Chapter Text
Iza was so confused.
One minute, she’d been preparing for the blazing hot stab of a lightsaber through some part of her body, and the next she’d felt the heavy thump of a corpse land in the dirt beside her. She could hardly turn her head to see whose it was, although logic told her it wasn’t Obi-Wan. He was still standing over her with that red lightsaber illuminating his features in the most sinister of ways.
But he looked just as confused as she did.
“Master!” Ahsoka’s horrified voice echoed across the open space again as she tugged at Anakin’s cybernetic arm in an attempt to get him to lower it. “He’s dead! Stop!”
The sound of the lightsaber powering down caught Iza’s attention and she saw Obi-Wan staring down at it before throwing it onto Tyranus’ body like it’d burned him. He looked lost as he ran his fingers through his thick hair, turning away from her and walking away instead of kneeling to help like she’d thought he would.
Catcher was at her side within seconds, yelling things that didn’t make sense to her muffled ears and doing his best to lift her out of the dirt without causing more pain. It didn’t help; she still hollered at the top of her lungs when he disturbed her. The center of her torso felt like it was on fire, the sensation spreading to her back with each step he took no matter how carefully he tried to tread. She was almost hysterical by the time he’d brought her back to the group, the fuzzy blackness having returned to the edges of her vision as she struggled to keep herself conscious.
“I’m gonna die,” she tugged at his tunic frantically, terrified out of her mind that she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. “Catch…”
“Give her to me,” the soothing voice of her Master sounded in her ear and Iza shouted out again as she was reluctantly passed over, still gripping onto Catcher. “Iza, you need to let go,”
“I’m scared,”
“I know you are, but you need to let go and you need to trust me,” Windu spoke softly to her, nodding to Catcher to indicate that he needed his help detaching Iza’s fingers from his clothing. The Clone didn’t object, carefully pulling her free and giving the back of her hand a kiss before he allowed the Jedi Master to carry her off somewhere he couldn’t see.
Stars, he was going to vomit. It had all happened so damn fast. He’d seen the ship hit the ground and he’d gone into a panic. And then he’d been prevented from helping her—someone had stopped him with some kind of invisible wall. He’d had to watch her struggle against something unseen as it lifted her, choked her, and dropped her back down like she was nothing but trash. And Tyranus—it was like he’d been waiting. He couldn’t understand how this had happened. His head swam as he remembered seeing the different colors of his comrades’ collective lightsabers, and then the bright red flash of the one across the way. There’d been a scream. Ahsoka had screamed. Anakin had done… something. He couldn’t tell what. It all seemed like a blur now.
Wait.
He could vaguely recall seeing the younger man clenching his fist with a look in his eye that he recognized as one he’d seen in Iza before. Tyranus hadn’t even noticed him before he’d gone wide-eyed and just—collapsed. Time seemed to return to normal after that, but he still couldn’t comprehend any of it. Had he really made such quick work of the Sith Lord like that? It didn’t seem possible to him.
“Anakin!”
Ahsoka’s voice startled Catcher again and he barely turned in time to see her chasing after her Master, who’d taken off across the makeshift battlefield after Obi-Wan. There was a lot of yelling that he couldn’t quite hear and he was beyond surprised when the two men began to trade blows. He might’ve been fine with just letting them duke it out had Ahsoka not wanted to get involved. Cussing under his breath, the Clone took off after her and grabbed her by the shoulders to try and haul her back.
“You gotta let them get it out!” he insisted when she tried fighting him off, “They’ll be fine!”
They were only using fists, after all. It was a little brutal to watch the two men throw punches at each other and knock one another into the dirt, but Catcher knew best that sometimes brothers just needed to fight it out. As he continued to hold Ahsoka back so she wouldn’t try to jump in and pick a side, Catcher caught bits and pieces of the argument going on between the two of them. Anakin was furious about what had happened and Obi-Wan was just as angry, but at least there seemed to be some sort of remorse in his voice. Once the elder of the two had been pummeled into the dirt hard enough to keep him down Anakin got to his feet, panting hard and sweating as he pointed down at him,
“This ends now,” swallowing the blood in his mouth, the younger Jedi glared at his friend and tried to ignore the sting from the bruises already beginning to swell on his face. “I don’t care what you have to do—you fix this.”
