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By the third time it happened, Anakin was out of patience.
“Skywalker,” Admiral Yularen told him when Anakin jogged up to the bridge, “the humanitarian team managed a partial evacuation before our forces had to retreat. Most of the rest had been located and retrieved, the only person unaccounted for is—”
“Bail Organa.” Anakin grumbled, “I’ll go find him.”
The Admiral nodded.
“He reportedly left camp in order to send out the distress signal, but never returned. Our trackers placed his transmission around the north end of the town’s ruins—”
“Thank you, Admiral. Tell them to send another squad to the perimeter and start cleanup until I get back.” Anakin said, “I’ll be off.”
He didn’t wait around to see the man’s lips tighten around being cut off. It wasn’t his job to appease these military types’ ego, who thought Anakin’s abruptness meant he believed them inferior. Now, unearthing wayward Senators was even less his job, but at least Bail Organa knew when Anakin’s words were meant to be taken personally. Which was most of the time, if not always.
He found Organa lying unconscious in a pile of rubble— probably the aftermath of a triggered mine and a nearly-good-enough attempt at shielding himself from the blast. Luckily, the man was still breathing, though Anakin had to dig out one of his legs. Seeing no way around it, Anakin bent down, hauled the uncharacteristically dusty Senator over his shoulder with a grunt, and began to walk off.
Bail was by no means a slight man, but Anakin tugged the Force tight around them both, securely holding the Senator across his back. Anakin did his best to complain about it, however. The entire way. Including when Bail was still unconscious. He punctuated every step with the likes of:
“For a Senator, you really do enjoy running straight into blaster fire a bit too much.”
“You are an untrained civilian. I don’t know why they keep letting you do this sort of thing. Just because you’re popular on Coruscant doesn’t mean you won’t get killed by a canon, for fuck’s sake.”
“Is it some publicity stunt? Or just because getting yourself knocked unconscious makes you feel better about having done something more useful than squabbling in your velvet cushion Senate pods?”
“If you’re going to lead the mission yourself, at least stay put on the spot rather than run around unsupervised in active war zones.”
“Why didn’t you stay where it was easy to find you? You could have sent out anyone else to transmit the distress signal.”
“And risk anyone else deciding to leave the messenger behind?” Bail answered that one, giving Anakin a good scare. “I wasn’t about to declare the lives of one of my team more expendable than my own.”
Anakin didn’t know when he woke up. Whatever, neither did he care.
“Oh, yeah,” he immediately retorted, “But you wouldn't have minded risking the lives of a few clones to go looking for you?”
Bail was quiet for a beat.
“We are protective of our own men. In this you and I are the same.”
Anakin snorted flatly, but said no more. It was about the only thing they could try and protect, and walking out the bombed site of a failed humanitarian mission, the feeling ran particularly strong now.
“Besides,” Bail continued, “it wasn’t a clone who came looking for me, was it?”
“Be quiet or I might drop you.”
“General,” Bail said calmly, “you can put me down.”
“Did you or did you not break your leg?” Anakin scoffed, “now will you— stop moving? I might actually drop you, you know?”
From behind his head, a blaster fired. Anakin snapped around to catch Bail’s arm held out, and a scouting droid dropped to the ground by the half-fallen wall some hundred feet out.
“Apologies,” Bail stashed the blaster back into the holster at his hip. “You were saying?”
Anakin scowled again, and resumed walking. “I should have taken that blaster off of you.”
“And let the droid report our locations, or open fire at us?” Bail said, and Anakin could see the unimpressed eyebrow arching, dignified despite his position.
“He wouldn’t have gotten us.”
“Ah, of course. You would have walked out of its way using your Jedi senses?”
Of all non-sensitives Anakin had met, Bail was amongst those who understood and respected it the most, he’s been Obi-Wan’s friend of a decade, for kriff’s sake. And so Anakin knew he was riling him up on purpose.
“You should try meditating.” Anakin said, “It was easier to carry you when you weren’t awake.”
Which was objectively false. But still. Bail Organa would not leave him alone, because after a not-long-enough stretch of blessed silence, he asked,
“Anakin, how’s your Master doing these days?”
Anakin scowled. At that moment, he seriously considered dropping Bail off on the spot, and making him limp his own way back to base. Bail knew perfectly well how Obi-Wan was doing, because they talk on a regular basis. Unlike Obi-Wan and Anakin.
“I don’t know, how do you think Obi-Wan is doing?” he snapped.
It was Anakin’s fault, of course, because everything was always Anakin’s fault. And Bail Organa knew perfectly well, even if the rest of the galaxy didn’t, what frigid reality was beneath the facade of The Team. They still fought and won battles together, sure, though less and less frequently. But at some point there had been one too many straws laid down, one too many secrets and one too many lies and one too many times being burned or brushed aside when he deigned to reach out.
