Star Wars work in progress You Became to Me

[polgarawolf]

Eleventh part of a WIP
Title: You Became to Me (as suggested by avari_maethor)
*Pairing: Mainly Anakin/Obi-Wan w/ mention of Padmé
Rating: Fairly PG-13ish now but inevitably at least an R (?)
Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely boys from Star Wars, etc.
Summary: Darth Sidious never saw this coming, etc.
*Author’s Note: Please see all previous author's notes/warnings.


Anakin has just finished telling the HoloNet crews about how Obi-Wan had actually felt a disturbance in the Force from the attack on Coruscant before the news could even reach them when there comes a familiar light touch, a wordless questioning presence, along the old Master-Padawan training bond. Smiling, brushing aside both his irritation with one fellow who keeps trying to ask him about Dooku and Grievous and the resulting tangle mix of dark emotions and almost nausea he feels every time he hears either one of those names, he offers back a reassuring surge of calm contentment, wordlessly letting Obi-Wan know that he is alright and that Obi-Wan doesn’t need to worry about anything from his end. Anakin wonders, for a moment, if some of his irritation has been leaking through his shields or if whatever the Council Masters have been discussing at the Temple is bad enough that his former Master has simply felt a need to double-check and make sure that Anakin’s still safe, but it is just such a typical thing for Obi-Wan to do - to worry about Anakin’s well-being enough to actually reach out and check on him when Obi-Wan knows very well that Anakin is perfectly safe from everything (except maybe aggravation and boredom) in, of all places, the Senate Rotunda - that it buoys up Anakin’s spirits even more, making him feel even happier and more content than he already is, basking in the glow of Obi-Wan’s concern and affection, his lingering worries and irritations soothed away by joy. He has no way of knowing it, but in that moment a light has come into his face, a glow to his eyes, that makes Anakin Skywalker even more animated and appealing than ever. Naturally charismatic, when he is genuinely happy, Anakin all but shines, all but ignites, with his own inner light. Even Senators with little use for the Jedi begin to loose focus on whatever it is they have been doing while their attention drifts across the enormous room towards where Anakin stands, explaining with charm, grace, and wit how Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi came up with the daring plan for the two of them to single-handedly rescue Chancellor Palpatine from General Grievous, even knowing that Count Dooku would undoubtedly be there and that the Supreme Chancellor was being used as the bait for a very personal trap.

By the time Anakin Skywalker is done weaving his stories, by the time the magic of his voice and charisma of his presence and that inner blaze of light have permeated the room and sunk itself deep into the hearts and minds of every being present, there is only one person in the room who is not thoroughly entranced with the figure of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Jedi Order in general that Anakin has so lovingly offered up. Anakin has no way of knowing it, but between his positively enchanting account of the Outer Rim missions that culminated with the rescue of Chancellor Palpatine and the obvious admiration and respect that lights him up - and, indeed, lights up the entire Rotunda - whenever he speaks about Obi-Wan Kenobi directly, by the time Senator Mon Mothma gets back home and begins making her calls, there will already be tens of thousands of other Senators and politicians waiting to stand with her, convinced that the Jedi are the salvation of the Republic, that the Republic has been selfishly, shamefully squandering their blood all throughout the course of the war by hampering their freedom to act as they have been trained to, and that the Order should be granted free rein, complete and utter exemption from political interference, not only for the remainder of the war, but for plain and good, period. He has just indefinitely won the Jedi their freedom, but all Anakin knows and all he cares is that he is setting the record straight about Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, his beloved friend and mentor. For him, that is more than enough.

By the time Anakin has finished with his storytelling and patiently moved on to trying to clear up any lingering questions, he is so happy that he cannot even be bothered by the persistent redundancy of the queries he’s receiving about the actual fight with Dooku. Not even his own troublesomely spotty and confused memories are enough to distract him. He is therefore caught entirely off-guard when the old training bond with Obi-Wan suddenly blazes to life with pain, and not just pain but -

Anguish-terror-pain-confusion-sorrow-strain-longing-regret-intimidation-distress-disbelief-anxiety-suffering-shame-hostility-horror-humiliation-resistance-pain-fear-anger-agony-panic-refusal-rage-hysteria-passion-grief-yearning-rejection-violence-pain!

Anakin feels as if he were a mirror that has suddenly had a powerful fist unexpectedly slammed against its surface, shivering it to smithereens. He is so shocked that his entire body snaps rigidly tight, muscles locking, and he almost bites off the tip of his tongue trying to keep himself from crying out, mindlessly echoing Obi-Wan’s pain. There is a moment - mercifully brief enough to pass unnoticed amongst the likes of politicians and HoloNet crews - of synaptic overload in which Anakin has no control whatsoever over his body, lost within the closed circuit of a conflagration of overstimulated neural relays, cognizant of nothing but the escalating looping cycle of painful dark emotions flooding out of Obi-Wan. When awareness of his own body, his own self, as an entity distinctly separate and apart from and more than just the source of such an overwhelming outpouring of extremely dire emotional straits, filters back in alongside the pain, only his improbably finely honed (even for a Jedi) warrior reflexes keep Anakin from staggering as though he’s been sucker punched - which, in essence, he has, though on a far more potentially damaging level than that of the mere flesh. He automatically reaches back along the bond, trying to push past all of that pain and anger and suffering, trying to reach Obi-Wan, his Obi-Wan, the Obi-Wan he knows, the Obi-Wan who does not and would never under any circumstances suffer the failing of such terrible passionate emotions within himself, and find out what’s wrong so that he can fix it, fix it immediately, but the more Anakin tries to shove past it, the more he tries to arrow his way through it or to cut apart the tangled skein of that twisted snarl of ugly maleficent feelings, the stronger it seems to become, until frenzied wild paroxysms of intolerable suffering are blasting into and through him in a continual repetitive building progression -pain-denial-anger-hatred-want-pain- and Anakin is forced to back off before he is so utterly overwhelmed that he becomes ensnared so deeply within the feedback loop that he would never be able to get back out of it again alone. It is entirely possible that his body sways just the teensiest tiniest little bit as he abandons his effort and painstakingly pulls himself back away from the still entirely too active and totally wide open bond, but since Anakin is only a hair’s-breadth away from complete and utter panic at this point, his attention is, understandably, perhaps not quite so wholly focused upon portraying an image of strength as it normally is before the HoloNet crews. Luckily, again neither the crews nor the politicians seem to notice anything - the politicians because so many of them rarely seem able to notice much of anything, even the things that are happening literally right underneath their noses, and the HoloNet crews because they are currently being distracted by the Supreme Chancellor, who has an unctuous smile so firmly pasted across his face that even Anakin almost misses the fact that Palpatine is so furious that he is almost snarling.

