FicWad

Additional Author's Notes: 1) The scene that had to be cut in two to post the previous chapter on the lj and which was also cut in the comparable chapter here to keep the chapters of a comparable size picks up immediately below!
2) Everything in the last scene wouldn't fit in this chapter in one post on the lj. To keep chapters of a comparable size, I am splitting the final scene in half here as I did on the lj. The last scene will continue IMMEDIATELY in the next chapter!








By the time Anakin has finished preparing himself to his satisfaction, Bail’s torrent of words actually seems to be drawing to a close, and so Anakin simply waits a little bit longer, until the words finally slow to a trickle and then dry up entirely and Bail, blinking into the sudden silence, finally seems to come back to himself to notice that things aren’t going exactly as planned, since no one has immediately leapt in to either attempt to argue him out of his planned suicide or to agree that he’s right and offer him the knife. Anakin waits a few seconds more, letting this fact sink in, before asking Bail, in as close an imitation of Mace Windu at his absolute, unforgiving, unyielding worst as he can manage, “Are you quite finished repositioning the whole of the universe so that you are the center about which everything else turns?”

Bail recoils slightly at the tone, turning and raising his head in a series of jerky, broken motions to seek out the source of the scornful words. “What – ?”

“I said, are you quite finished repositioning the whole of the universe so that you are the center about which everything else turns. Because frankly I’m beginning to get bored, and I have better things to do than listen to the self-centered ravings of a selfish little boy like you,” is Anakin’s even harsher and more frigid response.

Whatever Bail might have been expecting, it most certainly wasn’t anything like /this/, and he flounders at once, gaping at Anakin dumbly, mouth opening and closing helplessly, like a fish out of water, with no sound emerging.

“Well?” Anakin merely snaps, as contemptuously as possible. “What, you aren’t done, yet? You think there’s still a few comets and asteroids floating about on the furthest outskirts of the universe that you haven’t already reoriented to revolve around you? As if your pain somehow makes you different or better than any of the rest of us!”

“But – but – ”

“Unless you’re trying to refer to yourself, I suggest you shut up while you still can, Bail Organa. Jedi don’t look very kindly upon selfishness, you know. And bedamned if I am going to tolerate this kind of self-centered stupidity out of /my /Padawan learner!” Anakin only snarls, impatiently and mercilessly cutting him off.

Bail flinches as if he’s been slapped, rocking back slightly, away from Anakin, and goes back to imitating a fish out of water.

Grimly satisfied with the response, even if his own tone of voice and manner make him want to cringe, Anakin continues, pitilessly ripping into Bail, all but spitting the words at the clearly rattled (and increasingly obviously hurt) older man as he furiously demands, his voice growing steadily in volume and in anger with every question, “What, you think you’re better than the rest of us – somehow special, somehow different, from all the rest of us mere mortals? You think you’re the only sentient being in the universe who’s ever made a mistake or ever not been able to save someone he cares about? You think you’re the only person who’s ever adored someone, only to lose her to violence and war? You think you’re the only human being who’s ever known loss, or pain, or regret, or guilt, or shame over things left undone, things never said, things never put to rights, things that didn’t quite go the way you’d planned or wanted them to and wanted to fix somehow or change but never quite got the chance to and now never will? /You think you’re the only kriffing man who’s ever wanted to just give up, to crawl away into the dark and curl up in a corner somewhere, and just die, because dying would be easier than having to deal with the pain?/” Anakin can feel his face reddening with incredulous fury as he hurtles the final accusation at Bail, can feel the potential for violence trying to worm its way free of his durasteel control, and, wondering, quite suddenly, as Bail breaks into a cold sweat and his face turns a sickly pale shade that’s almost green, if the sense of looming threat he is projecting is anything like the terrifying presence of Vader, finds himself having to double his hands into fists to keep himself from being sick. Forcing himself to continue (hoping that the thickening of his voice will be attributed to phlegmatic disgust with Bail rather than horror at his own weakness, his own darkness), Anakin sneers down at his Padawan and coldly declares, “I think you need a lesson in humility, Bail Organa. I think you need to be reminded of the reality of the greater galaxy that exists beyond the confines of your own small, insignificant body. I think you need to know just what future you helped to stave off, when you chose to try to escape the madness and confusion of battle by turning that skimmer away from the fighting and the hopelessly snarled traffic and towards the landing platform abutting that skybridge near the Embassy Mall, on Coruscant. Let me tell you a little story about Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, the prophesied Sith’ari and incorrectly proclaimed Chosen One of the Jedi . . . ”

Irrevocably committed to the battlefield he has chosen in his attempt to win through to Bail, Anakin then proceeds to do precisely that, recalling and recounting, in exquisitely painful and utterly merciless detail, the story of the rise of Darth Vader, as it most likely would have happened, according to the far-sight visions of the Force, if not for the crash of that skimmer at that specific time and place and conjuncture of objects and intensity of motion. Temporarily banishing all compassion for Bail (and, by extension, Obi-Wan, who can hear his every word and sense his every thought and emotion across the open bond), Anakin informs him, with chillingly careful precision, just how things would have gone, both for that other Anakin and for the rest of the galaxy. Ignoring both Bail’s choked off exclamations of shock and horror and disbelief and his eventual mad scramble back away from him (Anakin merely follows, with a slow, measured, almost mechanically lumbering heavy tread, until he is once again looming over the man, who by then has fetched up with a painful, meaty sounding thud against the closed door – the same door that Obi-Wan so recently vanished through), Anakin persists in his tale, right up to the last moment before the final fall, recounting Mace Windu’s unhanding and his fall down into forever from the smashed-out window, and the feeling of absolute separation from all else that Anakin had ever known, the gaping distance between all he was and all he knew and what he had just done, the seemingly impossibility of ever bridging that gap again, even were Obi-Wan at his side and willing to lead him back every millimeter of the way . . . and the graceless, selfish, stupidly short-sighted decision that it would be better not to even try, that it would be easier to listen to the poisonous words of Sidious, simpler to just do whatever he wanted, whatever he said, behave as if he were not more than what Sidious saw when he looked at him, just let go of everything else and stop trying and follow Mace down into a similar wild tumble into eternal darkness – one that would begin with the simple lowering of the body down into a two-legged kneel before the creature who had just revealed the truth of himself for the world to see, in his last desperate attempt to win Anakin over.

