Bleed Just To Know You're Alive. 2/?.
Period: Post-ROTS.
Rating: PG-13.
Genre: Angst, with a bit of humor thrown in for balance. Star Wars is all about balance, after all.
Keyword: Brotherhood, friendship, reconciliation.
Summary: The Emperor is dead, Darth Vader no more. On Coruscant Obi-Wan Kenobi
struggles to build the Jedi Order anew, but he is haunted by nightmares
he can't remember and a past he wishes he could forget. Desperate for
answers and some kind of peace, he sets out to find the only one who
might possily offer it - if he is willing.
Warnings: Possible mentions of self-injury later on.
Where will you look for him? A question Yoda had not posed, and that was just as well, because Obi-Wan would not have been able to answer it. From his former apprentice there had been no word, no sign of life, not for fourteen months. When last they met, on the fiery hell that was Mustafar, they had not met as friends.
Though he would rather not, Obi-Wan remembered:
Whoever this man was, he could not be Anakin. Anakin’s eyes were blue, not yellow, not red. Anakin burned bright like supernova in the Force; he did not suck the light away as a black hole would. Anakin would rather die than hurt Padmé; would rather die than betray Obi-Wan. And since that was Padmé’s unconscious form on the ground, and since this was Obi-Wan was fighting for his life, the creature wearing Anakin’s face and wielding Anakin’s blade could not be Anakin. Could not be his brother.
Yet, Obi-Wan pleaded with him: “Anakin, the Chancellor is evil!”
Bared teeth in a feral, furious snarl. “From my point of view the Jedi are evil!”
Then you are lost, Obi-Wan thought, and would have said it aloud had he not been interrupted -
“Anakin… “
The single whisper, pained and weak, was enough to do what all of Obi-Wan’s desperate attempts at reasoning had not; it gave the man who was not Anakin pause. Lowering his blade just a fraction, he glanced towards the woman trying to get herself into a sitting position on the ground. “Padmé… “
Obi-Wan did not hesitate. He lunged, raising his blade high for a blow that would take not-Anakin’s arm. But the other looked up, managed to dodge, and then something very hard slammed into the side of Obi-Wan’s head and all went dark -
---
When he woke up he was alone. Anakin was gone and so was Padmé, her ship and the two droids. Fighting against the sickening pain in his head, Obi-Wan got to his feet. His lightsaber lay on the ground just a few meters away. Unsteadily, he picked it up and stumblingly made his way toward Anakin’s star fighter. It was not until he reached it that he realized that without an astromech he would not be able to pilot it.
Exhausted he sat down on the ground, leaning back against a convenient rock. He closed his eyes and let himself drift away.
---
When next he awoke, it was inside a bacta tank on a barren planetoid called Polis Massa. Concerned, Bail and Yoda had decided to come looking for him when he had not made it to the rendezvous point. This he was told later; of his rescue he remembered nothing.
It was there on Polis Massa they learned, shockingly, that Palpatine had been killed and proof of his treachery released to the press. Wary of another trick like the Temple beacon calling all Jedi back to Coruscant, the three of them had covertly made their way to the capitol, only to find that it was true. Palpatine’s reign of terror was over almost before it begun and the Senate was falling over itself in its feverish disavowal of ‘the Emperor’, decrying his ‘terrible massacre of our noble Jedi Knights’.
And in the deserted Temple, someone had left a pair of infants, a boy and a girl, in the care of two droids. “Their names are Luke and Leia, Master Kenobi,” Threepio told him. Obi-Wan had not replied, merely reached out to gently touch the babies’ tiny faces. He was too numb to weep.
It was another two days before Bail sent word that Padmé’s body had been delivered to her family on Naboo. “I’m sorry,” Anakin had told them, and her parents had assumed that he meant sorry for their loss.
That was the last anyone heard of Anakin Skywalker.
