He regretted letting you leave with each step you took further away from him. The way you were hunched forward slightly, dragging your steps, slowly following Sabè... you were still sick and you needed his help. His protection. Him.
Someone was out to get you, and against all better judgement, he had let you go. Even when the force around him literally felt like it was screaming at him to run after you, he couldn't make his feet move. And he knew exactly why.
"You're at my service, so I get to decide."
You were exactly right, and he was the one who had gotten it switched around. The Council tasked him with watching over you— not controlling you. So when you said you wanted to go off with Sabè, who was he to stop you?
The fact that you had stood up for yourself in front of him like that was honestly... admirable. No matter how bad this thought was, he didn't think you were capable of coming out of your shell like that to him. You were always so timid around people who were angry, especially when that anger was directed at you. He was proud of you, in a weird sort of way, and satisfied that you felt comfortable enough around him to express yourself like that.
He wished he could tell you that. Especially after you had turned to him with so much guilt in your eyes.
"I'm sorry."
There's nothing to be sorry for, Y/n.
There was not an ounce of blood in his veins that had actually been mad at you. Just annoyed. If he had his way, he'd have carried you over his shoulder and plopped you on the bed and sat in his chair as you and Sabè talked it out. He'd pretend not to listen but he really would. But you'd be right under his supervision, warm and safe and within arms reach in bed. He wouldn't have to be worrying so damn hard right now.
But you wanted your privacy, you'd made that much clear. And with something that had broken your heart so deeply... he couldn't hold the kind of closure Sabè was offering away from you by being there and messing it up.
So he'd let you go.
And now he was pacing the halls of the Jedi Temple, at war with himself. You shouldn't have let her go. You made the right decision by letting her go. Anything could happen while she's out there. You trust her enough to come back safe. What if something happens?
Nothing was going to happen, and there was no use in overthinking like this. Where had all these years of Jedi training gotten him? He knew better than to let his fears get in the way of his judgement.
As he neared the temple medbay, he heard the ruckus of a commotion up ahead. Another Jedi and their squad must have returned and was having injured soldiers brought in to be patched up, and Anakin curiously ventured toward the medbay to find out who had come back.
Maybe it was Kit. He was due to arrive from his siege on Limpho-II any day now.
As he drew nearer, he realized the commotion was not due to a returning Jedi, but, in fact, a couple of civilians. He could tell by the ambulance docked at the double doors, the lights now off but the workers were quickly working to pack it back up and take off again.
Anakin was just about to turn around and walk away again when he caught sight of a familiar lekku.
"Ahsoka?" He jogged up to meet her in the waiting room. His steps faltered when he saw Obi-Wan, too.
"Anakin, where were you?!" His Padawan reeled on him, furious, before he even got the chance to come to a stop.
"What do you mean? I was here."
"Why weren't you with her?"
"Who?"
"You know who! Y/n."
"Why? What's wrong?"
"You were supposed to protect her!"
Anakin's heart dropped all the way to the core of the planet in a single second. His eyes flicked from Ahsoka to Obi-Wan, realizing all too quickly but far too slow who had come in on the ambulance.
"Please tell me she's alright."
Obi-Wan's grieving stare wouldn't leave the ground. Anakin's face paled and he turned back to Ahsoka.
"Is she alright?"
"No she's not alright! How could you—"
"How long has she been here?"
"Like 10 minutes, but it doesn't matter Anakin—"
"What room? We have to see if she's alright—"
"Anakin!"
"What?"
"She's dead!"
The entire world silenced around him. The commotion of medics running around, the whirring of sirens, the beeping of machinery. It all went silent, and there was just the blood in his ears.
The words were like a saber to the chest. It knocked the wind out of him, so hard it scrambled his thoughts too. He could barely comprehend what Ahsoka had just told him.
She's dead.
How could she be dead? He had just been talking to her. Arguing with her. Helping her from the bathroom back to bed and pulling the blankets up higher over her shoulders so she wouldn't get cold, refilling her water cup so that when she got thirsty she wouldn't have to get up herself, and soothing the air around her so that she might be able to get some sleep. He had just been looking into her eyes as she told him "I'm sorry," and then walked away from him. He had just seen her with his own eyes.
How could she be gone?
"What happened."
He didn't mean for the lights to flicker, or the joints in his right hand to spark and pop beneath his glove. Everything had just come rushing back to him all of a sudden, and it was too much for his heightened senses to handle.