By then, Bail has a look on his face that is painfully reminiscent of the look of confused horror that Anakin can so distinctly remember seeing on San Hill’s face, in the far-sight visions that Obi-Wan had shared with him, when the Separatist leader and chairman of the InterGalactic Banking Clan had recoiled, hands flapping like panicked birds sewn to his wrists, to gasp out an accusatory, “You’re – you’re Anakin Skywalker!/” before a fountain of blue-white plasma burned into his chest, curving through a loop that charred the greater part of all three of his hearts into cinders. The look is doubly painful, and not just because it calls to mind so clearly the horror of just how far that other Anakin (and all of the other Anakins in all of those other weirdly similar timelines among what had once been the most probable of all possible future pathways, as well) had fallen, as he ruthlessly and methodically cut down the remaining members of the Separatist Leadership Council and all of their surviving aides, responding to their terror and their pleas for clemency with a dark and mercilessly uncompassionate version of the kind of playful banter and bad jokes that he and Obi-Wan were so wont to using, in the midst of their more distasteful or obviously dangerous missions, as a way to reassure one another that they were both still doing well. It also strikes at Anakin’s heart because it is /Bail Organa who is looking at him in this manner, and, while Bail has never truly been an actual friend of his, he has never been less than aware of just how much the man’s friendship means to Obi-Wan since the moment he first met the Alderaanian. He has come to know and to understand Bail a great deal more than he ever did (or truly wished to) before, these past few weeks, and has rapidly come to understand just what it is about Bail that has secured Obi-Wan’s interest and friendship for so long a time. He admires and is genuinely coming to like the older man a great deal, and has been looking forward to tackling the task of helping Bail become a Jedi Bendu, with Obi-Wan’s help. So a part of Anakin feels as if he were actually dying when the thought occurs to him that, by the time Anakin is done with him, Bail might actually fear him and regret ever becoming a Padawan, since he is shared between Anakin and Obi-Wan.

Bail, meanwhile, gasping in unbelief, choking on his horror, cries out, “I don’t believe – Master, you never could – Obi-Wan would – ”

Determinedly ignoring his own pain, Anakin cuts Bail’s protest cruelly short, correcting him by explaining, “Ah, but Obi-Wan Kenobi abandoned Anakin Skywalker in his hour of need. Obi-Wan Kenobi, lapdog to the High Council, left Anakin Skywalker to the High Council, left him and the Supreme Chancellor both to be sacrificial victims to the hubris and intolerance of the other High Council Masters, while he went off to claim the glory that should, by all rights, have belonged to /the Team/, by hunting down and destroying General Grievous. This is the tale that Sidious spun for Anakin Skywalker, and this is the version of truth that Darth Vader took in and held close to his diamond-hard heart. And he remembered how Obi-Wan had visited with Padmé Amidala before leaving for Utapau, as if he cared more for the good Senator of Naboo’s health and well-being than he did for the peace of mind and the safety of his former Padawan and Force-partner, Anakin Skywalker. And in that moment Darth Vader accepted that Obi-Wan was not what Anakin had always believed him to be, and he began to believe the lies that Sidious had been trying to pour into his soul regarding Anakin’s former Master. That poison working within him, he pledged himself to Sidious, swearing to do and to be whatever the Sith Lord wanted, so long as the life of Padmé would be preserved.” Anakin attempts to smile at Bail then, resulting in a flexing of muscles and a showing of teeth that is horrifyingly like a death-rictus grin, before continuing on by adding, “Of course, Sidious had been twisting the truth when he spoke to Anakin and then to Darth Vader of the ability to sustain or create life through the direct manipulation of midi-chlorians, by use of the Force. For while that is indeed a power that Sidious’ own Master, Darth Plagueis, managed to perfect before his own death – as evidence by the birth of the Sith’ari, to a woman entirely innocent of the intimate touch of any man – it is also a talent that Sidious never got the chance to learn, as he himself murdered the only living source of that knowledge. Sidious never intended to allow Padmé Amidala to live, not after all the trouble she caused him in that first year after she became Queen of Naboo. But then, Anakin was always a trusting soul, and I suppose that Vader could not help but carry over a few of those more dominant character traits when he carved himself out from Anakin and set himself up as a whole new personality. Whether things happened too quickly or whether it was simply so much easier not to think for himself that Vader simply never bothered to form a thought but that it came straight from the monstrous psyche of his new Sith Lord and Master, the truth is that he never doubted Sidious would save Padmé for him. And in return for his truth, Sidious lied to his face, telling him that he must be stronger in the Dark Side in order to help him save Padmé’s life, and that he therefore must take part in Order 66 by leading the attack on the Jedi Temple and personally overseeing the slaughter of every single resident of that vast complex.”

While Bail helplessly shakes his head (his whole body trembling, now), Anakin smiles that death’s head grin again and carries on with his story, vividly describing every blow, every cut, every look of surprise and horror and betrayal on the faces of the Jedi of the Temple as the newly named Darth Vader led the clone troopers into the Temple complex and methodically and coldly organized the slaughter of everyone who lived and worked there. When he gets to the part where a certain brave and trusting youngling by the name of Liam – a small boy with enormous blue eyes and light blond hair – comes right up to Vader, mistaking him for Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi’s Chosen One, and says, “Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?” and Anakin describes what it feels like to thumb a lightsaber on with a mechanical hand, Bail lunges to his feet and bolts for the ’fresher, desperately running for a place where he can be violently ill. Anakin simply follows, using that same slow, measured, threatening tread, picking up the thread of the tale again as soon as Bail has ceased trying to heave up the contents of an already far past empty stomach.

When Anakin gets the point where Vader furiously begins to use the Force to strangle Padmé, himself, on Mustafar, Bail all but screams in protest. “You couldn’t – Obi-Wan wouldn’t allow you – ”

