Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan wakes with a gasp of breath.

What he sees is not what he expects to see, though he is unable to define exactly what it is he expected in the first place. All he knows is that this is not it. Some part of him expected something more dreary — more desolate. He sighs. The fog of forgotten dreams so often leaves him with dark expectations that fail to pair with reality — a lingering symptom of a war that ended five years ago. 

The war may be over, but it never truly ended. Not for those who fought in it. 

And that is just it. In official terms, the war is over. The Jedi have returned to their rightful roles as peacekeepers rather than warriors. The Council has assigned representatives from the Jedi Order to various sectors throughout the galaxy all in need of a calming, neutral presence to bring about peaceful transitions and prevent power vacuums from taking hold on vulnerable planets. 

Obi-Wan himself has been practicing what some say he does best: diplomacy. He has lost track of the number of politicians he has broken bread with, the dinner parties he’s attended, the treaties whose creation he has witnessed. He is unsure if that is such a good thing.  

To say life without a war in it has not been an adjustment would be a lie. He had gotten used to the routine of battle. Strategize, fight, bury the dead, repeat. Now, all of his missions are unique and, quite frankly, tedious, but he is glad for it. It feels like a return to form. 

He feels like a proper Jedi again. 

Yes, the Jedi have made a glorious return. But not all of them stayed. 

Obi-Wan’s former Padawan, upon murdering the Chancellor, had a realization. His wild emotions, his attachment to Padmé, his near fall to the dark side — it was all incompatible with life as a Jedi — at least, the life he wanted to lead as a Jedi. 

His departure could be temporary, if he so chose, of course. The Council, and Obi-Wan himself, made it clear to Anakin that he would forever be welcome within the temple halls. They would always be there to help him work through whatever it was that was on his mind. Together. As a people. For now, however, Anakin is content to live outside the bounds of the order. He is enjoying a quiet life with his bride and his two perfect children. 

And how perfect they are. 

The twins are rich with the Force. Luke. Leia. They are pure as starlight and just as bright. 

This is how Obi-Wan finds himself laying in an over-plush bed inside a guest room painted a light yellow. He is visiting the Skywalker-Amidala residence. Even with Obi-Wan’s tight schedule in the Order and with Anakin’s time dedicated to raising his children and supporting Padmé’s political efforts, the two cannot stand to be apart from each other for too long. Their old bond remains even if Anakin’s titles do not. 

Soft wind billows white curtains through an open window. The air is warm, but comfortably so. A perfect way to wake up and yet an uneasiness still sits like a stone in the pit of Obi-Wan’s stomach. He yawns and stretches his arms over his head in an attempt to move past it. 

The war is over. You’re safe. Everyone is safe. 

Obi-Wan slides out from underneath the covers and lets the cool tile hit the bottom of his feet. His morning routine is a simple one, but one he had to make more efficient in the time of the war. Now, now, Obi-Wan is free to indulge himself in a longer, more luxurious routine. He takes longer showers and spends a longer time meditating. He does yoga every morning and revels in the simple pleasure of exercising his body just for him, not so that it can be used as a weapon in some far-off battle. Even after five years, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of it. 

With the taste of mint still fresh on his tongue, he slips down the stairs of the beautiful lake house and escapes to the terrace. His hands brush against the ivy wrapping itself around the protective railing — just another green detail on a green-covered planet. 

He looks out over to the lakeshore and sees Padmé playing with her children. The twins run circles around her, squealing in delight and kicking up muddy sand all the while. Though Padmé is not Force-sensitive like her children or her husband, she is radiant in her own way — a soft, but determined glow that Obi-Wan can see even from here. 

The morning sun warms Obi-Wan’s face and eases some of his unplaceable anxieties. How could anything be wrong when he is caught in this oasis? 

A hard thump on his back startles him out of his thoughts.

“You come all the way out here. You sneak into my home. You sleep in my guest quarters and you don’t even come and say hello ?”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, a warm feeling crashing over him at the sight of his friend — his brother. Anakin, ever the impatient one, cannot keep the angry facade up for long and a wide grin cracks his face. He pulls Obi-Wan into a rough hug, enveloping him completely in his arms. 

“You got in so late last night, I didn’t even get to see you,” Anakin says, pulling away from Obi-Wan. They look each other up and down — a habit from long ago when they were in constant peril and usually hiding one injury or another. 

“I know, I’m sorry. I got caught up with some paperwork back on Coruscant and lost track of the time. But I’m here now.” 

“You and your paperwork. You’re still so uptight even after all these years. Sometimes paperwork can wait, you know?”

“And you still have that cavalier attitude I see.” 

“I guess some things never change, do they Master?” 

“I suppose not.” Obi-Wan smiles at Anakin and the warmth of it is returned to him in kind. 

“I’m glad you are here though. I’ve missed you, old man. So have the kids. They talk about their Uncle Obi all the time.”

Obi-Wan’s chest swells with love for the son and daughter of his former Padawan. “Believe me, they are in my thoughts more than I am in theirs.” 

“I doubt it. You are all they’ve talked about since I told them you were coming. I was starting to feel rather jealous of you.” 

Obi-Wan laughs. “Well, it would be rude of me to leave my adoring fans waiting now, wouldn’t it?” 

Obi-Wan and Anakin walk side by side over the terrace and down the tile stairs to the lakeshore. Their footsteps synchronize and, for a moment, it feels like a time long past — a time where it was only them against the galaxy. A sad sort of nostalgia pangs through Obi-Wan. 

His mind reels back to a time when they stood back-to-back, sabers ablaze, fighting off hundreds of droids. Over and over, Obi-Wan saved Anakin’s life, and over and over, Anakin returned the favor. So in sync were they, that they could change plans with a quirk of an eyebrow or the flick of a wrist. They knew the other as well as they knew themselves, or so it often felt within the warm crucible of a mission. 

Obi-Wan, of course, is happy for Anakin and the life he leads — he is ecstatic for him — but it is the crux of humanity to be content with one life and long for another one just out of reach. 

Their footsteps fall out of sync and they continue walking in silence.

It is not until his boots are sinking into sandy mud that Obi-Wan is pulled from his more nostalgic thoughts. He looks up and sees Luke and Leia playing around and splashing each other, too lost in their own kind of synchronicity to notice Obi-Wan’s arrival right away. Padmé, however, is sharp and quick and she beams at him with bright, honey-colored eyes. 

“Obi-Wan!” Padmé exclaims, climbing to her feet and rushing to him. The loamy soil gets kicked up by her bare feet, flinging everywhere in her rush to greet him. 

He kisses her cheek before pulling her into his arms. “Senator Amidala. How good it is to see you.” 

“How good it is to see you!” she fires back. “It has been so long. It seems you have been kept busy by the Jedi Order.”

“No busier than you have been kept by Chancellor Organa.”

“Ever the contrarian,” Padmé smirks. “Tell me, did you have a good trip?”

“Yes, I—” Obi-Wan pauses. Did he have a good trip? He thinks about it. He really thinks about it. He remembers a ship, white walls, cold tile, and then… and then… 

“Obi-Wan?”

“Yes, I must have…” 

He has to have gotten here somehow. The Force comes with many gifts, but teleportation is not one of them. A ship, there must be a ship… his starfighter. That sounds right. He must have taken a starfighter here. 

“Are you alright, Master?” Anakin asks with growing concern. 

“Yes, I’m…” Obi-Wan trails off, his earlier unease returning in full force. “I can’t remember…”

“You can’t remember if your trip was good?” Anakin asks in confusion.

“I can’t remember how I got here,” Obi-Wan says. 

Anakin and Padmé look at him with concerned eyes, but then Anakin breaks into a soft grin and claps Obi-Wan on the shoulder. 

“You must be getting old, old man.”

Obi-Wan laughs, albeit with a hesitancy that prevents authenticity. “Yes, I must be.” 

“Uncle Obi!” 

The excited squeals of children break the tension of the moment as quickly as it arose. 

“Obi!” 

Obi-Wan’s knees buckle as the two children launch themselves at his legs like missiles. One look at them and his worries melt away. 

“Careful Leia,” Anakin says. “Your Uncle Obi is pushing forty.”

Leia scrunches up her face. “That’s like, a gazillion years old.”

“Not you too,” Obi-Wan sighs. “No matter. I’m still young enough to do this!” Obi-Wan scoops her up and spins her around. She shrieks in delight, laughing all the while.

“My turn next, Uncle Obi!” Luke shouts from his place in the loam. 

“I suppose,” Obi-Wan says, feigning reluctance. “Come here.”

Obi-Wan swings Luke around as he did with Leia. The world blurs and the only thing Obi-Wan can see clearly is Luke. Something like protectiveness swells inside of him — for both children of course — but especially for Luke. There’s just something about him…

Obi-Wan dismisses the thought before setting Luke back on the ground.

“Again!” both children shriek at him. “Again!”

And so the day is spent in sun-soaked squeals and chest-rumbling laughter. Padmé dances with her children and Anakin looks on with pride. Obi-Wan immerses himself in it all, allowing himself to get in the dirt with the kids. 

It is a day well spent, but by the time the sun hangs low and heavy, Obi-Wan is grateful to return to his room for a much-needed shower and rest. 

Obi-Wan closes the door behind him with a soft click and sighs in relief. He loves those kids, but he does not have the energy for them. 

Reveling in the silence and the solitude of his bedroom, he takes a deep, calming breath before fully entering his temporary quarters. He cannot wait to get out of these dirty clothes and into a warm shower. 

Out of muscle memory, Obi-Wan absentmindedly undoes his obi, humming to himself all the while. He sheds the outer layer of his tunics and throws it in a hamper in the corner. As he strips himself of his layers, he walks across the room to fetch a change of clothes for after his shower. The clean tunics and robe are soft and warm in his hands and his longing to rid the grime from his body only grows. Naked, he walks to the adjoining fresher and glances at himself in the mirror.

The fresh clothes fall from his hands and to the floor as a strangled cry tears itself from his throat. 

That… that being in the mirror is not him. Can’t be him. The being in the mirror looks to be on the brink of death, not a strong, healthy man. Obi-Wan looks closer and the being mirrors him. Its eyes are blue and its hair is red, though it is longer and speckled with far more gray. 

It’s him. 

It’s him, it’s him, it’s him , but it’s wrong it’s so, so wrong. 

The Obi-Wan in the mirror is emaciated and mottled with bruises. Every rib protrudes from his chest, so visible, they would be easy to count if Obi-Wan were not focused on everything else wrong with the visage before him. 

Skin pale as death is made a sickly purple and green all over his chest, his stomach, his face. Anywhere where there is room for a bruise, there is one. Hollow cheeks give a sharpness to his cheekbones that he is unaccustomed to. 

He looks like he is dying. 

Obi-Wan feels lightheaded and weak — the way the man in the mirror would probably feel. His bones ache and his stomach suddenly pangs with a deep and gnawing hunger — like he hasn’t eaten in days or possibly weeks. He wraps his arms tightly around his middle and doubles over from the sharp pain.  

Breathe. Remember your training. 

His training is lost to him now. Obi-Wan’s heart beats rapidly and all he hears is the rush of blood in his ears and the ragged breaths expanding and contracting his lungs. He dares a peek back at the mirror and blinks in surprise. 

He squeezes his eyes shut before opening them again. 

Once more, he repeats the action, unable to believe what he is seeing — or not seeing. 

His body is normal once more. The bruises are gone. His ribs are covered by a thin but healthy layer of fat. His abdominal muscles are toned and tight and his arms and legs have returned to their lean, muscular state. His cheeks are filled out, but the skin lacks its normal rosiness in favor of a blanched color.

He looks down at himself and runs his hands over his body — his body. It feels real. It feels healthy. Well, it feels mostly healthy. Nausea roils deep in his stomach and bile climbs up his throat. He rushes over to the toilet and heaves into it. 

Something is wrong with him. Something has to be wrong with him. 

I’m going mad. 

He retches at the thought of his impending insanity. His shaking arm clings desperately to the tub, searching for support wherever he can find it. 

“Master?” 

It’s Anakin. Of course, it’s Anakin. Anakin always seems to show up when Obi-Wan does not want to be seen. It has always been this way, it only makes sense that he is here now. 

“Master?” Anakin calls out again.

Obi-Wan can’t even answer Anakin as he tries to catch his breath. 

“Alright, I’m coming in and I don’t care if— Woah there, you are naked Master, Force, here take this,” Anakin says, throwing the discarded robe at Obi-Wan and keeping his gaze averted. 

Still panting, Obi-Wan pulls the robe over his shoulders and covers himself to the best of his abilities in his current state. 

Anakin grabs hold of Obi-Wan’s shoulders and wrangles him so that they face each other. 

“What’s going on Master? You didn’t tell me you weren’t feeling well.”

“I’m… I’m fine, I—” Obi-Wan cuts himself off with a gag and he leans over the toilet once more, pulling away from Anakin’s grasp. 

“Easy now,” Anakin murmurs, kneeling beside Obi-Wan and rubbing his back. “You’re alright, just let it out.” 

Obi-Wan coughs and gags into the toilet, his throat burning and his stomach and mouth both equally sour. 

Anakin stands up and Obi-Wan can vaguely hear the sound of water running. The water shuts off and Anakin is back at his side, shoving a glass towards his face. 

“Drink.” 

Obi-Wan takes small sips of the cool water. It hardly eases the burning in his throat, but it does start to settle his now empty stomach a little. 

“What’s going on, Master?”

“I… I don’t know.” 

“You don’t know?” Anakin asks quizzically. “How long have you been feeling sick? Maybe the kids picked something up and gave it to you.” 

“I’m not sick, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. 

“You are very obviously sick, Master,” Anakin says. He reaches a hand for Obi-Wan’s face. “I mean look at you, you wouldn’t just…” Anakin’s hand is cool against his forehead but not ice-cold as it would be if Obi-Wan were enshrouded in fever. 

“You feel normal,” Anakin says, tilting his head. “Why are you…?”

Obi-Wan needs to diffuse this. He cannot have Anakin worrying over him — not when he has the children to worry about. 

“I’m fine,” Obi-Wan says again. “I think I ate something bad on my trip here. I’m sure you remember how those meal packs are, right?” 

Anakin groans. “Don’t remind me. Honestly, if there was ever a deterrent to going back to the Order, it was those Force-forsaken meal packs.” 

The joke does not land the way Anakin seemingly intends it to. 

“Yes, well, there are other things that are worth staying for,” Obi-Wan says. 

Obi-Wan expects an argument, or maybe a snide comment, but all he is offered is a sad sort of look. 

“I know,” Anakin says. “But some things are worth leaving for.” 

Obi-Wan thinks of Luke and Leia. They are why Anakin will never return to the Order. 

If ever there was a reason, this, at least, is a good one. 

“I know, Anakin.” 

A subtle but familiar tension hangs between them before Anakin extends a hand. Obi-Wan accepts it and allows Anakin to help him to his feet. 

“Hopefully you got it all out of your system,” Anakin says, squeezing Obi-Wan’s shoulder. The tension falls away at the touch. “I’ll make some Ghoba rice soup. Maybe that will settle your stomach?” 

Obi-Wan nods. “Yes, I would like that.” 

“Good,” Anakin says, brightening somewhat. “Now get cleaned up and maybe rest for a little bit. We’ll be waiting for you downstairs.” 

Obi-Wan’s heart warms and he almost forgets about the man he saw in the mirror. 

The door closes softly behind Anakin and Obi-Wan shudders. 

A fresh set of tunics clings to Obi-Wan’s freshly scrubbed body. His hair is damp and pushed back, but it falls loose into his face as it dries. Bare feet meet cool wooden stairs before landing on even cooler tile floors. He pads through the living room and turns the corner into the kitchen. 

The sight that greets him is a pleasant one in its sheer domesticity. Luke and Leia play together at their spots at the table, albeit a little more subdued than earlier in the day. Anakin stands over a pot, stirring it gently while Padmé stands beside him, chopping vegetables. 

“Feeling better?” Anakin asks, looking up from the pot. 

“Much,” Obi-Wan affirms, flinging false confidence and assuredness into the Force. Anakin reflects the intended sentiment by sending a wave of contentment back at him. Obi-Wan almost falters. 

Anakin never falls for that. 

Obi-Wan’s forced emotions are easy for Anakin to pick up on and he always picks up on them. He always comments on it too — his own devotion to the people he cares about making it nigh impossible for him to let something as dramatic as a fraudulent emotion go. 

Maybe he’s tired from the long day in the sun. Maybe he’s distracted by the meal he’s preparing. Maybe he doesn’t feel like bringing it up in front of Padmé and the kids. 

Or maybe they grew farther apart than Obi-Wan had initially thought. 

Time and distance do have a diluting effect on relationships — it is no fault of theirs that Obi-Wan believed his relationship with Anakin impervious to their toxic pull. 

“Have a seat, Obi-Wan,” Padmé says, breaking the chain of his thoughts. “We’re nearly done here.” 

Obi-Wan’s chair shrieks across the tile floor before he settles himself into it. 

“Are you okay, Uncle Obi?” Luke asks quietly. “Dad said you felt bad.”

“I was feeling bad, but I’m all better now. Promise.” 

Big blue eyes, clear with innocence, stare at him as though he is searching for the trace of the lie that his father could not pick up on. But then he blinks and he returns his attention to the thumb wrestling contest he has going on with Leia. Obi-Wan’s lips quirk up into the beginnings of a smile. The unconcerned nonchalance of youth is infectious in its own right. 

Obi-Wan turns back to watch Padmé and Anakin finishing off the soup. Anakin pokes her side and she pulls away from him, all while giggling and swatting at him playfully. 

He turns back to look at the kids and almost falls back in his chair. 

They’re gone . 

He whips around, searching for them, but they’re nowhere to be found. 

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan asks nervously. “The children… they were right here weren’t they?” 

Anakin and Padmé turn around and give him questioning looks. 

“Master? Are you sure you’re feeling better?” Anakin asks. 

“Yes, of course I am, but the kids—” Obi-Wan looks back to their chairs. They are sitting there like they never left. Maybe they didn’t. “But… wait—”

“Maybe you just need to eat something,” Anakin says nervously. “Here.” A dull thud accompanies each bowl as they are sat down upon the table. Two slightly smaller bowls are placed in front of Luke and Leia and they gaze at the soup hungrily. They each reach for their spoons before Padmé’s gentle corrections stop them. 

“Wait until everyone has their meals before you start your own, kids,” Padmé says. 

“Yes, Mom,” they say in perfect unison. 

Anakin places a steaming bowl of soup in front of Obi-Wan. He tries to slow the rapid beating of his heart. 

Normal. This is normal. Be normal. 

Obi-Wan lifts his spoon towards his mouth. He hesitates. 

“What is it?” Anakin asks. “Do you not feel up to eating?” 

Backpedal.  

“I do, it’s just…” He fumbles for words, trying to think of anything that will get the negative attention off of him. “Anakin, the last time you made anything for me I was sicker than I was this afternoon.” 

“I resent that. You were only in the Halls of Healing for two days.” 

“Two awful, miserable days.” 

“Shall I take a sip to prove it is not poisoned?” Padmé asks, mirth dancing in her eyes. 

“That’s quite all right, Senator, I will take the risk on my own.”

Anakin scoffs even as Obi-Wan raises the spoon to his lips, bracing himself for an inedible experience. 

He raises his eyebrows in surprise. The soup Anakin prepared is not only edible, it is delicious.  

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says in disbelief. “You were a terrible cook. What happened?” 

“I practiced!” Anakin says in defense. 

“For how long ?” Obi-Wan asks incredulously. “Because this seems like it took a lot of practice.” 

“Just shut up and eat. Your soup is getting cold.”

Obi-Wan shoots him a glare which Anakin returns with a mischievous grin and, for a moment, things feel as they should. 

They feel as they once did. 

After their meal, the children are promptly put to bed. Now, Obi-Wan sits across from Anakin and beside Padmé at the dinner table, a set of sabacc cards in each of their hands. 

Obi-Wan’s particular hand is so good, he doesn’t even have to cheat to win — a fact further proven by the cards Anakin lays down. 

In his free hand, Obi-Wan swirls his glass of wine before bringing it to his lips. The slight burn is a pleasant one and he feels its heat manifest upon his skin. A crimson flush splashes itself across Obi-Wan’s cheeks and the base of his neck — his skin made rosy. A slight buzz warms his body in a comfortable numbness — one he hopes will shake the disquiet in his mind.

This is good. This is normal. 

Everything is fine. 

The sun, long ago set, leaves the windows darkened, but the overhead light emits a warm yellow glow. The evening is intimate and warm. Soft laughter spills from wine drunk lips and everything is fine. 

Looking at Padmé and Anakin in their shared happiness fills him with longing. Not necessarily for love — at least, not the romantic sort — but for connection. A connection he let slip away when Anakin left. 

The cold ache of loneliness has settled so deep within his bones he has not even noticed its presence until he finds himself face-to-face with everything absent. 

“ Obi-Wan ,” Anakin says, waving a palm in his face. “Naboo to Obi-Wan!”

Obi-Wan snaps to attention. “Um, yes, sorry, what is it?”

Anakin raises an eyebrow. “Your turn. Are you okay, old man?” 

“Yes, of course. My thoughts just drifted away from me for a moment. Here,” Obi-Wan says, laying a card down on the board. 

Anakin looks down at the card and then back up at Obi-Wan. “Why would you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Let me win.”

Obi-Wan looks down at the card he placed. “Ah. Seems I have let you win. Apologies Anakin, Padmé. I must be tired from the day.”

“Are you feeling alright?” Padmé asks. Her chair scrapes against the tile as she stands and places a hand on Obi-Wan’s forehead. Even he is surprised when he doesn’t pull away, instead choosing to embrace her gentle touch. 

He forces down the melancholy with the curve of a smile.“Yes, I’m perfectly fine, Padmé. As I said, it was a long day.” 

“That it was,” Padmé says, pulling away and sitting back in her chair. “The kids have a lot of energy.” 

“I do wonder where they get it from,” Obi-Wan says, delivering a pointed look at Anakin. 

“Are you implying that this is some sort of penance for my Padawanhood?”

“I imply nothing,” Obi-Wan says. “I’m stating it outright.” 

“Well, it’s a penance I’m willing to pay,” Anakin says. He quiets. “Luke and Leia had a lot of fun today.”

“I’m glad. I enjoy spending time with them.” 

“How long do you plan to stay with us, Obi-Wan?” Padmé asks.  

“Only a few days more. Then, I’ll get out of your hair.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t miss the way Anakin’s face falls. 

“That’s a shame,” Padmé says. “I wish you could stay for longer.” 

“I wish it to,” Obi-Wan says with another swirl of his wine glass.

“You… you could stay for longer, you know?” Anakin says, an uncharacteristic shyness lilting his voice. 

Obi-Wan blinks.

“I can’t stay. You know that Anakin.”

“Why not?” Anakin argues.

“What do you mean, why not? I have my responsibilities to the Order. My next mission, for starters.”

“Oh yeah? And what is that next mission?” 

“It’s—”

Obi-Wan falters. His lips move to form words that never come. 

“Well? What is it?” 

He can’t remember what it is he has to go back to. He can’t remember if there is anything to go back to. Perhaps a few days more will shed clarity on his troubled mind. 

Perhaps staying here longer is not such a bad idea.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan’s dreams are, in a word, troublesome. He wakes in a cold sweat, shaking from the remnants of one that fails to make sense to him. 

It’s not real. You’re safe. Everything is fine. 

But it doesn’t feel fine. He tries to identify what it was that brought him to this heart-racing point, but the dream is fading fast. He remembers pieces and fragments of questions. One question. It’s repeated over and over and punctuated with the chill of ice water and the jolt of electricity. 

In his dream, he is tortured. 

He shudders at the thought and tries to sink back into what is real. He is on Naboo. He is staying with Anakin and Padmé and the twins. He is in a quaint bedroom, not some torture chamber. 

There is no emotion. 

Easier said than done. With a deep sigh, he once more tries to let his nightmare-induced emotions, his fears, go. 

Though dawn has yet to break through the windows, Obi-Wan decides to rise. There’s no point lying in bed with nothing but fading flashes of dreams to keep him company. 

He pulls the covers down and pads to the bathroom. With hesitation, he flips on the light. In the mirror, it is only him — healthy as ever. Normal.

It only takes a flick of his wrist and the faucet turns on. The cool splash of water on his face wakes him further but fails to rid the dark shadows from his eyes. They are a permanent fixture on his face, and no amount of washing will wipe them clean. 

Once dressed in a fresh tunic, he calls upon the Force to quiet his steps through the house. From experience, Obi-Wan knows that waking Anakin before the sun would leave him with a very grumpy attitude that he does not have the desire to deal with during his time off. 

The outside door of the house clicks behind him and he steps lightly down the terrace and toward the lake. There is a calm that hangs like fog over the expansive body of water this early in the morning. The water is placid and still with nary a fish nor creature to break the crystalline glass of its surface. 

This is where he will meditate all his troubles away. 

He sits in a lotus position by the lake’s edge and centers on the trill of insects crouching in the long grass around him — unseen, but heard well enough to alert any passerby that they are there in legion. 

He focuses on the breath of his lungs and the gentle expansion of his rib cage. He centers on the Force, always a comfort but somehow changed. Zeroing in on it further, he investigates the difference. The Force is present and strong as it always is but somehow torn and so much quieter . 

Unbalanced.

Artificial.

Or maybe it’s just him. 

Obi-Wan shifts his investigation back to introspection and aims his attention back at releasing the worries that have been building inside of him. This is good. He needs this. 

Anxieties break apart from him and leave only peace. 

But Obi-Wan should know by now that peace in any capacity is always fleeting for him. He can sense the shining star of Luke’s presence drawing ever closer to him. Obi-Wan opens his eyes and finds the sun creeping over the horizon, painting the water amber and Luke’s hair golden. 

Even in the glow, something looks off about the Chosen One’s son. 

“Luke? Are you all right, little one?”

The boy stops in front of Obi-Wan and tilts his head at a slight angle — as if he is assessing him. 

“You’re the only one who knows where I am,” Luke says. 

“What? Your parents don’t know you’re out here?” Obi-Wan asks in surprise. Anakin would not like that one bit, Obi-Wan thinks ruefully. 

“No. I’m not really here.”

Obi-Wan frowns and his heart picks up its beating. “What are you talking about?”

“You already know,” Luke says quietly. “You’re the only one who knows.” His eyes are severe and sharp in their intensity — lacking in the youthful innocence he always presents. With a shake of his head, the look vanishes. He offers a toothy grin and an excited exclamation. “Uncle Obi!” 

“Wait. What were you talking about?” Obi-Wan asks. “Just now, what did you mean? What did you mean when you said you weren’t really here?”

“You’re silly Uncle Obi!” 

“Luke, listen to me. What did you mean? Just now, what did you mean by that?” 

“I… I don’t know…”

“You said you aren’t really here. What does that mean?”

Luke seems to sense Obi-Wan’s alarm and starts to feel it as his own. Eyes widen and flood with tears in conjunction with a wobbling lower lip. 

“ I don’t know ,” Luke whines. “ I’m sorry !” 

“No, no, it’s all right little one, I’m not mad at you,” Obi-Wan says quickly, but not quick enough to stop the tears from falling. “Oh, Luke, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Come here.” Obi-Wan beckons Luke to his arms and the child lunges into them. He cries into Obi-Wan’s chest and he cannot help but feel a certain sense of familiarity. “You’re right, I was just being silly.” 

Obi-Wan sends calm energy out into the Force and Luke quiets, but any calm achieved for himself in the morning’s meditation is as lost and undone as a frayed seam on an old robe. 

Footsteps alert Obi-Wan that someone else is coming. 

“Hey bud, what are you doing out here?” Anakin asks, his eyes fixed wholly on Luke. Worry is palpable in the set of his jaw. “I was looking for you.”

“I was with Uncle Obi!” Luke exclaims. 

