Work Text:
והארֵ עַיניֶ פּןִ אישׁן הָמֶּות
“Give light to my eyes lest I die in sleep”’
The council chamber had never felt so cold. There were golden rays of light piercing through the windows, the kaleidoscope of sunset that rang on the surface of every reflective building in Coruscant, reaching its telos here in this room. But even with this cataclysmic gathering of the city’s windows singing farewell to the sun, Obi Wan could feel none of its warmth. Instead, the light was like the outer hull of a warship bathed in the explosion of a collapsing star; like freshly polished clone armor shining into battle for the first time; like the bright eyes of some creature waiting to pounce. The warmth of that collapsing star would not do much to curb the cold vacuum of space should an unlucky person be trapped outside; the bright optimism of armored bodies marching forward in step would not protect them from the shower of blaster-fire ahead; the glittering gaze of the threatening creature was no comfort to its prey. Coruscant’s sunset converging magnificently in the jedi council chamber was powerless to stop the cold, empty shadows from creeping up his spine and bleeding into his bones. Ahsoka’s absence was like the moment after the sun sets, and there is yet no moon, cold, expectant, quiet.
All the warmth had followed her in her sorrow, swallowed up by the fire of Anakin’s anger as he ran after her. There was none left for Obi Wan.
Master Koon knew this- it was why he prevented Obi-Wan from following. He almost gasped out loud at the touch of his hand, for it was the warmest thing left in this room. So he stayed, frozen in the too-bright chamber, Plo’s warm hand the only thing preventing him from visibly shivering and betraying his turmoil. He admitted to himself that perhaps he stayed only for that feeble shred of warmth, so small an enticement, moth-drunk on light, and he leaned into it, despite knowing that it was too warm for him; he was burning in the continuing shame of his abandoned obligation to his padawans. He probably could have broken free and followed, had he really wanted to. But he never knew the outcome of that possibility, because he never tried. After, he could never tell whether it was really Plo’s gentle insistence, or his own cowardice that stopped him from running after Anakin; after Ahsoka.
Obi-Wan lingered in the failing sunlight, imprints of each council member’s regret bleeding over the floor as shame-chilled-shadows. Even Master Plo eventually left, and with him, the last sliver of warm day. Now Obi-Wan was alone, numb with guilt, emptier than dark.
This cold void was worse than after Satine’s death. That was unimaginable pain, hot like broken glass in his chest, and sorrow that turned to stone in his waking hours but melted and burned in his dreams as soon as he closed his eyes. Those tears were sustenance day and night; they kindled an eternal flame in the gloom; it was excruciating; it was warm; it was a reminder that he was still alive. Now, he was not so sure; he felt no pain, and even his tears had fled from this gaping cold, though they didn’t fail to splutter and extinguish the flame on their way out. He wanted to dream of her laughing, or singing in Mando’a like she used when they were younger, but instead she wandered like a single feather, falling down the endless shafts of Coruscant’s eternal rising structures, perhaps never to reach the bottom.
This empty darkness was also worse than when he’d lost Qui-Gon: back then, he distracted himself with caring for Anakin, proving his knighthood with humility and hiding his pain with responsibility and rectitude.
This was worse, because the war did not look at him like that young, lost boy that needed all his attention, those bright young eyes full of fear, fear that had to be slowly quelled; an enemy he tried to vanquish with patience and gentleness. His very young apprentice needed him, and so he had spent his own grief to satiate his master’s dying wish, a debt that was not paid until Anakin’s knighting. But then there was the war, so even when the debt was paid Obi Wan could not grieve or rest.
This was worse, because now Anakin did not need Obi-Wan anymore, not since Rako Hardeen. His anger followed him everywhere, like a spider waiting to bite. Obi Wan dared not go too close for fear of getting stung. He was not sure he was strong enough anymore to withstand venom like that. So, he let Anakin drift away, his absence leaving him cold and lonely and bereft of purpose.
No amount of patience or gentleness would suffice, no debt could be tallied, to assuage this grief, or to give the strength to face the jedi council, the Sith, the battle droids, the way that Anakin’s fear turned to stubborn rage when he discovered that Obi Wan was not dead after all, and had not really stilled since then; Ahsoka’s broken smile, shoulders bent too low for one so young; Satine’s dying whisper and Maul’s screaming in his dreams.