Almost.

However, because Anakin has several much more pressing things on his mind - chief among them being Obi-Wan, where Obi-Wan is and with whom if he is still within the Temple, how fast he can get to Obi-Wan, and whether or not he can afford to run the risk of attempting to contact Obi-Wan using the personalized and highly protected encrypted frequency he’s added to the comlinks the two of them have both, as Jedi, carried everywhere as a precautionary measure since the beginning of the Clone Wars, since that is now the swiftest means of communication available to him with their bond out the of question - he does not dally to dwell upon whatever it might be that’s managed to work Palpatine into such a snit. Obi-Wan needs him. Obi-Wan is in pain the likes of which not even the pitilessly scourging force of nature that Anakin, in his agony and rage at failing to save his mother from dying, became in the Tusken camp on Tatooine could have ever begun to fathom, much less match. His Master is suffering. And so Anakin must go to him immediately. Nothing else will suffice but that he go to him, that he save him. If Palpatine’s upset is causing him to divide the focus of the HoloNet crews so that they are no longer paying sufficient attention to Anakin, then that is all well and good. It is actually much better that they - and hopefully the Senators and their various staff members as well - be distracted so that he can depart with all haste without alerting them to the fact that something might be wrong. Coruscant has already suffered much in the past few days. Anakin should not and he will not add to that burden with this new and very personal fear, no matter how violently the nuclear shielding banked about his heart suddenly shudders beneath the barrage of the terror-driven force of the power that still lurks there - having not, after all, been consumed with the empty clothing of Count Dooku in the scouring heat of an unshielded descent into Coruscant’s atmosphere - not when the distraction of Palpatine’s only barely disguised fury is offering him a way out that is both quick and neat.

Anakin has never been what most would consider a very patient being, but he has always had a prodigious talent for calculation and, having spent over half of his life under the tutelage of Obi-Wan Kenobi, he can recognize the wisdom of sacrificing a few moments now - to protest against taking up too much of the people’s time and insist that he needs to return to the Temple soon to give his report to the Jedi Council and to then tender a few murmured farewells before accepting the offer of a loan of a speeder to hasten his journey back to the Temple so that he can shatter every restriction on excess speed on the books in Coruscant in his headlong flight to Obi-Wan’s side - in order to win the freedom that he needs to get to Obi-Wan as quickly as humanly possible. Palpatine is so wrapped up in his own displeasure that he utterly fails to notice that anything is wrong with Anakin. He seizes upon Anakin’s rather thin excuses with a rapacious eagerness and carelessly dismisses the young Jedi Knight to "the rather more esoteric concerns of the Jedi Order and its High Council" with so much rapidity and such a blatant hint of scorn that Anakin would, under any other circumstances, have felt so much hurt and distress that he never would have imagined leaving without first discovering whatever it is that he might have done to make Palpatine so obviously displeased with him as well as with the Jedi Order in general. As things stand, though, with the old training bond still ripped wide and blasted raw with Obi-Wan’s suffering, while a part of Anakin simply coolly notices and files away for later consideration the matter of Palpatine’s rude petulance as a singular mark of ingratitude in a man who’s just had his life - not to mention the continued safe existence of his supposed life’s work - saved and preserved by two members of that "esoteric" Order, outwardly, Anakin merely allows himself to be brushed brusquely aside and all but shoved out of the limelight as the Supreme Chancellor greedily and hastily snatches the attention of the crowds back for himself. This will later prove to be a grave misjudgment on his part, but in that moment, Palpatine is far too wrapped up in his own selfish concerns to notice or to care that his actions might be alienating Anakin Skywalker’s affections.

In the meantime, though, Anakin slips out one of the many side doors, mounts upon the newest and swiftest of the clone guards’ speeders, and blasts off towards the Temple so swiftly that only the first few phrases of Palpatine’s supposed "announcement of grave importance" - which is, from what little he hears, nothing more than a official confirmation of what everyone already suspects, that a special session of uncertain duration is being called for the entire Senate on the following morning, bright and early, a fact that prompts him to make yet another coolly detached decision to consider Palpatine’s rather curious behavior at length, just as soon as a quiet moment presents itself, hopefully at a point not too far removed into the future - manage to register. Had Anakin possessed the attention to spare, he very probably would have thought about how proud of him Obi-Wan would have been, for remaining so steadfastly focused on his goal and yet not becoming so single-minded as to lose track of his surroundings. But because he has no attention to spare, Anakin’s hindbrain simply takes note of Palpatine’s increasingly odd and, there at the end, almost hostile manner towards him and the Jedi Order while the rest of him focuses entirely on getting to the Temple and finding out where Obi-Wan is so that he might do whatever is necessary to secure Obi-Wan’s safety and put an end to this horrible pain. Anakin hasn’t been on the speeder for very long before all of a sudden the pain just stops, with a finality so abrupt that Anakin nearly crashes, distracted by the terrible thought that only unconsciousness or death could produce such a sudden surcease of suffering. When he reaches out desperately along the bond, though, he is rebuffed, so firmly and decisively that he knows Obi-Wan must be there and consciously shielding himself on the other end to so utterly keep Anakin from touching him. The relief he feels is therefore all too short lived, for Anakin knows very well that Obi-Wan would not willingly attempt to so completely shield himself from Anakin in this manner.

Obi-Wan has always kept the training bond between them open, at least partially, so that only the presence of Force-shields or of Force-restraints could keep either one of them from ever being able to feel and to touch the other. Most Master-Padawan bonds are mutually dissolved at the same time the Padawan of the pair is symbolically raised up to Knighthood with the severing of the Padawan braid. However, by the time of Anakin’s Knighting ceremony, the bond between them had grown so strong, so deep, that it could not be easily broken. Obi-Wan suffered greatly in the violent dissolution of his bond with Qui-Gon Jinn when the Master had been slain. Anakin had not been willing to risk hurting his Master in such a way, despite the fact that Obi-Wan had seemed sure that the Healers could have helped ease them painlessly out of the bond, and since neither one of them had been particularly looking forward to losing the bond, truth be told, in the end, they had simply allowed it to remain fallow between them. Since they stayed together after Anakin’s Knighting, they continued to use the bond as they always had before while they were on assignment together. And whenever they were allowed brief periods of rest, they would both studiously refrain from reaching out to or from listening in on each other along the bond. It’s simply easier for them this way. Thus, Anakin is so used to having a sense of Obi-Wan always there, in the back of his mind, no further away than the effort of a simple movement within the Force, that the sudden inability to reach out to him at all is somehow even worse than his previous inability to push past the pain and so make contact with Obi-Wan. So when the chirrup of his comlink sounds at a familiar and private frequency only a few moments later, Anakin’s sense of relief is so strong that it almost manages to outweigh his concern.

