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Fighting Anakin to kill was, on a fundamental level, wrong.
And yet here they were. Anakin turned to the Dark Side, his lightsaber flashing with desperation and anger, and for a heartbeat (an eternity, in the Force), Obi-Wan recognized himself, years younger, through Qui-Gon’s eyes. He saw the boy who attacked, vicious, hatred clouding everything within him. He remembered what had driven him then, his weakness, his anger and impatience and fear, how the only thing between him and his destiny had been a cruel, selfish boy who had known how to exploit those so well that he had failed.
That day had changed the course of his life forever, though if Yoda were to be believed, he had always been destined to be Qui-Gon’s apprentice, making up for what Xanatos had done, restoring his faith in himself. Qui-Gon had taught him what Yoda could not, how to control his anger and impatience, even though he had had many reasons to chastise Obi-Wan. He had been patient, and forgiving, and kind.
Obi-Wan had been like Anakin, once. Now Anakin was what Obi-Wan could have become if he had had any other Master, and his heart wrenched at the thought. He remembered the younglings, slaughtered like animals, defenseless, at the hands of the boy he had raised. His Padawan. His friend.
His brother. And he realized, suddenly, why Anakin had felt sorry for him for not knowing his mother, all those years ago.
He hadn’t been angry because Obi-Wan pitied his former life; he had been angry because he had lost the most important piece of it. The agony, searing there in his heart, threatened to tear him apart. It threatened to kill him, with Anakin attacking like this.
Calm yourself. He reached for the Force, his guide, his teacher, and saw the misstep as it happened. Anakin, caught in his own rage, even with the full force of his power available to use, didn’t look for Obi-Wan’s next move. So much power was overcome by arrogance, and he jumped.
He fell.
He fell and he burned and Obi-Wan knew what he should do next, what he had done when Qui-Gon died and a Sith stood before him, but he couldn’t move.
“You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!” he shouted instead, shaking.
I am so sorry, Qui-Gon, he thought, the Force pulsing through him like the sea. It had been his fault, all of it – not being fast enough to help Qui-Gon against Darth Maul, not being what Anakin needed, not seeing the darkness that followed him through the years. He deserved to die.
Instead, he turned away, hiding his tears and his grief, screaming inside.
He had failed again, even though he had won.
Eventually, they stopped telling Obi-Wan when his Padawan wasn’t in his quarters. Even though Anakin was the most observed youngling at the Temple, he seemed to slip out of everyone’s notice like a shadow. He was always making trouble, impulsive and too curious for his own good, and Obi-Wan had reprimanded him far too many times more than he should have had to in the year he had been at the Temple.
One day he simply vanished, and Obi-Wan found himself looking all over the Temple, even looking through databanks when he thought he’d exhausted every option.
It was full dark when he finally found the boy, who flinched before he could have possibly heard Obi-Wan. He was sitting on a balcony, staring at the few stars visible in Coruscant’s night sky. A lightning-quick flare of panic hit Obi-Wan when he realized that the boy was sitting on the railing, but it was quickly replaced with anger.
“Do you have any idea—”
“What trouble you’ve caused, making me look for you all day,” Anakin said, voice monotone. Obi-Wan was taken aback for a moment, but he recognized something in the boy’s voice. It was muffled, as if he had a cold.
Or had been crying for a very long time.
Obi-Wan stepped forward, and Anakin turned to glare at him. Like this they were almost of a height, and Obi-Wan was close enough to see the swollen eyes and red nose. Somehow, Anakin managed to glare fiercely even though he should have looked ridiculous.
“You don’t even remember, do you?” he asked. He shook his head. “You wouldn’t. You didn’t want me in the first place. It’s just your duty.” He spat that word out like he did orders.
For a moment, Obi-Wan didn’t understand what in the world he was talking about. He’d woken up today and remembered that the anniversary of Qui-Gon’s death was in a few days, but he’d been distracted by the news that his Padawan was nowhere to be found, first with annoyance and then with the very real terror that he had run away or been taken against his will. He hadn’t thought of the significance that this day would have to Anakin.
It shouldn’t have had any significance, teaching taught him. His gut roiled, and Qui-Gon’s years of grief for Xanatos told him that teaching was wrong.
“It’s been a year since you left Tatooine. Since you left your mother,” he corrected himself. He sighed when Anakin turned away, resolutely staring at the sky. “Anakin, look at me, please.”
