With a Warm and Tender Hand - Part I

Time Frame: Sometime during the Clone Wars; Anakin is a Knight.

Disclaimer #1: I do not own Star Wars, and I make no profit from my writing.
Disclaimer #2: I wrote a significant part of this story over 3 years ago, and I promise, any similarities to Karen Miller's books, jacksrumbottle's "What Will Be Will Be" and estora's "From the Ashes" are coincidental. (Touched?) Great minds, I guess?

Author's notes: This is a story about Anakin and Obi-Wan. I have taken the liberty of excluding canonical characters such as Padme and Ahsoka and do not adhere to a strict canonical timeline per se. I also make no reference to Anakin's prosthetic arm—it just kind of happened that way. Assume Anakin was better at Jar'Kai, if it helps. ;)

Special thanks to my best ho Aynslee for the beta, and to my enabler Jacksrumbottle for her endless support.

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand." ~ Henri Nouwen.

"Jump!"

Obi-Wan grabbed Anakin by the hood of his cloak, yanking as much hair as fabric, as Cody swung the transport just low enough for the two Jedi to Force-leap out of a boiling stew of blaster fire, mortar rounds, and the hum of two furiously battling lightsabers.

Hot, multi-hued blaster bolts and the sizzle-slap of native slugthrowers echoed around them as they tumbled into an ungraceful heap on the landing platform of the transport. Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of the remainder of the Shyleran Separatist militia continuing their desperate assault on the retreating Republic forces just before the compartment snapped shut. Letting out a long breath, he shut down his lightsaber and called on the Force to reach for his comm as it rolled across the deck.

"Cody, we're aboard, and not a moment too soon. Set immediate course for rendezvous with Valiant, and contact us upon arrival. Kenobi out."

Obi-Wan brushed his combat-greasy hair out of his eyes and stood slowly, wincing to himself at the ache in his knee. Hooking his lightsaber back on his belt, he glanced down his arm, noting the telltale black singe of a blaster bolt that had burned through his cloak and last set of serviceable tunics. The knee had met with the durasteel of a super battle droid more times than he could remember, and he was sure that last jump had done it no favors. Obi-Wan rubbed at the tender knee, scowling more from the grime that came off on his hand than anything else.

He'd had worse in this war. Some nights, while lying under unfamiliar stars on worlds whose names he had already forgotten, he wondered how much worse it would get. Stealing a wary look down at the disheveled sprawl of the young man still at his feet, Obi-Wan was acutely reminded of how close he had just come to finding that out.

Anakin sat on the ramp, panting, his sweat-matted curls bobbing in time with each short breath. "Well, that was exciting," he said, forcing an uneasy grin. He knew how close their escape had been, and how much it could have cost him. But they were safe now. Obi-Wan was safe. He let his head hang between his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"Exciting is hardly the word I'd use," Obi-Wan returned curtly, brushing disdainfully at his ruined tunics as he limped past Anakin. When Anakin's soot-streaked face looked up at him questioningly, Obi-Wan saw the persistent trickle of blood running down his temple from a jagged scalp wound. "You're bleeding. Come."

Anakin used the back of his hand to wipe at his forehead, annoyed at the mix of blood and dirt he found there. "Great," he sighed, hauling himself to his feet. Noting Obi-Wan's unsteady gait, he frowned and laid a hand on the other man's shoulder to slow him. "Are you alright? Is it your knee again?" Anakin wound a sympathetic arm around Obi-Wan to lend his support. "Here. You should have let me—"

"It's fine," Obi-Wan said through clenched teeth, shrugging out of Anakin's hold and ambling the short distance down the transport's passageway. Once inside the small storage hold that had been converted to an emergency medbay, he silently gestured for Anakin to sit and went about scavenging for the necessary supplies.

Anakin sat on the edge of the small cot in the room, watching Obi-Wan meticulously set out a makeshift triage tray full of bandages, swabs, antiseptic, and bacta. Anakin loosened his belt and shrugged out of his cloak and tunics, groaning at the soreness of every muscle in his upper body. They'd been through this drill all over the Outer Rim—with Healers spread out among the clone battalions, it was up to the Jedi commanders to take care of themselves. And each other.