He closed his eyes in fear and desperation, to hide his eyes from the cacophony of those dreams. Now his eyes were lost in darkness, so that if he died in his sleep, right here in this vacant chamber, not even his ghosts would be able to see him. The dead, now free from the specter of his grieved affliction, faded, leaving Obi-Wan alone in the quiet and without strength enough to stand and leave, sinking into the lowest of pits, into utter darkness, into shadowy depths. He drifted like that, wandering like Satine’s feather in his dreams, cold and waiting for the moon to come back to him, but it never did, weak, and almost wishing for the spider to snag and bite him.
Ahsoka’s shadow bled sorrow behind her as she walked down the temple steps. Anakin watched it elongate in the twilight, even as she herself grew smaller the further she down she went. The sorrow shadow leeched into the stone, staying long enough for a last burst in his vision, before she disappeared into the city’s eve, taking her shadow and her sorrow with her, and leaving only anger behind for him.
He felt it like sharp desert wind permeating his body, and it seared through his blood like a warship’s engine, spinning him around and driving him up through the corridors with only one destination still in mind.
He was once again a podracer; the temple his track, powered by anger, innately focused on the source of Ahsoka’s sorrow at the finish line. Anger leads to hate…Master Yoda’s voice seemed to chastise him from the empty shadows that watched like onlookers on the sidelines.
The day was nearly gone, and the sun’s last shadows were vaunting one last hurrah before being dragged down to the Planet’s other end. He let them cackle over Yoda’s phantom voice, taunting him, and cheering as he flew through the empty hallways.
The Sun was gone by the time he careened through the council chamber doors, and it took the shadows and their laughter away with its descent.
It was that brief moment between sunset and evening when daylight was not yet replaced by the city’s glittering expanse of artificial lights. It was the darkest that Coruscant would be until this moment’s dawn counterpart.
But even in this darkness, Anakin could see that he was not alone. He could discern the outline of a figure, hunched forward in one of the council seats. He could hear quiet breathing that immediately betrayed the figure’s identity, by the way that it somehow always managed to sound sad even when it was laughing, or even when it was, as was clearly the case now, asleep.
Suddenly there were new shadows to replace the ones that the sun had stolen away, and these ones were pure rage, not even a memory of sorrow remaining.
But then the figure stirred, and Anakin could feel Obi Wan’s eyes rest on him, even though he could not see them in the dark. Tired, confused, sad as they were, they were like ice to quell the hot rage that burned him from the inside, like an engine about to blow.
And then the shadows stopped speaking, and Anakin was left weak, shaking, and small, doused in cold water-judgement, exposed and perceived and known.
And this scared him the most of all.
So, before he had to endure any more of that raw, blue, calm recognition that laid bare all his vulnerabilities, all his shame and regret and disgrace, he spun around and fled.
Obi Wan had not counted on being discovered, despot and alone in the gloom of his own despair, and the shadows of shame that coated every surface in the council chamber. And neither, it was apparent, had Anakin counted on encountering another living being in that dark abode that was to be the receptacle of his rage. Obi Wan had known immediately that it was him; his anger bled into every corner of the chamber, rousing sleeping shadows and instilling cold fire into his heart. He was not sure which truth disturbed him more—that he knew Anakin from his rage, or that its presence was so familiar it did not alarm him.
But then Anakin had held his gaze in the dark, and it was as if he were that scared, proud, little boy once more. Back then, Obi Wan would have been close behind him, offering a calm, humble shoulder to lean on, cautionary affection, or recycled wisdom.
But this time Anakin ran, and Obi Wan did not follow. Instead, the shadows laughed at him as he rose unsteadily and crept out of the council chamber and down the hallways to his quarters.
He slept fitfully, plagued by incoherent and violent dreams that caused him to wake with his heart pounding, shaking, and drenched in cold sweat.
He wandered the temple the next day, waiting in dreaded anticipation of his next GAR assignment. The attack on the Jedi Temple and Ahsoka’s trial had already put their military duties on hold for long enough, and the Senate was already itching to send them out again.
Obi Wan hadn’t failed to notice that he and the 212th had been serving fewer and fewer campaigns lately with Anakin and the 501st. It could have been mere coincidence, but part of him suspected that Anakin had been deliberately requesting to be posted elsewhere, anywhere that Obi Wan was not. It was no secret that he didn’t trust his old master since the Hardeen mission, and Obi Wan was too worn down by his own regret to allow himself the luxury of being perturbed by it.
