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Anakin is dead. He was murdered by Count Dooku in a supervised broadcast for the entire galaxy to see. Obi-Wan watches it unfold on the holoscreen, and cannot bring himself even to blink.
And just like that, in the flash of a blaster bolt, he’s dead. Obi-Wan’s Padawan, the light of his life, his pride and his joy. His friend, his brother. The boy he raised into a man. The person he loves the most in this universe.
He’s dead. Anakin. Anakin is dead.
He’s gone. Obi-Wan will never, ever see him again.
He’s dead.
Obi-Wan is in Padmé’s apartment. He’s just found out. He’s just watched it unfold before his eyes in real time. He’s staring off into the distance at nothing, trying to convince himself that it’s actually real. Or perhaps trying to convince himself it isn’t.
His friend had been captured a week ago on Naboo. Obi-Wan had waved him farewell as he often did, trusting in both Anakin and Padmé’s abilities as diplomats to persuade the Gungun army not to march on Theed. It was never supposed to end like this, how could it have — there wasn’t even a battle. There was no warning. Even Anakin being captured wasn’t — he’d been captured before. Even intentionally, once or twice. They both had. Obi-Wan had never thought — so how could it have —
Anakin was twenty-one. Twenty-one. He couldn’t — he couldn’t be…
Anakin…
Obi-Wan is dead. He was murdered by a bounty hunter with a sniper rifle and Anakin was right there and he couldn’t even see it coming from thirty meters away.
He’s dead. Anakin’s master, his lifeline, his consciousness personified, his impulse control. His friend and his brother and his father. The man that took him in and raised him under no obligation or thought of reward. The person who reads him like a book. His everything.
That man. That man is dead. Obi-Wan, he’s — he’s gone — he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s dead he’s gone he’s gone gone gone —
Anakin is on the crime scene, just staring at the — the body — it’s not a person anymore, not his person, it’s just a body now — and he’s d— he’s — dead dead dead —
He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do.
He doesn’t know what the hell to do.
It can’t be ha — this can’t — it’s not — Master — he can’t — Obi-Wan — no no no no no no please please please no please no…
He’s sitting in Anakin’s bedroom. It’s ghostly quiet.
He’s sitting on Anakin’s bed, atop the covers. Anakin never made his bed, was always in too great a hurry to go and start his day — always on the move. Sometimes, Obi-Wan would go in and make it for him without him asking, just because he knows how nice it feels to crawl into a neatly made bed and likes doing nice things for his cherished friend.
He’d made it this time, too, after they’d gotten the call from Padmé that she had — that Anakin had been taken hostage. Obi-Wan had thought, once they managed to rescue Anakin from the Sith and bring him home, his friend might — might be able to enjoy…
But he wouldn’t. Anakin would never see his neatly made bed. Never crawl under the covers and sink into the pillows, drifting off until it was time to get up and do it all over again.
He would never save another life. Never fix another defunct droid. Never fly another starship. Wouldn’t, because he couldn’t. Because he’s dead.
And there is nothing Obi-Wan could have done.
The only one who could have done something was Padmé, but that — that is a thought for a later time.
Obi-Wan gets up. Smooths the covers where he had sat. Fluffs the pillow he had leaned against. Heads into the hall and shuts the light off, goes back into his own neatly made bed.
He dreams of his Padawan.
He’s sitting in Obi-Wan’s room. It’s quiet but for the rough sobs escaping him, aching deep in his chest.
He’s lying on Obi-Wan’s bed, the covers twisted around him. Obi-Wan always made his bed; said something about how it was nice to crawl into it at the end of a long day. He’d made Anakin’s sometimes, too, a simple but sweet gesture that Anakin had always appreciated, and never bothered to express appreciation for. Another sob escapes him at the thought of it.
Anakin has never appreciated him enough. Anakin has never thanked him enough.
And now, Anakin can never thank him. Anakin can’t do anything. Anakin couldn’t do anything.
Even though he was right. There.
He can’t stop crying.
Obi-Wan is just about done making tea. He pours a cup for each of them, even though he knows. He keeps doing this — can’t help it. He keeps forgetting. He keeps thinking Anakin is going to come home any minute. He’s in denial and he knows it. This isn’t healthy, and he knows that too. And he knows that Anakin is dead.
He’s not going to come through that door. He’s not going to come home. He’s not ever again going to make jokes or roll his eyes or complain or laugh or drink Obi-Wan’s tea or begrudgingly teach a lightsaber class or bring balance to the Force or perfect a crash landing or get angry at the Council or risk the Republic’s secrets to save a droid or free slaves or blush at Padmé from across the room while pretending they’re just friends or…
Anakin is making caf. He’s slept for the last fourteen hours, on and off. He feels like garbage from sleeping too much, yet his body is screaming at him to go and doze off again. His initial instinct is to pour some caf for Obi-Wan, too, as he forgets for one blissful moment why he had just slept fourteen hours to begin with.
He takes the caf back to Obi-Wan’s room and gets back into bed, thinking maybe he’ll get up for real once the stim kicks in.
