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Emotion, yet peace
When the Jedi died, the Force screamed.
Nearly caught in an ion blast, head ringing from his plummet into the water, Obi-Wan reeled, assuming first that the pain in his head and his heart was due to the force of his impact, unable to comprehend the scope of the truth.
Hand over hand, he crawled from the pit in which he had fallen, clinging to bare rock and dodging from sight on instinct as he tried to comprehend, a trembling witness to the death cries of his kind as the Force keened, wailing in grief and pain.
His ears were full of it.
The screams cried out for days.
~*~
Echos chased him, dogged his every step back to Coruscant, to Mustafar, sounding in his head and nearly drowning out the voices of Padme, of Ana—
Of Vader.
He raised his voice, trying to be heard over the din.
I loved you—
His last words were swallowed by the torrent, and as with any clap of thunder, like the floodwaters of a tsunami, the sound started to recede.
~*~
The silence was worse
It rang through him, rattling around in the hollow of his chest like temple bells, but constant and steady without the undulation of music. Static. Background radiation. Omnipresent. Surrounding, penetrating, binding.
When he was fifteen, Obi-Wan had burst an eardrum after the unstable bank of a river gave way beneath his feet and dumped him into the water below. Qui-Gon had fished him out, cleaned the blood and silt from his ear, and guided him through the first of many meditations he would use to manage the subsequent tinnitus. It had been just over two weeks until they were able to get him to a healer who could repair the damage, and if not for the meditation, Obi-Wan did not know how he would have managed the constant sound, the absolute lack of quiet.
When the dust settled, the schemes come to fruition at last, and the Empire born (and his brother— no ), Obi-Wan found himself a fugitive on the same forsaken planet where it all began. Once again, he was plagued by tinnitus: the constant ringing of silence that follows a cacophony.
Only this time, no amount of meditation would grant him relief — if you could call the periods of time when Obi-Wan was able to work himself into oblivion “mediation”, that is. It wasn’t his body that was the problem, this time. How could he sink into the Force for peace and healing when it was the Force itself that carried the wounds?
In the dead of night, sitting on the floor of his hovel near enough the door to see by what little moonlight filtered down into his warren, weary and feeling near crazed with lack of sleep, Obi-Wan laughed into the silence until he slid from hilarity to hysteria, his heaving sobs robbing him of precious water, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The more valuable the sacrifice, the more meaningful the offering, after all. He would spill all the water in him for his fallen people.
Eventually, he slept.
~*~
When he had first arrived on Tatooine, Obi-Wan hadn’t planned for much past getting Luke to the Lars homestead. He knew he’d have to stay nearby; it was too dangerous to have Luke grow without any sort of guardian, no matter how remote Tatooine was at this moment. There was no guarantee that Tatooine would remain so, and he knew more than once how the impossible could happen if the Force willed.
He had hoped for a warmer welcome, though if he were honest, he hadn’t expected it. You didn’t survive in the desert without a keen sense of hospitality, but Obi-Wan could not blame the Larses for not trusting a stranger who came bearing an unlooked for responsibility that carried with him unprecedented danger.
Obi-Wan was not surprised when he was not asked to stay at the Lars farmstead past that bare minimum for hospitality. He’d arrived with no ship, no money, no supplies save for what he needed to care for Luke, and still wearing clothes that smelled of molten rock and burning blood. He’d been given water (mineral tasting and strange the way water always was the first few days planetside, but the desert quickly taught one to drink deeply), and food (some root vegetables and unknown meat, the taste of which was hidden by so much spice that it had made his eyes water and his nose run, much to the barely suppressed amusement of his hosts). He drank his water and ate his food and offered his thanks as best he knew how alongside his story of Luke’s origins and the danger that would follow if the Emperor’s grasp ever reached this far.
Much later, after sleep and several encounters with the locals, farmers and sand people both, Obi-Wan was certain he had given offence somehow, but was missing the piece to tell him exactly in what way. It would be a repeating theme in his life for the rest of his time on the Rim.
Slowly, however, he began to adapt. His days were spent beating the abandoned farmhouse into something he could use to survive, beating back the desert through sheer will alone. The first few nights he had barely slept, convinced someone was going to come along and find him, kick him out of a place where he had no business being, but as the building became more and more his own, the fears began to fade.