But, it seemed that now, this trend of separation between their fabled duo was being put to the end. With mingled alarm and hopefulness, Obi Wan stood a tentative distance beside Anakin in the briefing room, as Mace Windu listed the location of their next campaign: a joint operation between the 212th and 501st on a mid-rim planet that was quickly in danger of falling into separatist hands, with Masters Skywalker and Kenobi at the helm.
At first Obi Wan was surprised that they were comfortable sending Anakin out into the field so soon after Ahsoka’s trial. He was even more volatile than usual, which Obi Wan knew could make him unpredictable and rash, unwise to have in command. However, Obi Wan also knew that an idle Anakin was even more dangerous than an unstable one with a weapon. Sending him into battle once again was a clear attempt by Mace and Yoda to control the fallout as much as possible, and it didn’t even need to be said that Obi Wan’s job would be to keep an eye on him.
Everyone else cleared the briefing room quickly, leaving only Obi Wan and Anakin behind. For a second, Anakin’s expression softened, once again revealing more of the boy who had fled from him in the council chamber last night, but then it just as quickly turned into a bitter scowl, and he turned on his heel to leave.
“Anakin, wait!” Obi Wan pleaded.
Anakin stopped in his tracks and spun back around to face him. “Don’t talk to me.”
Obi Wan felt himself falter backwards with the sheer force of the venom in his voice.
But then he remembered the scared, proud boy from Tatooine. No matter how hurt he might be right now, no matter how dangerous it was to approach this spider, Obi Wan still owed it to that boy, owed it to Qui Gon, to offer comfort and support right now. “Anakin, I’m sorry about Ahsoka.”
He knew instantly that those words were a mistake.
If Anakin had been angry before, now he was furious. “Oh, you’re sorry, are you? If you’re that sorry, then why did you just sit back and do nothing while your precious council told lie after lie about her?”
That fury in his eyes was so intense that they burned, and Obi Wan cowered under their gaze.
He had nothing to say. Because Anakin was right.
And Anakin was not finished.
“If you really cared, then why didn’t you fight harder for her? Why didn’t you fight harder when they wanted you to fake your death? Why didn’t you fight harder for me, for us? They listen to you Obi Wan! You always just roll over and do their bidding—no that’s not true, not always.”
Anakin glared with eyes that could have melted even Mandalorian Beskar.
“You defied them before, for the Duchess.”
Obi Wan could feel every part of him shaking, never from anger, nor from any desire to retaliate, for he could not, not when Anakin cut him so low with these things that were true. He had disobeyed orders; he had gone to Mandalore, against every rule and code that he was beholden to. And he had still failed her, just like he failed Ahsoka, and Anakin, and Qui Gon, and the republic.
Anakin was yelling again, as always too impatient to let Obi Wan respond. But Obi Wan had no response. His mind had been overtaken suddenly by the memory of a verse that Satine sang to him all those years ago, one time when he was ill; in his delirium he had been so sure he would die, and that he would fail her, and his master and his mission, and Mandalore, and the republic.
The result of his lawlessness is poured over him—
And now that he lies ill, he will rise no more.
It was fitting, that he could now only remember these snippets, and none of the poetic messages of hope and joy that the verse would eventually grow to include.
Anakin was yelling, but Obi Wan had no response, for his legs had grown too weak to support him. He could not see the cold temple, or Anakin’s rage, but only an empty plain, the result of his lawlessness, and the result of his sorrow was that he would rise no more.
Anakin should have noticed that something was wrong when Obi Wan didn’t respond to his first set of accusations. He should have been doubly concerned when he had nothing to say even after Anakin had delivered the cruel jibe at Satine. He only really noticed something was wrong when Obi Wan started muttering in Mando’a.
Never, in all his years of knowing Obi Wan, had he ever heard him speak Mando’a. The word sequence had a vague semblance of a melody, nearly unrecognizable as such with the amount that Obi Wan was incoherently stringing them together, his voice shaky, almost as if he were crying.
And then Anakin looked—truly looked—and saw that he was.
His face had paled to ash, silver tear tracks alighting like the first rain on a planet’s surface after heavy bombardment.
“Master?” Anakin croaked, hugging him close and trying not to panic.
He remembered once, many years ago, in a class with a Jedi master he couldn’t remember the name of, learning about birds. Their bones were hollow to make them lighter, so they could fly.