“I can’t, Anakin,” Obi-Wan spit his blood out into the dirt in a rather uncivilized manner, turning onto his side cautiously as though he was worried his friend might shove him down again. “That’s not how this works, and you know it,”
“Then you TRY!” Tears cut through the dirt on Anakin’s cheeks, angry and hot. “If she can do it, so can you, Master!”
“I can’t go back, Anakin,” the older man was pretty sure that his nose was broken. He really should have been more careful about that damn cybernetic hand. “It’s not…” Stars, had the boy cracked his ribs too, or had that been the crash? “It’s not that simple,”
“Then I’ll leave too,” looking much like a stubborn toddler, Anakin fixed the other man with a hard glare and received a choked laugh in return.
“You would leave your Padawan behind?” Sitting up a little more, Obi-Wan tried to wipe the blood from his beard and shook his head. “She still needs you, Anakin,”
Catcher wondered if he’d ever seen either man look so defeated before. It was clear what they’d been arguing over now, and he could feel Ahsoka’s shoulders starting to shake as she fought against her tears. He wasn’t sure how appropriate it would be for him to hug her, so he simply stood there and gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. Anakin wouldn’t leave her behind; he likely wouldn’t let Obi-Wan get very far, either.
“Master,” Anakin’s voice was tight, like he was becoming frustrated over not having anything else to argue back with. “You can’t just turn your back on us.”
“Not you,” Obi-Wan shook his head, sighing as heavily as he could manage. “Never you, Anakin,” he seemed to think about that for a minute before he tacked on—“Not any of you.”
“Let us help,” Ahsoka pulled free of Catcher’s grasp to stand beside Anakin, not willing to look up at her Master to see what sort of damage had been done. It was hard enough to look at Obi-Wan’s battered face. “You don’t have to go away,”
“This isn’t something I want to do, Ahsoka,” how the hell was he supposed to stand up? His head was swimming from having his skull rocked so hard and he didn’t trust the stability of his legs. “It’s in the rules,”
“You’re fighting a losing battle you two,” Master Windu chimed in from behind and Catcher almost broke his neck turning his head so quickly. He frowned when he saw that Iza wasn’t with him and felt panic stab down his back. The Jedi must’ve sensed this because he gave the Clone a look and pointed his thumb back towards the ship, watching as the man took off like a shot. “I’m afraid Obi-Wan is right. He cannot come back to the Temple.”
“Where is he supposed to go?” Anakin wiped a stray bit of blood from his chin and Windu suspected it was meant to cover the way his jaw had wobbled. “I’m just supposed to let him?”
“There are plenty of places he can go, Skywalker,” coming over to help the other man to his feet, Windu steadied Obi-Wan and eyed him for a long time. “But yes—you must let him choose the path he wishes to take.”
“He didn’t choose this!” Flecks of spittle flew from Anakin’s mouth as he threw his hand in a violent gesture towards Obi-Wan, not bothering to stop the new flood of tears. “She did this to him!”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, my young friend,” Obi-Wan attempted a smile through all of the drying blood and darkening bruises on his face, trying his best not to sag against Master Windu. “Iza is not solely at fault for this. This… has been a longtime coming.”
“What?” Why hadn’t he said anything? Why hadn’t Obi-Wan reached out to him for help? They could have done something about it before it’d gotten to this point!
“I’m sorry, Anakin. This is the way things must be.”
“What am I supposed to do without you?” Anakin’s blue eyes seemed to drip tears one after another and he didn’t have a single care in the universe that Windu and his judging gaze was there to witness it. “Please, reconsider!”
But Obi-Wan only ducked his head, grunting in pain when he tried to pull away from Master Windu.
“Master!”
“I’m not your Master, Anakin,” it hurt to say the words, but he had to face it at some point. It didn’t mean that the younger man couldn’t find him out in the galaxy if he so desired. And it didn’t mean that they couldn’t continue to be friends—to be brothers. It simply meant that he could not go home with him.
