FicWad

If she could weep, truly weep, she would be sobbing.

Instead, Padmé hovers silently over the meditating form of Obi-Wan Kenobi - whose currently almost eerily serene face is still disconcertingly streaked with the tracks of his recent tears - and the quiet form of a patiently waiting Anakin Skywalker - whose contentedness, at simply being in the same room as Obi-Wan, is heartbreakingly obvious - forcing herself to look upon them and to acknowledge the immensity of the mistake she made, the extent of the damage she's caused, and the awe-inspiring strength of the bond that has nevertheless survived and somehow or another managed to grow even closer, even tighter, in spite of the pain and the lies that her weakness has inspired to try to come between these two extraordinary men. Her shame is scalding. If she had only known - ! But no, that's the protest of a coward who won't admit her culpability. This is her fault. She had known better. She simply had not been strong enough to resist the temptation, the terrible allure, of having such a love for herself, of being the object of so much concentrated force of emotion. This, what Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker have between them - though they have never gone beyond the bounds of friendship, not yet dared to move past the boundaries of their old Master-Padawan relationship or to risk breaking the constraints placed upon them by their mutual dedication to the Jedi Order and to duty - is what she had wanted for herself. In her recklessness and her selfishness, she had given no thought to what she might be endangering, in her decision to give in to that desire, until it had already been far too late. She had known better. It simply had not been enough to stop her from almost ruining all of them anyway.

When she had discovered her pregnancy, Padmé's first thought had been that she had just sealed Anakin's fate, in regards to his life and his ambitions within the Jedi Order, and that he would hate her for this, one day. In spite of her weakness, her selfishness and her cowardice, she had been wise enough to understand Anakin quite well, perhaps even better than he did himself. She had always known that he is not a perfect man - that he has, in his time with the Jedi Order, become much more powerful, yes, of course, but also, strangely enough, lost far too much of his youthful wide-eyed innocence, lovingly open trust, and cheerful willingness to help to become prickly, moody, almost suspiciously guarded, prideful of his place and station in life, and far too quick to anger - but these faults had only made her love him all the more, for his every flaw had still been more than balanced by the greatness within him, his capacity for joy and cleansing laughter, his extraordinary generosity of spirit, his passionate loyalty not only to her but also to the willing devotion he gave, as a Jedi, in the service of every living being. Yet, it had been for these very reasons that she had fought so hard and been so very careful to keep their marriage a secret. Anakin needs to be a Jedi, and this is a truth that she had never been able to escape knowledge of. Saving people is what he was born for; to take that away from him would cripple every good thing in his increasingly obviously troubled heart. So when it had become clear that she was pregnant, she had been terrified. The thought of what it would do to Anakin, to lose Obi-Wan and the Order . . . She had been sick with fear, and hated herself both for the harm she had done to Anakin and the damage she would inevitably wreck upon Anakin and Obi-Wan's relationship, when the truth about her marriage to Anakin finally came out. Yet, in spite of everything, she had been, as always, too weak to do anything to stop that day from coming.

Well, now that day has come. And it is because of her despicable cowardice and her shameful weakness, among many other such reasons, that Padmé is determined, now, to put things right again. It is why she is standing over them, making herself look upon them and see, really and truly/ see,/ the love that is between them for what it is. And what it is - the love that binds Obi-Wan and Anakin so much more closely together than she and Anakin ever were or could have been - is something that is so strong, so pure, so real, that she cannot understand how she could have ever been so blind as to miss seeing it for what it truly is, before.

Master Jinn is right: surely, he must be right. If they already have a love so strong and good at this, that they can light up an entire suite of rooms with shared peace and joy just from being in the same room together, touching only at the knees . . . Qui-Gon must be right, surely! They will survive this. Their love will carry them through the storm. And the strength of that love and that bond will shepherd the galaxy through the storms of war that even now are coming to buffet it. She just needs to have faith and wait a little while longer, and she'll see for herself that it's true. Surely . . . yes, surely so, that is and will be the case.

The alternative is too awful for Padmé to even dare to imagine.

***

Anakin Skywalker knows that, ideally, as a Jedi, he is supposed to meditate consistently and often, hopefully more often than he actually physically needs to. Meditation calms the mind, frees the spirit of excessive and potentially quite damaging emotions, and reestablishes a Jedi's clearest connection with the Force. When a Jedi meditates, he is supposed to separate himself from his conscious thoughts and the trivialities of day-to-day existence, removing himself from the instinctive sense that his being ends at the place where the various interconnected colonies of living and dying and replenishing cells unified by possession of distinct DNA tags in their RNA carriers comes up against the foreign barrier of clothing or the open caress of air. Ideally, when free of the limited perception and constraints of the physical body, a meditating Jedi is supposed to separate himself from all of the mental and spiritual identifiers - including both his beliefs as a Jedi and as an individual being as well as his personal relationships, both with other beings as well as with the larger world and indeed the larger universe as a whole - the entire tangled mass of personal faith and of perceived fact that make him who he is. At this point, sunk deep within the meditative process, even the thoughts and impulses brooding deep within the subconscious are supposed to lapse silent as a Jedi transitions from being a living vessel of the Force - actually little more than a frail organic construct open to the potentiality of the full power of the Force - to existing as entirely undifferentiated from the Force, utterly lacking in the constraints of time, space, and bodily mass.

Unfortunately, because it is extremely difficult to learn how to truly let go of one's entire awareness of reality - let alone all of one's bodily constraints, and at will, for that matter - very few Jedi consistently manage to achieve a deeper union with the Force than is available among the shallower upper levels of meditative detachment, except for those who have attained the combination of exceptionally selfless and single-minded devotion to and remarkable skill with the Force that normally accompanies both the title of Master and a seat upon the High Council. Master Yoda can certainly reach the deeper levels easily, at will. Young though he is, Master Kenobi can reach an extremely deep level of meditative rapport with the Force even while fully conscious, given the proper kind of motivation. Truthfully, it makes Anakin wonder about his former Master sometimes. Obi-Wan always behaves as if his strength in the Force, his abilities to use the Force, are completely unexceptional, and sometimes he even openly claims to be below average in power. Anakin, however, is increasingly sure that this is not so, that Obi-Wan's shockingly deeply ingrained low self-esteem - something Anakin has never forgiven the Jedi Order for fostering - has been causing him to grossly underestimate his abilities and to unwittingly hold himself back for essentially his entire life.

