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Naturally, they crash landed.
All things considered, it could have been worse. Anakin had botched many a landing before, and with much less functional ships than the small shuttle they’d been flying back to the Resolute . The 501st wasn’t too far off from the rendezvous point, and a pickup wouldn’t be much out of their way. Although really, this was the Outer Rim– everything was out of the way.
Ahsoka leaned between him and Obi-Wan, who sat in the co-pilot’s seat. “Well,” she said. “That was fun.”
“Hey, you’re in one piece.”
“I’m about the only thing.” She gestured around at the cockpit. Anything that wasn’t anchored to the ground was strewn about on the floor now. Anakin shrugged.
“Occupational hazard. Right, Obi-Wan?”
He hadn’t moved yet. Hadn’t spoken, actually, since Anakin said he was taking them down in the Mandalore Sector. Kalevelah, the planet was called–he’d seen it was closeby on the nav console and turned without hesitation, before he lost the ability to turn the ship at all. That hadn’t been the time for discussion.
It also hadn’t been the time to bring up the last time Obi-Wan was in the Mandalore Sector.
And anyway, Obi-Wan had been sick for nearly a week now–merely a cold, or so he insisted. Though his coughing had kept them all awake for just as long. Now, Obi-Wan sniffled and ran a hand across his forehead, still staring out the viewport. His eyes were dull. And that probably wasn’t helping matters.
“We should sweep the area,” Ahsoka said. “Right?”
Anakin nodded, but his eyes stayed on Obi-Wan. “Why don’t you go lie down,” he said. “Snips and I will take care of this. And when we don’t find anything, we’ll come back and join you in bundling up to wait it out.”
Obi-Wan just nodded. He stood, and said something mildly affirmative before his voice turned from a rasp into a cough again. Anakin watched him disappear into the sleeping quarters, feeling Ahsoka’s questioning gaze behind him. But she didn’t ask it.
“He’ll be fine,” Anakin said. Mostly to himself. “We’ll let him sleep for a bit, and…”
His voice trailed off. When he realized he didn’t actually have plans to finish that sentence, he turned toward the on-ramp of the ship. Ahsoka followed.
Out into the cold.
“I’ll take the west,” Ahsoka said, consulting the compass on her comm. “But I don’t think anything’s out here. It looks like a barren wasteland.”
Anakin scoffed. “Famous last words. Remember Orto Plutonia?” He checked his own comm, taking a step in the opposite direction. “Call if you find anything.”
He started through the trees. In the Force, he could feel her moving further away, but even out of sight he could sense her location, and tracked her the whole way, worried already. He wondered, sometimes, what Obi-Wan had felt raising him–if he’d felt this protective, this confused, like he was constantly making it up all as he went. It was hard to imagine Obi-Wan like that.
But he had been–he must have. Obi-Wan had been twenty-two once. In fact, he wondered if Obi-Wan had even been here before, back in the day. He knew Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had spent a year on a long-term mission out this way, hopping from planet to planet with the Duchess Satine. He’d never mentioned Kalevelah. But then, there were a lot of things about that mission that Obi-Wan wouldn’t tell him. A lot of things in general. It was one of those weird things about growing up–realizing your parents had a life and memories before your time. That you won’t know them, ever really, the way they know you.
Well, if they know you.
There was nothing to the east. Anakin swept the area anyway, and all he found were more mounds of snow and ice. No caves, no places anything or anyone could hide. A block of ice if he’d ever seen one. He was about to circle back when his comm buzzed–Ahsoka’s message popping up a moment later:
Come quick.
Then, the follow-up:
Urgent.
And he was running.
He hadn’t sensed anything–how hadn’t he sensed anything? And Ahsoka could handle herself– had handled herself, many times–so for her to call him, to say it’s urgent , it must be–must be–
And then he heard it.
Laughter.
He pushed through the trees, and there she was.
“Hey, Skyguy! Try it!”
He found her standing in the middle of a clearing, where the snowy evergreens gave way to a darker shade of gray forest floor. And for some reason, she was just standing there, with a smile so gleeful it pained him he didn’t see it more. Until she called out, “look!”
And spun. Twirled , more like.
On ice.
And Anakin felt a rush of a million things, watching her skate down the frozen ground– she’s such a kid and what if the ice isn’t thick enough and she falls and that looks kinda fun and oh kriff don’t make me–
She was zooming right toward him, and for a moment he thought she would grab his wrists and drag him with her. But no–she was skating, then running, past him, back from where he’d come. “Let’s show Obi-Wan!”
