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5 Times Obi-Wan Protected Anakin, and One Time Anakin Returned the Favor
1
The last week had been a disaster. Anakin had gone missing three separate times, he’d skipped two lessons with Master Windu, and he had gotten in four fights with his fellow students. How he found time to cause such mayhem on top of sailing through the rest of his lessons, Obi-Wan would never know.
But what he did know was that it certainly wasn’t good when he was called to the Council Friday morning.
And that they were very, very grave when he entered the chamber.
And that Master Windu was completely silent as Depa gave him a gentle warning.
“The rest of the Council is concerned,” she said quietly, “about Skywalker’s recent behavior. I am afraid they can no longer make excuses.”
Obi-Wan felt his mouth go dry and his heart sink.
“What are you saying, Master?” he asked, trying to maintain the respect in his tone.
“We are saying,” Master Windu said, “that if Skywalker continues, we’ll be forced to reassign him.”
The chamber fell silent.
Obi-Wan didn’t exactly know what to do, much like every time he’d been before the Council, if he was being honest. He didn’t feel much of anything, except emptiness, a vast void that felt as heavy as the darkness falling over Coruscant.
He was too tired to fight it, and he knew that trying would only aggravate them into further action. Instead, he sank into a low bow.
“Your warning is heeded,” he said. “Thank you.”
As he slowly turned around, he caught a last glimpse of the sadness in Yoda’s eyes.
(-------)
Anakin was still in class. Obi-Wan went straight to Kit and told him everything.
Kit thought for a moment before saying, “You have to tell him. If you do, maybe that will motivate him to behave.”
I don’t want to be a problem.
Obi-Wan shook his head. “I can’t. He doesn’t need to know. We’ll both have to accept whatever comes.”
Kit’s eyes widened. Obi-Wan had always thought they looked like they contained the universe. “You cannot protect him forever. Isn’t it better for him to know now?”
Obi-Wan pulled his robes closer to himself. “No. He’ll only worry and rage against the unchangeable. I don’t… I don’t want him to remember our time together that way.”
He knew how final the words sounded; he could feel the alarm from Kit. He hadn’t really meant it that way. He was already planning on taking a research assignment out on Hast for a few years so that Anakin could settle in with his new master.
“Obi-Wan,” Kit said, but the door slid open before he could finish. Anakin entered, already mid-tirade.
“Who does Master Windu think he is? Who could know more about the role of the Chancellor than the Chancellor? Master, can you talk to him for me? Oh, hi, Kit!”
Kit laughed richly and stood. “Master Windu needs a good challenge once in a while, Anakin. I am glad you are providing it.”
Obi-Wan shot him a look that he hoped conveyed his disapproval. He wasn’t exactly helping matters by egging Anakin on.
“Well, Master Windu’s just plain wrong about me,” Anakin bragged. “The other masters say I’m the brightest student ever. Master Piel said I learn faster than I can fly.”
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan started to rebuke, but then Anakin trotted over and leaned against this shoulder.
“Don’t worry, master,” he said. “I said it was all because of you.”
Blast. Anakin wasn’t making this easy, either. He knew exactly how to play him. Obi-Wan couldn’t resist putting a tentative hand on Anakin’s head and holding it there.
Kit watched them for a moment before saying, “I will leave now. Padawan, your master has something important to tell you.”
He left.
“Ooh, what is it?” Anakin asked. He straightened and bounced on his feet. “I bet it’s something really cool. Maybe a mission!”
Obi-Wan swallowed.
He couldn’t do it. Blast it, he couldn’t. He was too soft.
“Kit perhaps exaggerated,” he said. “I only wanted to ask you if you’d like to go to Dex’s.”
“Yay!” Anakin cried, throwing his arms in the air. “I’ll fly!”
He bounded out of the room.
“No, Anakin wait!” Obi-Wan tried, but he was already gone. If he got them in a speeder crash, that would certainly be the end of it.
But flying brought him so much joy, and Obi-Wan’s refusal to let him always brought with it unbearable snippiness. Perhaps, he would let him fly. One last time. Obi-Wan followed him out the door.