Even without seeking to look on him through the Force, there is an ever present shimmer around Obi-Wan that resonates with a sense of light and warmth, as of a damped or banked fire, and the only other living Jedi Anakin has ever detected such a powerful and consistent aura around are Yoda and, occasionally, Mace Windu. This nearly tangible corona of power is much stronger, much more constant, around Obi-Wan, though, and even though its intensity sometimes fluctuates, it never dims past the point of easy, automatic perception, as the one around Mace Windu often does (sometimes even seeming to disappear entirely from about the Korun Master) and sometimes does from around Master Yoda, as well. Also, when properly motivated - faced with dire enough circumstances or an otherwise unsalvageable and most likely not otherwise survivable situation - Obi-Wan has consistently proven himself capable of performing feats that Anakin is not sure even he could have pulled off himself, Chosen One or not. More, Obi-Wan's strength is such that his power continually bumps up against the power in Anakin, evening out the rough edges of an elemental energy that all too often spikes wildly, threatening to spiral out of control, buffering that energy until it is safe for Anakin to handle and, at unexpected intervals, sometimes even somehow absorbing or diverting that dangerous energy from Anakin entirely. Obi-Wan may claim to be an inconsequential power compared to Anakin's great potential in and with the Force, but Anakin is convinced that Obi-Wan must be more powerful that he is giving himself credit for, or else Obi-Wan would never be able to cushion and control Anakin's power the way he so obviously (and usually easily) can.

If all of these things weren't proof enough of Obi-Wan's unplumbed depths, there is also the fact that Anakin has quite often observed Obi-Wan immerse himself so fully within the Force while meditating that his body, his actual flesh, has become luminescent, glowing with a very real, slightly blue-tinged white light that always gives off at least enough illumination to read by (and sometimes so much light that Anakin cannot entirely look directly upon Obi-Wan), though never much perceptible heat. Anakin has actually tried to discuss this phenomenon with Obi-Wan, but the one time he actually came out and told the young Jedi Master flat out that Obi-Wan kindles like a fired torch whenever he enters the deepest stages of mediation, Anakin's former Master had simply thought that his newly made Padawan meant that he could see Obi-Wan's inner light within the Force while he was meditating and could not be made to understand that Anakin was being literal rather than figurative. When he had tried to press the point, Obi-Wan's distressed confusion had made his Force-aura flicker so much that Anakin had finally simply let the subject drop. He's never really understood why Master Qui-Gon hadn't spoken to Obi-Wan about it before, sometime, since he knows, from experience, that Obi-Wan's tendency to glow while meditating is one that Obi-Wan's had since at least as early as the flight from Tatooine to Coruscant, but obviously Qui-Gon had never spoken to him about it, or else Obi-Wan wouldn't have been so honestly perplexed by Anakin's attempt to explain the phenomenon.

Anakin had actually meant to ask Master Qui-Gon about Obi-Wan's glowing after the first time he saw Obi-Wan doing it, on the Queen's ship. He hadn't been able to sleep that night on the ship, not after the bad dreams he'd had when he'd tried and the miserable certainty had taken root in his stomach that something was incredibly wrong, that things weren't supposed to be like this and he had, perhaps, made a mistake in agreeing to come away with Qui-Gon when he had. Not even the brief conversation he'd had with Padmé - who had tried both to comfort and to warm him after he'd awoken in the central chamber, shivering and alone but for Jar Jar and R2-D2 - had been able to quiet his fears or to still his longing for contact, for the comfort of a warm and sheltering embrace. Anakin had understood, to an extent, why Master Qui-Gon had withdrawn from him after they'd made it onto the ship and the ship had jumped into hyperdrive. The Master Jedi had been exhausted and extremely worried because of his first encounter with the Sith, and he had needed some time alone with his Padawan, to try to explain both his actions on Tatooine - including his reasons for winning, freeing, and then bringing Anakin along with him - and his thoughts about the being who had so suddenly and savagely attacked him and Anakin as they were approaching the ship. Anakin had even understood, at least a little bit, why Obi-Wan had been so preoccupied that he had hardly even spoken to Anakin at all. After all, he had been extremely worried about his Master and hadn't really known why Anakin was even there. Obi-Wan's reaction to Qui-Gon's attempt to introduce Anakin had been much less understandable and more painful than Anakin ever could have expected, though.

The young Jedi had been giving Anakin a slightly incredulous look at his presumption in interrupting his concerned questioning of Qui-Gon, a look that had demanded, in no uncertain terms, that Anakin swiftly explain what he had meant when he had asked them, of the attacking creature, "What are we going to do about it?" When Qui-Gon had attempted to diffuse the tense situation by both answering Anakin's question and introducing him to Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan had looked, unbelievingly, from the boy to Qui-Gon and then shaken his head ever so slightly, his eyes rolling in despair and his entire body wracked by a fine tremor - one that Anakin would only much later learn had been a sign not of suppressed fury, because of Qui-Gon's adoption of yet another stray and utterly useless lifeform, but rather a reaction to the added strain of yet another source of stress and worry and the lingering damage from the direct blaster bolt he'd taken on Naboo only a few days earlier. Soon afterwards, the ship had successfully made the jump into hyperspace, and the two Jedi had gone off alone together, to speak privately. To give the Jedi time alone, Padmé had assured Master Qui-Gon that the Queen's handmaidens and the ship's crew would look out for Anakin. However, soon afterwards, Padmé had gone off with the Queen and Captain Panaka, and Anakin had been left to himself for most of the evening. Jar Jar had tried to keep him company, for awhile, and Ric Olié, the ship's pilot, had been pleased to answer all of the questions Anakin had put to him, but it just hadn't been enough. Anakin had felt excluded from the two Jedi, and he'd been incredibly discouraged and lonely. More and more, he'd been sure that something had gone wrong, that he must have done something wrong, or else he would have been allowed to stay with Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

For as long as Anakin could remember, he had dreamed of the two Jedi who would come and take him away from Tatooine, claim him as their own and teach him the ways of the Force. Long before he had ever understood what Jedi truly are, he had known that he was destined to become one. Eventually. But it had always been two Jedi who came for him and who took him as their pupil, in his dreams: a deceptively stern looking enormous older man who fairly glowed with life and love, a towering pillar of strength who always seemed to be rooted in the power of the earth even while his head was crowned by the corona of a rising sun, his bright blue clear eyes warm, twinkling with just a hint of an irrepressible mischievousness; and a smaller, slender youth who danced with fierce joy and passionate protectiveness in the older man's wake, embraced utterly, continuously, by the man's shadow, wrapped so safely within its cloaking darkness that it was impossible to get a good look at the youth, except for the flashing of a wide, irresistible smile, the dancing of eyes that were unmistakably blue but also flecked with tiny spots of bright green and deep violet and a shivery silvery-grey that, at times, seemed to shade almost towards a warm, bright golden glow, and the impression of a blazingly bright light, like refined and concentrated starfire, shielded behind barriers that didn't quite manage to completely hide the incredible power of that light. Anakin had always understood that the older man would be the father he had never had, while the youth would be his stalwart friend and companion, someone who would be close to him, like a sibling, but also his equal, his match, the twin of his heart. And as he learned from the two of them, Anakin knew, he would grow to be the other half of that youth's soul, until the two of them fitted together, paired and perfectly balanced, dancing ceaselessly, endlessly, in a protective dual orbit about the older man.