---
And here he was now, Obi-Wan Kenobi, alone in his cockpit, staring out into the black expanse of cold space. Such a vast place, the galaxy. Worlds without number, stars beyond counting. To find someone here who did not want to be found…
But the Force was Obi-Wan’s ally, and a powerful ally it was. He closed his eyes, relaxed, reaching out and drawing inside at the same time. He imagined that he could hear Qui-Gon’s voice: Let go of your conscious self. Let go of your desires and your fears. Let the Force flow through you. Be one with the Force. Be one -
How long he stayed in his trance he could not say, but when he opened his eyes again he opened them to the nauseating swirl of light that was hyperspace. Glancing down at the navi computer, he was momentarily startled. Not by the fact that he must have fed to it the co-ordinates while still deep in trance, but by the planned destination. I did not expect him to ever want to return here.
Then again, there was much I never expected him to do.
---
The Force had led him to the planet; he had to guess at the more exact location. Still, Obi-Wan did not hesitate for long, and as he made his way from the ship into Mos Espa he was glad that he had not accompanied Qui-Gon on his search for spare parts all those years ago. The irony of the situation was cruel enough as it was without him recognizing every hovel and dusty shop he passed.
He could not sense Anakin’s presence, and he did not dare reach out with the Force either, for fear of alerting the other to his coming. It seemed he would have to rely on less esoteric means to find his… what? Friend? Foe?
Brother?
What you find… what you look for, it might not be. Yoda’s words, echoing in his mind.
Obi-Wan sighed. Part of him already wished he had not come.
---
The small room was even sparser than Obi-Wan’s own austere quarters on Coruscant. A bed, a rickety table, a simple chair and a large electric fan, nothing more. But it was clean, and it was cheap, and the small window high up under the roof let the bright red light of the desert sunset fall on the wall.
The street in front of the hotel was a busy one, but Obi-Wan’s room faced the backyard, and it was blessedly quiet there. Weary after his trip and seeing little point in staying up, he undressed and slipped in under the thin blanket. Tomorrow he would begin his search in earnest.
Sleep was a long time coming.
---
“Last call for bets! Place your bets here! Last call!”
“Get the autographs of your favorite racers! A hundred percent authentic!”
“Bantha skewers! Mister, you wanna buy some bantha skewers?” The Rodian stepped in front of Obi-Wan and waved a juice-dripping skewer under the Jedi’s nose. It smelled rather nice, but he had not come here for the food.
“Thank you, no,” he said politely. The Rodian shrugged and turned away in search of other potential customers. He did not have to look far; while not as long, dangerous or prestigious as the Boonta Eve Classic, Mos Espa Open still managed to attract a sizeable crowd, and the Grand Arena was bustling with frantic activity as spectators competed for the best seats.
The race in itself held little interest for Obi-Wan though, and he carefully made his way through crowd towards the large hangar where the pods and racers would be tended to by their crews. If Anakin was here, that would be the most likely place to find him. Or so Obi-Wan hoped.
After a week spent in search of his former Padawan, he was growing frustrated in a way most uncharacteristic of him. Patience had not always been his strongest virtue - as Qui-Gon had liked to point out - but as he had matured into a man and a Jedi, he had learned to accept that things would happen in their own time, and that little could be gained by trying to rush them. There was peace in such an acceptance, and it was a peace he sorely missed these dreary days of restlessly wandering the streets of Mos Espa, looking for a man he was not even sure he wanted to find.
He had made his way to Tatooine with such ease; he should have known that the rest of the road would be harder. Unwilling as he was to use the Force, he had to rely on old-fashioned investigation techniques, and unfortunately such techniques proved difficult to implement when he had neither name nor picture nor anything else to go on. He had to assume that Anakin was using an alias and concealing his appearance - even on a Force-forsaken backwater planet like Tatooine, the Hero With No Fear would not go unrecognized.
Neither would the Negotiator, and so Obi-Wan kept his hood up at all times. So far, no one had guessed at his true identity.
“Hey, you! Where do you think you’re going?” As he was about to enter the hangar, a massively fat Twi’lek female blocked his path, pointing at him with a smoking pipe. “You have a pass? Only crew members are allowed in here before the race.”