Obi Wan felt like that now, hollow boned and light. But Obi Wan, who had no feathers, no wings, just hollow bones, could not fly. He fell instead, to lay limp in Anakin’s arms like a bird’s skeleton long after its body, feathers and all, had been claimed by nature.
He ran, half staggering toward the halls of healing, carrying his old master, a hollow boned, flightless bird, though still shaped like a man, making the frantic journey cumbersome.
He almost burst into tears when he spied Plo Koon up ahead, casually pacing the corridor.
“Help!” Anakin shouted, aware of his voice crackling with desperation.
Master Koon turned at the sound and immediately abandoned his leisurely composure, rushing over to help support Obi Wan’s unconscious body.
“He’s burning up,” Master Koon observed. How he could manage to sound so calm in the most stressful situations known to the galaxy was a mystery that Anakin had never, and would never, be able to solve.
“He just collapsed!” Anakin could feel his voice shaking, “Kriff I was so angry at him, and then—”
“Focus, Skywalker. What else?” Master Koon also had an uncanny ability to pry honesty from even the most reticent subjects, which was why Anakin found himself telling him much more than he had even admitted to himself.
“We were arguing…I didn’t even touch him...” he kept his eyes trained ahead, Master Konn’s unperturbed aura the only thing keeping him steady while they hastened up the stairs, carrying Obi Wan between them. “I should have noticed sooner.”
“If this is anyone’s fault,” Master Koon stated gravely. “Then it is one we ought all to share.”
Anakin didn’t doubt this. As soon as his immediate concern faded, he anticipated his attention to be directed fully toward the council. But he couldn’t just transpose the blame entirely on them, not for this. He had chosen not to give Obi Wan the compassion and comfort he knew he needed—more than just lending him a ship for a secret mission to Mandalore. He should have gone with him, or stopped him, or truly looked, and seen how he was already ailing. Someone had told him, briefly, that Obi Wan was very ill after the Hardeen mission, ill enough to be granted leave from the GAR for at least a few weeks. But Anakin had been so furious at him that he couldn’t find it in himself to feel an ounce of pity; to protest that he was sent back to the front far too soon; to force him to admit that he never got a chance to properly recover.
He barely spoke to him in the weeks following his return to the front either. If he had been paying enough attention, he would have noticed how it was too soon, that his old master was weaker, thinner, paler, and more subdued than Anakin had ever seen him before. He would have noticed that he was still fading all those weeks later, having never fully recovered from Anakin’s rejection, from his isolation from everyone else following that lonely, painful ordeal. He would have noticed that Obi Wan was a wraith, desperate and frail when he asked Anakin to borrow that ship. He would have noticed Obi Wan had been unwell for weeks—in hindsight this was unquestionable—but Anakin in his pride, in his anger, had chosen not to acknowledge it. And now he was paying the consequences.
They arrived at the Halls blessedly without incident. Anakin felt like he was 10 years old again, watching the Jedi carry Qui Gon’s body away, while Obi Wan stood stark still, putting his own grief aside to hold Anakin close. Now, like then, he was only able to watch as they carried his master away, this time alone.
“Come, Skywalker. We must let the healers work.”
The sound of Master Koon’s voice broke through the muffled background of Anakin’s memories. He was not sure how much time had passed, only that Obi Wan was gone, out of sight, out of reach. His anger was all extinguished, leaving only shame and regret as ash that left a trail behind him as he followed Master Koon out of the halls.
He didn’t pay attention to where they were going, and nor did he really care. His awareness of his surroundings crept back at the realization that Obi-Wan’s quarters were just a few doors down—Anakin could probably find it even if it was completely dark and silent. But they were clearly here for Master Koon’s quarters.
He steered Anakin inside and bade him sit down at the little table by the window.
Anakin stared listlessly outside while Master Koon busied himself with something in the kitchen. The sky was overcast today, draping the cityscape in a layer of grey that exposed every particle of pollution; every hidden sin, was preserved in the shroud of history on each building’s surface. That mantle could burn away in the sun’s light, and it could freeze and fade in the darkness of the night, but dim skies like this were the perfect climate for stragglers to fester and regroup, spores of regret and sorrow coagulating in an embargo to haunt anyone who looked into the grey for too long. The hazy light filtered in through the window, casting Anakin’s hands in a film of that same dust.
“Drink.”
He peeled his eyes away from the magnetic grime of the grey to see Master Koon pushing a steaming cup toward him.