Anakin had dreamed of them every night for over a week before their ship had landed on Tatooine. When Watto sent him out to the Dune Sea to do some trading with Jawas, and he had been forced to linger in the desert, overnight, after tarrying to help save a Tusken Raider trapped under a rock slide, Anakin had dreamed of the Jedi so vividly that only the sene of growing danger - due to the arrival of the Sand People, come to claim their missing fellow - had been powerful enough to rouse him from his dreams. He been so completely shocked when Master Qui-Gon had suddenly appeared in Watto's shop, by himself, that he almost hadn't believed his eyes. He's spent so long staring in shock at the beautiful young girl (Padmé) who was with the Jedi, trying to get a good enough feel for her to puzzle out whether or not she might be the youth from his dreams, even though her eyes were clearly the wrong color, that he'd almost missed his chance to make himself useful enough to gain Master Qui-Gon's attention and join their party.

That first night Qui-Gon, Padmé, and Jar Jar had stayed with Anakin and his mother, Shmi, in the slave quarters of Mos Espa, his familiar dream of the two Jedi who were meant to become his teachers had been continually interrupted by a strange series of badly tangled, slightly frightening dreams - images of an evil darkness that flowed and fought like a living thing, trying to crush Master Qui-Gon beneath its suffocating weight and to overwhelm the light of the youth who came dancing out from Qui-Gon's shadow in a furious blaze of light too strong for Anakin to look at full on, visions that were interspersed with the face of his mother, so radiantly happy that he almost didn't catch the slight sorrow lingering at the edges of her eyes, and a circle of twelve strangers who loomed over and around him, their faces all so hard and their eyes so wholly terrified that Anakin had kept looking around him, trying to see what had made them all so afraid, instead of looking at their faces. He had been so distressed - both by the nightmarish images of the darkness and by the way reality was suddenly inexplicably failing to conform to the dreams he's always had of the two Jedi, the same way all the other things he'd dreamed about like that before had always turned out the same way he'd dreamed about them - that he'd been too afraid to ask Master Qui-Gon where his shadow was.

On the second night, though, Anakin had snuck back out next to the balcony of his back porch, after his mother had called him into bed, to watch and listen while Master Qui-Gon had contacted someone on a comlink chip and sent that person the blood sample Qui-Gon had taken from Anakin. He had hidden himself so cleverly that even his mother had not seen him, when she had walked out to the doorway and stopped to watch the Jedi Master, as he reacted to the apparently stunning news about the midi-chlorian count in Anakin's blood. Anakin had barely even noticed Master Qui-Gon's shocked reaction to the news about the blood sample. The instant he had turned on the comlink and the person at the other end had answered, the Jedi had kindled and blazed like a fanned flame, and Anakin had been absolutely certain that the person who'd answered Qui-Gon was the youth from his dreams. The knowledge distracted him so much that the Jedi Master's reaction to the analysis of the blood sample hadn't really registered on him. He'd also been so incredibly comforted by the thought that the youth was at least somewhere nearby that he had eventually been able to sleep without dreaming anything more disturbing than the possibility of winning the Boonta Podrace.

When Qui-Gon had taken Anakin with him after the Podrace and Anakin had been forced to run for the ship after the Sith attacked, he'd had his first glimpse of Obi-Wan - an extremely young man, slender and compact, smooth-faced, intense blue eyes swirling with tiny dancing kaleidoscopic flecks of dark violet and bright green and a silver so bright with worry that it was almost white-gold, his hair cropped so close, but for a single slender braid that fell over his right shoulder, that it had resembled the color of aged, dull copper rather than the bright coppery-gold hue that it truly was - and had immediately known him. The explosion of terror that had radiated out from the young Jedi as he saw Qui-Gon's predicament and desperately breathed his Master's name, and the intense feeling of relief and unswerving devotion - a love that was a surprisingly quiet, peaceful thing, residing deep within the youth and forming the basis for a great deal of the foundations of his self, forming a core of love, like a blazing light, at the heart of him, a love as sure and constant and unshakeable as the circling path of the stars - when he had rushed to Qui-Gon's side had confirmed Anakin's suspicion. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were the two Jedi from his dreams. But instead of welcoming him, equally, instead of including him within their orbit, they had first drawn up on either side of him, as on opposite sides in a battle, and then completely dismissed him, when Padmé had volunteered to make sure Anakin was seen to, closing ranks and withdrawing together to discuss things alone. They had excluded him, and it had broken his heart. Anakin had been desperate to at least see one of them again, so he had pretended to fall asleep, so Padmé would leave him alone, and then snuck out of the ship's central chamber, working his way forward through the ship, somehow just knowing where the Jedi had to be.

There was a very small anteroom in front of the quarters that Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan shared upon the ship, and it had been left open. When Anakin had crept carefully into the room, he had been awestruck by the sight of Obi-Wan, seated tailor-fashion in the center of the small room, back ramrod straight, eyes shut, face blankly serene, hands resting lightly upon his knees. It had been one of the most starkly beautiful things he'd ever seen, the slightly blue-tinged glow that had lit up Obi-Wan and poured out across his skin, flickering over him with an opaline shimmer. It had startled Anakin out of his misery over what had felt like his abandonment by the Jedi, both calming and fascinating him, and he had settled down to watch, drinking in the sight of the quietly glowing young Jedi until a peaceful, dreamless sleep had overcome him. Anakin had awoken the next morning, shocked, to find himself wrapped securely within Obi-Wan's outer robe, the thoughtfulness of the gesture reassuring Anakin that, whatever else might have gone wrong, he wasn't mistaken about Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan: they were meant to be his teachers, both of them, together, whether they both knew it yet or not. When he went to return Obi-Wan's robe, he had truly meant to ask Master Qui-Gon about Obi-Wan's mesmerically beautiful glowing, but they'd gotten to Coruscant so soon after that and events had led them to Naboo and battle with such rapidity afterwards that he'd never gotten the chance. Anakin regrets the fact that he never got to ask Master Qui-Gon that question almost as much as he still wishes he'd done something differently - either tried to spend more time with both of the two Jedi or else somehow done something to soothe Obi-Wan's worry about his Master and his fear that Anakin would get his Master in trouble with the Council so that Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan wouldn't have ended up fighting about him - on that trip to Coruscant.

