Lost in the Familiar

Chapter 11 - All Of Their Lives

Author's Note: After this chapter, the fic is half done. :D

~ Amina Gila

Anakin slumps back in his seat for a few moments to just breathe, as he watches the blue and white swirl of hyperspace. That... was close. And it's not until now that he realizes he doesn't even know if they're okay or what happened to them. Asajj definitely wasn't from what he saw in his vision.

Pushing himself up – he'll have to get a new hand and he keeps forgetting he doesn't have one, but it's driving him crazy – he heads for the cockpit.

Asajj and Qui-Gon are already there, and Ahsoka's scrambling up the ladder from one of the other guns. He's not surprised she opted to go for the guns.

"You're late," Anakin supplies, relief flooding him at seeing that she's not moving like she was injured.

"You're... missing a hand?" Ahsoka replies, but she's already sprinting across the hold and practically throws herself into his arms. He catches her, hugging her tightly.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"Are you?" she demands, "What happened to you?

"Since when did you have a metal hand?" Asajj questions from the doorway, and Anakin's gaze jumps to her. She... does not look good. He doesn't see any visible injuries, but her clothes look like they do after getting electrocuted – he's far too aquatinted with that – and she's standing with one hand resting on the wall.

"Since the beginning of the war. I lost it to Dooku."

"Him again?" That she isn't cracking jokes the way she was the last time he mentioned fighting Dooku says a lot about her mental state right now.

"I fought him several times, none of which... ended well."

Qui-Gon's expression twitches a little at the mention of the name. It's still hard to remember that Dooku trained him, that he was important to Qui-Gon. (Did he feel towards him anything like how Anakin does to Obi-Wan?) He just died not long ago here. He's definitely still... grieving him.

"He did questionable things sometimes, during the war. Determined to win," Asajj comments.

"He was always that way," Qui-Gon agrees, something subdued in his tone. It hurts to see him hurting so much. When Anakin knew him when he was younger, it hardly seemed possible. "Trying to help in whatever way he could, even if he sometimes took it too far."

"That's why I finally left. It all felt pointless," Asajj adds.

"You... left?" Anakin echoes. He doesn't know that much about this version of her now that he thinks about it. Her physical state is probably the only reason she's having a serious conversation, instead of constantly cracking jokes right now. He knew she became a bounty hunter, but he never knew how or why, if Dooku had been training her for a while.

"About halfway through the war. That's when I became a bounty hunter."

She's still resting a hand against the wall, something slightly together in her expression. "You should rest," Anakin interjects, because that's really what she ought to be doing, even if she's being too stubborn to do so. He moves across the hold, collecting the medkit they have on board – though he keeps forgetting he only has one hand and it's annoying. "And you may want this." It will help minimally with electric burns if they're extensive, but it's better than nothing.

Asajj huffs. "Fussing about me when you're the one with a mechanical stub for a limb?" she asks.

"That has to wait until we're back to base." And... he's not going to be able to use the custom designed additional hand he has stored in his Temple room, just in case something happened to his current one. He'll have to modify it all over again.