In Your Place

A Vignette by LuvEwan

*Dedicated, as always, to my friends at the boards who always find a way to make me feel better. Thank you all so much. *

"I know what I was missing

But now my eyes can see

I put myself in your place

As you did for me.

Today… I love you more than yesterday

Right now…I love you more right now. " -john lennon

:: ::

Anakin rolled onto his back, hands spread on his bare stomach, staring at the dusty, crumbling, dirt-caked ceiling.

He wondered how long it had been since he gazed into the fresh, pale blue canopy of the sky or a star-littered stretch of midnight obsidian.

It seemed like years.

He closed his eyes against the dismal gray firmament and sighed.

"Try to get some sleep." Obi-Wan's soft voice, cultured but noticeably hoarse, floated up from the thick, dark silence.

Anakin's eyes opened, flickering slowly over to his Master. He couldn't see the familiar face, his features pooled in shadow.

"I know, Master.' He murmured. The narrow cot could barely provide enough space for both the Jedi, their limbs poking into each other and the apprentice's gangly long legs dangling off the edge.

Anakin shifted to avoid a sharp lump in the mattress.

Obi-Wan scooted as far as he could against the wall, trying to offer his student the majority of room.

A silence fell then, but it was pregnant with tacit discomfort and heavy emotion. "If I could save you from this--"

Anakin shook his head. "Don't say it." He had not meant for it to sound so clipped…so annoyed.

Because he wasn't annoyed.

He was afraid.

The apprentice rolled onto his side and folded his arms against his chest. The icy night's bitter breath left his cheeks raw and his lips chapped. Somewhere in this barren hell, a hole was allowing the frosty breeze to gain entrance, whistling in the quiet, hollow and shrill.

Anakin thought that perhaps, if the opportunity arose, he'd gladly barter his soul for a blanket.

Because it was better to die wrapped in warmth, without your teeth chattering and your jaw aching, harsh trembles wracking your body, keeping you from the sweet respite of sleep.

But, even if he were blessed with a scintilla of heat, he would still hear the tortured moans of the other prisoners, cramped into their slender cots, suffering the cold and the battered mattresses. The knowledge of the next day's back-breaking work looming in their weary minds.

No…Not prisoners. He tensed abruptly. Slaves.

That's what we all are.

That's what I am.

He took a sharp inhale, inadvertently rousing his Master, who had drifted into a shallow state of unconsciousness.

"'m sorry." Anakin knew how difficult it had been for Obi-Wan to find peace enough to rest, often enduring hours of restless sentience before he could finally doze.

Don't see what HE'S so upset about…He was never a…

He stopped himself from finishing the thought, hastily reciting a litany of Jedi mantras, trying to fight down the angry, tired resentment rising within him.

A hand laid lightly on his, and he grasped the offered fingers--felt that they were as cold, as work-cursed as his own.

Anakin felt a flush of shame, a roil passing through his belly.

Obi-Wan shifted to bring his bent arm under his head. Somehow, maybe due to the awful, miraculous little opening ragged in one of the walls, a very pale band of light slashed across his countenance. His eyes were rimmed with smudged black crescents, enhancing the pallid quality of usually vibrant cerulean eyes, veined with jade, currently a listless shade of slate.

Anakin suddenly wanted more than anything to look away from him. For all that had been stolen from them in this span of days, all the basic comforts vanished, all the pride degraded with every second spent in forced labor, this, for some reason, hurt the worst.

Because the vile thing that had the power to rob his Master's eyes of their natural luminosity, to leave them as rough and haunted as the other pairs he had dared glimpse in this commune…if it were so strong to do that--couldn't it , ultimately, defeat them?

Anakin was torn between staring into the eyes and clenching his own tightly shut. In his Master's gaze, he found desolation instead of serenity. Saw another shackled soul where he should have seen the noble spirit that had been a constant in his life as a Jedi.

Despair built in his chest. Why can't he be stronger? Doesn't he know this is hard enough without him looking like…that?

And the youth was startled by a painfully crisp memory of his mother, returning from her toils, her sand-blasted face gleaming with sweat. She hadn't known he was standing there…

Or else she wouldn't have collapsed into those wild sobs, tears trembling in her eyes. They had never, despite her terribly difficult struggles, looked numb.

Except for that candid moment, when she was swept up in her grief, and Anakin's beliefs were shook to his core.

He had never believed that adults were exclusively invincible, untouchable.

But, for a chosen few, he had created that illusion.

Shmi Skywalker was a vibrant woman, brave and protective and sweet-tempered. She was also human.

Like his Master.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had never inspired Anakin to evoke any feelings of kinship between the Knight and his mother. On the surface, they were as different as two could be.

One a female raised in the confines of slavery, all too acquainted with hunger and exhaustion. The other sheltered in his clean, shining Temple, aware he was a member of an elite, and therefor privileged.

Yet that man, caressed by the Force and accustomed to certain luxuries, was huddled beside him, his occasionally stiff bravado abandoned, half-naked with dying eyes.

Both had strove, with all their might, to shield Anakin from horror.

And both had failed.

Obi-Wan knew he was powerless against the grisly hold this place had on them. After the first few days, he stopped encouraging his apprentice to meditate, to release his frustration to the Force.

It seemed that even the most steadfast advocates of the entity were aware some evils were far too vast to be absorbed.