“You own what you can keep, out here,” Owen had said to him, offering him information in a way that felt more like he was pulling his own teeth. “Finder’s rights. Make it yours, and no one will question it.” He sucked his tooth as he looked out over the horizon. “Make it too nice, and they’ll ‘find’ it over your dead body.”
Obi-Wan had nodded, but he hadn’t understood. How could he? The temple had always been his home, but it had never been his alone. He had fought to survive against all sorts of hardships, but there had always been a safe place to return to — even by the end of the war, the Temple had been a refuge, and even when he spent most of his time on ship, running from desperate battle to desperate battle, it had felt like an exception to a rule: Obi-Wan lived a peaceful life in the temple, with frequent, dangerous missions.
He had never expected danger to grow monotonous. His days began to bleed and run together, the endless day-to-day tasks doing much to fill his time but little to divide that time into weeks, months, years. Not even the the subtle seasons were enough.
So, when Obi-Wan finally made his way back to the Lars estate, close enough to see with his ancient pair of macrobinoculars but not enough to trip their proximity sensors, his breath caught to realize that the blond-headed toddler running across the sand was Luke.
Had it really been that long?
Autopilot brought him back to — well, he guessed it was home, now, for good or for ill. He didn’t remember the trip, and was distantly thankful that the wastes were empty of other travelers. He was pretty sure the Force would alert him to any possible crash, but, well...
The Force was quiet these days.
~*~
Every day since he had skittered to a stop here in the Outer Rim, at dawn and at dusk, Obi-Wan sat down to try to meditate. He began on hard rock, then on a folded blanket, and finally a rug woven from bantha wool, purchased from a passing tribe of Tuskens. He sat when he had first arrived on the planet, when connecting with the Force still felt like tearing open a barely-closed wound. He sat when the Force stopped answering his call, sitting still all around him.
Feeling like an initiate once more, Obi-Wan returned to his earliest lessons. He sat, and the breathed, and he let his mind open but not wander, and stopped when the hard ground made his legs fall numb.
That night, after seeing Luke, Obi-Wan did not sit. Nor did he sit in the morning.
For a year, he did not sit.
For the third anniversary — Empire Day, the spacers in town were calling it. The day the Empire restored Order to the war-torn galaxy. Obi-Wan hadn’t know if he wanted to spit or lose his lunch — he bought a bottle of the best brandy that he could afford (it was barely brandy at that point, but it was strong enough to strip paint, so it was exactly what he was looking for), and made his way back out to his hovel.
He did not break his dishware, though he wanted to. He did not tear his bedding, though it was tempting. He did not even overturn his furniture, which he thought was very mature of him. Instead, he took a cup from his kitchen, sat at his table, and drank until he saw double, and the sharp pain in his ribs subsided to a dull ache.
~*~
The less said about the next several days, the better.
~*~
The brandy was gone. Thankfully.
The bottle, miraculously, survived the night and was repurposed into another water pitcher, which was an added bonus. He’d accidentally broken his first one trying to make his way to the ‘fresher one night without turning on the lights.
Far more of his water stores were used to restore himself than he had planned on, but he felt marginally human again, so that was something, at least. And, he hadn’t mangled his dinner too poorly, so he had even managed to eat something and keep it down.
He looked around his home, and felt something like an itch pushing him to leave, to be outside. And why not - it hadn’t been too terribly hot that day, as Obi-Wan was pretty sure they were deep in the planet’s winter, and the suns were setting a brilliant red-gold.
Decision made, Obi-Wan grabbed his cloak and his saber and made his way outside. From there, he jumped up onto the domed roof of his home, and settled cross-legged, to watch the sunset.
When he had first arrived on this planet, Obi-Wan had been a bit despairing of ever simply enjoying something ever again. Every move, every breath hurt, every moment reminding him of something or someone new that he would never see again.
It was such a familiar story for his life: losing everything and having to start over, though he’d never lost this much before.
“You have not lost everything.”
An echo of a voice, not heard but known , as he knew his own heart, broken and bleeding as it was. Through his stupor, he raised his head.
“Obi-Wan...”
“Qui-Gon,” he says aloud, his voice cracking in the dry, desert air.
“I am here.”