2
Obi-Wan didn’t know where or how Anakin had caught the fever. It had started as a dry cough. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but be concerned even at that stage. Anakin was still only eleven years old and thin and gangly for his age; Force knew what a bad illness could do to him. Unfortunately, it only seemed to get worse from there. A slight fever came next, forcing Obi-Wan to keep Anakin in the flat against his protestations. He complained frequently of a headache, and not even Battleship or Rodian soap operas could distract him. He didn’t get out of bed one morning, prompting Obi-Wan to rush in and discover that his fever had spiked. He frantically called a Healer, who told him that Anakin should stay in bed and take a small cup of medicine and water every three hours.
The dreams started soon after.
Jedi often had vivid hallucinations when ill. The Force could play tricks on the mind, tricks that jumbled everything and brought suppressed fears and anger to the forefront. Older and experienced Jedi knew how to meditate correctly to organize the mind against such intrusive invasion, a technique that also allowed for disassociation from pain and a defense against Sith mind probing. But Anakin was far too young to have even begun the basics, and his meditation skills were… lacking, at best.
At first, Anakin only twitched and muttered. Obi-Wan kept a cool Bacta compress on his forehead as his eyes rolled. The sight was immensely frightening.
And then he started to talk.
“No, don’t hurt her! Please!”
He started thrashing. Obi-Wan held him down none-too-gently, which only seemed to throw him into a greater state of panic.
He couldn’t just watch this.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for this,” he whispered. He held Anakin down with his left arm and reached over to his face with his right hand.
He focused and gently prodded at their bond. He tried to remember how Qui-Gon had done it: abounding gentleness, calm determination, constant communication. Work through it, don’t run from it.
Anakin put up a slight resistance until he realized it was Obi-Wan trying to enter his mind. He relented, and Obi-Wan was barraged with confused and scattered images he did not understand. There was the landscape of Tatooine, yes, and Nal Hutta, but some of these images were clearly of Coruscant and clearly were not Anakin’s own memories. With a jolt, Obi-Wan realized that Anakin was so in tune with the Force that he was seeing what was happening around him, as far down as the Lower Levels.
Bright, hot pain pulsed through his mind. Obi-Wan tried not to look at any of the memories too closely, although he briefly paused to take in the figure of Anakin’s mother. She looked nothing like him and had the soft eyes of someone who had suffered much.
Obi-Wan carefully began raising up walls around the more painful memories and around Anakin’s mind. The images of Coruscant began to fade away, and Anakin stilled under him. Obi-Wan closed doors as he went. The only remainder of the outside world were two small doorways: the one through which Obi-Wan came, and a weak, tiny one that led only to a void of nothingness, to the Beyond.
Obi-Wan retreated from Anakin’s mind and pulled back from him. He was sleeping peacefully now.
He knew he shouldn’t have done that. It was an invasion of privacy. Not to mention it set a bad precedent. He could not do this every time for him. Anakin would have to learn to protect his mind on his own. These walls and doors were only temporary.
But he was so young, and in so much pain.
Obi-Wan couldn’t have just watched.
3
Obi-Wan heard the knock just as he was about to step out of the shower.
“Just a moment!” he cried hurriedly as he turned off the water.
“Why is this locked? Are you alright, Obi-Wan?”
Ah. Aayla.
“I’m fine,” he called. He stepped out of the shower and pulled on a bathrobe. As he padded down the hallway, he left drops of water in his wake. He unlocked the door with the Force, and Aayla entered the room.
“You were in the shower?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Hold on a moment.” He walked back down the hall and grabbed a towel. Aayla was still in the doorway when he came back into the common area. He sat at the table and motioned for her to do the same.
She put her hands on her hips instead. “Why was the door to the apartment locked? Why didn’t you just lock the bathroom door if you thought someone would burst in on you?”
Obi-Wan sighed. “It’s Anakin’s fault, really. Usually I keep my clothes on the vanity in the lavatory, but he broke it yesterday while trying to prove to me that he could use the Force to flip now.”
Aayla chuckled and sank into the seat opposite him. “Funny. Reminds me of something all of us have probably done.”
Obi-Wan, personally, couldn’t remember ever pulling a stunt like that. He harrumphed and dried his hair with the towel.
“So why not just walk around in the robe?” Aayla pointed out. “You did it just now, obviously. Why lock the door because of a broken vanity?”
Curse her. She was too clever for her own good.
“I don’t think Anakin would appreciate his master walking around with no clothes on,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “He’s getting to that age where everything I do is embarrassing for him.”
“Wearing a bathrobe and not wearing clothes are not the same thing,” Aayla said. “You, of all people, should know that.”
“The rumors of my promiscuity have been greatly exaggerated,” Obi-Wan told her staunchly.