With a rattle, Obi-Wan carelessly tossed the tray down next to Anakin on the cot. "Your hair is filthy. Hold it back—I can't see," he ordered sharply, using a swab to dab antiseptic on what was, to Obi-Wan's relief, a superficial laceration.

Anakin carefully watched Obi-Wan from under his brows. He saw how tightly his Master's jaw was set, lips set in a firm line, how the skin around his eyes crinkled with worry and then relaxed in a way that no one save Anakin would notice, telling him that the cut was not serious. He tried to catch Obi-Wan's eyes but his Master stubbornly refused to meet them, concentrating instead on his task. "It's not a big deal, Master," Anakin mumbled impertinently, his ample ego bruised by having to be nursemaided like a youngling over something so routine.

"You could have been killed," Obi-Wan hissed under his breath, the tension returning to his jaw as he used his fingers to part back some unruly curls to view the extent of the wound.

Anakin offered an apathetic shrug. "But I wasn't, Master. It's just a cut. Ow," he complained, when the movement caused the antiseptic to sting. "Ha. You could only be so lucky—the Council would probably throw a party," he muttered sarcastically, fingernails scraping roughly at the dried smear on the back of his hand.

"Lucky?" Obi-Wan froze, eyes fixing on Anakin, intense and sparking with a dark fire. "Don't...don't you ever say that again, do you understand me?" he admonished, his voice trembling just enough to match the tremor in his hand as he quickly applied a translucent spray patch to the cut. "It should heal in a day or so, like they all do," Obi-Wan tersely informed him, moving away toward the sink.

Anakin held his Master's elbow, tugging until Obi-Wan turned and acknowledged him. "Why? Because it's the truth?" Anakin smiled faintly, and shrugged again. "I'm a warrior and I'm good in a fight, but I'm a lousy Jedi, Obi-Wan. You of all people know that. The only reason they made me a Knight is because of a battle I won for them, not because I lived up to their Jedi ideal. You know the Council never wanted me—"

"Yes, yes, I know, Anakin!" Obi-Wan erupted, cutting Anakin off with a furious wave. "The Council never wanted you and I sure as kriff never wanted you, you were a burden on me because of Qui-Gon and all that," he railed back in exasperation. Obi-Wan lifted his chin defiantly at Anakin's shocked expression. "What? That is how this particular story goes, does it not?" Yanking his arm free, he took the tray and shoved it with a loud clatter into the sink. "Force, Anakin!" Whirling away from him, Obi-Wan slapped his palms down on the edge of the sink and let out a long, frustrated sigh.

Anakin visibly flinched at the outburst. More than the clamor he'd made, it was Obi-Wan's uncharacteristic show of temper, rarely glimpsed even in the throes of Anakin's oft-troubled Padawan years, that startled him. He rubbed his hands together anxiously, staring at the tiles on the floor. "It's—it's still the truth," he persisted sullenly.

Obi-Wan snorted softly, shaking his head. "No, it is not. It may have once held slivers of the truth, but I had hoped my endeavors all these years to show you otherwise had been enough, Anakin," he countered, his chin dropping to his chest despondently. "Apparently, I was mistaken." Obi-Wan rubbed a hand over his mouth, raking his fingers through the caked debris he felt in his beard. "Really, Anakin..." he lamented under his breath.

"I...you..." Anakin stammered, as he reached into his hair and gently walked his fingers over the length of the cut, trying to gauge its size and location. "It's kind of hard to forget, you know. What you—they—were like back then." Unlike the one under his fingers, it was an old wound for Anakin, one that had never fully healed.

"Is that why you act as you do? To prove that the Council—that I—was right about you?" Obi-Wan tilted his head up and regarded the clinically white ceiling of the medbay with disinterest. "Or, that I was wrong?" Turning, he leaned heavily against the sink, folding his arms across his battle-ragged uniform. He absently picked at the blackened hole the blaster bolt had scored across the shoulder of his tunic before looking at his former Padawan. "Is it a test of your abilities, to see how close you can come to death, only to revel in the thrill of repeatedly cheating it?" He shook his head with disdain. "That smacks of pride, Anakin."

