Chapter Text
Anakin was feeling- well, not much. He was aware he should be feeling bad for what he had done to Jango, what he had made Obi-Wan watch; it had been necessary, and it had been a little frightening, even for him. Unfortunately, connecting with the Force at that level tended to leave him a little - disconnected from reality. Half his heart was still on that soft silver plane of reality, where time got all balled up and spooled back out in lazy coils. He pinched the inside of his left wrist with his metal right hand, trying to ground himself, and turned his attention to his companions.
Jango’s eyes were golden, blown wider than the sun, but Obi-Wan’s were narrowed. Anakin felt fairly certain that Jango was still rebooting, so he let himself focus on the man that had been his Master.
Whose hand was hovering between his communicator and his saber.
“I wouldn't,” said Anakin, as calm as if he was commenting on the weather. Obi-Wan shuddered, a little, in a way that probably wasn’t visual if you weren’t Anakin. Anakin had never really followed the rules for normal Force users.
“Why not, Darth,” said Obi-Wan, in a voice halfway between his usual smooth semi-flirtation and a wounded cat hissing at an opponent. “Would you simply have to kill me?”
Anakin sighed. “I suppose you saw-”
“Everything. You were projecting.”
“Not intentionally,” said Anakin, feeling the echo of a conversation he had had many times before. He could almost see himself off by the door, age nine or ten or twelve or twenty, whining the same words at his Master.
Obi-Wan winced, glancing in the same direction. A thought occurred to Anakin. “I'm still projecting.”
“Well-” Obi-Wan paused. He was slipping into his teaching voice, and seemed very unsure how to process that in relation to the supposed Sith in front of him. Anakin felt a wave of fondness as Obi-Wan rallied and continued “-yes, you are. For a master of the force-”
“I'm not-”
“Oh, like someone who isn't a master of the Dark Side could've done that to him-”
They both paused to look at Jango, who had slid to the floor like an abandoned pudding cup. The Mandalorian waved a languid hand. “By all means, continue talking over the man you just- just-”
“Purged of a Sith toxin,” said Anakin, helpfully. He flashed a conciliatory smile at Jango, and when he flinched, tried again - with his more monstrous mouth tucked away. It was so hard to remember how to be a physical being, after being one with the Force. “You were poisoned long before we met, I’m afraid. I couldn’t remove it before now - not when the clones were still unsafe. I had to protect them, first. That was the mission the Force gave me,” he added as an aside, although Obi-Wan didn't seem convinced.
Jango looked ill. “I've known you since- since just after Galidraan. That long? These Sith have had me in their clutches for that long?”
Anakin… decided not to mention that no, he had not in fact met Jango in his brief stint in chains after the battle of Galidraan. Anakin had, in fact, met him on Kamino. He had been a tiny bit ruthless in using the Sith-inflicted memory gaps to wiggle his way into his position, and he had somewhat ruthlessly decided, unilaterally, that the Force had probably wanted him to focus on the clones rather than on Jango’s mental health. The battle of Galidraan was the first step to Dooku falling into darkness, and removed the united mandalorian faction from Palpatine’s dejarik board. Jango’s dismay was based in truth, from a certain point of view.
“The Force sent you?” said Obi-Wan, dragging anakin back to the present and away from examining his own dubious morality. Anakin was always eager to ignore his own dubious morality.
Anakin perked back up, and laughed a little. “C’mon now, Kenobi, you watch me do all that and doubt my deep connection to the Force?” Mimicking his master in a way that made the young knight across from him visibly confused, Anakin added: “search your feelings, you know it to be true.”
Obiwan didn't shut his eyes, but they did go vacant. Anakin obligingly spent a few moments bent down beside Jango teaching him wound care for soul scars, something he - as a dubiously embodied wandering soul of a former Sith Lord - was uniquely qualified to discuss.
When Obi-Wan refocused, he grimaced.“You're still hiding things from me.”
Anakin didn't dignify that with a response - he had too many to choose from. ‘Of course I am, Master.’ ‘You wouldn't believe my explanation if i tried.’ ‘I've been doing that since I was nine standard.’ Instead, he extended his flesh hand for a shake. “You can call me Vae, if having two Skywalker’s is a bit much.”
Obi-Wan gave a head tilt of acknowledgment. “A unique name.”
Anakin shrugged, standing up from beside Jango and fixing his clothes. “Mij found it for me. They needed something less wordy than Trainer Skywalker.”
Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. “Named by a Mandalorian. What next, Master Skywalker?”
Anakin stopped moving. “Will you stop calling me that?”
Obi-Wan, being Obi-Wan, had to push a little further. “You have clearly mastered the Force, even if I disagree with your methods, and I’ve seen no reason to doubt you’ve mastered yourself.”
There was a sharp knock at the door. Anakin, still more connected to the Force than his feet, didn’t bother fumbling for the peephole - he could feel Mij Gilamar from a much greater distance than some feeble duraplast. He turned quickly to Obi-Wan. “Contact the Council. Tell them what we’ve spoken of, get them to send Shaak on the first cruiser they have-”
The knock returned, louder. “-once she’s in hyperspace, we can tell the Kaminese, and then you and I can head for Coruscant-”
Jango was now warily eyeing the door, knowing full well that a Mandalorian in a rampage was unlikely to wait for much longer. “-and I can debrief the Council in full. They can do what they want with me. It’s not like I’m going to be in this world for much longer.”