“Right. And what is Uncle Obi doing out here?” Anakin asks pointedly at Obi-Wan. 

“Meditating. Or trying to,” Obi-Wan answers. 

“Hmm. Seems it’s not going too well.” 

“Meditating has always been difficult when there are Skywalkers around.” 

Anakin cracks a wide smile. “You’re doing the family proud, kid,” he says, swinging Luke up onto his shoulders. 

Obi-Wan huffs out an exasperated breath. 

“Come on, Master,” Anakin says. “It’s time for breakfast.” 

“Go ahead, I’ll be right behind you, Anakin.”

“Okay,” Anakin says with a touch of skepticism. “Don’t hang around here too long, your eggs will get cold.” 

“I’ll be there soon. Promise.” 

Anakin nods and turns back to the house, Luke kicking on his shoulders all the way. 

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath and watches the water reflect the skies above. 

A peaceful morning. Everything he ever wanted. 

Obi-Wan stands up and shakes the dirt off his clothes. He looks at the tall grass as it dances in the wind. Silence leaves the air empty and he wonders if the insects from earlier have returned to their burrows. 

As soon as he notices the silence, the insects resume their ear-splitting sound. The same song — indecipherable from the last. 

The day passes slow and fast in the way that only days of rest seem to do. Once more, Obi-Wan finds himself waist-deep in tall grass, but he has company this time. 

The twins stand to either side of him, each with wooden spools clutched tight in little hands. 

Anakin and Padmé, taking advantage of the distracted children, sit beside each other on a blanket, whispering into each other’s ears and giggling like two teenagers in love. Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, but he feels a fondness for their sickeningly sweet love for each other. 

His attention returns to the twins.

“Now, when the kite catches the air, it’s going to pull really hard, so you have to be very strong and hold on, all right?” 

“Yes, Uncle Obi,” Luke and Leia say in unison. 

“Make sure you two stay a little apart from each other,” Obi-Wan says, grabbing Luke’s shoulders and pulling him a few feet away from Leia.

“Why?” Leia asks. 

“Because, if you are together, there’s a bigger risk.”

“A risk for what Obi?” Luke asks.

Obi-Wan pauses as though he has lost the reason. With a shake of his head, he answers, “If you two are close together, there is a bigger risk of your kites tangling in the wind.” 

Luke gives an unsure look to Leia and not for the first time, Obi-Wan finds himself marveling at the bond between twins — Force-sensitive twins at that. 

“Now, are you two ready?”

“Yes!”

Obi-Wan smiles and jogs out into the field where the kites lie in wait for their virgin flight. 

“Remember to hold tight!” Obi-Wan yells so that he is heard over the wind. He lifts Leia’s kite first and launches it into the air. He repeats the process with Luke’s kite and gives a satisfied smile to the triangular kites gliding in the blue sky. He jogs back to the kids. 

“Now unravel the string just a little bit so it’ll go higher,” Obi-Wan instructs. 

Leia sticks out her tongue in concentration while Luke struggles to keep a grip on the spool and unravel it at the same time. 

“Easy now,” Obi-Wan says, kneeling beside Luke and helping him with the string. 

Obi-Wan looks to the sky and admires the kites as they fly. He looks down back to the kids, except…

They’re gone . 

Obi-Wan does a double take and then a triple. They vanished. Their spools hang in the air where their little hands should be holding them, but they are gone.

“Luke?” Obi-Wan shouts. He glances back around at Anakin and Padmé, but they are unbothered. He turns back to where they were standing and finds… 

Luke and Leia. Right where they were. Like they were never really gone.

“Luke?” Obi-Wan asks nervously. 

“Yeah Uncle Obi?”

“Did you just go somewhere?”

“No,” the boy says, sticking his lower lip out in concentration. “I’m flying my kite.”

“Right, of course,” Obi-Wan says. His heart flutters and he makes every effort to slow it. He is here with the twins and they are all the matter. 

“Look at me, Uncle Obi!” Leia shouts, her father’s pride shining through her, even at this age. Still, Obi-Wan obediently looks at her and the kite she is flying with relative ease. He focuses on it and tries to return to the moment he was in before reality or his mind lapsed — whichever one. 

“Yes, well done, Leia.”

Her kite coasts through the air, blue and green colors reflecting the natural world in which it flies. Luke’s kite similarly catches the wind, yellow and orange material mimicking a sunset in its warm tones. 

“What about me?” Luke asks. “Is mine well done?”

Obi-Wan smiles hesitantly. “It is very well done, Luke.” 

He turns around to see Anakin and Padmé beaming with pride and love for their miraculous twins. If they noticed their children disappear, they give no sign of it. They are content as ever.

Obi-Wan thinks about how close they had been to losing Padmé during the birth. How she squeezed his and Anakin’s hands as she pushed. How Anakin had been inconsolable when they went limp and she was wheeled away to an emergency delivery room. He shakes the dark thoughts from his mind should they leak through to Anakin’s. There is no point in dredging up the past nor its potential alternatives. 

“Dad!” Leia shouts. “Come here!”

“Oh, all right,” Anakin says. He pretends to be put out, but Obi-Wan can see the mirth in his eyes. 

“You try!” 

“Oh no. You don’t want that.”

“Why not?” Leia pouts.

“Because your dear old dad is not only the best pilot in the galaxy, but he’s also the best kite-flier in the galaxy.” 

“But I thought Obi-Wan was the best kite-flier in the galaxy?” Luke says. 

Anakin looks affronted. “Betrayed by my own son,” Anakin says, shaking his head. “Obi-Wan is not the best kite-flier in the galaxy. I am.” 

“Well now, it seems you need to prove it’s true,” Padmé says. She stands off to the side, but close enough so that her voice can be heard over the wind without the need to shout. 

“Here, Uncle Obi,” Luke says, handing Obi-Wan the spool. “You can use mine.”

Obi-Wan takes the opportunity to brush off his worries. He smirks at Anakin. “Come now, Padawan. Afraid to fly against your old Master?”

These are the magic words and Obi-Wan knows it. 

This is good, this is normal.  

“Oh, it’s on, Master!” 

With a conspiratorial grin, Leia hands Anakin the spool. “You can beat him, Dad.” 

“Thank you, Leia,” Anakin says. “At least one of my children believes in me.” 

With the spool now in hand, Obi-Wan maneuvers his kite higher into the air at a steady rate. Sunbeams bounce off the orange and yellow surface and for a moment Obi-Wan’s mind flashes to images of twin suns and sand that extends for miles, unmet by any watery shore. Unsure of what brought that image to his mind, he shakes the thought and glances over to his former Padawan. 

“Careful, Anakin. You’ll burn your fingers that way.” 

“Please, I am much more talented than that.” 

Anakin’s kite soars through the air, climbing ever higher as he continues to unravel the spool at a quick rate. 

“Ow!” Anakin exclaims.

“What is it?”

“The string burned my fingers,” Anakin mutters, sucking on the web space between his left thumb and index finger. 

“I told you to be careful,” Obi-Wan chastises, unable to break the habit long ago forged in Anakin’s apprenticeship and hardened in battle. 

“Being careful doesn’t make winners.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “How did we get out of the Clone Wars with our lives?” 

“A healthy dose of luck and my genius plans.”

“There’s no such thing as luck and your plans could seldom be considered genius. Most of the time, they were non-existent.” 

“Whatever, it’s in the past. Aren’t you the one always telling me to focus on the present.” 

Obi-Wan doesn’t know why the words sting, but they do. 

“Did I say something wrong?” Anakin asks when Obi-Wan fails to supply a witty comeback. 

“No. You’re right. It is best to focus on the present.” 

“Okay, now I know I definitely said something wrong,” Anakin says. He glances at the kids and at Padmé. “We’ll discuss this later.”

“There is nothing to discuss.”

“I said we’ll discuss it later.” 

Obi-Wan huffs, but turns his attention back to the kite in his hands. It glides along, seemingly free as the dark-winged condors on Alderaan, but always tethered back to the ground. 

“Come with me,” Anakin says.

“Where are we going?” 

“To my hangar.” 

Right. Anakin’s “hangar,” also known as a glorified shed with bay doors large enough for a ship to taxi in and take cover from the elements. 

Or two ships, rather.

The bay doors open and Obi-Wan’s red starfighter is revealed, sitting just beside Anakin’s yellow one. The ships are hardly used for any actual star fighting these days, but they are fast and reliable in hyperspace. It is no wonder they both held onto them. 

The fading light of dusk offers little in the way of illumination, so Anakin flips on a switch. A pale overhead light rigged to the rafters drenches the hangar in a warm halogenic glow. 

“Come,” Anakin beckons. 

“What are we doing here Anakin?” Obi-Wan asks cautiously. “Please don’t tell me you wish to test your piloting skills against me too?”

“No, I don’t need to do that, I already know who is the superior pilot among us and so do you. No, I brought you here because I just need a second pair of hands.”

“To do what, may I ask?”

“To hold this.” Anakin hands Obi-Wan a handheld glow light.

“I see,” Obi-Wan says, exasperated. 

Anakin smirks and drags two ladders to the side of his starfighter. They ascend the ladders side-by-side until they are at the top, Obi-Wan a single rung below Anakin. 

The shrieking of metal pierces the quiet night as Anakin opens up a panel on the top of his fighter. 

“Geez, I’ve needed to do this for some time,” Anakin mutters to himself.

Obi-Wan does not bother asking what needs to be done to the starfighter. Instead, he dutifully holds the light so that Anakin can see the wires and screws he is currently messing with. 

“So,” Anakin says, “are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” 

“You’ve been acting weird these past two days.” 

“I wasn’t feeling well yesterday.” 

“That was yesterday. And it seems you have gotten over it well enough.” 

Obi-Wan sighs. “I don’t know how to explain it, Anakin.” 

“Just try.”

“You will think me mad.” 

Anakin pauses in his administrations and swipes a hand over his brow, leaving a smudge of grease in its wake. “Master, you’re starting to scare me.” 

“It’s nothing,” Obi-Wan says firmly. “Just… little things.” 

“Little things? Like what?” 

Obi-Wan bites his lip until it hurts — until he nearly draws blood. “I can’t explain it.”

“You said that already.”

“It’s the truth.” 

“A very vague truth.”

“Anakin, it’s nothing. It’s just… more of a feeling.”

“A bad one?”

Obi-Wan nods.

“That’s never good.” 

“It is nothing. It’s probably nothing.” Perhaps saying it will make it true. 

Anakin looks at him skeptically and Obi-Wan expects an argument to spring from his lips, but he sighs and returns his attention to the wiring in his starfighter. A disappointed pang surprises Obi-Wan. Part of him expected Anakin to keep prodding at the issue — his stubborn will a constant. Maybe his Padawan is softening with age — or maybe he does not care enough to keep up the fight. 

“If it turns out to be something, let me know,” Anakin says. “For now, point that thing higher, I can barely see anything in here.” 

Obi-Wan points the light higher and squints when it reflects off a metal flashing. 

This is something Obi-Wan has missed over the five years since Anakin left the Order — the closeness of working together side-by-side — even when Obi-Wan wasn’t truly needed. Anakin owns rig lights that do not require the presence of a human hand to hold them, and they are far more accurate, unable to tire as a human hand may be wont to do. Obi-Wan is here because Anakin wants him here. This fact alone is a balm over the burning insecurities rising up within him. 

Still, when Obi-Wan reaches into the Force and grasps at their old bond, it feels different — almost manufactured, like they are both trying to recreate something that was sacred and has since broken. 

But it is hard to capture lightning in a bottle more than once. 

“Yours is next,” Anakin says, interrupting Obi-Wan’s train of thought. “I know you aren’t taking care of that thing as you should. She’s a vessel, not just a machine. She needs some love.” 

“Vessels are no more lifelike than machines, Anakin.” 

“But they do fly you across the galaxy. I’d rather you fly around in a ship I’ve had my eyes on. We can’t have you crashing anywhere without me.” 

Something warms inside of Obi-Wan’s chest. 

“Come on, Master! I said hold the light higher!” 

Obi-Wan chuckles in spite of himself. Maybe the distance between him and Anakin is not so great. 

It is midnight when Obi-Wan collapses into bed and it is only an hour more before the dreams come again. 

Terror envelopes him and he is unable to wake — caught in the hypnotic flashes of fragmented scenes and just as it feels like he will never be free of his nightmare again, he bolts upright in a shaking, gasping slurry of panic. As before, he fails to hold onto the clarity of his dreams. They slip away from him like catching fish with bare hands. As before, only splintered scenes remain.

White walls encroach upon him and water threatens to drown him and electro staffs snarl and bite and Obi-Wan can’t remember ever being this scared in his life…. except... except for that horrid day in the temple when he found the children with lightsaber burns marring their innocent bodies and… wait. 

That didn’t happen. 

A deep breath in.

The Jedi younglings are fine. 

A deep breath out.

Everything is fine. 

The sound of a woman shrieking rips through the lakehouse and Obi-Wan bolts up. 

Padmé. 

Obi-Wan tears out of bed and throws himself down the hallway, running into the wall and pushing off of it in his haste to get to Padmé. He runs to the master bedroom and throws the door open. The light is on and the bed is unmade. Anakin and Padmé are both missing. 

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan calls. His feet thunder down the stairs, the banister shaking under his grasp. 

Light pours from the downstairs bedroom — Luke and Leia’s bedroom. He aims for their room and finds a sight he does not see often — Anakin and Padmé standing apart. Anakin’s arms are crossed over his chest and his eyes flare with rage and fear. Padmé has a hand over her mouth and an arm wrapped protectively around her torso. Tears glint in her eyes.

“Anakin, Padmé,” Obi-Wan starts, “what’s going on?”

Anakin turns his back to him and paces — a dangerous silence filling the air around him.

“Padmé?” 

A pit as deep as the seas of Mon Calamari forms in his stomach. 

“We can’t find the children,” Padmé says, her voice warbling with emotion. 

“What do you mean, you can’t find the children?” Obi-Wan says slowly.

“She means the children are fucking gone, Obi-Wan,” Anakin spits. “They are not in the house.” 

“Have you looked everywhere? Through all the rooms?”

“What do you think? Force, I can’t even feel them.”

At this, Padmé’s eyes open up just a little wider. Obi-Wan dives into the Force. He is not bonded to them as he is to Anakin but their presence is a difficult one to miss. He can feel them, but they are far away. 

“Let’s search the grounds. They are not in the house,” Obi-Wan says. 

Obi-Wan leads while Anakin and Padmé follow him down the terrace steps and into the dark night. Only a small light from the house illuminates the area around them. Ruefully, Obi-Wan realizes he failed to put on shoes before leaving the house, but he doesn’t care. He needs to find the kids. 

The tall grass waves in the wind and in the paleness of the moon, it looks like a dark sea. They begin combing through it, fanned out to cover the most ground. 

“Leia!” Anakin screams.

“Luke!” Padmé calls. 

All three of them scream their names, their voices breaking and cracking but never giving out — never giving up. 

“What if we don’t find them?” Anakin asks, distressed.

“We’ll find them, Padawan,” Obi-Wan says, reverting to the old title in an effort to comfort, not demean. 

Anakin returns to calling for his children.

Obi-Wan dives deeper into the Force and wonders why the children feel so far away — and far apart. Surely they would be together — wherever they are. The grass continues to brush against his legs and rocks tear at his bare feet. He can feel the draw of blood but he ignores it. 

“Luke! Leia!” he calls. 

As if on a swivel, Padmé turns to him and with eyes that lack emotion, she asks him one deja vu-inducing question — a question from his dreams. 

“Obi-Wan, where are the children?” 

Before he can ask her “what are you talking about? I’m searching for them the same as you,” images flash behind his eyes. Images that don’t make sense. Images that feel distant and familiar all at the same time. 

An endless desert punctuated by binary suns. Blaster fire and holo photos and dust and blood — acrid on his tongue. 

“What? Padmé, if I knew, I assure you, I would tell you.”

“Liar.” 

Padmé’s eyes are cold and soulless and she speaks with a monotone cadence. 

The visions grow stronger. Lumbering banthas. The heat of the day and the chill of the night. Wooden toys and a black trunk tucked away for safe-keeping. 

The more images he sees, the more he feels there is something to protect — something to keep hidden. 

Anakin’s home. Not here. Not Coruscant. Tatooine. It’s important and it’s where the twins are. No. Not the twins. A twin. The other was taken away — separated for her own safety. 

Blaster fire and electro staffs. 

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan calls.

“Did you find them?” 

“No… no. I’m sorry.” 

“Then what is it?”

“I… I don’t know. Something is wrong.” 

“If this is about the conversation we had, you can save it, Obi-Wan.”

“No, there’s something wrong with this place… the children they… I’m supposed to protect them. One of them.”

“He’s figuring it out.” 

The sudden voice is without a body or form. It is not Anakin or Padmé who speaks it. It’s a voice inside his head, but it is not his own. 

“Did you hear that?” Obi-Wan asks, his heart beating faster than a starfighter. 

“Hear what?” Anakin asks, exasperation evident in his tone. 

“That voice.”

“Master, if you aren’t going to help us find the kids then just go back to the house.” Anakin’s words are bitter and angry and Obi-Wan cannot fault him for them, but he needs someone to listen to him.

“Padmé please,” Obi-Wan begs. “Listen to me.”

“Where are the children, Obi-Wan?” 

“ I don’t know. Something is wrong here.” 

Obi-Wan’s world is falling apart. All things splendid and content in his reality are melting at the edges and he is powerless. Confusion and dread make his chest heavy and tight and the darkness of the night threatens to swallow him whole.  

“Where are the children?”

“I don’t know.”

Except, he does know. He knows with clear definition that Luke is hidden away in the wastelands of  Tatooine and Leia is being raised a princess of Alderaan. 

“Where are the children?”

“Let’s just keep looking for them,” Obi-Wan says diplomatically. 

“No!” Padmé yells. “You know where they are!” 

“I swear to you, I do not.” 

“Liar,” she seethes again. 

“I… I can’t tell you.” 

Why? Why can’t I tell them? 

Obi-Wan tries to figure out why he can’t tell his best friends in the galaxy where their children are. It is not that he can’t physically tell them, it’s that something inside him is telling him he must not, under any circumstances, reveal the locations of the twins. 

The disembodied voice returns. “We need to reset the experiment. He’s not going to give us what we want.” 

“What?” Obi-Wan asks the open air. He turns to Anakin. “Can you not hear that?” he asks, but Anakin’s eyes are dead too. 

“Should we do the same experiment?”

“Yes, but add a few alterations. ” 

Obi-Wan’s breath catches and his hands tremble. “What? What is happening?”

“Wake him up.”

“Wait!” Obi-Wan’s screams go unheard. 

Padmé walks to him, slow and inhuman in her perfect strides. She lifts the edge of her white nightgown and reveals a dagger strapped to her thigh. She unsheathes it and the silver of the blade glints in the moonlight. 

“Padmé…” Obi-Wan breathes. 

With dead eyes, Padmé plunges the dagger into his heart and twists until the beating stops. 

Chapter Text

The facility is sterile and white and the needle is long and sharp and it takes him far away to the planet of Naboo. 

He opens his eyes and is greeted by a morning so pleasant, it feels unreal. The facility from his dreams melts away and is replaced by the quiet calm of morning. Soft yellow walls take in the rising sun as it beams through the windows. White curtains flutter away from the wall, the wind catching easily inside their light textile. 

If he has woken up this way before, he doesn’t remember it. He thinks it is a pleasant way to wake up, even if bad dreams still play on the fringes of his mind, but he has always had bad dreams. At least now he isn’t having them in some tight quarters on a battleship. 

He stretches his arms over his head and revels in the feeling of his body waking up to spend the day as he wishes, not as what was decreed for him by the war. Five years later and the feeling has not worn off. 

The thundering of feet down the wooden hallway signals an end to his peaceful rise to awareness. The door flies open and, just as he suspected, the twins come bounding in, giggling and squealing the whole way. 

“Uncle Obi!” they chant. 

“Shhh. Quiet now, kids,” a gentle voice says. “You don’t want to wake your Uncle Obi.” 

Obi-Wan bolts up in surprise. His wide eyes land on the girl, no, the woman, who left them all behind all those years ago. 

Upon seeing his startled expression, she asks him, “Are you all right, Master?”

“Ahsoka?” he breathes. “What are… how are you… here?”

Ahsoka gives him a quizzical look. “What do you mean?” 

“You… you left .” The pain in his voice is nothing compared to the pain of regret in his chest. 

“Yeah…” Ahsoka says slowly. “But then I came back. You finished my training when the war ended, remember?” 

“What?”

The kids are still running around, jumping on Obi-Wan’s bed. He hardly notices them. 

Images of him and Ahsoka practicing Jar’Kai, running escort missions, standing before the council, everything Masters and Padawans do… all of it flashes behind his eyes like he is dying. 

Memories. 

Yes. 

They must be memories.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan stutters. “I must have dreamt… well I’ve been having strange dreams. Forgive me, Padawan.” 

“Well,” Ahsoka says, a half-grin on her face, “I’m not actually your Padawan anymore. Seems you're a bit of a loner these days, Master.”

“I hardly consider this alone time ,” Obi-Wan says, gesturing to the twins jumping all around him. “All right, all right,” Obi-Wan mutters, pulling himself out of bed. “I’m up! Happy?”

“Yeah!” the children exclaim. 

Obi-Wan shares a look with Ahsoka and he realizes he’s never felt this happy to see her. An overwhelming sense of joy and longing and elation balloons in his chest. He crosses the distance between them and pulls her tight into his arms. 

“Hey,” Ahsoka says softly around a quiet chuckle. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan says. “I just missed you, I think.”

“I saw you a month ago.”

“It felt longer. Much longer.” 

“Yeah,” she says slowly. “It did feel longer, didn’t it?” Her eyes narrow in concentration before her expression turns cheerful once more. “Well, I’m here now.”

“Yes. You are. Now let’s enjoy our day shall we?”

Ahsoka pulls away and looks into his eyes. Obi-Wan stares right back into hers, memorizing the way her irises almost match the stripes of her lekku, the bright gleam of her gaze, the crooked smile that will surely give her smile lines someday, but not yet. Not now. She has a lot of life in front of her and Obi-Wan is grateful he gets to be a part of it once more. 

“Come on,” Ahsoka says. “Anakin is making breakfast.” 

Obi-Wan wrinkles his nose. “He’s a terrible cook.”

“You’d be surprised. I think married life has changed him.” 

“Hmm.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Obi-Wan says. “I just never thought he would be so easily domesticated.”

“He’s not a loth cat,” Ahsoka snickers.

“Exactly.”

Ahsoka gives him another quizzical look and he decides to drop the line of questioning before she can interrogate him further. 

“Come on,” Obi-Wan says. “Let’s go see just how good of a cook he’s become.” 

The children run ahead of them and Obi-Wan lets Ahsoka get in front of him before he allows his cheerful mask to fall away. 

Something inside of him tells him to let go of his fears and doubts. Don’t pull on this thread, Kenobi. 

And he doesn’t. Why would he? The war is over. Anakin is happy, Ahsoka is here and the children are safe. 

Life is good and everything is fine. 

“You’re absolutely hopeless, Snips.” 

Obi-Wan and Padmé look on, snickering quietly as Anakin tries, and fails , to teach Ahsoka how to braid Leia’s hair. 

“Oh, come on! You have to admit this one was better than the last one!” Ahsoka says, gesturing to the rat’s nest she made of Leia’s hair. Anakin stares at her incredulously, spluttering from an uncharacteristic loss for words. 

“ That’s what you consider a good braid?” 

“I like it!” Leia says excitedly, admiring herself in the handheld mirror she holds up in her little hands. 

“See,” Ahsoka says, crossing her arms and puffing out her chest with a prideful smirk, “ Leia likes it.”

“It looks kind of weird,” Luke says shyly.

Padmé and Obi-Wan can’t hold back their laughter anymore as they stare at the tragic-looking braid adorned by the willfully ignorant child. Ahsoka screws up her face at Anakin in righteous indignation. “It looks great! ” 

Anakin, seemingly having recovered himself, swings Leia up into his arms. “ You, my princess, can make anything look great,” he says. “Even this terrible braid.”

Ahsoka smacks his shoulder and this time he laughs aloud. 

“Don’t worry, Snips, I’ll let you keep practicing, though I’m not sure I want you practicing on my daughter anymore. Maybe Obi-Wan will grow out his hair again and you can practice on him.” 

“I think I like my hair where it is, thank you very much,” Obi-Wan says, running his fingers through his short fringe. 

“Yes, out of all of your hairstyles over the years, I’d say this is the best,” Padmé agrees. 

“I thought you were a neutral party here, Senator,” Obi-Wan says.

“I have opinions,” she replies, crossing her arms. 

Obi-Wan huffs. “I didn’t realize my hairstyle could be such a hot topic of debate.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Anakin drawls. “Those handmaidens of hers—”

“Anakin!” Padmé admonishes.

Obi-Wan laughs even as he can feel the tips of his ears turn red. 

Anakin, Padmé, and Ahsoka continue their bickering and the children laugh and chase each other around all their legs. Obi-Wan takes a step back, but takes a moment to memorize this — because this is something worth remembering. 

The days pass just like this: in fragments.

Obi-Wan can’t remember ever being this happy, but he also can’t remember . Specifically, he can’t remember the in-between moments — the moments where nothing happens and everything pauses as is the natural rhythm of life. 

In one moment, it feels like he is spending time with the kids, laughing and playing and doing all the things favorite uncles do with their nieces and nephews. In the next, he is spending time with Padmé, gossiping about politicians. In another flash, he finds himself at Ahsoka’s side, practicing a kata or meditation. He doesn’t know how he got there, he just knows that he gets there. 

And it happens again. 

Now, Obi-Wan stands off to Anakin’s side while he works on his latest project. 

Mildly disoriented, he looks about the shed, lit up by a warm overhead light. Two star destroyers are side-by-side, though not in flight like they once were. They are parked — waiting to be taken back out into the wide-open nothing of space. 

He decides to focus on Anakin and his work instead. To Obi-Wan’s surprise, this particular project does not involve wires or grease. Anakin is building deck chairs out of wood he chopped himself. Right now, he is rubbing sandpaper over what will be the arms of the chair. His movements are calculated and methodical, like he has been doing them his whole life. 

“I never knew you knew how to do this,” Obi-Wan observes.

“Do what?”

“Woodworking. Carpentry. It’s not your usual project.”

“Why wouldn’t I be able to do it?” Anakin asks defensively. 

“Well, for starters, I’ve never seen you make anything out of wood.”

“There isn’t exactly an abundance of trees on Coruscant.” 

Obi-Wan is surprised by the pang of homesickness he feels at the mention of Coruscant. He just got to Naboo. He’s been off-world for much longer periods of time before. He was on Coruscant yesterday, and yet it feels like he hasn’t seen his home in years. 

“No, I suppose there isn’t.” 

Anakin gives an exasperated smile and continues smoothing the wood. 

“Still,” Obi-Wan says. “I’m always surprised by the level of patience you have for projects like this.”

“I have patience ,” Anakin says. “For some things.” 

Obi-Wan thinks of the kids and the way Anakin handles them with a level of diplomacy that likely would have labeled him The Negotiator, if he had used those skills during the Clone Wars. “Yes, you do. I don’t give you enough credit.”

“Have you ever given me enough credit?” Anakin asks.

“More than enough I would say. Sometimes too much.”

Anakin scoffs. “Whatever old man.” He returns his attention to the project at hand. As Anakin smoothes away the rough surface of the wood, Obi-Wan’s mind is given a moment to wander.

“So how is it really?” Obi-Wan blurts out. He is not sure what came over him to ask this, but the words pass over his lips before he can stop them. 

“How is what?”

“Life, I suppose. Now that you aren’t a Jedi. How are you handling everything? Marriage. Children. Domesticity.”

Anakin pauses what he is doing and without the scrubbing of sandpaper, the silence between them is oppressive. 

