First he waited, but when hour was added to hour and it became less and less likely that Anakin had simply been delayed at some as of yet unmentioned night job or suchlike, Obi-Wan began to worry in earnest.

Had Anakin fled? Had he decided that he'd rather not deal with Obi-Wan and all that the Jedi's presence implied and brought? Decided that, and just... run?

Obi-Wan didn't want to believe it. Didn't believe it, as a matter of fact. A cursory investigation suggested that Anakin hadn't packed anything, even if Obi-Wan didn't truly know enough of his life here to know whether anything important was missing from the shop.

But... It just wasn't like Anakin to run. He was many things but not usually a coward.

He did run after Palpatine's death. From the Jedi, his children, his actions.

From me.

That was not a helpful thought. What did he actually know?

That Anakin had previously snuck out at night, his destination and errand undisclosed. He had returned before morning then. He had not this time.

Not much to go on. On the other hand – Obi-Wan had known even less than that when setting out from Coruscant to find Anakin for the first time, just a handful of days ago.

Obi-Wan got up, grabbed his cloak, and then he went to see the neighbors.

As the day unfolded, he had occasion to be thankful for having spent the better part of last week being seen in Anakin's shop. There were no police force in Mos Espa, no keepers of the peace, and so little reason to treat unknown people stopping by to ask serious questions as anything but a potential threat to whomever they were asking for. In spite of Anakin's efforts to distance himself from everyone, the people here clearly regarded "mechanic Lars" as one of their own, and were unlikely to have shared whatever they might know with an outsider.

But Obi-Wan was known as an associate of Lars', and so he was met with polite compliance, if not outright friendliness, as he knocked on the doors of various hovels or stopped passersby in the street to inquire about his friend.

Unfortunately, none of the neighbors had seen Anakin since yesterday, or knew anything at all about his nightly excursions. The general consensus was that being out and about late at night in Mos Espa was generally a bad idea for honest folks. Apparently several street gangs operated in the area, and innocent people were in danger of everything from being mugged to kidnapped and sold into slavery.

"It's been getting worse in the last few years, it has," an old woman told him as she leaned on an old-fashioned broom next to a small fruit-stand. "Tatooine has always been pretty rough, course, but the Hutts always did try to keep things from getting too bad. Not out of the goodness of their hearts mind you, but because it was bad for business. But with Clone Wars and this mess out there now, it's just been getting worse and worse."

"'s true," her Toydarian business partner fluttering behind the stand agreed, waving a fist in the general direction of the world. "Last year three people were murdered or just disappeared from this neighborhood within a week. A week! Little Cara Sundancer was taken! No one cared. Not the Hutts, not the precious Republic." He spat on the ground.

"It was a bad time." The old woman nodded, though the look she gave her blue companion suggested that she found his outburst somewhat embarrassing. Perhaps she recognized Obi-Wan's clipped Core world accent and worried that he might be offended by such wholesale condemnation of his government.

Perhaps he should be. More likely, he should grieve for the hardship of these people's lives, and how little he could do to ease it. But he didn't have time for that right now. "Do you think that, ah, Lars might have been taken?"

The idea was preposterous, of course. Anakin was in all likelihood the most dangerous man in the galaxy; even now, he was not someone to be 'taken', certainly not by some random street thugs.

"Could be," said the Toydarian carelessly.

His Human associate shot him another displeased look, before turning to Obi-Wan with a placating smile. "I wouldn't too much worry about that. Doesn't seem like an easy fella to nab, does he? 'sides, it's been less of that nasty business here in these quarters recently."

"Ha!" The Toydarian made a gurgling sound Obi-Wan took to be laughter, though there was little enough mirth in it. "Not again with this raga shona nonsense!"

The woman straightened from her broom, jaw set. "Shesna saw it, you know. That night when they tried to rob Aayana's boy."

"Shesna's an old drunk."

"Can't deny it's been getting quieter here though, can you? And those robbers didn't just break off and run away for nothing."

It had the sound of an old argument, often repeated, and Obi-Wan's first inclination would have been to politely excuse himself and leave them to it, since they obviously didn't have anything concrete to offer him regarding Anakin's current whereabouts. But he knew, with a calm certainty that could only be born of the Force, that what he was hearing was important. As for why it was important –

Well, that bit he'd have to figure out for himself.

"What's a raga shona?" he asked. It sounded like Huttese, but of that language he only knew a few words and phrases - curses, mostly, picked up from Anakin. This one he didn't recognize.

"Oh." The old woman flushed slightly, though whether from him having witnessed their argument or from any embarrassment over the question he couldn't say. "Bit of a local legend, really. A... spirit of the sands, I s'pose. Vengeful and harsh like if you're being a fool about going into the desert, but it'll help you if you show proper respect. Lead you to water if you're lost and such."

"Fairy tales," the Toydarian inserted, scornfully. "And even if it were true, what would a spirit of the sands be doing chasing off rogues here in Mos Espa, eh? Doesn't make much sense."

"Well, no one's saying it's really a raga shona, are they? Just seems someone's out there," she added for Obi-Wan's benefit. "Keeping an eye out for trouble and what-not. It's been happening sometimes lately, thugs showing up bound and unconscious on the streets, like they've been stopped right before they were about to attack someone. No one's been killed or taken in this neighborhood in over two months now! And Aayana's boy, he was being held up by four Devaronians and they hit him so he blacked straight out, only when he woke up he still had all his money and the Devaronians were gone. Happened right outside Shesna's house too, and she saw this figure in a robe take them all out, and it moved faster than you ever saw. That's what Ayaana said, and she's a Dug, she is, and they have those crazy reflexes. If she say it was fast, it was fast." She gave the Toyarian a half-challenging, half-triumphant glare. "So there's someone out there, and maybe it's not a real raga shona, but that's what people's been calling it."