A warmth like a hand, broad palmed and strong fingered, pressed against his cheek and he leaned into it, swaying.
“You have much to learn.”
It startled a laugh from him, and if Qui-Gon had taken physical form before him, Obi-Wan would have broken that arrogant bastard’s nose. Again.
Force but he had missed him.
Ignorance, yet knowledge
It had been over two decades since he had last heard Qui-Gon’s voice, and some of the detail was bound to be lost to time and imperfect memory — but none of that stopped Obi-Wan from feeling all of nineteen again.
That first night bought back the exasperation that had colored their relationship’s later years. Obi-Wan had been encouraged to find his own stride, to question and push back in the first steps to seeing Qui-Gon as a peer and an equal rather than an automatic authority—
It was a shift in their relationship that was left incomplete, like so much was, by Qui-Gon’s death.
But, Obi-Wan wasn’t actually nineteen anymore. He had, in fact, raised his own padawan, advised a grandpadawan, held a seat on the council, held the position of High General with a quarter of the Republic Army under his command...
And Qui-Gon had missed all of that, which was, perhaps, why he continued to treat Obi-Wan like he was still fourteen.
“Let go, Obi-Wan.”
“I know how to meditate, thank you,” Obi-Wan said, voice mild in that particular way he had that would make Cody step back, away from whatever unfortunate sentient was on the other side. “I’ve been doing it successfully for quite some time now.” Minus the last few years, of course.
“And yet, you still cling to that which holds you back.”
“Did death make you even more cryptic?” Obi-Wan asked, feeling his temper fray and not really concerned with weaving it back together. “You’re worse than Yoda, sometimes, you know that? What exactly am I clinging to? There is nothing left! ”
Silence, and Obi-Wan sighed. Qui-Gon was sure that Obi-Wan would see him one day, when he had advanced past this block, but right now, all he had was Qui-Gon’s phantom voice and the lingering doubt that he hadn’t just cracked from the desert sun and was slipping further into delusion.
After a moment, Qui-Gon sighed as well, and Obi-Wan was struck by a memory — fifteen and sleepless, futilely trying to meditate away a nighttime terror (in retrospect, it may have been a vision of the future - but when all Obi-Wan saw was pain and suffering, he was counseled to pay them little mind. No one could conceive of the horrors that waited). Qui-Gon had come from his own bed, haphazardly dressed in his sleep clothes, and sat next to Obi-Wan, a solid presence and a grounding comfort.
Obi-Wan was suddenly sure that if he reached out, he would feel Qui-Gon next to him. Doubt clenched his hands into fists, instead.
“If that were true, my dear Obi-Wan, you would not still be holding on so tightly.”
Obi-Wan closed his eyes. “Can you really blame me?”
“Never.”
~*~
Time and grief had also dulled Obi-Wan’s memories of the ...disagreements they used to have. Then, it was Obi-Wan growing and pushing against the limits of his own understanding, exacerbated by puberty and Qui-Gon’s more stubborn personality and tendency towards patronizing comments when challenged. Now, it was a debate between masters.
“Oh, that is not what that means!” Obi-Wan protested, dropping the knife to the chopping board before he sliced his finger in his irritation, and glared at the empty air in the general direction of Qui-Gon’s Force presence.
Qui-Gon’s voice echoed back, “Who is the Master here?” Obi-Wan had spent several hours trying to determine if he was actually hearing Qui-Gon, or if his voice was a purely mental projection, and was incredibly frustrated to realize that he couldn’t actually tell.
“I am no less a Master than you,” Obi-Wan countered, “and I have had more than my fair share of strange encounters in the Force—”
“And yet, you have learned nothing.”
“You—!” Obi-Wan, pointing at that empty space, realizing a moment too late that he had grabbed the knife once more. A drop of pallie juice wobbled from the tip before falling, splattering on the stone floor. Obi-Wan could only stare at the dark smear of red against sandstone.
“...apologies, Obi-Wan. That was uncalled for.”
“...right. Well.” Obi-Wan started, voice small. He stopped, cleared his throat, and placed the knife back on the counter, pulling his hand away with clear deliberation. “You know, if this is true, it goes against everything we were taught about the way the Force works.”
Qui-Gon’s response, when it came, was tinged with affectionate amusement, “But does it go against your own experience?”