Obi-Wan hesitated. His first instinct was to use a mind trick, but if Anakin actually was in the hangar he would undoubtedly sense that. “I’m not a crew member,” he told the Twi’lek. “But I have a very important message to Racho Slan.” Seeing her suspiciously narrowed eyes, he quickly added in a conspiratorial whisper, “It is from Jabba himself.”
“I didn’t know Jabba would attend this race.“
“Oh, he will not. But he has a… certain interest in the outcome that he would like to communicate to Slan.” He hoped that sounded fishy enough for her to believe in it. When she still did not look convinced, he pulled a couple of local coins out of his pocket. “Jabba will be most grateful for your kind assistance,” he murmured, pressing the coins into the Twi’lek’s hand.
For a moment he thought she would refuse him entrance, but then she shrugged and stepped aside to let him pass. “Give him the damn message, then. But,” she called after Obi-Wan as he made his way through the enormous doors, “if there’s any sabotage or other funny business I’ll come looking for you, don’t think that I won’t!”
Obi-Wan forgot her as soon the doors had closed behind him. Eagerly, he scanned the hangar, let his eyes wander over mechanics and aids and racers -
He was not there.
Disappointment churned in his stomach, oddly complemented by a tiny surge of relief. He slowly made his way around the place, stepping over pit droids and thick cables, wanting to make absolutely sure that Anakin was not there. He had had such a good feeling about coming to the race…
Can he have sensed my arrival and left town?
Well, it was certainly possible, but he did not believe it. Anakin was here, in Mos Espa, and somehow Obi-Wan would find him.
Somehow.
As he turned to leave, he stepped on a hydrospanner carelessly left on the floor, lost his balance, and narrowly missed crashing into one of the pods.
“Watch it!” cried a thin voice, and out from under the pod scuttled a Xamster dressed in blue coveralls. “What the hell you doin’? You crazy? You spy? You come here to break my racer? What?” His pointed ears twitched nervously.
“My apologies,” Obi-Wan said, righting himself. “I stumbled.”
“Stumled? You don’t watch where you going? Huh? You come here to break my racer? Maz sent you? Maz sent you, didn’t she?”
Obi-Wan wondered fleetingly if the agitation was normal to the species, spice-induced or fuelled by nervousness of the up-coming race. He made a placating gesture. “No one sent me. I was looking for… a friend.”
“Uhn.” The racer stared hard at the Jedi for a moment before visibly relaxing. “Friend. Okay. No harm.” As if embarrassed by his suspiciousness, he shrugged. “My racer is very special. First time I fly her today. Lots of people wanna break it, ruin my race.” He nodded empathically and slapped the side of the pod. “Very special.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Had the engine made special. This mechanic guy, he says she’s the fastest pod ever made.” The Xamster shook his head in what appeared to be disbelieving awe. “This human, he’s a genius. He fixes everything, makes everything better. He built the engine himself from scratch. The fastest pod ever made.”
Obi-Wan had become very still. He did not reach for the Force; he did not need to. A tingling sensation worked its way down his spine, and he knew. When he spoke his voice seemed to come from far away. “Where can I find this man?”
---
He almost walked away. Standing outside of the derelict building, staring at the non-descript door pointed out to him by a helpful urchin, he almost turned around and walked away. I don’t have to do this. I can still go back to Coruscant, back to my duties, and forget all of this.
Yoda’s voice again: What you find… what you look for, it might not be.
Obi-Wan opened the door and walked in without knocking.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the street’s glaring sunlight to relative dark of the windowless room he entered. It was small, its walls lined with working benches and shelves, the floor cluttered with pieces of machinery. A couple of red chairs had been placed in one corner.
Obi-Wan hardly registered it. All of his senses, all of his being, were focused on the man on the far side of the workshop. He had been crouching on the floor with his back turned towards the door, but as it opened he had risen, and now he was facing Obi-Wan. A tall man, dressed in gray, his face hidden in a poncho’s deep cowl.
With detached curiosity, Obi-Wan noted that the urge to hug him was as strong as the urge to hit him.
Slowly he raised his hands to lower his hood. “Hello, Anakin.”
