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Anakin’s ears still throb with the dull roar of battle hours after the fact.
He’s resting in the cabin they assigned him. Everything is fresh, in the sense that no one is quite certain of their place, of this new system they’ve been fitted into. They weren’t trained as soldiers, as pieces meant to function in a tightly regulated machine that will break down if a single cog doesn’t tick.
It’s not them. And it isn’t him.
Anakin’s no soldier, no leader, no battlefield strategist. He knows how to handle himself, how to fight back-to-back with Obi-Wan, and what’s expected of him as a Jedi. He’s prepared for that.
What he isn’t prepared for are the screams of the dying; for the ground below his feet to be soaked with blood, saturating the air until it chokes his senses.
Anakin is nineteen. It has only been eleven days since they severed his braid. Three weeks since he lost his arm and his mother.
Two days since he was assigned a squadron of clone troopers.
They’re all dead now. He didn’t get a chance to learn their names.
Goosebumps pepper his skin, yet Anakin barely notices. Numbness has settled around his core, leaching the heat from his veins, turning him sluggish, turning him dull. He doesn’t have the energy to do anything but lie on his side, facing the blank durasteel wall.
The battle is over. He’s not sure if they won. He’s not sure if anyone knows that. What counts as a win? Is it getting to leave alive? If so, they lost.
Or maybe the clones are expendable. And if they are, then by that metric, they won. But if this is what winning is like, then losing a battle…
His arm itches. The one that isn’t there anymore. Phantom pains, said the healers. It’s normal.
It’s not. Blood and mud have gunked up the servos. He’ll have to let someone take it apart and clean it out, make sure it’s functioning as intended. Then they’ll take his shoulder and stump and wrench the prosthetic into place, metal and wires instead of bone and marrow.
It’s an unbearable thought. So he’s said nothing about it.
In his mind, the last minutes on the field replay on a loop. Eyes open, closed, it doesn’t matter. He relives the flicker of movement in his periphery, the realization that it’s a trooper caught under a shattered droid, chest blooming with blood so dark it looks black. The trooper’s breaths come in ragged gasps, hoarse with terror.
Anakin relives taking a step forward, guts coiling, knotting, only for the trooper to notice him, recognition overriding the fear for a moment, looking at Anakin with hope.
And then the stillness.
Every living thing in the galaxy is connected to the Force. Even if they’re clones meant for war, Anakin felt each thread snap as they died; a constant, discordant ringing.
A part of him, the part locked away behind the beskar-steel safety where all the memories of the burning and the thirst live, knows that the clones are people. They’re sentient.
They’re slaves.
And in that moment, the past and present had merged, just like they threaten to do now, clawing up his chest. Slaves. Clones. Tusken Raiders. His mother. The Force screams the same for all of them. Just like one day she’ll scream the same for—
A hand grips his forearm; Anakin failed to hear the lock disengaging, the pneumatic hiss of the door like water droplets flicked onto a hot stove. “Anakin?”
Obi-Wan isn’t the vibrant presence that Anakin is so used to. His edges shimmer like a mirage threatening to dissolve.
He feels… tired.
“Why haven’t you cleaned up?” His master clicks his tongue, drawing Anakin away from the wall.
Anakin doesn’t fight it. He just slumps onto his back and stares at the ceiling. It’s the same steel-gray as the wall. It’ll do. Better the ceiling than whatever expression is on Obi-Wan’s face.
There’s a weighty silence. Every individual finger on his forearm tightens sequentially. “I see,” Obi-Wan says, and lifts his hand.
A noise like a wounded animal escapes Anakin; pathetic and wet and needy. He immediately bites his lip and turns his head away, mortified. Mortified even more, to the point of disintegrating to ash if he could, by the quieter, stifled sound that follows.
Obi-Wan’s hand returns. Firmer. Squeezing. Thumb digging into the joint of Anakin’s shoulder. “Can I remove your… may I remove your mechno-arm?”
Does he want Obi-Wan to? It’s so—so raw, somehow, leaves him so exposed.
Obi-Wan speaks again, chiding. “It’s soaked, Anakin. I can smell something burning.”
He really can’t tell. Not with the heavy iron taste still in the back of his throat.
Anakin sits up. It takes concerted effort, but he manages, unwilling to appear helpless.
As he lifts his mechno-arm to shrug off his outer robe, pain shoots through it all the way to the back of his head. He curses, but it comes out garbled, bitten off by the snap of his teeth. The pain is blinding, white fireworks exploding behind his eyelids.