Anakin’s eyes go dreamy and far away. “It’s perfect.”

Somehow, this is not the answer Obi-Wan thought he would receive. Or maybe it’s not the one he wanted to receive. He shakes the thought. He’s happy for Anakin. Truly. All Obi-Wan wants is for Anakin to be happy and content with his life. 

“I never thought I’d see the day where you would be content with just one life.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“A life with Padmé and your children or a life as a Jedi. You can’t have both, but I thought you would always fight for both anyway.”

Anakin narrows his eyes. “People can change,” he says. “My children changed me.”

Obi-Wan wants to protest further. People change, but not that much. Where is the frightened young man who fought to keep the second half of his life a secret from everyone — even Obi-Wan? 

“It’s so nice here,” Anakin says, interrupting his musings. “You like it here, right?” His expression is earnest and hopeful.

“Yes, it’s…” Obi-Wan thinks about the perfect planet they reside on. The gleam of the sun on the lake. The beautiful house. The children laughing and playing together. Ahsoka’s wry smirks and Padmé’s warm embrace. 

“What is it? Don’t you like it? It’s perfect .” 

“Nothing. I do like this place. It’s just…”

“Just what , Master?”

Obi-Wan sighs. “It’s almost like it’s too good to be true.”

Anakin’s eyes blaze like twin suns. 

“What do you mean by that ?” 

“I don’t know, it’s just a feeling,” Obi-Wan says, suddenly sensing the need to backpedal. 

Anakin runs both hands through his hair. Some of the sawdust that has collected in it falls into his face like snow. 

“Why do you always do this?”

“Pardon? What exactly is it that I’m doing?” 

“You know what you’re doing. You can’t ever just allow yourself a moment’s happiness can you?”

“Yes, I can,” Obi-Wan says in defense. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Something just feels off. Wrong.” 

“No,” Anakin says firmly, like he has decided for him. “Nothing is off, nothing is wrong. Everything is perfect . Why aren’t you happy?”

“I am happy, but Anakin—” 

“Then why won’t you just relax? Settle down and just accept it.”

“Accept what, might I ask?”

“That maybe you were meant to have a happy ending after all.” 

Obi-Wan swallows thickly. Perhaps Anakin has a point.

“Maybe you need to get away. Actually get away.”

“Anakin, I have—

“I know you’re busy,” Anakin cuts him off. “I know you have a life and you’re committed to the Jedi Order and—”

“And what are you asking, Anakin?”

“I’m asking you to stay. Not even forever. I’m not asking you to leave the Order, I know— well I know you . But I’m asking you to stay longer. Just a little longer. Maybe a month? Maybe two? A few days is not enough time and you know it. The kids, they love having you here and I’ve missed you terribly and I really wish you would just say something so I can stop rambling.” 

Anakin’s cheeks burn red and he keeps his eyes anywhere but on Obi-Wan. 

Obi-Wan thinks about his life — really thinks about it. Tries to anyway. There is so much he feels like he is missing and he can’t put his finger on it — like something on the tip of his tongue. Even with the odd gaps in his memory, he thinks of the Order. That , he can never forget. His life is dedicated to it. It’s more than a religion, it is his being and it is his family, his friends. And while Obi-Wan has a great many friends within the Jedi, he knows he has no better friend than Anakin Skywalker. His student, his brother, his best friend. 

How could he leave him? 

But it feels wrong. He feels wrong. Anakin feels wrong. 

He feels himself spiraling — torn between a need to know the truth of what’s going on and a desire to just let himself be happy for once in his life that has thus far been so filled with loss and grief. 

Maybe you were meant to have a happy ending after all. 

Maybe he should take his best friend’s advice. Maybe he should just try to be happy. It’s easier that way. 

“Please say something, Master,” Anakin says, hope shining in his eyes. 

“I’ll stay,” Obi-Wan finally says. He’s almost surprised by his own answer. “I don’t know how long, but I… You’re right. I want to be happy and I’ve… well, I’ve been happy here.” 

Anakin beams. 

“I know what you’re doing,” Obi-Wan says.

“What?” Anakin asks innocently. 

“You’re trying to get me to leave. To give in to a quiet life of domesticity out here on Naboo, just like you.”

“I’m not trying to get you to leave, I’m trying to get you to retire . There’s a difference.”

“Anakin, I’m barely forty years old, I am not retiring , yet.”

“ Yet .”

“Don’t push it.”

“Whatever you say, Master,” Anakin says, returning to the task at hand. 

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes and allows himself to settle and meditate to the sound of wood being sanded down until all the splinters and fragments are no more. 

Another night passes, and with it, more dreams. 

He’s been having lots of them lately, but this one is different. In this one, Padmé looks at him with dead eyes, a glinting knife held threateningly in her hand. A question. A kill.

Obi-Wan wakes in a cold sweat, a scream lodged in the back of his throat, held back by the last shred of his self-control. His heart pounds in his chest and he just wishes he could sleep normally for once. 

Scrubbing his face he tries to steady his breathing. The dark of night still blankets everything around him and he laments the lack of sleep he got. At least he doesn’t have to go to any Council meetings in the morning. 

The sheets twisted around him feel more like a vice than a comfort, so he detangles himself from them and swings his legs over the side of the bed. No point in trying to sleep again — he knows he won’t. 

Instead, he makes his way down to the lake. He always finds himself going down to the lake. It’s quiet and beautiful and he is always entirely alone except—

“Ahsoka?” he asks. She is sitting in a lotus position at the lake shore. She doesn’t startle. She is too serene for that, but she does notice him. 

“Hello, Master,” she says. “A little early for you to be up, isn’t it?”

“You are hardly one to talk, my dear,” Obi-Wan says, sitting down right beside her. “What are you doing out here?”

“Meditating. I’m assuming that is why you are here.”

“Very perceptive.”

“So, what brings you out here?” Ahsoka asks, uncurling herself from her lotus position. “Besides meditation, of course.”

Obi-Wan hesitates for a moment. He debates with himself. To burden her with this or not to burden her with this?

“Master,” she says, a flicker of impatience laces her tone. 

“Bad dreams,” he admits. 

Ahsoka nods in understanding and her eyes convey a level of empathy that makes Obi-Wan want to confess all of the doubts and anxieties he has been feeling despite the overall perfection of their lives — his life.

“What about you?” he asks. 

“The same,” she says. 

“Well don’t we make a sad lineage?” Obi-Wan says. He looks down at his hands. “I suppose I just assumed that after the war... that I… that my mind would bounce back. I’d be like I was before it.”

Ahsoka takes his hand from its spot in his lap and squeezes it. “The war never really ended for me. I get the feeling it never ended for you either.” 

“No. And I get the feeling it will never end. Not for us.” 

“No. Not for us.” 

Obi-Wan senses Ahsoka holding back about something. “What is it dear?” 

“I have other dreams too.” This time she looks away from him. “Not about the war.” 

“What about?” Obi-Wan asks, trying to hide the frantic edge to his voice. 

“I don’t know… I— it’s weird. They are weird.”

“What’s weird about them?” His eyes are wide and his words are eager but he does not care. He needs to know. He needs to know he’s not alone. 

“I’m not sure. Sometimes, well, most of the time, I don’t remember them. Just glimmers. Fragments.” 

Fragments . 

“I believe I have been experiencing a similar thing,” Obi-Wan says. “Do you ever dream of a place with white walls? A facility of some sort.”

Ahsoka looks at him cautiously and Obi-Wan thinks that maybe he has said too much and maybe he has outed himself as going truly mad this time. 

“Yes,” she says and Obi-Wan’s heart leaps. “It’s something like that.”

A million questions run through Obi-Wan’s brain but he splutters out, “what does it mean?” like she is the one who is the Master and he is the earnest young Knight. 

“I have no idea,” she says. “Do you think it could be the Halls of Healing?” 

“No,” he says. “They were sterile, but not like this place. This place is—”

“Pristine?” Ahsoka says, cutting him off. 

“Exactly. Pristine. Too pristine.”

“Why do you think we’re having this dream?”

“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan says. He takes a deep breath and remembers his training. “Perhaps we should meditate on it.”

“That’s what I was trying to do before you interrupted me.”

“Do or do not,” Obi-Wan says dryly. 

“Fine,” Ahsoka says, closing her eyes and reassuming a lotus position. “Meditate with me.” 

Obi-Wan obliges, mirroring her and sinking into the Force. He finds her and connects with her and she feels just as he remembers her. Just… as he… remembers… 

It feels good to meditate again. It feels even better to meditate with another person and it feels even better still to meditate with someone who he knows is experiencing something similar to him. 

He lets his lungs expand and feels the air he breathes. He connects his body with his mind and to the Force and to Ahsoka even if it still feels off — even if he isn’t sure he'll find his true center ever again. 

Together, they meditate and the moons set and the sun rises, giving way to the soft glimpse of morning — and something else. 

“Come on ,” Leia whispers. “Let’s wake them up.”

“I don’t think they’re asleep,” Luke says. “I think they are med-i-nating”

“That’s not how you say that,” Leia replies indignantly. 

Obi-Wan subtly twitches his fingers and the twins both start to float a few inches off the ground. 

They shriek and then laugh at their new predicament and start trying to kick and move around, but Obi-Wan has them caught in his invisible grip. 

“I think our morning meditation might be coming to an end, Master,” Ahsoka says, tossing Obi-Wan a sideways smirk.

“Certainly seems that way.” 

“Put me down!” Leia shouts, but he can tell she is not angry. She’s enjoying this far more than her stubborn will would ever let her admit. 

Luke on the other hand openly enjoys the levitation. His bright eyes and wide grin speak even louder than Leia does. 

“What are you two doing out here?” Obi-Wan asks. 

“We were looking for you,” Luke says, moving his arms like a swimmer. Obi-Wan doesn’t let him swim far. 

“Oh?” Ahsoka asks. “And how come?”

“We’re going to play a game!” Leia says enthusiastically. 

“A game you say?” Obi-Wan says, stroking his beard with his free hand. “Does this game require all players to have their feet on the ground?”

“Yes!” they say together. 

“So you probably want me to let you go, then.”

“Yes!”

“Hmmm,” he says, exaggerating his expression. “I’ll have to think about it.” He lifts them higher into the air. 

“Uncle Obi!” they cry. 

“All right, all right,” he says, gently setting them back on the ground. 

“Come on!” The twins shriek in an almost eerie unison. “Come play with us!” 

“If you insist.” 

Obi-Wan stands up and outstretches his hand to Ahsoka. Together, they follow the twins back home. 

The game is a simple one in that the rules are provided in its name: hide-and-seek. The twins love this game. 

Obi-Wan wonders how they have not grown tired of it, but with the large lakehouse, he realizes he cannot be too surprised. There are many great hiding places to be found inside those walls. 

Right now, the whole Skywalker family (plus Ahsoka and Obi-Wan) are involved in the game. Obi-Wan huffs in exasperation as he crouches down low beside a dresser. 

“Honestly, Master, it’s like you want to be found.” 

Obi-Wan looks up at Ahsoka. 

“Maybe I do,” he says defensively. 

“Where is your competitive spirit?”

“I’m saving it for a rainy day.” 

Ahsoka rolls her eyes and pulls him to his feet. “Come on, help me find the others. You’re on my team now.”

“Fine. Finding Anakin shouldn’t be too hard. He’s terrible at hiding.”

“I am not ,” a muffled voice sounds from a linen closet.

“See,” Obi-Wan says, crossing the room and opening the door. “Absolutely terrible.”

“ That was cheating, Master,” Anakin squawks. 

“I believe it was you who gave yourself away.” 

“Yeah, but—” 

“You’re both terrible at hiding,” Ahsoka interrupts. “Now let’s find the other Skywalkers. They shouldn’t be too hard to find. Especially the ones with Anakin’s genes.”

“Hey! Not you too!” 

“Shut up, let’s just focus on finding your wife and children.”

Together, Obi-Wan’s lineage searches the massive lakehouse, looking under, over, and behind every surface and item of furniture. The floor creaks under their feet and Obi-Wan wonders how the three of them ever successfully completed any stealth missions together in the past. 

It is not long before they find Padmé hiding behind a curtain. She looks at the three of them with a raised eyebrow. 

“You haven’t found the kids yet?” she asks.

“No, they are being quite wily it seems,” Obi-Wan sighs. “They are good at this game.” 

“Yes, well, let’s hurry up and find them so we can start making dinner,” Anakin says. “I’m starving .” 

“I’m sure you’ll live through this round, my former Padawan,” Obi-Wan says. “Have we tried searching outside yet?”

“No,” Ahsoka says. 

“They aren’t supposed to go outside,” Padmé points out. 

“If they take after you,” —Obi-Wan pointedly looks at Anakin— “then there is a very real chance they are outside.”

“I’ll finish searching the house, I’ll meet you three outside,” Ahsoka says, steady as ever. 

Anakin ducks into the study where Padmé conducts her work when she is able to work remotely. Obi-Wan follows and watches on with curiosity as Anakin unlocks a cabinet. 

“This isn’t the outside,” Obi-Wan says. 

“No,” Anakin replies, his back turned to Obi-Wan and Padmé. He digs through the cabinet until his hands land on the familiar object. 

“Do you really think you’ll be needing that?” Obi-Wan asks dubiously, staring at the lightsaber hilt. 

“I don’t know,” Anakin says. “But I feel better with it at my side.” 

“Whatever makes you more comfortable. Now let’s go find the children.”

“Lead the way.” 

Obi-Wan strides through the house and trots down the exterior staircase that leads down to the lakeshore. Anakin and Padmé follow close behind.

The three of them call out Luke and Leia’s names, but the only reply is the soft breath of wind. 

Obi-Wan watches Anakin and Padmé grow more agitated and anxious the longer they go without finding the children. 

“Where do you think they are?” Anakin asks, tugging on his sleeve. 

“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan answers honestly. 

“Let’s search the field.”

Obi-Wan casts his eyes over the field. A sinking feeling takes hold of him and makes its home deep in his gut. The long grass ripples like the gentle waves upon the lake and everything inside Obi-Wan tells him not to wade into the depths. 

Ignoring the voice in his head, Obi-Wan plunges in.

The grass is thick and difficult to walk through and oh so familiar . 

“Luke!” he calls. “Leia!” 

Bugs chirp and screech into the late afternoon air, their cries so loud, Obi-Wan feels himself shouting louder just to compete with them. 

Anakin and Padmé scream their children’s names too.

Obi-Wan pauses and scans the horizon. The waving grass is unbroken by any wandering children. It moves uniformly in a dance choreographed by the Nubian breeze. 

The children are not here.

Obi-Wan gets that distinct feeling that he is being watched and he whips his head around to face Anakin and Padmé. They stand together, their gazes fixed upon him. Their eyes lack the warmth provided by souls and it is like the eyes he sees in his dreams, but it is real. He thinks it’s real. It feels real.

“Anakin? Padmé?”

“Where are the children, Obi-Wan?” 

And it is that question that ratchets his unease up to more than just apprehension. The question gives birth to fear inside his mind and he finds himself frozen in place. 

Anakin and Padmé surge forward, walking towards him in an even, almost robotic, pace. 

“Where are the children, Obi-Wan?” Padmé asks once she is only a few feet from him.

“I don’t know.”

“Where are the children, Obi-Wan?” Anakin asks.

“If I knew where they were, I would have retrieved them myself.”

“Liar!” Anakin yells, and something about his accusatory cadence makes Obi-Wan feel sick. 

“Anakin, please . Let’s just keep looking all right? I’m sure Ahsoka will join us soon, and then—”

“No. We can’t find them and it’s your fault ,” Anakin growls.

“Anakin, what are you saying?” 

“They’re lost because of you,” Padmé taunts.

“No, I… I didn’t do anything to them, I’m protecting them.” 

The words spill from his lips like a confession and he supposes it is. 

The children. 

He has to protect the children. 

Obi-Wan does not know what is real, but he knows his mission to protect the children, to protect Luke , is more real than anything, but it is only with these words that he remembers. He remembers everything . 

“Where are the children, Obi-Wan,” Padmé and Anakin ask in unison. 

“I can’t tell you,” Obi-Wan says. “I won’t , tell you. No matter what you do to me.” 

They look at him like they are studying him — like he is an experiment. 

“Wake him up.”

Obi-Wan’s heart stutters and then pounds. 

Anakin grabs the saber from his hip and ignites it. The humming of the blade — normally a comforting sound — is now a threat. 

“No! Please, Anakin, listen to me!” Obi-Wan pleads, though he is only now coming to the conclusion that this is not Anakin. Not the Anakin he knew anyway. “Stop, I didn’t do anything to them!” 

If he hears him, he gives no sign of it. 

Anakin plunges the saber into Obi-Wan’s chest and he feels his life draining from his body.

But this time… this time , Obi-Wan wakes up. 

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan’s reality is located on a desolate planet — dust-covered and dangerous to outsiders and natives alike. It is a planet that would be insignificant to any story were it not for the boy that is raised upon its barren surface. 

The locale is not ideal, but nothing is these days. 

So Obi-Wan spends his days traversing a broken world that aches, that yearns for hope — for a splash of light that does not come from the suns burning through their atmosphere, but from something much brighter than that. 

They are waiting for Luke. 

Tatooine is harsh and unforgiving, but here he stands, and here he stays because Obi-Wan is waiting for Luke too. 

Even with the plan in mind, Obi-Wan still needs to find a way to pass the time. 

He takes to a herd of bantha, or rather, they take to him. It is unclear who adopted whom, but he is glad to have their company regardless. 

He raises them and cares for them. The banthas are fed and watered before even he is. He meticulously brushes and detangles their coats until they shine like silk in the suns. 

“You’re a good girl, Belle,” Obi-Wan says to the bantha he is currently grooming. She lows at him in protest. “I know, I know, but really, this is your fault. If you didn’t roll around in the sand so much, you wouldn’t have this many knots in your fur.” 

“Talking to the banthas isn’t helping your crazy old hermit reputation, Ben.”

Obi-Wan pauses mid-stroke of the brush and smiles to himself. 

“It appears Lady Whitesun has saved you from me today, girl.” Obi-Wan detangles the brush from Belle’s fur, but doesn’t turn to Beru just yet. 

“I’m hardly a Lady,” Beru says.

“But I am definitely a crazy old hermit,” Obi-Wan replies. He finally turns to face Beru and she looks so kind in the Force it almost breaks Obi-Wan’s heart. There is not much kindness left in the galaxy and even less on Tatooine. The kind ones have been killed or forced into hiding. But not her. Beru stands before him with a smile that isn’t as sympathetic as it used to be and Obi-Wan is grateful for her company, even knowing her visits are fleeting and only occur on special occasions. 

“Then the rumors are true,” she jabs back. 

“From a certain point of view.” Obi-Wan gestures to his hut, only a short distance away from the corral he built for his banthas. “Care to step into some shade?”

Beru nods and follows him inside. He prepares them each a cup of tea. The leaves are a spiced variety specific to Tatooine and though Obi-Wan hated it at first, he has acquired the taste for it. 

“So,” Obi-Wan begins, “what brings you all the way out here? I know the journey is not the easiest.” 

“It is hardly my fault you chose the worst place to live on the worst planet to live.”

Obi-Wan gives her a breathy laugh. “Easier to keep a low profile this way.”

“Easier to actually go mad this way.” 

“I suppose,” Obi-Wan says. 

Beru takes a sip of her tea before locking eyes with Obi-Wan. “Luke is five now.” 

Obi-Wan swallows, his mouth suddenly feeling dry. He knows this. Of course he knows this. It’s been five years since the worst day of his life — the day the Jedi died, but also the day hope was reborn. 

It is a complicated day for him.

“I know.” It’s a simple reply, but the only one he has at the moment. 

“I wanted to give you something,” Beru says.

“It’s not my birthday.”

Beru rolls her eyes. “Here,” she says, handing him a small holo photo. In it, Luke smiles brightly, a wooden starship clutched tightly in his little hands. 

“I know you are the one who brings him those toys,” she says. Obi-Wan blushes. He’s taken up more hobbies than raising banthas in his time of exile. Making toys for Luke is one of them. 

Obi-Wan stares at the holo photo — at the bright grin on Luke’s face. “I just want him to have a happy childhood. Something his father didn’t have.”

“I think his father had a better childhood once he was freed.” 

“I certainly hope so,” Obi-Wan says. “Not that it makes all too much of a difference.”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t.” 

Beru Whitesun is not the type to bullshit, even if she is a bit of a shy girl. Obi-Wan appreciates this about her. 

“Thank you for bringing me this,” Obi-Wan says genuinely. “It means more than you know.” 

“It is the least I can do after you brought him to me.” 

When Obi-Wan doesn’t reply, she adds on, “He’s the sweetest boy. A gentle, but spirited soul. Kind and considerate. I… Well, I cannot bear children. Luke is the only child I will ever have and I need you to know that he is a miracle. An absolute miracle , Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan flinches at the use of his first name. 

“Obi-Wan is dead,” he says softly.

Beru hums. “I don’t think so. Dormant, maybe. But dead? I think Obi-Wan is a little harder to kill than all that.”

Obi-Wan gives her a sad sort of smile. “I think you’re right, unfortunately.” 

“I know I am.”

Beru looks over him sadly, but there is no pity in her eyes. Obi-Wan appreciates this about her as well. 

“It’s a long journey back,” she says. 

“And I have some banthas that need grooming,” he replies. He knew she could not stay for long. He was happy for her company, no matter how fleeting. 

Without complaint, Obi-Wan walks her to the door and sees her to her speeder. “Drive safely,” he says.

Beru gives him one last look. “May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan.”

Breath catches in the back of his throat. “And with you.” 

He watches her go, and with a heavy sigh, returns to his banthas. 

A stranger comes to Obi-Wan’s doorstep only a few days later. 

“Ben Kenobi?” the stranger asks.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says cautiously, though he senses no ill intent from the man holding a small package in his hands. 

“Delivery from Alderaan.” 

The man hands over the package and is gone before Obi-Wan can even ask the man what it is. 

Perplexed, Obi-Wan takes the package inside and sits down at the small table he built himself. He takes a small blade to the adhesive holding the box together and pulls out an envelope. He rips it open to reveal a letter handwritten on flimsi.

Ben,

I hope upon receiving this that you are in good health. I know Tatooine is no summer vacation destination, but I do hope you are finding some sort of peace there. 

Anyway, I thought you might like to see what Luke’s sister looks like now. If you have not already found it, you will find a holo photo of Leia on her fifth birthday. Five. Can you believe it? I hardly can. Soon enough she is going to get bored of bossing me around and start bossing around entire systems instead. 

You would love her, Ben. She’s willful and creative and sharp as a whip. Just the type of personality you like to surround yourself with. She breaks everything she touches, but she always finds a way to fix it and somehow make it better than it once was. 

Like my little girl, the Rebellion is young, but strong. I think you would be glad to know that people are organizing. Groups are forming deep in the shadows, but they are there. Take heart, Ben. The plan is in motion and the time will come for both Luke and Leia. 

-Bail

Obi-Wan reads the letter three times through before carefully folding it and sealing it back in the envelope. He throws it in the fireplace and watches the edges curl and fall away until there is nothing left to feed the flames. 

He pulls the holo photo out of the box and flips it on. Smiling up at him is the spitting image of Padmé Amidala. A deep, but ever-present grief rises closer to the surface than he would like. 

Leia’s soft brown hair is pulled into intricate braids and her dark eyes indicate she is wise beyond her five years. He stares at the photo for a long time before picking up the one of Luke. He holds them side by side and studies them. 

They look so much like their parents, it hurts. 

Still, Obi-Wan places the photos right next to each other and smiles. His purpose, his mission — both caught in perpetuity within the finite walls of a holo photo. 

They come at night. 

Obi-Wan senses them, even in his sleep. He wakes in a cold sweat and with a very bad feeling. 

They are not difficult to sense. A ship carrying dozens of stormtroopers and one Force-sensitive land on the planet’s sandy surface. 

Of course, Obi-Wan knew something like this would eventually happen, he had just hoped that it would be when Luke was older. But five-year-olds with overwhelming Force presences cannot shield themselves, so Obi-Wan does it for him. Even from the Jundland Wastes, Obi-Wan can sense Luke, and while Obi-Wan is not nearly as powerful as Luke will one day be, he is capable of obscuring him — dulling his bright Force presence just enough so that any other Force-sensitive could not find him.

All except one, maybe.

Obi-Wan prays to the Force that it is not the only one who could see right through him. 

Obi-Wan scrambles to unlock the black chest he keeps with the few treasured belongings that survived that day only a little over five years ago. 

He grabs a lightsaber hilt just as his door is kicked in and troopers flood his small home. He whips around and ignites the saber — only taking one brief moment to recognize that the blade in his hand is not his own. It belonged to another.

No matter. Obi-Wan knows this blade just as well as his own and he intends to wield it as such. 

Troopers attempt to descend upon him. Their blasters, set to stun, shoot bolts at him that he easily deflects. 

It is like no time has passed at all. He falls easily into his old stance and the blade sings like it is happy to finally be in use after lying dormant for five years. 

One by one, Obi-Wan fights his way out of a corner — taking down stormtrooper after stormtrooper. White armor curls and melts around the blaze of the blade and their bodies crumple to the ground like so many fallen leaves. 

Once the troopers inside his home are dealt with, Obi-Wan breaks into the night air. His heart sinks. The barren wasteland that usually greets him is blanketed by a whole legion of troopers. 

There’s no way he’s getting out of this one. 

Still, he fights on. He takes out trooper after trooper, breathing heavily from the exertion of fighting and maintaining a shield over Luke simultaneously. 

Obi-Wan vaguely hears a commanding order from one of the troopers and the legion of men parts. Obi-Wan’s eyes land on a trooper coming straight at him through the divide. Except, this is no stormtrooper. His armor isn’t orange anymore, but Obi-Wan would know him anywhere. It is the sight of him that causes Obi-Wan to do something he never does in battle: he falters. 

It is enough. 

A blaster bolt slips past his, Anakin’s , lightsaber and hits him square in the chest. A mistake not even a padawan would make, but one he makes because the man who shot him is the man who once was his right hand. 

Obi-Wan sinks to the ground in a boneless heap — twitching slightly from the shock effect of the blaster bolt. 

Obi-Wan stares up at Cody, not quite able to speak just yet. 

“Cody…” he gasps. “Cody, it’s me .” 

“Good soldiers follow orders,” Cody says, kicking him in the stomach. Obi-Wan curls around himself and gasps heavily, inhaling sand. He feels the grit of it in his teeth. 

Through squinted eyes, Obi-Wan can see another man approaching, though this one is not a clone or a stormtrooper. It is the Force-sensitive he sensed. His red saber is ablaze in his hands, humming a dirge in time with the dark side’s eerie rhythm. 

Bail had warned Obi-Wan about people like this in a letter long ago burned. Inquisitors , he called them. Force-sensitive beings tapped into the dark side of the Force sent to capture or sometimes kill anyone else who is Force-sensitive. 

And now one of them is here. 

The Pau’an’s white face and red markings are a fearsome sight, though Obi-Wan has seen far-worse. 

“Is this the one my Master is looking for?” the Inquisitor asks.

“Yes, Sir,” Cody says. 

“Good. Now bind him. Make sure he stays down.” 

Obi-Wan’s eyes widen. “No! Cody, don’t listen to him!”

“Shut up!” Cody shouts. Cody never shouts. Not at him. 

Obi-Wan realizes that this can’t be Cody. Not the one he knew, anyway. He doesn’t know what happened to him or to any of his other men, but he knows with stark clarity that this is not him. 

Years Obi-Wan has laid awake at night thinking about the moment Cody and his men turned on him and all of the other Jedi. He never received answers or clues or even a shred of evidence indicating that the massacre was anything but a betrayal, but now… now he knows that the man detaining him is no longer Cody and has not been Cody for five years. 