Almost.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan’s voice is as weary and wrung-out as Anakin has ever heard it, and there is a plaintive quality to it, a feeling of loss, of being lost, that chills Anakin to the core.

"Master, what’s wrong?" Anakin’s voice comes out much tighter, much higher pitched, than he would have liked, his terse response sounding far more like a demand than a question.

Obi-Wan’s reply is less than informative. "Anakin, are you still with the Chancellor? I need you to come to the Temple, please."

"I’m already almost halfway there. Master, please just tell me what’s wrong. I could feel you looking for me, checking to make sure that I was okay, earlier. I know you worry, so I didn’t think too much of it," Anakin admits, smiling a little bit, unconsciously, before shivering as he forces himself to try to continue. "But then later . . . " Anakin stops here helplessly, radiating so much powerful confusion and shock that the Force shivers with it, unable to come up with a way to properly verbalize the distress of Obi-Wan’s sudden shocking pain. "Master, forgive me, but your shields were all down and I’ve never felt anything so . . . strong from you before. I tried to reach you along our old training bond, but I couldn’t get through to you. I didn’t want to try the comlink if you might be in danger, so I came after you. I’d just finished with the HoloNet people and Palpatine was already giving another speech, so it was easy enough to slip away. No one tried to stop me or ask anything. So what - ?"

"Anakin, I am sorry for that. It was not my intention to worry you. But could you please just listen to me carefully and trust me for a moment? There is a - a private matter that I need to speak to you about, and at the moment I would prefer not to involve anyone else in it, including other Jedi. Could you please come to my rooms in the Temple as quickly as you possibly can without attracting anyone’s attention? If I am not there when you arrive, please, don’t come after me. I am not in harm’s way and I swear to you, on my honor as a Jedi Master, that I am not in need of a rescue. I simply need to talk to you, privately, the sooner the better. I need to deliver a message to someone, but it should only take a few moments, and I will head for my rooms as soon as I am done with that. Can you please meet me there without running over any of the younglings, Padawans, or Jedi - or indeed anyone else between the Senate buildings and the Temple - you might meet along your way?"

Obi-Wan’s carefully worded request is obviously meant to hide something, though what it might be Anakin cannot even begin to guess. The seriousness of the matter - whatever it may be - is, however, manifestly obvious. Obi-Wan would never dissimulate thus lightly. So when he responds, he doesn’t even bother trying to mask his surprise - or his wholly unabated worry. "Of course I can, Master! I’m already almost within sight of the outskirts of the Temple district. I won’t bowl anyone over trying to get to you if you’re sure you aren’t in any trouble. But - "

"Anakin, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I would prefer not to say anything more, even on this encrypted channel. And I do have a message that I need to deliver. I do not wish to be rude, but the sooner I am done here - "

" - the sooner you can explain what’s going on to me. ’S alright, Master. I understand. And I am capable of waiting, you know. I’ll meet you in your rooms. You just be careful, okay?"

"Always, Anakin."

Less than reassured, Anakin manages to coax a modicum more of speed out of his borrowed craft and continues his reckless headlong flight to the Temple, towards Obi-Wan.

*********

Alone in the Courts of Dispute, for a moment Obi-Wan Kenobi stands perfectly still, forcing himself to take the time to take a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself enough to gather up his wits and restore his badly shot nerves. Just the single stolen instant is not nearly enough to begin to soothe his rather shredded sense of self, though, and he needs to get back to his own rooms before Anakin can arrive and come storming up through the Temple in search of him. If he concentrates even a little, Obi-Wan can, in spite of the strength of his strongest and most rigidly impermeable shields, still feel Anakin approaching the Temple, his signature in the Force a pulsing, rushing presence embodying all the swiftness and barely leashed fury of a rising storm that is about to break. Sighing, he tucks the beatified braid of his former Padawan learner safely, securely, into one of the deep inside pockets of his outermost garment, where it cannot be seen, and then Obi-Wan throws caution to the winds, gathering the folds of the deep hood and mantling anonymity of that outer cloaking layer of his ubiquitous Jedi robes more closely about him before hurrying out of the room, one pale hand clutching that draping hood securely shut the only skin allowed to show as he all but runs through the thankfully deserted corridors of the Jedi Temple down to his personal suite. Practically falling through the door as it opens, he staggers over and collapses onto the slightly larger and somewhat older couch in the common room area of the combined den/study that he and Anakin and he and Qui-Gon had both once shared, after which Obi-wan stares blankly up at the ceiling.

The rooms, silent but for his breath, feel incredibly empty, and this uncomfortable detail reminds him quite painfully of the fact that Anakin no longer inhabits this suite, having been relocated to one of the many slightly smaller sets of private quarters upon achieving Knighthood. For some unexplained reason, the Council has never remembered to move Obi-Wan into smaller quarters as well, and because he has lived within these rooms while he has been present within the Temple for all but the first twelve years of his life and the very walls seem to breathe with vivid glowing memories of both Qui-Gon and Anakin, Obi-Wan has never pressed his luck by daring to ask why. Yet, as grateful as he has been for not having to move, not having to give up the rooms he has shared with both his Master and his Padawan, Obi-Wan has also always hoped - if not without a few faint twinges of guilt - that this failure to reassign him to new rooms isn’t meant to be taken as an indication that the other Council Masters want him to consider taking on another Padawan learner some day, perhaps when the Clone Wars have finally ended (as he still faithfully believes they inevitably must, and probably quite soon now). Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn’t want a new Padawan. After Anakin, he’s not sure he will ever again desire to be Master to a new Padawan. It isn’t even so much that being Anakin’s Master had been difficult, really, it’s just that . . .

What? Obi-Wan snaps at himself with no small measure of irritation. It is just that what?

This is a question that has been demanding an answer in the back of Obi-Wan’s head for quite some time now - ever since Anakin was so suddenly Knighted, to be perfectly honest - a question that has, as of today’s shocking revelations, gained a whole new sense of urgency. With the beliefs and expectations of a dying Padmé Skywalker now placed squarely on his shoulders and no clear idea what to do or to even truly think about these new burdens, it suddenly seems more important than ever that Obi-Wan find a way to once and for all completely and truthfully explain to himself just what it is that Anakin Skywalker means to him. Therefore, the question of what, precisely, Anakin is to him that he has never once even seriously considered taking on a second Padawan learner seems like an entirely appropriate place from which to start. After all, according to the Jedi way, when Anakin had finished his training, the obvious next step had been for Obi-Wan to seek out a new student to teach. It is the logical progression of things, within the Order, always has been and doubtlessly always will be. As Obi-Wan very well knows, even before the Clone Wars began, the Order had been all too short of Jedi who could and who were willing to take on new students. So what, exactly, is it that has held him back, made him so unwilling to take on another apprentice, ever since Anakin became a Knight?

