Chapter Text
“Promise me…promise me you will train the boy…”
There was so much that Obi-Wan wished to tell Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Their relationship had been strained for a long time, even before the boy appeared. For years, the master and padawan limped along as a pair without truly opening up to each other. Obi-Wan desperately wanted more time to make it up to him. He wanted to apologize for his failings. He wanted to mend the distance between them. However, Master Qui-Gon was right. It was too late. The wound had taken its toll, charred organs failing in a cascade, and the older Jedi was quickly spiraling to his last breath. Instead of everything he wished he could say, Obi-Wan had to settle for making a promise to a man who was so eager to replace him.
“He…is the Chosen One. He will bring balance.”
What that really meant, Obi-Wan still hadn’t figured out. Anakin Skywalker was anything but balanced. There were many days where it felt like he was the one chosen to be Obi-Wan’s headache. He had been very careful to not let the past hurt between him and his late master influence his feelings towards Anakin. That wouldn’t be fair. Anakin never asked for any of this to happen and the events on Naboo certainly were not his fault.
As a matter of fact, Obi-Wan Kenobi had quickly grown fond of his padawan. Anakin was a compassionate child, always tried his best, and had accepted Obi-Wan as his master despite him being a Knight for less than twelve hours. But young Skywalker would be a challenging apprentice for any Jedi, let alone one who had just finished being a padawan himself. Raised outside of the creche, he came to them with nine years of experiences to distance him. Skills that came to other padawans as naturally as breathing were wide learning curves for him. Meditation was a challenge, at best. It seemed to do painfully little to diffuse his emotions into the Force. Despite his efforts, the young boy was a storm, a hurricane of thoughts and distraction. Obi-Wan Kenobi simply was not ready for this.
Kriff, he wasn’t even ready to be a Jedi Knight, Qui-Gon telling the Jedi High Council that he was ready for the Trials must have just been a convenient lie so he could replace him with Anakin. If it wasn’t for the appearance of the Sith Lord, Obi-Wan would certainly still be a padawan himself. He needed guidance. He needed his father. But Master Plo Koon had been sent away for assignment after assignment on behalf of the Council, absent for these first arduous months.
Obi-Wan was tired. There was a good reason why most Jedi waited a few years after ascending to Knighthood before taking an apprentice.
So far, tonight had been longer than most. Nearly two Galactic Standard days without proper sleep frayed both their nerves as they finished their mediation assignment on Corellia. The boy could have slept plenty, he was mostly there to observe. Obi-Wan offered him rest more than enough times, but Anakin stubbornly opted to stare intently at the representatives, studying every interaction they made with their hired help as the talks progressed. As for Obi-Wan, he was only upright through the power of an unhealthy volume of caf and pure determination. The high-strung energy was almost buzzing by the time they touched down at the Jedi Temple and returned to their quarters.
A nonchalant dismissal of an innocent question was enough to pull the trigger.
“I’m not sure, Anakin. Can we pick this up tomorrow?”
“Are we, Master? Or are we going to be busy again?” Anakin snapped with fury unbecoming of even a Jedi youngling. “You don’t give a shit, do you? You weren’t even looking!”
“Language, padawan! I didn’t say that at all. I am just-“ Obi-Wan pleaded, ears ringing with exhaustion.
“No! No! The Jedi don’t care!” the boy shouted. “None of you care about what I think or what I know!”
Before he could even think to respond, Anakin had stormed to his room. Obi-Wan ran a hand through his hair and down his face. He was too tired for this. He should really just go to bed and pick it back up in the morning. The caffeine from his last two cups of caf was still relentlessly buzzing in the back of his mind, though. Millaflower tea. Yes, that would help him actually be able to fall asleep once he made it to his bed. He shuffled his way to the small kitchenette in their quarters, pressing the button to fill and boil the kettle.
A convenient chirp from his pocket drew his sluggish attention before he could reach for the tea canister. His commlink. He tiredly answered without even checking who the caller was. “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he sighed.
“I just got back,” came the warm and familiar voice, and the flickering blue image of Master Plo Koon. “I could feel your distress before I even reached the landing pad, son.”
“Sorry, Plo,” Obi-Wan rubbed his face. “Anakin and I just got back as well, from a two-day mission.”
“And you’re having troubles now?” Plo Koon guessed.
“Yes, Master. I guess you could say that,” Obi-Wan hesitated. He felt guilty about leaving the child upset. No, he was too frustrated. He was far too tired to handle it rationally, regardless of how baffled he was about why Anakin was like this.
His father answered his unspoken invitation regardless. “I will be there right away, my boy. Have the tea ready.”