Obi-Wan breathed, trying to calm himself back into a sense of ease. “That is a terrible standard, you realize. One man’s experience, close proximity to the Chosen One notwithstanding, is by no means enough to dictate to, or even refute, a thousand years’ combined study.”
It was an old argument, now. Older than he had been when he first started making it to the council: Anakin’s status as “Chosen One,” accurate or not, did not change the fact that he was a child, a traumatized child, now in training lightyears away from anything and everything he had ever known. He was neither the answer to all of their problems, nor was he the cause.
Well, until he very much was, but Obi-Wan shut down that line of thinking with practiced ease. He had to focus: Qui-Gon was speaking once more.
“And yet, it is a contradiction that exists in our teachings,” Qui-Gon said, and that argument was so familiar that Obi-Wan mouthed the words along with Qui-Gon’s speech. “The Force is the field that binds and penetrates the universe, and yet we claim that the Force is not universal.”
Calmer now, Obi-Wan stepped up to the kitchen counter once more. There was no commissary to feed him, no local establishment where he could order food if he didn’t make dinner, and he had finally run out of ration bars. He had to focus.
But, that didn’t mean he couldn’t tease. “You know, it was this type of reasoning of yours that drove Mace to drink, you know that, right?”
“That does not mean I’m wrong.”
Obi-Wan eyed the seemingly empty space, bemused. “Smug is not a good look on you.”
~*~
“You know, time isn’t real.”
This time, Obi-Wan was flat on his back, taking advantage of the shade cast by his home in the early morning light to try and fix his speeder bike. Again. Honestly, the amount of quick fixes and jury rigging that he had been required to do on this dustball had given him a posthumous appreciation for Anakin’s tinkering.
He paused, using a thin trickle of the Force to give him leverage on a stuck bolt, and pointedly ignored the radiating smug that came from the general area that he was coming to recognize as Qui-Gon’s aura. He still hadn’t seen the man, but he was getting better at sensing his presence.
“You sound like a junior padawan at their first astronav lesson.”
“You mean I sound like you after your first lesson.”
Obi-Wan pushed himself back out from under the bike just far enough to shake a spanner in Qui-Gon’s general direction. “Now see here, the idea that ‘now’ doesn’t exist would bend the mind of any fifteen-year-old.”
Qui-Gon hummed, contemplative. “Perhaps that is the problem.”
Giving up for the moment, Obi-Wan sat up, wiping fingers roughly with a rag. “What is?”
“How do you teach the third dimension to two-dimensional beings?”
~*~
“There is no such thing as absolute reality.”
It must say something about how long Obi-Wan had been in the sun that he didn’t hesitate to respond, even though they were in the scrap shop in Anchorhead and not, as they usually were, alone in the desert.
He picked up the coupling, considering if the savings on a used part would be worth the cost of the retrofit needed to make it work. “There is no way to perceive absolute reality, as the very nature of mortal life means that we are bound to a subjective existence.”
“What is the difference between them, then?”
Obi-Wan put the coupling down. There were several more piles to go through. He could take the risk on finding a better fit.
“One is a perspective that allows for consensus. The other is chaos.”
“Exactly. Chaos. The only order that exists is what patterns we have built from chaos.”
Obi-Wan paused, looking up at the bit of air that seemed just a bit thicker with presence. “That’s a rather bleak point of view, and a narrow view of the truth.” Movement caught his attention, and he refocused his eyes on the space behind Qui-Gon and saw the young shop-assistant staring at him, wide-eyed.
Pulling on his polite smile, Obi-Wan reached back out and picked up the couplings. “Hello there. Do you have any more couplings like this, but that would be compatible with a Flitknot Speeder?
The young man stared at him for a minute longer before nodding and pointing to the other side of the shop. There was a sign written in a sloppy hand in Huttese, Jawaese, and Basic, almost as an afterthought. “Couplings”
“Ah. Thank you, young man.”
~*~
When stillness failed to bring him peace, Obi-Wan moved.
Through the deserts, across sand and rock, he ran. He ran in the morning, when the day was lit by the gray of pre-dawn, when the air still clung to night’s coolness. He ran in the evening, when the setting suns burned at the horizon, but no longer beat down from above, oppressive. He ran at night, like this night, in the time of the Tuskens, with the moons turning the sands blue and the stars guiding his way.