“Ah, but you see, Obi-Wan Kenobi is not known to be the Chosen One in this timeline, Bail Organa. And he has had his soul gutted by the sight of his beloved down on his knees to an abominable monster, pledging his loyalty and his duty, and being named a Sith and given orders to murder thousands of innocents in return for those oaths. Obi-Wan has been shattered by this loss and reshaped, for expediency’s sake, by the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, into a weapon with but one purpose – the curtailment of power in the one known as Darth Vader. And Obi-Wan, being Obi-Wan, fulfills his duty as best he can, as impressed upon him by Yoda, as quickly as he can, with neither thought nor care of anyone else’s safety or well-being. He has been told that Anakin Skywalker no longer exists and that it is his duty to find Darth Vader and either kill him – ‘Out of his misery, you must put him,’ as Yoda so colorfully states – or else take care of him, while Yoda goes to take care of the galaxy’s new Emperor. The Grand Master orders, and Obi-Wan Kenobi obeys. Did you know that dismemberment can rob a sentient’s body of many of its midi-chlorians, thus lessening that body’s overall Force-talent and Force-sensitivity, Bail Organa?” Anakin asks, raising an eyebrow in a deliberately cruel imitation of Obi-Wan’s far more expressive and inquisitive eyebrow, so that he can shock Bail back from the place he is visibly trying to retreat to in his own mind. The tactic succeeds, and Anakin continues the tale. When he reaches the point in his story where Obi-Wan places Leia Skywalker into Bail’s arms and claims Luke Skywalker temporarily as his own, until he can journey to Tatooine and give him over to the Lars family, Bail chokes, gags, turns aside, and retches until he vomits bile. Anakin waits until he is quite finished, and then asks, voice dangerously low and quiet, “And after all of that, Bail Organa, do you still believe that you did wrong, in choosing to steer out of the chaos of traffic and confusion of battle and towards the then empty landing platform abutting that skybridge near the Embassy Mall? Do you still imagine that you are the only man who has ever known loss, or regret, or shame, or pain? Do you still think that you are the only sentient being ever to wish for death to come or even to court death like a lover, in an attempt to selfishly ease your own suffering?”

“How do you – how can you – Master – Anakin – how – ?”

“I live with it because I know that to die would be to treat those who still care for me just as carelessly and as cruelly as if I were, in fact, Darth Vader. I live with it because I know that, for whatever reason, Obi-Wan still loves me and would be devastated to lose me. I live with it because I know that these things did not happen and I am determined that nothing like them ever will come to pass. I live with it because I am, oddly enough, given some hope by the knowledge that the decision to give in and simply become Darth Vader came only when Anakin felt utterly lost and wholly alone in the world and had roughly half of his mental processes already shrouded under the insidious influence and control of the one who was about to become his new Master. And I live with it, Bail Organa, because as much as a part me believes that I am no better than a rabid mongrel who deserves to put down and out of my misery, the rest of knows that any such death would be far too easy and could not even begin to repair or make up for all the harm, all the evil, I’ve either committed or helped to bring about in the galaxy. In short, Padawan, I live with it because to do otherwise would be even more monstrous than all of the other alternatives and would cause other beings – the people I care about and love, all the individuals I would do anything and everything in my power to protect – even more heartbreak and anguish than they have already suffered for my sake. And that would be unacceptable. So. Do you believe you’ve made mistakes in your life, Bail Organa? Do you think yourself responsible for a tragedy? Do you think you’ve somehow brought shame and dishonor upon yourself and your house through your actions – or some lack of a specific action? If you truly do, then what you should be doing is striving for some way to do something to repair the balance you’ve overturned, by answering the wrongs you’ve done with right acts elsewhere, not planning out ways to take the coward’s path by ending your life so that you don’t have to live with the results of your actions!”

“But Breha – the others – ”

“The Winter’s Heart and your wife were casualties of this war, Bail. You had nothing to do with that. Darth Sidious planned the Separatist assault on Coruscant, not you, and it was the decision of the commander aboard whatever CIS vessel it was that, in fleeing from th battlefield, came across the Winter’s Heart and decided to attack instead of simply continue fleeing who is responsible for both the destruction of the Winter’s Heart and your wife’s death. The being who issued the order to fire is ultimately at fault for those deaths, Bail, not you. If you wish to claim responsibility for inadvertently placing those beings in harm’s way by being human enough to take serious injuries in a skimmer crash caught in the midst of a battlefield, then at least have the courage to honor those who died by dedicating some of the great works of your life, from this day forward, to their memory!” Anakin snarls this time for real as he cuts Bail off, hands clenching furiously at his sides over the man’s bone-headed obstinacy.

Thankfully, instead of flinching away from Anakin’s show of anger, Bail looks as if he’s been poleaxed for a moment, instead, and in that moment Anakin knows that he’s finally won this round. The notion of reparations, of dedicating good works to the memory of those who have fallen, apparently appeals both to the pragmatic realist and politician in Bail and to the unabashed romantic in him. “Is this,” he finally hesitantly asks, with much of that earlier look of absolute shock still lingering at the back of his dark eyes, despite a growing sense of dawning understanding in the arrangement of his facial features, “what you have done?”

“Not quite, Padawan. I’ve dedicated my life to living for Obi-Wan Kenobi’s sake and living up to whatever it is that he thinks he sees in me. That’s an even more powerful motivation for staying alive and for doing things that will not only make up for the mistakes I’ve made in the past and the pain I’ve caused but also help me to understand whatever it is that he sees when he looks at me that makes him believe I am worthy of his love,” Anakin quietly admits.

“I believe you,” Bail replies, voice equally soft and grave. Then, with the barest hint of the kind of full-bodied tremor that Anakin has unfortunately come to recognize (mostly through interaction with the innocents who have been hurt in some way by the war) as a telltale sign of the nearness of tears, he adds, a bit tremulously, “I’ve really been a fool, haven’t I?”

Silently telling Obi-Wan that he can come back in now and help with their Padawan any time he feels like it, now, Anakin sighs and admits, “Yes, Padawan. You have. But as a very wise man once said to me, learning to recognize our mistakes is not only the first step towards preventing or countering such foolishness, it’s also a very necessary, if sometimes painful, part of the process of growing, as individuals. Besides, I wouldn’t worry too much, just yet. Nothing has been done yet that can’t be undone. And you will have Obi-Wan and I both here to help you. You’re our Padawan, Bail. We won’t let anything happen to you, if we can possibly prevent it.”

Bail ducks his head, obviously embarrassed, whispers a choked, “Thank you, Master Skywalker,” and, too tired to control himself any longer, begins to cry right about the time that Obi-Wan appears in the ’fresher’s open doorway.

