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It has been three months.
Three months since you almost lost Anakin forever on Mustafar. Three months since Padmé died. Three months since the babies were born. It feels like a century, though.
You do feel older and more tired than ever, as if each passing day is actually a whole year. But you do not blame the babies, Luke and Leia are two little angels, after all, and taking care of them – being a father to them is not as hard as viewing your own efforts to help Anakin get better failing badly.
He doesn’t get better. It seems like he doesn’t want to.
You try your best but you never see any results. Anakin spends his entire life sitting on his bed, his new durasteel legs carefully covered by the bed sheets – you finally understood that the less he sees them the better – staring blankly at the view out of the window of his room. He never speaks – you hardly remember what his voice sounds like since he only says things such as “no”, “yes” or “I don’t know” whenever you insist that you won’t leave the room until he says something, but usually he just nods or shakes his head depending on the circumstance. He also never eats, even if his body is craving for food and you more than once had to force him to eat something, shoving the food down his throat. He didn’t struggle much and once, after you finally managed to make him eat, you felt terribly guilty as soon as you looked at his sad face and at the red marks you left on his skin while holding him still. You told him that you were sorry while gently brushing your fingers over the marks, but Anakin didn’t react. He never did.
He doesn’t even want to spend time with his children. Every time you visit him, holding one of the twins in your arms, he does nothing and he says nothing, as if he doesn’t care about them, as if they aren’t even his own children. When you ask him if he wants to hold them, he shakes his head without even looking at you or at the baby you’re holding. He just waits for you to leave, he doesn’t even ask you to do so even if you can feel that your presence upsets him.
Anakin is not himself anymore. You knew that after everything he had been through he would be changed, but you could never have imagined that it would be this bad. It’s like he’s a broken puppet, left and forgotten on that bed, with no life at all in him. There’s no trace of the warrior he used to be, of the boy he was, there’s just his empty body waiting for a death that doesn’t come. The Healers said that Anakin was in good health after all, but his soul was sick. It reminded you of Padmé, who simply died because she had lost her will to live. And you wondered how were you supposed to heal an invisible wound.
It has been three months.
Three months of Anakin just staring at the view out of his room’s window. Three months of you trying to help him and ending leaving that room defeated and desperate. Three months of you trying to reject the thought of just letting go as there’s nothing you can do to heal Anakin’s soul.
But it has also been three months of you never giving up on him, coming in his room and trying to talk to him even if you never get an answer from him, even if he never looks at you. Of you trying to get him out of that bed even if it’s just to take him out in the balcony of the room. Of you failing again and again, but still trying again, and again, and again.
You lightly knock on the door and even if you know that you’re not getting an answer, you still wait for one before opening the door anyway. Anakin is sitting on his bed, his back resting against the pillows, and his head turned so he can look at the landscape, as always. You approach his bed and you sit next to him, smiling even if he’s looking another way. You look at the view out of the window, a beautiful landscape that almost leaves you breathless. You always knew that Naboo was a wonderful planet, but sometimes its beauty still surprises you. The choice to live and raise his children there was one of the few things Anakin told you at his wife’s funeral, you still remember the way he kept muttering “she would’ve wanted this” as they buried her. As you still remember when Bail Organa approached you, telling you that Anakin shouldn’t be allowed to raise his children and when you refused to take them away from him, he shouted “can’t you see that he’s out of his bloody mind?” pointing at Anakin, on his knees in front of his wife’s grave, still whispering those few words over and over again. You remember staying with him until he finally passed out, taking him in your arms and back to the ship that would’ve brought you to your new home.
You suddenly feel a cold touch on your cheek and you only realize in that moment that you’re crying. But it doesn’t matter, not when that cold touch comes from Anakin’s steel fingers gently wiping away the tears, not when his eyes are now looking at you and not out of the window. You look in those blue eyes and Force know how much you missed them, you could stare at them forever.
« Anakin … » his name is all you can say, but you don’t expect an answer.
« Don’t cry, please. I feel bad if you do. »
You take his other hand, the one that’s not busy stroking your cheek. You’re almost afraid to touch him, as if even the slightest of your movements could scare him and put him back in the state he has been for the past months. But Anakin doesn’t seem to mind that touch.
« Why? » you ask, trying to make him talk. You’ve missed his voice too.
« I know it’s because of me. I don’t want you to be sad. » he replies with his gravelly voice.
« I’m not sad now, Anakin. »
« You are very sad, Obi-Wan. I can feel it through the bond we share. And you’re sad because you see me like this and think it’s your fault, because you feel useless since everything you do to help me doesn’t work. But it’s not your fault. It’s mine. »
It takes a while for you to process what’s happening. Anakin speaking to you, looking straight into your eyes as he does so, after all these months. It feels overwhelming, but above all it gives you hope. Maybe Anakin is not forever lost and maybe he just needs time to recover from everything.
« And why do you say that it’s your fault? »
« Because I’m doing nothing to get better. »
You remain silent since you don’t know what to say. You don’t blame him, but he’s telling the truth. You let out a loud sigh and Anakin’s fingers slip off your grip. You turn to look at him and you immediately feel as if something really bad is going to happen. What Anakin says next proves that you were right.
« I tried to kill myself. »
You almost think that he’s joking, since he said those words without even blinking as if he said something as normal as “the sun is shining today”, but deep inside you know that it’s all true. You open your mouth to say something but you realize that you can’t speak. Anakin reaches out to touch your shoulder, but you take his hand and you squeeze it hard against your chest. You heart is beating fast because you’re scared to death and you want him to feel it, even if you know he can’t.
« Don’t you ever try to do it again, Anakin, did you hear me? Never! » you shout, unable to stop holding his hand so desperately. His face shows no emotion at all and that makes you feel almost sick.
« I don’t want to be a burden. For you, for Luke and Leia. You’ll be su--»
You don’t let him finish. You literary throw yourself against his body, your arms tight around his now small waist. Your face is buried in Anakin’s too large robes and you don’t care if you usually don’t show your emotions, if you usually don’t let them overwhelm you because that’s what you have been taught. You don’t care about anything anymore and why should you, after all? So you burst into tears like a frightened child who seeks comfort in the loving arms of his mother. But there are no arms holding you.
« Anakin, why are you doing this? » you say between the sobs « You begged me to save you and I did … why then? »
You feel his body stiffen and you can’t feel him through your bond anymore.
« I am not worth saving. »
As you look up to him, he’s staring again at the view out of the window.
And you wonder when you will be able to look at his eyes and hear his voice again.