A/N: Alright. This chapter is probably the sappiest thing I have ever written and I apologize to readers who don't really like that stuff. But I'm sorry, I eat it up. I love sap. And it's gonna sound weird, but I love going to see movies that make me cry like a freaking baby. I love angst. That's probably one of the biggest reasons I like Star Wars. Because the movies make me feel sappy. They make me cry. I am not afraid to admit it. So yeah. This chapter is sappy, touchy-feely angst. I'm sorry. Don't hate me, lmao.

Thanks to froovygirl and 'guest' for reviewing.

Chapter Eight

Broken

One of the best Jedi in the entire Order couldn't save his best friend.

If this had been any other mission, Obi-Wan Kenobi would have pursued their adversaries relentlessly and within a short amount of times their enemies would be defeated. And Anakin would be safe.

His brother and friend. His son.

He would be safe. No harm would come to him.

But Obi-wan didn't know where Anakin was. He didn't know if he was safe. If he was alive.

Attachment was forbidden. But Obi-wan had formed an attachment to his old Padawan.

He loved the boy like his own blood.

And the thought of losing Anakin forever was one he couldn't even fathom. It made him hurt, physically to think about it.

And even more than that his thoughts were on the boy's wife and infant children and how much they needed him.

Obi-wan focused on the force and he felt Anakin's signature, wavering and weak.

And he knew something was wrong.

Because Anakin was rarely ever weak. Anakin always fought to the brink of death. A flame that could never be extinguished.

Obi-wan felt that now.

Anakin's light was dimming. It was going out.

Obi-wan was a stoic man. He didn't show emotion very often. He had a face like steel in the most deplorable situations. Around death and suffering and wickedness. He never broke. Never.

The last time Obi-wan could remember crying was when Qui-Gon died.

Somehow after nearly eleven years time had not really moved forward.

Obi-wan was a Padawan again. Scared and angry.

Broken.

His eyes shut slowly.

The tears fell onto his cheeks. Unstoppable like a flood.

He wasn't a soldier anymore. He wasn't a warrior. A Jedi Knight.

He was human.

And he felt the loss in his heart the way a human would.

Ahsoka looked at him worriedly, her brows furrowed over her big blue eyes.

"Anakin is in trouble, isn't he?"

Obi-wan didn't answer his Padawan. He looked straight ahead where hours ago his friend had stood.

"We've gotta find him. Soon."

"I don't know where he is, my young Padawan."

"Yes you do! THINK for a second. Stop feeling. You always tell me that. No emotion gives you clarity, Master."

He smiled sadly at Ahsoka.

"I have taught you well."

Obi-wan wiped the tears from his cheeks.

He breathed in and out calmly and soon his surroundings seemed distant. Almost non-existent.

He fixed his thoughts on Anakin's flickering force signature.

Everything else fell away. Like rain from the sky.

The fragile energy he sensed was somewhere around the center of Mos Espa.

The two Jedi stood and brushed the dirt off their clothing.

"I'm going to contact the clone troopers. We're going to need their help."

"But what about the mission?"

"Anakin is more important to me than the mission."

"You're disobeying your mandate." Ahsoka said gently.

"Sometimes, little one, you have to stop thinking about the rules. You have to do what your instincts tell you. Right and wrong are not written solely in the pages of a textbook. Or in the code of the Jedi."

Sometimes right and wrong is written in your heart. In your spirit."

"What about the slaves?"

"We will help them as we planned to."

They both looked ahead and after just a moment they ran in the direction the force guided them to.

He didn't know whether he was dreaming. Or awake.

If he was dying or alive.

He didn't know where he was. Or what day it was. If it was morning or night.

There were stars all around him and planets and moons.

The cloudy nebulae of a dead star shone brilliantly in blues and violets. It was ablaze suddenly.

The light was blinding.

And then it dimmed. It wasn't sharp like the light of a nuclear explosion, like the collapsing of a dying sun.

It was soft and gold.

And there it was again.

The meadow.

Wherever he was and whatever had happened he would always come back to that place.

Pink and purple wildflowers spotted the plentiful grasses. He could hear the distant hum of the waterfalls and feel its mist on his face.

"Are you an angel?" Asked a little boy's voice.

In a silken dress the color of lilacs was Padmé. She was running and his perception was skewed somewhat. Everything moved slower than usual.

Her soft brown curls billowed behind her in the summer breeze.

Her eyes were golden jewels as they caught the sunlight.

Anakin went to run after her. But he couldn't move.

He was rooted to the ground like a tree.

He reached for her and he called her name.

But she played in the grasses. She didn't hear him.

Soon he was yelling, his voice anguished.

His throat was raw and he was suddenly mute. He couldn't speak or shout.

There was pain in his legs and he looked down.

He was turning into stone.

He tried to yell. To call her to him.

And still. He had no voice.

Inside the walls of his mind he could hear himself scream.

"Please."

He looked at his outstretched arms in terror. They too turned into stone.

She was laughing, twirling the many layers of her skirts in a sort of dance.

And then he couldn't breathe.

His face was wet. He sobbed quietly and then his face too turned into stone, the tormented expression forever frozen in place.

Everything was gone. There was no meadow. No wildflowers. No waterfalls. No sunlight.

There was no Padmé.

Everything was gone.

A dozen clone troopers marched forward led by two Jedi.

They were met with civilian militia. Some were bounty hunters and others were normal people.

It hurt Obi-wan. To watch them fall. The Clone troopers assault rifles striking them down.

They had done many terrible things.

But they were living beings. They had families and friends. They had children and mothers. Wives, brothers. Fathers.

Their cries rang out in his ears like daggers. The force was on fire with their pain.

And then it was over.

He walked over their dead bodies and nothing seemed real.