***

Bail is, unsurprisingly, a lot more inclined to listen, this time, when Obi-Wan tells him that what happened to Breha wasn’t his fault, that she wouldn’t want him to use her death as an excuse to stop living his life, and that the rest of his family is going to need him, now, not only because it is a time of mourning, but because these are proving to be times of sudden and wide-ranging change. Obi-Wan doesn’t really blame him for being so much more willing to listen and to try to move past how what has happened has impacted and personally hurt him. Even though he has known how things would’ve gone (for Anakin and Darth Vader, as well as for the rest of the known galaxy) in all of those other (mostly) weirdly similar timelines for some time longer than Anakin has known about it all and the open bond had guaranteed that Obi-Wan would know everything Anakin was thinking and feeling as he recounted the basic essential facts for all of those horribly similar timelines, Obi-Wan finds himself feeling quite like Bail looks and senses, over their modified Master-Padawan bond, at the moment – rather as if he’s been poleaxed and put through a wringer (at least mentally and emotionally, if not physically). A little bit of that is simple shock over the way that Anakin has so masterfully used what amounts to a much larger shock to jolt Bail out of the almost fugue-like state that the shock of finding out about Breha’s death (and the destruction of the /Winter’s Heart/) had triggered in him. But most of it is, quite frankly, stunned disbelief over what Anakin has used to induce that greater shock. Even with the proof of Anakin’s actions essentially on display in front of him, Obi-Wan simply can’t believe that Anakin would be so willing to just come out, like that, and tell someone about what he came so perilously close to becoming – especially not after that roundabout argument they just had over the way that Anakin believes that the Vader persona is a genuine part of his character and fears that part of himself as a very real potential threat to any future they might try to build – and so he’s having almost as difficult a time as Bail is in processing what’s just happened.

In all honesty, a part of Obi-Wan has been expecting (and dreading) things to get to the point where they would end up having an argument of some sort about whether or not it would ever even be truly necessary to tell anyone else (including their Padawan) the specific details (including the existence and the identity of one Darth Vader) of the kind of future they have so narrowly missed blundering into and inflicting upon the greater galaxy. He never would have imagined that Anakin might simply decide to up and tell someone – especially someone like Bail, whose relationship with Anakin has always been uncertain and based almost entirely on Bail’s friendship with Obi-Wan rather than any greater understanding between Bail and Anakin – and especially not like this, as a warning to try to turn that person away from a path Anakin could see as one leading into selfishness and darkness! Not that Obi-Wan is entirely sure that the state in which Bail had been really qualifies as dark or selfish. Self-centered, perhaps, but then, grief does tend to do that to a person – to reduce everything down to the personal level. If Obi-Wan hadn’t had Anakin and his promise to Qui-Gon to focus on, after Qui-Gon’s unexpected death, Obi-Wan’s not entirely certain that he wouldn’t have responded to the loss of his Master more like Bail has responded to Breha’s sudden death. Force knows that Qui-Gon’s death had actually been more Obi-Wan’s fault than the destruction of the Winter’s Heart with the loss of all aboard had been Bail’s doing, despite what everyone else (including, oddly enough, Qui-Gon himself) seems to think about it. Even with his promise to Qui-Gon and Anakin’s obvious need for protection and championship against the High Council to act as a combination of goads and anchors, to keep himself focused and functional, Obi-Wan had still had a very hard time keeping his wits and keeping his pain at bay. He had been forced to use every last meditative distancing technique and emotion-dulling trick along with more than a few actual memory-suppressing Force-suggestions just to keep himself together during the rest of the mission and through the actual aftermath, with Qui-Gon’s funeral and the victory parade for Naboo’s liberation from the Trade Federation’s droid armies, and even then he had fallen to pieces the moment Anakin had tried to offer him comfort for Qui-Gon’s loss. Bail, unlike Obi-Wan, had seemed rather immune to the effects of shared grief, and for a moment Obi-Wan wonders, idly, if that reflects a greater sense of responsibility and duty in Bail’s character or just a greater sense of isolation.

He loses track of the thought as Anakin silently prompts him to help lend Bail a bit of extra strength, through the Force, so that the poor man can stay on his feet long enough to clean himself up without having to suffer the indignity of actually being washed and dressed by his Masters. Then Bail asks if they will please send for his sister, Raymus, and Sheltay while he is seeing to himself, so that he’ll be able to speak to them for a little while and reassure them that he will be alright, now, before he lies down for a while to give his body a chance to recover from the sleep he’s missed, and Obi-Wan finds himself having to put his own confusion and scattered thoughts aside while he comms Raymus and explains what’s going and Anakin comms down to the kitchens to get someone to send up some crackers and broth for Bail to eat before he rests. In the hubbub that follows, as Sheltay (somehow managing to find her way to the suite first even though she’s obviously taken a detour by the kitchens, as she arrives carrying a covered tray) and then Raymus and Alaina (a tall, slender young woman whose honey-colored skin somehow still manages to look wan, her dark eyes sad and tired, while the heavy plait of long, dark, cinnamon-colored hair is the brightest spot of color on her, glowing with red highlights like sullen embers of fire whenever the light manages to catch the braid at a certain angle) come into the suite, Obi-Wan has little time to do anything other than to pass along reassurances concerning Bail and his heartfelt regrets over the tragic loss of the Winter’s Heart and the deaths of those who had been aboard, including Breha Antilles Organa. Fairly soon afterwards, Bail comes back out of the ’fresher, moving quite a bit more slowly than normal (and holding himself as if he fears that any sudden moves might break something within him) and looking rather gaunt and hollowed out and exhausted but with a genuine (if small and somewhat hesitant) smile for his family and a sense of calmness and renewed purpose that gives him the same familiar air of unshakeable poise and competence that has been a hallmark of his since his earliest days in government.

Obi-Wan would be surprised at the way Bail seems to have bounced back from the black fog of despair and near self-hatred in which he and Anakin found their Padawan, but then, it is Bail and there are also some mitigating circumstances surrounding this entire awkward situation that are, as they quite properly should (or so Obi-Wan supposes), acting as limiting factors, regarding the actual amount of grief that Bail would and should be (and therefore is) feeling at Breha’s loss. Despite a marriage of almost six years, the actual range of feeling that Obi-Wan has always gotten from Bail, regarding Breha, has never really seemed to rise beyond the level of simple affection and attachment (which is precisely why Obi-Wan had been so shocked, to see Bail reduced to such a desperate state by her loss). They always seemed to Obi-Wan to be more like very close allies and good friends than a couple completely and madly in love, though they had also appeared to be quite content with their companionship. Although Obi-Wan is no longer entirely sure how much of that sense of contentment had ever been real and how much of it had simply been a screen put up by both members of what has since been revealed as a floundering and essentially empty marriage, Obi-Wan is fairly certain of at least one thing: Bail and Breha’s marriage had been good for neither person and they would have both been better off if they had acknowledged that years ago and parted amicably, while they were still friends and both still relatively whole and unscathed from the attempted partnership, instead of remaining together and stubbornly insisting on trying to fix a relationship that had never quite worked properly, even from the first. During his extended recuperation at the Temple, after his capture at Jabiim and his . . . detainment by Asajj Ventress, Obi-Wan had been able to observe Bail for a fairly long stretch of time and, in the wake of the palpable and obviously growing distance between Bail and Breha, he had come to much the same conclusion then, even without knowing about the true nature and seriousness of the problems plaguing the marriage. Obi-Wan had refrained from commenting on it overly much then, since he had assumed that the marriage was as much the result of convenience and a matter of political and dynastic alliance as it was anything else, but now he wishes that he might have said something. Might this have been prevented, if he had only spoken up about this, earlier?

