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The entire valley spread out before you is a bowl of wet, thick mud. It's coated up past your knees and splattered as far as your chest. The rain has lessened from sheets to a steady patter, which somehow only makes you feel more soaked. There had been such a bone-deep sense of weariness emanating off Cody in the Force that you'd pulled him aside under the pretense of reviewing intel and made him sit with you on a stack of crates jumbled against the side of a house for a few stolen moments of rest.
“Not your smoothest lie, General,” he'd said, but sat just slightly slumped against you under the meager shelter of the bombed-out roof. The most restful two minutes of your day passed in companionable silence before Cody rose and once more went to work, leaving the faintest imprint of warmth along your side.
The 212th is handling cleanup of the village and the swathe of B1 droids that had descended upon it with the intention of destroying its people. Your intervention had ensured that the village and the valley remained in Republic control, but you fear it won't be long before the fighting resumes once more. The war on Arga 6 has been a long damp slog of attrition.
The 501st is gathering the bodies, both of the troopers and of the villagers. The local custom is burial in family pit graves, shallow and planted with low-lying flowers. When you'd learned this, a 501st trooper had very quietly wondered if the Argans would recognize the hastily-dug mass graves all too common for clones as proper burials. You were glad that Ahsoka wasn't around to overhear, though you think she may have come to the thought on her own. It worries you that her knowledge of being a padawan is beginning to come second to her knowledge of being at war.
You pass by Captain Rex, who tells you that Anakin has climbed the low forested ridge behind the village to scan the valley for potential further attacks. He's carrying a medkit under each arm and there's a smear of mud on his helmet that looks disconcertingly like blood. He seems just as tired as Cody. You bow when you thank him, and he seems to glow the tiniest bit brighter in the Force.
Anakin is standing like a sentinel just past the treeline, sheltered by the hanging boughs of the spring-green trees. He's staring out over the valley, but his binocs dangle from one hand. When you step under cover with him he seems to awaken. He's wearing a flimsy single-use poncho with a scribble interpretation of Ahsoka's markings on the hood, but he still looks half drowned. You suppose you're not any better.
“You know, when I was little I used to think that no one could ever hate the rain.”
You chuckle and fold your arms over your sodden, cold chest. “I suppose we're experiencing the height of luxury on Tatooine.”
“I think it rained four times? Five?” He twists the binocs back and forth in his hands. “Apparently it rained the day I was born.”
Something makes you bite back the joke you want to make. Aside from mourning fallen troopers, Anakin is usually enthusiastic after a battle won. You had thought you were climbing the rise to discuss next steps or analyze the Separatists' strategy, but Anakin's gaze remains far away.
“Is something wrong?” you say softly.
There's a pause, and the faintest huff of laughter. “Uh, no, I guess.” His durasteel fingers tap irregularly on the outer casing of the binocs. “I was just thinking.”
“What about?” The rain is fainter under the trees, but heavy drops fall sporadically from the leaves. You watch one land on his cheek, under the scar, and roll down to his collar. He doesn't seem to notice.
“The villagers,” Anakin says abruptly. He's still staring out over the valley. “Living here. Just living their lives. Do you ever think about that?"
“About... the villagers here?”
“Just villagers.” He looks down at the ground. “Like... what their lives are like.”
“Well,” you start, and pause, turning it over in your brain. “I suppose I think about how they're affected by the war, and how we can get them back to their normal lives.”
“Yeah, but.” He stops, opens his mouth, stops. A gust of wind shakes heavy drops off the trees and splatters them cold against your skin. Anakin says, slowly, “do you ever wonder what it would be like if you were one of them?”
“A villager?”
“Yeah.”
“Well. I.” The truth is, you don't. When you were younger you used to wonder what your life would look like outside the Order, especially when the threat of the Agricorps and the loss of knighthood hung over your head, but ever since you became a padawan you've known your path. You're a Jedi. You are your connection to the galaxy and your fellow Jedi, your responsibility to the Republic and to peace. You are your lightsaber and your helping hands. You are one with the Force.
You know Anakin struggles, sometimes, often, with what it means to be a Jedi. It used to keep you up at night, worrying for his future and wellbeing as well as his health and safety. Now, with the war, it weighs less on you. Most days it's enough if he's alive, uninjured, safe. If you can keep him that way.
Maybe you should have been a better teacher. Maybe he wouldn't struggle if you had known what to do when he was nine and lost, and you had been able to discourage him from caring so deeply. But you know Anakin; his heart is his greatest weakness, and his greatest strength.
“You empathize with them,” you say slowly. “You put yourself in their place in hopes of better understanding them, and helping them. That is to be admired.”
You know he needed to hear something, some reassurance. You hope you've given it. He's still staring out at the valley.
“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks Obi-Wan. But sometimes...”
In the silence, the tree boughs shush with the wind. A shout rises from somewhere below, but there's no alarm in the Force. The rain continues inexorably.
“Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I wasn't a Jedi,” Anakin says.
You let it sit in the silence for a moment, heavy in the pit of your stomach. You will not let panic control you.
“Anakin.” You reach for him. No matter how much he grows up, it will always feel right to put your hand on his shoulder like this, like an older brother. “You need not doubt yourself. You are a cunning warrior and a caring Master, and I am proud of you. Your emotions can be your strength. They do not make you less of a Jedi.”
For a moment, he just looks at you, face blank. You get the sense of something moving deep below an ocean, turning over itself in the depths. Then one side of his mouth twists up and he smiles faintly, and breaks eye contact.
“Okay,” he says softly. He stares over the village and the mud and the rescue efforts. “I know you're proud of me.”
“I am,” you insist. “I am proud of the Jedi you've become.”
“Yeah.” A moment passes that feels like a year, and then he turns back to you. He's smiling, the lopsided grin you recognize well, and your heart lightens to see it. His eyes still lie in shadow. You squeeze his shoulder, trying to put your care into it, your confidence in him, your belief, before letting your hand fall.
“I had hoped to discuss our next steps and plan our assault on the north valley. We can stay here if you like, but my tent is marginally drier.”
He snorts softly. “Luxurious.
“I like to think so.” You step out from the shelter of the trees and the rain starts up cold once again. Anakin doesn't. Ten paces away, you turn back. He's tilted his head to stare into the green canopy. For a moment he waits there, spine straight, one hand still clenched around the binocs and the other empty at his side. He looks human. He looks young.
When he catches up the conversation flows between you as easily as it ever has, and you begin planning and debriefing without a thought. Yet the moment lingers with you, sitting on your tongue with a taste that's almost bitter. Watching Anakin stand like the statue of a long-dead hero, the rain crawling down your face in tracks. His hesitation, the phantom warmth of his shoulder under your hand. The hard-won valley of casualties and mud below it all.