He could have made his words an order, like he had before, out of patience with this headstrong boy. He didn’t, and Anakin looked at him, probably more out of shock at his tone than anything else. He was still glaring, which was not unusual.
“I remember. I remember that she was a very wise woman, and very strong. I cannot imagine what you feel, but those of us who care for you, with whom she entrusted the person she loved most in the world, were terrified when you disappeared.” He forced himself to look Anakin in the eye as he continued. “Yes, I swore to Qui-Gon that I would teach you, but he would have understood if I could not. I am not patient. I never imagined taking on a Padawan. Let alone growing as fond of a disobedient little brat as I have.”
Anakin sniffed, turning away, but he was not glaring. He was thinking, still looking at the stars. He didn’t turn when he spoke again.
“Qui-Gon was like your dad,” he said, his expression growing firm. “At least I know one day I might see her again. I didn’t think you felt like I did. I’m sorry.”
“I – I suppose the comparison could be accurate. Though I have heard that fathers make disobedient children do the most boring things when they’re in trouble. Like, say, pulling weeds from the garden tomorrow?”
Anakin grinned for a second, then was off the rail and short again.
“Good thing you’re not my dad.” For a moment he stared up at him, and then he hugged Obi-Wan, who patted his head. When he stepped away he wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t glaring or about to cry either.
Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow.
“You’re still working in the Temple garden tomorrow, Padawan.” It was not quite a punishment. Growing up in a land that was more sand than anything, he’d taken one look at the Temple gardens and had promptly taken to gardening with relish.
It was weeding that he hated, though not because of its difficulty. He hated killing something that was just there.
It was a good quality to nurture in a young Jedi.
Perhaps Obi-Wan should have been surprised that Padmé Amidala had access to more funds than… well, most planets. As it was, he was too busy to be surprised, and she was too busy to explain anything, had he asked. Babies, especially twins who tended to wake each other up when one of them was howling, took up more time than there were hours in a day.
He could feel Padmé’s resentment every day, along with grief and shock that he felt himself. They kept it from the children, usually taking shifts without even speaking, which meant that they would go days without saying anything at all, unless it was about the twins. Even after she had given voice to all of his self-recriminations with her words, when there seemed to be some sort of breath that had been released, some lessening in the tension, they did not speak overmuch, even when they stopped to rest and refuel.
So it was a shock when, one night that they spent on-planet because of a sudden storm system, she stood next to him in the alcove where they prepared their meals and cornered him.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t have – I’ve tried to avoid being a hypocrite, and I was.”
She filled a glass with water while she spoke, studiously avoiding his eyes. All he could see, beyond dyed-black hair, were her furrowed brow and her nose.
He wanted to see her face, and he also wanted to look away and forget everything that had led up to this conversation, beginning with a dying man’s last wish. He looked at his bread and cleared his throat.
“I think we were both a bit hypocritical, Padmé, and for the same reason. We both believe that we could have somehow stopped…” His mouth stuttered over Anakin’s name, “him from becoming what he is now. But his actions were his own, as mine were, and… I believe that yours were the only thing holding him back for as long as he did.”
“What?”
He turned to her, and she didn’t bother to hide her shock. He smiled.
“You loved him. More than that, you accepted him, in a way that I never did. In a way that, perhaps, I never could. We were too similar in the wrong ways, he and I. I loved him like family, and I believe he once felt the same for me, but he didn’t trust me. He believed that I was like the Council. He didn’t trust me enough to tell me about your marriage, or about your pregnancy. He trusted you to believe him, even after a ten-year separation. I had disregarded his fears even though I knew his power.” She had just stared at him while he spoke, but at the end her face twisted and crumpled in tears.
He held her because he had to. There was no other option, not when he could feel her guilt and her vast, aching sorrow. He held her and stroked her hair.
She was so small for someone so strong.
“He saw me die,” she said, a whisper against his chest. “He couldn’t see the baby, because there were two, but I didn’t know that. He didn’t know that, and he – he thought he was doing it for me.” She let out a sob. “Because Jedi weren’t supposed to have attachments, and the Emperor promised him he could save me.”
Because he believed that the Jedi might do something to Padmé, not capable of using the Force but sensitive to it, if she wanted to have the children of the Chosen One. He had read about the wars, the lines of families strong in the Force killing each other, had realized the true reason Jedi were meant to be celibate, and he’d been terrified.
