𝗔𝗵𝘀𝗼𝗸𝗮 𝗧𝗮𝗻𝗼

Chapter Eleven

No!

Anakin bolted upright from his position against the cold marble of the Temple.

A crippling feeling of trepidation washed over him, swallowing his conscience in a terrifying numbness, leaving him nothing to do but gasp for breath as he leaned heavily against the stone.

What is happening?

He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, the cool wind nipping at his face.

He recognized the feeling as panic, but he felt it from a dissociated point of view — like the phantom pain of a lost limb (he knew from experience).

It wasn't his panic, he concluded. He was fine. Well, physically, anyway.

Then why did his heart feel like it was pounding out of his chest, and why did his stomach feel like it was twisting into impossible knots? Why was he frozen, and why was he unable to think straight?

His lungs constricted and his chest rose and fell rapidly in an attempt to compensate for the lack of air supply.

Get a grip!

He clenched his fists, his heart slowing to a reasonable pace and the irrational hysteria receding ever so slightly as he got a handle on his surroundings. His sporadic breaths came easier, and he leaned his head back against the cool stone of the wall, closing his tired eyes once more.

What had just happened?

He rubbed a hand down his face with a sigh, before opening his eyes once again.

He was still on the steps of the Temple — he hadn't moved since her fateful decision — but he seemed to have succumbed to the mental and physical exhaustion that had plagued him and fallen asleep right there on the steps.

He shivered slightly in the frigid wind whipping his hair, but he ignored the physical cold and tried to place where the icy numbness from inside of him had come from.

He frowned. There was nothing about his immediate situation that had warranted the paralyzing irrationality that had awoken him.

He shook his head to clear it, and his eyes were drawn to beside him, where the figure of Obi-Wan Kenobi was sitting stock-still, his sleeping face resting on his hand. It seemed that he too had given into the exhaustion of the day.

Anakin frowned again. When had Obi-Wan shown up? His brow creased. How long had the both of them been sitting there?

And then he turned away with a scowl as a wave of conflicting emotions burned its way through his conscience.

Why is Obi-Wan here?

It's too late for him to care.

He crossed his arms and glared at the stone steps, wishing there was a perfectly logical, black and white reason why all of it had happened.

But, of course, there wasn't just one plain, clear, unquestionable and undeniable reason why all of it had happened, and Anakin didn't know what do feel because if that.

So his complacent anger and blame filled the void his churning emotions had left behind.

Why did Obi-Wan let the council do this?

He could have stopped it! Anakin thought in desperation. Should have, he amended, feeling his anger flare up, and a certain darkness bleed into the edges of his vision.

And he couldn't find it in himself to stop it.

Though his festering anger was cut short as the pieces finally clicked together, and his dissociated version of panic began to make sense.