Chapter Text
But rarely do things end so simply. This story is no different.
And so we find ourselves on the observation deck of the Separatist flagship Invisible Hand. Looking on as one Sith Lord sits bound to a chair, and the other paces before him, awaiting a fight. One of them knows what is to come, the other does not, but soon it will not matter anyway.
“Be still, my apprentice,” murmured the Sith. “Your pacing has always been an irksome shortcoming.”
“Forgive me, my Master,” the apprentice replied. “I am merely anticipating our victory.”
The Sith Lord hummed. “Is that all?”
“Yes,” he said, then gave a low exhale. “Well—”
“Don’t tell me now you have misgivings about your role.”
“No, Master. Never.” The apprentice’s eyes were fixed on the blue holo-images of Kenobi and Skywalker, pursued by destroyer droids as they made for the turbolifts. “I am only reflecting on how…unfortunate it is, that Skywalker is the one we must salvage from the deplorable heap of Jedi indoctrination.”
The Sith Lord turned his head ever so—the restraints on his chair would allow no further movement.
“You are again suggesting that we substitute Kenobi, then, for the plan.”
“Yes,” the apprentice confirmed. “You cannot deny he is nearly as skilled, and doubly disciplined. And his integrity is unparalleled—certainly his cooperation would rally the galaxy to our—”
“His integrity is in fact the reason he cannot be permitted to survive. My insensible apprentice, have you not seen this? I foolishly allowed you to entertain this possibility once—on Geonosis long ago. Did you not see, then, his inability to be turned? The man is too convicted of his ideals, of Jedi ideals, convinced he serves the will of the Force itself.”
The Sith Lord’s tone was even, but he still found himself exasperated at having to explain this yet again. How exhausting, to continually surround oneself with individuals so pitifully imbecile.
“Kenobi must die. Today. At your hand. There is no room for inapt sentimentality.”
To this the apprentice merely nodded, his expression blank. Beneath it, the Sith Lord still sensed a degree of disturbance; the old man was still irresolute in the finality of the plan, after all this time. Fine—so be it then. He could regret it for the rest of his days, so long as he played his part. The rest of his days wasn’t so long now, in any case.
The apprentice returned his gaze to the security footage, which now showed the two Jedi as they reached the zenith of turbolift levels. He stared a moment longer at the older of the two—Kenobi was smiling as he nodded Skywalker’s way, saying something the flickering holo failed to record. And for a moment, the apprentice did not see the greatest threat to the rise of the Empire. He did not see the man he had slated to die, or even the enemy-turned-ally he’d encountered on a desert planet not so long ago.
He saw a boy he may have known, had things been different. Had he chosen another way.
The two holographic figures moved down the corridor, and through the door came a swell in the Force, one that always preceded the arrival of the two. The apprentice powered down the holoprojector.
“They arrive. Go, now—withdraw,” said the Sith Lord.
And then, as he watched the apprentice turn to go, he allowed himself one, brief, sinister smile.
“Fulfill your destiny, Darth Tyranus.”
•·················•·················•
They were riding the Jedi transport back to the Senate building now. Master Windu had met them at the landing site—where the Chancellor had touted Anakin’s ‘most impressive victory over the formidable Count Dooku,’ leaving out, of course, the part Anakin didn’t want to think about. In any case, his clothes were scorched through from the blaze of a lightsaber duel and the crash-landing of a Star Destroyer, and he could smell the sweat that soaked his inner tunics. Beside him, he suspected Obi-Wan felt the same—or, given the mean bump to the head he’d gotten from Dooku, probably much worse.
“You’re pensive,” Obi-Wan said now, watching Anakin gaze pointedly out the window. “A bit subdued for a man who just eliminated the Separatist leader in mortal combat.”
Combat. Right. Anakin swallowed at the taste of the truth on the back of his tongue—that it hadn’t been combat at all.
He’d been caught up in it all—the heat of the moment, the heat in his chest, the heat of blade against blade. But most of all, he had leaned into the thing inside him he’d tried his whole life not to name. The fear. The rage. And had realized it not to be what he’d believed it all these years—a shortcoming—but a weapon.
“Kill him. Kill him now.”
And with that ounce of permission, Anakin had allowed it to become one.
But beside the guilt that dripped through his veins even now, there was something else that echoed within him. Dooku, down on his knees, his hands severed completely and his neck between two crisscross lightsabers. The last words he’d uttered.
“We think we choose. We think we are in control, that we are not the tool but the wielder. But I told you the truth once, Skywalker, and the truth it remains—” He swallowed, and his throat nearly brushed the twin blades. “Free will is but destiny disguised in poor choices.”
And with a fire in his chest, Anakin had made his.
Now, he just looked at Obi-Wan and forced a smile. “It’s just catching up with me, I guess. What about you? Your head—”
“I’m alright,” Obi-Wan replied. “Though I can’t help but feel as though I’ve dodged a blaster bolt of some kind.”