Anakin is almost certain things would have worked out differently, better, if only he would have done something else on that trip, either by making the time to ask about Obi-Wan's glowing or having the sense to push past his own fears and ask to help shoulder the burden of the concerns worrying the two Jedi. He is also sure that he will never really completely understand why or how Obi-Wan lights up with the Force like he does, not now. Since he never got to ask Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan is oblivious to the phenomenon, there's no one else he trusts enough to try asking the question anymore. None of the members of the High Council have ever approved of Anakin enough for him to risk possibly revealing something secret about his Master - something that Master Qui-Gon quite possibly might not have wanted others to know about - by asking one of them about it. When he had been a new Padawan - especially in the year leading up to his and Obi-Wan's first true mission, the disastrous assignment to the living planet of Zonama Sekot - Anakin used to dream of Qui-Gon, used to listen to him avidly whenever Qui-Gon confidently strode into his dreams to tell him stories about his life and to pass on as much of his knowledge, his wisdom, his experience, of the Force as he could. During that time, Anakin used to occasionally try to ask Qui-Gon about Obi-Wan, about both Obi-Wan's glowing and the extent of the young Jedi's powers. Qui-Gon had always put him off, though, promising that he would explain everything when Anakin was a little bit older and Obi-Wan was also ready to talk about (or at least hear about) these things. But Anakin had never been given the promised explanation.

After Zonama Sekot, he had soon stopped dreaming of Qui-Gon in that way. During the mission, Anakin had accidently said something about Master Qui-Gon's advice for handling the uncertain situation to his Master, without stopping to think about it first, and Obi-Wan's raw pain and shockingly unvarnished anger had so shocked him that he had been forced to backpedal furiously. Obi-Wan had fought against the entire mission: he'd fought against the seedlings, who had wanted to choose him as much as they'd wanted to choose Anakin; he'd fought against the shared creative process of the ship, despite the longings of his own heart; and he'd also fought with an almost viciously focused strength of purpose to save Anakin from the terrible messes he managed to get himself into, despite the considerable risk to his own life. Things had turned out so badly on that mission, in spite of Qui-Gon's advice, that afterwards Anakin had simply . . . stopped listening to Qui-Gon, stopped seeing him in his dreams. His failings on Zonama Sekot had hurt him - both the failure to control himself, his own capacity for power, and deal with the Blood Carver, Ke Daiv, as he should have, as a Jedi, and his failure to save the beautiful little live-ship that had been made for him and Obi-Wan, the Jabitha, from being so badly damaged that she had died, after faithfully seeing him and Obi-Wan to safety first, on the outpost world of Seline. They had hurt Anakin badly enough that he had made the decision to draw away from Qui-Gon, in haste and in pain. By the time he had begun to wonder if he hadn't made a mistake, turning away from the Jedi Master as he had, with sorrow and in shame, it was already too late. He had never dreamed of Master Qui-Gon again in the same way, as if the Jedi Master were truly physically with him, having purposefully sought him out to speak to, to instruct, after that.

Anakin had wondered, afterwards, if his dreams of Qui-Gon hadn't been more inspired by the needs of his own lonely heart than by any miraculous ability of Qui-Gon's to actually reach out to him through the Force, in spite of his death, and communicate with him. But many of the things that Qui-Gon told him and taught him during those dreams has, since, proven to be true, to work just like Qui-Gon described, so Anakin is almost certain that Qui-Gon really had been speaking to him, somehow, in spite of what the Jedi - and even Obi-Wan - say is and is not possible, through the Force. And so Anakin is equally sure that he made a grave mistake, in turning away from the Jedi Master like he did. However, because his mistake is in the past and it cannot be changed, he tries not to dwell on it. That is the Jedi way - to let go of the past and to live within the now. Thus, Anakin has taken the experience as another sign that there is much more to his Master than meets the eye. After Obi-Wan's miraculous return from the dead - after the disastrous Battle of Jabiim and his escape from Asajj Ventress, with the ARC trooper Alpha, and relatively safe return to the Jedi Temple - Anakin had taken it upon himself to try to confirm Obi-Wan's power in the only other way that was left to him: the midi-chlorian test. It had taken some doing, to get his hands on a properly calibrated tester, but because of his Master's badly battered condition, it had been surprisingly easy to obtain samples of his blood. Anakin had run the test as many times as he had been able to, given the amount of blood he had been able to unobtrusively gather, stunned by the consistencies of the inconsistent results he was getting and trying to discover if there had been a pattern of some sort to it.

In the end, Anakin had determined that the results he gained corresponded roughly to the penetration of the wound that had yielded the specific blood samples he had gathered that was being tested. Blood from shallow wounds - wounds that were fairly superficial, like the slight prick that's always used to gather blood for the testing of Jedi hopefuls - consistently yielded a result between 12,500 and 14,000. Blood taken from more serious wounds consistently yielded a result between 16,000 and 18,000. And blood gathered from life-threatening injuries had yielded a result so high that it was off of the reader's chart, which did not exceed 20,000. Despite his suspicions, Anakin had been completely stunned. He knew that his own midi-chlorian count was over 20,000, greater even than Master Yoda's, and that this had been one of the reasons why he had been taken from Tatooine by Qui-Gon and eventually, if only grudgingly, accepted by the Council and the Order and named the Chosen One. He had immediately wanted to find a way to test whether or not his own midi-chlorian count might vary, depending on the depth from which his blood was drawn for the test sample, but hadn't been able to because of the limits on all of the testers he had been able to find. It had been discouraging, and frustrating, but fascinating too. Anakin had snatched samples from three other wounded Knights who had been brought into the Healers' Wing while Obi-Wan was still recuperating from his injuries, but their midi-chlorian counts had all been consistent, regardless of the depth of the wounds from which the samples had originated. In the end, he'd had no way of telling whether or not the varying midi-chlorian count from Obi-Wan was unique to him, though frankly he'd thought - and still believes - that this is the case. He thinks it has something to do with the way his Master shields, the way he's always been a bit more obsessive about control than is quite normal, even among Jedi.