Anakin called weakly after her. “Don’t bother him with–”
But she was gone anyway. And he didn’t really move to stop her.
She returned alone, though. A little more withdrawn, as she came back through the trees and found Anakin still standing there, about where she’d left him.
“Later,” she said. “For now, we’re on our own.”
For a moment, her eyes were faraway. But then she was smiling again, and grabbing Anakin’s hands to drag him across the ice, and Anakin was smiling too.
He skated about as well as you’d expect from a former resident of a desert planet. Meaning he was on his butt almost instantly. And again, after Ahsoka had pulled him to his feet. He was laughing now, his clothes now damp from the ice and close to freezing, and Ahsoka couldn’t stop laughing at him, the nerfherder.
And that was how Obi-Wan found them.
He wasn’t bundled up–he should have been, Anakin thought, with his cold. He and Ahsoka had grabbed their winter parkas on the way out the door, though Anakin didn’t feel like his was doing much now. But Obi-Wan did have one of the blankets from the bed still wrapped around his shoulders. Like he really had been making some attempt at sleep–that was something. Even if his eyes looked just as tired.
“You’ve gotta be freezing!” Ahsoka called out to where he stood on the shore. Dropping Anakin’s hand, and letting him fall back to the ice. Real nice. Thanks, Snips. His butt was sore.
Obi-Wan shrugged. “I just came out to see what all the fuss was about,” he replied. “I don’t plan to stay long enough to freeze.”
But Ahsoka was already starting back to the ship. “I’ll grab your coat. Just–” She held up her hands. “Just stay, okay?”
And she was dashing past. Her footsteps pattered lightly in the snow until he couldn’t hear them anymore.
And that left Anakin. And Obi-Wan.
Anakin hobbled back ashore, slipping and sliding on the ice. He heard Obi-Wan scoff lightly as he almost wiped out again, and took his place beside him at the edge of the frozen pond.
Anakin sniffled, bundling his own coat tighter. “How you feeling?”
Obi-Wan shrugged. Coughed. “Fine,” he rasped. “Did you find anything out here?”
“Besides this frozen crack in the ground?” Anakin shook his head. “It’s as barren as it looked on the nav. Luckily for us.”
Obi-Wan nodded, but it was distant. He coughed hard. And there was another crack, besides the one in the ground–a crack between them so wide, filled with the things they didn’t tell each other, things they knew they weren’t being told. And Anakin wasn’t innocent there–he had his share of secrets.
But half the time he wanted to rid himself of them, shed the lies like a winter coat when spring befalls. Now, it felt like Obi-Wan bundled his tighter.
Until he didn’t.
“This was her homeworld.” The words came softly, like a puff of wind. And though he hadn’t said a name, Anakin knew exactly who he meant. “She always described it as desolate. Dark. She said most of the beauty had to come from her imagination, when she could scrounge it up. Even the snow and ice were gray.”
Obi-Wan was rocking back and forth a little as he spoke, as if the wind blew him. His hair blew lightly across his forehead. Still watching closely, Anakin took a step toward the boulder on the shore. He sat down, and waited until Obi-Wan followed. They were shoulder to shoulder.
“But with Satine it was never about what she could see,” Obi-Wan said. “It was what she could envision. What she could hope for. That’s what made her the ruler she was, I think. And the person.” The wind rushed louder, and his voice lifted. “Having the nerve to think beyond the here and now.”
Anakin brushed his hair back, where the wind had blown it in his eyes. “I think you’re a little like that, too.”
Obi-Wan scoffed. “I’m idealistic. She was a visionary. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t know about that,” Anakin said with a shrug. “You sounded pretty similar to me, when you were yelling at each other on the Coronet that one time.”
Obi-Wan almost laughed. It turned into a cough. “That was embarrassing,” he said. “I was acting foolish.”
“Love does that to a person, you know.”
When Obi-Wan scoffed, but didn’t refute it–that was how Anakin knew his joke hadn’t really been one.
Obi-Wan had started sniffling, and now he pulled tissues from his robe pocket to blow his nose. Anakin tried not to read him in the Force so much anymore. But now, he probed quickly, and immediately sensed the pulse of Obi-Wan’s headache. Anakin bumped his shoulder against his.
But he knew there was so much he couldn’t sense. And he wanted to ask– is this awful for you? Did you ever come here with her? Even now that she’s gone, can you sense her still ? He didn’t know how he could ever summon the words. He didn’t even think Obi-Wan would answer if he did. But somehow he found himself asking some muddled combination of them all.
“How do you manage it?”
Obi-Wan coughed into his elbow. His nose was red. “Manage what?”
