Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan had hated Geonosis since the first time he had visited. After all, he’d nearly been mauled to death for entertainment in an arena. At the time, he’d assumed that nothing could be worse than that. The second time, there’d been Point Rain, and the rest of the Geonosis invasion. It had been days upon days of shelling and sand grating on his skin. That time, he’d been sure that experience wouldn’t be beat. 

But, once again, he’d been proven wrong. 

The invasion had been completed, and as the mission on the ground shifted towards occupation, the Seventh Sky Corps would be shipping out to another far flung corner of the galaxy within the coming days. Hundreds of thousands of souls, packed onto a handful of Venerators and their support frigates, waiting anxiously for the next battle, unable to really rest because of the anticipation.

In all honesty, he had needed a break from the noise and pent up energy. So, he’d grabbed a poncho and some goggles, along with a few rations and his lightsaber, then headed off into the desert. He’d left his comm behind, a decision he would regret, hoping for maybe half an hour of peace. 

And maybe, for roughly a quarter of an hour, it had been worth it. Even a desert planet was teeming with life. So much of it was microscopic, much too small for him to see, but he could feel it rippling through the Force. He’d left early enough that the morning desert cool hadn’t fully lifted yet. It was a breath of fresh air. 

Orange sand crunched under his feet as he gazed up at a tall sandstone cliff face. He took a breath, imaging the vista on the other side. The cliff was certainly scalable. It’d be a good spot to turn around after. He had a meeting at lunch, so he’d need to be back for that. This would be a good halfway point. 

The rock was gritty under his fingers as he scaled the face. It wasn’t even all that tall, maybe ten meters, at most. It wasn’t the easiest climb, as the stone was smooth and not particularly easy to grip. However, the stone had enough nooks and crannies and ledges, worn down by a now long dry river, that it was more possible. 

Unfortunately, there were still some very smooth patches that would be too difficult for him to traverse, especially without any equipment, so he moved horizontally, heading towards the narrow crack where the cliff intersected with another, much larger wall of rock. He’d definitely be able to climb that, at least. He reached across the tight canyon, pushing his foot into a narrow ledge on the other side and bracing himself into the corner.

Suddenly, his foothold gave way, sandstone crumbling to dust beneath him as it crumbled. He barely had time to grit out a “kriff” before he was falling, collapsing. Even worse, the breakage had loosened a large slab of sandstone. It fell too fast for him to pull his leg out of the way, a massive cloud of sand rising as it came down on his limb. 

Obi-Wan screamed, the piercing noise echoing down the valley as he frantically pulled and pushed at the stone. Agony was pulsing up his leg, like raw fire had been injected into the veins. The pain was stealing his words and breath, making it impossible for him to think or even imagine. 

It just hurt . 

Hands shaking, he slapped at the spot on his belt where his com usually sat, practically sobbing when he realized he had left it behind. No one would be coming for him, not for a while. For too long, probably, with this type of injury. 

He tugged at his leg again, gasping as the pain flared even brighter. A stream of curses fell out of his mouth and he fell still, heaving and gasping for air. His leg wasn’t moving. The slab of rock had to be at least a ton. He was so, utterly, entirely screwed. 

Tears starting to well in his eyes, he collapsed onto the other wall of the canyon. There was no one around, and he let him fall, fingers digging into the sand as he wailed again. Dimly, he wished that maybe Skywalker could feel his anguish, and that maybe he would come. 

Hope was hard though, when every shift seemed to tug and pull at his leg, multiplying and magnifying the pain. Wedged in the canyon, there was no comfortable position. Another sob fell from his lips. He was stuck here. The only thing more enveloping than the pain was the despair. 

He was alone.

The thought fermented inside him, twisting in with the agony in his leg and the despair in his hurt. It would’ve been easy to let it consume him. But he couldn’t do that, not if he wanted to get out of this blasted canyon alive.  

A Jedi was never truly alone. 

The thought practically smacked him in the face, and he had to blame the pain and disorientation to keep himself from feeling like an absolute, utter idiot. Gritting his teeth, he worked himself into a slightly more comfortable position, moving carefully to avoid jostling his leg. The pain was not getting any better as time went on, not at all. 

He exhaled shakily, trying to center himself and clear his mind. The words of his old meditation teacher at the temple echoed in his mind, their calming voice taking him back through the steps as they had when he was a youngling. Of course, that teacher probably hadn’t foreseen the massive slab of rock crushing his leg, but then again, they meditated a lot, so maybe they had. 

If so, Obi-Wan would’ve appreciated the warning. 