He takes a few sips. It’s exhausting to sit up, so he inches back under the covers. Next time he looks at the chrono it’s three hours later and the caf is ice cold, so he leaves it there and goes to get another one, thinking maybe it’ll actually work this time.
Not that there’s much of a reason to be awake.
Not that there’s much of a reason to be alive.
It’s been five days. Ahsoka doesn’t want to talk to him, and Obi-Wan can’t blame her. He knows what it feels like to lose a master, too. A master, and a Padawan, now. The first was soul-crushing, but the second is worse than he could ever have begun to imagine.
They’re having a memorial service later in the day. A memorial for Anakin. His Padawan. His brother. The child entrusted into his care. The boy who he had seen grow into an astonishing, talented, brave, selfless young man.
And they don’t even have a body. Obi-Wan doesn’t want to imagine what Dooku must have done with it, but he can’t help it. He can’t help rewatching the mental image of it play on a loop over and over in his mind, watching Anakin’s drugged, heavy eyes squeeze shut in the briefest moment of pain before his young life was cut short right before the galaxy’s eyes. And lying there, wisps of smoke rising from his back, slumped motionless on the ground, it’s too much —
At the memorial, he tries. Tries to be a good Jedi. Tries to keep his face neutral and pretend he isn’t crumbling. Mourning is one thing, but what he feels is so outside the scope of healthy Jedi detachment that he can’t help but think they should just remove him from the Council right now, give Ahsoka to Master Plo and let Obi-Wan wilt away into nothing.
There is no body to lower, desecrated as Anakin’s real one must have been under the Sith’s care, so they’d put a white sheet over the usual slab of stone and lowered it ceremonially. In the Force, Ahsoka feels like she wants to punch something. Obi-Wan wonders vaguely if that thing might be Padmé, who stands there with her jaw slack, staring off aimlessly into the distance, her Force presence numb and unfeeling.
He goes back to their quarters. He enters Anakin’s bedroom, still ghostly quiet, and collapses against the wall, staring at nothing.
Anakin had always said Obi-Wan was the closest thing he’d ever had to a father. Obi-Wan supposes that was true. He’s never felt like one until now — he does not know how it feels to lose a child, but he imagines it must be something very close to this.
He’s never been in so much pain.
It should have been him instead.
It’s been five days. Ahsoka’s tried to talk to him, but he can’t. He can’t say anything. He doesn’t recall having said a single word in the last five days. There’s nothing to say. There are no words in any language he knows to convey how he feels. No one wants to know how he feels, anyway. If they really knew, they would never look at him the same way again.
The funeral is later. The funeral for Obi-Wan Kenobi. His master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is dead. Who died, right in front of him. And there was nothing he could kriffing do to stop it. Not a damn thing, he couldn’t do one damn thing, he was helpless, there was no warning and now he’s dead, but he should have done something because Obi-Wan is dead —
He can still feel the echo of Obi-Wan’s limp weight in his arms. His master had looked so peaceful. Wherever he is now, Anakin just hopes he is at peace. Because he sure as hell isn’t. There is no peace. There cannot be any peace or justice in a galaxy without Obi-Wan Kenobi in it.
The only length of time Anakin has spent in his own room was to grab a fresh set of clothes. But the shower he manages to take is in Obi-Wan’s fresher, and the shampoo he uses is his master’s favorite scent. He uses Obi-Wan’s razor because who the kriff cares, and shows up to the funeral looking as presentable as he can possibly hope to be.
Padmé is there, and the Chancellor, too. The Duchess Satine can’t keep her emotion inside. The faces of Obi-Wan’s friends, of everyone really, are sad and mournful, but Anakin can’t help but feeling like none of them can possibly feel as bad on the inside as he does.
None of them were Obi-Wan’s Padawan. None of them had spent ten years under his wing, and two more by his side as an equal. None of them, save Ahsoka, had felt the weight of Obi-Wan’s limp body heavy in their arms.
They don’t understand. They can’t. No one can.
Afterward, people try and talk to him, to give their condolences. Anakin just slinks away, back to their quarters, back to Obi-Wan’s room. He’s met with the mess he made, of wrappers and frozen food trays and half-full mugs of caf that are starting to smell. He looks at them, spends a moment hating himself, and gets back into bed.
He’s so pathetic. He can’t do anything but think about how pathetic he is, and how much Obi-Wan would hate what Anakin was doing with his room. Maybe not hate, but — but Obi-Wan would never do anything like this. Obi-Wan is such a better man than Anakin. Or, was. Because now he is dead. And Anakin can’t do anything about it.
That should have been his body. It should have been him that was shot.
Obi-Wan had so much more to offer the galaxy. Anakin has nothing to offer. His master was ten thousand times the man he is. Anakin will never live up to his legacy. He can’t hope to.
He can’t cope.
He has to get on with life. He’s a Jedi Master with a seat on the High Council. There’s a war going on. There’s a new Padawan for him to train. Time will not stop just because Obi-Wan feels like he cannot keep up with it.