The slave owner who had taken Anakin hostage lay among them.

Obi-wan used the force to disable the locks on the clay and sandstone home.

Jacen was chained to a wall. But he was alive. He was alert

He looked at Obi-wan, shaking fiercely.

"Where is Anakin?"

Jacen pointed and Obi-wan raced forward.

In a dirty, dank room with no windows and barely any light was the man Obi-wan had grown to love.

Anakin lay on his side, barefoot, clad only in his tattered Jedi pants.

His bare torso was bruised and bloodied.

His long blond curls were darkened and matted with caked on blood.

It was everywhere. The blood.

Obi-wan had never seen so much.

The clone troopers were soon alongside Obi-wan.

Anakin didn't look real.

Obi-wan had only ever seen Anakin when the boy was strong. When he fought. When he didn't give up.

When he was alight with energy.

He didn't recognize the Anakin he saw now.

Lifeless and frail.

They picked him up and put him on a makeshift stretcher.

And in just minutes they were all aboard a starship back home.

In just minutes everything they had prepared weeks for had ended.

Obi-wan didn't know the death toll. The casualties.

He didn't know whether they had lost or won.

And it didn't matter anymore.

Because he had lost the most important battle of his career.

Of his life.

He lost the battle to keep Anakin safe.

Padmé had tried for three days to contact Anakin. She had heard no reply.

She tried contacting Obi-wan. He too would not answer.

Sola watched Luke and Leia.

Padmé couldn't sleep or eat.

News spread that the clone troopers were bringing back some wounded.

And Padmé knew before she ever set foot on the landing platform in Coruscant's spaceport that Anakin was among them.

The starship she had been waiting for landed and Obi-wan was among the first to step out.

He locked eyes with Padmé instantly.

He looked sad and tired. He looked hopeless.

"My Anakin." She thought.

Obi-wan wrapped his arms around her. She tucked her face in his shoulder.

Padmé wept.

And she felt like she was dying.

Pieces and pieces of her soul were tearing away. Lost in the wind like grains of sand.

There it was again.

The thing she ran away from everyday. The thing she had tried to stop. To protect her people from.

The thing she couldn't protect her father from.

The thing she couldn't protect the sick little refugees in her arms from all those years ago.

Death.

There it was.

It could have been an hour later. It could have been a day. She didn't comprehend what time was anymore.

She lay on some chairs at the med-center.

She got lost in the variations on the metal flooring.

Obi-wan's hand settled gently on her forearm.

She looked up at him.

She could have asked if Anakin was alright. If he was alive.

But she decided she didn't want to know the answer.

She followed Obi-wan numbly through the corridors.

The doctor was waiting for them.

Padmé wouldn't speak.

Obi-wan asked instead.

"Is he alright?"

"He is stable. Unconscious, but stable."

"He was shocked extensively. Surprisingly there was no damage to his heart. But the nerves in his legs were."

"What does that mean exactly?" Obi-wan asked.

"That means they may not regain full function."

"So what you're saying is that he won't be able to walk."

The doctor nodded.

He'll never be a Jedi again, she thought.

"Are there treatments? Can you repair the nerves?"

"Yes. They can be regenerated genetically. But it's a long process. And painful."

"How long will it take?"

"It depends. Typically two or three months."

"Well, how soon will it be possible to begin the process?" Obi-wan asked.

"We need to gather some genetic samples. We can start in a week."

Anakin wasn't dead. He was very much alive.

Although Padmé couldn't tell by the way he laid in bed at the med-center.

By the way his eyes were shut. It barely even looked like he was breathing.

She didn't want to find out what really happened to him on Tatooine. She knew it must have been awful by the bruises on his skin. By the gashes on his arms and shoulders.

She couldn't feel him anymore.

She always had.

Before he even touched her.

She could always feel him. All he needed to do was look at her.

He could be meters away.

But when he looked at her she could feel him.

She could feel him in her own breath. In her veins. She could feel him in the rise and fall of her chest. In the beating of her heart.

She could feel him on the tips of her fingers and along the seam of her mouth.

Like he was underneath her skin.

But she didn't feel that now.

He was going to get better. But somehow she couldn't be happy.

Because he was going to hurt. He was going to hurt so much more.

And she couldn't stand it.

Because all Anakin had ever done in his life was hurt.

Yes he had loved and laughed. He had been happy.

But underneath all that there was always hurt inside him.

Sometimes she wondered if he would ever be free from it.

She saw him now as a man. Yes.

But she realized as she sat beside him in the med-center that she had fallen in love with the boy he had been. Not the man he was now.

Padmé had always been a mother. Before she had been a woman. When she was just a little girl.

Before she had Luke and Leia.

There were a million reasons why she fell for Ani.

But perhaps one of the most important was that she felt like a mother to him.

He was as much her child as he was the father to her children.

And every mother wanted their child not to hurt.

She felt that when Anakin was sad or broken, when he was in pain that she had failed.

She hadn't kept her little boy safe.

She cried, quiet sobs.

Anakin was every person struck down in her life. He was every poor and starving child she had walked by on Naboo's streets.

Anakin was the little refugee children she had tried to save so long ago.

He was the pure innocence she loved to see in everyone else. In everyone she loved.

And when he hurt it was like seeing an angel shot down.

Like a flower ripped from the ground and tossed aside carelessly.

Like a collapsing star.

Something beautiful being destroyed.

She ran her fingers along the silver veins underneath the skin of his arm.

And she missed his laugh. His deep blue eyes. And his smile.

She missed his joy.

There was nothing more beautiful in the entire world than Anakin's joy.

She touched his cheek. Ran her fingers over his closed eyelids.

And she hoped.

Wherever he was, whether in a dream or darkness that he could feel her the way she always felt him.