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Nothing could have prepared Anakin for the horrors of war he had been about to face.
Nothing.
Anakin had seen holovids of war and battles, he had learned strategy and sparred daily. He had trained himself to the very limit in preparation for being a general in the war against the Separatists, but nothing prepared him for it.
When he was younger, he had been surrounded by death. There was always some slave in the process of dying in the streets of Mos Espa. There was always a beggar who passed away at the market when Anakin's mother would take him to get the things Watto needed and to buy a meager amount of food for herself and her son.
Anakin had seen people die right in front of him. In violent ways. He had watched a Jedi master be killed by a Sith. He had seen people die on missions while he was out with Obi-wan. He had even killed someone when they had forced him to defend himself on those self-same missions.
War was so totally, completely different.
The angel of death came at random, cutting down huge swaths of souls. All of them screaming about how unfair it was.
Then there were the layers and layers of pain Anakin had to contend with. The clones would be injured and keep fighting, and become more injured. They would scream for their lost brothers, their emotions mixing with the pain. The ruddy, exhilarating feeling of rage and victory mingled with the horror and despair of injury and death.
Anakin could only thank his luckiest stars that the enemy was made up mostly of robots. He couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be on the field with enemy soldier crying and dying and mourning their fallen brethren.
The emotions tore Anakin up inside, and he kept fighting like he was a puppet held up by strings.
The very moment the battle was declared their victory, he crumpled into the blood stirred mud.
He gasped as the taste of iron filled his mouth, nose, and throat. He gagged and gasped and cried out for someone to help him. To turn it all off.
The Force swirled around him, urging him to get up. To keep going, to tear apart his enemies and bring victory for the Republic. All he could do was lay there in the mud, moaning as though he had been wounded.
He wanted to die. He shivered as the mud soaked his robes, medical clones picking their way through the battlefield, finding out who could be saved and who could just simply be made comfortable until their end.
Anakin felt a flash of excitement and worry through the Force.
"There's a Jedi over here!" a clone called, and Anakin closed his eyes, trying to stop the tears streaming down his face. He couldn't be seen like this. He was supposed to be their general. He had to be stronger than this.
It was just emotion. Anakin was always emotional. He could stand to deal with some others on the battlefield. He was Jedi Knight, this wouldn't stop him.
Anakin pushed himself off the ground.
"I'm not injured," he croaked. "Just tired."
"Let's help get you back to the ships, one clones said. Kix, Anakin was pretty sure. He was a pushy clone. Just the right personality for a medic.
"N-No, I'm fine," Anakin said as a fresh wave of pain started out in the field somewhere, mixed with relief. People were being found by medics and moved, and Anakin had to feel every bit of it.
"You're a bit pale, sir," Kix said, getting Anakin's arm up over his shoulder. "Are you sure you're not injured?"
The Force moved angrily around Anakin and he responded in kind.
"I'm fine!" he snapped, shaking Kix off. "Go attend to people who actually need help."
With that, Anakin stalked off back toward where they had set up camp.
His tent was at the center of all of the ships and tents that had been set up and it felt like the longest walk of his life to get there, his teeth chattering as he clutched at his arms, trying to keep from falling over.
He just had to make it to his tent.
He spotted Obi-wan among the clone commanders, talking and giving orders and receiving reports. Obi-wan smiled at a joke someone made and Anakin wanted to throw up. How could he smile at a time like this, when there was so much rage, pain, and death in the Force around them? How could he bear to even stand upright?
Obi-wan glanced at Anakin, and Anakin looked away, quickening his steps toward the tent he had set up that morning.
He got through the flaps, still thinking about Obi-wan. It had to be his mastery in the Force. His ability to meditate. People always spoke of releasing emotions to the Force, but every time Anakin tried, he only seemed to receive even more emotion in turn. Like the wind blowing his spit back into his face.
He was a terrible Jedi and everyone knew it. He was quick and useful in a fight, right up until he got overwhelmed with trying to hold back his rage. He couldn't meditate, he couldn't focus, he made stupid decisions, and then he couldn't even handle the deaths of clones.
He collapsed onto his camp bed, still shivering like he had the worse fever of his life. The kind of shiver that forced involuntary noises out of you as your diaphragm gets with the program.
Anakin whimpered softly to himself, wanting it to all stop. To all just go away. It was times like these that he wished he had a Force suppression collar or something he could wear until it was all over.
The Force prodded him hard at that thought, clearly sad and offended, and he apologized grudgingly.
If it was going to be a nuisance, couldn't it at least hand him some of that peace the other Jedi were always going on about?
Anakin didn't remember much for the next few hours. He should have stayed laying on the battlefield. All of those injured, grieving clones were brought back to camp to be treated in increasingly painful ways as pain killers were rationed, and Anakin had to feel every moment of it.