"D-Do you think the Council's looking for us?" Anakin asked, stumbling over the words, inexplicable nervousness overtaking him.

Obi-Wan swallowed audibly. "They must be."

Anakin nodded, forgetting that in the room's dense pall, his mentor couldn't see the movement. "I hope we can work in the same area tomorrow. Today I was working and so much time went by that it almost felt like…I was back on Tatooine or something. It was like you weren't there."

Obi-Wan's grip tightened. "I was with you the whole time, Ani. You know that."

Anakin swallowed a sob in his throat, startled by his own reaction. "I know what you mean. I-I know I'm supposed to be without fear, that I shouldn't be af-afraid something'll happen…"

And he was enveloped in sturdy arms, bare and rippled with muscle, but soft, cradling him against the frigid wind.

"I know it must seem like the same thing." Obi-Wan whispered in his ear. "But its not. We'll get out of here. I promise you that.

"Have I ever broken a promise?"

Anakin managed a shaky smile. "N-No. But all day, surrounded by…It feels like I'm back there. Like nothing's really changed."

Obi-Wan braced his face with helplessly cold hands. "But things have changed, Anakin. You're different."

Anakin leaned his head into the palm, tears sliding to meet Obi-Wan's skin. "But it's not different. It's all the same. Just b-because I'm not a slave doesn't mean it doesn't still go on. I l-let myself think that it all…just sort of went away. Because it made me feel better. Less guilty for leaving everyone."

"The friends you had on Tatooine would not hate you for being freed. If they loved you, they would be happy you were given a second chance at life. " Obi-Wan assured him.

Anakin took a breath, struggling to see, amid the dark, his Master's eyes. "When I'm working for awhile, everything else, the Jedi a-and even you, just fade from my mind. And I look around, expecting to…to see all my friends…even the people I h-hated. And in their faces, their grimy, sunburned faces, they're telling me that everything's the same. I was a slave then---" His voice cracked, "And I'm a slave now."

"No." The Knight negated fiercely. "No you're not. You're a Jedi and you're a man, Anakin. You don't belong to anyone."

Anakin didn't realize he was shivering so badly until Obi-Wan pulled him against his chest, cupping the back of his head with a steady hand and soothing him with a gentle, melodic hum.

"I'm with you, Ani. Even if I can't be beside you, I'm always with you."

Anakin nodded in feverish, desperate agreement.

"And you're always with me." Obi-Wan continued, running his fingers through slick, sandy hair, carrying in the strands the grime and sweat of their exertions. "Don't ever forget that, my Padawan."

Anakin settled himself in the safety of the embrace. "Yes, Master."

And, after a time, he was able to ignore the swelling silence that taunted him, focusing on Obi-Wan's breathing, feeling his pulse with every measured beat.

Anakin fell asleep.

:: ::

Anakin woke, but his eyes remained closed, listening to the telltale creaks and moans that told him the other prisoners were shuffling to meet another day. The early, bright sun spilled on his face from that blasted hole, but he couldn't move to escape the glare, afraid he would break from the sweet, oblivious stupor of sleep.

Something jabbed his leg.

"Get up now!" A guard thundered.

But before he could obey, he heard Obi-Wan rise, his accent soft when he spoke. "He's very sick. He was up all night."

"Why does that matter to me? He's still got work to do." The snarl was laced with unmasked, acrid contempt.

"How much do you think he'll be able to get done?" Obi-Wan countered, very calmly, as if he were deliberating with an ambassador rather than a soulless cretin. "He'll be too sluggish and sick to do much of anything. In addition, he's probably contagious. You let him go out there and he'll get half the men sick."

There was a stiff pause.

Anakin's breath was caught, he couldn't move.

"I let him stay here, then his work won't get done and we'll get behind."

There was no hesitation in the Master's reply. "I'll do his work in addition to my own."

The guard snorted. "You're about the stupidest fool I've seen here…Go ahead then. What do I care? Go on."

There were footsteps departing

And Anakin was left alone. To wonder why his Master had created such a dangerous lie, only to save him from a day's work.

:: ::

Anakin lay, watching with eyes cracked open to careful slits the exhausted, slump-backed men returning from their tasks. They passed by his cot, gray forms lit in a brief flash by the hole, then receding into the darkness again.

The familiar stench of bodies drenched in perspiration and filth was rank in the stale air. His heart was pounding in his ears.

Oh Force. What if---

But then, a few endless minutes later, the last laborer entered the shabby room. Obi-Wan walked slowly toward their shared bedroll, and Anakin saw in the pace the pain of the harsh day. His usual aches doubled.

And for what? He had to wonder, as he finally lifted himself from the mattress, to help his Master.

Obi-Wan whispered a ragged thanks, resting with obvious discomfort on the bed.

Anakin stretched out close beside him, stroking the silken, damp hair.

"Master, why? Why'd you do it?"

Obi-Wan smiled then, his eyes heavy-lidded. "I couldn't…save us from this. But I could save you…at least a day…from it."

Anakin felt the sting of tears, ignored them. "I could've handled it."

"Then I guess I'm just selfish." Obi-Wan answered. "Because I couldn't handle you going through another day of it…if I could help it. I knew I had to be…stronger."

Anakin was quiet then, sensing his Master slipping from consciousness. He wrapped his arms around the sleeping, shivering figure, thinking that if he were allowed the trade, he would give his soul for a blanket again tonight…for his friend, to be sheltered from the cold.