Chapter Text
A sole J-type Nubian starship dropped into the hangar bay of the Jedi Temple, far more regal and polished than anything docked by it. Its pilot had long since hailed the Temple’s frequency for permission to land; they’d been expecting him, and though it was entirely outside protocol, the hangar technicians did not argue with permission codes keyed in from the High Council.
Anakin Skywalker strode down the ramp like an avenging angel, sleepless and wild-eyed, oblivious to anyone who might stand in his way. The techs did not attempt to stop him as he followed the familiar path from the hangar to the main corridors, and then up the turbolift to the Halls of Healing. Midnight darkened the hallways, near-empty save for the white-masked sentinels keeping guard over the Temple's occupants. Anakin’s civilian boots echoed in the silent halls. The Force, lighter now than it had been in decades, was left agitated in his wake.
“What happened?” Anakin demanded as he entered the Halls. Healer Bant Eerin was waiting for him. She placed her hands on his chest, forcing him to slow down, “Where is he?”
“He’s resting. Anakin, stop. There are other patients here; I won't let you worry them. If you don’t calm down, you won’t be allowed in. Che’s orders.”
Scowling, Anakin halted in his tracks. Propelled by gut-wrenching fear until this point, unstoppable in his mission, he deflated as the anxiety he’d kept mostly at bay crashed over him.
“What happened, Bant? I got the call…”
And hadn’t that been terrifying, his comm blaring in the dead of night with a message from Mace karking Windu himself that there had been an emergency, Obi-Wan was in the Healer’s ward, and they needed him on Coruscant as fast as hyperspace allowed.
Padmé urged him into a ship as soon as he told her through panicked, hitched breathing. The message rang in his ears the whole flight to Coruscant. Skywalker, but Force, he’d only seen Windu look shaken once before, and it was not an event Anakin liked to remember, You must know there is a chance he won’t make it.
Bant guided him to a chair, sitting him down like she had so many times as a padawan. She took a breath.
“Three nights ago, Obi called me saying he needed a healer. He wouldn’t tell me what happened but when Che and I got there…” She trailed off, voice raw with unshed tears. Anakin placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. Bant took a breath to center herself. “He was bleeding. He’d cut himself with a kitchen knife. We spent hours trying to stabilize him after the amount of blood lost. His heart stopped once, but we were able to resuscitate him; we only just pulled him out of bacta.“
Bant's wide silver eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and despite the hammering of his heart against his ribs Anakin pulled her into a tight embrace. His mind raced a parsec a minute.
Logically, he knew Obi-Wan wasn’t foolish or clumsy enough to cut himself so severely on a kitchen knife. He knew Obi-Wan hadn’t returned his calls, had rebuffed all attempts to check in, for several months now. He knew Obi-Wan sometimes got that faraway, glazed look in his eyes, when they’d lost too many men or when Maul reappeared or when Palpatine revealed himself as the Sith Lord they’d been after all along, and he knew a knife in Obi-Wan’s hands was almost as dangerous as a sabre.
Anakin's stomach dropped as the pieces fit together into a gruesome picture. He came to the conclusion just as Bant whispered, “We think Obi-Wan cut himself on purpose.”
The words were like a bomb in his head, shattering everything he thought he knew about the nature of the universe.
Anakin shook his head. Denial was a familiar the only thing keeping his world together. “No. He wouldn’t. Obi-Wan would never —"
But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Obi-Wan had always been in the habit of putting his safety on the line for the good of others, prone to forgetting to eat and sleep when the mission logs piled up, growing disconcertingly thin and exhausted under the duress of the war. It wasn’t so outlandish to imagine — but Anakin down that line of thought as soon as it appeared.
Bant pulled away from him. There was a gray pallor to her peachy skin, exhaustion lining her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Anakin. We won’t have an answer until he wakes up, but everything points to a suicide attempt.”
There it was. Out in the open, like the concept hadn't altered the very stars. Anakin swallowed hard, throat suddenly too tight.
“Can I see him?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Of course.”