He drew it into his hands, feeling the warmth seep into his skin, but he did not drink.
“How are you holding up?”
Anakin just looked at him. If it were yesterday, he might have stormed out of the room. But it was today, and today the sky was grey. So he signed and closed his eyes.
“I miss her.”
Master Koon nodded mournfully. “I have no words of solace to offer. No wisdom, no lessons, no apologies. This was a failure of unprecedented limits. We will all feel its consequences for a while to come.”
Anakin had nothing to say. Today the sky was grey; too alkaline for anger; too acidic for sorrow. Instead he took a hesitant sip of his tea.
“Vokara said that she’ll comm us when he’s stable.”
Anakin took another sip of tea. Once again, the sky was too grey and his mind too empty. He did not speak.
His tea had long grown cold, and many clouds shivered and stagnated before his eyes by the time Master Koon’s comm buzzed and he began speaking to a voice on the end, presumably Master Che. Anakin barely listened, not taking his gaze away from the grey.
“She says we can go and see him now, if you’d like.”
Anakin wasn’t sure what he would like. He could see shapes in the clouds, ghosts asleep in the dust, listing in the gray. One of the pallid shadows was shaped like Obi Wan. It scared him.
He could not look into the grey any longer, so he gave Master Koon a vacant nod in confirmation and followed him back to the halls.
Master Vokara Che was waiting for them when they arrived, blue lines ringing her eyes a little deeper than the last time Anakin had seen her, but her gaze just as glacial and perceptive as he remembered it being the first time he had met her as a young padawan.
She led him over to Obi Wan, pale like those ghosts Anakin had watched in the gloom from Master Koon’s window. He noticed that Master Koon had not followed him over to the bed. He appreciated the attempt to grant Anakin privacy and space in this moment, but he also admittedly missed his warm, consistent presence that had anchored him to earth, protected him from sleeping grey specters, these past few hours.
“Is he alright?” Anakin croaked, the first words he had uttered in perhaps hours.
Master Che sighed and briefly looked downward. “An extreme case of force exhaustion; except to provide some relief to his symptoms, I can’t treat it—his body will have to do that on its own, with rest.”
Anakin crept closer, cautiously as if he were approaching a slumbering, clawed creature.
Obi Wan lay very still, brow dappled with sweat, shaking just barely discernibly under the blanket.
“You can sit with him,” Master Che offered, setting up a dish of cold water on the bedside table. She had already dampened a cloth and was now placing it with practiced care on Obi Wan’s forehead. “Call for me if you need anything.”
The telltale sounds of her footsteps faded to the other end of the Hall; Master Koon remained out of sight; Anakin and Obi Wan were alone.
He sat vigil like that, wringing out and replacing the cool cloth whenever it started to soak up the heat. He became a rock in that sea of grey, kindling his shame to light the way for Obi Wan, a ghost at risk of drowning. And all the while Obi Wan shivered, the phantom of his fevered-dreams flailing under the weak cloak of ash he wore, asleep in the dust.
Obi Wan dreamt of the place where the stars ceased to be visible from the familiar reaches of the galaxy. From any galactic vantage point, from any little earth or quiet hyperlane, these stars would be waning, receding into distant spheres, as spots of white sea foam being swallowed up by deep water. But out here, at the convergence of known and unknown, of earth and star, of sea and air, they waxed brightest. They were iridescent crystals in the subterranean places of any stone planet; they were illuminated, feathered creatures hunting in the any cool planet-side night; they were light in joyous eyes, holding vigil for a melancholy comrade.
Many years ago, on top of a vein of stone that hid glowing crystals beneath the surface, in range of feathered prey-birds crying their victory squall, her eyes were bright with laughter beside him.
He had been sad. That was the day he realized he loved her, too late, his future as a Jedi already consummated. She knew. He could feel her sorrow in the force. But then she sang a prayer in Mando’a, for both of them, and those holy words catalyzed regret into surety, resentment to respect, despair to joy.
“Blessed is the Way of the Mand’alor,
who casts the bonds of sleep upon our eyes
May it be the will of the Way, of our names
and the Way of our ancestors,
to lie us down, and raise us up in peace.
Let no disturbing thoughts upset us,
no evil dreams nor troubling visions.
May our rest be complete and whole in their sight.
Give light to our eyes lest we die in sleep,
for this is the Way, that illumines and enlightens,
And may these words be forever forged in our hearts.”
