Chapter Text
"Hold on!"
It is more due to reflex than a case of following his Master's orders that Anakin Skywalker grasps a handle tightly as another hit from the droid army jerks the vehicle. Twisting around, he makes sure Padmé, too, has a firm grip. Her smile of grim determination makes her look beautiful, despite the dust and blood she is covered in. He longs to hold her, to kiss her, but Anakin instead only returns the smile, trying to convey as much of his love into it as he can, knowing – fearing – that Obi-Wan is too close by to risk doing anything else.
He hopes his angel understands.
Although he feels exhaustion creeping in around the corners of his consciousness, it is cast aside by the rush of adrenalin when he observes the battle below. His mechanics' mind and his strategic superiority quickly calculate the battle, and his eyes lock onto the Separatists constructions. "Aim right above the fuel cells," he calls to the clones, and they fire as soon as they are in range.
True to his prediction, the fuel cells explode and the hideous war weapon collapses, destroying a large mass of the Separatist droid army, as they zip ahead of the battle. Anakin smirks triumphantly, relishing his own personal victory. Obi-Wan faces him, grinning widely. "Good call, my young Padawan!" he shouts, and Anakin is glad his Master twists away again before he can see the flush of pride that has spread across the Padawan learner's face.
The battle and the sound, the scent, of death are quickly left behind them as they speed ahead.
"Look, over there!" Obi-Wan suddenly cries, pointing. A small speeder, flanked by two fighters, tear across the sand dunes. From the distance, it is difficult to make out the figure, but through the Force, Anakin can sense them.
"It's Dooku," Anakin says. "Shoot him down!"
"We're out of ordnance," is the reply. Anakin pushes away the burst of frustration and the paranoid feeling that the galaxy is out to get him. Focus on the present, a voice in the back of his mind tells him. The voice sounds suspiciously like Obi-Wan's, but he doesn't acknowledge it, and he orders the pilot to follow the speeder.
"We're gonna need some help!" Padmé cries, looking at Obi-Wan incredulously as if she can't believe he'd so readily risk his and Anakin's lives. Part of Anakin longs to agree with Padmé, simply for the sake of agreeing with her.
"There isn't time! Anakin and I can handle this!" Obi-Wan yells back over the roar of the engine. Anakin has nothing to add to this – content to take the moment to bask in Obi-Wan's implied admittance in his faith in him, so seldom heard.
As the battle rages behind them and Dooku flies on ahead, the two fighters flanking his left and right break off and spin around behind the clone's vehicle, and start to fire. They are jolted violently as hit after hit threatens to immobilise them – risks them to lose their gaining ground on Dooku.
Another violent blast rocks the vehicle – but Padmé's grip isn't strong enough this time, and she topples backwards, falling from the ship into the dunes with a startled cry. Even as he lunges towards her, hoping to catch her or balance her, Anakin knows his efforts are futile, and in that instant, his heart nearly stops.
"PADMÉ!" Anakin screams, watching hopelessly when she rolls down the dune and wanting to do nothing more than to leap out after her. Rounding on the clone pilot, he orders, "Put the ship down!"
"Anakin!" Obi-Wan snaps, jumping in front of him. "Don't let your personal feelings get in the way!"
Fury clouds his vision as Obi-Wan snaps back at the pilot to follow Dooku's speeder.
"Lower the ship!" Anakin screams again. To his shame and horror, he can feel tears of desperation sting his eyes, watching Padmé's white and motionless figure in the sand becoming smaller and smaller.
"I can't take Dooku alone!" Obi-Wan's voice invades his despair again. "I need you! If we catch him we can end this war right now! We have a job to do!"
For a startled moment, Anakin's attention is completely at Obi-Wan's mercy, held hostage by his heated gaze. Auburn hair is whipping around his dusty, bloodied face, his blue-green eyes blazing, and his knuckles white from the strength of his grip – in that moment, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi looks terrifying, a force not to be reckoned with; dangerous, but righteous. Powerful.
Angry.
But the moment passes as quickly as it came, and Anakin's thoughts are recaptured by Padmé as if they had never strayed. "I don't care! Put the ship down!"
He doesn't care – and perhaps this is what frightens him the most.
"You will be expelled from the Jedi Order!"
The words mean nothing to him. Their meaning refuses to comprehend. Padmé, is all he is capable of thinking. "I can't leave her!" he screams, his Padawan braid lashing at his face in the wind, a cruel reminder of everything Obi-Wan is telling him. He has never wanted to cut it off more than that second.
Obi-Wan's voice is hoarse from his shouting. "Come to your senses!" he cries, sounding almost desperate – furious. "What do you think Padmé would do were she in your position?
In that split second, Anakin sees two choices.
She would do her duty, is the hard choice, the right answer, and he would have stay on the ship with Obi-Wan to follow Dooku. To leave Padmé behind.
Fuck duty, is the other.
With a glare, Anakin turns and leaps off the ship into the rocky Geonosian terrain. The last thing he sees before crashing to the ground is Obi-Wan's shocked and pale face – betrayed.