The words themselves held a power that chilled the room. The temperature seemed to drop, and Ahsoka started shivering. He knew he had to be careful— if he lost control of his emotions like last time, the roof might cave in again. Obi-Wan seemed to be thinking the same thing.
"Anakin, stay calm," his voice was supposed to be soothing, but it broke.
He had seen Obi-Wan grieve before— first over Qui-Gon and then over Satine. He knew that look in his eye, that crack in his voice.
You really were gone.
"I said," Anakin seethed, fist clenching to absorb the gathering power. The lights around him began flashing like crazy, people calling out in alarm. "What happened?"
Was it your stalker? He would hunt that person down to the edge of the known galaxy and beyond. Their fate was sealed the minute they'd tried to poison you— they were simply waiting for their death now. Now, they'd bumped that day sooner exponentially. Anakin would not rest until he ripped the life force from their body.
Ahsoka looked cautiously from Anakin's clenched fist to his face. She knew better than to try and calm him down when he was like this, and honestly, she didn't want to. She was furious with him. It was his job to protect her. He was supposed to be watching over her for 12 more hours. Not even a whole day. How had he fucked up so bad?
"Someone was driving their speeder against the grain of traffic. It hit them straight on," she let each word slice the air as if it would manifest into reality and wound Anakin's own skin. He felt it like they had.
"She was dead on arrival," Obi-Wan's voice was hollow.
Anakin closed his eyes and let himself be swallowed whole. The raging fire in his heart was burning bright and furious, and it was agony to touch. He could not help but be consumed by it, feeding all of the pain, anger, disbelief, and sadness into it one by one as he felt them. Stoking the flames, feeling them rise higher and higher, choking his airways.
When he opened his eyes, his fist had unclenched and the lights had stopped flickering.
"What about Sabè?" He breathed.
"She's in critical condition, but they don't think she'll make it," Ahsoka said. She was still glaring daggers at Anakin, but her voice had softened as well. The fire in her was dimming, being replaced by the freezing waters of sorrow as her anger at Anakin receded and all she was left with was the sadness and shock of losing you.
Anakin closed his eyes again, and for a terrifyingly long moment, she was afraid that when he opened them they'd be the ugly yellow of a sith's. He was stalking toward the patient rooms before she even got the chance to see.
"Anakin, wait!"
He knew he wasn't allowed to be back here, but he didn't care. He pushed his way past all the medics, past the carts and the stretchers and the people yelling at him to watch where he was going. He reached out with the force, searching for you but feeling nothing. Like grasping at empty straws. So he reached out for Sabè instead, stalking deeper into the hall of the medbay and trailing a flurry of sparking bulbs, cracking tiles , and malfunctioning machinery in his wake.
When he finally got to the room, the door swung open without him even having to touch it. And there you were.
The first thing he noticed was that you were soaking wet. You must have been in the snow, and it had melted in the time since you've been here, making your clothes cling to your body and you hair clump up all around your head. You must be freezing, but you weren't shivering. In fact, you weren't moving at all.
Your body lay there still, unnaturally so, and way too pale. He reached out and took your hand. Cold and stiff and not at all surrounded by the tender warmth and vulnerability that he could always sense along with your touch. No, now it was just nothing. Empty.
The blood coating your body was of shocking amount, and really he couldn't tell what was wet from the snow or simply soaked with blood. The gore didn't bother him, though. Where his gaze went next— that bothered him.
He let his eyes trail up to your face, and regretted doing so. You didn't look dead— you just looked asleep. Like when he woke up on the couch of your apartment that day, your head nestled in the crook of his arm, face smooth and peaceful as you breathed steadily against him.
There was no way you were really gone. There was no way.
But reaching out to you with the force was like hitting a brick wall. His insistence was giving Obi-Wan a headache.
"You're not going to find her, Anakin," he put a hand on his shoulder. A grounding weight. "Let it go."
He had seen this too many times. His first mentor being stuck through the stomach with a red blade replaying over and over in his dreams; his mother dying in his arms, torn apart, spirit and flesh, from torture; his friends and comrades blasted sky high in front of his face by mortars and cannons on the battlefield. He had seen the people he loved die before, right before him, and each time, he was just too late.
This time, it was all on him. He had let you go when he knew he shouldn't. When he was obligated to protect you. To keep you alive. All he had to do was say "no" and mean it. But you had a soft spot in his heart, and he bent to your will.
It was all his fault you were dead, but this time he wasn't going to stand by and watch another person go so easily.