The door opened just in time for the medic to hear that last sentence. Anakin, in his years on Kamino, had seen Mij Gilamar look affectionate, angry, determined, deadly, parental and paranoid.
Never before had he seen an expression that looked quite so scared.
In came proof he had in fact not - Mij, in full gear and on a rampage. unfortunatrly, they wouldnt have time for a full spar into sex.
Mij marched him to their quarters like a court martial, sat on the edge of the nearly unusued bed, and stared at Anakin, who stood like a not-quite-invited ghost an arms length away.
They had started out as seperate quarters, connected by a shared door like a hotel suite, but over the years things had started to migrate - a jumper here, one of the kids notebooks there - until it made more sense to treat the rooms as a suite. Their quarters. The one place on Kamino Anakin could be more or less honest.
The less part of that equation was biting at him now, as Mij stared at Anakin like he could unravel the mystery by eyesight alone.
“You're a liar,” he said, slowly.
“I am.”
“I know what a Sith is. You’re a pacifist, I know that, and after today- a murderer?”
“All true.”
“You've never once been honest with me. Never once. I've told you-”
Mij’s voice broke, and Anakin’s heart with it, for however much was left. “Secrets. I've valued that trust.”
“But not returned it.”
“No.”
“You're an asshole, Skywalker.”
“That's never been in doubt.”
The moment stretched like taffy, like gum, like the soles of his boots had melted in place and he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t. Anakin Skywalker was a bit of a coward, underneath being the Hero With No Fear. He craved being wanted too much to ever tell the full truth, and this is what it cost him. He wouldn’t leave now. He didn’t know how.
Eventually, Mij sighed. “You’ve never given me a reason to doubt your commitment to the kids, either.”
Anakin shrugged, feeling small. “They’re what I came for. What I stayed for.”
Mij gave a bitter laugh, tipping his head back with the force of it. He had a very nice neck, Anakin noted with some distraction. “If it was just for the kids, why’d you get drunk on my couch?”
This was an opportunity for levity. Anakin could feel how easy it would be to take it, and ignored it anyway. “Mij, I’m a selfish man,” he said, and teetered for a second as Mij nodded a little. He continued slowly, then all at once, like boulders off a cliff. “I always have been. I want things, and what I have I hoard, I fight for, I do anything to protect. I've been here ten years. Those kids are mine - all of them, not just the ones I've been able to protect, and I'll carry those I couldn't as I walk on, but - I am selfish. You think a selfish man can stay focused on only his goals for a decade?”
Mij’s gaze left his. It seemed to drift to their hands, and stay there, for a long time. Anakin wondered what he saw. Anakin’s right hand was metal, timeless in the way mechanisms often were to those who did not study them; Anakin could see anachronism when he stared, but doubted anyone else could. Mij’s hands were just as nicked as any proud warriors, with burns from laser scalpels and slag both. Anakin’s flesh hand bore no such scars, but he could still feel them.
Mij began to fiddle with his bracer. Anakin made to step back - he knew very little about Mandalorian armor tradition, but he knew the taking on and off was sacred - but Mij held up a palm. “Take this. You need at least one hand that works reliably.”
Anakin was confused, but he shot back. “You've never complained before.”
Mij shook his head with a smile in the corner of his lips. “Come back to me.”
Anakin sobered. His words to Obi-Wan hung in the room, suddenly, still true, still looming: I’m going to be in this world for much longer . “I can't promise that, Mij.”
“I know,” said the healer, scooting forward to secure the armored bracer before looking back up at Anakin. “Try anyway.”
“I'll try,” said Anakin, the words like ash in his mouth. He looked at Mij, really looked at him. He wore medics armored boots, which had once been standard issue but were now decorated in silver starbursts, geometric green patterns climbing up to his knees. They contained, he knew from listening to Mij complain, support struts for long surgeries, long days on the march. His star-iron chestplate (that Obi-Wan had finally deigned to inform him was known as beskar to the wider galaxy) contained an orange and silver swirl, dotted with tiny pink buds, looking like nothing more or less than a Tattooine sunset. He wore no thigh plates, but an armorweave kama that allowed more movement with some protection, decorated at the edges with the beads their kids had sent back from adventure. His one remaining bracer still had the weld lines where Anakin had repaired it more than once.
This man, as Anakin looked on him now with immense fondness - this man existed as a reflection of the time Anakin had spent on Kamino. He could feel a tugging in his breastbone and knew, through the Force senses Basic had no words for, that his time here was nearly through. If Anakin stepped through time again, would this Mij cease to be? Would he walk to a new world, see this same careworn face, and have it not recognise him?
He felt hollow. Mij could read it on his face. "Cmon, Vae. We've raised warriors. You think there's anywhere you can march on to that I won't follow?"
Anakin swallowed heavily, and did not respond.