“If you go, I go too!” Anakin wasn’t going to do this. He wasn’t going to let Obi-Wan just leave like that. To hell with the Order and the Code. He knew that walking away from Ahsoka wasn’t something he wanted to do either—but he couldn’t just let go.
“You still have a chance, Anakin,” Obi-Wan shook his head and blew out a breath that looked extremely painful. “Don’t squander it away for me. My decision has been made. I’m sorry.”
“Obi-Wan,” the younger man knew good and well that he sounded like a child who wasn’t getting their way, but he wasn’t sure how else he was supposed to behave. What was he supposed to do? Aside from physically restraining his friend to keep him at his side, Anakin was fresh out of ideas.
“This is not goodbye,” Obi-Wan was running out of ways to try and console Anakin without going to him. “You must stay where you are needed.”
“I murdered him!” Anakin pointed a finger back at Tyranus’ body, looking between Windu and Obi-Wan. “That should count against me.”
“Anakin that’s enough!” Obi-Wan’s shout echoed long after he’d spoken, silencing the other man and bringing a sort of stillness to the air that made him want to be sick. He was having a hard time keeping his composure as it was, breathing through clenched teeth and fighting against a burning in his eyes that he wasn’t sure was dirt or the need to cry. He pushed off Windu’s attempt at trying to keep him steady again, taking a few steps away to give himself some space as he stared down at the filthy toes of his boots. “That’s… enough, Anakin. You need to… let go. Stop fighting this.”
“You should fight harder.” The bitter words were like a knife in his chest, and it almost made the older man laugh.
“I’ve been fighting for long enough,” he really needed to sit. His head was swimming and his vision kept going in and out. “I’m afraid I don’t have much left in me.”
“Obi-Wan!”
Anakin’s panicked cry was the last thing he heard before everything around him went black.
~*~*~*~
Waking up settled across someone’s lap felt disgustingly familiar and for a moment, Iza wondered why she couldn’t hear the steady beeping of medical machinery. Flinching against the touch of a hand on her face, she opened her eyes with a sharp gasp and would have sat up if Catcher hadn’t lain a hand against her chest to keep her restrained.
“Don’t move so quick,” he warned, looking terribly relieved to see her conscious. “You’re not entirely out of the woods, Little Bit,”
He was right. Her body throbbed horribly with pain, but that severe stabbing in her stomach had stopped. Breathing harshly through her nose, she let him carefully prop her up and leaned into his chest.
“Hurts,” she muttered, shutting her eyes when he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. Everything felt bruised and she couldn’t concentrate hard enough to try and stem the pain with the Force. Faintly, she wondered if there were any bacta syringes on the ship, but that thought was quickly brushed aside when she realized that she and Catcher were the only ones on board. “Where…?”
“They’re outside. I’m not sure what’s going on.” Catcher didn’t know if he ought to tell her that Anakin and Obi-Wan were quite literally fighting over the older Jedi walking away from the Order. He had a bad feeling it might cause her to try and get up to go throw her two cents in, and he just had no energy for that. “I’m sure they’ll be in soon.”
“Tyranus,” she tensed when she spoke his name, looking up. “What happened?”
Catcher did his best to explain the things he’d seen from his point of view, pausing to frown a few times as he struggled with verbalizing what Anakin did. In the end, he simply held a hand up and closed it in a tight fist. In his arms, Iza looked stunned. That was not a very good thing for the younger man to do—especially in front of Master Windu. He would likely be thrown in front of the Council and stripped of his title. He’d be cast out and Ahsoka would be left with no one. Well—she would always have Master Plo, but the connection just wasn’t the same.
“Little Bit,” Catcher’s fingers slid along her bruised jaw and into her hair, pausing to pick a few leaves out before he made another attempt to cradle the back of her head. “Calm down. Whatever you’re thinking about, please try not to—”
He was cut off by the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the ramp and looked on in horror as Anakin rushed by him with Obi-Wan limp in his arms. Iza jerked hard against his hold, shouting out in pain but almost willing to bear it as she tried to sit up further to see what was happening. Anakin ignored the voices of Master Windu and Ahsoka as he carefully set Obi-Wan down on the floor of the ship, looking so damn lost as he stared down at the other man. Obi-Wan’s chest still moved with his slow, shallow breathing but it was clear he was struggling.