~
The teacups sat half-empty on the low table, the two Jedi side by side in a thoughtful silence. It had been half an hour since Anakin stormed away, but Obi-Wan had only just begun to explain the predicament to Master Plo. His father leaned far back into the sofa, stroking the chin of his antiox mask with careful consideration.
“How was he on your assignment?” He asked.
Obi-Wan shrugged. “It was the biggest mission he’s accompanied me on so far, so I mostly had him observing. He was very polite through it all, if a little shy.”
“And you said it was a several-rotation affair?”
“Yes, Hence the exhaustion. He’s just a child, so I offered to dismiss him to the ship to sleep while I handled the meetings. But he refused to leave.”
A spark of recognition straightened Plo’s shoulders and urgency flooded his voice. “Tell me again, son. What was the question you dismissed?”
Obi-Wan frowned at his father. “He asked if I noticed anything off about the servers, I answered no. Then he wanted to ask me about what I knew…kriff,” the epiphany struck him in the chest, white hot. “He asked me whether I knew if they were being treated well. He was watching the diplomats very closely when they were being served…”
‘You don’t care, do you? You weren’t even looking!’
“Shit, he was trying to ask me if they were slaves,” Obi-Wan gasped. “He was angry at the Order. Karabast. I made a mistake, father. I thought that we were listening. The Jedi are supposed to be compassionate, but…”
“But were you understanding what he was saying?” Plo finished, folding his hands into his sleeves. “To him, you represent most of what he knows about the Jedi.”
Obi-Wan’s brain seized onto those words and ran with them in a sleep-deprived whirlwind that bordered on manic. Oh Force, how could he have been so kriffing blind? For the last several weeks, he had been so focused on fitting into the role of a “Good Master” that he forgot to see his student as he was. The advice he got from his peers was an attempt to rid Anakin of his baggage like he had been raised in the Order. They weren’t considering what the boy had been through.
Plo moved closer to him, helping his mind down the river of thought he was caught in. “He was a slave,” Plo reminded his firstborn.
“He was a slave,” Obi-Wan echoed.
No matter how talented and well-spoken Anakin was, he was born into slavery, he grew up seeing the galaxy through the lens of a slave. All the moments where Obi-Wan thought that Anakin was just overly determined suddenly gained new meaning.
He cut his teeth as a pilot in the dangerous pod races his owner forced him into. His foolhardy attack on the droid control ship in a starfighter during the Naboo crisis wasn’t just a child’s daring. He was used to skirting death in the races, he wouldn’t have thought that flying into a space battle was much of a departure from the usual risk he was used to. In his efforts to catch up to the other Padawans, Anakin pushed too far on many occasions. He sometimes practiced lightsaber forms until his palms blistered and bled. He forced himself to make strides in his connection to the Force at the expense of his health, passing out a few times from the overextension of energy. Obi-Wan was no stranger to Force overexertion- and the migraine that preceded the collapse. Pain did not slow Anakin down at all. It wasn’t perseverance, was it? Anakin had been a slave since birth. What agonizing punishments had he learned to endure without faltering?
Obi-Wan gagged, feeling ill. “And Qui-Gon won him,” he choked out, looking at Plo with wide-eyed panic, earning a somber sigh from his father. “The only reason Anakin is here is that Qui-Gon bet on his life and won.”
“Then he was brought here and at first, the Council rejected him,” Plo mentioned. “And when we accepted him as an apprentice, we put the burden of being The Chosen One on his shoulders.”
“Would Qui-Gon have even freed him if it wasn’t for his connection to the Force?” Obi-Wan pondered.
The silence stretched between them for a painful moment. Obi-Wan’s skin crawled, the filth of it all wriggling just under the surface. His Master had played into that system only on the belief that this boy would fulfill a vague prophecy. He had bet on the life of a child. It didn’t matter whether Qui-Gon had foreseen the results, it was no better than buying Anakin. Every fiber of his Jedi training recoiled. Where was their compassion? How did Obi-Wan so seriously lose touch with it when Anakin fell into his care? “I made a mistake, Father. I don’t… I don’t know what we should do. I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Master?” a small voice came from the hallway, surprising them both. They turned to see Anakin, wide eyed and looking between them cautiously.
He heard them. He did.
“I made a mistake.”
Anakin had heard him clearly. He tried to remind himself of all the times that Obi-Wan had told him to not jump to conclusions, but he wasn’t jumping this time, was he? He had messed up again and Obi-Wan wanted to get rid of him. That had to be it.
Obi-Wan’s voice cracked through the long pause. “Anakin,” he sighed. “I thought you had gone to bed.”
Anakin averted his eyes in shame, puffy red bags betraying that he had cried after storming off. Showing his weakness. He was no better than a toddler. “I did…” he choked out, desperate to grab any chance to redeem himself. “You haven’t made a mistake, Master. It is my fault. I was impatient. It won’t happen again. I will be better. Please don’t get rid of me, sir.”