Anakin abruptly clamps his hand around Obi-Wan’s right wrist, shooting him a look that reminds him rather vividly of the expression on Anakin’s face when he had insisted that the Jedi certainly can’t save everyone and that it’s past time for the other sentient beings of the galaxy to start taking responsibility for their own lives and safety and well-being and to actively help one another instead of just sitting back and expecting someone like the government or the Jedi or both to take care of everything for them and effectively derails the train of Obi-Wan’s thought, since after all he really can’t try to logically argue that it’s possible for to save everyone without making himself over as a hypocrite for telling Anakin essentially that same thing (that he can’t save everyone). Off-balanced by the realization and unable to reclaim his mental footing, Obi-Wan gives Anakin a shrug and an apologetic little half smile that loosens the unhappy tightness around his eyes and mouth and prompts Anakin to slide that hand down so that their fingers are loosely entwined, instead. Alaina, noticing their casually twined fingers, looks up at Obi-Wan with an expression of almost awed shock and then abruptly seems to kindle with new life, pure happiness for him blossoming within her and spreading across her face like an unfurling banner, her suddenly brightly gleaming eyes and unabashedly delighted smile reminding Obi-Wan so much of Bail, back before the horror of the war had engulfed all of their lives and broken them of most of their reasons to smile, that the sudden shock of it makes his thoughts abruptly spin like a gyre and turn back in their track, circling back around first to Bail and the way that his eyes had stared dully through Obi-Wan when he began to recite the reasons why he should be held to blame for Breha’s death and the destruction of the Winter’s Heart and then to the way that he had looked up, in the ’fresher, and finally seemed to truly see him, even though his eyes had been full of so many tears that, by all rights, he should have been blinded by them.

And then Obi-Wan’s thoughts once again run up against the fact that Anakin willingly and specifically chose to tell Bail the story of the rise of Darth Vader as a sort of warning against . . . well, self-centeredness and the act of giving up, he supposes. And at that point he finds himself stymied all over again. Fortunately, though, by then Bail has finished all of the food that he is safely able to manage and seems to have reassured everyone that he will, in fact, be alright now, and is drooping with such obvious exhaustion that Sheltay automatically begins to gather things up and unobtrusively but efficiently move everyone along so that Bail will be able to get some sleep. Soon enough, he and Anakin are telling their Padawan to have a good long peaceful sleep (with enough of an emphasis on long and peaceful to essentially make them commands, backed by sufficient Force to see to it that those commands will be obeyed) and to call for them if he needs anything, and then they are standing in the hallway outside of the suite again, Sheltay smiling at them warmly while Raymus and Alaina unselfconsciously hug one another (mostly out of relief, though a bit out of happiness, too, and also somewhat simply to help reassure each other during what is, for them, not only a time of grief but also of tumultuous and essentially wholly unexpectedly personal change). Obi-Wan and Anakin have always been given the same suite of rooms in the Palace (just a few wings back from where Bail’s rooms are) whenever they’ve managed to visit Aldera, and Raymus informs them that their baggage has already been relocated from the ship to those rooms, his relief and his thankfulness stripping him of his lingering nervousness and awe so that, for once, he actually manages to refer to them both by their actual first names instead of by their titles.

Distracted by what he sees as progress (he has trying – without much success – to convince Raymus that it is perfectly alright to use his first name since the year before the war began, after all!), Obi-Wan smiles back broadly, thanking the young man and happily making a bit of small talk, inquiring after Alaina’s health and asking the young woman if she still makes time to work with the decorative vitriglass-makers (a substance something like a cross between transparisteel and simple glass, a little more fragile than the first and so easier to work with, in the crafting of smaller decorative pieces and brilliantly colored panes) and reminding Sheltay that they would still be quite happy to help Ob Khaddar decide which of his sketches should be the ones to serve as models for the three portraits that her family (Ryoo Thule, her parents, and Darred Janren) has commissioned for Padmé Amidala, through Sheltay, passing along also his heartfelt hope that Winter is doing well. In this manner, they all chat together quite amiably for about half an hour before Anakin’s stomach quite suddenly gives a fairly loud rumbling growl, startling them all (Anakin no less than anyone else) and prompting Sheltay to take them in hand and lead them down to the kitchens, sitting them down while she organizes them an impromptu but hearty meal. She leaves them to eat with a final reminder either to comm if they need anything or else to send for one of the droids or one of the household’s many (and mostly human) servants, thanking them again for helping Bail, and he and Anakin eat in silent companionship for a time, Anakin arranging his slightly longer legs beneath the little table in its nook between kitchens (where they have different rooms devoted to the preparation of certain kinds of food) so that they are loosely twined together, the lower half of Anakin’s legs pressing warmly to either side of Obi-Wan’s right leg.

They are both essentially finished with the meal and Obi-Wan’s thoughts have begun to circle back around to Bail’s reaction to the loss of Breha when Anakin quite suddenly tells him, in a mental voice so calmly matter of fact that it takes him a moment for him to realize that the thought is coming from outside of himself, Obi-Wan, if you don’t stop fretting about this and trying to find a way to blame yourself for both Breha’s death and Bail’s initial reaction to learning about it, I swear I will find a way to use the Force to spank you every time I find a self-recrimination in your thoughts.

Obi-Wan finds himself staring at Anakin blankly, half raised fork wavering forgotten above his plate, that same strange sensation of almost lightheadedness in combination with an odd trembling weakness (this time in his hands instead of his knees, since he is not standing) and a fluttering nervousness in the pit of his stomach returning with such a sudden vengeance that he clatters his silverware disgracefully against his plate, half dropping the fork after he’s already managed to jitter the food off of it rather than simply sitting it back down. I beg your pardon?

You heard me. This is getting ridiculous, Master. My mother never actually spanked me, that I remember, but our owners would use similar threats and I know the parents of some of my friends on Tatooine used to swat their bottoms when they’d deliberately misbehave, just once or a couple or times, to drive the lesson against such foolish behavior home. I think I could manage it so that it would sting a little without actually hurting, if I used a weak enough combination of a Force push and a Force blow. I’d have to practice it first on myself, of course, to make sure it wouldn’t actually hurt, but then, I probably deserve getting swatted a couple of times, too, for dwelling so much on Vader when I promised you I would try not to brood about it.

