normal patterns and the hot, shivery alertness the adrenaline rush had brought with it faded back into even awareness as my heart rate slowed and returned to normal.
I must have dropped off to sleep while I was waiting—
The scream again, edging the borders of hysteria now, wild and filled with tears and pain and the gripping, shrinking blackness of self-loathing.
I burst into Anakin's medical room, deaf to the medical droid's protestations.
Anakin was lying shuddering on the medical bed, gasping, ragged sobs shaking his trembling body but not waking him. Every inch of him was soaked with sweat, both his hands twisted desperately in the sheets beneath him. The knuckles on his real hand had turned white, the new mechanical one had ripped the sheet where his fingers held it clenched between them. Anakin's mouth was open, gasping for air as if the life-giving vapor was forever denied him, but blood trickled down his chin, staining his lips, from where he had bitten straight through the bottom one in his dreams. His bare shoulders twisted and writhed against the bed as he tossed and rolled in a never-ending battle, attempting vainly to escape the tethers of his nightmare. His cheeks were flushed bright, his color high and feverish.
His eyes snapped open as I came closer, but no recognition lit their cerulean depths. He was still lost somewhere within himself, I could see it in those glazed blue eyes, like mirrors reflecting all nine Corellian hells in that tormented sea of blue. "No," he moaned, breath catching and sobbing in his throat on the word. "No, please, no—Obi-Wan, no—"
Shock registered within me somewhere to hear my own name on those bleeding, bitten lips, but I wasted no time on the foolish reaction. I dropped to my knees by Anakin's bed and reached out to frame his flushed, tossing face between my hands. "Easy," I soothed him as gently as I could, my fingers easing across his hot, wet cheeks, wiping away the tears that slipped silently down them now. "Easy, Anakin, easy. It is just a dream, only a dream, wake up now. I am here, and it is a dream."
Anakin flinched at the sound of my voice, and his struggles increased in force. He writhed under my arms, bucking and twisting and fighting to get free as if I were the entire Separatist army come to rend him to pieces. "Obi-Wan, Padmé—please—no, no-o," he sobbed as he fought my restraining hands. His arms flailed beneath my attempts to hold him down, batting weakly at me as if to shove me away, his sweaty body arching and shuddering beneath me. He would hurt himself if he kept this up much longer, I knew that.
He screamed again in my head, though his lips were physically pressed tight together, tears tracing new paths down his cheeks, then surged upward, slamming up against me. His new mechanical hand hit me in the shoulder in a rough punch, as if he thought he was fighting someone in his dreams, and his shoulder rammed into my cheek.
I ignored the pain and wrapped my arms tight around him before he could sink back to the bed, pulling him close against me, pressing my face into his shoulder so I could feel the feverish heat of his body, the shivers tearing through him, hear the thundering beat of his heart. His body seized, stiffening—then relaxed, went completely limp, and eased, shuddering, into my arms.
I could hear his uneven gasps for air, feel the warm moisture of his breath against my neck, the hot wet contact of his tear-blurred cheek against my shoulder, and I rubbed my hands gently against his back as he continued to shake. "Anakin?" I ventured tentatively. "Can you hear me, Anakin?"
He stiffened suddenly and then pushed me away, tearing himself out of my hold so roughly streams of pain shot up my arms, and collapsed back against the bed before he could steady himself. "No, Obi-Wan," he blurted. "No—s-stay away from me."
Hurt ripped through me. I had thought this was behind us, and his obviously instinctive reaction felt like a blow straight to my gut. "Anakin?" I faltered, uncertain.
He turned his face away as if he could not bear to look at me and rubbed his mechanical hand roughly against his face as if to scour the tears away. "You—shouldn't be here with me, M-master," he continued, his voice shaking violently. "You shouldn't be t-touching me. I-I'll only b-betray you." He raised his head, and I was taken aback by the raw agony shimmering in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Master," he moaned, and reached out a trembling hand to brush his real fingers over the bruise I knew was beginning to swell on my cheek. "I did this to you." He swallowed hard and his mechanical hand clenched into a tight fist. "I'll only hurt you . . . please, Master . . . st-stay away so . . . so I can never h-hurt you again."
"It was an accident," I said softly. "You did not mean to hurt me." I took a deep breath. "And you would not. I trust you, Anakin."
He stared at me as if I had lost my mind, and his chin began to tremble. His real hand tightened into a fist now, as well, as if to help him still his shaking. "T-trust me?" he stammered. A ragged gasp. "But how—how can you—" I could see the knowledge of a thousand terrible deeds cloaking his eyes, choking his spirit, and I realized that I was surprised myself at how much I trusted this young man, at how willing I was to put every fiber of my being at his mercy. That kind of unconditional, whole-hearted trust hadn't been there before, not even during the years of the Clone Wars. For better or for worse, I had never trusted Anakin Skywalker as much as I did now.