A look crossed Master Obi-Wan’s face, twisting his mouth into a scowl. Was he hurt? No, no. Why would he ever be hurt by Anakin apologizing? That didn’t make sense. Unless he was offended… that was it. Offended that Anakin asked for forgiveness, that he asked for a favor. That wasn’t Anakin’s place, why did he think he had any right to ask his master for something like he was some kind of equal? He was a fool. Anakin flushed dark, heart pounding in his ears like the beating of Watto’s wings.
Depur Watto was shouting at him, raising his cane over Anakin’s head. “Never good enough! Useless boy!”
He was out of line. This was his fault. His master had every right to punish him as he saw fit.
“No, Anakin-“ Master Obi-Wan rose to his feet.
Master’s voice was calm. A quick tug of the leash to correct his daring. Hope bloomed in Anakin’s heart. This mistake was secondary. If he was lucky, after he was punished for his outburst, his master might give him another chance. He would take this beating a hundred times if it would prove to Depur that he was sorry…
He braced as Depur’s hand reached out to him. He was ready.
This time, it was unmistakeable hurt in Obi-Wan’s eyes.
Oh, oh. He was such a karking stupid idiot.
Obi-Wan was his master but not his Master. He was not his new Depur. They told him he was free. They kept telling him- he messed up. He messed up bad, worse than before. Obi-Wan thought that Anakin saw him as a slave master.
Roaring blood drowning out his own thoughts, Anakin scrambled to apologize, to excuse himself, to promise he would never imply that again. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean- Sorry Obi-Wan, I-“
Not good enough. That apology was not good enough. How could it ever be good enough? He practically accused Obi-Wan of a crime.
Now Obi-Wan thought Anakin didn’t trust him.
He was so stupid.
He was not good enough.
Anakin turned on his heels to make his escape, but his feet tangled in the tension and he fell to the cold floor. There was nowhere to run to, even without a chain the transmitter in his flesh stopped him from fleeing. All he could do was curl up tight, as small as possible on the coarse sandstone floor of the parts depot.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll do better,” he wailed against the wood panelling.
Obi-Wan’s heart shattered. He had to fix this, he had to help his young student. A sharp jab gripped his stomach as the child curled into a terrified ball on the floor, begging for an end to a torture inflicted far from here. Before Plo could stop him, instinct took over and he rushed to scoop up Anakin, to hold him and hug him and promise he’d never send him away-
He didn’t get that far.
Anakin, somehow, curled even smaller, pressing against the hallway wall, “Please, NO!”
The shockwave threw Obi-Wan back into the couch, the boy bending the Force into a protective cocoon. There was no way Obi-Wan could come closer, the Force warbled and screeched with Anakin’s terror and pain. Plo rested a hand on his shoulder. “May I?”
Obi-Wan could only nod in response, the air knocked clean out of his lungs.
“Anakin, can you hear me?” the old Jedi called out, trying to reach the child through his impenetrable barrier.
Anakin paused, his gasping and rocking frozen for a moment. He nodded, nails digging into his arms through the fabric of his sleeves.
Plo’s shoulders relaxed. “Would it be okay if I came closer?”
Squeaking out another gibberish response, Anakin shook his head. No closer, no farther, Plo crouched down to the boy’s level and confirmed. “Anakin, can you hear me clearly?”
A nod.
Plo hummed in acknowledgement. “Young one, your place here is not conditional. Your freedom is not conditional.”
Anakin gulped down more desperate, drowning breaths. Some of the furniture started to tremble, sliding very slowly towards the epicenter of his panic to barricade him. “I k-know, Master,” he sputtered. “I am sorry- sorry. Please, please forget about it…”
“You do not need to call me Master, my child. I am not your teacher. I am just Plo Koon, alright?” Plo assured, shuffling to hold back an end table from knocking him over. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I’m sorry, Mas- Plo Koon, I just misheard. I don’t want to be a problem,” Anakin sniffled, wiping roughly at his eyes. “Or a mistake.”
“You are absolutely not a problem, Anakin. Nor are you a mistake. Obi-Wan and I were just discussing how to train you better. The mistake we were talking about is on our part, not yours.”
“But the Council did not want me here, b-because I would be a problem.”
Plo frowned. “I am sorry, Anakin, for my part in giving you these doubts. There were many things I should have done differently to make sure you didn’t feel that pressure, and I failed to do them. But the Council was wrong. I am sorry, and I would like to make it up to you, son.”
The furniture stopped its journey. Anakin fell silent and swallowed back the tears that kept coming. He studied Plo for a long moment, judging his sincerity, never loosening the white-knuckled grip on his sleeves. “They said I was dangerous.”