It was easier, to quiet his mind through motion. A body exhausted physically left little energy for the mind to fret. It was not as deep, not as complete as a Stillness meditation – he had to pay some attention to his surroundings.
But maybe that was the problem. In the temple, there were places he could go to guarantee isolation. Places where no one would seek him out, or interrupt. Places where he was safe.
At his new homestead, he was isolated, but he didn't feel safe – hadn't felt safe since he first landed on Kamino and blew the lid off of... Everything. No – allowing himself to be that vulnerable where someone could find him was not something of which he was currently capable.
It was no wonder he failed.
He pushed himself harder, no thoughts in his head but the vague sense of navigation, and turned toward the island of rock jutting from the sand.
Rock like this wasn't necessarily the safest place either. TheThe stable footing and protection from the Sun made them the perfect place for all sorts of creatures to make their homes.
It was small – too small for a Kryat Cave, or a womp rat nest. That didn't mean there weren't dangers, but, well... venomous snakes and the like were so far down the list of things Obi-Wan was concerned about that he stepped onto the rock without hesitation.
He could tell that he had the attention of the island's inhabitants, but after a moment, their wariness lessened, accepting that he meant them no harm.
He continued on, climbing the rocky platform until he reached the top...well, the topmost flat surface. There, he stretched, feeling the night winds cool his body. Here, in the middle of nowhere, he felt himself finally relaxed.
Oh.
Well, what could it hurt?
He slid off his cloak, folding it to cushion the bare rock, his only concession to age and injury, and sat cross-legged beneath the moons. Placing his hands on his knees and closing his eyes, Obi-Wan breathed in, and opened his mind to the Force.
Time passed.
Awareness returned slowly. First, his body - chilled and stiffened from sitting still, skin itching as his sweat dried, feeling calmer than he'd been in years. And then the world Beyond filtered in, the low sounds of the other animals on the Rock, the Moons in a different place than they had been, and the familiar presence before him.
Obi-Wan smiled. “Hello Qui-Gon."
He opened his eyes. There sat Qui-Gon Jinn, looking whole and hale and otherwise unchanged from the last time Obi-Wan had seen him — and glowing as pale blue as Obi-Wan's lightsaber.
Qui-Gon smiled back. "Hello, Obi-Wan. It's been a long time."
Passion, yet serenity.
The moons of Tatooine did not cycle at the same pace as its suns, appearing at any time of day or night and in no steady order. They raced each other across the sky, the large and blue vying for first place, often lapping the third, oblong moon.
For all that the desert could be desolate, the sky was often filled to the brim. A night with nothing but stars was rare.
Tonight was one such night. Obi-Wan stood in his doorway, holding a cup of water that he sipped idly, absently analyzing the mineral taste and making a note to check the mineral filters, and watched the galaxy spin on before him. Without him.
How many of these stars had he visited? Even before the war, Obi-Wan had been widely traveled. Qui-Gon’s missions kept them away from the Temple most of the time, and once Anakin had taken his placement tests and passed his equivalencies and whatever remedial lessons were required, they, too, had traversed the starways.
A faint glow appeared in the corner of his vision, but Obi-Wan did not truly react, letting Qui-Gon fill his awareness but otherwise not move his eyes from the stars.
Since Obi-Wan’s breakthrough, Qui-Gon had taken to spending more time visible, and as the days passed, they had slipped back into the familiar rhythms of cohabitation.
Some things were different, sure — Obi-Wan cooked, not Qui-Gon, and for one, not two. Qui-Gon had no reports to swear softly over as he pecked away at a keyboard that was too small for his hands. Instead, Qui-Gon offered advice as Obi-Wan cooked, gently steering his efforts from “probably won't kill me” to “willing to serve to company, if any arrived,” and Qui-Gon kept Obi-Wan quiet company as Obi-Wan recorded his thoughts in his journals: observations, reminiscences, and the lessons he was learning with Qui-Gon.
It was all rather domestic, and made Obi-Wan’s heart beat funny in his chest when he thought about it for too long.
He thought about it now, letting himself feel, examining that feeling from every angle, turning it over in his mind, and then letting it fill him to his very edges, spilling out like water overflowing.