"I can because I know who you are," I replied evenly, reaching forward to grasp my hand tightly around his shoulder. "I know you are Anakin Skywalker, the Hero With No Fear, the other half of the Team, my friend and little brother." I squeezed his shoulder and reached up to rest my hand on the back of his head. "I know you will not let me down. You never have."
His eyes were wide and disbelieving and shocked, damp and shiny with tears he no longer shed. "But I—I failed you, Obi-Wan," he whispered. "I did fail you. Sidious—he—I—I should never have—"
I mussed his hair a bit, patted him on the shoulder and withdrew my hand. "You never have," I repeated. "You were lost, taken from me by Darth Vader, wounded and destroyed. You didn't fail me."
He stared down at his hands, and then one side of his mouth quirked up slightly. "Little?" he finally said in a wry voice, hoarse and ragged from the after-effects of his hysteria.
I smiled back, and shrugged. "You might be taller and bigger, but you are still my ex-Padawan, and I knew you when you barely came up to my waist."
"Disregarding the fact that I'm a good five inches taller than you now?" Anakin asked, and the shadow of a teasing tone was in his voice.
"Five inches?" I repeated, indignant. "I wouldn't go that far!"
He shrugged. "Well, maybe not." He took a deep, shaking breath and stared down at the torn sheet as if falling away from me again, back into the world of his nightmares, his fingers brushing back and forth against the rip. He swallowed painfully. "I—I dreamed that I killed you, Obi-Wan. You and P-Padmé and—and—" He looked up at me, and his eyes were desolate. "And Palpatine was there—S-Sidious—and I knelt at his feet before I raised my saber to—to—"
"Stop!" Anakin looked up in surprise at my hoarse command. I took a long breath. "Stop," I said again. "Stop torturing yourself like this. It was a dream, Anakin. You're sick and weak and feverish, full of drugs. I know you've been having visions, but it is foolish to torment yourself over a dream when your head is filled with sedatives."
His gaze was wide and blue and utterly vulnerable. "I—you—but—Mom—" he said. "I couldn't bear it if I hurt you, Obi-Wan. E-either of you. I'd rather—"
I touched his cheek gently, cutting him off, as I straightened. "Come," I said. "We need to get going."
I could see him swallow hard again. "All right, then," he said, his voice all of a sudden brave and strong.
I didn't call him on his bravado as I helped him out of the bed. He'd need it.
Padmé woke with a shuddering gasp. She was hot and freezing at the same time, her body shaking with shivers she couldn't seem to stop or control. In a daze, she lifted one hand to her cheek and was surprised when it came away wet with tears.
She took a deep breath and blew it back out in an attempt to calm herself. There was no reason to be frightened. She was safe on her ship, leaving the Elanna system. Shian and Master Yoda and the droids were all with her.
Padmé sat up, resting her hand on her distended stomach as she did so and sighing deeply, calling up the memory of her husband's tousled hair and intense blue eyes, his handsome features.
It wasn't herself she was worried for. In her dreams Anakin had been lost in shadow, had knelt before the feet of a dark figure. He had been in agony, alone and lost.
"It was only a dream," Padmé murmured to herself. "Only a dream." Anakin might have had prophetic dreams, but she was no Jedi, and nothing she had dreamed had ever come true.
But in her nightmares she had felt her husband's presence. It had been as if he was there with her, his unmistakable energy pervading every moment of the dreams. She had felt as if she could feel his heart beating, hear his heaving breaths, smell the sweat of his body. Everything had seemed so real, so close.
"Enough," Padmé muttered. "This isn't accomplishing anything, Padmé. Anakin will be fine. Obi-Wan is there. Everything will be all right. You didn't lose him." He was still her Anakin, not the monster he had become for that terrifying space of time.
But still she worried for him.
Padmé sighed and reached up to wrap her fingers around the japor snippet that hung around her neck under her nightgown through the silk cloth, its slight weight a comforting pressure between her breasts. Even through the thin fabric she could feel the designs Anakin had carved into it long ago.
Her Anakin would be fine. He had to be. He would be.
She closed her eyes and reached out to him, concentrating on his presence. For a moment she felt an answering surge of emotion, confused and tangled and eager, that had Anakin written all over it, breathless and full of love despite the fear and pain and heartache that everything was twisted with. Be strong, love, she thought. I love you, Ani. Everything will be all right.
For a moment, Padmé thought she could hear his voice in her head, a brief sincere thank you, aching with gratitude, and then it was gone, and the only thing she could hear was the quiet thrumming of the ship in hyperspace.
Padmé closed her eyes and lay back down, pulling the blanket up over herself, and tried to get back to sleep.
