Hey Everyone! Hope you are all doing well and enjoying this story! Thanks for all your comments, I really appreciate and look forward to them! I have mixed feelings about this chapter, I love most of it, and then there are some parts that I just couldn't get quite right. Otherwise, I think it turned out pretty well! Let me know what you think, and lots of love - Lorna
Guest: Palpatine is the most manipulative, sadistic #@% (jerk, let's go with jerk) in the entire galaxy. He only cares about himself and what he has to do to get more power. The clones are long past ready for a change, and honestly I think Anakin would happily revolt if he could just get his mental health in order. Eventually Palpatine is gonna be in some deep trouble.
DS2010: Oh my gosh I totally agree with you Palpatine is the worst. Also I laughed when I read the beginning of this comment so thank you for that, I appreciate it. I feel for Anakin too, and it's even worse because it's been going on for years. Manipulation since childhood, torture and war since late teens/early twenties. Anakin and Obi Wan need a lot of help, cause that is just... bad.
Guest: Poor Anakin and Obi Wan. Their lives only get harder from here on out.
Anakin came too with the sensation that he was choking, aspirating on his own sick. With monumental effort brought to pass simply because survival depended on it, he turned onto his side and let gravity help clear his throat. It burned and his entire body convulsed with the need to free itself and survive. His brain felt like Palpatine had taken the equivalent of a force scalple and performed open heart surgery while he was conscious. He longed for the blackness his brain was trying to force on him, its need to rest and try to patch itself back together, but he feared he was like the stories his mother had told him back on Tatooine as a slave. A warning of a royal child who had fallen off a wall and no matter the money, no matter the power, no matter all the very best men, no one could put the king's kid back together again. There are some things that no one can come back from, and Anakin wondered if he had long past the point of no return. Once he was able to breathe somewhat normally again, he promptly let himself be taken back into unconsciousness again.
Obi Wan watched in horror as Anakin continued to tremor and struggle, long after Palpatine had ordered them to be dragged away. Obi Wan couldn't understand why he felt so hollow inside, so raw. He had witnessed torture before, seen death come for so many and it hurt, force, it hurt so bad. It hurt when the clones suffered. It hurt when innocents died. Obi Wan was well acquainted with pain, but this for some inexplicable reason hurt so much more than it should. He put his hand against the glass that separated him from his padawan. Why would Palpatine even have a room like this? What purpose did it serve? He didn't want to think to hard on what the other purposes, or who else had been kept in this cell.
Anakin gasped again, something that Obi Wan was becoming increasingly concerned with. After initially being thrown into the barren room, Anakin had briefly regained consciousness, just long enough to vomit, roll over, and promptly lose consciousness. Now he would occasionally gasp for air as though he was being deprived of it. Obi Wan wanted to understand, to see what was going on, but separated by the glass, all he could do was watch and wait.
"Anakin," he sighed.
His Padawan's fingers twitched. There was a horrible pain that flashed in the force as Anakin's shields dropped slightly as he verged on conciousness.
Diving into the Force, instinctively searching for a bond that he no longer believed existed, Obi-Wan was shocked to find it deep within the recesses of his mind, fragile and forgotten, yet still there. His bond with Anakin opened to him like it was desperate for his old master's presence.
Anakin's presense was overwhelming. It had so much power and yet was so deceptively fragile. It was everything and nothing like the Anakin he loved. It was too much but Obi Wan couldn't bring himself to withdraw. He sent waves of comfort through the bond, relishing the way it seemed to make Anakin relax, chasing the pain away.
He retreated to reality only when he felt the beginnings of coherency float through the bond. Anakin let a small moan as he came to but he did not betray nearly as much pain as he was in. Blearily, Vader sat up, looking around with unseeing eyes.
"Anakin?"
His head snapped toward the sound of Obi Wan's voice, but it appeared the movement was too much for him in the state he was in. His already pale features went ashen and his arms slackened underneath him.
"Anakin!"
Said padawan just managed to catch himself before his face came into unpleasant contact with the floor. Nose just inches from the floor, Anakin irratic breathing was the only noise between the two. He pushed himself up on shaky arms, purposely avoiding looking in Obi Wan's direction.
"Trooper." He rasped. Obi Wan could hardly hear it, so he couldn't imagine how someone outside of the door would, but in less than a second Fives walked through the door, standing at attention. Obi Wan could feel the familiar presense through the force. Vader and him shared a quick conversation, whispered under their breaths so Obi Wan was not privy to it. Fives walked out and after a moment, Kix walked in, several set of medical supplies tucked under his arms and in his grasp. Obi Wan noticed with alarm several sets of hardware tools that could only be for Anakin's prosthetic arm or whatever happened after Mustafar to his leg. Rewiring or fixing either would be unpleasant under the best of circumstances… now? Obi Wan shuddered to think about it.
The door to his side of the room opened, and Cody walked in.
"General…
Obi-Wan couldn't take his eyes off Vader, heaving and shaking and so obviously not alright. What was even scarier was how organized Kix was, like he had done this several times before.
There was a hand on Obi Wan's shoulder, warm and alive. "General, Obi Wan, we need to go."
Obi Wan turned to face him for a moment, looking at the pristine white helmet that made Cody looked like every other soldier. He blinked, turning back toward Anakin.
"Obi-Wan, he doesn't want you to watch this; he told Fives to come and get me."
"I don't need protecting," Obi-Wan whispered. "He's my Padawan."
Cody knelt on the floor beside him, taking his helmet off and revealing a very worded face. "No, you don't need protecting, but maybe he wants to save you from this pain. Trust me, it hurts more than anything to watch someone you love suffer."
Something about the way Cody said it made Obi-Wan nod.
"Alright."
After Cody helped him up and began to lead him away, Obi-Wan finally figured it out.
Experience. That was what Cody was speaking from. Suddenly, Obi Wan didn't know whether he felt better or worse, because Cody had been talking about him.