---
Chapter 3: The First to Break
Rating: PG-13.
Genre: Angst, with a bit of humor thrown in for balance. Star Wars is all about balance, after all.
Keyword: Brotherhood, friendship, reconciliation.
Summary: The Emperor is dead, Darth Vader no more. On Coruscant Obi-Wan Kenobi
struggles to build the Jedi Order anew, but he is haunted by nightmares
he can't remember and a past he wishes he could forget. Desperate for
answers and some kind of peace, he sets out to find the only one who
might possily offer it - if he is willing.
Warnings: Possible mentions of self-injury later on.
Where will you look for him? A question Yoda had not posed, and that was just as well, because Obi-Wan would not have been able to answer it. From his former apprentice there had been no word, no sign of life, not for fourteen months. When last they met, on the fiery hell that was Mustafar, they had not met as friends.
Though he would rather not, Obi-Wan remembered:
Whoever this man was, he could not be Anakin. Anakin’s eyes were blue, not yellow, not red. Anakin burned bright like supernova in the Force; he did not suck the light away as a black hole would. Anakin would rather die than hurt Padmé; would rather die than betray Obi-Wan. And since that was Padmé’s unconscious form on the ground, and since this was Obi-Wan was fighting for his life, the creature wearing Anakin’s face and wielding Anakin’s blade could not be Anakin. Could not be his brother.
Yet, Obi-Wan pleaded with him: “Anakin, the Chancellor is evil!”
Bared teeth in a feral, furious snarl. “From my point of view the Jedi are evil!”
Then you are lost, Obi-Wan thought, and would have said it aloud had he not been interrupted -
“Anakin… “
The single whisper, pained and weak, was enough to do what all of Obi-Wan’s desperate attempts at reasoning had not; it gave the man who was not Anakin pause. Lowering his blade just a fraction, he glanced towards the woman trying to get herself into a sitting position on the ground. “Padmé… “
Obi-Wan did not hesitate. He lunged, raising his blade high for a blow that would take not-Anakin’s arm. But the other looked up, managed to dodge, and then something very hard slammed into the side of Obi-Wan’s head and all went dark -
---
When he woke up he was alone. Anakin was gone and so was Padmé, her ship and the two droids. Fighting against the sickening pain in his head, Obi-Wan got to his feet. His lightsaber lay on the ground just a few meters away. Unsteadily, he picked it up and stumblingly made his way toward Anakin’s star fighter. It was not until he reached it that he realized that without an astromech he would not be able to pilot it.
Exhausted he sat down on the ground, leaning back against a convenient rock. He closed his eyes and let himself drift away.
---
When next he awoke, it was inside a bacta tank on a barren planetoid called Polis Massa. Concerned, Bail and Yoda had decided to come looking for him when he had not made it to the rendezvous point. This he was told later; of his rescue he remembered nothing.
It was there on Polis Massa they learned, shockingly, that Palpatine had been killed and proof of his treachery released to the press. Wary of another trick like the Temple beacon calling all Jedi back to Coruscant, the three of them had covertly made their way to the capitol, only to find that it was true. Palpatine’s reign of terror was over almost before it begun and the Senate was falling over itself in its feverish disavowal of ‘the Emperor’, decrying his ‘terrible massacre of our noble Jedi Knights’.
And in the deserted Temple, someone had left a pair of infants, a boy and a girl, in the care of two droids. “Their names are Luke and Leia, Master Kenobi,” Threepio told him. Obi-Wan had not replied, merely reached out to gently touch the babies’ tiny faces. He was too numb to weep.
It was another two days before Bail sent word that Padmé’s body had been delivered to her family on Naboo. “I’m sorry,” Anakin had told them, and her parents had assumed that he meant sorry for their loss.
That was the last anyone heard of Anakin Skywalker.