Everything would be all right. She would see Anakin and Obi-Wan again in a week.
Everything would be fine.
"Kriff it!" Anakin's voice was tight with irritation, and I could hear a tremble of hysteria in it, as well, only half-swallowed.
"Anakin?" I asked, turning back around.
He had sagged back down onto the bed and covered his face with one hand. I noticed that he was only dressed in his thin under-tunic and trousers. "I—I can't do it, Obi-Wan," he whispered, sounding vulnerable and afraid beneath the frustration. "I—can't even stand up."
I waved away the medical droid that had been giving me instructions on how I should take care of Anakin's injuries and returned to his side of the bed. "You can't expect your strength to come back all at once, Anakin," I said carefully. "It will take time."
He rubbed his hand once across his eyes, hard, and stared up at me, his eyes burning like blue flame in his pale, sweaty face. "We don't have time," he ground out. "How am I supposed to defeat Sidious if I can't even stand up!" He shouted the last words, his fingers clenched into taut fists at his sides.
"Anakin," I said, as patiently as I could when I was unsettled by the fierceness of his reaction, feeling my stomach turn over and twist into an unpleasant knot, "who said anything about defeating Sidious now?"
His breath caught in his throat and he stared desperately up at me—he looked now as if he were close to tears, his eyes huge and pleading. "I have to," he murmured. "I'm the Chosen One. I'm supposed to." He swallowed hard, and suddenly he reminded me intensely of the teenage boy who had begged me to take the burden of the prophecy away from him. "I'm the Chosen One," he said again, and his voice shook. "I have to."
I sat beside him on the bed and put a hand over his clenched, shivering fist, resting the other on his shoulder. The muscles beneath my hand felt tense and knotted, and I could feel the sweaty, feverish heat of his body through the thin under-tunic. "I am finished with making demands on you, Anakin," I told him. "Right now all I want from you is for you to regain your strength and to be the Anakin I know again—the Anakin who is my brother and Padmé's husband. That is all."
He sagged, slumping downward. All his strength and anger seemed to leave him in a rush, and he was left just a shaking, wounded young man, little more than a boy, who seemed barely as big as I was and far more fragile. "A month ago—I would have given anything to hear you say those words," he whispered. His voice was ragged.
I took my hand from his, but left the other on his shoulder. "And now?" I asked. I was almost afraid to hear what his answer would be.
"And now—" He took a deep breath and shook his head, then raised his metallic hand to clasp it over mine, though he still didn't look at me, instead staring fixedly at some point on the floor before him, just in front of where his bare feet, one real and one a metal simulacrum, rested. "I'm still grateful," he said, but his voice was dull, and he sounded sad. "I always will be, Obi-Wan."
"But . . ." I prompted.
He sighed. "I—I'm broken," he said. "He tore me apart—I tore myself apart, and now there's nothing left." He unclenched his fingers and rested them in his lap, staring down at his hands as if he had never seen them before, as if they belonged to someone else. "He broke me, Obi-Wan," he whispered. "I have to—I have to face him. I have to, or I'll never be me again." He swallowed hard. "I have to kill him," he said quietly, his hands clenching again, and his voice trembled, with a furious desperation so intense it sent chills down my spine. He sounded like he had on Mustafar, and it terrified me. "I will kill him."
I shifted my hand to take hold of his jaw and turned his head until he had to look at me. His skin was hot and damp beneath my hand, and his eyes were unfocused, far away. "Not right now, Anakin," I told him firmly. "What about Padmé? We have to protect her, make sure she's safe, before we can face Sidious. Do you not agree?"
The lost, glazed look left his eyes. "P-Padmé?" he whispered. "Y-yes. You're right. I have to keep Padmé safe. Make sure she's all right." He nodded. "You're right, Master."
I let out an internal sigh of relief. "Now, shouldn't we be getting ready to go?" I asked.
He ducked his head again. "I—I would, but I can't—" he gave an ashamed-sounding sigh. "I can't fasten my tunic myself," he said. "My back's too stiff and sore—and I can't get the new mechanical hand to bend the fingers well enough yet. I keep shaking." He sounded utterly humiliated.
I was almost relieved. Here was something simple I could do for him, a straightforward, uncomplicated service. "I told you it would just take some time, Anakin," I told him gently, picking up the first of the tunics the medical center had provided for us to change into and slipping the sleeve over one of his arms. Anakin's were loose and light, to keep pressure off his injuries. I gestured for him to lift his other arm, and he did so obediently, allowing me to pull the tunic up over his shoulders and cross it over his chest for him. He stared fixedly down at the floor as I fastened it carefully, then picked up the other and repeated the process.
"This is embarrassing," he said finally.
"Quiet," I told him. "You helped me in a similar fashion when I was weak after escaping from Asajj Ventress. There is no shame in my returning the favor now. I am glad to be able to do so, actually."