He didn’t put a name to the feeling. He did not need to. He could sense Qui-Gon’s startled surprise, hopeful recognition, and exuberant return, resonating between them.
Staring at the stars, so full of feeling he felt that he might fly away, Obi-Wan smiled, serene.
Chaos, yet harmony.
The last time Obi-Wan saw Qui-Gon he did not know it would be the last time. He appeared over dinner, as he was wont to do, and their evening was filled with reminiscing conversation, a casual intimacy that came from meaning the world to each other. As he aged, as this planet aged him, Obi-Wan required less sleep. He had laughed about it— now that he had time to sleep, it wouldn’t come.
The next morning, the Force called him out to the Judland Wastes and Luke.
The past, it seemed, had caught up to him at last.
In the end, there was no choice, really. He always had said that Anakin would be the death of him, and he knew himself well enough to know he could never—
What was the life of one tired, old man, the last of a dead people, for the promise of a brighter future in the life of the first of the new?
He closed his eyes, and trusted in the Force.
Death, yet the Force.
“If you define yourself by the power to take life,
the desire to dominate, to possess…then you have nothing.”
“You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.”
“You can kill me, but you will never destroy me. It takes strength
to resist the dark side. Only the weak embrace it.”
“It is an energy field and something more.
An aura that at once controls and obeys.
It is a nothingness that can accomplish miracles.”
“A great leap forward often requires first taking two steps back.”
“You cannot escape your destiny”
“If you strike me down,
I shall become more powerful
than you can possibly imagine.”
Death was not what Obi-Wan anticipated.
He woke already in motion, walking along a path lit by stars. By all logic, there should not be enough light to see by, the stars as distant as they were, and yet Obi-Wan clearly saw the path arcing before him, defying gravity. There were other paths, other walkways above and below, at odd angles with no sense of unity or order.
Along each pathway were doorways, and as Obi-Wan passed by, he heard his own life, echoing from within.
Then, his own voice crying out in denial.
He moved, faster than he had ever run, appearing at the door even before the scream had faded, sliding to a halt just before he crossed the threshold. Beyond, he saw himself trapped behind the rayshield, Maul taunting him as, on the ground, just within sight, lay Qui-Gon in his last living moments.
Obi-Wan had made his peace with Maul, in the end, but here, seeing this scene play out once more, Obi-Wan felt much the same as he had then, a padawan on the cusp of knighthood, so much of the future unsure.
“He looks so young here,younger than the last time you saw him.”
“We both are,” Obi-Wan replied automatically, so used to the sound of Qui-Gon’s voice that it did not at first register that he spoke without the odd echo of a Force ghost, or that it had come not from the scene before him, but from the path behind him.
The rayshield opened, but that was behind him now as Obi-Wan spun, fairly leaping into Qui-Gon’s arms. Qui-Gon laughed into Obi-Wan’s hair, but held him just as tight.
Solid. He was solid here, in this not-place. Behind him, the sounds of battle faded and Obi-Wan let it. He had made his peace with Maul in the end, with the role that he played in these events. There were bigger concerns, and the Sith had found peace in death, at last.
Obi-Wan, it seemed, found Qui-Gon.
“There, I have you,” Qui-Gon murmured, rocking him gently. Obi-Wan realized he was crying, sobbing, really, with relief or some other emotion.
“You’re here,” Obi-Wan choked out. “You’re— I can touch you.”
Qui-Gon squeezed him tighter, pressed his bearded cheek to Obi-Wan’s hair — red-gold again, in this space between. A color Qui-Gon had never seen with living eyes. “Where else would I be?”
Obi-Wan didn’t answer – couldn’t – and simply... held on.
When he finally composed himself, pulling away, the world around them had changed once more. The other pathways were gone, and the door before him was blank. No Naboo. No Maul. Nothing.
“I have to go,” Obi-Wan said, knowing it deep within him. His part in this was not yet over... “I can’t stay here.”
Qui-Gon nodded, the warmth never leaving his eyes. “I know.” He probably knew more than Obi-Wan, even. That irked less, here.
“You can’t follow, can you.” It wasn’t a question. Qui-Gon answered it anyway, the way his hands tightened on Obi-Wan for a long moment.
“That was never my path,” Qui-Gon confirmed, voice low with regret. “No matter how hard I tried.”