Bail Organa, on the other hand. Bail Organa had been Obi-Wan’s confidant (and worse) for a decade. Bail Organa was probably hearing all about Obi-Wan’s fears and wishes and snide remarks about Anakin. And instead of fighting with and protecting and carrying Obi-Wan on his back, he got useless Senators who didn’t know how to stay in line for their own good.
“I’m putting you down.” Anakin grumbled, “You can walk by yourself.”
“Thank you.” Bail said, sliding off Anakin’s back and righting himself on one leg, not without the barest note of triumph. He stashed away the empty tube of a stimshot, and put the other foot down, beginning to limp forward. “Lead the way, General.”
Anakin glared at the back of his head.
The moment they got to base, it was back to battle plans and ambushes and strategizing to take back the planet, in the midst of which the Senator slipped unobtrusively away. Anakin didn’t see much of him until he was finally herded to the medbay himself a few days later, and found Bail inclined against one of the cots, datapad in hand.
“Why are you still here?” Anakin blurted right at him, “You should have left with the evac team two cycles ago!”
Bail seemed not at all surprised at the sudden intrusion. He put away his datapad, met Anakin’s eyes, then looked pointedly at his own leg, up in a sling.
Anakin huffed. Of course. And they’d been rationing the bacta and evacuation slots for more severe injuries of active troops. So the Senator elected to be stuck here.
“Besides,” Bail added, “I heard there will be opportunities for peace talks in the next four cycles, which I will gladly be a part of.”
“I thought Obi-Wan was coming for that.”
“General Kenobi was pulled away to other duties.” Bail answered, “including covering my absence from the Tressian negotiations, alongside Senator Amidala.”
Anakin’s anger surged because why was Bail the one to know? He opened his mouth to speak, but Kix called from the other end of the room.
“General,” said the unimpressed voice. “Your examination?”
Anakin snapped his mouth shut. Then called back, “Okay, I’m coming.”
He stomped his way across and plopped himself on the chair. “Alright, Kix?”
“Alright, General.” the medic tutted.
Organa’s eyes didn’t leave him, however, and Anakin glared right back, kept his eyes on him the whole while, as Kix got him to strip down to his undertunic, before prodding and waving scanners over him.
“Would you like to move somewhere else?” Kix asked quietly.
“This is fine.” Anakin snapped.
While he sat through the regular lecture about the bacta patch he wasn’t changing, Anakin’s mind latched stubbornly on the same diatribe that ran on every time he was in this man’s vicinity, with growing intensity each time.
What was it, Anakin thought snidely, what was it about Bail Organa that made Obi-Wan willing to talk to him? Willing to entrust himself wholly, mind and body? This whole ordeal was unbelievably inane, but Anakin couldn’t turn his mind away. What about Bail Organa made Obi-Wan willing to let himself be held, showered with affection? That made him turn off the reflexive disapproving frown and yapping on about duty or the Order or the code, and submit to another as an equal, or more.
What was it that Anakin didn’t have? Organa was… older. Refined, dignified. Easy-going and upright. He was mature, steadfast and dependable. A palatable personality and intrinsically, effortlessly good in the way Obi-Wan was.
In other words, then, Anakin thought acerbically, everything he wasn’t.
Had Obi-Wan looked into Bail’s dark, calm eyes and found someone he wouldn’t betray? Had he found Bail’s broad shoulders something he could lean on? A mind for intelligent conversation, a companion in his razor-sharp wit and good humor. His wise, imperturbable air and generosity, so free with sympathy for any worthy sentient. His steady hands, his lips—
Anakin caught himself.
He blinked, heat rising up his neck.
He looked away.
Kix was still talking to him. “…this is not sustainable, General, with the way you’re going we’ll have to—”
“Can I go now, Kix?” Anakin interrupted, suddenly feeling all too warm and desperate to leave. “I’m fine, aren’t I? You got the bacta changed and the sutures fixed, haven’t you?”
After another few rounds of inelegant back and forth to secure his release, Anakin could not wait a moment to be gone and alone to bury this rising well of shame and confusion. But before he got to the door, Organa called out.
“General Skywalker.”
Anakin froze in his steps. His fists clenched hard enough to hear the servos creaking. Slowly, he spun around, and caught the Senator’s sharp, unreadable gaze. He breathed through his nose, and marched himself forward to the bedside.
And hauled Bail forward in both hands by the front of his shirt. “What do you want?” He hissed.
“General!” Kix cried, scandalized, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Not missing a beat, Bail steadied himself with one hand on the cot frame, the other reached for Anakin’s collar and pulled him right down.
He was not stronger than Anakin, but he was caught off guard. Suddenly, he was fumbling to stall his falling, ending with his torso leant over Bail’s, hands on either side of him, and staring at the side of the other man’s head. A high noise left his throat when he felt Bail’s fingers graze the skin on his neck, breath hot on his cheek, and his lips, brushing the shell of Anakin’s ear.
While Anakin’s pulse was busy deafening him, Bail’s hold on him softened. Into his ear, in marked contrast to their sharp motions, he murmured.
“Talk to him.”