Cody slaps him across the face and internally Obi-Wan forgives him because this is not Cody. The sting is only physical now. Cody would never hurt him. 

“Where are the children?” CC-2224 asks. 

No.

If CC-2224 is asking about the children, that means the Empire knows the children exist. 

“What children?” Obi-Wan asks. He strains to hold the mental shield over Luke. He gives up some of his own for it. He can feel the Inquisitor pressing against him, searching for the locations Obi-Wan will never give him. 

The Inquisitor stares at him for a long time before turning to face CC-2224. 

“I don’t sense another Force-sensitive on this planet. It must be him alone.” The Inquisitor turns to Obi-Wan. “You and I are going to get to know each other quite well, Obi-Wan .” 

CC-2224 strikes him across the head and the last thing Obi-Wan feels is his body being dragged through the sand. 

The torture has no beginning and no end. It just is. Day in. Day out. A year of poking and prodding and beating and near-drowning and it never ever had an end. Has. The torture is ongoing.

Obi-Wan wishes he could say the torture is monotonous — something he can get used to, something he can tolerate. But the Empire likes to keep things interesting and Obi-Wan can do nothing but take the endless days as they come. 

“Where are the children?” They ask at the end of every day. 

Every day, Obi-Wan replies “Go fuck yourself.” 

His initial replies to the question used to be more eloquent — always a little more well-crafted in their wit and snark, but even he tired of that. 

His torturers change every day and they never tire. 

Sometimes it’s the Inquisitor, sometimes it’s the stormtroopers, and most painful of all, sometimes it is his own men. They shove the holo photos of Luke and Leia in his face. 

Foolish . He should have burned them with Bail’s letters, but he couldn’t. They were all he really had left — glimpses of the new hope birthed to the galaxy. The watered-down visages of his dearest friends, both of them long dead, but still alive in the two young children. Obi-Wan can only imagine the lecture Master Yoda would give him about attachments leading to suffering. 

And he suffers. Over time, his body weakens. He can feel it resisting more and more all of the dark administrations forced upon it. They feed him enough to keep him alive, but he can count every rib and feel the ache of every hunger pang, only worsened by the meager rations he is given every few days. 

“Where are the children?” 

“Go fuck yourself.” 

The waterboarding is most unpleasant. The panicked feeling of drowning sends him back to a time when he was dragged deep into the ocean by an invisible current. He was only a child at the time. He knew not what it was or what to do. He almost drowned and likely would have had Qui-Gon not rescued him. 

Of course, Qui-Gon will not be rescuing him now. No one will. There is no one left. 

“Where are the children?”

“Go fuck yourself.” 

Electrical currents ram through his veins, weakening his body but never his spirit. Twitching helplessly on the ground, Obi-Wan chatters out his usual answer to the usual question.

“Where are the children?”

“Go fuck yourself.” 

And Obi-Wan realizes that even after everything, after the pain, the suffering, the torture, after all he has lost, he still wants to live. Maybe it’s a foolish notion. Maybe it’s cowardice. Or maybe it’s the bravest thing he’s ever felt — suffering through life and still wanting more. 

“Where are the children?

“Go fuck yourself.” 

Sometimes Obi-Wan sees other prisoners of war get dragged in. Some are stronger than others, but none seem to be as strong as him. He outlives all of them. He wonders if that is an achievement worth having. 

“How long have you been here for?” a prisoner from the cage across the hall asks him one day. It’s odd. Most of the time, they do not speak to him. 

“A while,” Obi-Wan says. His voice is hoarse from screaming throughout the day. “Hard to say exactly how long. There isn’t exactly sunlight in here. But I believe it’s close to a year.” 

“Looks about that way,” the man says, eyeing Obi-Wan. 

Obi-Wan smirks. “What are you in for?”

“Oh you know,” the man says nonchalantly, “rebellious activity.”

Obi-Wan perks up. “So you’re with the rebellion?” 

“Well, I’m certainly not with the Empire.” The man messes with a loose thread on his torn pants. “We bombed a supply station. The mission was successful. Almost successful. Everyone got away. Everyone except me.” 

The prisoner talks to Obi-Wan until they both fall asleep. By morning, the prisoner is gone. 

Obi-Wan doesn’t see him again. 

He stares at the empty walls of his cell. Though the prisoner is gone, the hope he left behind is not. The rebellion is alive, just as Bail said in his letter all those months ago. It is in its early days, wobbling on unsteady legs like a newborn eopie, but it is forming.  

The Rebellion is real. The Rebellion is hope.

This is why Obi-Wan carries on. Luke and Leia are the only hope of the galaxy. It cannot be Obi-Wan that loses that hope. 

As they always do, the torturers come back. 

“Where are the children?”

“Go fuck yourself.” 

Sometimes on the darkest days, Obi-Wan thinks, have I not suffered enough?  

But then his thoughts turn to the children with lightsaber burns piercing their tiny bodies. He remembers the screaming, tearing, suffering in the Force and then the silence. Somehow, even more than that, he cannot forget those amber eyes filled with hatred and agony where once there was a blue balm of compassion and vitality. 

No, perhaps he has not suffered enough. 

So Obi-Wan endures the torture. Day after day he endures. A year passes like this. A year of being starved and beaten and nearly broken, but never quite so. A year of pain, until something changes. 

The guards bearing the faces of the men he once considered brothers in arms come to take him from his tight metal cage, as they always do, but this time they do not take him to that room. 

He looks around in confusion at the unfamiliar hallway, but knows better than to ask where he is being taken. If some of his curiosity has been beaten out of him over the past year, who could possibly blame him? He is more strategic in his defiance, but he is not broken. 

Still, he wonders where the clones are taking him as his feet drag along the ground behind him. The hallway is long and grey and seemingly without end until a door slides open and outside air kisses his face. 

Air. Fresh air. 

Obi-Wan has not felt fresh air since… well since everything fell apart. A whole year spent inside with circulated, centralized air and this is the first time he’s able to breathe.  

He would have wept had he not still been held captive. But he restrains himself for fear of it all being taken away. They couldn’t take it away. He would have rather not felt it at all than be given a taste. He only wishes the sun were out, but it is the dead of night wherever he is. He glances up at the stars in wonder and swears to never take their presence for granted. 

Then he looks back down. The guards are dragging him to a ship. It is new – not like any of the ships he had seen during the war. 

This time, Obi-Wan’s curiosity wins out. “Where are–“ His voice cracks and he clears his parched throat. “Where are we going?” 

“Quiet, traitor,” a guard says, smacking the back of his head and causing him to see stars for a moment. 

The guards throw him on the floor of the ship like he is no more than a sack of flour to be tossed about by rough-handed bakers. 

Some of Obi-Wan’s old fire draws to the surface. “Where are you taking me?” he demands. 

“Just knock him out,” one of the clones says 

“Fine by me,” another clone says, procuring a syringe from a box in the ship’s hold. 

“Wait,” Obi-Wan begs frantically. “I’ll be quiet, just don't–“ 

A sharp stinging sensation and the feeling of the ship taking off are all the lead-up Obi-Wan is warranted before he passes out.

Chapter Text

The facility is white-walled and eerily familiar. He’s been here before.

Yes . Years ago, right before the war’s beginning. Days before the war’s beginning. This facility is the birthplace of the clones and, from some perspectives, the birthplace of the Clone Wars. He was here for the beginning and then once more for a mission to defend this artificial birthplace. 

Even in his groggy, half-drugged state, he knows with absolute certainty that he is on Kamino. 

Why Kamino?

He looks down at himself. His arms, legs, and torso are all strapped down to a flat examination table. Only his head is free to move about. He looks to his right and sees sterile walls and medical instruments. Clarity is starting to come more easily as the panic ratchets up. 

Why did the clones bring him here ? And why is he strapped to an examination table? 

His heartbeat thrums faster and faster and he realizes that the accompanying beeping sound is a heart rate monitor. He tries then to slow his rapid pulse. He needs to figure out where he is and what is going on before anyone comes in here and puts him under the influence of whatever drug that has been forced into his blood for the past… he’s not sure how long. Judging from the sharp pangs of hunger in his stomach and the general weakness he feels, he has to assume it’s been at least two days. 

He knows he woke a few times between the last facility and this one. The hyperspace journey had been a long one. Kamino isn’t exactly close to most other planets. 

He’s cold, he realizes. The facility is cold and he wears only a thin white shirt and thin white pants. Against his will, his body trembles underneath the restraints — Force-suppressing just like all the others. 

He can feel the current of the Force buzzing against his mind and it is the only thing he has been able to hold onto for the past year. He cannot wield it, but it is there for him as it always has been. 

Obi-Wan turns his head to the side and sees something that makes him feel sick, even to his long-empty stomach. 

Strapped down to identical tables are Padmé and Anakin . 

Anakin who is dead.

Anakin who burned alive. 

Anakin who he maimed beyond salvation.

Anakin . 

Now, there is no hope of slowing down his heart rate. The monitor beeps a rapid staccato rhythm as the smoke-stained events on Mustafar play across his mind. 

There is something wrong here. Anakin is dead. Vader replaced him. 

Vader is a living deformity — more machine than man. He’s a monument to darkness and evil and he has sown death and destruction across the galaxy. He’s Obi-Wan’s greatest failure and deepest regret and yet…

And yet , seeing Anakin lying there with his curls surrounding his head like a halo leaves Obi-Wan with a foolish, irrational hope. 

Maybe it was all a ruse. Maybe Anakin somehow faked the whole thing in some elaborate scheme. Sure, Obi-Wan will never forget the feeling of his own lightsaber slicing through his student’s body with none of the resistance Anakin had always given him in his youth, but what if it wasn’t real? No, he’ll never lose the scent memory of burnt flesh and hair clinging to his nostrils and cementing itself in the olfactory sector of his brain, but if it wasn’t real, maybe he can forgive it. Maybe these last five, no, six years of hell were just some cruel trick played on him. He hopes beyond the bounds of hope for it all to be a cruel joke. 

Obi-Wan’s mind flashes back to about a month after Qui-Gon died. Back then, he had slipped out of the apartment he shared with Anakin in the middle of the night. He just needed to get out , he didn’t mean to go to the Room of a Thousand Fountains and cry under the willow tree that Qui-Gon always loved. He hadn’t meant to disturb Master Windu from his meditation. He hadn’t meant for any of that. 

But he did do that and Master Windu offered him a piece of advice he’s thinking very hard about now.

“The five stages of grief are unpredictable, Obi-Wan,” Mace Windu had said to him then. “You’re not going to experience them in order and that’s okay. You just can’t let your grief consume you.”

Maybe that’s what this is. He must be experiencing an extreme form of denial. After all, he knows Vader is what remains. He remembers the day he found out. It was in one of Bail’s letters. Obi-Wan’s shock and rage and utter despair at the short little note were so palpable, Luke felt it. Beru had visited him the next day out of concern. What she found that day was not the prim and proper Jedi Knight, but a broken man curled up around an amber bottle of whiskey. 

What is this ?

Beeping, continuous and swift, punctuates each of his rapid-fire thoughts. The beeping, as Obi-Wan feared, is enough to bring in his most persistent torturer.

“Are you enjoying your new accommodations, Kenobi?” the Inquisitor asks as he enters the room. 

A Kaminoan, Nala Se , if Obi-Wan remembers correctly, stands demure and quiet behind the Inquisitor. 

“I would have preferred a room with an ocean view,” Obi-Wan says, finding some of the fight that had long since been frozen in the permafrost of his mind. 

The Inquisitor produces a cattle prod from his belt and jabs it at Obi-Wan. Everything in his body is trying to flinch, to move, to get away from the electrical currents webbing their way through his frayed nervous system, but the restraints hold him perfectly still. 

“I thought you had learned by now to keep your mouth shut?”

“You know what they say about old habits.” 

The Inquisitor jabs him again. 

Obi-Wan chances a look over at Anakin and Padmé. 

“So it seems we both have questions we want answered,” the Inquisitor says. “Now tell me, Kenobi, where are the children? ”

Obi-Wan grits his teeth and steels his body. “I will die before I tell you where they are. Their location dies with me.”

The Inquisitor jabs him with the prod and Obi-Wan cannot help the scream that rips from his throat. 

“Where are the children?”

“Have you not learned by now that I am a dead end? Come now, we’ve been doing this for a year . There is no getting past me, so why not just kill me already?”

“Oh, I will,” the Inquisitor says. “But I need some answers first.”

There is a dull satisfaction in knowing that he is the only one who knows. Obi-Wan is the Empire’s only hope of finding those kids and he would never ever give up those children — no matter what they do to him. He’d suffer the torture for an eternity if it protected Luke and Leia — the last lights in the galaxy. 

“Where are the children?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Back to this, are we?” the Inquisitor asks. “Fine. I didn’t want it to come to this, but I fear you have given me little choice.” 

With nerves hidden behind icy eyes, Obi-Wan glares at him. “And what might this be?”

“Very well, I’ll answer your question, even though you have failed to answer mine. The Kaminoans, you see, are some of the brightest scientific minds in the galaxy. You know this from the time your entire artificial army turned against you, don’t you?”

“They are not artificial,” Obi-Wan growls. “They are men. Men with personalities and hopes and dreams and I don’t know what the Empire did to them, but I know they are still under there somewhere. You have subjugated them with the rest of the galaxy.” 

“Ah yes, the Kaminoans are quite good at many things. The cloning itself is a feat of its own, but the inhibitor chips? Revolutionary. The ability to connect organic matter with cybernetic material and then program it? Brilliant. It seems your men were no more than droids after all.”

Blood rushes in Obi-Wan’s ears. He had felt the difference in Cody on Tatooine, but he had not understood it. He knew then that the man who stood by his side all those years was long gone, but now he knows the reason why. Obi-Wan should feel relieved that his men did not betray him and his people, but the relief does not come. His men, his friends are slaves to a regime set on enslaving everyone else and killing those who don’t fall in line. How could he feel relief for that? 

“The Kaminoans have also gotten quite good at interrogation techniques. It’s not really my style, but their little experiment has proven effective on a few rebels who fail to submit to the more traditional interrogation methods.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s still in the development phase, of course, but the Kaminoans have found that simulating various scenarios has made our subjects more cooperative. ” 

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Imagine your perfect scenario. Somewhere you would be comfortable sharing your most tightly held secrets. We already know almost everything about you, Kenobi. Creating a simulation for you was all too easy.”

“How do you—”

“Those shields of yours,” the Inquisitor interrupts. “You locked them tight over one thing and one thing only. The only thing I want, but not the only thing that is useful to me. I know your mind Kenobi, and through you, I know your friends' minds. It also helps, of course, that you wrote excessively detailed logs, mission reports, journal entries — all of which were impounded by the Empire. Your logs and your memories combined made it all quite easy. Together, I worked with the Kaminoans to help develop the perfect scenarios for you, and truth be told, I think you will find it quite flawless.” 

Obi-Wan wants to throw up. To probe through another’s mind without consent is an extreme violation — something that should never be done to anyone, Jedi or otherwise. It’s one of the most abhorrent things that could happen to a person and he let it happen.

He had to. 

This is a part of the torture he tried not to think about. The physical torture was unpleasant enough, but the Inquisitor digging into his mind was almost unbearable. For a while, he held true, but try as he might, Obi-Wan had not been strong enough to shield everything. He had to focus on shielding the things that mattered and, well, Luke and Leia were the only things that mattered. 

He did it for them. He does everything for them. 

“Oh! I almost forgot the best part,” the Inquisitor says with something that nearly resembles glee. 

“I get the feeling I’ll love this part,” Obi-Wan says with the sickeningly sweet smile he used in senatorial dinners, back when such things were still happening and he was still invited to them. 

“Oh, you will,” the Inquisitor says. “You’ll love it because all your best friends get to come along!” 

Obi-Wan glances to the side where Anakin and Padmé lie unconscious on identical examination tables. 

“Shall I bring all of them?” Nala Se asks.

“Start with just these two. If we need the Togruta, we’ll bring her in.”

The Togruta.

He said “the Togruta.” 

Obi-Wan’s heart rate increases against his will once more. Anakin and Padmé are dead, but Obi-Wan doesn’t know about Ahsoka. She’s been in the wind since… well, he has heard nothing of her. He assumes she is dead because it is easier than hoping otherwise, but now… what if she’s alive?

Nala Se begins sticking electrode wires to Anakin and Padmé’s foreheads. 

“What are they?” Obi-Wan asks. “They aren’t real. Padmé’s dead and Anakin’s” — he swallows — “Anakin’s dead too.” 

“Are they?” the Inquisitor asks. “In a sense, I suppose they are.” 

Nala Se laces the wire around Anakin and brings two electrodes to Obi-Wan’s forehead. He flinches back, but they stick to his temples. 

“Inject them first, then bring him in,” the Inquisitor commands. Nala Se produces a long needle from a tray and injects Padmé with a clear substance. She grabs a second syringe and repeats the process on Anakin. 

He doesn’t know why he expected them to wake or to move or to react, but they don't. They remain as lifeless as corpses and he supposes that is only right. They are dead, after all. 

Nala Se walks from them to stand over Obi-Wan, the long needle glinting in her hand. He sees the clear substance lying in wait inside the syringe — ready to take him far away and nowhere at all. 

“The subject is ready, Inquisitor,” Nala Se says.

The Inquisitor turns to Obi-Wan. “Do you have anything to say to me before we go about this the hard way?” the Inquisitor asks.

Obi-Wan bites back his fear. He gets the sense that it will do him no good where he is going.

“The Empire cannot break me. I will not tell you where those children are, no matter what .” 

The Inquisitor tsks and shakes his head. “Even the most stubborn wills break, even if they don’t know they are being broken.” 

“Not mine,” Obi-Wan growls. “ Not. Mine. ” 

The Inquisitor looks at him with contempt. “We’ll see.” It is not a threat, but a promise. 

“I have no reason to tell you anything. Why should I tell you anything when death is my reward?”

“Because it’s the sweetest reward you have left to hope for.”

The words hang in the air — suspended above Obi-Wan like a taunt. 

The Inquisitor paces back and forth before turning away from him. “Nala Se,” he calls. 

The wiry Kaminoan looks up slightly, but not all the way. “Yes, Inquisitor?” she asks, eyes low.  

“Start your simulations and pray to the Force that they work.”

“Yes, Inquisitor,” Nala Se says. 

The sharp prick of the needle in his neck is the last pain he feels before everything melts away. 

It’s instant. 

He doesn’t expect it to be instant, but it is.

He wakes up in a bedroom in Naboo and he doesn’t know what he thought he was expecting. He wakes and everything is perfect. Everything is fine. 

Anakin is happy and everything is fine. 

Until the cracks appear.

His body: broken, beaten, and bruised. 

His bond: strained and strung-out.

His memory: fractured and foggy. 

Everything isn’t fine. The children, Luke and Leia, are off — wrong somehow. They’re there and then they are not. 

The questions continue. Where are the children where are the children where are the children —

And he can never tell, he can’t, he won’t. If he tells, all is lost — hope most of all. 

The dagger wakes him. 

The walls are white, not yellow.

The air is cold, not warm.

His fear manifests in the beat of his heart.

He doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t know where he is —

But he was on Tatooine, but then he was on Naboo, but he was never really there was he? Where, where, where —

Kamino. 

He’s on Kamino. 

“Inquisitor,” Nala Se says, and Obi-Wan doesn’t need the Force to sense her quaking fear. “The subject figured out he’s being interrogated before we could get the answers out of him.” 

“Have you faced this problem with other subjects before?”

“No, Sir. The simulations have been flawless.”

“Flawless?” the Inquisitor growls. He steps closer to Nala Se until he is only a hair's breadth away from her.“Well, Doctor, it appears we have found a flaw .” 

The needle pricks his neck and then he’s back.

But this time is different. This time, Ahsoka is there. 

Ahsoka , lost to the wind and found in a dream, Ahsoka . 

And it’s just like before, but it’s better now because she’s here and she understands him and she knows that there’s something wrong here but neither of them can pinpoint what. 

The questions begin again. He searches and searches and then Anakin turns on him. 

Maybe Anakin was always meant to turn on him. 

The saber burns hot and bright in his chest and then he feels nothing and he’s back to where he started but he doesn’t know where that is and he’s lost . 

He turns his head to the side and there she is. There they are. 

Ahsoka lays unconscious on an examination table at the far end of the room. She is connected to the same electrode wires connecting him to Anakin and Padmé. He can’t see much of her, but she doesn’t look good. Her orange skin is dull and mottled with bruises, just like Obi-Wan’s. 

Obi-Wan panics. How long has he longed to see a familiar face — to feel the glowing presence of another Force-sensitive who knows and understands what he has been through? 

He never wished to see her like this. Not here.

Here.

Where is here?

In a flash of memory, everything rushes back to him. 

A year of torture, a year of suffering.

Kamino.

He looks up. A Kaminoan — Nala Se — hooks him up to a new IV.

“What are you doing to me?” Obi-Wan pants. “What’s happening?” Sweat slicks his skin and his hair, long and shaggy from a year of going uncut, clings in greasy tendrils to his forehead. His voice is weak and strained like he’s been screaming. 

“Answer my questions and I’ll answer yours. Where are the children?” the Inquisitor demands. Obi-Wan flinches and wonders how many times he has heard this question. 

“Where are the children?” 

Obi-Wan stays silent. He can’t speak. It’s all too much. Nala Se looks at him with the disappointment of a scientist looking at a failed experiment. That’s all he is to her right now. 

“Sir, I think the subject is in a state of shock,” Nala Se says. “The subject may not be stable enough to answer your questions.” 

“I don’t care. Where are the children, Kenobi ?” the Inquisitor seethes.

Panic fills Obi-Wan’s chest and holds back his tongue. Even if he wanted to answer the Inquisitor, he could not. 

“Fine. Start a new simulation. Something different this time.”

“But—”

“And take her away,” the Inquisitor orders. “She only made things worse.” Obi-Wan watches a medical droid wheel Ahsoka out of the room.

“Where are you taking her?”

“You sure do ask a lot of questions for someone who doesn’t give a lot of answers,” the Inquisitor spits. He turns to Nala Se. “Make sure the simulation is nothing like the one you’ve been giving him. Giving him pleasant simulations has clearly failed. Give him something a little more… dark.” 

“Sir—” Nala Se starts.

“Now!”

“No!” Obi-Wan screams. “Get away from—” The words die on his lips with the subtle and unmistakable prick of a needle. 

Warzones are not known for being the most clear and straightforward places in the galaxy, but Obi-Wan feels more disoriented than usual. 

He blinks and shakes his head, trying to figure out how exactly he got here — wherever here is.

“Master?”

“Obi-Wan.”

“Hey, Obi-Wan, ” Anakin says, snapping his fingers in Obi-Wan’s face. “Snap out of it. We’ve got a war to win.”

“What?” Obi-Wan asks, thoroughly bewildered. 

“Are you all right, Master?” Anakin asks, gripping his shoulder. Obi-Wan buckles forward at the unexpected touch. 

“Woah there,” Anakin says. “Are you hurt? What’s going on with you?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head and clears his vision. Right . The battle. He’s in the midst of a battle and Anakin is there by his side. Their battalions are behind them. 

“I’m fine, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says with a soft smile. 

“Are you sure? You were pretty spaced out there.”

“Apologies, I’m afraid my head was in the clouds. I’m fine, I promise.”

Anakin looks unconvinced. “You’re acting weird.”

“Generals,” Cody says. Obi-Wan and Anakin both swivel around to the clone Commander of the 212th. “What are your orders?”

Obi-Wan takes a datapad from Cody’s hand and analyzes the battlefield. The strategy comes easily to him. It’s a strength he’s always had. It’s like a puzzle, but the objective of this puzzle isn’t to solve it, but to win it so that all the puzzle pieces may survive. 

It is not the kind of puzzle Obi-Wan likes to partake in, but he’s good at it, so he does. 

“Cody, split up your men. Send half around the western border of the town and half around the eastern border.” Obi-Wan turns to Anakin. “Tell your men to infiltrate through the main streets.”

Anakin nods, but the concerned look doesn’t leave his eyes. He speaks into his comm and his hard, scrutinizing gaze lingers on Obi-Wan.

And he is not the only one. Cody stares at Obi-Wan for a moment too long. “You are dismissed, Cody. You have your orders,” Obi-Wan says. 

“Good soldiers follow orders,” Cody says robotically. 

Obi-Wan looks up from the datapad with wide eyes. “What did you just say?”

Cody clears his throat. “I said, ‘Yes, General.’”

“No, you—”

“You can go, Cody,” Anakin says. 

Cody turns around, presumably to carry out his orders. 

Anakin grabs Obi-Wan’s shoulder and forcibly turns his body to face him. “Seriously, what is the matter with you?” 

“Nothing,” Obi-Wan says quickly. “I thought I heard him say something else. It’s nothing.” 

“Maybe you should sit this one out.”

“What? No! Don’t be ridiculous Anakin. My men need me to—”

“Your men have Cody. He’s perfectly capable of leading them. And if you’re not going to sit this one out then you’re coming with me.” 

“I am hardly a child.”

“Then stop acting so childish.”

“I am not acting childish. I thought Cody said—”

“What did he say that is making you act like this?”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to argue further but finds the fight dying within him. “Nothing, it’s nothing. Let’s just get on with it. We have a town to liberate from Separatist occupation, do we not?”

Anakin kicks a rock and watches it roll away until it’s no longer in sight. “Yes, we do.” 

“Good. Then let’s go.”

The town they are infiltrating is eerily quiet. The sound of boots stepping on dirt roads and plastoid armor rubbing against itself is the only thing that permeates the air. 

“This feels like a trap, Master,” Anakin whispers quietly.

“I believe it is one.”

“And let me guess,” Anakin hisses. “We’re just walking into it until it springs?”

“You’ve guessed correctly.” 

“Excellent.” There is no trace of sarcasm in Anakin’s voice — just steadfastness. 

They keep walking and walking and walking until Obi-Wan starts to believe a trap may not be ripe for the springing after all. It’s at this moment that Anakin, a few steps ahead of everyone else, sets off a sensor that flashes him with red light. He freezes and turns back to Obi-Wan with wide eyes. 

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan yells as droid after droid pours out of the side streets onto the main road. Anakin ignites his saber only a second after Obi-Wan does. The electric hum is nearly drowned out by the blaster fire raining down on them from droids positioned on rooftops. 

“We need to take out those snipers,” Anakin hollers to Obi-Wan. 

“I’m on it.” Obi-Wan rushes forward through the throng of battle droids. He slices through them with ease and uses his momentum to leap on top of a droideka. He destroys it just before leaping off of it and onto the rooftops. His feet connect with the lip of the roof and he nearly falls backward. He doesn’t take the time to think about how he messed up such an easy jump. A one-story building is nothing to a Jedi. He’s certainly jumped higher before. 

I must be getting old . 

It takes little time for him to regain his footing and his balance. He races along the roof’s edge, taking out turret guns and droids without discretion. Sparing a glance down at the battle raging in the streets, he notes the blaster fire still pelting Anakin and his men from both the front and the roofs across the street. With a deep breath in, Obi-Wan takes a few steps backward before running and leaping across the street to land not-so-gracefully on the building across the way. The droids turn their fire on him, but he has already steadied himself. He volleys blaster bolts right back at the offending droids before beheading them. 

Leaping from roof to roof, Obi-Wan systematically takes out all the snipers and turrets spitting ammunition at the men below. He jumps down, this time with a little more grace, and joins Anakin in the fight to take out the remaining droidekas and battle droids. 

“It looks like I’m doing all the work,” Obi-Wan smirks, deflecting a blaster bolt. 

“It only looks that way because I make it look easy ,” Anakin replies. 

“You need to come up with better comebacks, you’re getting lazy.”

“What do you mean? I thought it was pretty good.”

“Sure, the first time,” Obi-Wan says. “You’ve definitely used that one before.”

Anakin spares a confused look at Obi-Wan before going back to deflecting the onslaught of blaster bolts. “No, I don’t think I have.”