If Obi-Wan could bring himself to truly believe that the problem is simply that he is so tired that he neither desires nor needs another such responsibility sitting solely and squarely upon his shoulders, then he would feel much more at ease with himself. He would be somewhat disappointed in himself, but at least he would be able to understand himself. Unfortunately, he knows that this isn’t the reason. Or at least it isn’t the only reason. Although training Anakin had quite often been exhaustive, time-consuming, challenging to the point of being difficult, and, at times, a seemingly unending (not to mention largely unrewarded) exercise in patience, and he certainly cannot deny that it was a bit of a relief to finally be freed of sole accountability for the life of another sentient and oftentimes far too independent being, Obi-Wan is also well aware of the fact that having had Anakin Skywalker as his Padawan is, without a doubt, one of the three absolute best things that have ever happened to him in his entire life - the other two having been his acceptance into the Temple, as a youngling, and then his induction into the actual Order, as Qui-Gon Jinn’s Padawan (since Obi-Wan’s true reception among the ranks of the Jedi, upon his Knighting, is, in his mind, so bound up with him becoming Anakin’s Master that he does not truly consider it a separate event). So that’s clearly not the real reason why Obi-Wan has never even seriously considered taking on a new Padawan learner, which only goes to show that Obi-Wan considers the enormous time and effort he’s been called upon to expend in the training of Anakin Skywalker to have been extremely well-spent.

If Obi-Wan could even bring himself to believe that he simply, if rather selfishly, doesn’t want to train a new apprentice to go off and fight, and very possibly die, protecting the Republic and its politicians from yet another one of the awful messes they so often seem to get themselves and the entire Republic dragged along into, he would still feel better. Force knows that he has had more than his share of nightmares about returning to Coruscant after one solo mission or another only to learn that Anakin has been killed while he was gone. He has even had more than his fair share of night-terrors in which he has been present during Anakin’s death but unable to do anything to stop it from happening. Obi-Wan has been forced to remind himself - as he has had to remind his Padawan on more than one occasion - many, many times since the beginning of the Clone Wars that all dreams pass, in time, while simultaneously desperately hoping that this particular piece of Jedi wisdom is truer than it often feels to him. Yet, Obi-Wan also knows that it is the duty of the Jedi to serve, and that this duty only ends in death, death that quite often comes for Jedi in battle, while they are fighting to protect and uphold the ideals of justice and honor and freedom from persecution around which the Republic was built and that are meant to reside at the core of the Republic forever. All Jedi are dedicated to the ideals upon which the Republic was founded. A Jedi’s life is, by its very nature, a sacrifice waiting to be called upon, so this solution doesn’t hold water either. Obi-Wan would gladly give up his own life if it meant that he could save Anakin’s, and he knows that Anakin would do the same for him, just as he would do so to protect anyone and everyone he cares about, though that, perhaps, has less to do with Obi-Wan’s ability to successfully teach the ideals of the Order and more to do with the innate loving, giving, and fiercely loyal and protective nature of Anakin himself. Regardless, the fact remains that Anakin is - like Obi-Wan and indeed like all Jedi - in essence, a drawn blade, a lighted candle, waiting and willing to be quenched in the service of the Light. So really, all this proves is that Obi-Wan and Anakin are both willing to overcome their common fears and to strive to always do their duty as Jedi, despite the sometimes disturbing contents of their dreams.

Force take it, if Obi-Wan could even convince himself of the fact that the problem is one of a habit that has grown into attachment, that he has simply gotten so comfortable with having standards that are so impossibly high that he can no longer bring himself to consider lowering them again, as he would have to, in order to accommodate some unknown future candidate for apprenticeship who obviously could never even hope to begin to compare with the glory of the "Chosen One," then he would at least have an answer to this terribly troublesome question and he could stop worrying about it! After all, there is not a doubt in his mind that any such possible new Padawan could never match Anakin’s skill, not just his staggeringly powerful abilities with the Force, but also his grace, his panache, his sheer zest for life, his passion for learning and his eagerness to apply that learning towards concrete results, no matter what anyone else might say or think is or is not possible . . . But to be entirely truthful, Obi-Wan has never expected anyone else to be like Anakin, as there has simply never been any logical reason for him to ever hope for such an occurrence again, as the appearance of Anakin himself in Obi-Wan’s life was such an unlooked for gift, such a truly miraculous occasion, that he has never thought to see it repeated or echoed in any way. In truth, this only goes to show that Obi-Wan considers it to have been an honor and a privilege, not a duty, to have had Anakin Skywalker as his Padawan learner.

Perhaps, in the end, all of these different reasons are true, each in its own way, from a certain point of view, and perhaps they even come close to hitting the mark of the ever-elusive real reason why Obi-Wan Kenobi never has and honestly believes that he never will want to take on another Padawan learner, now that Anakin Skywalker has successfully attained the rank of a Jedi Knight. However, they are not, any of them, the whole truth. Nor do they truly reflect or reveal the actual depth of emotion that Obi-Wan Kenobi feels whenever he thinks of Anakin Skywalker and what Anakin is to him, what he means to him. Though whatever it is, clearly he is not the only one who feels it, for if Obi-Wan has proven reluctant to consider taking on a new Padawan, then Anakin himself has proved to be just as unwilling to take on a first Padawan learner of his own. In spite of the fact that Obi-Wan very well knows that it is unspeakably rare for a Master and Padawan pair to stay together after the latter has been Knighted, for him and Anakin, there has never been a question of ever doing anything else. Although they have both been on their share of solo missions (though most of them, come to think of it, were during the first few years after Anakin became Obi-Wan’s Padawan, when Anakin was still considered too young to be allowed to go away on missions), none of the other Masters have ever even so much as suggested splitting them up permanently, and Anakin himself, although he speaks longingly enough of the rank of Master, has never shown any desire to take on a Padawan learner of his own, for whom he would at least be the Master, if not a Master of the High Council - a rank that, to be perfectly frank, Obi-Wan Kenobi still does not feel entirely comfortable in claiming for himself. So whatever the feeling might be, precisely, one thing is certainly for sure. It is entirely mutual, or else they would not exist as the team that they are, the widely famed (and, to Obi-Wan’s embarrassment, oftentimes all but revered) partnership of Kenobi and Skywalker, Anakin and Obi-Wan.

