Work Text:
This is how it feels to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, right now:
You watch in disbelief as Vader lifts Palpatine up and throws him down the reactor, the Emperor’s lightning destroying Vader’s suit in the process. A defeating boom and rush of energy tells you that Palpatine has finally been defeated and it was Vader, the very monster you had left to die on Mustafar, who had done the deed. He had sacrificed himself to save his son.
It was then you realise it wasn’t Vader but Anakin. It had always been Anakin, lost and without hope. The Jedi Order taught that once you started down the dark path, it will forever dominate your destiny. But Luke had shown the Jedi wrong.
Unlike Luke’s unwavering faith in his father’s innate goodness — so similar to his mother’s, to Padmé’s final words that there was still good in him — you believed that Anakin was completely consumed by the dark side. More than twenty years alone in the desert and only now did you understand what your old Master’s spirit had told you so long ago, when he said that you were not ready to accept the truth. You could not, and had refused to, believe any goodness remained within Vader. And that was where you truly failed your Padawan.
You will not fail him now.
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Obi-Wan waited in the endless realm of the Force, trying to keep himself composed in preparation to help Anakin. Then there, there he was, a supernova in the Force once again, his light shining brighter than ever.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan called into the void.
A moment later, Obi-Wan heard a reply in a familiar voice with a soft Tatooine twang he thought he’d never hear again. “Obi-Wan?”
Anakin appeared before him from the darkness. Obi-Wan startled at Anakin’s form, who looked exactly like he did all those years ago when they called themselves 'The Team', and finally seeing the man behind the mask. Anakin was on his knees, his head bowed and hands clutching the edge of his white tunic.
“Master. I’m so sorry. So very, very—” Anakin was crying silently, Obi-Wan realised with a start and his own heart broke at the sight. But he had a task to fulfil.
“Anakin, listen carefully,” Obi-Wan interrupted. “You are in the netherworld of the Force, but if you ever wish to revisit corporeal space, then I still have one thing left to teach you. A way to become one with the Force. If you choose this path to immortality, then you must listen now, before your consciousness fades.”
Obi-Wan sensed confusion and remorse in Anakin’s psyche. He was still staring at his lap, refusing to look at Obi-Wan as he muttered “But Master… why me?”
“Because you ended the horror, Anakin,” Obi-Wan answered immediately, voice laced with emotion. “Because you fulfilled the prophecy. Because you were… and are… the Chosen One.” That title had been a burden Anakin should never have been aware of. It was one no one had known how to help him with.
But Obi-Wan knew that those were not the only reasons. “Because I was wrong about you,” he added softly before confessing, “and… because you are my brother.”
Silence met his words, the words that mirrored what Obi-Wan had shouted to Anakin on a bank of lava surrounded by gas and flames. It was the truth then, and had been for years before that, but he could only bring himself to admit it when it was too late. He would do anything now to go back and assure Anakin that he loved him.
Obi-Wan lowered himself to Anakin’s level, reaching for his shoulder. Anakin flinched backwards.
“Anakin. Anakin, please look at me,” Obi-Wan whispered desperately, needing to see his face. The younger man’s position reminded him too much of those early days when Anakin was just a little boy he met. And then raised. And finally failed. “I have longed to see my other half once again.”
Anakin finally looked up. His blue eyes, filled with more pain and self-hatred than anyone's should ever be, met Obi-Wan’s. The last time he had looked into those eyes, it had been yellow and filled with hate. It suddenly struck him how young Anakin had been when he had fallen. Obi-Wan mourned for his fate and how he never got the chance to be the man he should have been. Memories flashed across Obi-wan’s eyes, settling on that docking bay on Coruscant, before he had left on that fateful mission to Utapau and everything changed. He had asked himself over and over again. How had he not noticed the true depths of how much his Padawan had been struggling?
“Master, I—”
Obi-Wan didn’t give him a chance to continue as he reached out once again and wrapped his arms around Anakin’s shaking body, tucking him to his chest. Tears began to fall down Obi-Wan’s face when his arms met something physical, unlike the many times before in his dreams.
“You are my brother, Anakin. I love you.”
This time, there was no hesitation, and no past tense. Anakin stopped resisting and collapsed into his arms at the words he had always wanted to hear. Obi-Wan held him as his Padawan — his best friend, his brother, his son — finally dropped all his shields and let go, as everything that had happened in the past twenty years caught up to him. “I— I don’t deserve it after all the things I’ve done,” he murmured. “But… Thank you, Master.”
It suddenly struck Obi-Wan that Anakin had obeyed masters his whole life.
“No more ‘Master’s,” Obi-Wan rebuked him softly. “You are truly free now, Anakin.”
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Later, Obi-Wan stood next to Yoda at the edge of the clearing, where the Rebellion party was being held, when Luke noticed them. He couldn’t hide his smile as Anakin finally appeared before his son, and then the daughter he wished for and found out about too late, as Leia joined her brother.
There would be time for apologies and understanding later. But at the end of it all, Anakin and Obi-Wan stood together as brothers, as family, once again and forevermore.