“Steady. Let’s do it this way, “ Obi-Wan says evenly, but Anakin feels the tension in his touch, hears the worry.
Obi-Wan peels the glove off. It lands with a wet smack on the floor.
Neither of them pay it any mind.
Next, his fingers slide under the sleeve and tug upward to access the site where durasteel and synthskin meet real skin. He painstakingly removes the synthskin from the nub of Anakin’s arm—it’s there to keep his skin from rubbing raw, but Anakin still stares, hypnotized, as if Obi-Wan were flaying him open with a scalpel rather than gently tugging.
Obi-Wan is wholly intent on the task, a frown pinched between his brows. He grips the prosthetic and Anakin’s vision dims.
The process is excruciating. Anakin grips the edge of the bunk with his remaining hand, knuckles tension-bleached, sweat trickling down his temple. The final click and disconnect is a sharp relief, but the absence of weight, even of pain, leaves him feeling unbalanced. Vulnerable.
Obi-Wan inspects the connection site. “Minor damage, nothing serious,” he says, voice calm but edged with concern. He gets up. Anakin can’t help but follow his movement, noting how reverently Obi-Wan places it on top of the desk, as if it weren’t a piece of junk that’ll probably have to be replaced.
He disappears into the fresher and comes back with bacta—no doubt from the aid kit—and a wet cloth. There’s an unhappy twist to Obi-Wan’s mouth, like it grieves him to have to do this. “May I?”
Anakin unclenches his jaw. “You don’t have to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t sleep tonight knowing you’re not taking care of yourself.” And there’s the sharpness that Anakin was beginning to worry he might never hear again.
He wordlessly lifts up his stump, offering it up for Obi-Wan to do as he likes.
Obi-Wan kneels beside the cot and cleans the area, wiping away grime and blood. Anakin breathes through the discomfort, focusing on the sensation of Obi-Wan’s touch, on the familiarity of it—if skewed by the circumstances. But this is almost a ritual with them, taking care of each other’s wounds, because who else would do it? They’re used to being on their own, master and padawan, treading the waters of unknown worlds, relying on no one else.
That’s how Anakin likes it best. He trusts Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan trades the cloth for bacta squeezed onto his palm. The cool gel is a contrast to the warmth of his fingers as he smooths it around the stump. Anakin’s eyes flutter shut, his breath hitching slightly. Obi-Wan’s concern is a visible thread tangled around them in the Force. Something thrums under the surface of their still-unbroken bond and Anakin follows it back to the source, only to jerk as Obi-Wan’s shields slam down.
He opens his eyes and stares dully, surprised, at the other Jedi. “Master?”
The line of Obi-Wan's throat works in a hard swallow. “I’m sorry, Padawan. You don’t need to see that,” he explains, all-too-reasonable. All too logical.
Anakin nods. Then he asks, “How many?”
How many made it back in your squad, is what he means, studying the tiny tells that precede Obi-Wan’s exhale.
Obi-Wan says, “Too few. Not enough." Low and haunted.
“Mine died,” Anakin confesses, and without giving it any thought, bumps their foreheads together. After a few seconds, they ease into a familiar pattern from years of meditating together, synchronizing, lungs opening and closing at the same rate, heartbeats slowing. Obi-Wan must have come aboard and washed before reporting to whatever Republic lackey is in charge; his skin smells of harsh, chemical soap—a far cry from the herbal soaps the Temple makes and uses. There’s a nick on the corner of his jaw, as if he barely dodged a vibroblade.
Anakin noses his way over to it, rubbing their cheeks together. He hasn’t done this since long before Obi-Wan decided to grow a beard, back when Anakin was still small enough that he couldn’t use a normal training weapon.
The beard is softer than he imagined.
“I’m sorry, Anakin. Gods, I’m sorry–” Obi-Wan’s voice breaks, catching, and he’s apologizing for so much that’s gone unacknowledged; apologizing for things that haven’t happened yet. For the future that’s to come.
His fingertips dig into Anakin’s shoulder again.
What can be said in reply? If someone knows, it’s not Anakin. He’s never been the smooth talker, the wise one.
Anakin shifts closer, absorbing the weight of Obi-Wan’s unspoken grief. Maybe, in a way, he is more prepared for this than Obi-Wan, who has seen his fair share of terrible things but hasn’t lived them. Not when he was always free to go home back to the Temple, cozy and safe.
This, Anakin suddenly understands, will be the great equalizer between them. Not knighthood, not distance, not independence. They’ll be forged by the fire of war into something new, something dangerous.
But before anything can be forged, something must first break.