“We have to go,” Anakin choked out, still ignoring anything anyone tried to say to him. “We have to get him back to Coruscant.”
“Skywalker,” Windu sounded annoyed. If the boy would calm down for five seconds and let someone else help, Obi-Wan would stand much more of a chance. The man was exhausted, no doubt, and the blows to the head probably hadn’t helped much either. But telling that to Anakin was like talking to a steel wall. “Listen to me,”
As the two men in the cockpit began to argue, Iza stared over at the battered Jedi stretched out nearby. Something in her chest hurt at the sight, despite all of her constant insistence that he did nothing but disgust her. She could detest someone and still feel pity for them, couldn’t she? Looking up at Catcher, she nudged him.
“Bring me closer,” she whispered, hoping Anakin wouldn’t hear. She had a terrible feeling he might become enraged if he saw anyone get near his fallen Master.
Catcher hesitated for a moment until he was nudged again and eventually shifted them around enough for Iza’s liking, watching curiously as she reached out and gently took hold of Obi-Wan’s fingers. Shutting her eyes, the brunette did her best to concentrate her breathing and reach along what was left of their Bond. It wasn’t easy; she’d done a damn good job at shredding every link she could find, but there were those few that had been out of her reach. When she felt her mind touch his, she squeezed his fingers and grimaced in pain. The darkness here was far more blinding than what she kept locked away, but she could still feel Obi-Wan floating around somewhere.
“Hey—what are you—”
“If you touch her,” Catcher’s growl was as distant as Anakin’s outraged shout had been, echoing in the dark space swirling around her. “I will snap your kriffing neck.”
She had to concentrate and keep looking. A hand settled on her shoulder and filled her with a strange, peaceful warmth that began to take the pain away and made it easier. But it was when she felt the older man finally return the squeeze to her fingers that she knew she’d found him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Obi-Wan mumbled, sounding exhausted. Iza couldn’t see him but she felt his presence in the void all the same. “How did you get here?”
“How do you think? Stop resisting, Obi-Wan,” tightening her hold on his fingers, the brunette focused harder and whined when her body protested with another wicked jolt of pain. “I don’t have a lot to give, dammit!”
“Save it for yourself,” had she ever heard him sound so hollow before? “You’ll need it.”
“Anakin needs you. What you’re doing is not fair.”
“None of it was fair, Iza,” he sounded angry, but too tired to do anything about it. “You can’t fix this.”
“It’s my fault,”
“Yes it is,” was he smiling? She wished he’d come out of the dark and show himself. “It is indeed, darling. But not solely.”
“He’ll Fall without you, Obi-Wan,” it wasn’t a smart move to try and throw that at him, but maybe it would get him to think. “You can’t do this.”
“Anakin is stronger than you think. He’ll hurt for a while, but he’ll be fine.”
“And you?” Force, she was starting to get tired. Even with the assistance, she was having a hard time keeping a hold on him. “What will happen to you?”
“That remains to be seen.” A pause, and then a heavy sigh. “Please let go.”
“I won’t. Not until I find the Light I know is still here,” someone was touching her face but she couldn’t bring herself to turn away. “You were saving it for me, remember? You said you would always be here. You wouldn’t force me to leave if I didn’t want to. You would carry my Light and keep it safe.”
“Things change, darling,” she could sense him shaking his head. “I’m sorry,”
“Face me,” she was gripping his hand now, her breathing getting harsher. “Come look me in the eye if you’re going to lie to me!”
Silence followed for a few moments until the shadowy figure of Obi-Wan slowly stepped forward, his face illuminated by a single orb of pale blue light hovering nearby. When he didn’t get close enough, Iza willed him forward and was surprised at how little resistance he put up. The two simply stared at one another for a long while until she reached to touch his cheek, his hand mirroring the move. In unison, they traced each other’s features like they were committing them to memory, but Iza had an ulterior motive.
