Chapter Text
Obi-Wan is absorbed in filing reports. At least, he is pretending to be. He knows from long experience that the way to get Anakin to do what Obi-Wan wants is to pretend he either doesn’t want Anakin to do it or doesn’t care either way. Anakin suspects the ploy more frequently with the first method—especially as he’s grown older and become a renowned tactician in his own right—so its usefulness has diminished somewhat. Therefore, Obi-Wan carefully absorbs himself in his datapad and does his best to exude serenity. If he really is engaged in his reports, that is what Anakin should expect to find. It is also an attempt to subtly nudge the Force atmosphere in the room into something more peaceful than the mess that is Anakin’s Force presence at the moment.
He shoves away the guilt of ‘how did I not notice this?’ and ‘it’s my fault for letting this get so bad’. He knows Anakin best. He should have seen his partner’s deteriorating state long before now, if not physically, then in the Force. Obi-Wan hadn’t, because the change has been so gradually insidious that he has always been able to put off the growing signs in favor of more immediate battles—often literal ones. There’s no time to worry about the cracks in everyone’s facades when the lightsabers are swinging and the blaster bolts flying.
Still, he—regrets.
He may have expressed more of his thoughts on the topic than strictly necessary when he updated Captain Rex. Especially the part about the painkillers. That isn’t something he had intended to share with anyone or discuss ever again. He is aware that the GAR in general have a rampant problem with drug—prescription and otherwise—and alcohol abuse in the same way he is aware that Anakin and Senator Amidala were more than casual acquaintances. That is, he tries to stay just aware enough to monitor the situation while maintaining plausible deniability. He might not approve, but he will protect them how he can. For the clones especially the consequences could be . . . disastrous. He has heard the whispers about what happens to ‘defective’ clones.
But lives also depend on the trust between Anakin and those under his command. Obi-Wan needs to be more careful now than ever to maintain Anakin’s status as a capable leader. Yet here he is blabbing all his partner’s secrets. His only consolation is that Rex is loyal to the core. He can’t take back what he said now, so it’s just one more thing to add to his growing heap of guilt.
The flow of the Force pulses blackly for a moment before snapping back into place. It’s not because of anything Obi-Wan did. Again, he wonders, How did I miss this?
You didn’t, says the most cutting part of him.
I did. If I had known how bad it was—
But you knew it was bad. You just ignored the warnings, the voice says, twisting the knife.
No. I would have done something.
Liar.
He stops himself from thinking any further by taking a savage stab at the datapad screen. Such feelings are of no help to Anakin now. He needs Obi-Wan to be the peace he can’t find on his own.
He wonders if his efforts are doing any good. It might be better if he got up and left Anakin to eat his porridge in peace. Honesty, this entire experience is pretty awful. Anakin is pretending to care about getting healthy again, that he got to this point through forgetfulness rather than intentional neglect. Obi-Wan is pretending it’s not breaking his heart to witness the scene before him.
The room is almost silent, but for the beeping of the machines, his own fingers hitting the datapad, and Anakin’s squirming. All are familiar sounds. Obi-Wan spends far too much time in the medbay, far too much time filling out reports, and a good chunk of his life around Anakin’s constant fidgeting.
It’s all very mundane. Except that it’s not. He keeps pushing serenity into the Force and it keeps pushing back wrong, wrong, wrong. Everything about the situation is overwhelming: the Force, the room, Anakin. Kriff, he could almost cry. He hasn’t done that since Satine, well, since she—since she . . . since the Duchess died.
Out of his periphery he can see that Anakin is on the verge of eating the first spoonful, but Obi-Wan takes an involuntary sniff. Anakin startles and the spoon clatters back into the bowl. Obi-Wan realizes he looked up to watch and glances away again just as Anakin’s eyes lift to see if he is watching. Anakin drops his gaze to the spoon again and they return to the polite fiction that neither of them is watching the other.
The dance begins again.