"I know that, Obi-Wan," Anakin returned sharply, ducking his head at the rebuke. "It's—it's not that," he continued in a low voice, avoiding the chastising look he could hear in Obi-Wan's voice. "Your turn," he murmured, almost contrite as he approached his Master. Slowly unfolding Obi-Wan's arms, he started in on the now-familiar task of divesting Obi-Wan of his belt and tunics. His fingers worked quickly, discarding the torn and soiled vestments to the floor in disgust.

Anakin wrinkled his nose at the pile on the floor and lazily nudged it under the cot with the edge of an equally feculent boot. "Well, not that exactly, I guess. I-I don't know. Maybe. Sometimes," he admitted reluctantly. Meticulously moving his hands over the body he knew maybe even better than his own, a worried frown creased his lips and crinkled the scar over his eye. "I don't like this one—slug?" His body pressed close and firm against Obi-Wan's as he reached around his Master to rifle through the mess of supplies now cluttering the sink. "Here, hold this," he said, handing Obi-Wan a half-empty jar of bacta and a pain patch.

"Slug," Obi-Wan assented with a half-smile and a nod, noting not for the first time how his body subconsciously took comfort from Anakin's nearness, and the warmth it was providing now against the coolness of the medbay. "Irritatingly effective for such an uncivilized weapon," he mused, suppressing a hiss when Anakin affixed the pain patch to the large blue-black bruise on his chest. "I'm afraid I'll have to face that one in the mirror for quite some time," he chuckled, turning around dutifully between Anakin's inquisitive hands. He rolled his shoulders and was rewarded with a satisfying series of cracks and pops, feeling exhaustion starting to replace the battle-infused adrenaline in his body. "What do you mean? Why sometimes?" he asked, dipping his head forward to stretch his neck. "How is that not prideful?"

Stopping him mid-turn, Anakin bent in close, his breath warm on Obi-Wan's skin as he gently traced the edges of the blaster burn, making sure it was completely cauterized. "Cody'll be disappointed; this one's just a graze, you probably won't even get a scar," he said with mock disdain, smiling weakly at his own joke. With an antiseptic sponge, he carefully dabbed away the remaining bits of charred threads. "Bacta now," he decided, grabbing the jar from Obi-Wan's hand to attend to the scorched streak marring the lightly freckled shoulder.

"It's not pride, Master, not when I know what I can do, and what I must do, is it?" Moving to stand behind his Master, Anakin attentively trailed his fingers and eyes across the well-known map of Obi-Wan's back, noticing a few new reddish scrapes and cuts, but nothing that required immediate attention. Each would be a memorial to this mission, joining with the constellations of scars that chronicled Obi-Wan's participation in the war. Sometimes, Anakin wondered which one of them would claim the most by the end of the war. Sometimes, after missions like this one, he seriously wondered if they'd even make it to the end of the war.

He pulled a burnt-orange blade of Shyleran sea grass off Obi-Wan's neck and turned it over in his hand thoughtfully. "It's...it's the way it feels, I guess. I...I don't have to think, I just...act. It makes order out of the chaos of battle, to feel—to just know—what needs to happen next, and doing whatever it takes to make it happen." Anakin wasn't sure if Obi-Wan was consciously aware of just how many times this particular ability had saved his Master's life. Anakin didn't care if it was his pride or the will of the Force driving him, he would call on it whenever need be, if it meant keeping Obi-Wan safe. "You've got a good couple of scrapes, but otherwise you're okay," he pronounced quietly, with a small pat to Obi-Wan's back. "What about your knee?"

"You must think, not just act, Anakin." Obi-Wan bent down with a quiet groan, gingerly pressing at his tender kneecap and the supporting ligaments and tendons. "It has been better, but nothing a good soak in a thermal bath cannot alleviate."

"Maybe Valiant has one you can use; that bruise'll heal better with some heat, too." Anakin propped a boot up on the cot, releasing the buckles one by one. "'Think, Anakin.' You've been telling me that my whole life, Master."