The word "friend" springs to mind when Obi-Wan thinks of Anakin, and yet even that word, dangerous and deep though it feels at the moment, in terms of their rationally improbable and yet entirely stable existence as a team, as the team, also seems wholly inadequate to the task of capturing the essence of what Anakin Skywalker is to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan has never really known his blood family, having been brought to the Temple at such a young age that he remembers only the Order, but he’s seen the loyalty that others so often feel towards their kin, something similar to the bond between a Master and Padawan, although with an . . . equality that would not truly belong within the rigidly hierarchical confines of the Order. The Force is his life and the Order is his family. As a child of the crèche, Obi-Wan has never felt the stab of longing that Anakin once haltingly explained to him was "homesickness." He’s never really wanted to belong anywhere but the Order, never truly wanted to be anything other than a Jedi, despite the momentary mutual lapse of faith and reason between him and Qui-Gon at Melida/Daan that nearly saw Obi-Wan leave the Order. But then, Anakin had burst into his life. At first, Obi-Wan had been in such pain from the loss of his Master that he could not spare enough attention to truly notice the child he had promised to take care of and to teach, for Qui-Gon’s sake. In their brief time together on Naboo and on the journey home to Coruscant and the Temple, the boy had been so still and quiet that it had been easy to overlook him, with his enormously expressive eyes forever cast down and his small body contained within such concentrated control that he never once seemed to put a foot out of place. One day, though, Anakin had caught Obi-Wan’s attention. He’d tripped over the edge of one of the many rugs that were scattered about the three rooms they had been assigned on the luxurious ship the Queen had leant the Jedi for the return to Coruscant, stumbled against one of the small tables, and accidentally broken something.

It had been some small, meaningless item, a trinket of some sort that had been placed in the rooms before their boarding (in an effort, Obi-Wan suspected, to distract from the fact that the rooms were indeed upon a space-faring ship, though the overall effect seemed to him to be one of clutter and rather excessive cloth rather than of homeyness) but Anakin had cried over it, honestly upset about the damage he had accidentally inflicted. Later in the day, though, after somehow or another managing to fix the broken unit, he had shyly offered it to Obi-Wan to inspect for flaws. Obi-Wan cannot remember precisely what the object had been - though he has a vague impression of some kind of recreational musical or gaming device - but he can very vividly remember Anakin’s smile, the very first one that he had given to Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan alone, for no other reason than that he was Obi-Wan and he had just paid Anakin a quiet compliment. Obi-Wan can also intimately recall the pure stab of joy that he had felt and how he had struggled, unsuccessfully, to push it away. Over the years, he has collected many more of these moments, tucking them away in a secret place within his heart where even he does not often dare to look. He knows that he has not felt like a friend in these moments, nor as the mentor that he should be, but more like a . . . well, the best words that Obi-Wan can think of to describe the sensation are brother, kin, relation. But even these words don’t feel strong enough.

Anakin is Anakin, a whirlwind of pure emotion and light, a passionate blazing beacon.

And as much as Obi-Wan has tried to convince himself of the danger of his increasing insensibility, as many times as he has demanded of himself that he stop being a fool and behave like the Jedi he is, he simply cannot seem to control his thoughts or his emotions as he is sure he was once able to. He has hidden here, in the Temple, between missions, retreating to the ancient and simple discipline of the Order as a safe haven, building and then rebuilding the same prayer for redemption from the mad lure of this flaw of his, punishing himself for his failure with hours upon hours of meditation, giving himself up utterly to the Force, asking that this unseemly and impermissible attachment be stripped away from him once and for all so that he might return to his chosen path as a Jedi Master pure and clean of emotion once again, but all to no avail. Time and circumstances permitting, Obi-Wan has tortured himself obsessively because of this failing of his, often taking the beautiful, brilliant blue jewel that Anakin gave him the first night of their return to the Temple as Master and Padawan out from beneath the concealing layers of his Jedi robes, holding it in his hands and focusing intently upon the gemstone’s vividly glowing depths - its crystalline lattice still, after years of uninterrupted contact with Obi-Wan’s body, impressed with the strength and affections of a small boy who’d dreamed of Qui-Gon Jinn and his human shadow and become certain that he would one day be a powerful Jedi, just like them - wishing that he’d had the strength to refuse it, as he should have, since Jedi are not supposed to own any material possessions, and hoping that he might one day yet find the courage to let it go entirely, though he knows, in his heart, that he would rather die than be parted from this tangible token of Anakin Skywalker’s devotion to him. Perhaps he is simply fooling himself, purposefully causing himself pain for no real purpose. But it is all that he can do, all that Obi-Wan knows to do, and so he has kept on doing it, for years now. What else can he do? Anakin needs him. Anakin looks up to him. Anakin is his responsibility and the boy trusts him utterly, has faithfully believed that Obi-Wan’s teachings will allow him to become a true Jedi, a Jedi Master entirely worthy of Qui-Gon Jinn’s devotion and defiance of the will of the High Council. And he cannot fail Anakin. He will not fail Anakin.

Obi-Wan has never wavered in his conviction that he and he alone must show Anakin the proper way. After all, who else will do it, if not him? Not the other Council Masters, to be sure. Most certainly not the other Jedi Knights, who mainly look upon the "Chosen One" with either displeasure and envy or else fear and horror, if not an actual lack of comprehension because of the many ways in which Anakin Skywalker’s mere presence within the Temple so thoroughly shatters so many of the rules upon which the Order has been built. Nor will the other Padawans, even those near to Anakin’s age, who mainly either unthinkingly share the low opinions of their Masters or else idolize Anakin like the younglings in the crèche all do. Thus, Obi-Wan is quite positive that he alone must learn how to gain control of his passions, to let go of this dangerous and highly improper attachment for his young charge, or that surely all will become lost. Jedi are supposed to be all-compassionate of mien, yes, but Jedi are also entirely unemotional of thought and outlook. It is entirely possible both to do the will of the Force, to serve the ideals of justice and honor upon which the Republic rests, and to do one’s duty within the Order itself, to serve as Master to a Padawan and so ensure the steady continuance of the Jedi way of life, the passing on of the Jedi Order’s Code. Of course it is possible! Hundreds of generations of Jedi have done precisely the same. Compassion has its base in love, yes, but Jedi can be compassionate and still remain unattached to specific individuals.