“Love had nothing to do with what he did,” he said, strong through his own grief, his thoughts of what if. “Palpatine manipulated him from the start, to kill, to trust him and him alone, to choose power and buy it with death, even the deaths of his friends, of children” He cried as silently as she did, and he held on to her. “Love is the purest expression of the Light. It was what kept you alive in spite of what had happened. Love can be exploited, yes, but always through other emotions.”
Leia let out a howl, and they pulled apart. Something seemed to settle, and she actually smiled.
“I’ll take care of the demon. You can take the good one.”
“I am so happy, really, that you think my daughter is out to kill us,” Padmé said even as she was scooping up a quieter Luke. Obi-Wan held Leia, whose cries were truly something to behold. He patted her on the back, something of an expert at this now, checking for any sign of a soiled diaper. He found no evidence.
After a stretch of time, Leia quieted. Padmé was sleeping with Luke on her chest by then, and Obi-Wan stared at them for too long before realizing he was doing it.
“I love you, you ferocious little monster,” he told Leia, who was asleep and wouldn’t remember this anyway. He took Luke from Padmé and settled him in next to his sister, where they shifted closer to each other.
He was pulling Padmé’s blanket over her when her eyes opened, and she mumbled, “Ani?” before slumping into sleep.
It made his heart ache in a way that had nothing to do with grief.
“You should be taking this more seriously,” Obi-Wan told Anakin, who was mockingly going through the possible crystals he could use for his lightsaber. “This is a very important moment in your life, you know.”
“You’ve said that eleven times since we started this trip,” Anakin mused. “Has it occurred to you that I understood you the first time, Master, and that repeating it just makes me worse?”
“Has it occurred to you that this is literally hallowed ground?” Obi-Wan asked. Anakin, growing into his limbs with exactly as much grace as Obi-Wan had, waved his arm at him and almost knocked against a wall in the process.
He was grinning when he turned, braced against another wall. He pulled his hand away, and with it came a deep blue crystal.
“I guess you were right about the Force making my lightsaber, Master.” He cleared his throat, and Obi-Wan was suspicious that the expression he made was a mocking copy of his own face. “Thank you so very much, Force.”
His lightsaber was sleek and glowed brilliantly, and when he held it he actually looked as awed as Obi-Wan had felt.
“They say you can feel the Force more easily using a lightsaber made with these crystals,” he said.
Anakin tested the grip, running through part of a form with a brilliant grin, only matched by the weapon in his hand. He looked like he was dancing with a partner only he could see, graceful in a way that Obi-Wan hadn’t been at fourteen. Maybe this awkward phase was due to the Force in his blood being unable to express itself.
It would be incredibly unfair if this were true. Every teenager of every species deserved to go through the same embarrassment that marked their passage into adulthood.
“Should I leave the two of you alone for a while?” he asked.
“Master, this is literally hallowed ground.” Anakin flicked the lightsaber off, shaking a finger at Obi-Wan. “What would the Council say if they heard you suggest something so inappropriate?” He thought for a while, then went bright red.
Obi-Wan knew what he was thinking, and he hid his smirk.
Teenagers were so easy to torture, even supposed Chosen Ones.
“No,” Padmé said, the first time he suggested teaching Luke and Leia some basic control techniques. Her hands were bone-white on her knees.
“You can shove your ‘duty’ up your ass with the stick that’s lodged there,” she said the second time, fists clenched and fury in the twist her mouth.
“Go kiss a Hutt! Like hell am I letting Jedi sith spit make my kids hate themselves! They’re children, not your chance to kriffing redeem yourself somehow! It doesn’t make a goddamned difference that they’re Force-sensitive! They’re never going to be Jedi,” she said the third time, red in the face, eyes shining with tears. She slapped him that time, and they didn’t speak for a week.
He spent quite a lot of time meditating, since having two small children was not exactly easy on the nerves. He would bury himself in calm and reach for the Force, feel everything through it as easily as he felt physical contact. His breath wouldn’t need guidance, then, because the pattern was obvious.
There, he could accept what he felt and let it slide away. When he meditated, he was certain, serene, even though he was confronted with his own feelings whenever his consciousness felt Padmé’s spark in the Force. He could think, I love her, and know that the pain it caused him was not her problem, nor her obligation to fix. He could think and see clearly why she didn’t want the children trained, and he could admit that the Jedi had done harm, taking infants and teaching them that only one path was truly meaningful, and then deny the majority of them that honor. He could admit it without anger.
They had done harm. They were people, not the Force itself. The Force simply was.