“Don’t do this,” Obi-Wan warned, noting that he was finding it extremely hard to break his gaze away. “Iza,”
“I’m not doing it for me,” pressing cool fingertips to the center of his forehead, Iza tried not to look pained as she sent a wave of something warm straight into him. The sensation wormed past his skull and into his mind, taking anchor anywhere it could until it had bled downward into the rest of his being. His breathing evened out to the same pace as Iza’s and his grip on her hand loosened to something gentler.
“You shouldn’t do that,” he was just going to keep arguing, wasn’t he? She’d have to get used to that. “You’ll corrupt yourself, too.”
“I’ve been this way for a while,” trailing her fingers down his face, Iza smiled faintly and shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not the one who has to get used to it.”
“What did you do?” Obi-Wan’s blue eyes looked sad as he stared back at her, his hand still mimicking her actions against its will. “Iza, what is this?”
“The Bond,” looking amused, she tapped the end of his nose with a fingertip before letting her hand fall away. “A new one, so I can keep an eye on you. For Anakin’s sake.”
“Iza—”
He was silenced by the soft press of lips against his. The kiss was chaste and bittersweet and it ended almost as quickly as it’d begun. Left to stare at her when she pulled away, Obi-Wan fixed her with an odd look. The younger woman said nothing, however, and gave a light pat of her hand against his chest.
“I will not promise to carry your Light, Obi-Wan,” she said quietly, giving a prod to where her hand had just been. “You must hold onto it yourself.”
~*~*~*~
Obi-Wan woke with a start, sitting up with a hard cough and a pained groan. At first, he couldn’t figure out where the hell he was. Then the familiar smell of bacta hit his nose and the blue glow of the machines around him alerted him to the fact that he was in a Medcenter. It wasn’t the Temple’s medcenter, so at least he knew he wasn’t about to be reprimanded by a dozen Jedi, but it gave him no comfort not knowing which medcenter he’d been dumped off at.
“You’re awake,” the quiet feminine voice had him turning to find Iza resting on a bed nearby. “Anakin will be pleased,”
“What happened?” Rubbing his hands over his face was a mistake. The bruises had not had time to heal all the way and he was sure he’d just reopened the wound in his lip. “What did you do?”
“I already told you what I did when I was doing it,” she looked annoyed, but playfully so. “I fixed some things.”
“You had no right—”
“I did not fix you, Obi-Wan,” pushing herself upright on her bed, Iza held her stomach as she leaned forward to look at him better. “Just the Bond. I cannot fix you.”
“Good,” he wanted to go back to sleep. Just talking was making him exhausted. “I don’t want to be fixed.”
“You will need help with your temper,” she sounded just like Windu with that tone. “You choked me twice. I’m not sure you even remember. I don’t know what was you and what was Tyranus’ influence.”
He didn’t want to tell her that both times had been him. He’d let his anger get the better of him and acted out of impulse. Part of him felt sick that he’d made her his target, while the other part felt no remorse at all for his actions. That part scared him a little—but also fascinated him.
“I don’t need your help.” He wouldn’t look at her as he said it, choosing to lie back on the bed when he started to become dizzy. “I can figure this out on my own.”
Her laugh cut through the sounds of the machinery and he could almost see her shaking her head.
“Fine,” she wasn’t going to fight. She’d done enough fighting. Iza just wanted to get the hell out of here and go home where she and her husband could fix their kriffing life and move on. “You do that.”
“You’ve done enough, Iza,” Obi-Wan tried a gentler tone, but he wasn’t going to look at her.
“I saved your ass,” she muttered at the ceiling, sounding extremely bitter. “You’d be dead without me.”
“I’m grateful to you for that,” how quickly she seemed to forget that she’d tried to hand him over to Darth Tyranus; now she wanted to talk about saving him? She really did like wallowing in guilt, didn’t she? “But there is nothing any of you can do for me now. This is something… I must do alone.”
“Have fun,”
“Must you be like this?!” sitting up on his bed again, Obi-Wan looked over at her like he wanted nothing more than to fling her through the window. The girl was a damn nightmare sometimes. “You’re a walking headache, you realize? So indecisive with your feelings, projecting your hatred the way you do! What makes you think I’d be able to learn a damn thing from you?”