Anakin floundered for the words, almost wishing he could take them back. “What comes after. When you love someone, and…”
Obi-Wan was looking at him, but he avoided the gaze. “What are you asking me?”
“How do you survive it?”
Obi-Wan looked back at the lake. “You’re no stranger to grief, Anakin.”
“No,” he said, “I know. But I mean…”
It was different. It was, somehow. His mother’s death was a wound, a terrible one, but it was just that–a wound. But Padmé–Padmé’s death would be…it wouldn’t just hurt. It wouldn’t be only a wound. It would devastate him, empty him. End him.
Obi-Wan, after a long moment, didn’t answer. He might have, but then he started to cough again, and cough some more, and then Anakin’s hand was patting his back as he struggled to come up for air. He did, finally, after his throat was certainly raw and hurting. Anakin waited a moment, silently, to make sure it had passed.
“You really shouldn’t be out here,” Anakin said. “You sound terrible. You feel terrible, even if you won’t admit it.”
Obi-Wan exhaled, which turned into another cough, and weakly he nodded. “Ahsoka was quite insistent, I’m afraid. And you had to know I wouldn’t be sleeping.” Obi-Wan didn’t do much sleeping, these days.
“I heard my name.”
They turned, and there was Ahsoka, carrying Obi-Wan’s heavy parka. Smirking.
“We’re gossiping about you,” Anakin said.
“Right.” She tossed Obi-Wan his coat, which he traded for the blanket on his shoulders. In the air, his breath was visible. “Last one on the ice has to sit through Anakin’s next tirade about droid design.”
“Hey!”
Obi-Wan tried to decline. When Anakin offered him a hand he waved it away, but then Ahsoka was grabbing him and slipping across anyway. And so Anakin slid forward alone, unbalanced on his icy boots, laughing as the other two members of his lineage stumbled across the ice–Ahsoka laughing, and Obi-Wan crying out a loud and strangled, “woah!”
And then he fell.
His back was turned. Anakin couldn’t see his face, and his own smile vanished. Ahsoka’s hands jumped to her mouth, her eyes wide, and in them he could read her fear– oh no. I shouldn’t have…this was a…
But then the sound started, softly at first, rising up from the ice and filling the air like wind. Laughter. Obi-Wan’s laughter.
And Anakin found himself thinking this–that maybe grief wasn’t something you “survived,” something you overcame, something you woke up one day without and never saw again. Maybe it was lying awake at night and looking lost in the morning. But it was also being pulled along by the hands of friends and falling and rising and laughing and carrying on. It was winter, and it was the spring that pushed through the cracks in the ice, in the form of weeds and flowers and life. It wasn’t something you lived through, until you came out free on the other side. It was something you lived with .
Ahsoka tried to pull Obi-Wan to his feet, only for him to fall again. And he just laughed louder.
Eventually, they did find their balance. Skating on flat boots certainly wasn’t the same as figure-skates–not that Anakin would know–but holding on to each other, they managed it somehow. Ahsoka was calling out instructions– ” Okay, turn! Turn–stop!” to keep them from tumbling, and Obi-Wan was snug between them. Until eventually she let go, and skated off on her own.
Now it was just Anakin and Obi-Wan, on their own at the edge of the lake. Anakin was gripping his arm, both for Obi-Wan’s sake and his own. And part of him wanted to say something–he didn’t know what exactly, but just– something . Something that might fix everything, patch the giant hole between them, the giant hole in the universe itself.
Instead, Obi-Wan just raised an eyebrow. Anakin hadn’t realized he’d been staring. “What?”
In the end, Anakin just shook his head.
“Nothing. I’m just…I’m glad you’re here.”
And a thousand I love you ’s and I’m sorry ’s and I want to tell you everything ’s went unsaid between them.
Which, as it turned out, was just as well. Because then a snowball was hitting Anakin in the back of the head and sending him tumbling to the ground, and Obi-Wan was whirling, and Ahsoka was beside herself in laughter from the shore.
“Hey! No fair, I’m unarmed!”
“That joke stopped being funny a long time ago, Skyguy.”
Anakin pushed himself to his feet and skidded across the ice to the nearest snowbank. Laughing as he got his revenge, even more so when Obi-Wan appeared beside him and reached into the snow himself. And when Anakin’s comm buzzed, with the message that Rex and Cody were nearly there for pickup, he didn’t move to tell the others right away. It was silly–he knew that. Maybe even irresponsible, to let this go on. But for a moment, he just wanted this for them–happiness. A moment to let them all live in it.
And so they did–not forever, but for now. Laughter springing through the cracks of winter.