---
And here he was now, Obi-Wan Kenobi, alone in his cockpit, staring out into the black expanse of cold space. Such a vast place, the galaxy. Worlds without number, stars beyond counting. To find someone here who did not want to be found…
But the Force was Obi-Wan’s ally, and a powerful ally it was. He closed his eyes, relaxed, reaching out and drawing inside at the same time. He imagined that he could hear Qui-Gon’s voice: Let go of your conscious self. Let go of your desires and your fears. Let the Force flow through you. Be one with the Force. Be one -
How long he stayed in his trance he could not say, but when he opened his eyes again he opened them to the nauseating swirl of light that was hyperspace. Glancing down at the navi computer, he was momentarily startled. Not by the fact that he must have fed to it the co-ordinates while still deep in trance, but by the planned destination. I did not expect him to ever want to return here.
Then again, there was much I never expected him to do.
---
The Force had led him to the planet; he had to guess at the more exact location. Still, Obi-Wan did not hesitate for long, and as he made his way from the ship into Mos Espa he was glad that he had not accompanied Qui-Gon on his search for spare parts all those years ago. The irony of the situation was cruel enough as it was without him recognizing every hovel and dusty shop he passed.
He could not sense Anakin’s presence, and he did not dare reach out with the Force either, for fear of alerting the other to his coming. It seemed he would have to rely on less esoteric means to find his… what? Friend? Foe?
Brother?
What you find… what you look for, it might not be. Yoda’s words, echoing in his mind.
Obi-Wan sighed. Part of him already wished he had not come.
---
The small room was even sparser than Obi-Wan’s own austere quarters on Coruscant. A bed, a rickety table, a simple chair and a large electric fan, nothing more. But it was clean, and it was cheap, and the small window high up under the roof let the bright red light of the desert sunset fall on the wall.
The street in front of the hotel was a busy one, but Obi-Wan’s room faced the backyard, and it was blessedly quiet there. Weary after his trip and seeing little point in staying up, he undressed and slipped in under the thin blanket. Tomorrow he would begin his search in earnest.
Sleep was a long time coming.
---
“Last call for bets! Place your bets here! Last call!”
“Get the autographs of your favorite racers! A hundred percent authentic!”
“Bantha skewers! Mister, you wanna buy some bantha skewers?” The Rodian stepped in front of Obi-Wan and waved a juice-dripping skewer under the Jedi’s nose. It smelled rather nice, but he had not come here for the food.
“Thank you, no,” he said politely. The Rodian shrugged and turned away in search of other potential customers. He did not have to look far; while not as long, dangerous or prestigious as the Boonta Eve Classic, Mos Espa Open still managed to attract a sizeable crowd, and the Grand Arena was bustling with frantic activity as spectators competed for the best seats.
The race in itself held little interest for Obi-Wan though, and he carefully made his way through crowd towards the large hangar where the pods and racers would be tended to by their crews. If Anakin was here, that would be the most likely place to find him. Or so Obi-Wan hoped.
After a week spent in search of his former Padawan, he was growing frustrated in a way most uncharacteristic of him. Patience had not always been his strongest virtue - as Qui-Gon had liked to point out - but as he had matured into a man and a Jedi, he had learned to accept that things would happen in their own time, and that little could be gained by trying to rush them. There was peace in such an acceptance, and it was a peace he sorely missed these dreary days of restlessly wandering the streets of Mos Espa, looking for a man he was not even sure he wanted to find.
He had made his way to Tatooine with such ease; he should have known that the rest of the road would be harder. Unwilling as he was to use the Force, he had to rely on old-fashioned investigation techniques, and unfortunately such techniques proved difficult to implement when he had neither name nor picture nor anything else to go on. He had to assume that Anakin was using an alias and concealing his appearance - even on a Force-forsaken backwater planet like Tatooine, the Hero With No Fear would not go unrecognized.
Neither would the Negotiator, and so Obi-Wan kept his hood up at all times. So far, no one had guessed at his true identity.
“Hey, you! Where do you think you’re going?” As he was about to enter the hangar, a massively fat Twi’lek female blocked his path, pointing at him with a smoking pipe. “You have a pass? Only crew members are allowed in here before the race.”