“Yes, you have.”

“ No . I haven’t.” 

Obi-Wan pauses and would have been taken out by a blaster bolt if Anakin didn’t leap in front of him and deflect it. 

“Master!” Anakin yells. “Now isn’t exactly the time to freeze up.” 

Obi-Wan is frozen anyway. This whole mission is strange — like it’s happened before. 

“Master!” 

Right . 

Obi-Wan regains his stance and swings his saber with ruthless abandon. 

“Are you with me?” Anakin asks, concerned.

“Yes, Anakin, of course I’m with you.”

“Good, then let’s finish this and afterward we can take you to the med bay and figure out what the hell is going on with you.”

“Anakin, there is no need for all that, I’m fine.”

“Sure you are. Now focus up and let’s finish the mission.” 

Obi-Wan grits his teeth and searches for his focus in the swing of his lightsaber. Together, Anakin and Obi-Wan send back bolt after bolt until the swell of ammunition slows.

It’s not because there aren’t any droids to fire at them.

“Uh, Master?” Anakin says. “What’s happening?” 

“I’m not quite sure.” 

All of the droids and droidekas have ceased firing. Anakin raises a fist in a silent command for his men to stop firing. 

Powerful silence, like the one before the battle sparked, hangs over man and machine. 

The droids then all turn around and charge in the opposite direction. 

“Are they running away ?” Anakin asks incredulously.

“It certainly looks like it,” Obi-Wan says. “Have you ever known a battalion of battle droids to just turn tail and run?”

“No. It goes against their basic protocols.” 

“So why are they running?” 

“Let’s find out.”

Anakin makes another gesture urging his men forward. Together, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and the 501st charge after the droids. 

It doesn’t take long to see what the droids are aiming for. 

“ No ,” Obi-Wan gasps. Anakin sees it too and races after Obi-Wan as he charges through the horde of droids barraging a school with blaster fire. 

Splitting wood and shattering transparisteel tells Obi-Wan that the droids have broken through the school’s exterior. The screams tell him the school is not empty. He doubles his efforts to break through and destroy each droid 

It is then that that 212th, his trustworthy, reliable, amazing 212th, join in on the fight. 

“Come on!” Anakin yells from a few feet away. The men holler and push forward, doing anything they can to take out the last of the droids. 

The men are all practiced in this. The droids are destroyed

“Where are the children?” Anakin asks frantically. “I heard them, why aren’t they coming out?”

Obi-Wan’s mouth is set in a grim line. “I’m going in there,” he says. 

“Obi-Wan!”

The call goes ignored. Obi-Wan charges past. Children are in here. He has to protect the children. 

He’s alone in the halls, all droids having seemingly vanished into thin air. And then he sees why. 

Lying all around him are explosives, and from the looks of them, it won’t be long before they fulfill their intended purpose. 

“Master!” Anakin yells, trying to catch up to Obi-Wan.

“Anakin, get out of here!” Obi-Wan says. 

As usual, Anakin ignores his orders and continues running.

No.

Obi-Wan gathers the Force around him and pushes Anakin back.

“No!” Anakin screams, but his protests are drowned out by the roaring sounds of explosives and a children’s school building crashing all around them. 

When Obi-Wan wakes, he is not sure he is still alive. That is, until he feels the pain. He can’t imagine the afterlife having this much pain in it. 

He coughs, unable to get a full breath in his lungs. He does a quick mental scan of his body. Quick, because it is very easy to tell that his legs are pinned under a slab of duracrete and his ribs have been cracked or broken. Blood drips into his eyes from a cut on his forehead.

A bad feeling swirls in Obi-Wan’s gut and not just because of his injuries. This whole scenario feels wrong — like it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. 

I’ve done this before.  

That’s right . Obi-Wan has done this before. Well, not exactly this. This battle happened, though it happened a little differently. Almost everything about this battle is the same as the first time it happened — everything except the ending. 

In the real battle, the school was destroyed, but Obi-Wan and Anakin had been successful in their efforts to rescue the children. The city even tried to honor them in a special ceremony, the invite to which Obi-Wan declined and Anakin reluctantly declined. 

All of this happened, but not like this. 

Obi-Wan coughs and sputters on the dust swirling in the air and tearing his throat. He blinks a few times in an attempt to rid the dust from his eyes. When the dust clears, he wishes it didn’t. 

In front of him, he sees a small hand sticking out of the rubble like it is reaching for him. Blood drips from the tiny fingertips and Obi-Wan’s heart bleeds with it. He scans the area more and sees what he wishes he never saw. Small limbs and tiny, torn-up bodies litter the ground around him, the dust almost making the corpses look like parts of the debris. 

Obi-Wan retches and sobs at the sight and Anakin’s desperate voice replays in his mind. 

“Where are the children? ” 

That question. A question he’s heard a thousand times. One he’ll never answer. 

This isn’t real. 

Everything, all at once, rushes back to him. The simulations, the interrogations, everything . He gasps, the air suddenly feeling too thin. He wants to scream, he wants to cry, he wants it all to end so that he can escape this hell made just for him, but he can’t . He has to protect the twins and then and only then will his purpose be served. 

A sharp pain lances through his legs and up his spine. No, this isn’t real, but that realization doesn’t stop it from feeling real, however. The duracrete crushing his legs seems to somehow press harder into the shattered bones. He tries to snake crawl his way forward, but the building has him pinned. He’s stuck here. 

He tries not to panic.

This isn’t real .

The thought doesn’t comfort him, however. This may not be real, but he’s still trapped. He’s been trapped for a year and he’s going to die in a trap. 

His heart pounds in protest to the hopelessness of it all. 

The duracrete hanging precariously above him groans and shifts. Obi-Wan lays there, helpless to do anything about it, and waits for the rest of the building to crash down upon him. 

He doesn’t have to wait long to be lost to the crush. 

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan’s eyes flash open and he gasps. The restraints around his chest prevent him from getting full lungfuls of air and he strains against them. Panic blossoms within him. He had been dying, he was dying, but now… now he’s… 

“Oh! I don’t think you’re supposed to be awake.”

Obi-Wan startles and looks around for the source of the mechanical-sounding voice. His eyes land on a droid hovering in mid-air with a datapad in its mechanized hands. 

“What?” Obi-Wan asks, disorientation still holding onto him with its slippery grip. 

“The subjects aren’t supposed to wake up without the Kaminoans here.” 

“The subjects?” 

“Yes, the subjects. Subjects like you.” The droid flips through the datapad and looks back to Obi-Wan. “You are Subject Kenobi, Obi-Wan.” 

“I suppose I am,” Obi-Wan says dryly. He coughs and tries not to panic at the feeling of the restraints holding him down. By now, he should be used to it, but then again, a man should never grow comfortable with his chains. 

“They aren’t happy with you,” the droid says. 

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. “They?”

“The Kaminoans. And the Inquisitor. Nala Se’s notes say they are not happy with your response to the interrogation.”

Obi-Wan huffs. “What a shame for them. And I’m so fun at parties. Maybe they just don’t understand my humor.” 

“Actually, according to these notes, they are not pleased that you have been resisting the simulations and interrogations. They think you are becoming more resistant to the simulations every single time you enter one.” 

All of it rushes back to Obi-Wan. The simulations on Naboo and the simulation in the battle. He remembers them. The questions. His death in each and every one. He gets the feeling he is not supposed to remember them. 

“Oh, is that all, uh… what should I call you?” Obi-Wan asks. 

“I am AZI-345211896246498721347,” the droid states. 

Obi-Wan blinks at the droid. “I’m just going to call you AZI if that is quite all right with you.” 

“That is all right, Subject Kenobi, Obi-Wan.” 

“You can just call me Obi-Wan.”

“If that is what you prefer, Subject Kenobi, Obi-Wan.” 

He bites back a sigh. Droids . He’s never been fond of them. Truth be told, they always unnerved him, even before the war. Perhaps it is because they are not alive and he could never sense them in the Force, or perhaps it is because they are close to sentience, but not quite. He never understood Anakin’s fascination with them nor his ability to communicate and fix them like he was one of them. Obi-Wan tries not to dwell on the irony of what he became. 

The droid hovers awkwardly, like he is waiting for a prompt from Obi-Wan. 

“I’m not just a subject, you know? I’m a Jedi,” Obi-Wan says, stubborn defiance flush in his chest. “At least… I was one.” 

“I knew a Jedi once.” 

Obi-Wan perks up. “Do you remember their name?”

“It’s not in my programming to forget anyone’s names,” AZI says.

“You’re very literal, aren’t you?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Yes. Linguistic nuance is not a part of my programming,” AZI states. 

“You and I may have some trouble getting along then,” Obi-Wan mutters. 

“That is a shame. I got along with General Shaak Ti quite well. She was very nice.” 

The name summons warmth and devastation in equal parts. The Togruta Jedi was special. She was a beloved member of the Council and a grounding presence to anyone who spent any amount of time with her. When Obi-Wan closes his eyes, he can still see her kind ones staring back at him with that ever-present look of reassurance she possessed for everyone. Everyone . Even the clones who would turn on them all. 

Especially the clones. 

“The Jedi you knew was Shaak Ti?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Affirmative.”

“She was very nice,” Obi-Wan says sadly. “I wish she were here.” 

“Yes. She was always nice to me even when the Kaminoans were not.” 

“Speaking of…” Obi-Wan trails off and he looks around the room. 

He recoils at the sight of the people he loves strapped down to examination tables just like his before he remembers seeing them before. This time, however, there is a new addition. Cody . Anakin, Padmé, and Cody all lie unconscious and unaware. His eyes linger on them. They can’t be real . At least not Anakin and Padmé. Cody, however… there’s a chance. Maybe.

Obi-Wan stops the line of thinking in its tracks. He needs to focus on getting out of this situation first. His eyes dart around the rest of the room. The Kaminoans and the Inquisitor are nowhere to be found. 

“Where are the Kaminoans? Where is the Inquisitor?” 

The droid almost looks nervous, if such things were possible. “They were called to an important meeting. They let the simulation run, but you weren’t supposed to wake up.”

“If I wasn’t supposed to wake up, then why did I?” 

“You died.”

“What?” Obi-Wan asks in bewilderment. 

“In the simulation. You must have died. Sentient brains only wake up from the simulations if they think they are dead. Your brain cannot process anything after death, so it wakes you up. But you weren’t supposed to wake up yet. You must have died before you were supposed to.” 

Obi-Wan’s mind flashes back to Padmé plunging a dagger into his chest. Anakin, running him through with a lightsaber. The school, crushing him under its weight. 

Now, Obi-Wan has escaped death on numerous occasions and even faked his death on another, but the deaths in the simulations… those felt real. 

It is odd to be the only person in the galaxy to know what it feels like to die three individual times and twice at the hands of people he loves. 

Loved.

They don’t exist anymore. They are both dead to him in one form or another and there is no possible way that the two people lying mere feet away from him are real. 

No way.

But he needs to find out what they are, if they are not the souls he once knew. Tentatively, he pulls at the restraints that have held him down for so long. He peers at the droid with squinted eyes. “AZI?”

“Yes, Obi-Wan?”

“Can you, by chance, get these restraints off of me?”

“Yes. It is something I am capable of.” AZI does not move from the spot he hovers in. Obi-Wan can’t bite back the sigh this time. 

“Okay, will you get these restraints off of me?”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to do that.”

“So? I’m a Jedi, just like Shaak Ti. She was very nice, remember? So am I. I’ll protect you from harm, just as she would if she were here.” 

“You don’t look like you could protect me from much of anything.” 

Obi-Wan laments the torture his body has gone through — the bruises that discolor his skin and the untreated cuts that scar it. The thing is, AZI is probably right. If he gets caught, it would not be easy for him to fight back, especially without his lightsaber. It would be even harder for him to protect another. 

“You have a good point,” Obi-Wan concedes. “But, if I do escape, I can take you with me. You’ll find much better treatment with me.” 

“I don’t know...” 

“Come on, AZI, what’s life without a little risk?”

“Technically, I am not alive.”

“No, but I am and I don’t think I will be much longer if the Kaminoans and the Inquisitor keep me here.” 

AZI hesitates. 

“You’re a medical droid, right? That means your core coding is to protect life, is it not?” Obi-Wan asks.

“It is.” 

“ Therefore , it goes against your programming to leave me here if it means I will most likely die here.”

The lights in AZIs optic sensors flash excitedly.“I once knew another who argued as you do. You both made good points.” 

Obi-Wan holds his breath, too jaded to let the excitement of escape swallow him just yet. AZI hovers over to him and begins working on the restraints. 

“Any chance you can go a little faster there, AZI?”

“I am going as fast as my programming allows.”

Obi-Wan groans. His torturers could return at any minute and if he’s not out of these restraints by then, the likelihood of escape goes from improbable to impossible. “

AZI undoes the strap across his chest and he bolts upright. His head swims as his blood rushes at the unexpected movement. It only takes a moment to pass, though he is growing dizzy with hope. AZI continues working on the remaining restraints and, at last, his hands are freed. He allows himself a moment to rub his wrists before working on the restraints around his ankles. 

They snap free and the Force rushes through him once more. It is overwhelming and a comfort all the same. Lightheadedness makes the room spin and tilt ever so slightly as the sense that he has had since birth returns to him. 

“That’s better,” Obi-Wan says, swinging his legs over the side of the table. He staggers upon touching the ground, but revels in the freedom of movement he has not truly been granted in approximately a year.

The first thing he does is run to Anakin. 

He looks exactly the same as he did when he was still Anakin. His hair curls around his head in a perfect halo. Long eyelashes rest on skin washed out by lack of sun exposure. He is adorned in the same white medical shirt and pants Obi-Wan wears. His chest rises and falls as his eyes move behind shuttered lids. 

Alive.

Obi-Wan does not feel him in their bond, but this makes sense. The bond was severed long ago. 

He snakes around to Padmé and she is just as beautiful as the day she died. Honey-brown hair is splayed around her, satin and shining in the fluorescent light. She looks regal, even unconscious and hooked up to the wires.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan whispers. “I’m so sorry.” 

He lingers a moment longer, studying the face he never thought he would see again.

Then he moves to the one he did see again. This one haunts his dreams but for reasons different from Anakin and Padmé. This one is a confidant turned adversary.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan whispers. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I hope you do. I just want you to know that it’s not your fault. I know it’s not your fault. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I’m sorry I lost faith in you. I’m sorry this happened, I—” he sniffs “—I’m sorry.” 

Cody remains still and the silence breaks Obi-Wan’s heart. 

“Uhhh, I thought you wanted to escape,” AZI says, interrupting his broken apologies.

“I need to know,” Obi-Wan replies. He scrubs a hand over his eyes. “I need to know what they are.”

AZI gives him a look that might be described as inquisitive if droids were capable of such things. “These are subjects AS-0027 and PA-0004. Over there is CC-2224. They did not have to remake him.” 

Clones .

Of course they are clones. This is Kamino, after all. Obi-Wan mentally reprimands himself for thinking, for hoping , that they were more than that. Anakin, Padmé… none of them were real. Not the real versions of them he once knew. Except for Cody. But Cody’s not really Cody anymore anyway. 

Ahsoka. He cannot be sure what Ahsoka is, but right now he's having a hard time holding onto any hope she's real. Part of him hopes she isn't. If she's not real, then she's not trapped in this place — a prisoner like him. 

Drawing back to the present, his widened eyes look back and forth between the subjects that resemble his friends, his family , so much. He searches for infidelity — any imperfection he might have missed, but they are true to their hosts. 

“They look so real,” Obi-Wan says. He moves back to Anakin’s side and stares at the perfect replica. “They even…” A realization makes his stomach turn. “Anakin’s arm. They… they took this clone and amputated his arm.”

“The clones needed to be convincing,” AZI says, “for the experiment to work.”

“The experiment…” he whispers under his breath. “He… he has a scar on his eye, they…” 

“They had to add it to him after he was created.”

Now, this is too much. The Empire went too far this time. They can’t do this. They can’t .

Obi-Wan searches for something, anything that might be inaccurate about this Anakin, but he’s perfect. The curl of his hair, the tone of his skin, the slope of his cheekbones — it is all exact. 

A moment from long ago circulates in Obi-Wan’s mind — a moment from the beginning of the war or possibly just before it. Cautiously, he slides the edge of the white shirt up Anakin’s stomach, holding his breath all the while. He sees what he needs to see and lets the fabric go. 

Obi-Wan huffs out a laugh. He’s relieved to find that they got something wrong after all. Then another thought occurs to him. 

“What about the children?” Obi-Wan asks. “They were in the simulation, but clearly, if the Empire had them, the simulation would not be necessary.”

“The children are part of the simulation. It is easier to run the simulation with clones because there are fewer opportunities for glitches to occur, but for the children, the Kaminoans used the photographs seized from your home and used it to formulate them.”

A glitch. That might explain some things, like the children disappearing at random moments. The dinner . The kite flying . Obi-Wan had thought himself mad or tired or just plain old, but now he knows better. It was not a lapse in his judgment but a lapse in reality. 

“They created replicas of the children based on the photos. Those replicas are on your chip now,” AZI ads on. 

“ My …” Obi-Wan stutters. He reaches for his head and sure enough, under the layers of thick, tangled hair, there is a small section that is shorn. “They… they put a chip in my head?” 

“Technically, I put a chip in your head. It was necessary for the simulation to run in sync with the other subjects.” 

Obi-Wan wheels on AZI. “Give me that,” he growls. Without waiting, Obi-Wan summons the datapad to his hand and hurriedly scrolls through it, drinking in every horrible detail of AS-0027’s profile. 

Experimental memory chips have proven effective in subject AS-0027’s tests. The subject seems to believe he is Anakin Skywalker completely. This is an improvement from previous subjects AS-0026 and AS-0025 who both displayed behaviors outside of the bounds of the memory chip. All base behaviors have been eradicated. 

“What are the memory chips?” Obi-Wan asks with growing horror.

“They are you. They contain all the information they found in your old mission reports, your logs, and the memories the Inquisitor was able to harvest for the simulations. It served more than one purpose,” AZI says. “They are necessary for programming the subjects and synchronizing your simulations.” 

“So this clone… this clone thinks he is Anakin Skywalker?” 

“Affirmative.”

The Empire is not known for its humanity, but creating people and programming them so that they may be used against enemies of the Empire is a level of heinousness unfamiliar to Obi-Wan. “How could they do this?” he whispers

“The Emperor wants to find those children.”

One simple objective with one complicated solution. 

Torture, in the traditional sense, had failed to break Obi-Wan, but bringing his friends back from the dead and messing with his head just might work. 

“He’ll never have them,” he says, resolute. “No matter what they do to me.” The Empire will never get their blood-stained hands on those children, Obi-Wan is sure of it. 

“You may not have a choice,” AZI warns. “What if the next simulation works?”

“There won’t be a next simulation. We’re getting out of here.” 

Obi-Wan makes for the door and glances back at AZI, who has not moved. 

“Aren’t you coming?”

“You’re leaving your friends?”

“They are not my friends,” Obi-Wan snaps. “My friends are dead. Long dead. These are just bastardizations.” He looks at the perfect replica of Anakin’s face and hot tears burn in his eyes at the sight. “They are just another torture device. And he—” Obi-Wan turns to Cody “—he would kill me on site if I woke him.”

Obi-Wan turns back to the door, but hesitates. Real or not, they are human beings. He sighs. 

“I’ll come back for them,” he swears. “I need to find an escape and then I’ll find the Rebels and tell them what’s going on here. I’m not strong enough to protect them right now. I don’t even know how to wake them up. But we need to go, now. ” 

AZI’s optic receptors glow, but he makes no further protest. 

A shaking hand reaches for the door handle. This is it. This is the first step — first chance — to escape to freedom and Obi-Wan is taking it. He turns the handle and takes a cautious step. And then another. And another. 

The hallways are blessedly clear. They are just as white as everything else on this planet and he feels like a stain. He stands out too much and he knows it. If anyone comes out here, he will have no choice but to fight or flee and neither option appears to have a positive outcome for him. 

Slowly, he creeps — a shadow of a man haunting the halls as a ghost would. Perhaps that is all he is anymore. He should be dead by now, but it is unfinished business that keeps his heart beating. He is barefoot, so he doesn’t have to worry about the sound of footsteps on the tile, but he fears that it is the very beat of his heart that will give him away. 

AZI hovers just behind him and he wants to shout at this droid for not taking the lead. The droid has the building schematics programmed in, but evidently, a streak of timidity has also been programmed into him. Obi-Wan holds his tongue as he holds his breath. 

It is odd to be in these hallways when they are quiet. Every time he had been here, they had been swimming with clone troopers and clone troopers in training. Now, there is no one. This, of course, is a good thing, even if it levels more paranoia.

Trusting the Force, Obi-Wan makes a sharp turn down an adjacent hallway. This one is just as clear as the last, but at its end is a door — an exterior one from the looks of it.

Everything in him screams run! Get out of here! but he keeps his steps even. Patience. That’s what all the old Masters taught and it’s what Obi-Wan parroted to Anakin over and over again. 

Obi-Wan is nothing if not patient. 

But patience is rather difficult after a year of captivity. 

Still, he stalks through the hallway, ducking low anytime he passes a room with a window so that he may not be detected by any possible inhabitants — Kaminoan or otherwise.

Maybe if he hadn’t been so focused on escape, he might have wondered why the facility was so empty. Presently, however, Obi-Wan has far more pressing concerns. 

For example, his current concern is getting the door to open. 

“Kriff.”

“It appears to be locked,” AZI says, unhelpfully. 

“Appears so.” 

If he were in possession of his lightsaber, he could very easily cut his way to freedom. He remembers the feeling of kyber melting durasteel — the heat that licked at his hands and the steam that stung his eyes. 

This is not an option now, however. 

“Any chance you can open this?” Obi-Wan asks.

“My programming does not allow for—”

“Yes, yes, your programming ,” Obi-Wan mocks. He sighs. Of course the door couldn’t be unlocked. That would have been altogether too easy for the man whose life is one long, unending headache. “Fine. Another way, then.” 

Obi-Wan sinks into the Force. It has been so long since he has done so, but he finds it comes easy to him. He centers it inside himself, picturing a golden ball of light compacting inside his chest and growing with power as he dives deeper and deeper into its life-giving gleam. 

It feels so good to do this again that he almost pauses to revel in it, but he remains true to his task. He latches onto the Force and compels it to find the locking mechanisms within the door. The locks shiver and quake, but Obi-Wan’s will is stronger. They open up and a blast of cool, fresh air hits Obi-Wan’s face. 

The laugh that escapes his lips cannot be helped. He steps into the rain, not caring that it is freezing and heavy. He takes a few steps before sensing that he is entirely alone. 

“Aren’t you coming?” Obi-Wan asks, swiveling back around to AZI.

“No,” AZI says. “I am meant to stay here. This is my home. I will try to keep them distracted so you can escape. Go.” 

“What? Why? I thought you—”

“It’s against my programming to leave Kamino. Ever since the incident…” 

Right . 

“He knew, didn’t he?” Obi-Wan asks. “ARC Trooper Fives. I read those reports. He knew about the experiments the Kaminoans were doing. You helped him too, didn’t you?” 

“Affirmative.” 

“Right, well, thank you,” Obi-Wan says, a little sad and a little awkward. Droids . 

“You’re most welcome, Subject Kenobi, Obi-Wan.”

With one last ironic smile, Obi-Wan turns back to the escape. He is mildly surprised by the night, but his circadian rhythm has become nonexistent over the last year. Once more, he longs for the warmth of the sun, but the rain will do. 

He looks to the sky and laughs. The rain rolls onto his face and catches in his eyelashes. His hair, now long and shaggy, hangs in soaked tendrils down to his shoulder. There is no one out here and freedom is so close he can taste it. 

He runs along the outside of the facility, finally allowing himself to do what his legs have been begging him to do and just run . He turns a corner and there they are. Tie-fighters. 

There are only two, but that is okay. He just needs one. 

They sit on the landing platform, unmanned and just waiting to be flown far, far away. Pulse racing, he rushes to them, desperate to hear the roar of their engines and to see the streak of the stars as he enters hyperspace. 

He is only meters away now. 

The Force swirls around him as it once did — warm and light and kind. 

It is the Force that sings a song of freedom.

And it is the Force that tells him it is all over.

It’s the sharp tingling on the back of his neck that he hasn’t been able to feel in a year but that he now wishes to be gone from him. Despair, deep and hollow, makes him feel like the sky is crushing him, but it is only the rain. 

No. 

No. 

He was so close. So close. 

“Stop right there, Kenobi,” the Inquisitor says. 

Everything inside of him crashes and breaks apart — melting away with the drops of rain. Obi-Wan turns and a red beam of light cuts through the darkness of the night. It reflects on the Inquisitor's face and the rain rolling down his cheeks looks like blood. 

The hum of the saber cuts right through the roar of the waves and the patter of the rain — a beacon of light as much as it is a token of death. 

Men that were once his, stand around him, guns pointed at him. 

On a good day six years ago he might have been able to get out of this one, but it’s now and it’s not a good day. 

The Inquisitor raises the blade to Obi-Wan’s neck. “You have nothing to fear, Kenobi. Their blasters are set to stun. The only person here who can kill you is me.” 

“Just do it,” Obi-Wan says. “Take my life. There is nothing left for me to offer.”

“There is one thing,” the Inquisitor says. 

“No, there isn’t.” 

Rain rolls into Obi-Wan’s eyes and blurs his vision. Steam hisses off of the red blade and the kyber inside of it cries out in the Force like a wounded animal. 

It’s all over, and he knows it. 

They drag him through the hallways kicking and screaming. His eyes land on AZI, or rather, what is left of him. He lays in pieces — sliced into spare parts by what can only be a saber. Obi-Wan trembles with anger. The droid, though mostly unhelpful and a droid , was the only thing to show him even a semblance of compassion since Beru and Bail gave him those holo photos all that time ago. The droid helped him escape, even though it was all for naught. Obi-Wan failed that droid just like he failed everyone else. 

But there are two souls he hasn’t failed yet. 

“I’ll tell you nothing!” Obi-Wan screams as they strap him back down to the examination table. His rage is no longer contained. “I’ll never tell you anything! Not in this life or any other. I’ll never betray those children, do you understand me?” 

“In time you will tell me everything.”

“No!” Obi-Wan screams as the Force is once again stolen from his fragile grasp. 

“Begin your simulation,” the Inquisitor says with unkempt disgust. “And make it hurt.” 

“Yes, Inquisitor.”

A statement like that might have struck fear into Obi-Wan’s heart before he felt the kiss of the rain on his skin, but now, now he is cleansed. He is free of his fear and now he is in possession of only two things: hope and rage. 

And what a dangerous combination that is. 

Obi-Wan spits in the Inquisitor’s face. 

“I said begin the simulation!” the Inquisitor shouts. 

The needle plunges into his neck and he is gone. 

The Temple is falling. 

He doesn’t know anything but he knows this.

He’s running through the grand hallway, though he is unsure why. His lightsaber is ablaze and everything in him is telling him danger, get out!  

This is when he starts to see the bodies.

“ What ?” 

He kneels beside the body of his fellow Jedi and checks for a pulse — knowing full well that she will not have one.

“What has happened?” he asks the body, as if he can find answers amongst the dead. 

“Help!” Obi-Wan screams, tearing his eyes away from his fallen sister and searching the hallways for someone, anyone . All he finds next are more bodies. 

“No, no, no, no.” 

The ground is littered with Jedi. Blood slicks the tile, dyeing the pure white stone a crimson red. 

Obi-Wan moves from body to body, searching for a heartbeat or a breath, but there are none to be found. The only thing he finds is the cause of death: lightsaber.

His blood turns to ice in his veins. Obi-Wan finds himself stumbling and then running through the once sacred halls of his home — dodging the bodies of his brothers and sisters. 

