Chapter Text
Chapter 1. - Demands
“Why did you do this? WHY?” Anakin shouted into the air.
He jumped up from the meditation mat, not even pretending anymore that there was any chance of him achieving peacefulness and a state of empty mind. He tried to do it as he knew his Master would have wanted him to let go of the storm of emotions that were raging inside of him. But it was impossible.
“Emotion, yet peace. Death, yet the Force… My arse,” Anakin chuckled humourlessly.
Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was a desperate Ahsoka leaning over the lifeless body of Obi-Wan or the soulless but mournful funeral he had just attended. He would never see his Master again, and that thought crushed him. Even the idea of Obi-Wan never dryly criticizing his piloting or saying his name with fond exasperation as a reaction to a thoughtless comment was totally soul-killing.
Anakin felt helpless. Lost. Angry. Powerless.
But even more so, he was angry and desperate. When his mother died, he promised himself and the galaxy that he would get stronger and not let anything similar happen ever again. Yet it did. His Master was dead. His Master, who so easily led troops into war, destroying droid after droid effortlessly, was killed by a random bounty hunter on a simple walk home, not even far from the Temple district. He had no one else, but Padmé and Ahsoka left. But if he had lost his mother and his Master so easily, how could he keep at least his wife and Padawan alive? He was obviously not strong enough to keep those he loved safe.
“If I’m the Chosen One… Why can’t I save anyone?” he asked with desperation.
He was alone in a secluded meditation chamber. One of the many rooms in the Temple he found as a youngling. He used to disappear into the more hidden nooks of the enormous building when he needed a moment for himself. He was utterly alone here. He could only feel the other Jedi’s Force signatures distantly. So, he was not awaiting any answer. Not from any sentients at least. However, he felt that the Force owed him an explanation.
“Why couldn’t I save him?”
He leaned against the wall, feeling wobbly due to shaking with unshed tears.
“WHY?” he practically screamed, his voice echoing in the sparsely decorated meditation room.
He hit the wall with his real arm with as much force as he could manage. He hissed with pain on impact, but it was welcomed. For a moment, he was distracted from the gaping hole in his heart and the darkness that swirled around him. He hit it again and again, feeling more alive the more his hand hurt.
“I didn’t even have a chance to save him,” he muttered as he finally stopped the assault after the pain became numbing. He probably at least bruised it if not broken a bone or two, but he couldn’t care.
Having his mother die in his arms was awful. But at least she was still alive when he got to her. He was there with her as she took her last breath. Obi-Wan just died in a second. One moment, he was okay, and the next, he was no more. It felt impossible. It was simply wrong that Anakin wasn’t even given a chance to help him. They were supposed to look out for each other. Protect each other. But he couldn’t help his Master at all.
The first tears broke free, and they ran down his feverish cheeks. He nearly clawed at his own face to wipe them off. Then he suddenly straightened.
“Give me a chance,” Anakin addressed the Force more directly now. “Let me save him! LET ME SAVE HIM! I deserve that at least.”
There was nothing but silence. So deep and eerie that Anakin felt completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy, like it was just him and the pulsating elemental power that was the Force, which surrounded him like water did when one submerged in it. He didn’t even feel the rest of the brightly shining Jedi or the millions of other sentients that inhabited the city-planet in the Force. He felt void, but it was unlike when he had Force suppressant shackles on. He felt the never-ending energy of the Force, just nothing else. He collapsed at the base of the wall and rested his forehead against the cool wall. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to break out of this numbness.
***
Anakin woke up on the floor of a room he did not recognize. The countless Force-sensitives' bright presence in the Force around him indicated to him, though, that he was still in the Jedi Temple. He felt disoriented and dizzy. Much like when he woke up from a very realistic and soul-crashing nightmare, like when his mother was kidnapped. Was it all just a bad dream? Or was maybe Obi-Wan’s fall to death and his funeral just a vision? A future that Anakin could still stop?
The room where he found himself was dusty and dark. It was probably once one of the many storage rooms where the Quartermaster kept the currently unused furniture that could still be assigned to the living quarters upon request, based on the stacked rows of chairs, a few tables, and cabinets that had white sheets on them to protect them from dust and time. However, it seemed abandoned, as if no one had visited this storeroom in ages. The cleaning droids certainly forgot to come in and clean it. He didn’t even know the planet had spiders, but he had certainly spotted webs in the corners which practically glowed in the eerie darkness. He stood up and walked out, confused by what had happened. Was his failed meditation just part of the nightmare as well? How did he end up in this storage area? Was he maybe sleepwalking? He hadn’t done so before, but he couldn’t imagine any other explanation.