Obi-Wan hesitated. His first instinct was to use a mind trick, but if Anakin actually was in the hangar he would undoubtedly sense that. “I’m not a crew member,” he told the Twi’lek. “But I have a very important message to Racho Slan.” Seeing her suspiciously narrowed eyes, he quickly added in a conspiratorial whisper, “It is from Jabba himself.”
“I didn’t know Jabba would attend this race.“
“Oh, he will not. But he has a… certain interest in the outcome that he would like to communicate to Slan.” He hoped that sounded fishy enough for her to believe in it. When she still did not look convinced, he pulled a couple of local coins out of his pocket. “Jabba will be most grateful for your kind assistance,” he murmured, pressing the coins into the Twi’lek’s hand.
For a moment he thought she would refuse him entrance, but then she shrugged and stepped aside to let him pass. “Give him the damn message, then. But,” she called after Obi-Wan as he made his way through the enormous doors, “if there’s any sabotage or other funny business I’ll come looking for you, don’t think that I won’t!”
Obi-Wan forgot her as soon the doors had closed behind him. Eagerly, he scanned the hangar, let his eyes wander over mechanics and aids and racers -
He was not there.
Disappointment churned in his stomach, oddly complemented by a tiny surge of relief. He slowly made his way around the place, stepping over pit droids and thick cables, wanting to make absolutely sure that Anakin was not there. He had had such a good feeling about coming to the race…
Can he have sensed my arrival and left town?
Well, it was certainly possible, but he did not believe it. Anakin was here, in Mos Espa, and somehow Obi-Wan would find him.
Somehow.
As he turned to leave, he stepped on a hydrospanner carelessly left on the floor, lost his balance, and narrowly missed crashing into one of the pods.
“Watch it!” cried a thin voice, and out from under the pod scuttled a Xamster dressed in blue coveralls. “What the hell you doin’? You crazy? You spy? You come here to break my racer? What?” His pointed ears twitched nervously.
“My apologies,” Obi-Wan said, righting himself. “I stumbled.”
“Stumled? You don’t watch where you going? Huh? You come here to break my racer? Maz sent you? Maz sent you, didn’t she?”
Obi-Wan wondered fleetingly if the agitation was normal to the species, spice-induced or fuelled by nervousness of the up-coming race. He made a placating gesture. “No one sent me. I was looking for… a friend.”
“Uhn.” The racer stared hard at the Jedi for a moment before visibly relaxing. “Friend. Okay. No harm.” As if embarrassed by his suspiciousness, he shrugged. “My racer is very special. First time I fly her today. Lots of people wanna break it, ruin my race.” He nodded empathically and slapped the side of the pod. “Very special.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Had the engine made special. This mechanic guy, he says she’s the fastest pod ever made.” The Xamster shook his head in what appeared to be disbelieving awe. “This human, he’s a genius. He fixes everything, makes everything better. He built the engine himself from scratch. The fastest pod ever made.”
Obi-Wan had become very still. He did not reach for the Force; he did not need to. A tingling sensation worked its way down his spine, and he knew. When he spoke his voice seemed to come from far away. “Where can I find this man?”
---
He almost walked away. Standing outside of the derelict building, staring at the non-descript door pointed out to him by a helpful urchin, he almost turned around and walked away. I don’t have to do this. I can still go back to Coruscant, back to my duties, and forget all of this.
Yoda’s voice again: What you find… what you look for, it might not be.
Obi-Wan opened the door and walked in without knocking.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the street’s glaring sunlight to relative dark of the windowless room he entered. It was small, its walls lined with working benches and shelves, the floor cluttered with pieces of machinery. A couple of red chairs had been placed in one corner.
Obi-Wan hardly registered it. All of his senses, all of his being, were focused on the man on the far side of the workshop. He had been crouching on the floor with his back turned towards the door, but as it opened he had risen, and now he was facing Obi-Wan. A tall man, dressed in gray, his face hidden in a poncho’s deep cowl.
With detached curiosity, Obi-Wan noted that the urge to hug him was as strong as the urge to hit him.
Slowly he raised his hands to lower his hood. “Hello, Anakin.”
---
Chapter 3: The First to Break