He must find who did this and he must stop them. It is his purpose as a Jedi to keep the peace and maintain the balance of the universe. 

Maybe it’s muscle memory, or maybe it’s the Force, or maybe it’s the part of him where hope refuses to die that brings him to the creche. Whatever it is that brings him here, he wishes it would have stopped him. He wishes he could have stopped himself because lying in front of him are the remains of the future of the Order.

“No,” Obi-Wan whispers. “No, please , no .” 

Tiny bodies have been slashed and run through with what can only be a lightsaber. The whole thing feels like a nightmare — one he has dreamt before. 

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Obi-Wan’s head whips up and the nightmare is manifested before him. Anakin stands over the bodies, golden eyes piercing the room. He holds his lightsaber low to the ground, but it is ablaze. 

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, not believing what he is seeing, but unable to see another explanation. “What have you done?”

“You were supposed to be on Utapau.”

“No, I—” Where was he before the nightmare began?  

“I won’t let you stop me,” Anakin says. 

“Stop you from what ?” Obi-Wan asks, incredulous. “Stop you from committing mass murder against our people? Our younglings?” 

“The Jedi are evil,” Anakin says. “I have seen the truth. The Jedi are evil and so are you. You cannot stop me.”

“Anakin, this is madness!” Obi-Wan yells. “Put down the saber.” 

If anything, the weapon only pulses brighter. Obi-Wan draws his own. 

“You won’t kill me,” Anakin taunts. 

“I will do what I must.” 

Quick as lightning and just as deadly, the two sabers collide. Blue strikes blue. Brother strikes brother. Each crack of their blades sounds like a song that has been sung before, and yet, Obi-Wan cannot put a name to the tune. 

Anakin lunges forward and Obi-Wan grimaces at the familiarity of it. He knows Anakin better than anyone. He knows his every move, but unfortunately, Anakin knows his as well. Anakin is all offense and Obi-Wan is all defense. Their sabers have always been extensions of themselves and Obi-Wan finds himself evenly met against the boy he trained — the man he lost somewhere along the way. 

He remembers Anakin’s youth. All that fire. All that rage. Obi-Wan had hoped to help him channel it into something good. He had hoped the power would bring balance, but the scales of the Force have never been more uneven. 

He remembers their missions together — the fire only growing stronger. Of course, Obi-Wan saw the rage. He was not blind. He just never thought… Well, he just never thought Anakin could fall so far. 

His blade strikes Anakin’s and in the crash, Obi-Wan remembers something else. 

If you die in the simulation, you wake in real life . 

The voice comes to him like it is his own, but it doesn’t sound like him. 

The simulation . 

He parries a blow that would have been fatal to a lesser swordsman. 

None of it is real.  

The memories, the simulations, the year of his life lost to pointless torture — it all crashes down upon him. He is drenched in the past and the revelation of the present. 

Nobody has asked him about the children, which means the interrogations haven’t started, which means Obi-Wan needs a plan and he needs one fast. 

Anakin continues to fight him and Obi-Wan continues to keep him at bay, just as they did on Mustafar. Despite holding his own, Anakin is still a formidable opponent. His skills with a saber are rarely matched and he… and he would make an excellent ally . 

All at once, Obi-Wan knows what he has to do: he has to kill Anakin.

Again . 

And then he has to kill himself — as if every part of him that matters hasn’t already died. 

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says. He lunges forward and ends the fight. 

This version of Anakin looks at him, stunned and betrayed and it hurts because he looks just like him. 

“Master…” he whispers before crumpling to the ground. A few wheezing breaths escape his lips and then he stills.

Obi-Wan stands over Anakin’s body, blood spills from it, pooling around him in a crimson puddle.

It’s not Anakin. He has to remind himself of this. The body lying at his feet is a mere clone of Anakin and not the real thing. That Anakin is long gone anyhow. 

Still, this is the first time he’s killed anyone inside the simulation. He hopes AZI is right and that dying in the simulation means waking in real life. 

Now, onto the next order of business. 

Obi-Wan looks down at the saber in his hands and disengages it. The hilt is heavier than it has ever been before. 

“Come on,” he says to himself, “best get on with it.”

He presses the live end of his lightsaber to his chest. His breaths come quick, like his lungs know that their time is numbered.  

If you die in the simulation, you wake in real life . 

Even knowing this, everything in him is telling him to stop. He doesn’t want to die, but the path to freedom is only opened by the gateway of death. 

“Come on ,” he growls again, willing his thumb to press the button. 

He tries to stop the trembling of his hands, but even a man who has faced death as many times as Obi-Wan has a hard time actively bringing it upon himself. 

He looks at Anakin’s body one last time — the way this perfect replica has been torn apart and bloodied by the same man who destroyed his original copy. His eyes are open, and though there is no life left behind in them, the golden gleam remains. 

He presses the button.

Alone again, he wakes. White walls surround him — free of the bloodstains but not the memory of them. 

His thoughts and heart are in a race to see which can pulse the fastest. All efforts to tell himself that the simulation was not real, fail. The simulation itself might have only been that, but the events within it were real. The younglings lost to the genocide of his people will never be gone from his mind — no matter what is done to him. 

He looks around and finds the Inquisitor and the Kaminoans are not here, but Obi-Wan is not alone. Anakin is blinking at him owlishly — confusion etched into every line and angle of his face. 

“ Master ?”

Chapter Text

Nine Years Ago

“Run, Anakin!” Obi-Wan shouts, urging his former Padawan on as they try in vain to escape the Mandalorian bounty hunters. They do not seem too pleased to have Jedi interrupting their bounty. 

Rounds fire from their slugthrowers with a resounding bang that makes Obi-Wan’s ears ring. 

No, they are not pleased at all. 

“Come on, Anakin!” 

“I’m coming!” 

Anakin is behind him, blue blade ignited, ready to deflect blaster bolts, but unready for the metal slugs being volleyed at them. 

It is not often that Obi-Wan and Anakin turn tail and run from a fight, but when the fight involves slugthrowers, they know better than to engage with only their lightsabers. 

Another shot rings out, and Obi-Wan knows it has successfully hit its mark before Anakin even gets a chance to scream. 

It is not a slow thing, but it feels that way as Anakin crumples to the dusty ground. 

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan screams. 

He turns back and rushes to Anakin’s side. 

“Anakin,” he says under his breath as he drags him to cover in an alleyway. 

Obi-Wan examines the wound as quickly as he can under the circumstances. The shot is closer to his side than his spine, thank the Force. Still, it is an unpleasant wound and it bleeds far more than a wound caused by a run-of-the-mill blaster bolt. The slug went straight through him — a fact Obi-Wan is both grateful for and upset by. On one hand, Obi-Wan will not have to dig around the wound and pull out the cursed piece of metal, but on the other, the wound bleeds openly. 

It is bleeding too much. 

“Come on, Anakin, we have to get to the ship.” 

“It hurts, Master,” Anakin pants. “It burns.” 

“I know, I know. But we need to get out of here before they can finish the job.”

Obi-Wan drags Anakin up and ignores the way his blood warms his own tunics. He rounds the corner and skids to a halt. 

“It’s over for you, Jedi,” the bounty hunter sneers. Obi-Wan’s heart pounds as he stares down the end of the barrel.

Before Obi-Wan can even begin to think of a way out of this one, the slugthrower goes off. Obi-Wan blinks, expecting the bullet to pierce his skin and end his life, but he feels nothing. 

He opens his eyes and glances to the side. Anakin’s hand is raised up and his eyes are squeezed shut in concentration. He looks at the space between them and the bounty hunter. The slug hangs in the air, suspended by Anakin’s sheer force of will. Anakin growls in exertion and the slug flies backward. The bounty hunter drops — brought down by a bullet meant for Obi-Wan. 

There is no need to check the body. Obi-Wan knows he is dead. He turns to Anakin in disbelief. 

“Why couldn’t you have done that the first time?” Obi-Wan asks. 

“I didn’t see it coming in time,” Anakin defends breathlessly. “Needed… needed to protect… you.” His head lolls onto Obi-Wan’s shoulder. 

“Anakin?”

Nothing.

“Anakin!”

His former Padawan goes slack against Obi-Wan’s side. 

On the ship, Obi-Wan is able to treat Anakin. 

His former apprentice is unconscious for most of it, allowing Obi-Wan time to think. 

Anakin stopped a bullet in mid-air while injured. There has always been a small part of Obi-Wan that has been disquieted by Anakin’s power. All right, maybe more than a small part. Every day it seems his power gets stronger and every day the bounds of what he can do seem to expand. 

Obi-Wan thinks of Mortis. He thinks of the way Anakin brought gods to their knees and hardly broke a sweat. He had been scared then — terrified of the boy he raised. A little awestruck too — but then again, fear and hope always seem to go hand-in-hand. 

Anakin brings gods to their knees and he stops bullets in mid-air and he is The Chosen One. 

Obi-Wan is as sure of this fact as he is afraid of it. 

But right now, the proverbial Chosen One is rising back to consciousness before Obi-Wan is finished stitching him up. 

“Mmm,” Anakin groans from the back of his throat. Eyes move around under closed lids and Obi-Wan knows it is only a matter of time now. He hurries with his stitches as best he can without letting them get sloppy. 

“Hurts,” Anakin complains.

“I know,” Obi-Wan says. “I’m trying to hurry. Just try and sleep.”

“Can’t.” 

“Almost done.” Obi-Wan makes the final few stitches and ties off the wound. He cleans it one last time. The blood drips down Anakin’s side in rivulets, but the majority of the bleeding has stopped. 

“Is it over?” Anakin asks with one eye squeezed shut.

“Yes, Anakin, it’s over.” 

Anakin shudders and his eyes close. “It still hurts.”

“Get some rest, your body will need it to heal and feel better.”

“I’m not going to die in my sleep am I?” Anakin asks suspiciously. 

“No,” Obi-Wan chuckles. “It will scar, but you will live.”

And that’s all that matters. 

Now  

“Master?” this version of Anakin murmurs because he doesn’t know. 

Obi-Wan turns his head to face him. He holds back a wince — it hurts to look upon the face of someone long dead. 

“Ana—” Obi-Wan starts to say, but that hurts too. At a loss for words, he holds his tongue.

“Obi-Wan, what’s going on?” Anakin says, his eyes growing wider in panic. “Where are we? How long have we been here? I… I don’t remember. I thought…” 

“We’re on Kamino,” Obi-Wan says.

“I… I had a dream,” he says. “I think it was a dream. Maybe it was a Force vision? But Force visions don’t feel like that. This felt so real.”

“What did you dream about?” Obi-Wan asks like he doesn’t already know the answer. 

Anakin’s eyes darken. “It wasn’t me,” he says.

“What wasn’t you?”

“In my dream, I had no ability to stop what I was saying or doing. I did such terrible things…” 

A righteous sort of rage makes itself known in Obi-Wan’s blood. This is a person. He’s not the person he thinks he is, but he’s a person and he is being manipulated and tortured. His body is used as a weapon, his mind is used as a facade. A man should always own his own mind, but this one never has and never will. 

Even the echos of Anakin are destined for slavery.

He knows this and he can still barely stand to look at the clone of his former Padawan.

Anakin turns his head in the other direction.

“No, Anakin, just look at me,” Obi-Wan says, but it’s too late.

“Padmé?” Anakin practically shrieks. “Padmé, oh Force, what is Padmé doing here? Who captured us? The Separatists? I thought the war was over, Master, what’s going on ?”

“Anakin…”

“Padmé!” he yells. “Padmé, wake up!” 

She’s not going to wake up and Obi-Wan knows it. She is likely still lost in the Naboo simulation somewhere and she’s not going to wake up unless she is killed in the simulation. It is better this way, he supposes. She is likely unaware of the fabricated nature of her reality and therefore she believes she is in a blissful life where she gets to watch her children grow up. 

It would be cruel to tear her from that, Obi-Wan thinks ruefully. But he needs Anakin — or at least the version of him programmed to fight and defend. Obi-Wan cannot do that on his own.  

“What’s going on?” Anakin asks again, his panic rising in the glint of blue eyes. 

Obi-Wan faces a moral quandary. He could tell Anakin the truth of his existence and shatter the warm reality he thinks he lives in. There is no telling how this Anakin may react to that, especially since he’s programmed to react like, well, Anakin. 

Or, Obi-Wan can play pretend. He can act as though this is his Anakin who he guided and fought with, who he loved even after everything. It is easy to pretend, especially when he is a near-perfect replica. So perfect, he doesn’t even have another name for him. He is always Anakin. 

There is much to think over and no time for any of it. His moral quandary is put on hold when a droid, similar in model to AZI enters the room. His locomotive parts make a soft whirr sound that muffles the quiet of the room. 

Anakin watches it with trepidation but Obi-Wan knows it can do no more harm to him than has already been done. 

“Where is the Inquisitor?”Obi-Wan asks, emboldened by his taste of freedom. 

“He is dealing with a disturbance elsewhere,” the new droid states. 

“A larger disturbance than me?” Obi-Wan asks with a quirked eyebrow. “And the Kaminoans are with him?”

“Affirmative.”

“Any chance you want to help me out of these?” Obi-Wan asks. 

The droid’s optic receptors almost seem to narrow.  “I am programmed not to free any of the subjects.”

“I’m not a subject, I am a prisoner.”

“According to my files, you are Subject Kenobi, Obi-Wan.”

“My mistake,” Obi-Wan says with a sigh.  

“Excuse me,” Anakin says. “I still don’t know what’s going on here.” 

The droid practically glares at Anakin. “My programming states I am not required to answer to the subjects.”

Anakin strains against his restraints and for a moment, Obi-Wan thinks he’ll actually break through them. His body is strong and healthy. It did not endure the same torture Obi-Wan’s body did. But at the end of it, all he can do is strain. The restraints don’t slacken, but Anakin eventually does. 

The droid looks on with what can only be described as contempt. “You are not supposed to be awake.”

The droid grabs a syringe from a tray and hovers closer and closer still to Anakin. 

“No! Do not come near me with that thing!”

Obi-Wan’s heart leaps. If Anakin goes back under, Obi-Wan can’t wake him unless he follows — and he really does not want to go into another simulation. “No!” Obi-Wan yells. “Don’t touch him!” 

“Get away from me!” Anakin snarls. 

Before the tip of the needle can pierce the skin on Anakin’s neck, the door flies open with a whoosh sound that is borderline aggressive. An orange blur darts inside with a flash of white light. 

The droid falls to pieces on the floor, the syringe with it. Just as quickly, Ahsoka slashes through the restraints holding Anakin down to the table and he bolts up.

“Ahsoka!” 

“Master?” Tears fill her eyes. “I thought you were dead,” she whispers. 

Anakin gives her a confused look. “What? Why?” 

“Master…” she says. “What do you mean what? The Fall? The Empire? All the Inquisitors out there… I assumed you were dead.”

Anakin’s confused expression does not go away. 

So the programming left something out. 

The day the Jedi died. They conveniently left that out. 

“We don’t have time for this,” Ahsoka says. “We’ll catch up later.”

Ahsoka turns to Obi-Wan with wild eyes. 

“Master!” Ahsoka says before running up to Obi-Wan. He stiffens. He’s not sure he can handle more than one conscious clone of his dead friends at a time. Ahsoka’s eyes turn concerned and she stops. “Obi-Wan, what’s wrong?” 

Obi-Wan looks at her and she is Ahsoka, but he also thought this way about Anakin. Still, a thin thread of hope tightens inside of him. “Are you real?” he asks quietly.

“What? Of course I’m real,” Ahsoka says. 

“No,” Obi-Wan says, not allowing the hope to flourish and flower. “You just think you’re real. They did it to you too. Of Force, they did it to you too.” 

“What are you talking about?” Ahsoka asks, bewildered. She approaches him like she might approach a wild animal — slow and cautious. He hates what has become of him. 

“Master, what the hell is wrong with you? That’s Ahsoka, she’s here to rescue us.”

“That’s not her!”

“Master, we don’t have time for this,” she says. She approaches his side and slashes through the restraints. In a rush, the Force returns to him, just as before. The euphoria of it returning to him is almost dizzying. 

He reaches out to the Force out of instinct and for the first time since… since that day, someone reaches back. 

“Ahsoka?” he breathes because it’s her. It’s Ahsoka and she’s real. Her light in the Force is just as bright as ever. She is strong and fierce and everything he remembered her to be. “You’re real. You’re alive.” 

“Yes, I’m real and I’m alive,” she says, her words dripping in confusion. “What’s gotten into you old man?” 

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls her to his arms and holds onto her with a death grip. She buries her head in his shoulders and they embrace in both the Force and in the physical plane. 

She pulls away and looks him over. “What’s happened to you?”

“What are you doing here?” he asks, sidestepping her question. 

“I got captured and well, I—”

“Wait,” Obi-Wan says. “Were you the disturbance upstairs?” 

A sly smile spreads across her face. “Maybe. And I might have stolen my lightsabers back too.” 

Obi-Wan smiles back at her. “That’s my girl,” he says. “I thought… Oh, Ahsoka, I thought you were dead.”

Her face darkens. “Ahsoka is dead. I’m known by the rebellion as Fulcrum now.”

“Fulcrum,” Obi-Wan says slowly, rolling the name around on his tongue. “It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.” 

“Yeah, well, we can discuss my name later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”

“We’re not leaving without Padmé,” Anakin interjects. 

“Anakin, we’ll come back for her,” Obi-Wan says quickly.

“What?” Ahsoka and Anakin say in unison. 

“We need to get out of here and find the rebels. They will help us storm this place. Ahsoka, it seems you know where they are. We’ll free her then. We cannot wake her and we cannot carry her but we must leave.” 

“We’re not leaving without Padmé,” Anakin says, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Obi-Wan’s panic rises. He needs to get out of this place. “Anakin, please. We must leave her.” 

“Master, what are you talking about?” Ahsoka asks. “This isn’t you. We need to find a way to save her.”

“You don’t know what I am,” he snaps. “Not anymore. You don’t know what I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced.” 

“We can’t just leave her,” Ahsoka says quietly. 

Obi-Wan can sense danger drawing nearer.

“They’re coming,” Obi-Wan says. “You sense it too. We need to get out of here.”

“What if we leave and they hurt her?” Anakin asks. 

“They won’t,” Obi-Wan says. He’s sure of himself and Ahsoka seems to sense it. Her expression shifts.

“Why not? How can you be sure?” 

Obi-Wan takes a breath. They don’t have time for this conversation right now but he needs them to leave. “Because that’s not Padmé,” Obi-Wan says. “They would never hurt one of their subjects. Well, except for me.” 

“I’m not leaving and that’s final,” Anakin growls. 

Obi-Wan huffs a breath of frustration. He then gathers the Force around him and waves his hand in front of Anakin. “You will come with me,” he says.

“Master that’s not going to—” Ahsoka interjects. 

“I will come with you,” Anakin says dumbly, his eyes slightly glazed. 

“ What? ” Ahsoka asks. “That worked ?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t bother trying it on Ahsoka. It won’t work on her. But on this clone… well it is all too easy to manipulate his mind with a simple Force suggestion.

“He’s not real,” Obi-Wan states simply. “I’ll explain later. Let’s get out of here.”

“But—”

“We’ll come back for her,” Obi-Wan promises. Ahsoka looks reluctant, but she has always trusted Obi-Wan’s convictions. He relies on that trust now.

She nods and with that simple gesture, the three of them sneak into the hallway. This time, Obi-Wan doesn’t bother waiting. He breaks into a run and Ahsoka and Anakin stay on his heels. 

“This way!” Ahsoka says, grabbing Obi-Wan’s elbow and pulling him down a side hallway.

“The exit is that way,” Obi-Wan says.

“Yeah, and so are a bunch of stormtroopers and clones. There’s another exit this way.” 

It is Obi-Wan’s turn to trust Ahsoka. He follows her down pure white hallways. The fluorescent lights shine bright and from every direction, smothering shadows so there are none to hide in. 

They are about to round a corner when Obi-Wan and Ahsoka sense the approaching danger at the same time. Anakin keeps moving forward, but Ahsoka grabs him and pulls him into a supply closet with Obi-Wan. 

With a wave of his hand, Obi-Wan closes the door and Ahsoka switches off the light. Even here, an emergency light stays on, refusing to hide them in total darkness. It’s a softer light, warm and halogenic. It casts shadows under all of their eyes and darkens the slopes of their cheeks. 

Their heavy breaths are the only sounds, but even those still as stormtroopers thunder past the supply closet. 

The space they are in is cramped and obviously not meant for three escaped prisoners. Or, in this case, two escaped prisoners and an escaped experiment. Ahsoka backs into a shelf and a bucket begins to fall towards the hard tile floor. Obi-Wan stops its descent with the Force and sets it gently back where it was. 

“Master,” Anakin whispers, panicked. “Why can’t I reach the Force?”

His eyes are wild and fear-filled and every instinct in Obi-Wan is telling him to comfort and protect this young man who he comforted and protected for so many years. But this isn’t him. Not really. 

“Master?” Anakin’s voice is verging into hysterical territory. 

“Quiet, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says in a hushed tone. “I’ll explain everything once we get out of here.”

“Explain now. Why can you reach the Force and I can’t? Why can Ahsoka reach it?”

Ahsoka’s eyebrows raise. “You can’t feel it? Not at all?”

“No. I thought they injected all of us with Force suppressors.”

“They didn’t,” Obi-Wan says softly. “The restraints were Force suppressing.”

“But they aren’t on me anymore. Why can’t I feel the Force?”

“You feel…” Ahsoka says, her eyes sharpening. “You feel different.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Ahsoka’s expression darkens. “I felt our bond break,” Ahsoka says. “All those years ago our bond snapped and I assumed you were dead, but here you stand and you’re different in the Force. You used to be so bright…” 

“Okay, all right, I feel different but that doesn’t explain why I can’t feel the Force.” 

Obi-Wan grabs Anakin’s shoulder and looks into familiar stormy eyes. “You cannot feel the Force because you never could. You can’t reach the Force if you are not Force-sensitive.”

“Are you insane, Master? Of course I’m Force-sensitive.” 

“No,” Obi-Wan says sadly. “You are not.” 

“ No, I am. I am the most powerful Force-sensitive. More powerful than you or Master Windu or Yoda or anyone.”

The bravado. The bravado hurts because it is so like him. 

“You’re not Force-sensitive. They… they haven’t figured out how to replicate Force-sensitivity yet. Only in simulations. You are no more powerful than the average human male.”

“Replicate? Simulations? What the hell are you even talking about? I’m the Chosen One, you know this. That damn prophecy followed me around my whole life, what are you even saying?”

Obi-Wan decides to pivot.

“Anakin, do you remember that time on Ansion?” 

“What time on Ansion? We’ve been there multiple times.” 

Obi-Wan swallows thickly because he knows they haven’t. He and Anakin have been there multiple times — not this replication. 

“We were evading a bounty hunter and you got shot,” Obi-Wan continues. 

“Yeah, by a slugthrower.”

“It left a scar,” Obi-Wan says. “That part was left out of the mission report, but, you… he received a scar on his right side, about an inch and a half away from his stomach. It never went away.” 

This Anakin looks at him with disbelieving eyes. 

“You remember it. Don’t you?” Obi-Wan asks softly.

“Of course.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, even as the sound of the name on his tongue feels like a sacrilegious invocation. “Anakin, pull up your shirt.” 

Anakin’s hands shake, but he pulls up the hem of his white shirt. The skin on his abdomen is pure — unblemished and free of any scars. 

“What… what does that mean?” Anakin asks.

“It means they got something wrong. They made a mistake. When they created you, they left out one, seemingly unimportant detail. It means you aren’t really Anakin.”

“But I’m—”

“You are a clone. They stole the real Anakin’s DNA and they made you.”

“But how is that possible? How am I not me? I’m real!”

“You are real,” Obi-Wan confirms. “You are a real man — flesh and bone — just as my Anakin was, but you are not my Anakin.” 

“Yes, I am! I’m your Anakin. I don’t want to be anyone else’s Anakin.”

“I’m afraid your life is a manufactured one — manufactured for the purpose of torturing me and for that, I am so sorry. You are a clone of my Anakin. Your personality, your memories… those all come from me. They took my mission reports, my logs, my journals, even my memories and used them to make you. They used a chip with all the information they could collect and they programmed you.”

“But I have a mother!”

Breath catches in Obi-Wan’s throat. He hates that Anakin has to lose his mother twice. “No. You don’t.”

“Yes, I do ! Her name is Shmi Skywalker and she was a slave and she lived on Tatooine and then she was freed and she died but I’m not even sure how she died and…”

Obi-Wan vaguely wonders what the difference is between fact and memory if those facts feel like memories. 

“Anakin, those are not your memories, they are mine. I… I never learned how Shmi died. He wouldn’t tell me. I fear it was something dark and tragic, but I know he knew. Maybe if he had just told me…”

“But I remember being me,” Anakin says softly, his voice almost a cry. 

“I know,” Obi-Wan says. “It’s not fair. But you aren’t him.”

Anakin runs a shaking hand through his perfectly replicated hair. “My wife. My children… They are real.”

“Padmé is a clone. Your children… I’m afraid your children are part of the simulation. I’m sorry.” 

A mournful cry tears from his throat.

“Shhh,” Obi-Wan says desperately. “Please, please be quiet. We have to get out of here. We’re all in grave danger.” 

“You’re saying my children are dead?” he cries. “My… my son. My daughter. They’re dead?”

“No. What is not real cannot die. They were never really there. Anakin’s children are real, but yours are not.”

“Why would they do this?” Ahsoka asks quietly. She is more closed off than before. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she has taken a step away from Anakin. “Why would the Empire make him?”

“The Emperor knows of the existence of Anakin’s children. He must have sensed their birth, but we’ve kept them hidden.”

“And?”

“And the children are very powerful in the Force. The Emperor wants them. He sent an Inquisitor and my… and some clones after me. They found me and captured me. I was tortured for a year before they brought me here. That’s when the simulations began.”

“They tortured you for a year? Why not just kill you?”

“I am the only one who knows where those children are. That’s why they shifted tactics. They thought the simulations would get me to share their location, but they failed.” 

Obi-Wan’s eyes dart back to Anakin. His hands are wringing and shaking and he’s pulling on the sleeve of his medical tunic in the same way he used to pull on the sleeves of his robes. 

“Are you all right?” Obi-Wan asks, knowing that no one is all right here. 

“What happened to him?” Anakin asks. “What happened to the real Anakin?”

Obi-Wan’s stomach drops. He can feel Ahsoka’s eyes boring into him and he knows she doesn’t know either. How can he break it to them? How can he even say it out loud? It dawns on him now that he has never truly spoken it aloud since he spoke to Bail and Master Yoda all those years ago. He gave sparse details to Owen and Beru, yes, but since then he has never spoken Anakin’s story aloud. 

“Please, Master,” Ahsoka says. “Tell us what happened.” 

 “Something terrible.” 

“That’s not good enough,” Anakin says. “If I’m going to be a duplicate of this person, I need to know his fate.” 

“He died,” Obi-Wan says.

Ahsoka stares at him, raising her markings in disbelief. “That isn’t all it is, Master.” 

“Please,” Obi-Wan says. “You don’t want to know.”

“Master, I have wondered what happened to him ever since I felt our bond break. Every day I have thought about him and you and what happened. You have to tell me. Please.” 

“Anakin is dead. The Anakin you knew, the one who taught you, he is dead. He died when he turned to the Dark Side.” 

“No,” Ahsoka says. “He would never. He was tough, he was volatile but he was good and I—”

“I’m sorry. But it’s true. I wish to all the galaxy that it were not, but I do not possess such power.”

“He fell to the Dark Side,” this Anakin states. “What happened to him?”

“We fought.” Obi-Wan can still hear the sound of lava splashing around him, punctuating every swing of his saber, every strike against his brother. The scent of burning flesh and acrid air still fills his nostrils — the scent of death follows him wherever he goes. 