He remembered his nightmare of Obi-Wan dying and his reaction to it. His rage and then his tears. He didn’t understand his dream self, but he hoped he would never need to. He didn’t ever want to live through what he had experienced in the nightmare. Still, objectively, his request to the Force made no sense. He recalled begging the Force to let him save his Master. But he wasn’t certain how that could have been even achieved in his dream world, as Obi-Wan was dead, not just injured or dying. However, he certainly understood his demand to the Force for providing a solution. He couldn’t accept losing Obi-Wan, too. Not so soon after his mother. Never, really.
He reached out in the Force and sensed Obi-Wan immediately to his relief. Obi-Wan was alive. It really was all just a bad dream, nothing more. He felt Obi-Wan’s calm mind, but somewhat differently than usual. There was something odd about their Force bond. However, it was probably due to Anakin’s emotional imbalance. This nightmare had rattled him. Of course, in his unsettled mind, their bond would feel distant and muted, just an echo. Or maybe Obi-Wan was very far away, and it was the distance between them that caused the difference. Anakin tried to remember what was real and what was only part of the dream vision, but he felt too disoriented to differentiate between them.
He decided he needed some more relaxing sleep. Usually, when he had the chance to spend the night on Coruscant, he would go to Padmé’s apartment, but he felt too jaded to make even the short trip now. He would work it out in the morning, where exactly Obi-Wan was, and what was part of his exhausting dream and what was reality. He became even more disoriented as he left the storage room, because the corridor it connected to reminded him a lot of the one where the meditation chamber from his nightmare was located.
He started walking in what he hoped was the direction of his quarters. He reached the familiar door relatively quickly. It was obviously so late in the night that the corridors were practically empty. He passed only a few Temple Guards and a female green Twi’lek Padawan who was so engrossed in a datapad she had been reading that she didn’t even look up from it. He pushed his code into the device next to the door to open it, but he must have messed it up, because it beeped and remained closed. He repeated the process again and again, but it did not open. He blinked. He couldn’t have forgotten his passcode as it was the date of his wedding anniversary. Was he so confused by the dream that he was unable to push some numbers correctly? He studied the console as he had never used it before to ensure the numbers were where he remembered them, but it did not solve the mystery.
To his surprise, suddenly the door opened. A scowling Kiffar male Padawan was standing in the entrance. It was a teenager with black hair, brown eyes, tan skin, and yellow tattoos on his face. Were it not for the beaded braid, the awful Padawan cut for humanoid boys, and the youthful face, Anakin would have sworn that he was faced with Quinlan Vos. But the Kiffar Master Anakin knew was even a few years older than Obi-Wan. So the resemblance must have been due to familial connections. Anakin supposed the apprentice he didn’t know was from the same clan and maybe even family as Vos. A nephew or a younger cousin, maybe? It didn’t explain his presence in Anakin’s rooms, though.
“Who are you, kid, and what are you doing in my quarters?” Anakin demanded. In normal circumstances, he would at least greet the intruder. However, his mood was certainly soured enough at the moment not to care about the countless etiquette lessons and lectures about proper behaviour that Obi-Wan had forced on him over the years.
The boy crossed his arms.
“Your quarters? You are mistaken. These are mine,” he said with clear annoyance in his voice.
Anakin looked around the corridor due to his previous confusion, but he was not mistaken. He was on the right one, so this had to be his room.
“Look, kid, I was a Padawan once. I liked playing pranks myself, but I’m not in a good mood. If you go away right now, I promise I won’t tell on you to your Master,” Anakin said with a sigh.
The boy raised his eyebrow with an unimpressed look.
“Master…” he stretched out the word, obviously waiting for Anakin to provide his name.
“Knight Anakin Skywalker.”
To Anakin’s surprise, there was no recognition in the boy’s eyes when he gave his name. It was unusual. The Jedi Council tried to keep quiet about their suspicion regarding the Chosen One prophecy, but Anakin’s unique circumstances and abilities were enough to warrant much gossip about him over the years. His presence in the Order was well-established by the rumour mill, so he didn’t think any youngling got to grow up in the créche without having heard of him, and that was even before the war, where he became sort-of a celebrity due to the HoloNet hailing him as a hero.
“Right,” the boy said. “Master Skywalker, just look at the name tag right under the number pad. It says right there. Tholme-Vos. As in Master Tholme, my Master and Quinlan Vos. Me.” The boy practically jabbed the name tag.
Anakin blinked once. Twice. Three times. Indeed, it said Tholme-Vos.
What the…?
Kark.
Anakin looked at the Padawan again. Could this really be Quinlan Vos? Anakin remembered seeing a photo of his Master as a young apprentice with his older friend, but he couldn’t recall how exactly Vos looked in it. Anakin mostly paid attention to Obi-Wan when studying it. But the boy in front of him looked a lot like how Anakin imagined a younger version of the Kiffar Master. He noticed the similarities right away, but he just attributed them to family legacy.