“Anakin!”

“What? It’s the truth. And I don’t know what else to do with you, love!” Anakin replies, actually managing to keep his voice fairly low for once, despite his obvious frustration and aggravation with the entire situation. “Talking to you about it doesn’t really seem to help any and reassuring you over the bond only seems to last for a little while before you go right back to doing the same darn thing again. What else am I supposed to do? I’ve explained and explained – you know it’s the way the Order brought you up, under that damned Code, that makes you think like this, and you know that it’s not healthy, and you know that it’s not true, either – but it just doesn’t seem to really help fix anything. I thought maybe if I took a more direct approach – ”

“Anakin Skywalker, don’t you dare! That’s not even funny! Why, just the thought – ” Obi-Wan finds him stumbling over his words, heat blossoming in his body so that a desperately bright blush spreads rapidly across his face and neck, that odd, almost shivery feeling of not quite nervousness returning, and for a moment he feels absolutely wretched, mortified at his lack of control (his fair skin hasn’t served for such an obvious giveaway of his feelings since he was a still a fairly new Padawan, for stars’ sake!) and instinctively trying to pull away and scramble back to his feet, to gain a little bit more distance between them.

Anakin, though, reaches out and snags him before he can do more than half rise, pulling him firmly back down and tugging him around on the curved bench until they are close enough that he can pull Obi-Wan firmly into an embrace, covering his still open mouth with his own lips and effectively silencing him before he can gather up enough wits to think of anything else to add to his protest. Eventually, pulling away from the kiss, Anakin strokes the back of his hand lovingly down Obi-Wan’s cheek and neck, a vague impression (less an actual thought than a combination of emotion and sensory impressions from the last time Anakin had been able to trace the path of such a blush, as it evolved from a simple rush of color in cheeks and neck to a full-body flush, Obi-Wan’s fair skin gradually pinking all across his body before darkening to an almost hectic red as Anakin stroked and caressed his way along all those places where the blood runs closest to the skin) of longing shutting Obi-Wan’s mouth so quickly that he nearly bites the tip of his tongue, heat rising in his face until he is quite sure that he is flaming a painful red. Anakin, though, just smiles, almost wistfully, and notes, “I wasn’t serious, love. But I had to get your attention somehow, didn’t I? Now maybe you’ll remember this every time you try to blame yourself for something that’s not your fault and it’ll keep you from being able to concentrate.”

For a while Obi-Wan just stares at him, too stunned to think of what to say, before finally the accusation of, “Why, you manipulative little brat!” bursts its way out of him in a rush, the words winning free just before the rest of his brain can quite catch up enough to either restrain the words or at least rework them so that the underlying sentiment might remain without coming across quite so bluntly.

Anakin just grins at him, though, the same cheeky, devil-may-care smile that he used to give Obi-Wan all the time when he was younger, back before the troubles leading up to the war became so constantly pressing, whenever they were either practicing alone or out on a mission and he was about to pull some stunt or another that logically should have failed but that Anakin would usually somehow manage to pull off, anyway (often by dragging Obi-Wan pell-mell along with him, to help deal with or contain possible reactions that Anakin himself would have never bothered to consider first, before leaping headlong into the fray), and, placing his hands to either side of Obi-Wan’s face so that his thumbs are brushing rhythmically, soothingly, back and forth along Obi-Wan’s cheekbones, replies, “Yes, I know I am, sometimes, but you still love me anyway, don’t you?”

He narrows his eyes at first, in response to that, prompted to the action by a short-lived knee-jerk impulse to reply with some pithy, biting remark, but there’s a shadow of uncertainty at the back of Anakin’s eyes, mostly hidden by the sudden burst of good humor but nonetheless still there, flickering like the shadow of flames, and Obi-Wan, recalled abruptly to the shock that had prompted the incessant circling of his thoughts back and forth from Anakin’s revelations to Bail, to Bail’s reaction to both those disclosures and to Breha’s death, and thence to Breha’s death, itself, and so secured Anakin’s displeasure with Obi-Wan’s thoughts in the first place, instead sighs and lets himself lean into those hands, his response a quiet but heartfelt murmur. “You know I do, Anakin. Always. Forever.”

That flickering hint of uncertainty fades before Obi-Wan’s steady gaze, Anakin’s grin softening into an actual smile as he notes, “Then I don’t see what the problem is, since I feel the same way about you, love.”

“The problem is that you’re still not taking your own wounds seriously, Anakin. Can you honestly claim that you told Bail about Vader only because you wanted to help him, and not because you still wish to punish yourself?”

Anakin just looks at him for a few moments, his expression rather like that of an animal caught in the glare of a hunter’s light, caught so completely off-guard by the question that he actually recoils a little, snatching his hands back away from Obi-Wan as if from a fire, the color and good humor draining from his face and leaving him looking oddly wan, a sickly, almost gray-green cast spreading across his features until he looks, for an instant, oddly like Bail had, when Obi-Wan caught his first glimpse of him. Finally, shoving himself gracelessly to his feet, stumbling badly in the process, a hand groping for purchase along the tabletop like someone who has suddenly been rendered blind, he gasps, brokenly, “It wasn’t – I didn’t – Bail needed – ”

Obi-Wan rises, swiftly but calmly, pushing the table off to one side to block any attempt Anakin might make at flight away from him and planting himself deliberately in front of him so that he cannot easily push past him, either. Carefully not raising his voice out of a low, soothing near murmur, Obi-Wan nods his head once, acknowledging, “Bail desperately needed our help, Anakin. I would never dispute that. What I’m not yet entirely convinced of is whether or not he needed to be told the essential order of events leading up to Darth Vader’s genesis and true birth, unflinching recited in such unmitigated detail that he would be induced to retch until he vomited up bile,” he then quietly adds. Then, while Anakin is still standing there, looking at him with the same mixture of stricken shock and horror, he reaches out and lays his right hand on Anakin’s nearest arm, sliding his grip down and tugging on the limb a little until he can close his fingers securely around Anakn’s wrist. “I am concerned about your reasons for speaking to Bail about these things, love, because I worry for you. But I don’t think this is a conversation we should be having out in the open, where anyone might wander past and hear. Will you come up with me to our rooms, now?”