“No, Anakin. You have a great deal of strength and power for your age, yes. But you are still a child. You are not dangerous,” Plo affirmed. “And I am sorry that the Council made you fear that you were.”
Anakin considered it for a moment, chewing on his lip. Whether or not he truly believed it, he nodded and moved his gaze to his teacher. “I am so very sorry for ever thinking that, even more so for letting you believe it,” Obi-Wan apologized, kneeling down as well.
Anakin’s eyes closed, tears still pouring down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry I got angry, Obi-Wan. I’m sorry I th-thought…I thought-“
“It’s okay, Ani. I didn’t do enough to make sure you felt safe,” Obi-Wan answered.
He was met with a silence that stretched on for a minute. Then, the boy coughed and kept talking, picking up from the moment he had stormed off. “I th-thought they might have been slaves. They were almost all women. Most were Outlanders. A lot of them were Twi’lek…” Anakin started. “It just reminded me of…the powerful places back home. That’s what it’s like, usually. That’s what their collections look like, I mean. I was worried that maybe they were, you know- not staff.”
“I realize that now, Anakin,” Obi-Wan nodded.
“I shouldn’t have gotten angry, though. I was the one who didn’t speak clearly,” Anakin scolded himself, the Force tensing around them. “The Code says There is no chaos, there is harmony.”
“Anakin. Chaos, yet Harmony,” Plo said. “I am sorry we did not teach you that first. That is the Code the younglings learn in the creche. You are a person, and that means you will sometimes be overwhelmed. As Jedi, we strive for harmony, but we can and will sometimes fail. That is just how life works. What matters is that we keep trying. It is difficult for you to talk about it without getting emotional because it is a painful subject for you. That is natural and valid.”
Anakin’s grip on his sleeve loosened. Outside of his student’s impenetrable shield, Obi-Wan could hear the Force weeping with him. The cries replaced the shrieking, shaking fear choking the air of the room. Finally, the cocoon began to fall, allowing Obi-Wan to inch closer. Shuffling out of his tightly-coiled pose, Anakin flung himself into Obi-Wan’s open arms, hiding in the warm safety of his cloak. “Karabast! I’m angry!” he wailed, pressing his face into the coarse fabric. “I am angry. No Jedi ever came to help us. Nobody from the Republic came. We had to learn to do it ourselves. We are all the way in the Outer Rim. We don’t matter. We have never mattered.”
Obi-Wan rested a cheek on the crown of Anakin’s head, trying to comfort him with a gentle sway. The boy sputtered, unable to hide his fury and sorrow as he continued to rant. “They put transmitters in us. They’d explode if we tried to run away. If we didn’t stay within a certain radius. Sometimes if Depur wanted to make an example out of someone. They install them when we are babies, to make it almost impossible for our moms to smuggle us away. Mom told Qui-Gon. She did!”
“I’m so sorry, Anakin. I’m so sorry there was no help. I am sorry the Jedi failed your people,” Obi-Wan soothed. He swallowed back his own tears, locking eyes with his father. He didn’t know what Depur meant, but it was easy to guess. Watto.
“Some would survive it… some would survive the detonators. We celebrated when they did…” he sobbed. “But most didn’t. Most- I never saw anyone survive it exploding. But I saw…I saw when they didn’t”
Wet. His skin was wet.
He is crying in Obi-Wan’s arms. His cheeks are wet from his tears. They’re warm… No, they’re hot. Hot, wet droplets of blood on his face, mixing with salty sweat and tears. His ears were ringing from the blast and the screams. Mother’s arms were carrying him away from the gore where his friend had been moments before. He wanted to wrench himself away, to see for himself if she was still there. But the desert whispered to him. “She’s gone.” So, he stayed still in Mother’s arms and let her carry him away….
Anakin wailed, words jumbling into an incoherent mess. Obi-Wan let out a shuddering breath of his own, trying to keep the child in his arms from shattering even more. But he felt himself being pulled apart at the seams as well, mouth as dry as the sands of Anakin’s home planet. Anakin shifted, looking up at him with eyes that glowed startling blue against angry bloodshot whites. “I just…I wanted Mister Qui-Gon to be there to help us…”
“I’m sorry, Anakin,” Obi-Wan answered, the useless words tumbling from his lips on instinct. How would they fix this? How could they fix this? Without the full approval of the Council, he would never be allowed to launch a freedom campaign because of his apprentice’s ‘attachments’. But the horrors this child had seen in his short nine years, horrors he had only barely started to reveal, couldn’t just be ignored, could they? The creases of Plo’s brows told Obi-Wan that his father was pondering the very same thing.
The Force still wept as the boy succumbed to his grief and his exhaustion and slackened against his teacher.