Chapter Text
“As you can see from the evidence presented before us, there is no doubt that the terrifying suspicions are true. The ship believed to have been used by Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker is in fact no longer a belief. The crashed ship contained only one life form. They have not yet found the body. It is with a heavy heart I report that the beloved ‘Hero With No Fear’ is in fact—”
Padme cut the screen before the reporter finished her sentence, knowing what she would have said, dreading the next few words which would spill out of her mouth.
She wouldn’t let herself believe it though, she simply couldn't.
The holonews must be wrong—wouldn’t be the first time that they were—because the no way in the nine Correllian hells it was right, there was no plausible way.
There was no possible way her beloved was dead.
Her husband, the light of her life, the man who treated everyone equally, droids and clones alike, could not be dead. He simply couldn’t be.
But she knew when Obi-wan had come to tell her, it had to be the truth.The words he spoke to console her didn’t convince so much as Obi-wan himself did.
He looked battered and bruised, and so utterly broken.
Like Anakin, her love, had been apart of him. Anakin had been his Padawan. Obi-Wan had practically raised him. His death was not something Obi-Wan could pretend didn't affect him. He couldn't meditate it away.
This was a wound that physically pained with every breath, because itshouldhavebeenmeIshould'vediednothimnothim was all he could think about. It was all that occupied his mind.
She couldn’t blame him though. She also felt that way. Anakin was her soulmate, her other half. With him gone, she didn’t know how she was going to go on. But, she knew that if he was here, he’d want her to move on. To be happy, with or without him. she'd want her to live her life to the fullest.
And she did want to know what had happened to him… Not just anything could kill her husband. Dooku, countless separatist leaders and who knows how many battle droids could attest to that.
So, in the end, that awful little part of her she buried deep within for a damn good reason, required that she find out how the 'Hero With No Fear' finally bit the bullet.
“Obi-wan, what happened to him?” She asked, her curiosity eating away at her.
She hated herself for her need to know, but that was it.
She needed to know.
If she didn't find out, curiosity would slowly eat away at her, killing her from the inside out, leaving her as some sort of shell.
He looked at her with a wary expression.
“I can not tell you that, Senator Amidala.” His usually stern voice whispered softly.
He shook his head, wishing away the memories of what had happened. Of how he, Ahsoka and Rex had been let go, scot free except for the trauma.
How when he reached out to Anakin he felt nothing. His former padawan and best friend’s force signature was just gone.
The memory of that feeling of loss was still fresh on his mind.
They had searched, interrogated, but they couldn't find him at all.
At last, the had found singed robes, with his DNA found inside, in the form of a single piece of hair. They found the robes near a crashed ship, and the official cause of death had been the impact of the crash.
Obi-Wan didn't want to believe it, but he had too.
His Padawan was truly gone.
Forever.
The last time he had felt so helpless was when he watched from behind laser shields as his master had been killed before his very eyes.
He had been so filled with rage, that he had felt the darkness call to him. He had felt the pull. He had been so over run by anger he had let it consume him completely.
He couldn’t let that happen this time. Ahsoka needed him. Hell, he needed her. She was all he had left of Anakin. She was sassy and stubborn and just like him.
The former queen shook her head in return.
She needed to know what happened. Didn’t he understand? This was her husband. Her husband.
If he knew her at all, he would know saying no to telling her important information was not a good idea. It hardly ever was when someone disrespected her in such a way.
And Obi-Wan had just told her a big, fat no. And she didn’t accept that as an answer.
“Obi-Wan please, I need to know what happened. Please.” She pleaded, unshed tears brimming at her eyelashes.
She needed to know what happened to her Ani. He couldn’t just have died. If she knew her beloved, he must've went iut with a bang. A death bright and dtamatic just like he was.
Padmé felt tears form at the corner of her eyes, but she willed them away. She could not start crying now.
Obi-wan turned his head away, refusing to meet her gaze, as if knowing all he was going to see was pain in her typically soothing brown eyes.
“It was on our last mission,” He croaked at last.