That brought Anakin’s attention more fully to the present. “What do you mean? You must have a nasty concussion, the way your skull slammed against the durasteel…”
“Yes, I’m certain I do. But—well…”
Obi-Wan stroked his beard. Now it was his turn to look thoughtfully out the transport window.
“Dooku threw me down the stairs. You saw that. But then—well, he could’ve finished me off. I was on the ground, you’d just been knocked back. Some well-aimed Force lightning or a saber strike and I’d have been done for.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over his knee. “But all he did was push me down and ensure I was out of the way.”
Anakin felt his eyebrows knit together. “You think he spared you on purpose.”
“Oh, I don’t know. And maybe the concussion is muddling my memory, who can say,” Obi-Wan said. “But no matter how it came to be, I suppose I should be grateful. Especially for you, my friend.”
Anakin made himself smile again before turning to watch the airbuses and speeders whir through the Coruscant sky. Trying to ignore the tightness in his chest.
But it only ever grew.
The time passed in a whirlwind—Padmé’s news, Obi-Wan’s (or, as his Master would have it, the Council’s) treasonous request, his appointment to the Council and their subsequent refusal to send him after Grievous. Obi-Wan had walked with him back to their quarters, quiet after their argument had settled down. Then left him with a silent apology on his face, and a squeeze of the shoulder.
And so he found himself now, rummaging through the upper shelves of his closet. Choking on dust. And fighting the urge to throw any and all of his belongings at the nearest wall.
They can’t ask that of me, he thought. I can’t betray the Chancellor. He—he might be the only person who could actually understand what I feel right now. I don’t even understand what I feel right now. And it’s not like I can tell Obi-Wan that Padmé’s going to die in childbirth, as much as he might have an answer…
A puff of dust slid off the shelf as Anakin pulled down a stack of old cloaks he’d outgrown. He coughed into his elbow, then tossed them across the room.
No. I have to do this alone. I always have.
If only he knew what “this” was.
He found it eventually—after pushing aside a load of old textbooks from his Padawan classes, ancient robes and dozens of spare parts, Anakin unearthed what he’d been searching for. He picked up the tiny orb and turned it over in his palm, running his thumb along the smooth surface.
It was a river stone. The one Obi-Wan had given to him when he’d turned thirteen, just as Qui-Gon had once gifted it to Obi-Wan.
Anakin felt a strange ache in his throat as he closed his fist around the stone. He’d meant to give it to Ahsoka, but had somehow never gotten around to it. So many things to regret, now.
But he could still pass it on, now that— Anakin smiled to himself, in spite of everything. Now that I’m going to be a father.
He shoved the river stone in his pocket and climbed down from the chair on which he stood, reaching down for a box of transistors to return to the closet. But as he went to push it back where it belonged, he found it didn’t fit right. Something was wedged back there in the corner. Anakin moved the box aside and slid his hand along the shelf.
The culprit was small, and stuck between where the shelf met the wall. With a little wiggling, he yanked it out and stepped down into better lighting to see what he’d found.
Hmm. A datastick. He couldn’t imagine what might be on it—certainly he’d owned thousands of these in his lifetime. And yet something egged him toward his datapad anyway. He plopped down on the bed and leaned back against the headboard, and stuck the datastick into the port.
The files began to load one-by-one. They were named with standard calendar dates—nothing unusual.
Except for the fact that these dates were from years before Anakin had become a Jedi. Some even before he’d been born.
He clicked the first file and watched the words appear in full:
Our mission to Florrum has, thus far, been a disaster. My Padawan is young and eager, but his inexperience nearly cost us the negotiations. I may have given him too much freedom too soon—perhaps he should be told to listen more, for now, rather than to speak. He is too forward. Too headstrong.
Anakin’s eyes narrowed. These weren’t his files at all. Obi-Wan’s maybe? Forward and headstrong certainly sounded like Anakin as a Padawan. But he and Obi-Wan had never gone to Florrum during his apprenticeship. How could that—
And then it dawned on him.
Oh. Oh no.
He tore through the rest of the files with a voracity he hadn’t shown toward any bit of literature in his life—Obi-Wan is willful and prone to attachment. Our interpersonal styles clash in nearly every way…
Obi-Wan shows a propensity for strength in the Unifying Force, but his awareness of the Living Force leaves much to be desired.
Obi-Wan saved many lives today on Jakku—
Our partnership grows evermore strained by the day.
Obi-Wan shows great potential in his use of the Soresu style, yet favors my own form of Ataru—
Mace has suggested more frequent joint meditation to solidify our bond as Master and Padawan. Let us hope we meet success, lest our partnership grow increasingly frayed…
Obi-Wan is furious with me, and by the Force I am rather furious with myself.
…we have been assigned a mission to Pijal, and the timing could not possibly be worse. My Padawan reserves a particular fury toward me in light of my recent…lie of omission, and I find myself wondering if now is the time to end it…
Obi-Wan went over my head. He went to the Council and insisted that I am the one sabotaging the mission—
We have found common ground. I have turned down my seat on the Council—
Obi-Wan saved my life again.