It is entirely possible to be a Jedi and yet remain unattached to individuals. (After all, millions of Jedi before him presumably have done just that.) So Obi-Wan knows that he can do it, that he should do it, that he should be able to utterly rid himself of this troublesomely hard to ignore need to answer Anakin’s ever-present need for love and acceptance with Obi-Wan’s own increasingly easier to show unquestioning affection and trust. Yet, it only seems to grow worse, with each mission, each increasingly natural and easy show of tender emotion, each new bout of much-needed meditation. No amount of mediation - no matter how long or how strenuous - has been able to entirely cleanse Obi-Wan of his ridiculous extraneous emotions, or even come close to truly centering his being properly within the Force, to grounding him within the Code as he should be, as a Jedi. And with each new mission, each new day that passes in close proximity to Anakin, each instance in which one or another of them is called upon to save the other’s life or to trust in the other’s abilities utterly in order to survive, the feeling of attachment and not only the ability but the actual need to show it grows stronger with Obi-Wan. The need for approval, for the regard of others, has always been a particular flaw of Obi-Wan’s, since his earliest days in the Temple crèche, and it is one that Master Qui-Gon inadvertently exacerbated, in attempting to break him of the dangerous habit of this potentially focus-shattering weakness. Yet, in all honesty, Obi-Wan knows that not even in his earliest days as Qui-Gon’s Padawan had he ever been as weak, as flawed, as he is now, because of his growing closeness with and dependence upon his close relationship with Anakin.

Perhaps it is the heat and passion of battle that makes it so very difficult, the impossible to escape proximity of Anakin’s enormous potential for raw power, seemingly never much more than a breath away from him. Or perhaps it is his youth, his recklessness, his breath when all else is still. Increasingly, they sleep rough and close, bundled together for warmth or safety or both in the midst of hostile or disputed territory. How, then, should they not know each other intimately, more intimately than a teacher and student, more intimately even than brothers, when they are so often together every moment of the day, waking and sleeping, when they are away on mission, especially when their downtime between missions is rapidly becoming all but nonexistent? They try to be careful of each other’s privacy, but the war has made that very difficult, requiring their constant deployment together on the most dangerous missions, under the absolute worst possible circumstances. There are very few barriers between them that have not at least been breached (and many have been demolished outright, mostly by Anakin, who has always been more open, especially with his emotions) over the course of the war, most of them due to the extended periods of extremely close proximity and extenuating circumstances that the war always seems to be placing them in. Because they have survived and they always choose to remain together, they have grown so incredibly close that Obi-Wan increasingly understands both why the citizens refer to them as if their names were but one word - always Kenobi and Skywalker or Anakin and Obi-Wan, with never just one of them being named alone - and the clones speak of them as if they truly were but one person, calling them the Warrior of the Infinite.

For years now, Obi-Wan has protested in vain against the coupling of their names into what has essentially become an iconic touchstone of the Republic, both because the reverence of the act unsettles him and the identification of Anakin as a part of him and himself as a part of Anakin has always struck him as a very unJedilike expression of attachment bordering perilously close to an outright expression of possession. However, when Anakin uses his greater height to curl around Obi-Wan even in sleep, as though trying to keep him close, keep him safe, keep Obi-Wan just for himself, it is extremely difficult to be objective about their relationship - however poorly defined it might be - and even harder to feel unattached to him. How could Obi-Wan possibly ever not feel attached to Anakin when the two of them know each other’s every shift of weight? When Obi-Wan can feel the snap of Anakin’s tendons as he moves beside him, Anakin’s sudden exquisitely timed explosions of furious power just as abruptly gentling to calmness with little more than a look, a touch, a half-murmured word or phrase, like some only partially tamed wild creature responding knowingly and willingly only to his rightful master’s requests? When they work together like a finely tuned instrument, flowing in tandem, so that Obi-Wan, for all his embarrassment at the veneration of their partnership, can no longer keep from understanding why the HoloNet and so many of the beings who watch it as well as many others who know of their unique partnership refer to them in one breath, as if they actually were but one entity? When the Force moves through them as one, as if they truly are one whole being? These are all things that Obi-Wan Kenobi, for all his wisdom, has no true inkling how to fight, how to counteract. More importantly, though, they are things that he can apparently no longer afford to avoid dealing with, no matter how much the prospect might frighten him.

And it does. Frighten him, that is. At the moment, Obi-Wan Kenobi is more deeply afraid than he has ever been before in his life - that small voice of warning screaming - though he knows that he cannot allow this fear to stop him. For Anakin’s sake, he must get past his fear and work his way though this tangle, and soon. Because the simple truth is that nothing Obi-Wan Kenobi has tried has made him start thinking like a properly unemotionally involved, serenely detached, yet all-compassionate Jedi Knight and Master again. The situation makes him feel like the worst kind of hypocrite, the very worst sort of liar, knowing how others think of him and also knowing how much their belief in him differs from the truth. Knowing that he doesn’t want any new Padawan learner because he desires the impossible and he just wants Anakin back. That he is attached to Anakin in exactly the way that the Jedi Code forbids. And that he misses him. Terribly. Desperately. Inconsolably. Indisputably. Obi-Wan misses Anakin being here and staying here with him, in these rooms, when they come back from a mission. He misses Anakin’s annoyingly confident smirk, his terrifying ability to lose his lightsaber at the most inopportune of moments, his boisterous and oftentimes wholly inappropriately timed laugh, the irritating and sometimes frightening when not absolutely breathtakingly brilliant ways in which that clever mind so often manages to worm its way around the barriers and provisions that have been erected around him in hopes of protecting the flesh that houses that incredible mind, and the not-quite-sorry look that he has always given Obi-Wan while apologizing for the mischief that he somehow always constantly manages to make, usually while operating under the absolute best of intentions.

More specifically, the truth is that Obi-Wan misses the comforting presence of Anakin himself, of knowing that Anakin lives here, in this particular suite of rooms, and, if he ever feels the need to, all he has to do is pop his head around the corner and call out Anakin’s name, and he will be able to talk to the young man, who has always seemed to understand him as few - perhaps none, if the entire, brutal truth be told - ever have. It is amazing, how reassuring the mere sound of another’s breath in the room can be, how comforting, and how utterly unnoticed such a small noise can be, until it is suddenly gone. Obi-Wan never truly noticed it, before Anakin’s Knighting, but he misses it now, he misses all of the little sounds (even the noises that annoyed him to no end) that always used to accompany Anakin’s presence in the suite, reassuring Obi-Wan of his continued safety as well as silently reaffirming Anakin’s continued devotion not only to the Order but to them, personally, to their relationship as Master and Padawan. Force help him, Obi-Wan even misses Anakin’s impatience and frustration, his complete lack of ability to understand or abide (much less adhere to) any kind of limitation, his troublesome lack of respect for the traditions of the Order and the way in which he has always sought to question the authority of the High Council.

The truth is, Obi-Wan just misses Anakin.