“Let it out, darling,” Iza laughed, sounding tearful as she continued to stare at the ceiling. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“You infuriate me,” as if she couldn’t tell, “You play these little games with my head and I’ve never known what to do with you. How am I supposed to go anywhere near you after the things we’ve done?”
“Listen to yourself,” finally sitting up again, Iza pushed the hair out of her eyes and glanced at him briefly. “You don’t love me, Obi-Wan. And I certainly don’t love you. Not the way you’d want me to.” The tiniest of smiles lifted the corner of her lips before it faded away and she bowed her head. “I deserve your anger. I’m ashamed of the things I did to pull you to this side. I’m ashamed for being this selfish.”
“And you think that by helping me, you can find some kind of redemption?”
“No,” she shook her head. “I only want to help because Anakin cannot. The Order will not allow it. It’s too risky—even for him.”
“He’s going to try,”
“Of course he’s going to try,” giving him a look, Iza rolled her eyes. “And he’s going to fail because he doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s doing. I’ve been walking this path for three years, Kenobi. If I can find middle-ground, so can you.”
“Maybe I don’t want to find middle-ground,”
“Then at least let me help with the kriffing temper,” glaring at him, the younger woman got herself caught in another hard staring contest with him. “You can’t go out there ready to Force choke every bastard who pisses you off, Obi-Wan.”
“I don’t want your help. I don’t know how many times you want me to say it.”
There was a loud clatter as Iza threw a hand out to pull his bed closer, yanking the machines along with it. Leaning in until they were nose to nose, neither one seemed to want to back down as the room began to get uncomfortably warm. Baring her teeth at him lightly, the younger woman huffed and gave his shoulder a shove.
“You’ll regret it,” another wave of her hand and she sent his bed scooting back to its spot, only slightly askew. “Giving yourself over to that side is far worse than what I’ve done to you.”
“Or maybe it’ll be the best decision I’ve ever made,” swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Obi-Wan grunted as his bare feet touched the floor. He could stand steadily enough as long as she didn’t get any bright ideas and chuck anything at him.
“He’ll hunt you down, Obi-Wan,” green eyes followed every move the older man made, watching him detach electrodes and gather up the filthy pile of robes that had been left on a chair nearby. “He’s going to be furious.”
“Don’t let him know you’re still Bonded to me,” he didn’t look at her when he said it, going to the window as if to assess whether or not it was a good escape route. “Make him believe that you’ve severed the connection.”
“Obi-Wan,”
He only turned around because of the hint of desperation in her voice, finding her on the edge of her bed looking like she might try to come after him. He couldn’t have that. Putting on his warmest smile, he walked back over and set aside the things in his arms in favor of cupping her head in his hands. Much like the kiss she’d given him before, this one was soft and bittersweet—though it was anything but chaste. He didn’t linger, however, choosing to break away and plant another quick one between her eyes before he let go and picked up his things and headed back to the window.
“Take care of yourself, darling,” he said over his shoulder before picking a chair up with a wave of his fingers, hurtling it through the glass. “And take care of Anakin for me.”
“Wait—” but he’d already jumped before she could stop him. Scrambling off of her bed, Iza let out a frustrated yell when she became tangled in the wires connecting her to her machines, ripping them off and going over to the window to see where he’d gone. Glass dug into her bare feet and into her palms as she leaned out to try and spot him, but he was gone. She heard commotion behind her and felt someone grab her by the shoulders to pull her away from the window, but she refused to answer any questions about what had happened. Even as Catcher fussed over her and carried her back to her bed, she stared out of that damn window.
“I guess he made his choice,” Anakin’s deep voice was the only thing to pull her attention away and she looked up to find him standing in the middle of the room with his arms folded over his chest.
“I tried to stop him,” she wasn’t sure he’d believe her, even if it was the truth. “He wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Yeah,” the younger man’s blue eyes shifted to look deep into her green ones like he was trying to stare through her. “I know,”
“What are we going to do, Master?” Ahsoka asked from beside Anakin, looking rather collected for as distraught as the room felt.
“We wait,” Anakin sucked at his teeth and turned to look back out the window.
“He’ll be back. Just be patient and wait, Snips.”
END