My Padawan is stubborn and insistent on the infallibility of his own ideals…
Obi-Wan will be a much wiser man that I.
Obi-Wan is brave.
—he is foolish.
—he is wise.
—and I was wrong. He will be a Jedi. The best among us.
We found a boy on Tatooine.
Anakin stopped scrolling and stared at the words as though if he blinked, they’d disappear. The entries stopped there. There were no more files on the datastick. But it was here—it was all here, everything Dooku had promised, everything Obi-Wan had insisted didn’t exist. He marveled at the impossibility of it, and yet—he stared up at the closet shelf from which the stick had come. And remembered that this hadn’t always been his room.
Once upon a time, it had belonged to Obi-Wan’s Master.
Anakin was so busy staring at the string of words on the screen that he didn’t hear the door to his quarters slide open.
“Anakin, what in the galaxy are you doing?”
He snapped the datapad shut and threw it on the ground. Good. Real natural.
“Obi-Wan. Hi! Nothing. Just reading a report.”
“And did that report require you to throw all your belongings across the room like a youngling?” Obi-Wan said. “I feel like I’ve gone back in time…”
Anakin sat up in the bed and glanced around his room. Oh, right. That.
He cleared his throat. “Just looking for something,” he said, standing up. “Don’t worry, I found it.”
“Ah.” Obi-Wan looked like he wanted to say something else—on any other day, he probably would’ve made another joke at Anakin’s expense or even his own, a lightness in his tone he reserved primarily for his former Padawan.
But not today.
“Well,” Obi-Wan said, backing toward the door. “I just came to tell you I’ll be leaving tomorrow. For Utapau.”
“Oh.” Anakin wanted to look Obi-Wan in the eye, but found he couldn’t. “They located Grievous, then.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “Anakin, about before—”
“Don’t try to—let’s just—” Anakin began, then exhaled. “Not now.”
Now it was Obi-Wan who didn’t seem to know where to look. “Very well,” he said, eyes settling on a pile of clothes in the corner of Anakin’s room before they found him again. “But please know, Anakin…”
His voice trailed off. Like he was searching for the words—something his old Master rarely needed to do. But Anakin never did hear what he was going to say. Because just then, his comm buzzed.
A message from the Chancellor, a summons. To meet him at the Galaxies Opera.
“I have to go.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “I should be leaving anyway.”
He started for the door, leaving Anakin alone amid the mess of his room. And he didn’t know what exactly prompted him to say it—maybe it was his old Master’s jokes about his messy childhood room, maybe it was the stress headache squeezing his temples, maybe it was the words from Qui-Gon’s journals still echoing in his ears. But he swallowed. And called after Obi-Wan.
“You are, you know—the best among us.” Anakin made himself look at Obi-Wan then, as he turned back around. “Go end the war.”
A puff of air came from Obi-Wan’s lungs—nearly a laugh, but not nearly enough. He bid him farewell, a strange look on his face, before leaving Anakin alone again in the middle of his room.
Anakin exhaled, feeling as though he’d been holding his breath. Then, when he was certain he’d heard the door close once more, he reached for the discarded datapad.
The words still flickered there. Qui-Gon’s writing, encoded onto a datastick that had nearly been lost to time. Anakin chewed the inside of his cheek. He could call Obi-Wan back in here. Show him the journals, or just hand him the whole datastick and be done with it.
There were so many things he could do.
Obi-Wan is wise, Qui-Gon had said.
What about Obi-Wan? Padmé had said. You told me once that he is as wise as Master Yoda and as powerful as Master Windu. Couldn’t he help us?
I’m not sure he’s on my side, Anakin had replied.
Obi-Wan is foolish, Qui-Gon claimed.
And what was Obi-Wan, really? Anakin swallowed and wondered if he’d ever really know.
He returned to the file list on the datastick, his eyes scanning down the documents. His hand hovered over the button—transmit files—without pressing it.
Then he made a decision. And whether it was an act of spite or of mercy, he didn’t care to say.
He pressed delete.
You know where the story goes from here—to a landing platform where goodbye, old friend becomes goodbye forever, to a final battle and the Order’s last stand, to twin blue blades turned on one another. To an anguished cry and a lingering question, one that will haunt them both—
Did I really know you at all?
Both will find an ache in the answer. The answer—yes. I knew you, once.
A long time ago.
And so the story ends where it began. A boy stands among the dunes and mesas of Tatooine. Behind him, though much further, a hooded man. One who has sworn his life to the memory of someone he used to know, and the legacy left behind.
And still further, beyond where either of them can see, there is another. A cloaked figure, who from a distance looks solid and opaque and real.
But who, upon closer examination, is faintly tinted blue.
The three figures have yet to speak—at least in their present form. But you know how that story goes, too, the one that is yet to come.
For now, this is all there is—all that is left. A child. A guardian. A ghost.
And the ties that bind them.