Ah.

"I see," Obi-Wan said, forestalling what he suspected would be a furious rebuttal from the Toydarian. "Thank you for sharing this with me. I'd love to hear more, but I need to keep looking for Lars." He offered a light bow, then paused, as if struck by a sudden afterthought. "I don't suppose either of you heard anything about a disturbance last night? Raga shona or not, it seems Mos Espa is not the safest of places, and I'd like to make sure my friend hasn't gotten caught in the crossfire."

They understood but no, they hadn't heard anything. The Gotal who owned the Bantha Tracks Café might, though - and they pointed the way. Obi-Wan thanked them again and left, torn between the relief of having a solid lead and the steadily mounting worry over what he had learned.

He put those feelings aside. He would consider the implications of Anakin's late night practices later; right now, he just needed to find him.

When he did find him, following a trail vague leads and fleeting guidance from the Force, it was already dusk. Night fell quickly here, and since Obi-Wan hadn't though to bring a light he was left peering into the darkness of the derelict and abandoned storage unit where his search had led him.

Nothing moved in there. Nothing made a sound. But he could sense Anakin now, though the man's presence in the Force remained as shrunken and closely shielded as it had been ever since he arrived.

He could also smell blood.

Obi-Wan allowed a moment for his eyes to adjust, then carefully made his way into the windowless room, leaving the door open for what meager light would fall in from the street. He could make out some empty shelves along one wall and a few overturned boxes on the floor - and in the far corner, the slumped figure of a tall man curled up with his back to the wall.

Anakin. Alive. That was all Obi-Wan could tell from a distance.

"So," he said, surprising himself with the lightness of his voice as he crossed the floor to kneel next to Anakin. "Turned to vigilantism, have we? I did think 'mechanic' sounded somewhat less than dramatic enough to truly suit you."

"Obi-Wan... "

Hearing his name on Anakin's lips sent a jolt down Obi-Wan's spine, unexpected and shocking in its intensity. Merely a whisper from a man barely conscious, no particular emotion to it, and yet it felt so much like a bridge crossed, a bond reforged.

Like coming home.

It was not an uncomplicated feeling, bringing with it a tangle of protests and questions, but them too he silenced and put to the side. Focused at the moment at hand.

"Let's have a look at you," he murmured, reaching out with both hands and the Force to carefully scan for injuries.

Anakin didn't resist the cursory examination, but didn't facilitate it either. Simply sat there, quiet save for his ragged breathing and the occasional grunt of pain as Obi-Wan's prodding fingers brushed over a sore spot. His skin was cold to the touch, clammy.

There was rather a lot of blood, enough of it that Obi-Wan hoped it wasn't all Anakin's. He was pretty sure that it wasn't, though, and felt himself beginning to relax slightly. They'd both seen worse than this during the war.

"Well, there's cuts and bruises and one leg is definitely broken," he announced after a minute. "I can't really say much more before I have a look at you in the light, but I think you'll live." Someone like Vokara Che would have been able to determine the full extent of Anakin's injuries and quite possibly heal the better part of them, but Obi-Wan's skills lay elsewhere.

Vokara Che was dead. Killed at the attack on the Jedi Temple, quite possibly by Anakin. If he wasn't too busy slaughtering younglings –

"We need to fixate your leg so we can get you back to the shop," Obi-Wan said curtly, swallowing bile. "Why didn't you come straight there anyway?"

A beat, a hitched breath, a slight rustle of a limb shifting slightly in the dark. Then: "Too far."

Anakin had never been a very good liar. Obi-Wan found he had absolutely no patience for his feeble attempts at deception now. "The shop is no farther away from where you apparently took on a dozen space pirates than this is. If you could make it here, you could have made it there. You chose not to. Why?"

Silence. A stubborn feel to it, one Obi-Wan was deeply and frustratingly familiar with. "You will tell me," he intoned, voice flat. "If not now, then once we're back at your place." He'd let Anakin get away with too many refusals to address his issues when he was a Padawan, he thought. Too late to do anything about that now - but not too late to learn from it, perhaps.

"I'll go find something for your leg," he said, rising. Added, sardonically: "Don't go anywhere."

It didn't take him more than fifteen minutes to walk back to Anakin's place, grab what he needed from his travel bag, and return again. He made good use of the brisk walk and the cool air; let it clear his head, calm his mind. Now he activated the small glowrod he'd brought and stepped through the door to the storage unit, guided by light.

Anakin hadn't moved. He really did look a mess, pale and with blood smeared both over his face and clothes, but he was still conscious and blinking at the flickering light of the glowrod.

"You came back," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper.

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow as he sat next to the other man, setting down both light and bag beside him. "You didn't think I would?"

"You were... angry. When... you left."

For a moment, Obi-Wan didn't speak. "Yes," he eventually admitted. "Yes, I'm very angry with you, Anakin. You know well why I have reason to be." He paused. "But I am a Jedi. I am not ruled by anger. Here, painkiller." He put two small capsules to Anakin's lips and waited until he accepted them, then brought up a water bottle. "Drink."

He waited for the Anakin to empty the bottle, and then an extra couple of minutes for the painkillers to take effect before he set about setting Anakin's leg, making use of his emergency medkit. Healing might not be his area of expertise but all Jedi were trained in the basics of field medicine, and he worked quickly and efficiently. It would probably need resetting by a professional, but it would do for now.

"There you go," he said once he was satisfied that he had done all that he could. He glanced up at Anakin's face. The other man had closed his eyes, breathing easier now; painkillers lulling his battered body toward sleep. "Still with me?"

"Mh."

"All right. Let's get you home." And then we'll have a nice long talk, you and I. The time for patient waiting is over.