Pressing his head into his hands, Anakin replayed the events of the last few hours for what felt like the hundred time.

The mission had actually gone well, they had done so well.

They had broken up not just the drug ring and gotten their hands on the leader but also busted a slavery ring on accident, and Force, had that felt good to the alpha.

He had also been swaggering a bit at Obi-Wan’s admiring, delighted look and not even Master Qui-Gon rolling his eyes and grumbling to himself could bring Anakin’s mood down.

He knew that the master was protective of his ‘pup’ as Obi-Wan was considered, had known that for a long time and at this point it was honestly kind of endearing to see, regardless how annoying and difficult it sometimes made the courting.

And hey, Qui-Gon wasn’t stopping them even if he felt that Obi-Wan could do better than Anakin.

High of their accomplishments and his own joy, Anakin hadn’t payed as much attention as he should have when they did the boarding checks for their shuttle home.

He missed the bomb the planted in their engine room, curtsy of a pissed of slavery group.

Some of them had gotten away despite the ring being busted.

They had almost reached the mesosphere was just barely still in the planets stratosphere when the bomb had gone of and Anakin had desperately been trying to keep the careening ship under control with Obi-Wan as his co-pilot as they plummeted back towards the ground.

The alarms had been blearing so loudly along with the wind, the underside of their ship blown away with walls ripped out, the gravity and oxygen being deprived quickly even as they fell without the power of the engines, barely avoiding hitting another ship that had been flying below them.

It had desperately swung out of the way, though Anakin knew they must have clipped it, their shuttle suddenly turning angle in an abrupt move that still made him queasy to remember even as he tried not to think about any of it.

They had all been yelling, Qui-Gon hastily strapping himself down last minute though Anakin couldn’t for the life of him remember exactly what they had been yelling.

If he managed to meditate, maybe he could.

But the last thing on his mind was the concept of dropping into his own mental space in this moment.

Because every time he attempted, every time he tried to remember those moments… the first thing he remembered was Obi-Wan’s scream as they crashed, the screeching of metal bending and twisting with Qui-Gon’s bellows right behind Anakin somehow becoming muted compared to Obi-Wan’s scream.

None of them had come away from the crash uninjured.

Anakin had managed to aim them at an empty desert stretch, avoiding injury but the area had also been rocky, ripping the remaining ship apart as it came down on fire.

Qui-Gon was the healthiest of them shockingly, strapping in as slowly as he had.

He’d only broken an arm and had a severe concussion from head trauma.

Anakin had broken four ribs, fractured three and gained a concussion and all of it had been dealt with in the first hours they were taken to the closest medstation, the ship they had clipped managing to report in that the Anisadora had gone down.

Looking up slowly from his hands, staring at the observation window where Qui-Gon was standing, the man’s good hand pressed to the window as if he wanted to melt through the glass to touch the person inside, Anakin looked past the other alpha to see his mate to be.

Obi-Wan had not been lucky.

While Anakin’s injuries were severe, they had not been life threatening.

When they had crashed, metal had twisted into the cockpit.

Anakin hadn’t seen it, he had been unconscious before they hit the ground due to oxygen derivation.

He’d not seen Obi-Wan’s body, pinned to his seat via the shrapnel piercing his chest and stomach, had not heard Obi-Wan gasping wetly for breath, his lungs filling with blood.

He’d not been there for his mate to be.

Neither he, nor Qui-Gon had been there for him.

Qui-Gon conscious but unable to move, unable to speak or even gather the Force.

All he had been able to do was to listen, helplessly to the sound of Obi-Wan’s wet, hacking breaths according to what the master Jedi had stated.

Had only been able to listen to his pup life draining away.

Helpless.