He did his best to relax into the Force, searching for the same quiet buzz of life he’d felt before. His leg was still throbbing and aching, but he tried to push it away, drawing in shaky breath after shaky breath. 

There was the barest tickle of the sensation on his mind, but the Force still remained distant. Shifting, he tried to drop deeper into the meditation. He knew it was there. It had to be there. It didn’t seem to matter how open he made himself to it, the rock refused to even shift. 

Defeated, he opened his eyes, slouching back against the rock. There was a headache starting to pound in his temples. He groaned, sighing. Force exhaustion, probably. It’d been a long campaign, with a lot of combat, and not a lot of time for rest or nutrition. Still, why did it have to be now, of all times? 

Geonosis’s sun was starting to rise, and that only increased the anxiety brewing in his gut. The shade provided by the cliff face was slowly dwindling, and he could feel the sand already starting to warm. By noon, it’d be absolutely sweltering, and there was no breeze in the canyon to help him stay cool. 

He groaned again, mouth dry. Slowly, he reached for the small water canteen in his satchel, fingers shaking as he unscrewed the lid. It was cold and refreshing, but he forced himself to only drink a few sips. He didn’t know how long he’d have to make this last. It’d probably be at least a few hours, but it really could be days. 

As he returned his canteen into his pack, it occurred to him that taking inventory would probably be a good idea. That was something they’d gone over when he was an initiate, if he was remembering his wilderness survival class correctly. Either way, it’d be a good start. 

A quick assessment of his supplies revealed some serious deficits. He had enough food, between the rations packs and the capsules, to last him for a few days, but there definitely wasn’t enough water to last for more than the afternoon. In terms of shelter, he was utterly screwed. He had a hat, but nothing else besides his robes to keep the heat off of him. He shivered at the idea of having to spend a night without any insulation. 

Hopefully, the clones would find him before them. Hopefully. 

His comm was obviously absent, but he didn't even have an emergency beacon. That would, unfortunately, make locating him much harder. Obi-Wan sighed. If he survived this blasted desert, he probably wouldn’t survive the lecture that Cody, as well as the whole of the medbay, would be lining up to give him. 

Speaking of medics, he didn’t have anything even resembling medical supplies. Not that he could do anything, even if he did. Would the bleeding be a problem, even if his leg was crushed underneath a rock? He knew that the tissue would start to die eventually, and he knew that could cause lots of problems. However, he wasn’t quite sure what the time frame for that was. Hours? Days? Weeks. 

Where was a medic when he needed one? 

He looked down at his measly collection of items, swallowing as he blinked the tears from his eyes. They had to be coming. Someone had to be coming. He wouldn’t survive out here for very long, not with his injury and his miserable lack of water. 

Something in him stilled as he eyes fell on the lightsaber clipped to his belt. The metal hilt glinted in the sun, already starting to heat under its blinding light. He looked over to his leg, still pinned beneath the slab of orange stone. 

It had come down just below his knee. He couldn’t really see how bad the damage was, and the sand was probably soaking up a lot of the blood. He’d probably have to cut it off just above it, since he didn’t want to cut too close to the rock. 

He briefly considered simply slicing the rock up, but it looked like the collapse had caused many rocks to fall with it, and he didn't want to bring the whole pile down on him. After another shaky breath, he reached for his lightsaber. The blade hummed as he ignited it, blue light flickering as he brought it to his leg. 

Suddenly, he found himself awash with nausea. Gasping for air, he clicked it off, dropping it into the sand and letting it roll against his thigh. This was insane. Cutting his leg off in a remote canyon? What had he even been thinking? 

He forced himself to breath again, sniffling as he leaned back into the canyon wall. There was still hope. They’d noticed when he missed his lunch meeting, and they’d raise the alarm. They’d find him. He just needed to be patient, and not rashly go about cutting his leg off. 

Still, it’d be best if he did something . The risk of blood loss was high. Hadn’t he read somewhere that exsanguination was the leading cause of battlefield mortality? Did this even count as a battlefield? 

He looked through his supplies again. He probably had enough to create some sort of makeshift tourniquet. That’d buy him some time at least. Even if it took more than two hours for help to arrive, he would easily choose his life over his already mangled leg. 

Using a torn off strip of his robe, and some random rod from the bottom of his bag as a windlass, he assembled the tourniquet, tying it as tight as he possibly could. Pain flared in his leg as screwed it down, but with his leg crushed, it was already harder for it to get much worse.  He grunted again as she adjusted to the new, crushing sensation around his thigh, settling back against the wall of the canyon. 

Now, all he had to do was wait.