"And yet, you do not listen." Obi-Wan shook his head, blowing out a frustrated breath. "The Force has given you so many gifts, Anakin. Exceptional gifts that should not be so carelessly squandered nor thrown to the wind, nor into this Sith-forsaken war, for that matter! You're a Jedi Knight now, not some feckless Temple-bound Padawan performing parlor tricks for your friends. You have to stop taking so many unnecessary and foolish risks, just because it feels good to you or to prove you're indestructible. You're not."

Anakin's jaw dropped in outrage. "I take unnecessary and foolish risks?" He finished with his other boot, yanking it off by the heel to thump dully on the now-muddied floor. "I do? And what about you?" Anakin straightened and squared his shoulders, glowering despite the strain in his voice that betrayed both his frustration and the fear that washed over him unbidden. Countless hours of meditation had yet to diminish his holo-perfect recall of each moment Obi-Wan's life had been in peril during the course of the war.

"Me? What about me?" Obi-Wan challenged, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "I serve the will of the Force, as all Jedi do, Anakin. I do not run off in reckless pursuit—"

"You do it every time we go out there, Obi-Wan! Geonosis? Ohma-D'un? Cato Neimoidia? Zigoola?" Anakin accused, counting each battle off on his fingers. "Ja-" he began, the words catching in his throat as he tried in vain to name that mud-bathed planet that had stolen Obi-Wan from him. "Jabiim?"

Anakin's hand began to shake, and he clenched his fingers into a tight fist to steady himself. "Don't stand there and pretend traipsing off for a Sith world with nothing but a lightsaber and Bail Organa wasn't foolish, and don't you dare try to convince me that Jabiim was 'necessary'."

"Of course it wasn't!" Obi-Wan fired back, provoked by the memory the mention of that system brought with it—unwanted memories of the stench of death in the mudfields, of the endless suffering on both sides, of how Ventress had nearly broken him with taunts of Anakin's death. Regardless of hours spent in healing trances and rehabilitation, he had accepted that Ventress would forever leave a stain on his soul, less for her whip than for her poisoned words. "Catastrophic loss of life is never necessary, but we are at war, Anakin!"

Anakin opened his mouth, ready to argue, but Obi-Wan held up his hand in protest, tiredly sinking to rest on the cot. "Anakin...don't. Just...don't. I'm not going to argue with you about this, because you know what I do—what I have done—I've done because it is my duty. I am a Jedi Knight, it is what I have been called to do."

Anakin huffed loudly in frustration. "So am I! Maybe not a great one, but I know how to get the job done, Obi-Wan. How can you call it 'duty' when you do it, but turn around and deem it 'foolish' when I do?"

Ignoring the sharp twinge in his leg when he stood abruptly, Obi-Wan crossed his arms and began to limp around the confined space. "Because more often than not, it seems that it is!"

"That's not fair, Obi-Wan," Anakin protested hotly, petulantly adding, "Besides, everything I know I learned from you!"

"I shudder to think if that were true," Obi-Wan returned drily, turning carefully on his heel to consider his former Padawan. "Anakin, your duty is to the will of the Force, to the Jedi Order, to the Republic. It is not your duty to get yourself needlessly killed."

"And neither is it yours!" Anakin argued impudently. "You can't tell me the Force is willing you to take on impossible missions with impossible odds, or that it's your duty to sacrifice yourself to whatever kriffed up mission Windu's too afraid to take on himself. I don't see him sending Jocasta Nu on pleasure cruises with dandy-assed Senators."

"Language, Anakin!" Obi-Wan reprimanded harshly. "And it is by no means your place to question Master Windu's commitment to the Republic and the Order. As for Madame Nu..." Obi-Wan smirked, abruptly covering his mouth with the back of his hand. Completely losing his composure, he choked back a laugh, imagining the Order's rigidly stern Archivist pleasure cruising with...anyone. He wagged a scolding finger at his partner, ever mindful of Anakin's maddening ability to undermine his Master in the midst of a lesson or dressing down. "Inappropriate," he coughed, fighting down another bark of laughter, "but I will accede to you on that point. Be that as it may, however, it does not alter the fact that that stunt down there today—"

"—Got us the datachip we were sent here to retrieve," Anakin interrupted brightly, anxious to capitalize on the momentary levity. It was like old times, circumventing his Master's lectures and getting Obi-Wan to lighten up. Obi-Wan laughed far too little now; his beleaguered carriage and dimmed Force-signature betrayed his fatigue to Anakin's knowing eyes. He wanted to believe that the war had done that, but in his darker moments, a persistent voice whispered that it was Anakin's doing. He wished he could make Obi-Wan laugh as much as he seemed to frustrate and anger him lately.