Obi-Wan’s lips curved in a ghost of a smile. “There is no try.”
Qui-Gon huffed, dropping his forehead to gently bump against Obi-Wan’s.
“I made a promise,” Obi-Wan whispered. “I will see it out.”
“I will be here, when it is done,” Qui-Gon said, and pulled him in once more.
Some time later, Obi-Wan pulled away, set his shoulders, and walked through the door.
“Remember… the Force will be with you. Always.”
“The truth is often what we make of it;
you heard what you wanted to hear,
believed what you wanted to believe.”
“He was our last hope.”
~*~
You would think that Obi-Wan would stop being surprised by this point, but Anakin always did have a way of confounding his expectations.
~*~
When Anakin died, Obi-Wan was waiting for him.
He could see the doubt, the guilt, the horrors he had seen and done reflected so clearly in Anakin’s blue eyes — blue like skies above sands, skies that held infinite stars, and Obi-Wan had not spent the last two decades watching the those skies for nothing.
Obi-Wan reached out and pulled his brother to him, embracing him like he had so wished to do in his exile, pulling his head in and down.
“Obi-Wan—” Anakin started, startled, voice cracking like he hadn’t used it in years, pressed against Obi-Wan’s shoulder.
“I have missed you, Ani,” Obi-Wan said into Anakin’s hair. “I am so very proud of you.”
Anakin made a noise like a dying bantha. “I have done horrible things, killed so many people...”
“I know,” Obi-Wan said. “Shh, Ani. I know.” He pulled away, cupping Anakin’s face in his hands. His brother, returned to him. “And you could have continued to do so, but you didn’t. Ani, you did the right thing at last. The hardest thing. You found your way back, and I am so proud of you. ”
Anakin broke, his face twisting as he sobbed, and Obi-Wan pulled him in once more. “I don't know what atonement waits for you, if any,” he said when Anakin’s sobs quieted to sniffles. “I can’t say I understand the more... esoteric elements of Force lore.”
Sniffing, Anakin let out a shaking laugh. “Obi-Wan, you’re a ghost.”
“And?” Obi-Wan asked, allowing himself to smile when Anakin just shook his head without raising it to see. “I’ve had help. You’ll see him, when you’re ready.”
Anakin pulled back, smiling at Obi-Wan. “Yeah? Good. I’m glad. I know you’ve missed him.”
Obi-Wan felt his cheeks flush, which was ridiculous. There was no need to be embarrassed. He was one with the Force, for pity’s sake.
“I think...” Anakins’s eyes went distant. “I think I have some things to do here, before I move on,” he said. “There are things I cannot change, but I will make amends where I can.” He refocused his eyes once more. “You should go to him. You’ve waited long enough, I think.”
Obi-Wan squeezed Anakin’s shoulder. “Soon”, he said. “There’s one more thing.”
~*~
Yoda was waiting for them on Endor, watching the young rebels celebrate their victory over ther Emperor. Obi-Wan knew the fighting was far from over, just as he knew how vital this celebration would be to them.
Obi-Wan could sense Anakin’s hesitation upon seeing Yoda, but squared his shoulders and met him, dropping down on his heels to be of a height. Yoda greeted him with a solid *whack* to his shins that sent Anakin toppling onto his backside, but he was laughing, at last, joy filling the Force around them with such brightness that it caught the attention of Luke, some distance away at the fire.
Oh, how proud Obi-Wan was of Luke. His second and last padawan, heir of his father’s courage and his mother’s kindness. A knight now, having passed his trials, and a lifelong mission before him.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes and concentrated, making himself visible, smiling wide when he saw how Luke beamed at them. A moment later, Anakin appeared as well, looking as he had before his fall, and Obi-Wan smiled at him, too. Anakin had always been a fast learner.
Together, they watched as Leia, Leia who he had never been able to know, joined her brother and drew him back to the joyful living.
~*~
In the end, Yoda wandered off, disappearing between the trees to his own destiny. Anakin hugged him tight once more before walking off in a different direction. Obi-Was watched him go, remembering the last time he had seen Anakin off, and just as calmly, let it go.
Finally, it was Obi-Wan at last, alone in the clearing. It was time, at last.
Qui-Gon was waiting.