Anakin could feel the fear of the clones looking for their favorite brothers, the screams of the ones who found their best companions dead. He could feel the shivering shell shock so many of these men, his men, were dealing with.
When the next load of injured clones came into camp, Anakin threw up on the floor, his shaking becoming completely unmanageable. He almost slipped off his bed twice with it.
He was supposed to be better than this. He was supposed to put his shields up so he could function through times like these, but without meditation ever working for him his shields had always been thin and flimsy. He had never been able to protect himself adequately and everyone politely ignored it because they all knew that, whether he was doing it on accident or on purpose, there was nothing that could be done to fix him.
Anakin cried out, louder than the little chirps, murmurs, and whines his shivering had forced out of him. He needed help. He was going to be consumed by every clones' emotion and it was going to drive him mad. He would be a babbling mess, no good for anything besides being studied by the mind healers for the rest of his days. An old story to be told to younglings about the perils of not keeping up your shielding and meditation studies.
He felt someone enter, and then the pain and the suffering became distant as he was enveloped in someone else's shields.
Anakin wiped his face on his sleeve quickly, desperately reaching for composure now that he could think.
He felt raw, inside and out.
He lifted his head to see Obi-wan. And Obi-wan was looking at him with concern, but it wasn't really concern for Anakin. It was the concern of a teacher and parent who had done everything their could, and still their child had joined a gang and were on the path of destruction. Anakin hated to see that self censure on Obi-wan's face. It wasn't his fault that Anakin was like this. Plus, Anakin hated it as a reminder that he was like this in the first place and a complete and utter disappointment to everyone around him.
"Master," Anakin whispered. The word had long since been overwritten from the sour taste it had when he was a boy. Still, it felt tainted, even in this moment. He felt like a slave servant who had been caught being ill when they were supposed to be out serving honored guests at a feast.
Anakin had seen a teenager being whipped for that when he was very young.
"Anakin," Obi-wan sighed, and Anakin wished for a moment he could simply disappear.
Obi-wan avoided the puke on the floor before he put a hand on Anakin's head. "Where are your shields?"
Anakin looked down and away. He didn't want to respond to that. How was he supposed to? Obi-wan was convinced that there had been something wrong in the way he had taught Anakin to shield, so anything Anakin said about it felt like criticism to his Master.
"I'm just tired," Anakin mumbled, even though he also hated that excuse.
Obi-wan sighed softly, again, pushing Anakin's sweaty hair out of his face. "We're overdue for a meditation, anyway. Sit up."
Anakin did so, wincing at how sticky he was. He had gotten muddy blood all over his blankets and bed.
He knew he would sleep in much worse before the war was over.
He crossed his sore legs and Obi-wan sat on the bed, avoiding the stains as he crossed his own legs.
Anakin closed his eyes and tried so hard to drift. He could feel Obi-wan becoming one with the Force, drifting alongside it, slowly nudging into it.
Anakin tried to do the same, tried to follow his Master, but he just couldn't do it. Something always held Anakin back, like there was a barrier that kept him from meditation. He would drift for a moment, and then something, some emotion or sound or smell would pull him sharply to the present.
He gritted his teeth hard behind his lips, begging the Force to let him meditate, just this once. He needed it. He had to be able to block out the pain and the suffering and the grief by himself if he was going to make it through this war.
The Force didn't care, simply observing and pointing out Obi-wan's disappointment in him again or drawing his attention to the distant suffering.
What do you want with me? Anakin furiously thought at the Force.
It only seemed to laugh at him.
Silly chosen one. Just keep trying.
Anakin huffed and Obi-wan sent a sharp stab of concentrate - bad student - annoyed at Anakin through the Force.
That sent Anakin over the edge.
"If I'm such a bad student, then why are you wasting time on me?" Anakin snapped. "You know what? I'm going on a walk."
"Anakin, I didn't mean it like that-"
"Yes you did, don't lie to me," Anakin said before he stormed out of the tent and out from under the safety of Obi-wan's shields. He felt the difference immediately and staggered as the weight of pain and sorrow hit him.
He ran. He didn't care who he almost stumbled into and what he had to jump over, he just had to run. He needed to get away from here. Away from the pain.
Anakin remembered no more until he woke up in the med bay on one of the ships, now deep in space and with the familiar taste in his mouth that could only come from being put in a Force coma.
He turned his head to see his chart, listing out the medications he had been on and his temperature for the past however long he had been out.
A temperature 4 clicks above normal. Great. Just perfect.
Anakin let his eyes drift closed, wondering just how disappointed Obi-wan was with him now. It was just as well he didn't have any friends. Anakin would never live this down.