The truth is, Obi-Wan is just undeniably inappropriately attached to Anakin.

Sliding down on the couch, Obi-Wan closes his eyes and wishes that these unwanted emotions would please just cooperate for once and go away.

Or is even this the entire truth behind the problem, in the end?

On some level, as is appropriate and expected for someone of his rank, Obi-Wan wants to go back to being a proper Jedi. He wants to excise these unseemly thoughts and feelings and to once again be the serene creature of legend that so many people automatically seem to believe he is and that he is certainly supposed to be, regardless of what any certain other unnamed being might want or even expect him to be. Yet, at the same time, on another, much more present and palpable level, Obi-Wan also has a very hard time finding any desire within himself to change. He likes looking forward to seeing his Padawan - no, his former Padawan - again with each new mission. He loves how Anakin still looks consciously pleased to see him every time they are together and he thoroughly enjoys spending the enormous amount of time that he does with Anakin, both on and off mission, even when they are doing things that Obi-Wan himself might prefer not to have to do. He loves being able to still spend the evening with the younger man, talking, meditating, or even just pretending to meditate while actually watching Anakin’s frustration with his own quite often futile attempts to meditate.

He isn’t just attached to Anakin: he enjoys loving Anakin.

Wait a moment . . . love? Love!

Force!

Sitting straight up on the couch, Obi-Wan shakes his head, demanding that it clear itself. Because surely it’s not . . . surely it isn’t . . . Force take it, this is absurd!

Standing abruptly, Obi-Wan stumbles away from the couch, staggering slightly, and - in an unconscious echo of one of Anakin’s mannerisms, an energy-wasting sign of impatience that Obi-Wan has tried and failed to break his former Padawan of - begins to pace out the length of the room, trying to chase his thoughts into some semblance of order. His mind is disobedient to his will, though, and refuses to let go of the puzzle of the man whose absence makes the suite of rooms seem even emptier than it truly is. Obi-Wan almost goes over to look into what was once Anakin’s bedroom, just to forcibly remind himself that Anakin is no longer there and will never be here within these quarters in such a permanent manner ever again. In the end, though, Obi-Wan can’t do it. He cannot force himself to look into Anakin’s room and see it empty. It is too much to ask, even of himself. Obi-Wan hasn’t been anywhere near that now distressingly empty room since the day his former Padawan moved out of it, and as far as he is concerned (however undeniably cowardly the decision might be) the bedroom no longer exists, now that Anakin is no longer within it to make it whole. Obi-Wan will never willingly open the door that leads into that room again, now that it is barren of Anakin’s existence. So instead, he somewhat shakily turns around to walk back through the suite and sit back down on the couch he was brooding upon earlier. He then proceeds to stare blankly at his hands, which have developed a fine tremor and will not stop trembling even when he attempts to still them by clasping them tightly together.

Something has to be done.

Or perhaps, more effectively put, he has to do something. The situation is not going to get better on its own, and no one else who can fully appreciate the true gravity of the situation knows that the situation even exists. Therefore, it falls to Obi-Wan to figure out a way to fix this problem on his own. Even if, for the first time in quite a few years, he truly has absolutely no idea whatsoever how to proceed or even what he might possibly be able to do. It rather reminds him of arriving back on Coruscant with Anakin as his Padawan for the first time. Obi-Wan had never been in such a situation before, he hadn’t known how to handle it, and even though he was positive that he was going to bugger it up, whatever he tried to do, there simply wasn’t anyone whose opinion or help he could ask for, given the circumstances surrounding their return to the Jedi Temple as Master and Padawan, with the possible exception of Anakin Skywalker, himself. Unfortunately, given the circumstances now, Obi-Wan can hardly simply come out and explain the situation, as he understands it, and then ask for Anakin’s help in dealing with it.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is attached to his former Padawan. He loves his former Padawan. He is becoming more and more convinced that he enjoys the myriad ritualized behaviors and various small attachments that accompany the love he feels for his former Padawan learner. Force forbid it, he might actually be in love with his former Padawan learner, if what Padmé Skywalker felt and believed in so strongly is in any way a reliable response to the signals Obi-Wan apparently has been giving off with his enjoyment of the many little rituals and attachments that accompany the emotions Anakin Skywalker provoke within him and that he also apparently evokes from within Anakin. Force take it, he and Anakin may very well be mutually in love with each other.

What in the name of the Force is he supposed to do about that?

Obi-Wan has had quite a lot of practice in keeping things from himself, but this . . .

Love.

He cannot lie to himself about this. Force help him, he had loved Qui-Gon He cannot lie to himself about this. Force help him, he had loved Qui-Gon Jinn. He can admit it now, with the safe distance of years. Qui-Gon had been Obi-Wan’s mentor, had been, as Anakin might say, the closest thing he’d had to a father. Qui-Gon, then, could certainly serve as a case study for the pitfalls of love. Because of his love for Qui-Gon, in moments of weakness, when he was at his most vulnerable, Obi-Wan had experienced jealousy, grief, and fear, feeling himself not only abandoned but actively cast aside in lieu of another, someone worthy of Qui-Gon’s attention and affections as Obi-Wan seemingly had never been. Because of his love for Qui-Gon, he had, in his rage, very nearly fallen to the Dark Side. Even now, though he is sure he has come to terms with Qui-Gon’s murder, if Obi-Wan casts himself back within his memory to that day, he can still feel it. Rage. Not just anger, but true rage, blind, hot, bloody rage. It had been no mere anger stemming from fear. It had been a terror that beget a monstrous progeny of unreasoning white-hot fury, a ravening, consuming emotion that, even in memory, makes Obi-Wan shiver palely, like a man in the grips of a life-sapping illness. In that moment, nothing had mattered to him but the need to protect his Master, to avenge not only his Master’s pain but also his own, destroying the creature who had wounded the man he considered to be his, exclusively, Obi-Wan’s Master and no one else’s, or to die trying. He had known all of the suitable Jedi responses, all of the prescribed solutions, to even the threat of such feelings, and they had done nothing, save to make him want to drop his head into his hands and howl with agony, laugh with hysteria, at their increasing uselessness. Meditation? Oh, yes, certainly, he could meditate on gutting the Sith abomination, on slowly slicing him limb from limb from limb, for ever daring to touch Qui-Gon with the filth of that double-bladed red perversion of a lightsaber. Reach out to the Force for help? Oh, by all means, yes, he wanted to reach out for help in gaining the means to inflict the greatest possible amount of Force-caused and -magnified damage, to grab that evil Zabrak by his miserable, muscle-bound throat and crush him, slowly, choking the life out of him, and never mind the fact that Qui-Gon hadn’t ever quite managed to get around to teaching Obi-Wan the finer points of Force pulls and pushes so that he could have at least either gotten a grip on that red blade as it was angling down towards Qui-Gon or else shoved the Sith back away from his tiring Master. Release the anger into the Force? Oh, of course, yes, absolutely, just as soon as Obi-Wan could lay out the Sith before him, rent to pieces and indisputably dead, he would be sure to do just precisely that.