"We did our duty, mission accomplished. So things got a little bumpy at the end," he added blithely, "but we're okay. On to the next mission, live in the present moment, end of story, right?" he prompted, with a vigorous nod and wide toothy grin.

Obi-Wan's eyes narrowed; for as much as that mouth got Anakin into trouble, a smile like that could get him out of it, but Obi-Wan had been his Master for far too long to succumb to such obvious manipulation. "No, not 'end of story'! You have obviously been spending an over-abundance of time cavorting with Quinlan—you sound just like him, Force help us all. You conveniently omit the part where you were surrounded by Shyleran slugthrowers and a half-dozen droidekas!" Obi-Wan retorted in outrage.

Anakin slunk past Obi-Wan and went to the basin, haphazardly tossing the mess of supplies back on to the tray; undoubtedly they would be needed at a later date, they always were. "Only because your sneeze tipped off those droidekas that we were in the bunker, Master," he said over his shoulder, lips twitching in amusement. Anakin had been on his way out of the bunker when he felt the warning in the Force; the sharp hiss of a sneeze piercing the silence, the thunder of rolling destroyers and the thump, thump, thump of slugs missing their mark. He'd been in motion before the first droideka had locked its shields, propelled by the fire of his fidelity to Obi-Wan. "C'mon, I saved your ass with my...diversion," he boasted, unable to temper his pride.

Obi-Wan threw his hands in the air incredulously. "Your diversion nearly got you killed, Anakin! This is precisely what I'm talking about, this careless disregard for your life and your duty. Your duty was to accomplish the mission!" he snapped, slapping the counter next to Anakin.

Half of the content of the tray slid back into the sink in a clamor as Anakin jerked his head back over his shoulder. "I was doing my duty! Stop lecturing me like I'm that nine-year-old bantha's runt fresh out of the Rim, Obi-Wan!" He righted the tray with a touch of the Force and slumped against the basin. "The mission would not have been completed had you been blasted to bits by those droidekas," he contended, voice low and muffled as lowered his head, rubbing at his neck. "Part of my duty is to protect you, too, you know. You're my Master."

"For love of the Force, I am a Jedi Master, not a youngling in the crèche, Anakin. What I need is for you to do you duty, and to follow orders!" Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose and took a steadying breath. "I had already transmitted a copy of the datachip to Cody, as you well know is standard procedure for any reconnaissance mission. It was your duty to make sure the information made it to the Council and the Senate on Coruscant, not to stage an elaborate rescue for the nasally-challenged!"

Taking a long moment to center himself, Obi-Wan folded his arms across his chest and scuffed the heel of his boot over the toe of the other. "Furthermore, you are not," he continued lecturing, but paused again, slanting his eyes to the floor as he sought out a more measured tone, "beholden to me; my safety is my own affair. Need I remind you that you are a Knight now, and I am no longer your Master?"

Anakin swallowed hard and stared at the older man, then lowered his head as he retreated to the medbay's viewport, holding his hand up against the blur of passing stars. "It may not mean anything to you—maybe it never did— but you will always be my Master," he insisted defiantly, his eyes meeting Obi-Wan's reflection in the transparisteel. He turned, chin held high and proud. "And to that end, I always have, and always will, do anything in my power to protect you. That is my duty. Don't ask me to forsake that, Master, because I cannot. I will not."

Troubled, Obi-Wan frowned deeply. "Oh, Anakin. Don't...say such things. It is..." he trailed off, looking away uncomfortably. Attachment. Rather than clarifying their relationship, Anakin's promotion to Knight had permanently altered what had been their familiar, established roles, continually erasing and redrawing the boundaries between them, never seeming to leave them on solid ground for very long. No longer Master and Padawan, Obi-Wan knew what their relationship should resemble by now. With a silent groan, he nervously raked both hands through his already disheveled hair. He also knew it most assuredly did not.

