Work Text:
Anakin laughs, drowsy with the painkillers the IV feeds into his veins, and smiles at Mace.
“You’re funny,” he says. “Nobody ever says it, but— you’re funny. I like the jokes you make.”
“Do you, now,” says Mace, a quiet rumble, and tugs at the blanket over the young Knight to cover his shoulders.
“Yeah,” Anakin says, burrowing down further into the warmth, and smiles again. It’s something young, unburdened in a way Mace rarely gets the chance to see of him, and is always grateful to.
It’s always in the smallest moments, these little glimpses of light.
Precious little youth seems to have survived this war, he thinks, and when he next looks at Anakin, oh-so-young, burnished gold curls a halo on the pillow as he sleeps, something soft rises in his chest. It reminds him of Depa, of placing another band on her Padawan braid; of the look on her face, when she had risen to her feet after Mace had knighted her, and well–
The Jedi have always been Mace’s family, and Anakin Skywalker is no exception.
He adjusts the blanket one last time, making sure that the younger won’t be cold as he rests, and stands up.
They’re almost at Coruscant, he thinks.
Stars. Haruun Kal had been a disaster, from start to finish– and as Mace clicks off the comm, it feels like the mission is finally over, a wave of exhaustion crashing over him.
Depa is in the next room, in bacta; alive, but at great cost, Mace thinks, and– stars.
He has never felt deeper within the Galaxy of War than at this second. The immediate fight is over, but–
Mace has never felt more exhausted, in all his years as a Jedi.
Nick. Depa. Anakin. Mace himself. All of them had been at risk, there, in the jungle. All of them could have died, had they not fought so harder, had they not been so lucky.
Because that is what it is, isn’t it? It sits in his head like lead, like the darkness that Depa had suffocated in down there. Luck.
The jungle doesn’t care. It isn’t sentient. It has no concept of equivalent exchange, of life and death.
It just is. It kills because that is its nature, something primordial. Something beyond the grasp of any sentient being.
Anakin had glimpsed it, down in that jungle. Only glimpsed it.
To do so had nearly killed him, and damn near driven him mad.
And then he had nearly killed all of them, in that episode– in that anguished, frightful second when the Force had gone still and then erupted.
Maybe it would have been better, if Anakin hadn’t been on Haruun Kal, Mace has to ponder. But–
He thinks of how it had been, before the mission. The despondency hanging over the republic; Obi-Wan’s tired face at the Council meeting, wan and almost ashen with grief. How he had hung his head, wordless, when Mace had told them of his mission, like he was grieving already. It had been like–
Like he was preparing.
Preparing for the mission to end in failure.
Preparing for tragedy.
Preparing to lose Mace, just like he had lost Anakin.
And– he’d known Obi-Wan blamed himself, for it.
He’d known that Obi-Wan would find some way to blame himself for Mace, too.
He’d known that Ahsoka, still shaken from losing her first Master, would break if she lost her second teacher, too– and Mace would be lying if he said he hadn’t hated himself, just a little, as he told her that she couldn’t accompany him. That it was too dangerous, but that he was capable– and he’d be back before much time had passed.
It had been what Anakin left her with. It had been what Mace gave her, too, before he said he would see her again soon.
Her face had crumpled, when he’d turned away, but–
He had been right. It had turned out too dangerous for her, in the end.
And then– that moment on Haruun Kal. The Balawai base, so quiet and awful and dead, so far away from anything of the Light.
The basement, recently created, a dark hole beneath the ground that looked like darkness and tasted like iron and death, when he had approached it, and Mace–
He had thought the worst.
Then– Anakin within it. Not just his body. Alive.
Thin, haunted– but alive.
The way he had looked, when he had seen Mace for the first time–
It had been like a drowning man lifted above the waves.
It had been like the sun dawning.
Awful, desperate hope, and when Mace had lifted him out of that pit, had proved himself far more real than any waking dream of rescue–
He doesn’t think he will ever forget the way Anakin had collapsed into him. Shaking, terrified, but– grateful . And Mace had held him, this young man, hurt and isolated and so happy to see him, instantly trusting of a familiar face in the way only the most young, hurt people can be, and–
Maybe he had been a liability, on the mission.
But stars, if Mace isn’t glad that he was on Haruun Kal. That, finally, he can bring him home.
That this time, all of his family gets to come home, in the end.
“Thank you, Master,” Anakin says later, lying on his bed in the Temple medbay. He’s drowsy, blinking sleepily, and Mace can’t help but smile.
“Whatever for?” He asks, and– it’s not rhetorical. “And call me Mace,” he adds, because the face he wears right now isn’t that of a Master, or a General.
It’s the face of Depa’s father. It’s the face of Obi-Wan’s friend, and Ahsoka’s interim teacher.
“Thank you, Mace,” Anakin mumbles again with a smile. “For coming.”
“For not leaving me alone.”
Mace just smiles, and pats his hand. Tugs at the covers again, making sure that none of the young Knight is exposed to the colder air.
“I would never have left you there,” he says, and is shocked at how genuine it sounds. “Or not have come to get you.”
“We’ve looked everywhere for you,” he says, because they have– they are, really, the message only now going out that the search is off– that Anakin Skywalker is coming home.
“You have?” Anakin asks, blinking softly, just holding on to consciousness. “Sorry about that,” he murmurs.
That something soft in Mace’s chest turns, just slightly. It’s warm. “Don’t be,” he says, low, and then–.
“I want you to know something,” he says very quietly.
“Yes?” Anakin blinks, yawning. “What is it, Mace?”
Mace smiles. “You did very well, on this mission,” he says, gently. “Everyone is looking forward to you coming home.”
“But you did very well. And I am very proud of you.”
Anakin smiles, and as he falls into rest, as Obi-Wan Kenobi’s running footsteps come closer and Ahsoka Tano’s panicked voice begins questioning a healer, Mace Windu allows himself to rest, too.
This time, all his family comes home.