Anakin is positive that Obi-Wan's surprisingly low self-esteem and sense of self-worth are intimately bound up with both his excessive need for control and the way in which he seems to be shielding himself from his own power, his own abilities, most of the time, except for in situations where he simply needs to be more powerful, to be able to safely handle more of the Force, than the young Jedi Master normally allows himself to be. He wonders, sometimes, how Obi-Wan can be so wise, so perceptive, about everything and everyone except for himself, the extent of his own abilities, and his true worth. But Obi-Wan simply does not and cannot seem to see such things. It's almost as if there is a block on him, somehow, one that keeps him from being able to ever quite completely and truly see himself. Anakin would be more concerned (instead of just half amused, exasperated, and frustrated, by turns, with Obi-Wan's blindness; entirely disgusted with the Jedi Order for perpetuating it; and quietly, thoroughly enraged with whatever or whoever is responsible for causing it), would worry about it interfering with Obi-Wan's abilities as a Jedi - the balance that he has struck between himself and the Force, between simply living in the now /and existing within the /now /while using awareness of the past and the future to direct the course of the present - if it weren't for the fact that it really only affects the way Obi-Wan speaks of his abilities and refers to himself, not the extent of his talent with or strength in the Force. Sometimes, Anakin almost thinks that Obi-Wan's selective blindness might even be a blessing, since it keeps him from understanding just how different the young Jedi Master is from the rest of the Jedi. Because Obi-Wan Kenobi /is different from his brethren - extremely noticeably so, to Anakin - and has been for as long as Anakin has known him. After all, only within Obi-Wan is the Force perpetually in balance, Light with Dark and Living with Unifying.

In any case, Anakin is almost certain that the highest midi-chlorian count he received from his tests of Obi-Wan's blood after Jabiim is the most accurate reflection of Obi-Wan's actual power within the Force - meaning that Obi-Wan Kenobi technically is, like Anakin, even more powerful than Master Yoda. Certainly, this makes the most sense to him. After all, even though strange things have been known to occasionally happen to those rare Jedi who experience the deepest of meditations upon and within the Force, not even Master Yoda of the (in)famous "luminous beings are we" lecture consistently glows like a lit lamp from the power of the Force within him. Thus, Anakin believes that Obi-Wan's varying midi-chlorian count, like Obi-Wan's tendency to glow while meditating and the shimmering Force-corona that surrounds him and amplifies his signature within the Force, are all proof that there is much more to Obi-Wan than meets the eye, much more untapped power and strength there than most people, even Jedi, give Obi-Wan credit for.

That is certainly the most logical explanation Anakin can come up with to account for Obi-Wan's many mysterious qualities, in any case. After all, not even Anakin, for all of his overwhelming raw power and potential talent, glows incandescent with the Force like Obi-Wan does or is balanced within the Force like Obi-Wan is. Anakin is powerful in the Force and he is well aware of the fact that he compliments and completes Obi-Wan on so many levels that he is not certain that the young Jedi Master would be able to function properly without Anakin's presence in his life. However, he is also quite sure that Obi-Wan would function much more easily and completely than Anakin would, were he to lose Obi-Wan. After all, the Chosen One or not, Anakin cannot even meditate as a proper Jedi should unless his mind is coupled directly to Obi-Wan's and Obi-Wan guides him into it. Even then, Anakin doubts he's ever attained such a state of unity with the Force that his body has become a transparent vessel of light. Quite frankly, most of the time Anakin is lucky if he can let go of the distraction of his own thoughts enough to allow Obi-Wan to guide him far enough to reach even the uppermost regions of the meditative depths Obi-Wan usually easily attains by himself.

Anakin has simply never had the proper patience for mediation, no matter how hard he has tried to learn how to master the trick of it. This seemingly irrefutable fact has consistently pained and plagued Obi-Wan to no end, since he is convinced that all of Anakin's difficulties with control and emotional detachment would be automatically solved if Anakin could just muster up the necessary dedication and the time to devote to the task of fully mastering himself by mastering the art of meditation. Anakin has therefore spent many, many,/ many /long hours - both as a Padawan and as a Knight - sometimes alone but more often than not in Obi-Wan's company, attempting to learn how to reach beyond himself by passing within to the fullest detachment of meditative calm at will. Attempting and failing, in most instances. Yet, despite Anakin's frustrating failure with much of the entire process - and in spite of the many questions that Obi-Wan's ability to meditate constantly spark in Anakin's mind - the subject of meditation has become a bit of a joke between the two of them, another subject suitable for bantering about in the comforting give and take of their familiar routine, right up there with Obi-Wan's good-humored griping about always being the bait and Anakin's equally good-natured teasing about how many more times he's had to save Obi-Wan's life than Obi-Wan has had to save Anakin's life. In an odd way, finding Obi-Wan in a familiar meditative pose in the common room area of his suite and automatically being moved to assume the same pose to wait for him to resurface is almost soothingly normal, even if the circumstances themselves are anything but tranquil or ordinary. If Anakin concentrates, he can almost hear one of the familiar calming chants, sliding in a continuous singing chain of crystalline purity from his former Master's mind into his - chants of streaming starlight and pouring rain, chants of slowly solidifying ice and continuously snapping fire, chants of flowing bird song and quietly unfurling flowers as they raise their heads towards the warm giving glow of the sun, its light truly nothing more than streaming starlight concentrated within a life-sustaining atmosphere. The peacefulness of the chants are entrancing, even if Anakin cannot seem to make the leap between the eventual mindlessness of their cycling repetition and the loss of connection to self.

Instead, Anakin does the next best thing.

