Chapter Text
“General?”
Anakin didn’t turn around, unwilling to look away even for a moment. In the distance, the treeline was dark and imprecise through the shimmer of the ray shield fences and the sheeting rain. No matter how waterproof a thing claimed to be, persistent rain got everywhere after a while, even into the lens housing of the macrobinoculars he was holding. The kriffing things kept malfunctioning, erratically losing focus every few seconds. Anakin thumped the side of the casing with his palm, frustrated, then went back to scanning the treeline.
“What is it, Camber?”
“Sir,” said Camber, shifting stickily in the mud, and there was something in the trooper’s tone—hesitant, nervous even—that made Anakin drag his tired eyes away from the rain, from the too-quiet shadows beneath the distant trees.
“Your...help is requested, sir,” the trooper said. "With General Kenobi."
Anakin just stared at the man for a second, exhaustion and cold fogging his brain. He shoved a hand over his face. “Obi-Wan? Why?”
And why the hells couldn’t the other man just comm Anakin if he wanted something? They’d lost so many men, picked off by blasters or by sickness, that they could hardly keep the watches manned; they were too stretched for Anakin to trek all the way over the kriffing camp every time–
“Commander Cody sent me,” Camber said, interrupting his thoughts, and something in the pit of Anakin’s stomach went cold.
“Where? Med bay?”
“No sir. He's by the armorers’ tent.”
“I’ll be back,” Anakin said as he thrust the faulty macrobinoculars into Camber’s chest. “Take over this watch, points 11 through 12. Book will relieve you at 29:00 if I’m not back by then.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
Anakin tried not to think as he made his way back through the sheets of rain, through the pits and hollows of churning mud, forward motion only possible via a squelching slide that even the Force could barely alleviate. Cold sapped energy and tempers, endless mud caked boots and equipment with heavy, unyielding clods that made every movement a battle. And as for the actual battles...Force. The blasted rain had stopped maybe four times in the 22 days they’d been under siege in this wasteland. That was about the same number of times either Anakin or Obi-Wan had slept for more than an hour in one go this entire fucking campaign.
It was probably a surprise Obi-Wan was still functioning at all.
Anakin reached the armorers, shoving sopping hair out of his eyes as he looked around. There was Cody standing alone by the southern corner of the tent, turned outwards like he was on guard, but thankfully this wasn’t one of the more heavily traversed areas of the encampment and there was no-one about. A few rare strands of bleak grass that had survived the rain and the quagmire straggled around the tent post.
“Commander?” Anakin said as he approached.
Cody said nothing in response, just tilted his bucket to the right. Gesturing towards the thin gap between the armorers’ tent and the ammunition store that had been pitched adjacent to it. Anakin followed the wordless directions and headed into the narrow alleyway between the heavy canvas walls. It was fractionally more sheltered in the narrow space than standing out in the full fury of the rain, but the endless downpour funneling off the tent roofs was still well on its way to eroding a sizable channel down the length of the alley, water swirling around his ankles. Soon the stream would start to undercut the tents. A good proportion of their provisions, and too much tech, had already been spoiled or damaged beyond repair by the mud. It wouldn’t be long before the unending beat of the rain would start destroying their shelters too, washing them away piece by piece. And when the endless, seeping water finally crept its insidious way into the generators that powered the ray shielding of their defensive wall…
Don't think about it. Not now.
“Obi-Wan?”
There was no reply, but it wasn’t difficult to spot the other Jedi. Obi-Wan had positioned himself at the back of the alley where the canvas wall of the tent closed up against a haphazard pile of empty ammo crates. He was kneeling on the sodden ground, back to the wall, and could almost have been meditating if Anakin hadn’t been able to easily see the tension in his posture, in his hunched shoulders.
“Obi-Wan,” Anakin said again, crouching beside him. The man still said nothing, staring ahead. He was shaking hard, whole body tremors that sent rainwater flicking from his sodden hair and beard. Anakin didn’t know if that was caused by cold or not. He put his hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. The other Jedi started violently, though the motion was still almost lost in the shivers.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan rasped, though he didn’t look around. His eyes were very wide, fixed on something far away.
“Yeah. It’s me,” Anakin said, carefully. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“There was something,” Obi-Wan replied, toneless. “A smell, I think. Rotten blood.” His gloved hands were coiled up against his chest, fingers tightly curled.
“Okay, Master. Take it easy, Everything’s gonna be okay,” Anakin said: slow, meaningless words. “Are you back here with me now?”
