Hit by a wave of heat and sulfur, Obi-Wan stumbled back from the door.
"You see it too?" Anakin asked, incredulously.
Out in the hall, what had once been floor was now a river of molten lava. The air was thick with ash, and Anakin covered his mouth despite himself.
"It's not real," said Obi-Wan. "It won't hurt us. We should go to the bridge. I need to apologize for my reaction earlier."
Anakin knew it was a vision, but when he stepped out into the corridor the pain was real. He released a yell of pain.
"Anakin," Obi-Wan was holding his shoulder, "breath. It's not real. It's not real."
He was guiding him slowly down the hall, seemingly unaffected.
"You don't feel it?" Anakin gasped.
"No… I see the lava, and I can smell it in the air, but it doesn't hurt me."
Anakin had managed to push the agony to the back of this mind, but it was still there, always there.
Suddenly the ship shuttered.
"Was that real?" Anakin asked.
"I'm not sure."
"Rex!" Anakin yelled.
They'd just rounded he last corner before the bridge. From here they could see the doors. At his call, they slid open.
"Nothing to worry about, generals," the captain reassured. There's just a bit of ionized dust. We could probably go through it, but Oddball is going to take us around."
"Are the men all on the bridge?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Most of them, yeah."
As soon as they were through the door, Obi-Wan began making his apology. Anakin was just revelling in relief at the fact the bridge floor was not covered with imaginary lava. Obi-Wan gave the same spiel he'd given Anakin, that the visions they were having were important but that he would no longer allow them to effect the mission. He also informed them of the new time limit. Anakin was only half listening. He'd gone to stand beside Oddball, who sat in the co-pilot's seat.
Tendrils of gas and dust streamed towards the black hole. When the light from the ship shone through it some wavelengths were absorbed, and some reflected. Parts of the cloud looked green, or purple, or a shimmering red. It would have been beautiful, had Anakin not known how dangerous it was.
"Going around was the right call," he told Oddball. "There could be plasma in there."
"If you're up to it, I could use the help," Oddball admitted.
Anakin was about to agree when the force chose that exact moment to create another distraction. While Anakin had been talking, Obi-Wan had wandered over to the door, and was looking down the hall.
"Do you see that?" he asked.
Anakin went to join him by the door, holding up a finger to indicate his conversation with Oddball wasn't over.
"It's you," he said, seeing the same hallucination as his master… of his master.
Instead of being pulled into a vision, this time a vision had come to them. Another version of Obi-Wan stood right outside the bridge. Though he looked slightly older and infinitely more tired than this Obi-Wan he looked no less real. He didn't seem aware of their presence.
As they watched, the scene seemed to fade into place: heat distortions in the air, the smell of molten rock—though it no longer coated the hallway floor—and finally Anakin, facing Obi-Wan down with hate in his yellow eyes. Present Anakin looked away, over his shoulder. He had the choice not to watch this, to help Oddball with the ship.
"I think I'm getting control of this," he told the concerned men, not sure if he was lying. "But it's my future. You can't expect me not to look. If anything happens, anything at all, get my attention, remind me what's at stake."
"Yes, Sir," said Rex, with a salute. "But with the upmost respect, I still think I'll check up on you."
Anakin didn't blame the captain at all.
The visions had said a few words to each other, but he hadn't been paying attention. The real Obi-Wan was standing out in the hall as well, transfixed.
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes," said the version from the future, words heavy with sorrow, "I will do what I must."
"You will try."
Anakin felt as if he'd been slapped in the face. It was strange enough to hear a recording of one's own voice, but this twisted version of him didn't sound, or even really look like him. Or did he? He wore the same robes, sported the same distinctive scar. Unlike Obi-Wan he didn't even look noticeably older. That anger that bubbled off of him: was it really so foreign? Anakin knew it as intimately as a lover.
Anakin Skywalker drew his lightsaber and lunged at his best friend. The two men moved at an astounding speed, lightsabers nothing but a blue blur. They progressed down the hall, locked in combat, and their past counterparts followed them. There was nothing they could say to each other, held in place by morbid curiosity. Their lightsabers scratched the walls of the hall, and sparks rained down. But when they passed there were no marks left on the metal.
They moved through the portal into the mess. Anakin and Obi-Wan took off running, not wanting to loose site of themselves.