When Leia and Luke snuck around to watch him, at first he simply ignored their presence, as much as he could ignore two suns in his senses. When Leia whispered to Luke, and Luke came up beside him, he opened his eyes but kept meditating.
Luke stared at him, and he – well, he wasn’t really staring back. He wasn’t quite in the same place as Luke, even if his physical form remained still.
“I think I figured it out,” he said, and Obi-Wan dropped out of meditation. In moments two guilty children were in front of him, and he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at the clear mastermind behind the plot.
Luke could be sneaky, yes, but Leia was the master.
“You feel different now,” she said, squinting at him. “Why are you mad at us?”
“Yes you are,” Luke said, before Obi-Wan opened his mouth to deny it. They all blinked, including him. “What were you doing?” he asked, obstinate as his mother. Obi-Wan had wondered where she had gotten her ability to change topics so easily, and while Luke needed training, there was obviously some genetic component to it. He imagined what would have happened if he had also inherited Anakin’s stubbornness, but he didn’t need to, since Leia was standing in front of him, no longer guilty but demanding.
For a moment, Obi-Wan heard Qui-Gon laughing at him from beyond the grave.
“I was meditating. Calming my mind so I could think more clearly.”
“Huh,” Leia said.
Obi-Wan had heard that tone before. It had usually been accompanied by a spectacular, near-miraculous, death-defying gambit (and no, it had not always been Anakin making the move).
“Teach us, please,” she said, pulling down on his hand until he was sitting down. He was fairly certain the Force helped her, which was disturbing on many levels.
Then they stared at him until he explained the breathing pattern, and that it wasn’t about not thinking, just letting the thoughts fly away instead of holding onto them. That was barely scratching the surface, but they had not asked him to teach them about the Force.
This time, Obi-Wan shamelessly blamed the children, and it was the truth. Somehow Padmé saw this in his eyes – she had been saying they’d been plotting things together since they were three, and Obi-Wan suspected that they had started earlier than either of them were comfortable admitting. All she did was sigh and repeat her admonition that her children wouldn’t be Jedi, and he nodded.
He doubted, after seeing how their connection to the Force behaved, that they could ever have been the kind of Jedi the Council approved of.
He hoped that that was a good thing.
You’re in love with her, he didn’t say.
She’s in love with you, and you’re in love with her, and you’ve done something, haven’t you? he didn’t ask.
She’s pregnant. I know that that child is yours. Anakin, tell me, please, tell me that you know what you’re doing, he didn’t plead.
Why don’t you trust me? I’ve known you since you were a child. What have I done to make you think I’m untrustworthy? You are my apprentice. Does that mean nothing to you? he didn’t dare demand.
Watching Anakin kneel to Palpatine and call him Master, seeing what he had done, oh, creator, he had spoken to those younglings, he had watched them practice, all so full of hope that he could feel it in the Force, Obi-Wan nearly fainted.
Yoda’s strength held him when his would have failed, and his eyes were filled with understanding, with empathy and compassion. He had taught these children, just as he had taught Obi-Wan so many years ago. He had not wanted Obi-Wan to teach Anakin.
Was this why? he wondered, but would never ask. Yoda would kill him if he dared suggest that he had allowed this to happen. He would have sent Anakin away after Qui-Gon’s death, the Council’s decision be damned. If he had known, Obi-Wan would have sent Anakin away himself.
This is my fault, he thought.
I’m the one who has to fix it.
Obi-Wan didn’t regret it, in the end.
He had never planned to tell her, of course, and no one actually knew, not even Leia. Darth Vader certainly didn’t know, or he wouldn’t have been able to draw out the battle. He would have been fury itself, darkness smothering him.
He saw the blow coming and sent his own lightsaber flying, trusting Luke to catch it, trusting Padmé to pass it on to Leia.
A thousand images came to mind, as he merged with the Force.
Leia’s face, the first time she used battle meditation on purpose. Her second attempt swamping them all with her frantic desperation. Her repetition of the Gray Code, voice high and clear and filled with conviction. The nightmares she had sometimes, and the way she let him clean up her face after she finished crying. How she’d laughed when he made a sound like a lightsaber, prompting him to repeat the sound at every lesson. The fierce dedication she had to perfecting what she did so that she could protect them. The day she read from the Holy Texts and then later talked about life, and the Force, and how all life was connected, her expression what he imagined it must have been in the Senate. The way her voice sounded the morning after that, telling Luke that he’d better not wall off his feelings, because Mom and Obi deserved to suffer too. The way she looked whenever she beat him at chess, like she’d conquered a planet. The day she’d said goodbye, staring up at him, telling him that she would be fine, and that he should take care of Luke, since Luke couldn’t take care of himself to save his life. How she hadn’t even considered that he wouldn’t take care of himself too.