As he crossed the short distance to the viewport, his leg spasmed and he faltered, noting with a low grunt that the discomfort seemed to have moved considerably beyond his knee now. With the aid of the Force, he drew the pain in and shunted it aside—he'd meditate later or submit to a narcotic, if warranted. A bump to an aging knee was negligible; Anakin was the one who had shed blood this time. Hesitantly, he rested a hand on the younger man's shoulder, clearing his throat gruffly. "Here now, let me look at you. I will wager that head wound is but the beginning; you seem to have a questionable affection for bacta, I dare say."

Anakin slouched in surrender, recognizing Obi-Wan's expertise in deflection at work. It was a skill that made his Master an excellent negotiator, but in Anakin's opinion, also a master of often aggravating avoidance. No one could touch Obi-Wan when it came to his deftness in changing the subject. "If I do," he allowed, turning away and bending his chin down, "it's only because you'd take it all yourself, otherwise." Craning his head to the side just enough that one eye peeked out from the tangle of matted curls shrouding his face, he said with mock seriousness, "You're an addict, admit it."

Obi-Wan quirked an eyebrow and gently turned Anakin's head forward again. "Hmm...I have no idea what you're talking about," he denied mildly, the warmth of a smile coloring his voice. He reached up and ran his fingers lightly but methodically over Anakin's dust-caked neck and shoulders, looking for more wounds that needed his attention. Obi-Wan exhaled slowly with a resigned nod; the man himself was a walking wound that needed his attention. He always had. Angry, pulsing, aching, raw—that was Anakin. "You're wrong, you know," he let slip, biting his tongue in dismay at the unintentional admission.

"Ugh." Anakin grimaced at the firm press on a bruise on his ribs. "Of course I am," he muttered irritably to himself. Even though he would always honor Obi-Wan as his Master, in no way did that mean he would always defer to his Master's penchant for exceedingly pompous lectures. "About what now?" he asked with wary suspicion, sucking in his breath at the light tickle of Obi-Wan's exploring, soothing fingers tracing their way across his abdomen.

"Sorry, checking for fractures." Working the inside of his cheek, Obi-Wan kept his eyes averted, focused intently on searching Anakin's skin for further damage. "It...it meant—it means—a lot to me," he admitted quietly. Reluctantly. He leaned in close to examine one of the deeper abrasions just under the ribcage, pursing his lips thoughtfully. Then, almost inaudible over the din of the transport's hyperdrive engines he added, "More than it should, of that I'm certain."

Anakin froze. "Wait. What?" Confused, uncertain if he had heard correctly, he squinted down at his Master, trying to suss out the words again. "W-what does?"

Keeping his hand pressed warm against the skin of Anakin's waist, Obi-Wan straightened up with a long breath. "That I was your Master. That you are my friend now, my partner, the only Jedi I want to fight beside me and the only one I trust to cover my back unconditionally." His hand dropped, soft smile dissolving into a slight frown. "Even when you do it at the expense of everything else, even yourself," he said in quiet reproach.

Eyes widening in surprise and unusual humility, Anakin withdrew and leaned against the viewport, flinching when the cool transparisteel made contact with his skin. Pleasure and pride flowed over him and he smiled shyly, lowering his eyes. "Th-thank you, Master. I—I guess I didn't know that, not really. I mean...I wanted you to..." he stuttered, suddenly self-conscious and not knowing how to put his emotions into words. Anakin had hoped, yes, that one day his Master would come to trust and rely on him as a true partner, as an equal, but he had never really expected the other man to actually acknowledge him that way. "At Jabiim...I wasn't with you, and you...you almost...after you came back, I promised..." Anakin cleared his throat, once, twice. "I won't allow that to happen again," he vowed, knocking the edge of his fist against the viewport.