Their doubles fought as if they really were really on the ship, respecting the walls and making use of nearby objects. They clashed atop the long table, and Anakin grabbed Obi-Wan by the throat, slamming him down. As his lightsaber pushed closer to Obi-Wan's neck, Anakin looked away. Though he should have known it would not end like this, after the other visions they had seen. They hurled objects with the force. A chair shattered against the window.
"That's really happening, isn't it?" asked Anakin. "Is it us moving those things?"
"It would appear so." Obi-Wan gestured at their doubles.
Anakin was not sure he wished to see the conclusion of this fight. Suddenly everything shuttered and dipped, effecting all four of them. This left the difficult question of whether or not it had really happened.
"This ship?" Anakin asked.
"No," said Obi-Wan. "The mining station. It's going to collapse into the lava."
Still seeing the mess hall, Anakin did not understand.
The door opened, revealing Rex. "Oddball could really use some help, General."
Rex was the master of functioning under pressure, but Anakin could hear the worry in his voice. His future self still fought, but he had no choice but to turn away. He had lived his whole life under the shadow of prophecies. What difference did one more make?
"Look after him," Anakin said, then left Obi-Wan to face the end of their fight alone.
"General Skywalker!" Anakin was bombarded with information as soon as he entered the bridge, but it was Oddball who had called his name. "There was a chunk of something mixed in with the dust. It knocked us off course and we're getting pulled in, I can't—"
Already in the pilot's chair, Anakin cut him off. "Hang onto something. Things are about to get bumpy."
Compensating for the gravitational pull and getting them into a stable orbit was not an easy task. They were already far closer than Anakin had planned to come. There were also the tendrils of gas and dust. He weaved between them, flipping the ship sideways to fit through a hole in a large cloud. Then, dropping straight down to make it under a bank of glowing green ions. The adrenaline helped to focus him. The threat of death, with the ship at his command, this was what he'd been born for. With so much to focus on he could forget the past, forget the future.
The gas seemed to be thinning, but they were still far too close to the black hole. Not to mention, Anakin was starting to get tunnel vision. It did happen occasionally when he got in the zone, but never before had it been quite so literal.
He held the ship steady, keeping it from crashing into the looming walls which had appeared on either side. It reminded him of pod-racing through the canyons on Tatooine, but the walls here were not rock. They were armoured like a star destroyer, or a space station. Anakin should have realized he could not hold the future back forever. There was another ship ahead of him, a star fighter. He stayed close, keeping it in his sites.
Unable to see the present, Anakin should have given control back to Oddball. But the force flooded through him: warm and hopeful. He could trust it. This ship would not lead him astray. He would trust in the force. It would not be showing them these horrors without reason. So he flew through this manmade canyon, as some future space battle raged above him.
Then Oddball was yelling, "it's the ship General! The ship! Do you see it?" and suddenly everything was gone, and he was snapped back to reality.
The first thing he noticed was how much closer the black hole was. Still, he would trust in the force, and they had other things to worry about at the moment, because they'd found it. The spy ship was in front of them, and they were fast approaching. Anakin slowed down so that their orbital velocities were the same.
He did not leave his seat, dispatching the clones to board. He did not go check on Obi-Wan, scared of losing the little clarity he had gained. There was so much he needed to do, so many things he needed to say to him. That he loved him, and that he had the right to know about his marriage to Padme. That he was sorry.
To the clone's credit, they were fast. Soon, Kix was fretting over the injured pilots in the med bay, and Rex was showing him a tiny drive filled with secrets. The mission had been a compete success, but it didn't matter, all that mattered was getting away from this place, to his universe, where none of what they'd seen could be allowed to come to pass. They had come awfully close to the black hole, and for a moment he feared that when the returned so much time would have passed they would be too late.
Oddball took back control of the ship as they reached escape velocity. He tried to ask permission, but Anakin did not answer, as he was somewhere else. He was somewhere in the vastness of spacetime, dying, his body that of a broken old man. If he could still be called a man. As life slipped away he could see only the face of the blond boy from his dream.
"Father!" His voice was very far away.
As one becomes one with the force, many truths become evident to them. On returning to his body, Anakin was only able to hold onto one of these. That his was only one of infinite universes, each the result of a choice. Every being able to choose had the power of a god: the power to create realities. And though it saddened him, he was also aware that the universe on the other side of the black hole needed to exist, for it had shaped this one.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I hoped you enjoyed it. I may have gone a little bit too meta on the concept of AUs at the end, haha. Thanks for all the great comments.