“You fought,” Ahsoka repeats back. 

“We fought and I… Well, I won. I maimed him. Left him for dead. I cut off his legs. I let the fires of Mustafar consume him. I thought… I thought he was going to die. I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t do it.” 

“You thought he was going to die? He’s still alive?” Ahsoka asks, hope shining in her eyes. She doesn’t know how misplaced it is. 

“It is hardly living.”

“Please just tell me,” Ahsoka begs.

“Anakin died on the beaches of Mustafar and Darth Vader was born. Anakin is Darth Vader.” 

Ahsoka laughs. She actually laughs and Obi-Wan fails to see what is so funny. 

“Ahsoka…”

“No, that… that can’t be,” Ahsoka says, still laughing. “That can’t be because he was my Master and he trained me. Vader is a homicidal maniac. Not Anakin.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“You’re not lying, are you?” Anakin asks softly. His eyes are wide but there is an acceptance within them. 

“I wish I was. More than anything I wish I was lying to you both, but I’m afraid I only speak the truth.” 

“I believe you,” Anakin says. “Inside of me, I feel a danger…”

That danger is so intrinsic to Obi-Wan’s memory of him that it made it into the replication. He thinks back to every time he was ever blind to Anakin’s darkness — all of the times he looked away. There were so many warning signs that really only became visible with the distance of hindsight. Still, he should have seen the signs for what they were — bad omens.

Ahsoka’s laughter stills and she turns deadly quiet. “I knew he struggled with his attachments, with his anger but… Obi-Wan, he was the best of us.”

“I know,” he says sadly. “He was. But he’s gone. He died with the rest of the Jedi that day.” 

“Ahsoka,” Anakin says, reaching for her shoulder. She ducks away, recoiling from the threat of his touch.

“Get away from me,” she seethes. 

Even Obi-Wan is surprised by the sudden shift. Anakin shrinks back, his body curling into itself to make himself smaller. 

“Ahsoka, that isn’t him. He is undeserving of our hurt and anger.” 

“Except it is him. He’s been programmed to think he’s him so what’s the difference? If I only thought I was me, would I still be me?”

“No, you would be—”

“But if I believe I am who I say I am and, for all intents and purposes, no one knows any better, wouldn’t I just be me?”

This is another moral quandary Obi-Wan has been given no time to ponder. He thinks back to the Naboo simulation — how real it all felt. Flashes of a perfect galaxy, a perfect life,  play behind his eyes and he thinks it would be all too easy to accept it as reality. The gentle warmth of that perfect world would have been so easy to bask in. And he did. It was real to him for so long until the cracks came through and the darkness revealed itself as it always does. 

“It’s not him,” Obi-Wan finally decides. “And it is. He is Anakin but he is not the Anakin who died. The Anakin who turned.”

“Who is to say this one won’t turn on us?” Ahsoka asks. “He’s not Force-sensitive, no, but he’s been programmed, just like the clones were.” 

“Wait,” Anakin says. “No, I would never…”

“He turned on me in the last simulation,” Obi-Wan says softly. 

“No!” Anakin says. “That wasn’t me! You have to believe that wasn’t me!” 

“See, how can we trust him?” Ahsoka says. “How can… how can you even look at him.” 

Obi-Wan pauses. She’s right. Even the barest glance at this shell of his former Padawan is excruciating. Finally, he sighs. “He’s human. He is deserving of a chance, just as any of us are.” 

A tense pause.

“Besides, he’s also been programmed to fight and we need that, I’m—” Obi-Wan bites his lip in regret. “I’m not strong enough to fight off the stormtroopers or the Inquisitor. Not anymore.” 

Ahsoka looks at him in sorrow — the way an aging child may look at an aging parent. “I’m sorry, Obi-Wan.”

“What for?”

“For everything that has happened. For the past year. For what you have been through… it’s more than anyone can take and I’m just… I’m sorry.” 

Obi-Wan looks down at himself; he looks at the way the medical tunics hang loose on his body — gaunt and emaciated from neglect and abuse. His hair, now long and shaggy, falls into his eyes and grazes his shoulders. 

“Yes well, I’m broken but not beaten,” he says, finding his resolve in the strength of Ahsoka’s light. “I think the men are gone. Let’s find a way off this floating tomb.”

“Technically, I think it’s drilled into the—”

Obi-Wan cuts her off with a glare. 

“Right, yes. Let’s go.” She pauses. “We’re still bringing him?” 

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says, a streak of protectiveness rearing itself anew inside of him. “Yes, we are still bringing him.” 

Ahsoka begrudgingly agrees and together, they reemerge into the hallway. 

They find a landing platform. 

Once more, it is night. The luxury of daylight is one Obi-Wan has yet to be given. 

Or dryness.

The rain pounds heavy on the stilted buildings. It is quick to soak through Obi-Wan’s thin clothing and he shivers. Anakin and Ahsoka are in similar situations, fighting the chill of the rain. 

They walk along the platform. It is almost empty except for one, singular tie fighter. Obi-Wan’s heart sinks in despair because he knows only one of them will be getting off of this planet and it’s not going to be him. 

“Get in the ship, Ahsoka.” 

“But, Master,” she protests. “There’s only room for one person in there.”

“I know. There’s room for you. I’ll figure something out. Now get in that ship.” 

Ahsoka crosses her arms over her chest and squares her hips, making herself an immovable object. “No. You have been stuck here much longer than I have and you—”

“I am not the future of the Jedi Order,” Obi-Wan says with a soft smile. “You are. And Anakin’s children. His daughter is protected but his son is out there. He needs someone to keep an eye on him, at least a little while longer.”

“Yes, and it should be you,” Ahsoka says. 

“No,” he says. “I cannot leave this place with you still on it. You know I can’t.” He glances at Anakin who is staring with wide, hopeless eyes at the lone tie fighter. Looking at him, Obi-Wan wonders if he would have been able to leave him either.

He is starting to think he wouldn’t be able to. 

“I can’t just leave you to die.”

“You don’t know that,” Obi-Wan says. “I saw another platform on my last escape attempt. There were more tie fighters there. Anakin and I will head that way and try to escape.”

“What if you don’t make it?” The rain disguises the tears that roll down her cheeks, but Obi-Wan knows they are there. 

“Then you will find the Rebels and send them here.” He sighs and tries to hide his doubts behind the assuredness in his voice. “It has to be you,” Obi-Wan says. “You know where the Rebels are.”

“No, I… I can’t just go out there and be Fulcrum when you are stuck here.”

“I’m not asking you to be Fulcrum,” Obi-Wan says. “I’m asking you to be Ahsoka Tano. The galaxy needs Ahsoka Tano.” 

“No,” Ahsoka says firmly. “ No.”

“You have to go, Snips,” Anakin says. It seems his programming included the nickname and the fondness he had for her. 

“Don’t call me that,” she warns. “You aren’t him, you don’t get to call me that.”

Anakin was never good at hiding his wounded expressions and it appears this version is no different. His eyes widen in that way that makes him look like a kicked Loth pup. 

“Ahsoka, you must go,” Obi-Wan says gently. “There isn’t time to argue about this. Go. Find Anakin’s son and protect him and find the rebels. Send them our way.” 

Ahsoka hesitates. “I don’t even know his son’s name.” 

Obi-Wan smiles softly. “His name is Luke. Luke Skywalker.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He is where it all began.” 

“What does that even mean ?” 

“You’ll figure it out. And when you do, make sure you watch the suns set over the horizon. There’s nothing quite as beautiful as a binary sunset.” 

Ahsoka’s eyes widen in understanding.

“Here,” she says. “Take this.”

Ahsoka hands Obi-Wan one of her sabers. “Give yourself a fighting chance. Stay alive until I can return for you.” 

Obi-Wan nods. “Goodbye, Ahsoka.”

“Goodbye, Master.” She glances at Anakin and averts her gaze. It’s too hard for her even in parting to look at the man who taught her and guided her and then tore everything down. “May the Force be with you,” she says, locking eyes with Obi-Wan one last time.

“And also with you.” 

She nods and climbs into the tie fighter. 

“These can’t be too difficult to fly, can they?” Ahsoka asks just as the engine fires up. They lock eyes one last time. Obi-Wan presses against her presence in the Force with his own and urges her to run, fly, escape. 

She presses back with stay alive. 

Obi-Wan grasps Anakin’s arm and pulls him back. They don’t have time to watch her fly away. They can only hope she will escape and she will come to save them all. 

Part of Obi-Wan knows she won’t make it in time.

They don’t re-enter the facility, instead choosing to sneak around its edges and platforms in hopes of finding a ship or a tie fighter they can steal. However, every landing platform they find is empty — like all the ships have been taken away.

“Why are there no ships?” Anakin asks.

“Why are there no men ?” Obi-Wan questions. 

In their hunt for an escape, they have not run across man nor machine. It’s eerily quiet save the heavy splatter of rain and the crashing waves below them. There are no thundering boots, there are no shouts, no droids, no clones, nothing. 

“I don’t know,” Anakin says. “It’s weird.” 

Obi-Wan does not have a good feeling about this at all. 

They search on. 

The search, however, is a little difficult in the dark and with the rain rolling into their eyes. Obi-Wan wipes at his eyes but the rain gets into them immediately. Instead, he relies on the Force for direction.

Anakin does not have the same advantage. Without the ability to sense his surroundings, he stumbles and trips over his own feet. The real Anakin was always lithe and agile. It’s only one more reminder of everything that is lost. 

Still, they run and they search and they keep going until finally, finally, they reach a landing platform with two tie fighters. 

And it’s perfect and everything will be fine if they can just—

“Kenobi!”

The voice, a tolling bell, cuts through the rain and the waves. 

Obi-Wan’s breath catches and his heart stops. Frozen in place, he and Anakin stare at the Inquisitor and the men that wait for his next command. 

Anakin ignites Ahsoka’s saber and stands at the ready in front of Obi-Wan. The old protective streak was programmed into him too, so it seems. 

“Well isn’t this sweet? Master and Padawan together. Trying to relive the glory days, Kenobi?” the Inquisitor asks. “You know he isn’t real, right?”

Anakin flinches and Obi-Wan grits his teeth. He observes the Inquisitor. Only a handful of men stand by his side — much fewer than there were before. 

“It seems you are a little short on men,” Obi-Wan taunts. “What’s the matter? Are your troops abandoning you?”

“Oh no, not quite,” the Inquisitor says.“They aren’t abandoning me. They are evacuating Kamino.” 

Obi-Wan hides his surprise well enough. Among many other things, Qui-Gon taught him how to keep a good sabacc face, and he leans on that lesson now. 

“And you are not?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Not yet,” the Inquisitor says. “The Empire will not destroy the facility while I still stand on it.” 

Now, even Qui-Gon’s lessons fall short. “What?” Obi-Wan says out of surprise. 

“Yes, the Emperor sees no need for this facility anymore. The clones are no longer necessary for conducting a war and, well, the other experiments have failed. The Emperor has grown impatient with all of it.” 

Obi-Wan’s heart beats rapidly in his chest. “The children. You can’t find the children without me.”

“I will admit, you are our only lead, but it seems time nor torture can break you. I admire you. It is a shame you are not on the correct side of history, Kenobi.” The Inquisitor almost looks forlorn. “No matter. We’ll comb the galaxy until they are found.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head in silent protest. 

“Good news, Kenobi. It appears you will be keeping your promise. You will die before you tell me where those children are.”

The Inquisitor gestures to Anakin and Obi-Wan, and the men swarm upon them. They shoot their blasters at Anakin and he tries desperately to deflect the bolts. Anakin tries to fight off the men to the best of his ability, but Obi-Wan is unarmed and lacking in strength. 

A stormtrooper puts him in a chokehold with a blaster to his head.

“You better stop resisting AS-0027,” the Inquisitor says. “We wouldn’t want your Master to get hurt.”

Anakin glances back at Obi-Wan and sees the predicament he is in. He keeps the white saber ablaze, but he stops fighting. Anakin turns back to the Inquisitor.

“Let him go,” Anakin growls. 

“That’s cute,” the Inquisitor says. “But I’m afraid I’m not taking orders from science experiments.” 

A hum follows the ignition of a red saber. 

Anakin tenses. 

A pause.

A battle cry. 

The sabers collide. 

Anakin meets the Inquisitor step for step. He takes the offensive stance just as the real Anakin always did and his fight is fueled by his fire. 

Maybe that fire is why this clone is so convincing. 

The Inquisitor is no beginner, however. His fight style is brutal — arguably more so than Anakin’s — and he shows no signs of weakness. While Anakin has been programmed to fight exactly as Obi-Wan remembers the real Anakin’s fighting, he still lacks one clear advantage: the Force. 

His movements lack the grace and poise of a Jedi. There is no finesse or supernatural skill to give him an advantage. Speed is not to his advantage either — he can only go as fast as his natural body will allow him. He is a talented swordsman, but that is just it. He is just a man. This is not the Chosen One — just the echo of him. 

Anakin is losing. That much is apparent. His steps are getting sloppy, he is leaving his sides unguarded, he is getting tired. 

He’s going to die.

Obi-Wan can’t let that happen. Digging deep within himself, Obi-Wan pulls on his last dregs of fight. He elbows the stormtrooper holding him and twists his way out of the grip. Stunned, the stormtrooper’s weapon is easily accessible to Obi-Wan. He seizes it and shoots the soldier point-blank. There’s no room for mercy anymore — only survival. 

He swivels and kills another man and then another. They shoot at him and he is unable to deflect the bolts, but he still manages to dodge them. He turns and runs toward the Inquisitor and aims the stolen blaster. He shoots at him, only to have the bolts deflected right back at him. 

This time he’s not as good at dodging. 

A stray bolt hits him in the side. He falls to his knees, but he cannot feel the impact of collapse over the burning in his side. 

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin shouts, unable to focus on his mission now that someone he cares for is wounded. Just like… 

The wound itself, Obi-Wan knows from experience, is non-fatal so long as it is treated. But it is enough to stop him in his tracks and prevent him from fighting back. He drops the blaster and clutches at the wound. Warm blood coats his fingers. 

With a twinge of irony, Obi-Wan realizes this is exactly where the real Anakin was shot with a slugthrower all those years ago. 

Obi-Wan looks up from his wound to the Inquisitor and Anakin. The fight, he realizes, is over. The white saber is sheathed and the red one is pointed at Anakin’s neck. 

“Drop it,” the Inquisitor says. 

The saber clatters to the ground, the sound of it muffled by the rain. 

“I’m sorry, Obi-Wan,” Anakin says with remorse.

“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan says. “It’s not your fault.”

“Very touching,” the Inquisitor says. “Guards!”

The two men that remain standing circle around Obi-Wan and manhandle him to his feet. The blaster bolt wound pulls with the sudden movement and he feels warm blood soaking the white medical tunic. The Inquisitor grabs Anakin and drags him kicking and screaming back inside the facility. The men drag Obi-Wan just behind. 

“No!” Anakin yells. “Let me go!” 

Blinded by pain, Obi-Wan cannot fight back. He lets himself get carried back into the facility, down the hall and into the room where his mind is forced to play tricks on him. 

Nala Se is there, and through the Force, Obi-Wan can sense her unease. For a moment, he lets his mind wander to what will happen to her once this facility is destroyed. The compassion of a Jedi extends to their enemies, after all.

Anakin and Obi-Wan are both strapped down, though Anakin with a little more difficulty. 

“Put them under,” the Inquisitor growls. “I don’t care where you put them, just keep them down. I don’t need them interfering with the Empire’s plans or with the evacuation orders.”

“Shouldn’t we just kill them?”

“No,” the Inquisitor says with a smile. “Destroy their hope. We’ll let the Empire finish the job.” 

Anakin writhes underneath the restraints, his rage palpable, even without the blanket of the Force.  

Nala Se pulls out a syringe and flicks it. “This should keep them out of the way until the Empire is done here,” she says.  

“Good. Put them under.” 

“No!” Anakin screams, but it dies in his throat. 

The simulation begins anew. 

Chapter Text

The biscuit is sweet on his tongue and it reminds him of the ones he ate in his youth. His youth itself, however, was not quite as sweet. Most of his life, for that matter, lacked the sweetness one might hope for oneself, but Obi-Wan is okay with that. He made his peace with a life of infinite sadness long ago and he is only grateful that now it seems his life has taken a turn for the better. 

Across from him, Anakin tears into his own breakfast ravenously. 

“Slow down,” Obi-Wan says. “Enjoy it.” 

“Not your Padawan. You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”

Obi-Wan looks at him with disgust. “And don’t talk with your mouth full.” 

Anakin shoots him a glare and Obi-Wan just rolls his eyes. 

Some things were never meant to change. 

The sun shines through the windows, bathing the whole kitchen in the soft golden glow. The morning is a quiet one — relatively, that is. Pounding feet on tile floors echo from the twins running excitedly around the house. Obi-Wan doesn’t mind the children interrupting the quiet of the morning. Instead, he takes the moment to enjoy the company of his dearest friends. 

Padmé hums to herself as she busies her hands with the dishes. Obi-Wan grabs his and Anakin’s empty plates and joins her side.

“Please, let me,” he says.

“You wash, I dry?” Padmé compromises. 

“Sounds perfect.” 

Perfect . 

An odd word because of how rarely it has held relevance in Obi-Wan’s life. Nothing has ever been perfect in his life. 

Don’t question it. Don’t pull on the thread . 

He tries to ignore the thought, the feeling that gives him so much unease, but a seam, once frayed, is just all too easy to unravel. 

The sound of thunder carries in from the distance, tearing him from his thoughts. With narrowed eyes, Obi-Wan glances back at the windows. The sun still beams through the glass panes. 

“Something on your mind?” Padmé asks.

“No. It’s just strange,” Obi-Wan says, “it doesn’t look like rain.”

“Maybe it’s a sunshower?” Anakin suggests. 

“Maybe,” Obi-Wan says, even as he gets the distinct feeling that it is not . 

The dishes set in the drying rack begin to shake and rattle on their own. 

“Ani, stop that,” Padmé says, exasperated.

Anakin gives her a concerned look. “It’s not me, I swear.”

Obi-Wan shuts off the water and stops what he is doing. 

It’s not Anakin. Obi-Wan can sense he speaks the truth, but something else is wrong. He brushes up against their bond, but it’s wrong somehow. It is nothing like it was when they were Master and Padawan and it’s not like it was in the war. Days ago, Obi-Wan might have convinced himself it was the bond itself falling apart from their time spent away from each other, but that is not it at all, now is it? 

The bond is manufactured from his hope, and when he sees it for what it is, it falls apart. There is no bond to nudge against, no warm welcome, no comfort or support or strength. It’s all gone now. 

Obi-Wan can sense the illusion for what it is. His immunity to the simulation serum has strengthened, and with it, his memory. 

The shaking continues. 

“Are you doing that?” Anakin asks. “It’s not me. I swear.” 

“I know it’s not you,” Obi-Wan says sadly. “I’m afraid it has started.” 

Anakin gives him a quizzical look. “What has started?” 

“The end.”

“Well, that’s ominous,” Anakin mutters. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Obi-Wan, what’s going on?” Padmé asks. 

The expression Obi-Wan gives both of them is a pained one. He fumbles for the words. How can he explain to them that they are not who they think they are? That their children are not real? It was hard enough the first time with Anakin, but Obi-Wan thinks he may not be able to bear Padmé’s despair. Not again. 

“What are you hiding?” Anakin asks. 

The ground quakes and the chairs sitting at the kitchen table topple over. Pans resting on the countertops fall to the ground in thundering clatters and a crack ripples through the wall and slithers through the ceiling. 

“I think we should get outside,” Obi-Wan says.

“Wait,” Padmé says. “We need to find Luke and Leia.”

“No. They aren’t here.” 

“What does that even mean? They were just running around upstairs.” Anakin protests. “We’re not leaving without my children.”

“Anakin, listen to me,” Obi-Wan says as dust lands in his hair. “Your children aren’t here. They aren’t real. None of this is real. We need to get outside so we can make a plan.” 

“None of this is… my children…”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says. “Remember. The simulations, Kamino, all of it.” 

“Ani, what is he talking about?” Padmé asks. 

Obi-Wan pulls Anakin out of the line of falling debris.  

“ Remember, Anakin. If we die here, we wake in the real world, but we need to come up with a plan first,” Obi-Wan says desperately. “We need to go outside.” 

Anakin nods subtly, too stunned and reeling to offer a counterargument. 

“Come,” Obi-Wan says gently, “we need to get outside.”

Padmé nods and follows him and Anakin through the halls of the house. The thundering continues even if the pounding of children’s feet has stopped. 

Obi-Wan races towards the terrace, dodging falling debris and leaping over rubble. The terrace, once beautiful, is now cracked and shattered. 

“Careful,” Obi-Wan says as they navigate the broken edges and tiles. They race down the stairs to the soft grass below and run to the lake’s edge. 

The water is no longer serene and still, but turbulent and choppy as though a tempest is upon them. It crashes against the shore instead of lapping against it gently and they are caught in the spray.

“What is happening?” Anakin asks. 

“They’re destroying the facility,” Obi-Wan says. “And we’re stuck in this simulation.” 

Remembrance rises in Anakin’s eyes. “What do we do?”

“I— I don’t know but—”

The thundering and shaking continue and it is so consuming, Obi-Wan almost does not see Padmé fall to the ground. There is almost a gracefulness to her fall — like a leaf turning over for the season, making way for something new. 

“Padmé?” 

A large step forward and Obi-Wan is at her side. He kneels beside her and graces his fingers on her pale neck. With rising fear, he realizes there is no pulse to greet him. 

“Padmé?” Anakin asks breathlessly. Obi-Wan hadn’t even noticed him scramble over, but now he is here and his panic is palpable. “Padmé, what’s wrong?”

She gives no response, just as Obi-Wan knew she wouldn’t. 

“Anakin…” 

“No! No, don’t say anything, she is fine .”

One look and Obi-Wan knows she is not fine. Her dress pools around her body in waves of satin. Everything about her is beautiful, even in death. 

Anakin kneels over her and buries his head in her stomach. His cries rip from his throat — the agony is real even if nothing else is. The ground shakes and the waters rage and Anakin weeps over the woman he has no choice but to love. 

His shoulders tremble and Obi-Wan cannot help the comforting hand he rests on his back. 

“Anakin… I’m sorry.”

Anakin looks up at Obi-Wan. “If you only die in the simulation, then maybe Padmé is alive out in the real world?” he asks, blue eyes wide and hopeful.

“Maybe,” Obi-Wan says slowly, though he has a bad feeling about it. “But what killed her? She just fell. And the facility is being destroyed. What if—”

“No,” Anakin says. “ No . She died in the simulation so she’s alive in real life, she has to be. That’s how it works!”

“I’m not sure this time.”

“No, you told me that’s how it works, you told me!” 

“Anakin—”

“No! You don’t get to do that! You don’t get to tell me that she’s dead when she’s alive in real life.”

Obi-Wan remains silent. There is nothing to say to a man in mourning. He knows this better than anyone. 

So he lets him grieve, if only for a moment. It is a moment they do not have, but it is a moment Obi-Wan cannot bear to take away from him. 

“Come, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “We need to get out of the simulation and then we need to escape the facility. We need a plan. We have to find another hanger with a ship or at least some tie-fighters. We’ll meet on—”

“We have to kill each other don’t we?” Anakin says.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says, “I’m afraid we do.” 

Obi-Wan stands up and extends a hand to Anakin. He accepts it and allows Obi-Wan to drag him to his feet. Obi-Wan drags him away from Padmé’s body. 

The sand under their feet is hard and wet from the spray of the lake. The movement of the earth threatens to knock them from their feet, but they brace themselves against its quakes. 

“Are you ready,” Obi-Wan says. 

“No,” Anakin replies. “I’m scared, Obi-Wan.” He says this as if Obi-Wan doesn’t know that Anakin’s fear is what defined both his life and his death. “What if we do this and we don’t wake up? What if we just die?” 

“We have to do this. If we are to escape, we must first die.” 

“What if you’re wrong? What if—”

“I’m not.”

Anakin runs his shaking hands through his hair. 

“This is crazy,” Anakin says. “This is insane .” His laugh comes out as hysterical. “I mean, look at us. We’re about to kill each other because we think we aren’t real and we think we’re stuck in this reality that isn’t really reality and—”

“This is the only way. You have to trust me.” 

Anakin pauses and his lip wobbles just the slightest bit. Watery eyes meet Obi-Wan’s. “What if we wake up and Padmé is still dead?”

Obi-Wan struggles for the right words. “I fear that is what we will find.”

“No,” Anakin says. “I don’t want to wake up and find that. I don’t want to wake up and find her … I want to stay here. Everything is perfect here. Don’t you see it? Aren’t you happy here?”

“Of course I’m happy here. Of course I want to stay in a world where everything is perfect and happy, but Anakin, look around. It’s crumbling around us. We need to escape. I want— I need   you to escape with me.” 

Obi-Wan grabs the saber attached to his belt. “Please, Anakin.” 

Anakin sniffs and shudders, but his hands travel to his own belt. He holds his saber in his hand, but it is like the material is burning him. With trembling breaths, he stretches out his arm and holds the hilt up to Obi-Wan’s chest. Obi-Wan does just the same.

“Together?” Anakin asks.

“Together,” Obi-Wan affirms. “On my count?”

Anakin nods. 

“One.”

Obi-Wan tightens his grip on the saber. His hand is slick with sweat.

“Two.”

Anakin trembles before him. Tears pool in his eyes and run silently down his cheeks. All Obi-Wan wants to do is brush them away. 

“Three.”

When Obi-Wan wakes, the pristine white walls are no more. They are cracked and broken — splitting at their seams. Dust kicks into the air and Obi-Wan coughs. The seizing coughs cause a lance of pain to strike through his side and he remembers the blaster wound. He glances down at it. It never fully cauterized and blood soaks the once-white medical tunic. 

Panting, he tries to center his thoughts around anything but the pain. 

Anakin . 

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin yells, his voice somehow askance. Obi-Wan turns his head to face him and sees why. His examination table is tipped over. 

Obi-Wan looks just past him and thanks the Force that Anakin is no longer in a position to see what he sees. Just past Anakin’s fallen examination table are the crushed remains of Padmé’s own. Only her face remains visible. Her brown hair is splayed around her and a single drop of blood drips down ivory skin from a gash on her forehead. Unseeing eyes stare back into Obi-Wan’s own. 

Just another cruelty of this place: he is forced to relive that which he has already seen. 

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “Are you all right?’

“I’m fine. You?”

He swallows back the burning pain. “Fine. We need to get out of here.” 

“Right. Have any ideas?”

“I don’t think I can convince another droid to let me go and I doubt Ahsoka is going to come bursting in again.” 

Anakin strains his neck. Obi-Wan does the same to see what he’s looking at.

A scalpel lays on the ground just a hair's breadth away from Anakin’s fingertips. 

“Do you think you can reach that?”

“I’m trying,” Anakin grunts. His back arches and his mouth curves in a tight grimace as he pulls against the restraints. 

“Come on , Anakin.”

“I’ve almost got it, I’ve almost— ah!” Anakin cries out triumphantly. “I’ve got it!” 

Obi-Wan lets out a sigh. “Good job, now just…” 

“Obi-Wan?” 

“Hmm?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course, I’m just…” Obi-Wan takes a shaky breath. “I think I’ve lost a bit of blood.” 

“How much is ‘a bit’?” 

Obi-Wan grits his teeth. “Just keep working at those restraints. We’ll worry about it after we get out of here.” 

Anakin saws at the strap around his wrist. The work is painfully slow and his brows are furrowed in concentration. It is the same look the real Anakin would get when he was making updates to Artoo or fixing a broken-down hyperdrive. The determination behind his eyes gives Obi-Wan just enough hope to stay conscious. 

“I’m almost there, Master,” Anakin says. “Just hang on.” 

And he does. He hangs on to the sound of Anakin’s voice, the subtle sawing, and the reverberating sound of destruction. 