Chapter Text

As the day had gone on, and the sun had gotten higher in the sky, the heat had only grown more and more relentless. Obi-Wan could feel it chipping away at him, beating down on his body. His muscles were cramping, only adding to the discomfort caused by the tourniquet squeezing his leg. Every time he shifted, the weave of his robes grated against his hot, sunburned skin. His lips were dry and chapped, and he could feel the salt crust forming as his skin as the sun evaporated all of his sweat. 

Of course, he wasn’t really sweating much now. There was only a little of the water he’d brought left in his canteen, and he was desperately trying to save it, even though it felt heavenly on his lips and in his mouth. He swore to the Force that he’d never take water for granted again, not after this. 

The physical was only the start of his misery, though. It felt like his brain was melting. He could feel his thoughts becoming muddled and discombobulated. The feeling just made everything worse, only intensifying his misery.

He swallowed, throat dry and scratchy. His stomach lurched, part of which was probably the heat, but part of his which was the ever growing anxiety that no one was going to be coming for him. It’d been nearly four hours since his lunch meeting. He hadn’t really gone all that far. 

Obi-Wan looked over at his lightsaber, still lying in the sand, in the same spot where he had dropped it. He looked over towards his leg again. Below the tourniquet, the skin was pale and ashy and numb. It’d been hours since he’d even seen his leg. It didn’t even really feel like his anymore. 

Slowly, he picked up his saber, dusting the sand off from in between the grooves on the grip. It was very hot to the touch, having also laid in the sun for as long as he had, but he forced himself to hold it, powering it on. 

The Force was distant enough from him that he couldn’t even feel his crystal reaching towards him, but he could hear the gentle thrum humming in his ears. The blue glow was barely visible under the bright, intense glare of the sun. 

He closed his eyes, unable to tell if it was his hand’s shakiness or the saber’s micro vibrations making the blade wobble back and forth. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t going to be a pretty cut, and he knew that. 

Slowly, he brought the blade to his leg, letting it hover above leg. He’d cut off limbs before. He knew what it would feel like, at least half of it. Would this be different? No, of course not. It was just meat. That was all. 

One last time, he looked down the canyon, stretching his ears to see if he could hear anything besides crushing silence. He waited, heart beating in his head. But there was nothing. Nothing and no one. 

He took another breath, brunt skin and sore muscles protesting as he raised the blade. A million thoughts raced through his head, some begging him to wait, some insisting that this was his only choice, but either way, it was too late. He’d already chosen. His arm was already arcing through the air, bringing the sizzling blue blade down on his leg. 

The smell of burned flesh filled the air as his saber sliced cleanly through his leg, tissue turning dark black as the heat burned it. He gasped, stomach rolling at the too-meaty scent as he turned his head to the side to dry heave. 

He shook his head, forcing himself to look away from where what was his leg was still crushed under the rock. His head was pounding, hands vibrating as he started to pull himself down the sandy floor of the canyon. 

The sand pushed its way into his robes, grating at his tender skin, but he forced himself to keep moving, even as his brain swam with both pain and dehydration. He could feel something warm and wet on his other leg. Blood was oozing from the cut, the cautery only lasting so long considering the pressure being pushed down his femoral artery. 

It was fine. That was what the tourniquet was for, right? Right? He wasn’t so sure about that, not with the heat hammering down onto him. He groaned again, the whimper fading into a sob. His body had no water left for tears, though. 

No one had come. He barely believed anyone was going to come. It would just be him, and that damned karking sun, until his body gave up and he collapsed permanently into the sand. He was going to die here, wasn’t he?

Force, he was going to die here. 

Still, he dragged himself forward, on his forearms and remaining leg. Just a few more body lengths, and then he’d be at the end of the tiny canyon he thought it’d be fun to explore. A few more, and then at least his body would be in an easier position to find. 

He choked something back again, blinking the non-existent tears from his eyes. Emotions swirled inside of him, anger for not being better prepared, for not telling anyone, for not grabbing his com. He’d been stupid, and he’d die stupidly. 

Worse though, the guilt. He’d be leaving the 212th, and Anakin, and Ahsoka, and Cody, and so many others, all alone. And for what? For a brief moment alone? 

How could’ve he been so selfish? 

Finally, he let himself collapse into the sand, heat burning into his cheek as he looked at the wide, sandy expanse of Geonosis. The sky was still a bright, vibrant blue, contrasting starkly with the deep reds and oranges of the sand, but all covered with the flashing black dots that were increasingly starting to fill his vision. 

He now understood what Anakin meant when he said that he hated sand. There was just so much of the blasted stuff, and it was pretty useless, generally. 