Her ghost drifted toward him again now, at that place where the light of stars is born for sentient eyes. She was as he remembered her on that night, dressed in rags of light, his eyes illumined and her words forever forged in his heart. He did not die that night, her brightness shielding him from the prey birds and the hidden crystals beneath them, from the sorrow they hid in their dreams.
But now, perhaps he had allowed his eyes to dull and his heart to empty of those sacred words. Perhaps he had slept the sleep of death, and now had come to join her in the place where the stars’ light was born for sentient eyes.
“My dear Obi wan,” she whispered, the stars harmonizing with her in a mournfully beautiful lament.
“Satine,” he choked. He could feel ice tears on his face, even in the vacuum of space, even in the warm light of the stars and the many ghosts that took refuge with them.
She reached out to him, bathed in starlight. “My dear, it is not your time yet.”
He wished she could hold him, just like she did on the crystal planet under the pre-bird’s song.
But she was starlight now, and even with her fingers nearly touching him, he knew that was this was the closest they would be able to get, unless he were to become starlight too.
“Take me with you,” he begged, desperately gazing on her radiant apparition. “It is cold and dark down below, there is nothing left for me there…”
“No, Obi Wan,” she smiled sadly. “That is not true. There are many beings down there in the place where these stars’ light are just beginning to fade. You have seen their eternal glow, only you can bear it back to them on their little earths, proof of the light that sings bright in the deep places of the galaxy.” Then she paused and looked at him with mingled sorrow and hopeful conviction. “They still need you, my dear Obi Wan.”
He shook his head, unable to accept the truth of her words.“I have failed you, failed Ahsoka, failed Anakin…Satine, I cannot go on.”
“You can, Obi Wan. Remember the words of your guiding stars, and we will give light to your eyes. Hold that light, keep it in your heart as you walk by the way, and teach it to any wayward soul, any dying creature, any despairing Jedi.”
She was growing quieter. Her light was dimming and the stars were beginning to recede into the deep.
“Live, and remember Obi Wan, give light to your eyes…”
And then, her final elegy delivered, she was gone.
He wept as the planet’s gravity pulled him back down, threatening to steal his light for their subterranean crystals, for their prey-birds to feast on. But Satine was a star, and her light was eternal, that light which she had bestowed to Obi Wan. And so he shielded and kept that light safe within his eyes, etched forever within his heart, as he descended once again to the realm of earthly planet spheres.
While Obi Wan dreamed, Anakin watched and waited. He sat silent vigil and cooled his master’s fevered brow and whispered patient, gentle words to quiet the haunted dreams, the venom in his blood from angry words of grief and despair. It was Anakin’s fault. He had not seen, had not wanted to see, had built up walls around himself as a shell to keep his anger inside, and stung anyone who came too close. And now Obi Wan was burning, and Anakin had a debt to pay.
Anakin had no doubt that he was likely needed on the front, but no council member dared to give the order for him to go. It was bad enough that they had driven Ahsoka away, they wouldn’t risk giving Anakin another reason to spiral. For once, he was glad for their skittish avoidance; it allowed him to isolate himself alone by Obi Wan’s bedside and glaring venom at anyone who dared to impose.
It had been days now of Obi Wan wandering in fitful dreams, burning with a fever that showed no sign of regression. He wasn’t responding to any medicine either, so all Anakin could do was to cool his brow with water and watch hopelessly as he faded into the grey prison of his mind.
Sometimes he mumbled words, very quietly, and nearly undecipherable. But Anakin could at least recognize them as Mando’a. He couldn’t understand them, but he could tell they were filled with sorrow, and often left silver tear streaks on Obi Wan’s ashen face. This troubled him, making his guilt tug even tighter at his chest.
Sometimes Anakin talked to him as well, telling him all the news of his and Ahsoka’s exploits from the front that he had held back out of resentment these past months.
Sometimes Anakin sang to him, old folk songs that his mother used to sing on Tatooine. He wasn’t sure where she’d learned them, but they had a gentle kind of magic in their words, which Obi Wan certainly needed now. Though he only did this when it was deep into the night, and he could be sure that no one would hear him—those songs were sacred, and none but the most trusted ears could be privileged to hear them.
Sometimes Obi Wan was so still that Anakin had to lean into his chest just to be sure his heart was still beating.
