Chapter Text
It happens two years into the war.
Anakins's not doing great. Nobody is. He has a feeling things are only going to get worse from here, but for Ahsoka's sake and that of the clones, he tries not to acknowledge this.
It's a terrible cliché, when it happens, like something out of a shitty holoshow instead of real life. Unfortunately, Anakin's life tends to be a shitty holoshow in spirit, as often as not. They investigate a Sith Temple while hunting Ventress down, and Ahsoka accidentally touches a Magic Object, and then it's just... lights and voices and cold.
Anakin opens his eyes to a snowstorm. He’s still wearing the same clothes, still has his lightsabers, still largely uninjured except for a blaster graze on his thigh. He’s got a few hours before he has to stop using the Force to keep himself warm, even though the prosthesis attachment point is going to be a bitch to keep from causing frostbite.
He looks around for his Master, for his Padawan, and it's... it's not good. It is, in fact, the opposite of optimal.
There’s a baby in a pile of familiar robes and armor. This child is six months at most. Why the hell is a baby in a snowstorm?
Anakin scrambles over and picks up the child, stuffs the baby into his robes because they’re in a goddamn snowstorm, and belatedly realizes that oh.
This baby is Obi-Wan.
This is probably the worst it could be without them being actively dead or dying.
He tries to reach out in the Force. He tries to send messages, or at least feelings, and the response is muddled at best. Anakin's not sure what's doing it, from the cold to the literal infant brain to the brain-breaking nature of Force-given travel, but Obi-Wan can’t seem to focus at all. Anakin panics, and wraps more robes about the tiny form.
(The only thing the baby can really put together is that Anakin is here, and mostly competent, and going to take care of everything. He sends love and trust down the bond, and then falls asleep against Anakin’s chest under as many layers as Anakin can put him in.)
He looks around. One lineage member down. One to go.
They are not alone, because there’s also a toddling Togruta in her own pile of… well, not robes. Ahsoka doesn’t do robes. Unfortunately, snowstorm.
A toddler brain is bigger than an infant brain, but not by much. Ahsoka makes it to her Master on her own, already shivering and crying, because she's down to a sports bra that's hanging off one shoulder with how oversized it is. She clings to Anakin.
He manages to get her wrapped up in the many underlayers of Adult Kenobi’s clothes, stuffs her into his own clothes with Obi-Wan, clutching them close to his chest. Then, as snow-covered as it currently is, he throws the Great Big Brown Overrobe Of Drama on top, because it's not sodden yet, and Obi-Wan's robe is the closest any of them are going to have to real snow clothes, and he needs all the layers he can manage. He clips the additional sabers to his belt, packs away the armor, and picks up whatever else he can see, because his brain is in survival mode, and a snowstorm might be the exact opposite of a desert, but ‘keep what you can, because you don’t know when you’ll have a chance to get it again’ is sound advice no matter what. He sets out for the nearest group of Force signatures.
Unfortunately, this is several hours away, long enough that the blaster wound starts giving him trouble that he can’t just push through, throbbing with every step despite the freezing temperatures, long enough that even gratuitous use of the Force is failing to keep him warm anymore. He’s focusing everything he’s got on the kids, after all. For all that Anakin has power, he doesn’t necessarily have control. He can only focus on so many people at once, and the literal infant and toddler come first. So while he manages to keep them warm, he starts to lose feeling in his hand and feet, and the prosthesis is… well, metal attached directly to the skin like that isn’t great in such weather. He'd known that was coming.
Just as Anakin’s starting to panic a bit, something he’d mostly managed to avoid in favor of keeping himself awake and moving and alive, compartmentalizing for the sake of survival, he is found.
By a group of Mandalorians.
He only barely recognizes the sigil as a mythosaur. He knows these are True Mandalorians, Fett’s people. Better than Death Watch, he tells himself, as they demand to know who he is and why he’s out here.
(He still does not know he is in the past. He soon will.)
Anakin’s not in any shape to fight. He’s spent hours in a snowstorm, wearing only the clothes off his and Obi-Wan’s backs, after a battle with a Sith Apprentice. He knows that if he wants to survive, he needs to get help here, or at least get captured for long enough to rebuild his strength.
He only knows a bit of Mando'a. They’d understand Basic, obviously, but one of them just pointed out the four—four—lightsabers on his hip, so he’s grabbing for every positive he can. If the Mandalorian language can help, he’s going to use it. Better than Death Watch, he repeats to himself. If these people hold to tradition, he can use that. If they don’t… he’ll figure something out. Fett threw out all those old convictions in the building of his clone army, but there are so few things Anakin can rely on in this situation. He has to try.
“Aliit,” he tells them, moving just enough to uncover Ahsoka’s too-tiny face, asleep and cringing away from wind. “T’ad ikaad’e. Gaa’tayl, gedet’ye.”
Family. Two babies. Help, please.
He needs the Mandalorians, because two of the most important people in the universe are helpless and relying entirely on him right now.
They take him with them.
They take him to the Mand’alor.
They take him to Jaster Mereel.