The Force is screaming. It’s very own child is gone from it for good.
Obi-Wan just wishes he could have said goodbye.
There’s a war going on out there. Anakin can’t bring himself to care. There’s a Padawan for him to train, but right now he’s pretty sure he would just do more harm than good. He just wants time and everything else to stop.
He wants to scream, but can’t find it in him to exert the energy he doesn’t have. He’s screaming internally, though, in the most honest definition of the word. He feels like he’s going to explode.
Between Rako Hardeen and himself, Anakin isn’t sure which one he wants to kill more.
The time to mourn is over. That’s not to say Obi-Wan will ever stop — he won’t stop, he won’t recover from this, he can’t possibly — but duty awaits. He will do what he must. Life, for him, still goes on. Anakin would want him to make the most of it. Anakin would still want him to be happy.
He takes over Ahsoka’s training, and returns to war. He fights, and he copes, and he has nightmares. He imagines Anakin talking to him, knows exactly what his friend would say in certain situations, and he’s not sure if it’s more comforting or devastating.
It’s so much like the last time he’d taken on a Padawan it’s almost astounding. Obi-Wan wasn’t prepared for the responsibility the first time and he’s certainly not prepared for this.
But Ahsoka needs him to be strong. Anakin would want him to be strong.
Obi-Wan will do his best. He’s not sure it will be good enough, or if it ever has been, but he will try. Try to guide this struggling teenager under his care, try to honor Anakin and everything he’d ever fought for. Try to move on.
Obi-Wan doesn’t think he is ever going to move on from this.
The time to mourn is over. It’s time now to take action. He’s going to find this cocky bounty hunter and show him a damn thing or two. Anakin is going to make him pay.
He wants to kill the scum, the sleemo. Rako Hardeen. He wants to tear him limb from limb, wants to gut him like a fish with his saber, wants him to suffer even a fraction of what Anakin is suffering because of him.
But he won’t. Obi-Wan wouldn’t want him to. Obi-Wan would want him to move on.
So, as much as it pains him, as much as he has to physically restrain himself from acting on his wildest, most innate impulse to skin this man alive and shoot him and torture him and end him —
Anakin will do the right thing. He’ll send Hardeen to prison to rot. He’ll strong arm him a bit. Maybe rough him up a little. Let him know who he’s dealing with and what kind of mistake he was unfortunate enough to have made.
He almost hopes Hardeen escapes from prison. Because if he does…
It’s been a year. A long, aching year. The pain is dull by now, a gentle throb in Obi-Wan’s heart that he doesn’t always notice so much, anymore.
It’s still there. It still hurts. It aches.
But he is healing. He’s almost used to it, by now. He suspects it will be a lifelong process. One day, Obi-Wan hopes that he will think of Anakin the same as he thinks now of Qui-Gon: with fondness, and affection, and sadness, but not quite such a fresh and aching pain.
He is making progress. So is Ahsoka, and so is Padmé. They are making do.
…Obi-Wan is still alive.
That was him. That — Hardeen — that was Obi-Wan. That was him.
Obi-Wan is alive.
And Anakin is overjoyed. Really. He is.
And Anakin wants to kill him.
He wants to kill him, and hold him. Punch him hard, and cry in his arms.
He wants to get back into bed and eat ice cream and never think about Obi-Wan again.
Anakin hates him. And loves him. Is righteously furious with him. And misses him. Wants Obi-Wan to feel pain, wants him to know, to understand. Wants him to feel just a single moment of what Anakin has felt for the last few horrible weeks. Wants him to know what it’s like. Wants him to experience this hellish agony of thinking his best friend in the entire universe was dead.
He never wants to see Obi-Wan’s stupid and beautiful face again. And he never wants to be apart from the man for a single moment from now until the end of time.
Anakin wants to shake him and yell at him and curse him out and get an apology. And he wants to scream and cry and throw things and cry and murder someone and cry.
Why? Why would they do this? Why, and how, how could they, how could they even — why, why, why why why —
Anakin is —
He’s —
That was him —
He’s alive, alive he’s —
He’s alive, his Padawan, his son, his brother, his everything under the sun and moons, Anakin Anakin Anakin —
He’s alive, he’s a Sith, he’s — his eyes are cold and yellow, his hair limp, his skin pale and gaunt, his face blank and unrecognizing and his heart is beating and his lungs are breathing and he’s alive —
Obi-Wan touched him. Felt him. Obi-Wan wants to hold him. Talk to him. Wants to cry in his arms. Wants to see him again. Wants to save him. Wants to protect him from harm. Wants to tell him that everything will be all right and he’s here and it’s going to be okay, it will, it has to be —
But there is one little problem.
Not a little problem. A big one. Enormous. The biggest, most troubling, most frightening problem Obi-Wan has ever faced in his entire life.
Anakin does not know who he is.
Anakin. He’s alive. And he’s a stranger. He’s the same person, but entirely different. He’s — he’s —
He’s alive.