Having apparently not thought of the danger of eavesdroppers (whether deliberate or accidental), Anakin half turns his head away from Obi-Wan to let his eyes dart in a panicked circle around the little alcove. Then, apparently reassured that there’s no one close enough to hear them, he shakily gives a resigned nod and lets Obi-Wan lead him out from behind the table, following along wordlessly, pausing when Obi-Wan pauses to politely inform one of the servants that the remains of their meal needs to be attended to and trailing along half a step or so behind him as Obi-Wan guides them up towards their usual suite. Anakin waits until they’ve gone inside and made their way through the sitting room and the more comfortably appointed, less formal den and past the two combination libraries and offices into what had been an almost lavishly furnished, two-bed bedchamber partitioned neatly down most of its center with an elaborately patterned silken screen but is now an even more richly appointed single-bed (the bed easily big enough to comfortably hold at least half a dozen fully-grown adult humans) bedroom Obi-Wan is making as though to pass on through the bedchamber into the room beyond – a surprisingly spacious room, carefully rearranged from its original state to resemble a sort of combination indoor garden and meditation chamber, well-tended plants in enormous decorative urns and graceful planters scattered here and there, around a round reflecting pool with a diameter of two meters and two beautiful fountains with bases of roughly the same size – before he finally acts, determinedly digging in his heels and refusing to be moved, softly but fiercely whispering, “This is far enough, I think.”

“Alright.” Obi-Wan calmly removes his outer robe, hangs it on one of the rather ornate hooks against the wall next to the wardrobe, walks over to Anakin and waits until he finally shrugs out of his outermost layer as well, so Obi-Wan can go hang it next to his own, and then walks over and pulls out one of the room’s plush comfortable chairs so that he can sit down without having any actual furniture between him and Anakin, patiently waiting to see what Anakin will say or do next.

Anakin stands in the center of the room for a moment, hands twitching ever so slightly where they are hanging by his sides, as if he would like to double them over into fists but doesn’t quite dare, before finally, with a defeated sigh that rounds his shoulders and pulls his arms in around himself in a hugging gesture that Obi-Wan recognizes as one of his own attempts to ward off or deal with pain, walking over to claim one of the other chairs, pulling it away from the small table so that he’s facing Obi-Wan directly. His posture remains slumped, though, his upper body slanted forward towards Obi-Wan but also curled down towards the floor, his head bowed in an expression of abject misery down towards the hands Anakin has loosely clasped between his knees. Finding himself staring at the crown of Anakin’s bowed head and oddly reminded of some unhappy memory that he cannot quite immediately place, Obi-Wan finds himself sliding his left ankle down from where he’s automatically crossed it above his right knee almost as soon as he’s finished settling himself into the chair, so that he can plant both of his feet on the ground, instead, and lean towards Anakin as well. Scooting forward slightly in the chair, he reaches out and cups his hands around Anakin’s, sliding his thumbs caressingly along the backs of Anakin’s hands in an attempt to offer comfort, silently reassuring the younger man that he’s here for him.

A fine tremor, originating in the point of contact between their hands, spreads through Anakin’s body until his entire form is shaking, trembling on the edge of his seat. Obi-Wan is a heartbeat away from rising and pushing his way forward between Anakin’s knees, so that he can put his hands to Anakin’s shoulders and lift and push at him until Anakin has /to meet his eyes, when Anakin raises his head, a single tear blazing a glistening track down the side of his face. “I had to tell him, Obi-Wan. I could say it was because Bail deserves to know as much of the truth about his youngest Master as he already does about his longtime friend, including the depths to which said youngest Master is capable of sinking. And it would be true, so far as it goes. But it would just be an excuse. That’s just /a reason, not the reason I had to tell him.”

Obi-Wan tries to raise a hand to Anakin’s cheek, to wipe away that tear, but Anakin has already entwined their fingers, and his hands are both being held to with such strength that he could not get one of them away without struggling for it. So instead he squeezes Anakin’s hands as best he can and asks, his voice as soft and loving as he can make it, “Do you want to tell me what the real reason is, then?”

Quietly, calmly, voice and body now eerily still, Anakin simply tells him, “I need someone to know what I am who won’t try to excuse my faults because of some kind of feeling of affection for me. I need to know if someone who doesn’t love me can accept what I am and not think me a monster.”

“Anakin. You’re not – ”

“I may not be Vader, now, but I’m still the Sith’ari. I’m still capable of becoming Darth Vader, whether I ever do or not. I could still become that kind of monster, if I didn’t have you here with me. If I were ever truly alone. That’s the real trap of what we think of as the Dark Side, you know. You never have anything more than yourself. That’s why I – why Vader – never killed Sidious, you know. Even when the realization finally came that Sidious had deliberately engineered everything, from the essential dissolution of the Kenobi and Skywalker team to the prophetic dreams of Padmé’s death in childbirth to the disastrous attempt of the Jedi Masters to come after and arrest Palpatine for the treason of being Sidious to the catastrophic meeting of former Master and Padawan, in the presence of the one who had become the living embodiment of everything that separated two who should have been inseparable, among the lava fields of Mustafar, and both the action that would break Padmé’s heart and cause her to give up, assuring her death in the wake of giving birth to unsuspected twins, and the maiming that would render Vader forever subservient and safely lesser, in terms of sheer power within the Force, to Sidious. All Vader seemed to have left then was Sidious, and so that is what he clung to. That is what he chose to remain among the realm of the living for. To be with that monster, who at least seemed to want him, still, and was willing to claim him as his own, in spite of everything that he’d been through and all that he’d lost. All that he’d so blindly destroyed or thrown away.” Anakin starts to shake again then, a convulsive full-body shiver that tightens his fingers around Obi-Wan’s far past the point of simple discomfort, the crushing pressure so great that Obi-Wan has to fight not to gasp or otherwise react to the pain. Anakin never notices, though. He’s already withdrawn too far in upon himself to see the telltale of Obi-Wan’s thinned lips. Instead, he continues speaking in that dead voice, adding, “Sidious may have created Vader as carefully as a master jeweler might choose to reveal and strike free one perfect gem from a natural mass of crystal and stone, but the truth remains that such a jewel could never have been brought into the open, thus, were the makings of it not already buried deep at the core of the stone. The potential for Darth Vader is still in me. It is a part of me and it will never go away. And I was made this way, Master – to have such potential for darkness. I am a purposefully fashioned, created being. Darth Plagueis used the Force to influence the midi-chlorians into forming a new life where none would have otherwise ever been, and he made me, deliberately and specifically, to be the Sith’ari. And you love me anyway. In spite of all of that, you love me. I know that you do, though I won’t claim to understand why you do. And if we could go away and just be together someplace where we’d never have to worry about other people ever again, then maybe I wouldn’t be so terrified of the possibility that some part of me still holds the potential to become as much a tyrant, as much a monster, as Vader ever was and could have been. But we’re not and we can’t, Obi-Wan, and so I need to know this. I need to know that it will not automatically damn me in another’s eyes, this fact that I could have and almost inevitably would have become Darth Vader, if not for Padmé’s death during that deceptive attack on Coruscant and your determination to help me deal with her sudden loss and save me from any attempt that the High Council might make to seize upon my relationship with her – such as it was – as an excuse to move against me, to move against us, in some way, if the other Council Masters were to ever find out about it. Bail doesn’t really know me well enough, as a person, to love me in any way. I’ve never been much more to him than a convenient way to keep you from brooding, after Qui-Gon’s death, and a far too time-consuming personal project of yours with the unfortunate knack of getting into trouble and attracting far too much danger essentially everywhere I go. He’s never had any awe for me, either as the supposed Chosen One or the so-called Hero With No Fear. And Bail needed to be shocked out of his self-absorption with his own pain, anyway. He was locked in a downward spiral and about to crash. I knew that being spoken to like that, being told about what would have happened with Vader like that, would shock him out of making that nosedive. And I thought that maybe if I could tell Bail about Vader, without making him turn away from me, then I’d know if – ”

