Chapter Text
There was no warning in the Force – none whatsoever – so, when Padawan Skywalker heard a soft thud coming from the direction of his master's room in their shared living quarters, he thought nothing of it.
Instead he continued packing a few necessities into a travel bag, a small smile adorning his lips as he thought of their upcoming mission.
He was going to see Padmé again.
The mere idea flooded his insides with warmth. He hasn't seen her in ten years. He had thought about her often during that time; he had even dreamt of her on occasion. He was looking forward to seeing her again. He was excited. And nervous.
Would she even remember him after all this time?
“Do not focus on your anxieties, Padawan,” came the phantom echo of his master's voice – a memory of a rebuke he had received so often during his apprenticeship rather than the man himself – but it did do as a reminder for him to tighten his shields as not to project his feelings across the bond he shared with his master.
He could do without a lecture on the Code, he thought with an inner eye-roll.
“There is no emotion, there is peace.”
Bah.
No matter what his master said, Anakin was still human despite being a Jedi. He couldn't just dismiss his emotions like Obi-wan did and frankly he didn't want to. They were part of who he was.
So what if he didn't act like a dispassionate droid like the Order commanded? The Council could go suck a Nuna egg for all he cared.
Anakin felt his mood souring steadily, so he shook himself and turned his thoughts back to a more pleasant avenue, to Padmé...
Was she still as beautiful as he recalled?
He had caught glimpses of her on the holonet at times – her efforts against the Military Creation Act this past year was a point of contention in the Senate and, despite Anakin's avid distaste for politics, he had followed the news reports rigorously. Though it was mostly done at his master's behest, something Anakin was now rather grateful for given their current mission... Not that he would ever say it out loud to the man.
In any case, the brief displays of the Loyalist Committee in the holovids were never clear enough to make out any of the included senator's features and Anakin had only managed to make out Senator Amidala's presence among them by her garb – not quite as ostentatious as her attire had been back when she had been Queen of Naboo, but still grand in a way that irked him for some reason.
He will always remember the way she had looked at their first meeting in Watto's shop. The subtle, washed out colours of her plain clothing had only managed to underline her natural beauty, causing the young slave boy to mistake her for an angel. Anakin flushed at the memory, embarrassed by his words in a way he hadn't been as a child.
“An adolescent crush” his master had called it once when Anakin had spoken of her. And maybe it had been back then, but he was nineteen now.
A man.
Was it really that terrible to want to see the woman again, whose presence had been instrumental in securing his freedom as a child? He didn't think so, the Order's edicts on attachment notwithstanding.
Anakin sighed and did his best to release his feelings into the Force. It wouldn't do to get riled up before their mission even started. He relaxed his shields and waited for the pleasant hum of the training bond to re-establish itself.
Except it didn't come.
Anakin sighed in frustration. Obi-wan was shielding as well, which meant that he must have been projecting after all.
Uch... That would definitely earn him a lecture.
He reached across their bond in silent apology – anything to stave off yet another sermon on his failures as a Jedi learner– only to come face-to-face with an impenetrable wall.
He frowned at the unusual sensation. It was unlike his master to shut him out so completely.
He set aside the spare tunic he had been in the midst of stuffing into the bag and looked across his sparsely furnished room to the open door leading to the rest of their apartment.
Foregoing the Force, he reached out with his other senses, listening for the tell-tale shuffling noises of his master packing his own belongings. When he encountered nothing but silence, the frown intensified.
“Master?” he called into the apartment, but received no answer.
He exited his room and crossed the living area in long strides, moving past the fresher and the small kitchen towards his master's chambers. He came to a halt in front of the closed door and listened again.
Everything was quiet. If it wasn't for the man's Force signature in the room, Anakin would have thought that he had already left.
He knocked.
Knocking was important. It was a lesson both master and padawan had learned rather abruptly a few years ago after a certain... incident that had left the two men amply aware of the mutual need for moments of privacy while they lived together. As well as leaving both slightly traumatized.
He knocked again. “Master?”
Nothing.
Anakin breathed a sigh. What was Obi-wan doing in there? Surely he wasn't meditating, he thought with mild annoyance as he glanced at the chrono on the far wall.
Their shuttle was leaving in half a standard hour and as fond as his master seemed to be of that particular activity, he had to know that there wasn't time for that right now.
He shook his head and knocked again, louder this time. He was starting to lose his patience.
“Master, if you don't answer me, I'm coming in.”
Deeming the other man sufficiently forewarned, Anakin opened the door, heart racing for reasons he could not quite explain. The Force was quiet, a faint thrum of life around him, giving him the impression that all was well.
And yet... The undercurrents of worry had wormed their way beneath his skin without his consent, laying there like an itch he could not reach, not until he knew his master was fine, not until he saw the man with his own eyes.
But even as the door swung open, revealing the inside of the sun-lit room to the young man's senses, he did not see him.
Not at first.
Not until he entered the room fully and espied a boot poking out from beyond the bed.
Not until he rounded the bed and saw his master on the floor.
The ginger-haired man was laying face-down on the ground, cheek mashed up against the carpet with his eyes closed. Anakin could almost have believed the man to be sleeping if it weren't for the pallor of his skin or for the small pool of fluid below the man's face, which was seeping into the carpet and staining the once oats-coloured textile a deep blood red.
“Master!”
Anakin didn't panic. There was no need. There was no warning in the Force and his master's life signature was glowing brightly as ever. If anything, the Force seemed to thrum almost playfully around them, skittering across the man's prone figure with soundless utterances of reassurance.
So, he didn't panic.
He didn't panic as he threw himself onto the floor next to his master.
He didn't panic as he reached down to the man's neck with shaking fingers, searching for a sign of life against the disconcertingly cool skin.
It wasn't relief that poured through his veins like the ice waters of Kijimi when he finally found it – a gentle beat beneath his fingertips, calm, tranquil, peaceful – after all, he had been expecting as much.
He continued not to panic as he staggered up on unsteady legs and retrieved a comm device from the living area. If his words were unusually harried as he relayed his master's condition to the temple healers then it was due to situational prudence and nothing else.
Anakin sat back down at Obi-wan's side as he finished the call. Careful not to move him until the healers arrived, he gently gripped the hand that lay next to his master's motionless figure, fingers settling on the older man's wrist without conscious instruction for them to do so.
Despite the increasingly unnatural chill of the man's skin against Anakin's own, the continued pulse of life grounded him as he slowed his own breathing to match the pace of his master's and waited.