Where Bonds Deepen

The first... nightmare? Flashback? ... occurred when they were en route to Coruscant. When Obi-Wan had finally slipped to true unconsciousness, it was as if his will no longer held all his bodily wounds in check, and Anakin and Alpha watched as a high fever from various infected injuries took over. Anakin was quick to tell the medics - repeatedly - about the "mask and maggots" as his beloved master had instructed, and they were quick to get to work.

The horror only magnified when, as they were lifting off, the medics informed Anakin and Ki-Adi-Mundi that the maggots referred to muscle maggots, creatures that burrowed into and ate muscle tissue. It required surgery to remove them, meaning they had to wait until arrival. When they left, Anakin found himself staring at his master - grimacing even unconscious - and mentally imagining escaping when all major muscle groups were in agony - running through complexes, fighting off bounty hunters. A hand fell on his shoulder and the Padawan startled to see Master Mundi there, offering him sympathy through the Force. The sudden, panic inducing thought of the maggots finding Obi-Wan's heart muscle sent Anakin rushing to a 'fresher and emptying the contents of his stomach, all too suddenly thinking of his attempts to save another heart and failing. He dared not think of what the mask meant - he wasn't sure if he could handle it.

Three hours into hyperspace travel, Anakin was sitting by his master's side, thoughts running in crooked circles. He'd tried meditation, but every time his mind would start to clear he would feel the pain racking through Obi-Wan and he'd be startled out of it. Holding the man's hand seemed to be the only thing that made them both feel better. The fever had soaked his body, and his head twitched back and forth, occasionally moaning. It was then that his breathing suddenly became ragged, uneven. Anakin immediately stood from his stool, thinking perhaps his master was waking.

Grey, fevered eyes snapped open, bleary, unfocused, and oh, so pained. Hands quickly went to his head, and Anakin watched as Obi-Wan started to claw at his face, cracked nails leaving pink trails across it, digging deep enough to start scraping skin.

"Master, Master! It's okay! You're okay!" Anakin cried out, grabbing wrists that were never meant to be so weak and pulling them away from Obi-Wan's head. The Jedi only thrashed his head from side to side.

"Take it off," he moaned, "Take it off!" he said again, more forceful this time.

"Take what off? Master?"

"The mask! Take if off! Please, just take it off!"

Once again panicked and fighting to stay calm, Anakin was shocked at how level his voice sounded as he replied. "Master, there's no mask. You don't have a mask on. You're on a medical frigate bound for-"

"Anakin, please, take the mask off!" Obi-Wan's voice cracked in desperation, and the Padawan had no idea how to help the master. "It's all muddled... I can't... it hurts to touch the Force... take it off! ... Anakin! ... Master! It hurts..."

"Master! Master!" Anakin called out over and over, trying to get Obi-Wan's attention. He was dimly aware of people coming in, surrounding him. His senses were overloaded, the bond was screaming in his head, and all Anakin could think to do was to thrust his hand into Obi-Wan's hair, grabbing a fist of it and tugging - outright pulling. "Master! Do you feel that?" he asked. "Could I do this if you had a mask on?" He let go and grabbed the beard next, raking his hand all over his master's head. Slowly, very slowly, Obi-Wan's fevered eyes cleared slightly, and his gaze seemed to take in Anakin as if for the first time. "I'm here, Master," he whispered.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and was again unconscious. The medic droids quickly ushered Anakin and Master Mundi out of the room.

"What happened?" the Council member asked.

Anakin's retelling brought many pronounced wrinkles on the Cerean Jedi's prominent forehead. He immediately contacted the Council, making the Padawan recall the horrifying events yet again. The hologram of Master Yoda seemed to shrink, his over large eyes slowly closing and his pointed ears twitching down. Mace and others tried to ask questions, but Anakin abruptly said his place was by his master's side and that he didn't like being away from him for so long. Besides which, more pain was flaring along the bond and he didn't want the Council to see him twitch and wince. A tiny corner in his mind told him Obi-Wan would be disappointed, that the best way to help him would be to confer with Masters, but he dismissed the voice out of the hand.

The pain intensified the closer to his master he became. He dutifully ignored it.

The second nightmare occurred much like the first, Obi-Wan reaching to claw at his face and begging that the mask be removed. When he was finally sedated again, the medical droid put him in restraints to prevent further self-injury.

Hett, the Tusken Jedi, came in as they broke hyperspace and began their final approach. Over the last twelve hours Anakin had lost track of the number of fever dreams his master had had. The pain in his own skull was almost unbearable.

"... Is he calm now?" the Tusken asked.

"For now," Anakin mumbled, rubbing his temples. "The sedatives don't seem to last long. No matter how deeply he goes under, somehow he manages to wake up. The things he talks about..." Anakin rubbed his temples harder, fingers working up into his hair, pulling his braid, anything to release the pain he was feeling. He'd lost track of what was his and what was his master's. Maggots eating his muscles, a mask that obscured the Force worse than an inhibitor, the idea of touching the Force bringing pain, childish taunts as bones were broken, knives plunged into the skin, escapes, sick worry about Anakin and Jabiim, torturing Alpha in front of him claiming he would enjoy it. Anakin had heard a garbled but terrifying snapshot of what Obi-Wan's imprisonment was like. But above all was the mask and Obi-Wan's desperate cries that it be removed - so that he could please, please touch the Force without pain. It sickened Anakin.