Screw the mission, he thought. Senator Amidala was Anakin’s friend. She deserves to know what happened to him. She deserved the truth.
Padmé gestured for him to keep going.
“We were compromised. Ahsoka, Rex, Anakin and I were captured by the Zygerrian slavers, because our covers were blown.” He choked on his words.
Did he have the strength to say the next ones? Could he relay what happened? Was he strong enough?
“After a few days they let Ahsoka, Rex and I free, along with the people of Kiros. Anakin wasn’t with us. I tried to reach out to him in the force, but he wasn’t there, his Force presence just.. vanished. It was like it never even exsisted at all. We found a few pieces of evidence and a shirt with his DNA, but it was burned. Completely. He died, he's gone, and we were freed.” Obi-wan spat with vigor, a renewed fury uncoiling in his stomach.
Anakin, his apprentice was dead, his last moments on a planet filled with slavers. Obi-wan laughed bitterly at the irony. Anakin was never truly free. He was always a slave. First to Watto, then the Order, and finally the Zygerrians. Never free until death.
In fact people used to say a slave was never free until death, no matter if they were freed or not. The trauma always remained. The ever constant fear, the doubt, the paranoia.
Padme clasped a hand over her mouth. Anakin was truly, truly dead. She hadn’t believed it. She hadn’t been able to. She hoped it was a horrible nightmare, or even some sick joke.
It couldn’t possibly be true, could it?
She hadn’t noticed the tears leaking down her face until Obi-wan had handed her a tissue. She hugged him and sobbed into his shoulder, not caring what he thought of her. She needed someone who would understand. She just needed someone, anyone.
He felt the whip on his back before it made contact with his skin, the phantom pains of beatings long ago rising to the surface of his memory.
The pain of the lashing was well, painful, but it was worth it. Ahsoka, Obi-wan and Rex were safe, they were alive.
They were back on Coruscant, out of the Queen’s filthy claws, relatively unharmed. That thought alone made him relax.
They were safe, he thought as the Zygerrian hit him again, his blood already flowing freely down his back.
They were safe, when the names he hadn't heard since Tatooine were the ones he was called.
They were safe, he reminded himself each night when the Queen violated him, when he felt like he was betraying his Angel in the worst way.
It didn't bother him though. He wouldn't let it.
The pain of beatings were not new to him, anyway.
The pain of humiliation was not new, either. Not new at all.
They were safe, as he was paraded around like some sort of prize, his humiliation growing with each lashings he received, and each eye he caught.
They were safe, as the Queen laughed in bemused delight and trailed her claw all over his face, careful not to damage her new toy.
That reassured him when she leaned over and purred, “You will be fun to play with my pet,” into his ear, promising him that his stay would be, in her own malicious words, fun.
He shuddered at her touch, recoling under her fingers. She merely hummed at his response to the contact.
He will be fun to break. She laughed mirthlessly.
This was certainly going to be fun.
They were safe, when he realized he was wearing force suppressing cuffs, it’s power separating him from the Force he had devoted his life to, and his already greatly missed friends.
He clung onto his memories fiercely, analyzing every last detail.
And at last, they were safe, when he fell unconscious, finally, from the beatings.
The pain finally taking over his senses. The absolute physical agony taking him away from the Queen’s clutches, into the blissful ignorance of sleep. Into the arms of the Force.
Until he was no longer on Zygerria, but somewhere else entirely. Somewhere free of the chains that bound him.
Somewhere where he could hear his Angel’s beautiful laughter, see Ahsoka’s smile and feel his master’s comforting presence. Somewhere, he still had the force.
With that vision, he knew he was right. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t free. That he wasn’t a Jedi anymore, or that he’d never see Ahsoka, Padme, Obi-wan or the 501st again.
He knew he made an extremely painful choice, not only for him, but for everyone. Eventually, they'd see he made the only choice.
It didn’t matter that he was a slave, that he was a pawn on some Force forsaken planet, a pet to a cruel Queen, as long as they were all safe. As long as they were free.