Archive of Our Own ^beta

The air was full of dust; tiny bits of rock and sand that stuck in the lungs of anything living in the impossible niche in the collapsed mineshaft. Anakin had never been so removed from his own body in his entire life. He sensed the build up of crud in his throat, the dry patch of dehydration he’d known longer than his own name, the dim light that was his padawan’s life right next to him, how tired his arms were, but it was all abstract. Nothing mattered except the immovable mass that was the Force holding back the tons of rock above their heads and Rex and Kix’s signatures getting closer so slowly it felt like it had to be happening in slow motion.

Obi-Wan had said how hard it was to get Anakin to stay still, to focus, so many times it hadn’t hurt to hear how disappointed he was about that since Anakin was ten. Sometimes he wondered if the Force itself was punishing him for what he’d done to his poor Master over the years. Times like those.

He wanted to shift, but his leg, broken and twisted in a way that would definitely need a bacta tank swim to fix, wouldn’t tolerate it. That and the tight squeeze between his chest, Ashoka’s bare face, and the sharp rocks that were just centimeters away from scarring her forever in a way she’d never be able to hide. His arms trembled with the effort of holding those rocks, the strain of those tons through the raw marrow of him until it felt like his skeleton was getting liquified under the pressure. Even the minute weights that were the Vode trying to dig them out felt impossible to hold up except that Ahsoka was right there.

It might not have mattered so much to anyone but the Vode (who knew what hell they’d be put through with people like Krell in charge) and Padmé if it’d just been Anakin. Obi-Wan was a much more capable teacher than Anakin would ever be, so Ahsoka would be fine. If Rex had been allowed to take charge of the 501st on his own, they might’ve even been better off. But then there was Ahsoka, trapped there with Anakin in a pocket almost too small for them both to even breathe.

And she hadn’t woken up yet.

She was still alive, Anakin could sense that much even through the disconnect, the strain of suspending what should’ve crushed them both outright. That little light was really the only thing pushing him to keep going after what felt like days of his brain being pushed out of his skull by keeping them both alive, though it couldn’t have been more than a few hours.

Something underneath their coffin shifted and the rocks digging into Anakin’s back cut deep enough to reopen the scabbed over scrapes they’d made after the first explosion. It didn’t register as more than a pinprick beyond the way his brain melted in his skull. There was an entire mountain an entire planet balanced on his forehead through the gussets that were his arms, liquid fire through every nerve as the Force punished his body for the constant use for however long it’d been. His throat ached something raw. Had he screamed when that’d happened?

Ahsoka twitched, snuffled with a flare of her signature in the Force before she settled right back into something almost peaceful. With a start, Anakin realized that the Force was wrapped around her, tiny tendrils leeched from the star’s worth of power he was using to keep them from getting crushed that she’d latched onto in her sleep. They burned. She was safe.

It burned.

Ahsoka was alive, safe, and wouldn’t remember any of that as long as she stayed asleep, something her subconscious or the Force had obviously realized.

Anakin’s arms shook; his body was far away; he couldn’t hold up that planet another second; he needed every bit of energy the Force could give him to keep them both alive.

He swallowed that rock dust, let go of his body entirely, opened his shields to let Ahsoka draw whatever she needed from him, and Pushed his entire being into holding up the rocks. His mind dissolved to nothing but knowledge of what was about his shell, the shell of his padawan’s life force. Every nerve had a hot poker pressed into it, and the CIS had better hope he was too weak to take it out of them when he got up again. He was dying and he was infinite and the Vode were so close he could feel their faith that he and Ahsoka would still be alive when they got to them, the steadfastness of all of them headed by Rex’s determination that seeped so deep into the Force it was a power on its own that Anakin pretended not to notice.

Pain meant nothing.

Anakin’s pain meant nothing.

Not while there was still a chance for them to get out alive.