He sighed as I settled his utility belt carefully around his waist. "You just like to laugh at me, Master," he said, but there was no rancor in his tone.
"Perhaps," I returned lightly. "Does that hurt?"
He shook his head. "No. They put so many layers of bandages on over my back I think it would take a lightsaber to get through them all."
I smiled a little as I fastened it and lifted the first of his boots, moving to kneel on the floor before him. "Lift your foot," I told him.
"Master!" Anakin said in a horrified tone. "I can't make you put my boots on!"
"Don't be foolish, young one," I told him. "It is absolutely no trouble." Seeing that he appeared reluctant to obey me and lift his foot, I slid one hand under the arch and lifted it myself, bracing one hand on his ankle. The joint felt thin and bony beneath my fingers, and I wondered how much weight he'd lost in just the last few weeks.
Anakin set one hand down against the bed to keep his balance. "Master . . . ." he said. "You really shouldn't. I can get them on."
"Can you really?" I asked in a noncommittal tone. "Ah well. I don't mind. If it'll save you the effort, I'm happy to do it. You are only just recovering, after all." I slid his foot into the top of the boot, then picked it up and tilted it. "Push down," I said. He obeyed, and I tugged the leather up so the boot fit as it should over his trousers, then picked up the other one.
Anakin sighed. "I give up," he muttered.
"Good," I said. "I am more stubborn than you are any day, my old apprentice."
"If you say so, Master," Anakin replied.
I finished with the other boot, though it was a bit trickier with the mechanical foot, then got to my feet and offered him my hand. He placed his hand—thinner than it had been, and it felt much more fragile, as if I would bruise him if I clasped it too hard—in mine, and I set my other hand under his elbow and pulled him to his feet, then into my arms. "Lean on me for a bit," I told him, pushing his head down to my shoulder. "You're shaking."
"Am I?" he murmured tiredly, and, much to my surprise, obeyed without further complaint, clasping his hands around me in a loose hug. "I feel so weak, Master," he said.
"It's only to be expected," I assured him, reaching down to the bed and picking up his cloak, then resting it on his shoulders, pulling it tight around him. "You have been through a lot over the past week or so, and it is only now that you are beginning to recover."
"I'm pathetic," Anakin said into my shoulder.
"No, Anakin," I told him gently. "You are not pathetic. You're merely drained and sick. It will take time to get your strength back."
He shook his head, the silky-damp tendrils of his hair brushing against the side of my face. "I should be stronger than this," he said.
I rested a hand on the back of his head. "Things will get better," I told him. "But it will take time. Come now. Let us leave this place."
He sighed, and let his arms fall away, let me set him back from me a bit, though I still kept one arm firmly around his waist. He wavered, but he managed to find his balance before he fell.
"Anakin," I said. "Look at me."
He raised his head warily, as if he thought he'd see disgust or impatience when he looked into my face. I shook my head. "You're stronger than you think," was all I said. "Here. I have something for you."
He looked down into what I held in my outstretched hand, then blanched, his skin going bone-white, his eyes widening until they seemed to take up the entirety of his face. "M-my—lightsaber?" he stammered. "How—I thought it was lost when I—I mean—on . . . M-M-Mustafar?" He seemed to have trouble getting the name of the planet out, and I couldn't blame him.
"I brought it with me," I told him. "I could not—" I took a deep breath. "I could not leave it there, Anakin. Not your weapon. I could no more leave it there than I could leave you."
His throat tightened, the muscles clenching as he swallowed. "Master," he whispered. "You shouldn't be giving this back to me."
"Why not?" I asked as evenly as I could. "I trust you, Anakin."
He looked at me, and there was an eternity of torment in his eyes. "I don't deserve it," he whispered. "I'm not a Jedi anymore, Obi-Wan. The—the things I've done with that blade—I—I'm sorry." He reached up and laid his mechanical hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard. "I appreciate it—I truly do. I am so—so kriffing grateful that you'd even think to—but I—can't. I—might—I—I just can't."
I cast my eyes down at the weapon. It had been polished until it shown anew, no trace of Mustafar's ash and soot left in the shining grooves or gleaming rivets, but I wondered if the Jedi weapon would ever be clean again in Anakin's eyes. I sighed. "I understand, Anakin," I said softly.
He nodded. "Thank you, Master," he whispered. "C-can you hold onto it for me?" he added after a moment, his voice shaking. "So that you can—just—just hold it for me. Please."
I had the feeling he had been going to say something along the lines of—"Kill me with it if I fall again," but I pushed that possibility from my mind. Even if he did fall again, I wasn't sure if I would be able to raise a blade against him, let alone that one.
"I would be honored, Anakin," I replied.