Utterly aghast, Obi-Wan cuts Anakin off before he can finish the train of thought, demanding, “And so you’re back to testing people, now, deliberately pushing at them over and over and over again, trying to make them break and either shove back or back away from you, so that you can find what you think are the limits of their love or their acceptance for you? Anakin, what did I tell you, after you pulled that stunt with the garbage pits races that could’ve gotten you expelled from the Order, if not for the need to send someone else to Zonama Sekot?”

Flinching hard enough that his hands go lax, Anakin ducks his head down and hunches his shoulders as if in an attempt to evade a blow, gaze once again fixed firmly on the floor. His voice barely above a whisper, he then replies, “That pushing at people until they break to find out just how strong they might be at one particular moment isn’t a truly effective gauge of actual strength of character, isn’t an efficient use of potential resources, since it tends to alienate whoever it is that you’ve been trying to test, and isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a way to keep a low profile that won’t draw the High Council’s notice.”

Gently disengaging his right hand from Anakin’s, Obi-Wan reaches out to him, cupping his hand at the base of Anakin’s neck and gently tugging until finally Anakin has to raise his head back up, eyes watering dangerously as he meets Obi-Wan’s gaze. “And do you remember, too, what we decided, in the end?”

“Yes, Master, but – ”

His heart wants to shatter in its setting, at that, and one hand automatically tightens a little around the nape of Anakin’s neck while the other firmly squeezes around Anakin’s folded hands, vainly trying to provide some kind of comfort (though he can’t be sure whether it’s for himself or Anakin), but Obi-Wan still forces himself to cut Anakin off, saying, in a low, warning voice, “Anakin – ”

“Alright, Obi-Wan, yes! I remember, okay? I generally remember any and every thing that you tell me! My memory may not quite be eidetic, but I can remember pretty much whatever I hear or see. And if you ask me, I’m not the only one who could benefit from remembering that specific lecture about trust!” Anakin snaps back, anguished expression morphing into something more closely resembling a scowl.

Startled, Obi-Wan immediately tries to protest that they’re talking about Anakin and not Obi-Wan. “Anakin – ”

Anakin tears himself away, though, thrusting himself to his feet in an almost violent eruption of motion, explosively insisting, “/No/, Obi-Wan! No and no! You can’t tell me to trust in myself and in the Force when you hardly ever trust yourself! You can’t tell me to have faith in my own abilities and inherent goodness when you never have any real faith in yourself! And you can’t tell me to believe that the presence of the Force within all things, no matter how minuscule that presence might be, tends to incline sentient beings towards life and light, and that the Light they carry within them will, if properly tended, always recognize the Light within me and know me as like-minded, as kin, as an ally, as someone worthy of friendship and love, either! Not when you’re the way you are and think and behave the way you do! It’s not right and it’s not fair to try to tell me to think like that and behave that way when you won’t do so, yourself! And I know we’re going in circles over all of this and I’m sorry/, Obi-Wan, you’ve no idea how sorry I am, but I can’t just let this go! I’ve been letting you talk me into mostly letting this go for years, now, and I know that it’s not going to just go away or get better on its own! And it hurts you, Obi-Wan. It hurts you, and so it hurts me, and I’m /tired of it. I can’t just let it go anymore!”

Obi-Wan finds himself on his feet and embracing Anakin with no clear memory of how he got there, Anakin’s back and shoulders shaking helplessly under his hands, and automatically holds him tighter, pulling his head down against his shoulder and turning his face against his loose curls, the silken hairs tickling slightly against his left cheekbone. Obi-Wan presses a gentle kiss to those curls, unable to think of anything else to do or to say (because Anakin is, after all, entirely right. It’s not right or fair for Obi-Wan to try to insist that Anakin amend the faults that his time as a slave and his treatment by the majority of the Jedi Order have encouraged when he seems unable to attend to the exact same kinds of flaws in himself, engendered in him, as in so many other Jedi, by a lifetime of service within an Order ruled by an impossible Code), and Anakin sags against him, arms coming up around Obi-Wan’s back to hold him tightly enough to let Anakin burrow in even closer, pressing against his former Master as if he’d like nothing better than to find a way to climb entirely beneath Obi-Wan’s skin and curl up tight inside and never come back out again. Obi-Wan presses as close as he can, trying to find something to say, rejecting one empty platitude after another, when his wildly milling thoughts catch hold of a part of what Anakin has just said and abruptly snag on it, the words “I know we’re going in circles over all of this” playing and replaying in his mind, nagging at him and teasing at the edges of his awareness as if to draw attention to some elusive second meaning, gradually demanding more and more of his attention until finally, with an abruptness that pulls an involuntary gasp out of him, Obi-Wan is able to puzzle out just what it is that’s so oddly apt about the words. And when he does, a startled oath, “Stars’ end!” instantly slips its way past his lips, Obi-Wan being far too busy mentally kicking himself for not seeing what has just come so clear to him before now to keep a better watch on his language.

Anakin’s body stiffens slightly in his arms, a muffled and hesitant, “Obi-Wan?” recalling him from both his shock and his preoccupation.

“No, it’s alright, Anakin. You haven’t said or done anything wrong. It’s just that I suddenly realized we’ve been overlooking something – something extremely important – and we’ve been suffering for our oversight. It’s the bond, Anakin,” Obi-Wan replies, his words nearly tripping over each other in his eagerness to get the explanation out.

With the utter blankness of complete incomprehension, Anakin simply asks, “I’m sorry?”