"Anakin, Anakin." Obi-Wan reached out and firmly grasped the younger man's forearm in his hands. "We have been over this. It was not your fault. It is in the past, and that is where it should remain. Let it go," he urged, with a pat to Anakin's arm. "We dwell not on what has happened, nor what is to come, but focus on what is now." Obi-Wan recited the words by rote, but recognized the hypocrisy in them; the memories had refused to remain banished for him, as well. For Anakin, it was that he'd failed to protect Obi-Wan from capture and torture. But for Obi-Wan, it was the disquieting knowledge that Anakin had put everything on the line to save him—and that he'd had every belief and faith in his former Padawan to do just that.

Anakin nodded, letting out a shaky breath. He set his free hand over Obi-Wan's, feeling the scabbed knuckles dry and rough beneath his palm. Drawing in his bottom lip, he tilted his head to the side, brow furrowed with confusion. "But Master...why...why do you say you trust me to protect you, and then say you don't want me to?" Glancing down at their joined hands, he watched the edge of his thumb drag over his Master's, hearing the rasp of callous against callous.

The friction gave rise to an unfamiliar warmth beneath their hands, a sensation equal parts comforting and uncomfortable. "Because it is too much for me to ask, and too much for you to give, Anakin. Because I don't...I can't...I shouldn't...want... you to," Obi-Wan fumbled for the words, loathing his verbal ineptitude and the desperate timbre in his voice. He needed to say this, needed to make Anakin understand why it was wrong. Kriff, he needed to make himself understand.

Quickly sliding his hands out from Anakin's, he moved back to the sink, fiddling with the remaining supplies. "I...I don't want you to protect me. I don't want your protection at the expense of your life, and you give me that without any hesitation, without any thought to the consequences." Obi-Wan spun around and pointed at him accusingly. "You don't think, you simply act. I...I don't want to rely on that and I do. Far too much, and that's the precisely the issue, Anakin. Don't you see?"

"Master?" Bewildered, Anakin took a step forward, but Obi-Wan recoiled, pulling away just out of reach. "Master, I...I don't understand. Why—"

"Because I would do the same for you. I just did, back there on Shylera!" Obi-Wan cried despondently, gesturing out the viewport at the shrinking world they were leaving behind. "We are Jedi, and our duty is to the Force, to the Republic, to a good far greater than we are, and without a second thought, I just turned my back on all of that, all of my training, to get you out of there!"

Anakin blinked rapidly, absorbing Obi-Wan's words as a sickening knot began twisting in his stomach. "I see," he acknowledged with a curt nod, unable to keep the angry hurt out of his voice. "You don't want to be obligated to me. I'm a Knight now, so your duty to me ends, is that it?" He lunged back to the cot, hands scrambling to retrieve his tunics and cloak. "I'll be sure to remember that the next time you get your ass caught in some Sep crossfire or Ventress decides she didn't do enough damage the last time and wants to finish the job!"

Obi-Wan cringed at the words, long accustomed to Anakin's temper, but never his cruelty. Dismayed and alarmed, he shook his head in denial, pleading with his partner and best friend. "Anakin, no. You're not listening—"

"You're the one not listening!" Anakin shouted insolently, his face flushed with anger now. "You think Windu or any of those cowards on the Council will come for you? Because they won't. They were willing to leave you for dead the last time, as if you were of no importance, as if you had never existed," he spat, voice cracking with his contempt. "But I didn't give up, I didn't believe you were dead, and I came for you," he whispered fiercely, punctuating every word. "Because you're important to me, Obi-Wan."

Hastily scooping up his mud-crusted boots, Anakin kicked out savagely at one of the clods of dirt that had fallen from their treads, then laughed, short and bitter. "My mistake for assuming the same from you." He faced the door and stiffened, inhaling sharply through his nose before he spoke again. "Thanks for the bacta, and for getting us out of there. It...it won't be necessary again. I'll make sure of it," he said coldly, head down as he palmed open the door.

"No. No, no, no," Obi-Wan shook his head again in desperate denial, reaching for him with an outstretched hand. "Anakin—"

The door hissed shut.

Stunned, Obi-Wan collapsed heavily against a storage cabinet, clutching at his leg as it threatened to give out on him completely this time. Knocking his head back with a thump, he pressed his face into his hands, grasping for any kind of serenity the Force had to offer.

He found none.