A hand on his shoulder. "Your master is clearly very strong to have survived this," Hett said.

"... He's always been able to touch the Force," Anakin said slowly, exhausted and not caring if he shared his fears with Hett - the other Jedi already knew his darkest secret and did not judge him for it - indeed forgave him for the bigoted actions he had first expressed to him. It... made him worthy to share his other dark thoughts. Anakin was too tired to care how that thought sounded. "Whatever happened to him, he said the Force hurt. What if the damage is permanent, and he'll never touch it again?" He would feel like a youngling if he told anyone else this; but Hett, like Obi-Wan, just accepted it.

"If that is the case," the Tusken said, "then you will touch the Force for him. You will live on as his legacy, and he will live through you."

The hand withdrew, Hett saying they were getting ready to land before leaving.

Anakin pressed his forehead against the transparisteel of the observation room, trying to let its coolness seep into him. It was to no avail. He grimly watched the surgery below, the med-bots and Jedi healers working tirelessly to remove the maggots from Obi-Wan. It was gruesome work, lasers and other less invasive methods did not - had not - worked, and they had been forced to cut him open the old fashioned way. The pain in Anakin's head was overwhelming. In frustration he banged his head against the transparisteel, wanting to banish it but unable to.

"Worried for your master, you are."

Anakin said nothing in response. Yoda, too, watched the surgery, utterly impassive. It was the Jedi way, Anakin knew, but the indifference suddenly made him want to stomp the little troll under his boot. Another shot of pain flared along his nerves, and he banged his head again, harder this time.

"Hurt yourself, you should not," Yoda said, still leaning on his stick. "Already in pain, you are."

Anakin moaned, again rubbing his temples.

"The bond between you and your master, strong it is. Help you it will. Help your master, too. Need you he does; strong you must be."

"You think I don't know that?" Anakin demanded, swiveling furious eyes to the ancient Master. He thought he was about to explode. "You think-" but then he stopped as what could only be described as inspiration struck.

Anakin's head snapped back to the surgery below, his mind putting things together. Obi-Wan said he couldn't touch the Force, that it hurt... was that what he was feeling now? Even unconscious, even being operated on, Obi-Wan was trying to touch the Force, but to what extent? Not a healing trance, he kept waking up; and why was Anakin feeling the pain? And that was when the Padawan realized: Obi-Wan, lacking the Force, wanted at least the comfort of his Padawan's mind, a mind he had not been able to feel for months.

"You will touch the Force for him."

"Strong, your bond is. Help you it will."

Anakin immediately dropped to his knees and took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax and enter meditation. This would work. It had to work.

Meditation always was hard, but now it was doubly so. Obi-Wan's hurt and pain could not be released to the Force, and with nowhere else to go it was entering Anakin, and so he did as he was taught. He accepted the pain, acknowledging it was his master's body explaining a need, and released it for him. More pain engulfed him, muscles spasming and burning - damage from the maggots. Anakin forced himself to accept the pain and release it. Waves upon waves engulfed him, threatening to overcome him, but Anakin would not be deterred. He had something to do now, a purpose, a goal, and he'd be worse than a womp-rat eating bantha poodoo if he let himself fail in this.

Anakin reached out, wanting to take as much pain from his master as possible. The bond seemed much too narrow for the task, and so without a thought he gouged into it, widening it, deepening it, so that he could get his work done. Even more pain flooded him, this not physical but psychic - words and feelings that lashed at him from a woman's (... a woman?) voice. The pain of touching the Force touched him and Anakin reeled as the work he was doing suddenly became agony - this was no sympathy pain or abstraction. He may have grunted, he wasn't sure, but he again forced himself to accept the pain and siphon it off to the Force. Anything to help his master. Worry for Alpha, worry for Jabiim, worry for Anakin, worry for his torturer (?), all of it channeled through Anakin and out, until, finally, he felt the inner core of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

... Anakin?

Yes, Master. If you dare ask me if this is a dream I'll dye your beard blue.

... You're hurting...

Relax, Master. Everything is going to be fine.

Anakin continued to kneel in the observation room, deep in meditation as he continued to do his work. He did not see Master Yoda's wide-eyed gaze as he witnessed what was happening. But then, few would have, for it only lasted a moment before Yoda himself entered his own meditation.

He had much to consider.

Author's Notes: And thus begins the mid-level change. Did anyone see what happened? Yoda did, but I doubt anyone else in the fic fully realizes what's just occurred; at least not yet, but the repercussions of it will be felt for the rest of the fic. Ani and Obi won't quite realize it until later, so until they do we'll keep the mystery (unless it's obvious like we think it is and you all have already figured it out) quiet for a few more chapters.