This is a trick that Obi-Wan dug out of the Archives for Anakin over a decade ago, back when it first became obvious that his young Padawan learner simply was not connecting with the more regularly used meditative methods. Things that most other Padawans spent years learning, Anakin had been able to pick up in months: languages; the basics of several different important cultures; economics and economic politics; mathematics, astrophysics, engineering, and applied mechanics; basic healing techniques; basics of botany and biology; survival training and hand-to-hand combat; the basics of all of the different lightsaber forms; strategy and weapons use, including weapons that Jedi normally eschewed as "barbaric," such as blasters; indeed, almost every subject taught in the Temple, every subject that he knew Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had once taken and that he could also lay his hands upon, were all eagerly, hungrily absorbed. Anakin did not enjoy diplomacy, many of the highly ritualized mannerisms and customs associated with the powerful and wealthy, or the snobbery so often associated with the high arts, but he still learned about them all dutifully, even if he did not often willingly show signs of having ever been taught such refined manners. Yet, despite Anakin's fiercely bright, quick, curious mind, the most basic of the philosophical and spiritual concepts taught to the initiates, such as the release of emotions, always seemed to be beyond him. Many concepts, after much painful and circular questioning, Anakin had simply had to either take on faith alone or else accept as an aspect of the Jedi Code, whether he understood it personally or not. Meditation, one of the central aspects of the Jedi way of life, Anakin simply could not grasp. No matter how many times or how many different ways Obi-Wan tried to explain the process or how often Anakin was allowed to couple his mind to his Master's and follow him down into the restful serenity of meditative trance, Anakin just could not seem to manage to meditate on his own.

After several months of frustration and not a few tears on Anakin's part, Obi-Wan had quietly given Anakin a list of tasks to perform and had taken himself off to the Archives for a weekend of research. He had finally returned to their quarters quite late in the evening, bearing an ancient Holocron and a triumphant smile, and Anakin had gained a substitute for meditation that he has grown so accustomed to that he only rarely tries to truly meditate any longer, unless Obi-Wan prompts him to try. So instead of trying to rise above his own consciousness, he now willingly falls within it, tumbling down inside himself into a floating awareness of his own highly focused state of being, his own reality. Mere awareness of self as existing in relation to the outside world is exchanged for the purity of purpose that can be found in true moment to moment self-awareness, wherein consciousness becomes an act of choice, not just a reaction to external stimuli upon a body powered and sustained by involuntary muscle and nerve responses.

Over the course of the past thirteen years, Anakin has refined his own awareness of self, of his body, to a point many would believe impossible. He can feel and not only affect but also direct his own aortal, arterial, vein, and capillary dilation, regulating the swiftly flooding ebb and flow of oxygen-enriched blood to those regions of his body that most require the extra boost of energy and cleansing power available from forcing that flow to become superenriched and to run more quickly, more efficiently, than it would under normal circumstances. The electrical synapses of his own nervous system are far more delicate and precariously balanced, but Anakin understands their proper rhythms, knows how to follow their patterns and redirect their streams whenever the occasional misfire occurs, which generally happens only under times of great stress or following some bodily injury. Anakin knows that the truest sense of bodily integrity, the most intimate connection with the reality of one's self as a creature of flesh, comes only when one's nerve-blood flow conforms to a pattern of highest efficiency according to the deepest awareness of cell needs. While this variation on meditation does not necessarily aid in attuning him to the will of the Force nor to the fluctuations often occurring within the Force, it does refresh and recharge his body, helping him to open himself up more fully to the Force whenever he does draw upon it.

More importantly, the exercise is, in its own way, quite calming, though it does nothing to help Anakin regulate or be rid of his unruly emotions, which are so wholly inappropriate for a Jedi. Since he knows that he should not and therefore will not attempt to rush Obi-Wan's own meditation - not after what his former Master has already been through today - there is little else for him to do but this meditative exercise, since he knows he will not be able to meditate himself and he has a feeling that it will be a while yet before Obi-Wan returns to himself.

So while the Force lifts Obi-Wan above awareness of his own bodily limitations, Anakin allows the Force to focus his attention inwards, refining his knowledge of and control over his own body by careful, increasing increments, steadily and unknowingly working towards a total refinement of muscle and nerve control that will one day find a shattering culmination in its own sudden and unexpected moment of consciousness-altering Force-assisted clarity, a day that once might have never occurred, a day that is now approaching with increasing rapidity and certainty.

A day that will not, however, be this particular day.

***

When Obi-Wan Kenobi opens his eyes, the first thing that he see is Anakin Skywalker, seated cross-legged on the floor in front of him, his back ramrod straight and his face so utterly peacefully blank that Obi-Wan knows his former Padawan has turned his concentration inward - not in true mediation, /per se/, but rather in the meditative exercise that Obi-Wan once researched for a ten-year-old boy who just couldn't seem to learn how to let go of his awareness of his own body. He cannot help but smile, remembering the utterly forlorn expression on Anakin's face, at his many failures with all of the normally used Jedi meditation techniques, and the way that sad and frustrated face had suddenly become incandescent with joy, after Obi-Wan had presented him with this alternative and Anakin had been able to easily perform the exercise on his first attempt. Anakin had thrown himself at Obi-Wan bodily, small but strong arms winding around his neck, and for once, despite the fact that they were within one of the Temple's public training chambers and he could all but feel the weight of the startled and disapproving eyes boring into them, Obi-Wan had allowed himself to laugh and then risen up with the boy still clinging to him, his own arms wrapping securely around Anakin's slight form so that he was nestled securely in his embrace. He had known that Anakin was close to despair over his inability to meditate on his own, so it had pleased Obi-Wan greatly both to find a way to reassure Anakin of his talent with the Force and to discover an alternative to meditation that Anakin was capable of performing. It had hurt Obi-Wan's heart, to see the boy's dogged determination to learn and his suffering as he continued to fail. And the cost had seemed so little, to allow those arms to stay wrapped joyfully around him, head resting snugly against his left shoulder.

At the time, Obi-Wan had known that, before the events on Naboo, many within the Jedi Order, especially in the ranks of the elder Masters and more traditional Knights, had thought him shamefully soft, ridiculously spoiled by Qui-Gon and, like his Master, no more than half a step removed from being formally recognized as a "Grey" Jedi - the result of one of those infamous, misguided cases where a Jedi is not necessarily utterly lost to the Order or tainted by the Dark Side of the Force but instead enters into the extremely rare state of willing exile from the actual main Temple and the guidance of the High Council, deliberately disassociated from the rigidity of the Council's view on the Code and the rule of tradition, like the already infamous rogue Jedi Master Djinn Altis. Obi-Wan had not yet understood that this suspicion, however unfair or even improper for such Jedi to feel, would, given the untrusting attitude of the High Council towards Anakin in general plus their lack of approval for Obi-Wan having taken on the boy as his Padawan, only continue to grow and to alienate both him and his new Padawan from the rest of the Order as the years passed. Anakin's face, split by that wide and generous smile, had been so beautiful that he could not resist encouraging that happiness.