In short, his reaction to Qui-Gon’s death blow constitutes a textbook perfect example of the essential reason why a Jedi cannot love, cannot even be allowed to form attachments. And yet, looking back, Obi-Wan still simply cannot see how he could have avoided forming a bond with Anakin. In the years following Qui-Gon’s murder at the hands of the Sith, Anakin so swiftly became so much more than just another duty, more than a Padawan, more even than a friend or family. Already alienated from many of his elder fellow Jedi because of his rebellious Master and somewhat unconventional Padawan apprenticeship, Obi-Wan’s sudden rise to Knighthood and unseemly haste in gaining a Padawan of his own, after not a conventional set of Trials but rather a trial-by-combat in which he had managed to slay the Sith who murdered his Master, had only further removed him from the supportive network of the Jedi Order. The way in which the High Council has so obviously and continuously doubted and worried about the fitness of his Padawan, Chosen One or no, and the irregularities surrounding the boy’s acceptance into the Order have only added to the ever-widening sense of space separating Obi-Wan from the only family he has ever known. But it is the manifest disapproval and distrust with which the Council, the elders in the Order, and indeed all of the full members of the Order itself seems to regard the growing sense of almost tangible regard for and faith in one another that has been blossoming between Obi-Wan and Anakin ever since the boy passed out of his teens and truly took up the mantle of a man, with the start of the Clone Wars on Geonosis, that Obi-Wan believes has truly sealed their fate and made the breach between them and the rest of the Order an irreparable one. For the more Obi-Wan has been met with isolation because of his loyalty to his Master’s wishes and to his Padawan’s needs, the more he has been separated from the support of his fellow Jedi, the more Obi-Wan has come to rely upon Anakin’s affection and Anakin’s purity of purpose for the strength to continue functioning as a Jedi within an Order that increasingly does not - with the exception of the youngest within the Temple - seem to approve of or to want him or his.

By small yet steadily increasing increments, Anakin has been shaped into the sum of all of Obi-Wan’s hopes, all of his tenderer emotions. A pillar of strength and unswervingly loyal and true, Anakin has slowly come to represent all that is left that is good and clean and pure within the Order, the Republic, even the galaxy itself. In short, Anakin has become the whole of Obi-Wan’s world. To discover that Anakin has not been true to the Jedi Code, that he has not been able to keep faith with Obi-Wan because of that Code and the expectations that he doubtlessly holds of Obi-Wan’s scorn and disappointment in him in the name of that shattered Code, is difficult for Obi-Wan to bear, but it is not nearly so great a blow as to shatter his trust and his love in Anakin.

Finally admitting that, even just to himself, brings on equal shares of relief and fear.

A part of him has always known this truth - that once he has allowed himself access to his true feelings, once he has determinedly searched out and analyzed each and every unwanted emotion, he will never again be able to ignore them, never be able to push them away or to live his life separate from their influence. Obi-Wan will forgive Anakin for loving Padmé, as he has always forgiven Anakin everything. Already, Obi-Wan knows that he will never be capable of telling the rest of the Council about Anakin’s indiscretion. Because underneath the jealousy and anger and grief and fear, Obi-Wan loves.

Facing this truth makes everything simple. Obi-Wan wants Anakin to smile, to always look upon him with affection and caring. If this means lying outright to the High Council, then he is already painfully aware that he will pay that price. For years, he has hidden knowledge of what he has wrongfully assumed was no more than just another adolescent crush. Covering up Anakin and Padmé’s love is . . . just a matter of degree. So Obi-Wan knows that he will not tell the Council about Anakin’s illicit relationship, even now that he knows the true extent of its nature. It is the last thing that anyone would ever expect of him; indeed, it is the last thing he would have ever expected from himself. The situation has proven beyond a doubt, though, that Obi-Wan has what the Order would consider an unhealthy attachment to Anakin. He is willing to do anything for Anakin, up to and including knowingly and willfully breaking the Jedi Code. He has already chosen Anakin over the Order. And though any sort of true calmness or detachment remains beyond his reach, there is a certain kind of serenity here, in this new knowledge of self.

Perhaps, in time, that will be enough.

In any case, Obi-Wan is tired of meditating on a subject for which neither the Force nor the Code seem to have any answers. The Force tells him nothing while the Code unequivocally says that what he feels is wrong, neither of which does anything to help him, seeing as how he cannot simply un-feel the things that are within his heart. They are there, and he has a feeling that they are never going to go away. It would be folly indeed to attempt to lie to himself about them. Why, then, should he try to lie to Anakin about them, when Anakin needs him now, as he never has before? Indeed, why should he strive to keep anything from Anakin, when it is this need to project the aura of perfect Jedi serenity that has led Anakin into keeping the very things from him that have led them to this untenable and extremely dangerous situation? It is far past time for truth between them. All of the truth, even those parts that they would both rather ignore.

In any case, judging from the increasingly rapid approach of his former Padawan’s Force signature, Obi-Wan is about to abruptly run out of all other options. So he may as well make his peace with this one decision, however insane it might seem to anyone else within the Jedi Order.

Sighing, Obi-Wan does what his heart tells him he must and not only refrains from trying to reject his emotions, he quietly accepts them. Then, rising from the couch, he paces carefully to the center of the room, where he settles down into the meditative pose best suited for longer bouts of meditation, legs folded comfortably into the half-lotus position instead of in the slightly more challenging full lotus or the far simpler but harder to maintain kneeling position he often prefers, both legs bent beneath him entirely, seiza-style. With the calm of long practice, he quiets his mind and settles in. Obi-Wan Kenobi is well aware of the fact that he is going to need all of the help he can get, if he truly wishes to share and truly explain all of the news he now possesses with Anakin without provoking a reaction that will inform others in the Order that something is wrong and lead them to probe for the cause of Anakin’s upset. No longer unemotional or not, the serenity he can still gain from meditation can only help him. Judging by the increasing strength of Anakin’s presence in the Force, Obi-Wan should have just enough time to encourage the quieting of his mind and soul as well as to increase the sharpening of his focus and refine the clarity of his perceptions by performing a few of the most rapidly calming and centering of the meditation mantras before Anakin throws his door wide open.

For now, that will simply have to be enough.

*********