The familiar cream walls of the Halls of Healing were just as silent as the rest of the Temple. Fluttery Force signatures of sick or injured Jedi lay hidden behind closed doors, resting peacefully. Bant stopped in front of one, laying her palm against the scanner.
“I’ll be out here if you need me,” she murmured, gesturing him inside.
The shades were drawn, lights powered down so the brightest thing in the room was the screen monitoring Obi-Wan’s condition. Anakin's former Master was lying flat on his back (which was wrong; Obi-Wan slept with limbs splayed every which way, unless the burden of war or injury had him curled up in a tight ball). Copper hair gleamed like a halo of fire surrounding too-pale cheeks. His arms lay limp at his sides, white bandages wrapped tight round the left one from wrist to forearm.
Anakin moved quietly to his side. Seeing the man who, for most his life, had been the strongest person he knew laid so small and frail terrified him. It brought back gut-wrenching memories of the many times death had nearly snatched his master during the war. Of Jabiim, of sniper shots from rooftops, of a body under an emblazoned shroud...
“Force, Obi-Wan,” Anakin whispered. “What the hell happened?”
Guilt welled in his gut and escaped as tears. Would Obi-Wan be here now, injured and alone, had he not left for Naboo? Had there been signs Anakin would have caught as the one who knew Obi-Wan best?
The soft rustle of medical blankets broke him out of his self-flagellation. Pale eyelids fluttered, and Anakin watched as dull blue eyes searched his face for recognition.
“An...akin?” A soft, rasping groan, but it was enough.
“Hey." Obi-Wan blinked as Anakin dredged up a weak smile. “I’m here. Sure gave us a scare there, Master.”
Obi-Wan’s eyebrows crinkled in that bleary, confused way that meant he was struggling to think through a haze of drugs. Slowly, his eyes tracked down to bandaged wrist, then flicked back up to Anakin’s face.
His Force signature was faint, nearly nonexistent (wrong, so wrong, where was the bright spark of light, the soothing warmth of a solitary sun beating steady and constant since the beginning?). Anakin reached out to him through their bond, revealing Obi-Wan’s hazy confusion, the undercurrent of pain where the meds could only do so much, and a bone-deep exhaustion that trumped all else.
And shame. Of what, exactly, Anakin couldn’t tell. But he could hazard a guess.
“It’s okay,” Anakin soothed, “You’re alright. The Healers are going to make it all better, okay?”
Hearing his own voice as if from far away, Anakin suddenly, embarrassingly, realized he was using the same tone on Obi-Wan as he would the twins when they were fussy. If he noticed through the sedatives, Obi-Wan didn’t seem to mind. There was a faint sense of wanting to reach out to Anakin, a relieved thread of Anakin, Anakin’s here – and then being frustrated when his drug-heavy limbs wouldn’t cooperate.
Anakin took his hand, guilt gnawing at his core.
“I’m right here. Can’t get rid of me that easily, old man. You get in trouble, I come rescue you. That’s how it works.”
But maybe I wouldn’t have to if I’d just karking been here.
Glancing to make sure Vokara Che wasn’t at the door ready to scold him, Anakin gingerly leveled himself onto the bed, inserting himself with care between Obi-Wan and the railing so as not to jostle the older man too much.
Obi-Wan blinked at him again as he settled. Anakin could sense he was fading again. He pushed a lock of silver-streaked hair out of hazy blue eyes.
“Go back to sleep. I’m here now. You can rest.”
Truth be told, Anakin had no idea how much what he said was making it through the heavy painkillers. But after a few moments, Obi-Wan’s eyes closed and he went lax again, quickly succumbing to sleep once more.
Anakin laid a hand over Obi-Wan’s chest, feeling the slow yet present beat of his heart. Despite the roiling of his stomach, for the first time since leaving Coruscant, the poignant ache of separation eased being so close to his dearest friend. Che would be in to check on them any minute, but not even the powers that be could persuade Anakin to let go anytime soon. The Healers would just have to deal with it.
“It’s okay,” he repeated against the shell of Obi-Wan’s ear, “You will be okay, Master. I promise.”