Pebbles floating in a lazy circle above Luke’s hand. The tears he hid until after everyone had forgotten the incident because he blamed himself for someone trying to kill them. The put-upon expression always under his blindfold. How he ended arguments before they started because he could see how they ended anyway. The horrified expression on his face when he’d asked Obi-Wan what in the world was going on when he started puberty. The first time his voice cracked, and complete silence filled the room. The day he’d read from the Holy Texts and then later talked about the Maccabees, rebellion in his words even though they were all innocent. The ease with which he wielded Anakin’s lightsaber, like it had been made for him. Moving just like his father once had, fixing problems before they could happen and saving their lives during a rough landing. The day he and Leia showed them what they were really capable of. His face on the transport shuttle, hiding tears. The way he’d breathed the air on Tatooine like he’d always lived there.
And Padmé. Her rage and her happiness and her shining, familiar presence. Her face, her hands, her voice, her intelligence, her love that wasn’t his love but was enough, because he could have lost himself and she could have lost herself but instead they found a way through everything together.
Then he was in the Force, and he was hugging Qui-Gon again.
“I missed you,” he said, or thought he said. He was consciousness itself, and so was Qui-Gon, but he couldn’t think about it for long, because something actually stopped him.
Qui-Gon’s voice was warm when he said, “I was always with you, Obi-Wan. Just as you will always be with them.”
He wasn’t lying. Obi-Wan watched Luke travel to Yoda and out-maneuver his logic with no small amount of glee. He watched Leia falling in love with Han Solo the smuggler, and Qui-Gon laughed at his horror.
“They all grow up some time,” he said. “You did.”
He watched the Padmé and the Rebellion, and when he could, he helped. Yoda joined them and glared at Obi-Wan.
“Taught them well, you did,” he admitted, grudgingly, while Leia and Luke fought their respective battles.
“Not all of them,” Obi-Wan said, watching Darth Vader – watching Anakin. He couldn’t help him, and he couldn’t help Luke, but he didn’t have to. He felt it when Anakin threw off the dark like it was a robe, killing the Emperor and destroying the Sith.
When Anakin appeared, he dropped to his knees.
“I can’t ask for forgiveness,” he said.
Obi-Wan pulled him to his feet. He looked like the Anakin he remembered, the Anakin who hadn’t chosen all the wrong things, the Anakin who had seen the imbalance like no one else could.
“Well, you’ve got eternity to atone,” he said. “And you saved my son’s life. If I didn’t forgive you for at least one attempt on my own life, I think it would be unfair.” Unspoken was that Luke might carry Anakin’s name and his power, but that he was Obi-Wan’s son first, and would always be, just like Leia would always be his daughter.
Anakin smiled.
They were all there, watching the celebrations (“I believe Han Solo may have a blaster wedding in his future,” Qui-Gon said, and both Obi-Wan and Anakin stared at him. He shrugged.). When Luke looked in their direction, Obi-Wan smiled at him.
“Go with them. Protect them,” Bail Organa said.
Obi-Wan frowned at him. He wasn’t sure he was actually being serious, or if the shock was talking and he was just trying to do something while the world fell apart.
“She does not want any Jedi with her, especially me,” he said. He shook his head.
“Go with them,” Bail repeated, hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. He looked at him with an intensity that reminded Obi-Wan of Qui-Gon. “They’re your family. If you don’t go with them, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Obi-Wan opened his mouth to deny that Padmé Amidala was his family, to say that he had no family, but the words wouldn’t come. He closed his mouth, and he looked at the woman currently making travel arrangements while balancing twins in her arms, one who was starting to fuss.
He’d failed at protecting everyone else he cared about. Why would this be different?
“This is not the end, Obi-Wan. It is the beginning.” Qui-Gon’s voice was barely a whisper, a ripple in the Force, but it was not his imagination. Of that, he was certain.
He nodded, and when Bail nudged him, he walked over to Padmé and took the crying girl – Leia – from her arms.
“Add one more,” he said. She scowled, but she accepted his help.
He had two lightsabers on his hip.
Maybe it was chance.
He kept them both, just in case.