How was that possible? Still, the name Master Tholme also rang a bell for Anakin. He knew that was the name of the Master of Vos’s. Either Vos was playing a very elaborate prank on Anakin, and he went to such great lengths as finding a boy who looked just like him, or Anakin was in a lot of trouble. He reached out to sense the Padawan in the Force and was startled to find that the Force signature was too familiar for a stranger. The teenager in front of him felt like Vos.
Kriffin’ hells. How was this possible?
“Right. Sorry. I must be on the wrong floor,” Anakin muttered. “Good night, Padawan Vos.”
“Good night,” Vos reluctantly said as he turned around and closed the door after himself.
Anakin stood in front of the quarter for a long moment. Could there be another Quinlan Vos in the Order who looked just like the one Anakin knew and also had a Master with the same name? That seemed too much of a coincidence, he decided. The only possible solution that occurred to Anakin was that he somehow ended up in the past. Many years before his own time, though, because he knew that by the time he arrived at the Temple, Vos was already knighted and certainly not a teenager.
He clenched his fists only to feel pain in his flesh hand. Kark. His hand hurt a lot. How did that even happen? Suddenly, a memory flashed into his mind that he had associated with the nightmare. He was hitting the wall in the meditation chamber with all his might to cause himself pain and to work out his anger. He thought it was all just part of the vision, but maybe it happened. If he were in the past, maybe all he had thought was just a bad dream that really happened. He felt faint at the idea of Obi-Wan dying actually happening, but it was a possibility. Even though time travel sounded even more unbelievable than a well-organized prank. So Anakin decided that he would go to the Archives. He needed to know for certain what the current date was.
He walked quickly, not paying much attention to his surroundings, letting muscle memory and the Force guide him to the Archives. However, he must have looked suspicious doing so, because a Temple Guard stopped him in the library’s entrance. Anakin practically froze when the Guard spoke up. “Please identify yourself.”
“Knight Anakin Skywalker,” he muttered.
This encounter had already solidified in Anakin’s mind that this was not the Temple he knew. He didn’t remember ever being asked by the Guards to give his name. Just like the younglings knew who he was due to all the rumours about him, the Guards did as well. Anakin couldn’t see the Guard’s eyes due to the mask, but he felt his gaze on himself.
The Guard a second later, was pushing the characters on the keyboard of a datapad, which screeched and flashed with red light. “Please hand me your lightsaber and come with me now.”
Anakin’s first thought was that even in his current daze, he probably could take on the Guard. The Jedi whose task was to protect the Temple and who wielded the traditional yellow lightsaber pikes were selected due to their great abilities in defence, but if this was the past, as Anakin had suspected, the Guard would underestimate him. He couldn’t understand the power Anakin had. However, Anakin knew full well that if he started fighting one of the Jedi Vanguards, others would quickly come to the aid of their struggling associate. Even Anakin couldn’t fight half the Jedi Temple.
His next thought was to run, but then it occurred to him that there was nowhere for him to go. If even Quinlan Vos was barely a teen, then Anakin himself probably didn’t even exist yet. He couldn’t show up on Tatooine and surprise his mother, who didn’t even know she would one day give life to him. He couldn’t go to Padmé’s apartment either, because she wouldn’t be living there. She would be on Naboo, still in a crib, probably if she were even alive already. He could run, but he would be alone in a galaxy in which he was not even a thought yet. No identification, no support, no one he knew. Practically all the people he knew in this time period would be at the Temple. So, it only made sense for him to remain there as well.
So, after a long moment of hesitation, where the Guard was obviously ready to strike, if Anakin made the wrong move, Anakin handed him his inactivated lightsaber, and then he followed the masked Jedi.
“I’ve just recently arrived in Coruscant from an outpost,” Anakin offered.
“You are not in our systems,” the Guard stated firmly.
Anakin wanted to argue that the man could have misspelled his name, but he knew well that even if it had been well written, he wouldn’t show up in the Jedi database. With each moment, it became clearer that he was in the past. Surely more than twenty years before his own time, based on the youthful face of Vos, so no one would know yet about Anakin Skywalker.
Still, he cringed at the thought that now he had given multiple people his real name. Did he already mess up the future? When Qui-Gon was to find nine-year-old Anakin on Tatooine, would they recognize in the little boy the man he had become? Anakin didn’t know, but he knew that it was too late to lie about his name. He hoped that he would quickly get back to his own time, and in the years to come, hopefully, the Temple would forget about the stranger sharing the same name.
“It’s a mistake. I’m from a different Temple, and obviously, my data is missing. Surely you feel in the Force that I’m a Jedi,” Anakin insisted. While the information system of the Temple would not be on his side, the Force certainly was. A well-trained Jedi, like a Temple Guard, had to sense that Anakin had studied the Force but did not reek of darkness.
“You will spend the night in the detention center, and you will be taken to the High Council in the morning.”
Anakin scoffed. Great, exactly what he wanted and needed. He followed the other Jedi without giving him any problem, though. Anakin was already in enough trouble anyway. There was no need to cause more.