Hello you all,

It's good to see you again :-)

I'm sorry that this took so awfully, embarrassingly, terribly long…it's been a tough couple of months for me. I fear this isn't anything special either, nothing that could justify such a long latency…nevertheless, I'm happy to see the last chapter of "With all without you" uploaded. I know I let you down for a long time, and I hope you'll forgive me and enjoy this end nonetheless.

I particularly want to thank two members of Fanfiction, that became my close friends. Thank you, ObiBettina7 and padawan13 for listening to my rants, this chapter is for you…though I fear it can nowhere near enough repay what you have done for me. Love you lots, Leolina

After all the healers had disappeared, all utterly gobsmacked, I snuggled to my Master's weak body again, my hands wandering through his hair, over his cheeks, and I was far too enthralled to care about showing him my affection so openly. Tears were falling from my eyes incessantly, but I didn't need to wipe them away. His eyes were wet, too.

I was afraid of using our bond, that once had been so vibrant with the Force, saturating with how much I needed it and the man it connected me with. Bant had told me about possible injuries in his mind that I could make worse, but even more I was scared of the option that there was only a vacant place where once our connection had been.

None of us knew how much of the Obi-Wan Kenobi we knew had weathered the suffering, and although he had reacted on my touch and remembered my name, it was feasible that he had lost profound abilities or character traits of his…it was feasible that he had lost the ability of using the Force.

/Anakin…/

Relief, sweet relief filled my veins, together with an almost impossible bliss. He was there. Really.

"Master…", I gasped while I sent waves of affection and love through our bond.

"Oh, Master…"

/Anakin…I can't move/

I recognized panic in his beautiful eyes, something I had never seen there before. I couldn't help pressing a chaste kiss on his forehead, determined to soothe his distress.

"Don't worry, Master. This will be alright. Everything's alright. I…I thought I lost you…"

A sob found its way round the wall of self-composure every Jedi initiate should be ready to erect at once, never one of my strong points, so to say.

/I'm never gone, Anakin…/

I squeezed his hand a little harder unconsciously. I wouldn't ever bear having less of him than I did in this very moment.

"Are you hurting? Do you need anything?"

/No..just…/

"Yes, Master?"

A single tear escaped from his heavenly eyes and sparkled like a diamond in the amber of his beard.

/Please…stay with me, Ani/

I cautiously wiped away the tear and tried to reassure him, while I again placed my head on his chest.

"I won't leave, Master! Promise."

I couldn't understand what he meant. Why would I leave…and why would this bother him at all?

But I didn't ask, neither did I about the torture he went through, I just sat with him and watched him falling asleep, completely silent, completely motionless, and beautiful, oh, so beautiful.

***

Bant came to me when Obi-Wan slept. She hugged me without a word, two witnesses of a miracle in this aseptic, dreary hospital room. He lived.

She changed the infusion in his arm, and his face twisted in a sudden jolt of pain. I jumped to my feet.

"You're hurting him!"

Her lenient smile made me feel like an utter fool.

"I have to, Anakin. It's only for a moment."

I ignored the instinct to shove her away of him. Nobody should ever dare to hurt my Master again.

"I guess I can't convince you to sleep at home tonight, can I?"

Bant already knew the answer and didn't even try to change my mind, aware of the fact that she didn't stand a chance against my bullethead, and after she had dimmed the lights and left the room, I bedded my chin on his chest again and let my thoughts wander while I waited for his calm heartbeat to lull me into sleep.

The bruises, cuts and scars that covered his body would vanish in time. Even the broken bones and the fractured skull would heal with patience. But the healers had detected that he had not only been maltreated physically.

Bant had told me about their assumptions. It was likely that they had found a way of depriving him of all his senses, no sounds, no sights, not the tiniest movement but pain for weeks…

This alone would be enough to break a man, but Bant expected more. Somehow they had managed to block his access to the Force. They had kept him from the only thing he depended on, from the only thing he was addicted to, from the only thing he truly needed. The imagination of living without the Force was cruel already, and I had often wondered how dull and narrow it had to be for the normal galactic citizen, but I had always been able to tell myself that they didn't know it any other way and therefore didn't need to be pitied, but he…he knew it better.

Even in normal situations I couldn't imagine acting without the Force and its calm reassurance around me, but in a situation like that…being tortured, starved, agonized without any soothing power around you, being alone and hopeless, having to prepare oneself for death without the last, normally ever-present ally…

I stared at the half- veiled window across the room. If craned my neck a little, I didn't even have to lift it from Obi-Wan's chest to see the stars sending their magnificent light to us, everyone like a light bulb of hope on blackness. The isolation of the Force had presumably been the reason why I had not been able to feel his presence on the cruiser, too.

Sure I had heard of various torture methods before. As a youngling, I had stayed awake whole nights, too frightened of the imagination that muscle maggots could seep out of the shadows under my bed, and we all had been taught what to expect when captured by a hostile power…but what had happened to my Master exceeded all old wives' tells and horror stories.