There is an instant, brief and yet endless, where Obi-Wan wonders if his failure to understand, his failure to explain to the Council, to the other Masters and Knights of the Order, if necessary to the entire rightful population of the Temple, has somehow led to this moment, has made things worse, has doomed Anakin to retreating into a forbidden - and, in Obi-Wan's estimation, which admittedly might not be worth much, considering how completely lacking his knowledge is concerning such matters, frankly disturbingly selfishly and possessively motivated, at least from Anakin's end of things - relationship with Padmé Amidala and a dangerously trusting affection for a man who is, it would seem, the Sith Lord Sidious when he looks upon the truth of his soul, by failing to make things right, by attempting to remain loyal to his Padawan without actually defending him outright against the injustice of the opinions of the Council and the Order at large. Obi-Wan has never felt like enough - not good enough for Qui-Gon to take him willingly; not convinced enough to remain entirely true to either the high, narrow road of the ideals of the Jedi nor to the easier if no less dangerous road of personal responsibility as was in the call of Melida/Daan; not fast enough or skillful enough with the Force to save Master Qui-Gon from the murderous blow of the Sith's blade; not strong enough to teach Anakin emotional control; not nearly worthy enough to carry the hopes and expectations of a soul as strangely pure and strong as that of Padmé Skywalker - so it is a familiar fear. But no. No. Not with Anakin. Not with his Anakin. He cannot, he must not, he will not fail Anakin. It is not even an option.

There is another moment, long and yet seemingly fleeting, where Obi-Wan wonders what this strange, mutual feeling, this love, will feel like, when fully realized, and whether or not he can truly ever possibly be able to be enough to satisfy Anakin, who so obviously is much more experienced than Obi-Wan is - not only in the actual physical act, but in the entire emotional process of feeling love, of being in love and knowing it, acknowledging it, acting on it, and not knowing fear while doing all of these things. The Jedi Order requires much of its members: there is an entire list of "knightly" virtues that Jedi are meant to embody that all Padawans are actually made to memorize as soon as they are bonded to their masters, including all of the following requirements: being beautiful in spirit; charity; cheerfulness (or being of good cheer); chivalry; compassion; courage; courtesy; determination; devotion; diplomacy; empathy; endurance; faithfulness; forgiveness; friendliness; happiness; helpfulness; honor; hopefulness; humility; justice; kindness; loyalty; mercy; morality; nobility; obediency; patience; perseverance; prudence; selflessness; sincerity; sympathy; tenderness; truthfulness; and wisdom. However, even though Anakin has always maintained that, since the infinite compassion Jedi are meant to embody - which he also defines as unconditional love - is the most central tenet of a Jedi's life, this means that the Code actually encourages Jedi to love, the stance of the Order on love is far more . . . rigid and unwelcoming of the emotion, which is viewed as a sign of attachment rather than a required or even welcome virtue in a Jedi.

Although the Jedi Order does not, technically, require actual celibacy of its members, the Jedi Code does forbid attachments. Thus, except for in very specific extremely rare instances where Jedi are called from the ranks of some Force-sensitive species whose numbers are so few that the High Council deems the Order cannot, in good conscience, restrict a certain member from also having a family, Jedi are not allowed the distraction of marriage or of family, not even if such would be shared between two devoted members of the Order. Millennia-old traditions that have become even more restrictive over the past millennium, since the end of the last Sith wars, all but enforces what amounts to vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience from the Order's Knights and Masters. Padawans - and, Obi-Wan supposes, technically also the eldest among the younglings - are allowed more freedom, and technically there is also no rule, as such, forbidding Jedi Knights or Masters from indulging in purely casual sexual congress, but actual attachments are not tolerated, and the Order does not recognize the possibility of a love so pure and selfless as to surpass the dangerous need to hold on, to keep safe and to possess, the object of one's love. Obi-Wan grew up in the Temple crèche, and even though he knows, logically, that feeling love for a person and the physical act of making love to a body is not necessarily the same thing, Obi-Wan is also most familiar with a tradition that condemns the one only to a slightly lesser degree than the other. So he knows next to nothing of love, of either the process of being in love and showing that love for a person or the physical act of making love to someone.

Traditionally, within the Temple, any hint at all that the Jedi - that true Jedi, good Jedi Knights and Masters who live by the Code and are able to willingly become one with the Force, luminous beings untainted by or utterly purged of any hint or taint of the Dark Side - can also be emotional beings who are capable of functioning as sexual beings is treated as anathema. Obi-Wan Kenobi is literally untouched, is pure of even so little as one single solitary wanted or even willingly allowed and indulged in lustful touch. Obi-Wan's fear of abandonment by a Master who was, in the beginning, adamantly opposed to taking him on as a Padawan learner, and Qui-Gon Jinn's fear of the shade of his first Padawan apprentice - Xanatos, who willingly left the Jedi Order to pursue material wealth and power and, in the process, become a Dark Jedi - have made sure of this, even during a period of time when many Padawan learners are unofficially invited to essentially get it out of their systems while they still can, before the responsibilities of true Jedi Knighthood descend. Moreover, until now, it has simply never occurred to Obi-Wan to question this conflation of a perceived need for emotional control with a necessity for complete sexual abstinence, this confusing of the act of swearing absolute loyalty and devotion to a set of ideals with a necessity for a simultaneous commitment to an utter chastity of body and spirit. Now, as he stops to consider it, Obi-Wan is confused and unsure of the wisdom of this tradition.

After all, is it not hypocritical of the Jedi Order to label love and attachment forbidden and dangerous when Jedi are supposed to be all-compassionate and the Order itself fosters bonds not only of attachment but of actual dependency among its members? The Master-Padawan bond is perhaps not meant to last beyond the Knighting of the Padawan, but this does not normally keep former Master-Padawan pairs from staying in close communication with each other or from regarding one another with quite a bit of fondness, even if they so very rarely remain together in any kind of close working relationship that their continued partnership was essentially unknown in the Order before Anakin chose to remain with Obi-Wan after his Knighting - something for which the entire Order still seems to look upon them askance. Master Yoda wasn't even Dooku's true Master, and yet Yoda still regarded his former student with such affection that it blinded the ancient Master utterly to Dooku's struggle with and fall to the Dark Side. True, most Jedi would simply believe that this proves the point that attachment is dangerous, but what if it's not really the attachment that was to blame? What if it was actually Master Yoda's unwillingness to face the reality of his own affection, his inability to show how much he truly cared for his former student by either actually being there for Dooku in his hour of need with more than just the same old tired handful of Jedi platitudes or else by actively pursuing and winning Dooku back to the Light, that was the problem?