Sometimes he was so pale that Anakin had to touch his face to make sure that the fever heat was still there; it was devouring him, yes, but so long as he was burning, it meant that the grey, cold oblivion had not yet taken him. Fever meant that he was still alive.
But Anakin was not a star that could sit vigil for eternity; he was not even a spider who could spin a cobweb around his master to keep him warm, the price for stinging him so violently before; he was not Shmi skywalker, who could sing magic songs to comfort even the most miserable of creatures. He was just Anakin, a boy shaped like a man, with power in all the wrong places and none to spare for the right ones.
And this was how Plo Koon found him, head bowed forward and snoring uneasily over Obi Wan’s weakly shivering body. He draped a blanket over the young man, careful not to disturb him. He quietly took up a position on the other side of the bed, where he took over from where Anakin had left off and mopped the sweat from Obi Wan’s brow. Then, he left the pair alone, having faith that they might find some reconciliation in the convergence of their dreams.
Obi Wan saw Anakin from above as he returned back to the planet spheres.
Anakin a spider; Anakin a cold shadow; Anakin a boy shaped like a man, lost and afraid and grieving.
But Anakin did not see him.
Obi Wan could feel the last vestiges of his strength fading—he would surely keep falling down the endless shafts of Coruscant’s eternal rising structures, perhaps never to reach the bottom. He drifted down into the planet’s gravity pull,
like a feather,
falling,
swirling,
slowly,
slowly,
slowly…
He opened his eyes and found himself landing on soft earth.
There were warm lights, and gentle noise, and quiet voices.
There was no spider, no cold shadow, just a boy shaped like a man; just Anakin.
The warmth was the first thing he noticed when he awoke, coming from a recognizably Anakin-shaped weight draped over his chest. This was how he knew that Satine’s prayer had worked; he did not die in his sleep, and he could once again feel his eyes filling with light. Gone was the cold emptiness from before, the bottomless deep from which he had feared he wouldn’t be able to return.
He blinked blearily and shifted just slightly to ease the stiffness still in his bones from the cold dreamscape he had just left behind. The movement jostled Anakin, who grunted and straightened up from where he was asleep on top of Obi Wan, just like he used to so many times when he first arrived at the Temple all those years ago.
It took Anakin a moment to shake off the drowsy vestiges of whatever dream he had been privy to. But then he leapt up quickly, as a ship jumping into hyperspace, and his eyes just as bright.
“Obi Wan!” he exclaimed, looking thankfully more like the boy Obi Wan remembered, and less like that angry shadow that had been following him these past few months. “H-how are you feeling?” he stuttered, reaching his hand out to feel Obi Wan’s forehead with uncharacteristic amounts of fidgeting. He brought his hand away with desperate relief written all over his face, and then let it hang at his side for a second, idle and awkward.
“Force Obi Wan-” he began, his voice cracking just slightly, “never do that again!”
And then Obi Wan was utterly, devastatingly surprised, when Anakin rushed forward and wrapped both arms so tightly around Obi Wan’s shoulders that he was slightly elevated above the pillows, and buried his head deep into his chest.
“Oh Anakin,” Obi Wan sighed, his voice coming out miserably weak and quiet. “I’m so sorry.”
“Stop that,” Anakin snapped. He didn’t let go of Obi Wan. “Just-kriff!” he slowly peeled himself away, his eyes glassy and shoulders quivering slightly. “I thought you were going to die. You can’t die, okay? You just can’t, the Jedi need you, the republic needs you, I need you.”
Obi Wan opened his mouth, but then closed it just as quickly, realizing he had nothing to say. Had Anakin really been that worried? After barely speaking to him for months? There was no appropriate response, so he instead remained speechless for another few moments.
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” Anakin said forlornly with eyes downcast. “I didn’t realize—”
“Anakin,” Obi Wan interrupted, knowing all too well what this could become, and also knowing how deeply unproductive it would be for both of them. “I know.”
Anakin raised his eyes then, bright and glazed over with regret.
“Padawan,” Obi Wan soothed, “come here.”
Anakin did not let Obi Wan see his tears, but he felt the heat of them when they once again embraced. In that moment the war was gone, all the heartache and betrayal of the past few years banished into an unknown future. For now, they were just master and padawan once more, cradling each other as they exchanged tears of light, the force aglow with joy and sorrow alike.
From somewhere up above, the stars were sad, for they knew what was to come.
But, for now, they granted light to their eyes, so that these Jedi could weep and rest for just a little while in peace.
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