“Aha!” Anakin exclaims again. With his wrist free, he works at undoing the straps around his other wrist and his torso, and then his legs. “I’m so close, just hold on.”

“I am,” Obi-Wan says, even as his vision blurs. 

The last restraint comes undone and Anakin slides fully to the floor amongst the debris and dust. He scrambles to his feet, ready for action until his eyes rest on…

“Padmé!” He screams her name like it will bring her back. Obi-Wan knows from experience that it will not. 

Obi-Wan forces himself to focus. “Anakin, don’t look at her. Look at me.”

“No,” he says. “She was supposed to be alive. This is real life, she is supposed to be alive .” 

He scrambles over fallen beams and chunks of plaster. “Padmé,” he cries, a softer, more mournful cry than before. In vain, he attempts to push the debris off of her.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “She’s gone.” 

“No.” He hunches over her and rests his forehead on hers. “Please,” he chokes. 

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says breathlessly. “I know that… but I… I can’t…” The faintness of his voice is enough to lasso Anakin back to attention. 

“Master!” he cries. He whips around and his eyes fall on the blaster wound. “I need to stop the bleeding.” 

“There… there isn’t time.” As if to punctuate his statement, the ground shakes and the table he is so mercilessly strapped to tips back and forth before Anakin steadies it.

“I’m making time,” Anakin says like he has the power to do so, but even the real Anakin never possessed such power. However, this Anakin possesses all the same determination, and so he works at the restraints, trying to undo them even while the world caves in around them. 

The ground trembles and more dust falls into Obi-Wan’s eyes. The shaking jostles him and reverberates through his every vertebra. The wound in his side pulses with pain and he feels almost delirious with it. But he can’t afford that. He needs to stay sharp if he is to stay alive. 

A part of him is starting to doubt that he will. 

His vision grows blurrier. 

“Maybe you should go,” Obi-Wan says. “I don’t think I’m—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No. I will not lose my children, my wife, and my Master all in one day. I will not.” 

“I’m not—”

“Don’t. Don’t say it.”

“All right, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. He knows he is beyond convincing. 

“I’ve almost got it,” Anakin says. “Just hang in there, Obi-Wan.” 

The first restraint loosens and is pulled away and the Force rushes back to him. He pulls on it to give him strength and support. It won’t last, but it is enough to sustain him until they make their escape.

At least, he hopes it is enough. 

He begins undoing the other straps while Anakin scampers off to the other side of the room. 

“Come on, come on, there has to be something,” Anakin mutters. He is fluttering around the room, tearing it apart more than it already has been. 

“Anakin…” 

“There!” Anakin scrambles back to him. Before Obi-Wan is even aware of what’s going on, Anakin has rolled up the blood-soaked medical tunic and is dabbing at the wound with gauze. Satisfied with his work, Anakin smears bacta all over the wound. A hiss escapes clenched teeth, but soon the numbing effect of the bacta takes hold and the pain turns into a dull throb. 

His thoughts turn a little more clear, bolstered by the Force and the cooling gel on his burned and bleeding flesh. Air fills his lungs like it knows it is trying not to miss its chance to do so. He steadies his breathing and gives the clone a grateful look. 

The table vibrates, but it is the quiver in the Force that drives him to raise his hand. His reaction is fast enough to stop the latest slew of falling debris from slamming into Anakin.

Gently, he lowers the debris to the ground with the Force and Anakin looks on with a longing look in his eyes.

There is no time to linger on it, however — not while the world breaks apart at its very seams. 

With movements slow and ginger, Obi-Wan swings his legs over the table and lands on the ground. Wreckage and rubble cuts into his bare feet and his legs shake just as the ground does, but he keeps his footing. 

“Let’s go,” he says. 

Anakin does not need to be told twice. He follows dutifully.

They worry not about guards; they have all evacuated at this point. The only life forms left in the facility are Obi-Wan and Anakin. 

“Come on,” Obi-Wan says. “We need to find a hangar or a landing platform.”

“There has to be a map of this place,” Anakin says. “Right?”

Obi-Wan debates the merits of stopping to find a map and just wandering aimlessly until they find a ship left behind by the Empire. 

“You’re right,” he says. “Find a computer.” The ground shakes. “Hurry!”

They rush through the halls until they find a data screen. It’s easy enough to use — Kamino, despite its scientific advancements, has failed to make many updates to the computers since the time of the Republic. It only takes a little bit of searching to find a blueprint of the facility. 

“There!” Anakin says, pointing to a hangar. “We need to go that way. It looks like we need to go through this room here, down this hallway, past the barracks and then we’ll make it to this hallway. The western hangar should be at its end.” 

“What are these lines?” Obi-Wan asks, pointing at the last hallway to the hangar.

Anakin squints at them. “That hallway looks segmented. It’s probably just doors.”

“Hopefully they will be unlocked.”

“We can only hope,” Anakin says with a shrug.  

“Do you think there will be any ships left over?”

“We can only hope,” Obi-Wan says. “Let’s go.”

Two pairs of bloody footprints stain the ground, but the Jedi and the clone keep running. 

Screeching metal tears and creaks as the hallway they run down tears apart. 

“This way!” Obi-Wan yells. He grabs Anakin’s arm and drags him into the old incubator room. It is empty now. The artificial wombs that once held the tiny embryos of men he fought with in battle are now cracked and shattered — void of all life. 

“What is this?” Anakin asks, pausing. 

“You already know,” Obi-Wan says, panting heavily. 

Horror makes the slow climb to Anakin’s face, dawning upon him like the rising sun. “Do you think I was in one of these… these things ?” 

“Most likely,” Obi-Wan says. 

“Am I… Oh Force I’m not even—”

“You are a man. A sentient human being. You are important, Anakin.”

Reflections of blinking lights and glowing tubes appear in the dismayed gleam of Anakin’s eyes. 

“Come on,” Obi-Wan says softly. “We’re running out of time.”

Anakin nods tightly and follows Obi-Wan down the long catwalk. Glass orbs fall and shatter down around them, cutting into their bare and bloodied feet even more. 

Not that they can really feel it. 

The adrenaline coursing through their veins makes them forget their mortal flesh in favor of saving it. 

The long catwalk inside the incubator room comes to an end and they spill out into another hallway, just as white as all the others. They run and they run, the facility hallways seemingly lengthening as time only shortens. 

Anakin runs just a few steps ahead of Obi-Wan. He turns back and comes to a halt.

“What are you doing?” Obi-Wan pants. “Don’t stop. Don’t wait for me, just go.”

“No, wait,” Anakin says. 

Obi-Wan slows and comes to a stop. He notices it too. 

“It’s quiet,” he says.

“Yeah. Too quiet. Do you think they stopped?” 

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “Why would they stop? The facility has yet to be destroyed.”

“Maybe they think everything that needs to be destroyed is destroyed.”

“No. They are too smart for that. Too thorough.” 

In the distance, a loud explosion pierces the unsettling silence. 

Obi-Wan and Anakin look at each other.

“What was that?”

“Nothing good,” Obi-Wan says, just as the ground begins to vibrate. Harsh whines echo throughout the building as it shifts on weakening stilts.

“Run!”

They take off, but they do not get far before they are both knocked off their feet. The room turns sideways and they slide down the floor with all the other debris. 

Desperate hands grasp for purchase, but nothing is stable anymore. Together, Obi-Wan and Anakin slip down, down, down until they crash into a pneumatic door. With the structural integrity compromised, the door gives way and Anakin and Obi-Wan tumble into a set of old barracks. 

Obi-Wan holds out his hand and wills the Force to help him just a little bit more. With it, he closes the door and stops the debris from sliding in on them. 

The building stops moving and for a moment, they are able to breathe. 

And then Obi-Wan looks around. 

“Oh… oh no, oh stars , how could…” 

Anakin looks around and, from his sharp intake of breath, Obi-Wan knows that what he is seeing is not a cruel trick of his own tortured mind. 

“Is that… are they…” 

“Clones,” Obi-Wan finishes. “Clones of Anakin. Clones like you.”

“But they’re…”

“They must have killed them. Or they were killed by the debris,” Obi-Wan says. “Oh Force…”

He looks around at the bodies. About half a dozen children with golden hair lay scattered on the wall — stiff and lifeless with the cold touch of death. 

One of them looks directly at Obi-Wan with an unseeing stare. He looks accusatory, and exactly like the boy Obi-Wan took in all those years ago. A carbon copy. 

Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay…

His breath comes in sharp gasps at the sight. 

“No…” he says. “ No .”

This is too much. Too cruel. Too sadistic to bear and yet the Force has placed him here: the makeshift tomb of his Padawan’s clones. 

Anakin is all around him. Six copies of his former Padawan that all look just as he did, but without the spark of life. 

Obi-Wan is clearly not the only one affected by the scene. Anakin scrambles over to him and grips his sleeve like it is a lifeline. “Get me out of here, Obi-Wan,” Anakin begs. There is a desperation there — a quiet plea from a child to a parent. “Get… Get me out of here!” 

“All right,” Obi-Wan says softly. “It’s… it’s all right. We’ll get out of here. Just give me a second.” 

“I can’t be here,” he says. “Get me out!”

“Breathe, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “Center yourself in the—” Anakin’s wide eyes stare at him, but they aren’t really Anakin’s “—center yourself, Anakin. We need to think clearly.”

He nods quickly, but then starts to look around him. 

“No, don’t do that. Don’t look at them, look at me,” Obi-Wan says.

He assesses their options, limited as they are. 

The door is too high and the wall too perpendicular for them to simply walk out of. Still, there is no other way out. Pulling on his very limited reserves of strength, Obi-Wan wills the damaged door open with the Force. It lets out a horrible shrieking sound as it creaks open, but flickering light from the hallway spills in. The light is not the only thing to spill in, however. Dust and plaster and metal scraps fall around them, clanging on the ground — or the wall — whatever it is they find themselves standing on. 

Obi-Wan can make it. The jump, even in his state, is not a difficult one for a Jedi. However, a human might find it a little more difficult — or impossible.

Anakin takes a few steps back, and before Obi-Wan can stop him, he makes a running jump for the door.

He doesn’t get anywhere close. He slides back to the ground and lands on his injured feet with a yelp. 

“Wait,” Obi-Wan says. “Let me.”

Obi-Wan summons the Force around him. It takes longer than he would like. He’s fading and fading fast, but he has to try. He must.

Once the energy provided by the Force coalesces and congeals, he pulls on it to propel himself upward and over the lip of the door. His landing is not a graceful one and it only aggravates the wound in his side, but he manages to keep steady. 

Groaning, he presses his hand to his side in an attempt to quell the pain. It doesn’t do much, but there is not much else to do. 

He peers down at Anakin who is now looking up at him with wide eyes.

“I’ll give you a boost, just… just give me a minute to catch my breath.”

“Obi-Wan?”

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, I just need…” He pulls the hand pressed to his side away and looks at the fresh coating of blood. “I just need a minute.” 

“Okay,” Anakin says nervously. “Hurry.” 

Always impatient . 

With a few shaky breaths, he gathers the Force around him — albeit, even slower than before. 

“All right, when I say jump, you jump,” Obi-Wan calls down. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

Obi-Wan isn’t sure if he himself is ready, but he centers himself anyway. 

With hands splayed out, he calls, “jump!” down at Anakin. The clone obeys and takes a running leap as high up as he can. Just as before, it is not far enough, but this time, Obi-Wan has him. He locks onto him and pulls . 

“Grab my hand!” 

Anakin reaches and his fingertips only graze Obi-Wan’s. Some of the strength from the Force is lost with the distraction of reaching for Anakin, and the younger man begins falling back to the ground with wide eyes. 

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin yelps. 

Obi-Wan strengthens his hold on Anakin and he stops mid-fall. He lets out a breath of relief. There is no way he can do this again. 

“Okay,” Obi-Wan pants. “Slowly now.” 

With a little more focus, Obi-Wan manages to pull Anakin higher than before. He hardly notices the vice-like grip around his wrist until he hears his name.

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin yells. “Pull me up!”  

His shoulders strain and his side stings with a sharp pain as he pulls Anakin over the lip of the door. Once far enough up, Anakin pulls himself up the remainder of the way. They lie on their backs side-by-side, both of them a collection of heavy breaths and bloodstains, but alive all the same. 

The ground vibrates beneath them.

“We don’t have long. We have… we have to go.”

Anakin takes a closer look at him. “Master…”

Obi-Wan flinches at the title. 

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin amends. “Are you—”

“I’m fine.” 

“You don’t look—”

“Don’t worry about it. “

“Now I’m worried about it.” 

“Don’t. There is no point. We just need to focus on—” he moves to get up, his expression and voice straining “—we need to focus on getting out. Come on. We have to make it to the western hangar or we’ll never get off of this floating tomb.”

“I don’t think it floats,” Anakin adds. “I think it’s built on stilts.” 

“Of all the details they had to program you with…” 

Anakin smirks and gingerly climbs to his feet. He extends a hand. “Hey, it’s not my fault. It’s your memories so technically —”

Obi-Wan accepts Anakin’s hand and lets himself be pulled up.“Don’t you dare say this is my fault.”

Anakin raises his hands in surrender. “Ready?”

“Of course.”

They continue on, running through the hallway, leaping over doors leading into barracks, labs, and storage rooms. The twisted hallway gradually begins to untwist and they find themselves once more running on the ground and not the wall. Not that it makes too much difference. They still leap over debris and shrapnel. 

The hallway ends and they make a turn into a new hallway. This one is periodically segmented by wide doors, just as they saw in the blueprint. Obi-Wan doesn’t believe in luck, but he feels awfully lucky when the doors unfurl as Anakin slams his hand on each opener button. 

“We’re nearly there,” Anakin says through panting breaths. “Just a few more.”

His hand slams against a button and another door slides open. 

Thundering explosions rock the building and they both collapse, landing hard on their stomachs. With the wind knocked out of him, Obi-Wan coughs. Blood splashes from his lips to the floor. 

“Not good,” he murmurs. 

“What?” Anakin asks. 

“Nothing.” Obi-Wan wipes his lips and keeps his face turned away from Anakin. 

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“It’s nothing.” 

“Well I—”

“Now is not the time to argue with me,” Obi-Wan says sternly. He staggers to his feet and does the honor of slapping his hand on the next door’s opener. 

Another segmented section awaits them. “How many more of these—” Anakin growls as he hits the next button. He rushes towards the door before it finishes unfurling. “Woah!” Anakin yells, his arms windmilling as he tries to hold his balance.

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan yells, lunging forward and grabbing him by the back of his medical tunic. He pulls him backward and into the segmented section of hallway. Salty sea air, cold and dark, blows into the small section they find themselves in.

Sea spray and rain mixes to soak their hair, their skin, their clothing. The ocean rages and swirls, indifferent to what it has just swallowed. 

Labored breaths claw through two sets of equally devastated lungs as the two men stare out at the sinking remains of what could have been their escape. 

“No,” Anakin says. “No! We were so close, we were—”

Obi-Wan wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to beseech the Force and ask why it has forsaken him. 

He wants to ask it why it dared give him hope, when he should have known all along that none existed for him. 

Instead, he simply whispers, “they destroyed it. Of course they destroyed it.” 

The sea stretches below and beyond the gaping door. There is no more hallway. There is no more hangar. There is no more hope. 

The ships, their salvation , sink deep into the murky ocean depths. Perhaps, over time, they will become home to coral and fish — a beautiful ecosystem full of life. Perhaps they will degrade and rust, any significance the ships had to sentient life lost underneath the weight of the sea. Either way, they will never fly again, and they will never bring the Jedi and the clone to freedom. 

“I— I don’t understand,” Anakin says. 

“They took out the western hangar,” he states simply. He knows Anakin can see it just as well as he can, but he knows he needs to hear it out loud. Perhaps Obi-Wan needs to hear it out loud too. 

“What… what do we do now?” Anakin turns to him with searching eyes — the very ones that turned to him over and over and over again until they didn’t and it was too late. 

Always too late. 

“We—” he takes a shuddering breath “—we will try the eastern hangar.”

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin says slowly. “Do you think it even exists anymore?” 

He knows they will never make it to the eastern hangar, even if it hasn’t been destroyed. 

But what else is there to do?

While Obi-Wan may accept his fate, he isn’t going to accept it without a decent fight. “I don’t know. But I’m willing to try,” he says simply. 

Anakin’s eyes sharpen again, the hope returning even if Obi-Wan was mostly feigning it.

Mostly.

They turn back.

Obi-Wan’s steps are sluggish now. He can no longer run down the halls or leap over debris. It takes everything just to stay on his feet, but he keeps going. 

Until he can’t.

The segmented hallway shudders and Obi-Wan staggers and lists to the side. He slides down the wall and leans against it on the ground.

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin rushes to his side and kneels down next to him. 

Wet, bloody coughs break from Obi-Wan’s throat and he tries to focus his eyes on Anakin’s face.

“Hey,” Anakin says softly. “Let’s take a break.”

“You should go,” Obi-Wan says. 

“No. We’ve come this far. Like hell I’m giving up on you now.”

“You should. You should try and escape while you still can.” 

“Not without you, old man.” 

The old nickname doesn’t hurt, and that’s how he knows time nears its end. He huffs out a laugh instead. “I was never able to get him to listen to me. Foolish to think you might be different.”

“Oh come on, I listen to you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Stop saying that,” Anakin says. “I know you more than anyone and right now we’re all we have left, please just… just stop saying that.”

“All right… Anakin…” His eyelids feel like heavy weights and he struggles to keep them open.

“Hey, stay awake. I need you awake.” 

“I’m awake.” 

“Well, forgive me if you don’t look very alert right now.”

Obi-Wan forces his eyelids open and looks back up at Anakin. His face is tightened with worry and the perpetual look of fear that has always lay dormant within him comes out in full. 

“Please, just go,” Obi-Wan says, “while you still can. Just go.”

“Not a chance, Master.” The word rolls off his tongue so easily, it’s almost real. 

Anakin pushes against Obi-Wan’s shoulders. “Come on, get up. We only have a few more segments left, then we’ll be back in the main facility.”

“We—”

Obi-Wan’s words are cut off — lost to the cacophony of explosions and the thunderous sounds of total destruction that surround them now. The pneumatic doors of their segment close and lock up on either side and the hall falls and falls — twisting and spinning as it does.  

There is a weightlessness to the fall that almost feels good in Obi-Wan’s battered body, but as all things do, the fall comes to an end. The segment of hallway they occupy slams into the ocean and jostles the two battered bodies around inside it. 

His head slams against the wall and his vision blurs. Everything settles and he blinks away the fuzzy edges. 

“Anakin?” he asks weakly.

“I’m over here,” Anakin says. 

Emergency lights remain on, showing just how doomed they both truly are. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m all right. You?” 

“Fine.”

There is a great pause — a moment of silence in the air and a far away flicker of warning from the Force. 

And then the water has its way. 

It comes through the cracks — the ones invisible to human eyes, but the ocean sees all. 

Anakin’s eyes flash with panic. Quickly, he ambles to the door and slams his hand against the button. It is unresponsive. He rushes to the other side and tries the same. He finds no salvation there either. 

A guttural cry of frustration tears from deep within his chest as he punches the button. 

“Anakin, stop.” 

“Stop? What do you mean ‘stop’? We’re stuck here and you want me to stop ?” 

“There’s no point. The doors are sealed, there is no way to open them anymore.” 

“No. There’s always a way.” 

Obi-Wan drags himself to his feet, but grasps at the wall as the whole segmented section of hallway tilts and rocks in the ocean. 

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin says. “What do we do?”

They are sinking further into the depths of the ocean and the water is rapidly shrinking their remaining space. 

“I’ll… I’ll try.” Obi-Wan stretches his hands toward the door, willing it to open, just as he opened the other one with AZI. He reaches for the Force, hoping that this final time, it will answer him. He centers his mind, he loosens his body, he sharpens the energy within him, and even after he does all of that, it is not enough to pull it to him. He grazes against its warm edges — a touch only permitted to his fingertips but not his full grip. 

Desperately he grasps for it, knowing all the while he cannot save himself, but if he can just do this , maybe, maybe Anakin will have a shot. It would be a slim shot, but difficult odds never stopped him before. 

But the Force does not bend itself to desperate men. 

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says softly, lowering his hands. “I’m so sorry. I can’t do it.”

“No. No . You can do it, Obi-Wan, I’ve seen you before, you can—”

“I don’t have the strength left. I’m… I’m dying, Anakin.”

“ No. Neither of us is dying today, we’ve come too far.” 

“Whether we escape this or not, I’m dying,” Obi-Wan says. “My fate is sealed here.”

Cold water curls around their bloodied feet and rises above their shins. The salt stings the open wounds.

“I refuse. You’re the one who always told me the future is in motion, you don’t get to say your fate is sealed.”

“I’m sorry, but it is.”

“Hypocrite!” Anakin yells. “Liar!”

“I’m not lying. I wasn’t lying when I said those things. Just… please…” Obi-Wan sways. 

“Master?” Anakin’s voice is soft now. His ability to swing from extreme to extreme still astounds Obi-Wan. The whiplash of him always leaves him reeling, even now. Even at the end. 

Even when it’s not real. 

Anakin paces around, water splashing as he does so. His eyes sharpen.

“I can do it,” Anakin says with determination. “I know how. I know how to do it.”

“Knowledge and capability do not intersect in this instance, I’m afraid.” 

“But I know how to do it. It’s in my head .” 

“It won’t work, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “You know it won’t.”

Anakin stretches his hands toward the door and closes his eyes. 

“Just let me try this!” 

“Anakin!” 

Anakin’s face twists in concentration that will lead him nowhere. 

“Anakin, there is no point.” 

Obi-Wan watches Anakin reach for the Force, knowing it will never reach back. He sighs and lets him try. Who is he to kill the final hope of a dying man?

The water climbs higher, freezing and unforgiving around their waists. Anakin snarls in frustration. He throws his hands down and they splash the rising water. His shoulders, tightened with rage and fear, loosen and sag down in defeat. Slowly he turns to Obi-Wan.

“I remember what it feels like,” he says. “I know what it feels like to feel the Force. They programmed that sense-memory into me. But it’s like… it’s like it’s gone.”

“You don’t know how he felt it,” Obi-Wan says softly. “You can’t. You only know how I feel it. It is my memories, not his, that guide your programming. I’m sorry you are burdened with that knowledge.” 

The tomb they are trapped in sinks further and further down. The pressure of the ocean pressing around them builds in Obi-Wan’s ears. 

“Whatever,” Anakin says, “there has to be another way.” He wades around, splashing his arms through the water like a mad man.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for something we can use to pry the door open.”

“There’s nothing in here,” Obi-Wan says softly. “It was just an empty hallway. We ended up in the one untouched section of the facility.” 

“There has to be something.” 

Anakin searches even longer until he is no longer wading through the water, but swimming. Obi-Wan begins treading water, even as his energy wanes further and further. 

Consciousness is beginning to slip away from Obi-Wan. It’s better this way. He’d rather succumb to blood loss before he has to go through the experience of drowning. If he just drifts off to sleep then…

Metal banging sounds pull him back to himself. Anakin is punching the door again. 

“Stop,” Obi-Wan murmurs. 

Anakin stops his fist mid-punch and lowers it slowly back to his side. 

“I’m sorry,” Anakin says. 

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow in confusion. “What for?”

“I’m sorry I can’t save us. If I had the Force, I could…” 

“Stop. None of this is your fault. You shouldn’t even be here. You wouldn’t be here if it were not for—”

“No. If it were not for you, I would have never existed and I… well if that didn’t happen then I would have never known you or Padmé, or my kids. It’s a beautiful life… I loved my life.” 

Anakin kicks against the water, but there is little anger behind the motion. “Don’t give me that look, Obi-Wan.” 

“I’m not giving you a look.”

“Yes you are,” Anakin glowers at him before averting his gaze. Quietly, he says, “I know it was just simulations. I know some of them were based on what you wanted and hoped for and I know some of them were based on your deepest fears, but Obi-Wan, I wouldn’t trade it. I don’t want anyone else’s life.”

“It’s not fair to you,” Obi-Wan whispers. He can barely hear his own voice over the sound of the water rushing in.

Anakin laughs. “When have you ever said ‘it’s not fair,’ huh? Come on now, Obi-Wan. That’s not you.”

Obi-Wan has one last smirk left in him. “I suppose you’re right.” 

The water is getting higher. It won’t be long now. Obi-Wan sinks as deep into the Force as his last shred of energy will allow and he reaches. 

And then he feels him. 

Not Anakin. Not the clone of him either. 

A darkness, so overwhelming it threatens to consume him just as it consumed the one the lost. He feels the dark terror and rage swirling like a vacuum inside of one tattered soul. 

Obi-Wan gasps in pain, but that pain is not his own.

“What is it?” the clone asks.

“He’s here,” Obi-Wan says.

“Who’s here?” 

“Vader. I can feel him. He… he did this. He knew I—” Obi-Wan swallows “— I guess he wanted to do it himself.” He presses against Vader’s Force presence. 

Obi-Wan can see all of it now: a ship looming over its target, Vader standing unnaturally tall at the head of a bridge, giving the order, feeling no mercy. He senses his agony and his rage. The darkness is an all-consuming black hole and Vader is at its center. 

Obi-Wan presses harder and only feels pain. Vader knows what he is doing. He knows who he is drowning and he feels no shame, for a drowned man cares not for those he drags asunder.

Once more, Obi-Wan presses against Vader’s dark consciousness searching desperately for a shred of what was lost. And there it is. A shred. A tiny thread of regret — a quiet cry under all the louder ones — but it’s there. 

Regret isn’t going to stop the inevitable, however. It’s far too late for regret.

And Obi-Wan loves him still. 

There’s good in him. I know. Still. I know.

Padme’s final words — words that repeated and circled in Obi-Wan’s mind for years and years prove themselves to be true. 

It’s too late for Obi-Wan, but not for Luke. There’s still good in Anakin and Luke will be the one to stoke that flame until it burns brighter than the suns of his homeworld.

With a precious breath, Obi-Wan presses forgiveness into the Force. It won’t change anything, he knows that, but he needs the real Anakin to know that even after everything, he loves him — even throughout the most painful days, he never stopped loving him. 

The water rises above the emergency lights and they flicker out, leaving them in total darkness.

“Obi-Wan?”

“Yes?”

A relieved sigh. “Good. I just wanted to make sure you’re still there.”

“I’m still here, Anakin.”

“Please stay that way. Stay with me, please.”

Obi-Wan’s heart clenches. “Of course I’ll stay with you. Until the end.”

“Until the end,” Anakin repeats. 

Their heads almost touch the ceiling now. 

“Look, Obi-Wan, I just want to say… I know I’m not really him, but I feel like I am.” A pause. “I’m glad to be Anakin Skywalker, even knowing what he became.”

Obi-Wan remains silent for just a little too long and he can sense Anakin’s fear. 

“There’s a part of me that is horrified by you,” Obi-Wan says honestly. “I wanted to leave you behind. You’re just a reminder, a painful reminder, of everything terrible that has ever happened to everyone I’ve ever had the audacity to care for — especially him. Especially Anakin.” He swallows thickly. Tears swim in his eyes. “I know you’re not him. I know you’re just a man, but—”

“But I feel like I am him. I feel his darkness and his rage and his passion and his love and I… I love you, Obi-Wan. If I’m going to die, I’m glad it is at your side.” 

“Your loyalty, your love… it was all programmed into you.” 

“I don’t care. I know it wasn’t real, but it was real to me.” 

Tears spill down Obi-Wan’s cheeks and mix into the salty water. He takes a shuddering breath from the air they do not have. 

“I know, Anakin. It was real to me too.”

The water rises over their chins and they take desperate gulps of the remaining pocket of air. It’s fading fast and their time nears its bitter end. 

With his last gasp of breath Obi-Wan tells Anakin he loves him — even if it was never real.