Jedi are not supposed to feel love, to be attached, and yet the Order clearly expects them to be attached to the Order itself, to be loyal and to feel love for each other - especially within the bonds of a Master-Padawan relationship - as well as for the Order and what it stands for, for the ideals of the Republic and indeed the Galactic Republic itself, since what does the Order exist for if not to safeguard the Republic as the bastion of those ideals, and why else do Jedi continue to pursue their hard and often lonely lives if not out of love for those ideals and all that the Republic stands for? Is it not hypocrisy to on the one hand expect this, to teach this, to demand a lifetime of service and of unquestioning attachment to the institution of that service as well as its cause, while on the other hand not only forbidding all other forms of love, of attachment, but actually denouncing the very emotion, the actual act, of feeling attachment, of loving? Obi-Wan's heart aches within him. His very soul feels bruised. Anakin has tried to ask him about these things, he has tried to make Obi-Wan see this hypocrisy, with his questioning of compassion and love, and yet it has taken this, an act from the Force itself in obvious support of the growing bond of love between the two of them, to make Obi-Wan understand.

Force help him, how could he, how could they all, have been so blind?

His entire existence has been devoted to the service of an Order founded upon a lie.

If Obi-Wan has been so incredibly wrong about this, if the Order itself has been entirely in the wrong about this, about the danger of attachment, the necessity of forbidding love, then what else have the Jedi been wrong about? Force take it, if the foundation of the Order itself, if the belief system that supports the Code of the Order itself, is intrinsically flawed, is inherently wrong about passion, about emotion, then what other wrongs are the Jedi guilty of? What else is Obi-Wan guilty of? Perhaps more importantly, what has Obi-Wan sacrificed, to no true purpose, for his stubborn faith, his hopeful devotion, to the Jedi way of life, the Council, the Code, even the Order itself? What has he lost because of this wrong?

Oh, Force, Qui-Gon . . .

The hubris of the High Council truly is fully responsible for the death of Qui-Gon Jinn.

Because of their pride, their vanity, their complacency, the High Council Masters refused to listen to Qui-Gon - about either Anakin or the Sith who attacked them as they were leaving Tatooine - and essentially sent Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Anakin off to their deaths when they ordered them to help Padmé Amidala return safely to Naboo, despite what was frankly suicidal odds, even without the added threat of the Sith. The Council was in the wrong. They wronged Anakin with their mistrust and fear and they wronged Qui-Gon by betraying his trust in their wisdom and placing him in an untenable position that made him cause, Obi-Wan, his Padawan learner, pain. What the High Council should have done, as all-compassionate Jedi, was agree to take Anakin into the crèche and see to it that he was assigned teachers from among the wisest and most respected Jedi Masters so that he could receive extensive training that would catch him up on everything he'd missed out on in coming to the Temple so late in life. Meanwhile, at least two teams of Jedi could have been sent with Amidala to Naboo, one to deal with the treachery of the Trade Federation and the other or others to deal with the Sith. With fewer distractions to worry them and other Jedi on hand to participate in Amidala's plans, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan could have safely dealt with the Sith while the other Jedi dealt with the problem of the Trade Federation's droid armies, so that the Queen's plan could have succeeded even without Anakin there to accidentally blow up the Trade Federation's control ship. Qui-Gon would not have been murdered, Obi-Wan could have been slightly less hastily Knighted for his skill with the Force against the Sith, and Qui-Gon would have been free to take on Anakin as his new Padawan if and when Anakin proved himself worthy of becoming a Padawan by first finishing that period of accelerated training in the crèche. Moreover - and perhaps most importantly - Dooku would not have left the Jedi Order and joined Darth Sidious, since Qui-Gon would have survived Naboo.

Force help them, the Jedi High Council is at least partially directly responsible for both the outbreak and the many horrors of the Clone Wars. For instead of acting as Jedi are supposed to, with compassion and trust in the will of the Force, the High Council and the Jedi in general had responded to the sudden return of the Sith and the discovery of Anakin Skywalker with impatient anger, fearful distrust, and prideful obstinance. The smug certainty of the rigidly entrenched orthodoxy of the Jedi High Council as to Anakin Skywalker's utter unsuitability as a candidate for Jedi training, much less as a probable fulfillment of the prophecies of the "Chosen One," as proposed by Qui-Gon Jinn - a man whose connection with the Living Force left him with no patience for either politics or the constraints of traditional rules - killed Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, raised a newly bereft (essentially orphaned) and grieving young Padawan by the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi up to Knighthood specifically so that said new Knight could take Anakin off of their hands - since the Force forfend that anyone from amongst the highly vocally mistrustful ranks of the High Council might have to deal with Anakin Skywalker personally - regardless of whether or not that Knight was ready for the responsibility of becoming someone's Master immediately on leaving his own Padawan apprenticeship behind, drove Master Dooku to not only swell the ranks of the lost but to actively seek training as a Sith Lord, and saw to it that Anakin and Obi-Wan would end up in the untenable situation in which Obi-Wan currently finds himself, in essence forced to make an actual decision between his love and loyalty for Anakin - who has broken a cardinal rule of the Order by secretly marrying Padmé Amidala Naberrie - and his commitment and devotion to the Jedi Order and the Jedi way of life.

Obi-Wan will not sacrifice Anakin. The Jedi way of life can declare that it is wrong. The Code can say that it is forbidden. The Council can condemn him as a failure, weak, misguided, and easily seducible by the Dark Side of the Force. The entire Order can rise up and cast him out for the sin of willingly loving not just another being but a Jedi, and not just any Jedi but his own former Padawan, of knowingly pursuing a permanent attachment with one who has trusted and adored him for reasons Obi-Wan has never fully understood since even before they entered into their relationship as Master and Padawan. Obi-Wan Kenobi cannot sacrifice Anakin Skywalker.

He only hopes that what the Force has shown him will prove to be enough to make up for what he has done, what he has allowed the Code and the Council and the Order to do, to Anakin.

Silently, Obi-Wan casts himself upon the Force's mercy and opens his mouth to speak.

***