Silently, he stared out at the horizon, his vision slowly starting to darken. That was fine. It was fine. He was just…done. 

And then he saw it. 

In the distance, a quickly moving metallic glint. A speeder. Coming towards him. Hope on repulsorlifts. 

It ignited something inside him, the last dregs of energy from somewhere deep down and normally forgotten. Summoning every little bit of strength that still somehow remained inside him, he raised his head up, and screamed. 

It was an awful noise, not a word from any spoken language, but just a beginning, final call for help. His throat was raw and dry, and it didn’t last long, but it happened. The speeder kept coming towards him. Slowly, the noise of his voice tapered off, and Obi-Wan dropped his head into the sand.

Still clinging on to hope, he let the darkness carry him away. 

*** 

He woke up on his back. 

The sky was still that same shade of blue, and he squinted away from the sun, trying to roll his head over to the side. 

Something stopped him. Hands, braced around his head and neck. “Stay still for us, General.” 

A voice? He glanced up, and found a white and orange helmeted face hanging over him. Thank the Force. “We’re takin’ care of you, alright?” 

There was a mask over his face, the hard plastene edges digging into his skin. It was painful and grating, but he didn’t care. There was somehow even more pressure around his leg. Something started to cut up the sleeve of his shirt, and whatever it was, it was cold . 

He shivered, whole body shaking. “Wha…what’sss that?” 

“Nye’s gonna put an IV in so we can get some fluids in for you. You’re doing great, general. Just let us help,” the trooper, well, probably a medic, holding his head said. 

Either way, the instructions seemed easy enough. He did his best to hold still as even more of his clothes were stripped off him, and then there suddenly was a sharp pinch in his elbow. 

“Owww….” he groaned, though his attempts to pull it away were thwarted when a hand came down on his wrist. 

“I know, General, I’m sorry.” There was something sticky, and then something cold. The something cold was…was inside him, shooting up his arm. “It’s very important that we get some fluids into you. 

“S’ fine,” he complained again, though he didn’t move his arm this time. 

Whoever was keeping his neck in line shook their head. “You were out in the heat for a while. It’s not fine.” 

“Any m’ leg?” He added. Wasn’t that really a bigger problem than the heat anyhow?

“And your leg,” the trooper added, nodding. “It’s good you put a tourniquet on it before you amputated. It saved your life.” 

Obi-Wan hummed, blinking several times. “So m’ fine?”

“No, you’re not fine, General.” They paused, looking over to someone else.

“There’s gonna be a bright light,” another voice said. A hand came down on his forehead, and then, sure enough, there was a bright light. 

He shrunk away from it, unable to understand exactly whatever the medic reported meant. 

“There’s gonna be some cold now,” the same voice warned. 

Before he could respond, something absolutely freezing was shoved underneath his armpits, and then placed on the junctions between his legs and torso. He shivered again, goosebumps rising. “Wha…?” He groaned again. 

“It’s to help cool you down. We’re helping you, remember, general?” The trooper by his head said again. They said that a lot. 

Then again, it did kind of feel nice. He would’ve loved some shade, too, but this wasn’t bad. Not at all. The cold was good. 

A blue beam passed over him as one of the medic’s took a scan, running the field over him several times. There was a pause, and then the hands moved away from his head. “We’re gonna get you on the litter now, alright?”

He grumbled again, groaning as he felt even more hands on his body. His arm flopped over as he was rolled, head lolling to the side. As he was moved, his hand grazed his belt, feeling the empty hook. His lightsaber…where was it?

“General?” Another medic said, as his body came back down on the litter. “What’s wrong?”

A lot was wrong, wasn’t it? “M’ saber…” He mumbled, trying to remember where he’d left it. “S’ not on m’...” 

The medic patted his shoulder while he was strapped into place. “We gotcha’ general.” 

Sand crunched behind his head, and then suddenly he was being lifted, empty sky covered in black dots moving over his head. “M’ saber?” 

“Nye’s gonna get it for you,” another voice said, as the litter was clicked into its place on the medspeeder. 

Oh. That was good news. “‘Thank you,” he mumbled, blinking slowly. 

“Of course, general.” The last of the three medics climbed up into the speeder, holding the lightsaber in their armored hand. 

His eyelids fluttered again, closing and opening even slower than they had before. That was one less thing that he’d get lectured about. That was good. “You got it?”

“We got it, general.” There was a hand on his shoulder again. “We got you.” 

The speeder’s repulsors started to thrum, and he was carried off towards Geonosis’s horizon.