Excluding a Jedi from the life-giving Force was already something to cruel to imagine. But using his only everlasting ally, his only necessary brace against him…impossible. And yet exactly this was what the Healers assumed to have happened.

Somehow, the Dark Side had found a way to torture his mind with force-induced pictures. Bant guessed that they had shown him scenes of his most desperate fears, but I didn't believe this theory. I was quite sure that there was nothing Obi-Wan was afraid of.

Sure he was always cautious, he never overestimated himself, he wasn't daredevil and knew the dangers that awaited him in the galaxy, but he was prepared for them. Sure there were things one couldn't be prepared for, but he had always taught me not to worry about those. "We can't expect the unexpected. We can't train for the coincidence…only for being able to improvise."

That was the way of the Jedi: Deliberation, bravery, spontaneity, independence.

I wasn't a quite good Jedi. I met all the criteria, except being independent. I couldn't imagine living without my Master, even if I didn't need his physical assistance, I craved his presence, his guidance, his advices. I wasn't without fear, but he was, for he didn't need anyone.

I shivered as I imagined my own mind being tantalized by such methods…it would always be Obi-Wan I'd see. Obi-Wan tortured, Obi-Wan injured, Obi-Wan dying…

But he was here now, here and save and alive, and nobody would take him away from me again…

It took some time to convince the arbitrary qualms in my stomach to let me fall asleep, and it wouldn't have worked in any other place but here, with his heartbeat in my ears.

***

I woke up so abruptly that it felt like someone had slapped my face.

Obi-Wan cried. His beautiful, cherubic face was twisted, tears glittered in the corners of his eyes and he was paler than the linens.

Completely shocked I grabbed for his hand and squeezed it as I tried to wipe away the salty traces on his cheeks, without any idea what else to do.

"Master, it's alright. Everything's alright. I'm here, no one will harm you…I promise!"

He moaned and panted heavily, and if he had been able to move, he would have tossed and struggled desperately against my hands that tried to calm him down.

"No…no, please! I beg you, no…"

Never, never had I heard the voice of my calm, stable Master sound so despaired, so anxious…and never before I had heard him beg.

Frantically I tried to touch his spirit through our bond…and realized a second to late that the usual walls every Jedi erected around the true center of his being, the place of feelings, hopes and wishes, the thing humans were used to call 'soul', had vanished, and without any barrier to hold me back, I fell headlong into the scene that was in his mind.

A sneering laughter, a pale white, bald head, evil blue eyes...

"Come on, Jedi, won't you struggle? He's calling for you…can you hear him?"

And then…a tied-up body, screaming in agony as the Force Lightning hit him…the head jerked around and desperate, bloodshot eyes pierced in a blank, terrible stare.

"MASTER! Master, please…oohhh…I can't take it…."

"ANAKIN! Please, not Anakin!"

Obi-Wan's voice echoed in my head, and I couldn't differentiate between his cries, that mixed with my own voice and the yells of the torn body on the floor – that somehow was me.

With an enormous effort I cut the connection to him and stumbled backwards as Obi-Wan's weak body seemed to explode in motion as if he had cracked invisible shackles.

"Anakin! Ani! Please…don't…don't hurt him…!"

I tried to embrace him, but he shook me off as if I wasn't more than a puppet, his hands clenched to fists.

"Master, Master! I'm here, I'm alright! It's just a dream, Master! Aaaah!"

He had hit me with a blow as he jerked around, and I grabbed for his shoulders to press him down onto the mattress, but failed. He was almost starved and completely emaciated, but somehow he struggled with an enormous, desperate strength.

Now I was crying, too, because of the ferocity of his pain and my fear that he would hurt himself in his fit…his fit because he dreamt of me, dreamt of me being tortured. I had never known how much I meant to him, and as he bent his face to the ceiling in a blind cry of despair I let my instincts take control over my useless mind.

Like a sleepwalker I leant forward and pressed my lips to his, without covering my face from possible blows, without covering myself for consequences. I pressed him down on his bed with a fierce embrace while I savored his taste of peppermint and honey, of home and trust and fate, tears and sweat and he didn't struggle anymore but went calm and as I broke away moments, minutes, eternities later he didn't stir anymore in his sleep, his hands still clenched ferociously around mine.

I checked all drain tubes and machines around him with shaky hands, then let my head sink on his chest again, my heartbeat faster than Hyperspace velocity.

I had kissed him…I had abused his weakness…I had stopped his pain…I had caused it.

I had seen that he needed me, too…I had kissed him…I had lost my control.

I had kissed him…and it had stopped my mind from working, stopped my blood from flowing, stopped my heart from beating.

I had kissed him…and I hoped he would not remember tomorrow.

I had kissed him…and I prayed he would remember.

I had kissed him…and I had never done so right and so wrong before.

I had kissed him…and there he was, safe and sound and fast asleep, and this was more than I could have ever wished for.

The End