Chapter Text
Anakin looks over his son while the crackling of the fire that engulfs his old body echoes in the distance.
Luke looks so much like Anakin would if he spent more time on Tatooine, the suns preserving the golden hair he had as a child. He can't look at Leia for too long, he doesn't understand how he didn't notice it before, but she’s a striking image of Padme.
He doesn’t know why he’s here, why he can watch over them like this, after everything he’s done. Luke was the one that saved him. Master Yoda said it's a last selfless act that can defy the will of the Force. Anakin is still not convinced, was saving his son an act of selflessness or the exact opposite?
He senses another presence near the fire, and he knows it’s Obi-Wan without having to look. They haven’t spoken, not even looked at each other. Emotions work differently in this state, he can feel the old hatred, the anger, the confusion, and lastly regret, but it’s like hearing someone talk over a comlink— detached and far away. Maybe it’s better like this, or maybe he’s not focused enough.
Time works strangely as well, he cannot tell how many days or even weeks pass in the living world. Master Yoda teaches him how to manifest his spirit in different places, he visits his old house on Tatooine, but it feels like an empty shell that holds way too many memories for him. He visits Naboo as well and all but flees as all he can think about is Padme.
He still doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now.
Master Qui-Gon speaks with him sometimes, about death, about life, it still sounds as confusing as it did when he was 9 years old, and he was learning about midi-chlorians. Qui-Gon doesn’t have an ethereal body like the rest of them. The first time he heard him he thought the Force was starting to play tricks on him or even explain why any of this happened. But of course, the Force doesn’t speak, and he’s got only himself to blame for everything.
Luke is searching for other force-sensitives. He would teach them the ways of the Force and a new generation of Jedi would emerge out of the ashes. Luke sometimes reminds him of Obi-Wan, not that he still believes what he accused Padme of all those years ago. The Force radiates around Luke like a beacon of hope and warmth. It makes something inside Anakin ache.
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Obi-Wan is trying to avoid Anakin, he thinks it’s quite obvious, even Qui-Gon commented on it, which of course he would. Maybe it’s the fact that the Force decided to torment him one last time by having Anakin’s ethereal form that of before he fell. He cannot even look at him without flinching.
They train and meditate with Master Yoda. The sky looks more daunting when there’s no boundary around you.
He catches Anakin lingering around Luke most of the time. Luke doesn’t call them much nowadays, he’s been busy training and traveling. It makes Obi-Wan wonder sometimes, how things could have been different. He feels like he stole Anakin’s place guiding Luke while alive, but then again the boy wasn’t one to listen much, not unlike his father.
Obi-Wan is lost in old memories once again when he gets caught off guard by an intense gaze towards him. He glances back without thinking and of course, it’s Anakin. Anakin looks at him curiously and kind of apprehensively, his eyebrows drawing in closer, and he almost looks like he wants to speak. Obi-Wan disappears first because he’s a coward, and he cannot look much more at him without feeling like a disappointment.
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Anakin is getting restless by the afterlife. Isn’t it supposed to be peaceful? Aren’t you supposed to feel serene and finally move on? So why is it that every time he looks at his son he feels as if there's a hole inside him that’s eating him up? He shouldn’t be the one to be here, Padme should have met them, both Luke and Leia. He doesn’t deserve any of this.
Anakin wonders if spirits can go Dark, maybe he’s cursed to suffer for eternity.
The hole inside feels larger when he finally looks at Obi-Wan. He appears like he did when he died back at the Death Star, tired and defeated but somehow still the stoic image of a Jedi. Obi-Wan has a troubled look on his features, he probably agrees that Anakin shouldn’t be here. Everything they’ve ever and never said hangs in the air between them, they can no longer feel each other’s emotions even if Anakin wished they could. Obi-Wan disappears after that leaving Anakin staring at the empty space where he used to be.
Spirits do not sleep or rest so Anakin spends the next few what feel like days meditating. Sometimes he feels he’s near Luke, other times he feels like he’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Master Yoda says meditation helps you clear your mind and makes it easier to feel the will of the Force. Anakin was never good at it, and he doesn’t know if it helped in his decision or not, but he knows he needs to talk with Obi-Wan.
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Obi-Wan is watching over the sand dunes on Tatooine from the top of the cliff near his old home as the two suns slowly approach the horizon. There was a time he felt suffocated in this place, this planet. But as years passed he got used to the way the mornings went from cool to hot, how it appeared far larger as the horizon lay flat and impossibly far in the distance.
That’s where Anakin finds him. Obi-Wan isn’t sure how he found him, as far as he was aware no one knew of this place other than Luke and Owen. Could Luke have told him?
“I need to speak with you,” Anakin says, locking eyes with him. His voice is one Obi-Wan hasn’t heard in ages, not the heavy baritone Vader held under the suit but Anakin’s voice, higher and with a light uncertain tone to it. Obi-Wan averts his eyes.
“What’s in the past stays there. We shouldn’t dwell on it,” Obi-Wan replies and immediately feels like a hypocrite, he hasn’t done anything else ever since he died than think about the past.
Anakin is stubborn as Anakin is and manifests in front of Obi-Wan as soon as he turns the other way.
“If that’s it then why are you avoiding me?” Anakin asks without missing a beat. He doesn’t sound angry, but there’s an urgency in his voice.
“I’m not avoiding you.” Obi-Wan sighs as the lie sounds bad even to himself. “There’s not much to say, anyway. Nothing that could change anything.”
“I’ve heard better lies,” Anakin says, searching his look.
“I’m sure you have.” Obi-Wan can feel the tension between them but the more he looks into his old Padawan’s eyes the more he can remember them turning yellow, flames reflected deep in them. He blinks fast trying to wrest the image away and walks right past Anakin, uncaring if he’s avoiding him once more.
Anakin reaches for Obi-Wan’s arm, “Would you just let me-”
“Anakin, please-” Obi-Wan twists around and pushes his hand away.
None of them get to finish their sentences.
There’s a sudden jolt of energy and Obi-Wan can no longer hear the windy evening at the top of the cliff as the world melts into silence, and everything fades to black. It feels a lot like it did when he died.
Then the Force fills the emptiness all around him.
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