“I don’t know,” said Obi-Wan, and heaved in a breath. “Yes. But I can’t look. Anakin, you have to look for me.”
“Alright, Obi-Wan,” Anakin said, “just relax if you can.” Even though they both knew that was impossible until they were far, far away from here.
Anakin carefully, slowly, reached for Obi-Wan’s right forearm, and began to uncurl the stiff limb. The motion dragged a hollow, agonized noise from Obi-Wan, drawn up from deep in his body, as if his shoulder was still broken. Anakin shushed him but didn’t pause the motion, gently drawing the arm out, then using both his own hands to uncurl the tense fingers enough to peel Obi-Wan’s sodden glove away.
The hand beneath was white and cold. The myriad new scars that seared across the palm, knuckles and misshapen joints barely showed against the bloodlessness of his skin.
“Your hands are healed, Obi-Wan,” Anakin said softly, and Obi-Wan trembled. “It’s over. Look, the nails are even growing back. Look.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” Anakin insisted. “You lived through it, and it’s over. It’s over. Look at it, please.”
Obi-Wan did nothing for a moment, and then, with a strength of will almost humbling to witness, forced himself to turn his head and look down at his own bare hand resting in the shelter of Anakin's.
“It’s healed,” he echoed, breathlessly, almost disbelieving. “It is healed. Even though it feels like… I can still feel…”
Anakin released Obi-Wan’s hand, and the other man brought it closer to himself, turning the hand in front of his eyes like it was something miraculous.
“Are your hands hurting?” Anakin asked, cautiously. Obi-Wan breathed sharply, and looked up.
“No, no. Of course not, Anakin. They're quite healed.” Obi-Wan gave a weak smile that looked grotesque in its falseness. “Apologies. I had a moment’s disorientation, nothing more. I should get back to…”
He trailed off, looking about him in a daze, clearly with no recollection of how he had ended up here.
“Come on, Obi-Wan. Let’s at least get you out of this kriffing river.”
Together they got him up, splashing in the water. Obi-Wan seemed unsteady on his feet but he could walk tolerably well. His face was ghost white in the gloom.
They reached the end of the alley, and the rain was an icy blow. Cody was nowhere in sight. Ushering Obi-Wan along ahead of him as carefully as he could, Anakin set off into the driving rain, and Obi-Wan didn’t ask where they were going, too preoccupied trying to keep his balance in the slick mud each time he stumbled with weariness. After a few moments, Anakin sensed Cody shadowing them at a discrete distance, as if to imply Obi-Wan’s commander also walking along this exact track through the GAR encampment at the same moment they were was complete coincidence.
Obi-Wan looked up only when Anakin pushed aside the canvas flap of the officers’ tent they shared and gestured Obi-Wan inside. He frowned and opened his mouth as if to argue but Anakin cut him off.
“I don’t want to hear it, Obi-Wan. Inside. Sleep. Four hours at least, unless the alarm is raised or the fence generators fail.”
“I…” said Obi-Wan, and then swallowed. “I don’t know if I can.” He was still holding his arms curled up, unconsciously protecting his hands against his body. A defensive, vulnerable posture he’d be mortified by if he was aware enough to notice he was doing it. It made Anakin feel sick.
“Try,” said Anakin, intransigent and still holding the flap open. “I swear someone will come get you if anything happens.”
It said a lot about Obi-Wan’s state that he just nodded once, his eyes downcast, and went into the tent. Anakin let the tent flap fall closed behind him, and then sealed it shut from the outside to keep the warmth in and the rain out, as far as either thing was possible.
Cody was loitering in the gloom across the path, under the meager shelter of a half-awning. “Sir,” he acknowledged low, as Anakin came up. “Is the general actually going to rest, do you think?”
Anakin just shrugged helplessly. “How long had he been like that?” he asked.
“Half an hour before I sent Camber over. Couldn’t get him to snap out of it this time.”
Anakin nodded. Force, he was tired. “If you see him on his feet again before 34:00, have someone stun him.”
“Will do, sir,” said Cody, but the brief spark of levity quickly fizzled out in the damp air. Quietly, the commander said, “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”
Anakin sighed. “I don’t know, Cody. He’s…well. You know how he is. And what they did.”
They both looked through the rain at Obi-Wan’s tent. It was dark. He hadn’t lit any lights inside but they knew he wasn’t sleeping.
“They should never have sent him back into the field,” Cody said, with uncharacteristic bluntness. “It’s too soon.”
Anakin didn’t say anything at all.