Aayla glared at him. “Really? You can’t pull that on me.”
“Hmm,” Obi-Wan hummed. “Well, even a person with looser inhibitions can still wish to cover up.”
“You wear leather pants. Tight leather pants.”
“Around their padawan!” Obi-Wan amended hurriedly with a glance at the door. Anakin did not need to know about those pants.
Aayla smirked, her eyes twinkling. “Alright. Fine. Then it has nothing to do with that plunging neckline on the robe?”
“Well, that’s rather what I mean,” Obi-Wan said.
Aayla leaned across the table and tapped one of the scars on his chest. “I mean it has nothing to do with these.”
Obi-Wan said nothing. Aayla fell back gracefully into her seat with a pointed expression. Her hand hovered over her lightsaber, and Obi-Wan knew it was subconscious, for he was immersed in the same memories of Aayla resolutely staying by his side as he struggled to hold his own saber. She had seen too much of him to be fooled by his charm.
Why did it have to be her at the door?
“What were you doing at my door?” Obi-Wan asked, suddenly struck by the question. “Did you need something?”
Aayla frowned. “Something that can wait. Nice try.”
Well, blast. It sometimes worked with Anakin, assuming he brought up droids, speeders or podracing.
Obi-Wan let the towel fall across his shoulders.
“He’s too young,” he said.
“For what?” Aayla asked. “Anakin has his own scars.”
That was part of the problem.
“He’s about to start missions with me,” Obi-Wan said. “I don’t want to frighten him.”
“He won’t be frightened,” Aayla argued. “He’ll think the stories are wizard. And the scars. Quinlan has already told him about his first mission on Dantooine.”
Quinlan’s first mission on Dantooine contained the goriest details Obi-Wan had ever heard. He shuddered to think about what exactly he had told Anakin. Quinlan was not known for holding anything back.
“Jedi have hard lives,” Obi-Wan said. “I don’t want to ruin what little innocence he has left by telling him what the rest of his life will no doubt look like.”
“Unlike all of us, he chose this,” Aayla said. “He won’t shirk away from it. You cannot protect him forever, which is all the more reason to tell him. To prepare him. If you do it right, when the time comes, he will not be afraid. I never was.”
“He’s only twelve years old,” Obi-Wan said.
Aayla tilted her head and looked at him with those sad eyes, and he slumped in defeat. She was twelve when Master Windu had first been shot on a mission with her. Quinlan was twelve when his master took him to Nal Hutta. Obi-Wan traced the scars on his chest; he had been thirteen.
“He has been through so much,” Aayla murmured. “I understand your desire to keep the ugly truth from him, but it is not possible. If you want to be a good master, you should tell him everything. In time.”
Qui-Gon had kept many things close to his chest. That was part of the reason Obi-Wan respected him even in the face of their differences. But, Obi-Wan mused, he had lost Anakin’s respect long ago, probably the first time he’d ever tripped on the damn carpet. Their relationship was not built on trust at arm’s length or awe from a distance.
He was not sure how to tell him everything. He was not sure that he could.
“Start small,” Aayla advised. “Work your way up to things. Anakin always complains about how mysterious you are. I think this will help him.”
Well, that was rich. Whenever Obi-Wan would press Anakin on details about his life before, he would inevitably be drawn into a conversation about the moons of Iego before he could even realize Anakin had been playing him for the fool. He was too bright for his own good.
“If you insist,” Obi-Wan said, “but some things… some things are mine.”
There were things he’d never told Qui-Gon, things he had never told his friends. They were his to dream about, and his alone, whether it was the crystal waterfall under the moonlight of Draboon or the sound of the ravine on Melida/Daan.
“Whatever you think is best,” Aayla said. She put a hand on his wrist.
Obi-Wan let his hand rest there for a moment before pulling away to dry his hair more. The longer it got, the more time-consuming it was. How Qui-Gon dealt with all of it, Obi-Wan had no idea.
“So why did you come to the flat?” Obi-Wan asked.
“Ah, yes,” Aayla said. She smiled. “On a happier note, I’m recommending Anakin to advance to the next lightsaber stage. He is learning Form V quicker than I can teach him.”
Obi-Wan felt more pride than he maybe should have. It seemed Anakin was following in his footsteps as a duelist and in Qui-Gon’s footsteps as Force-sensitive.
“Very good,” he said. “I agree. Now that he’s growing stronger, V is working better for him.”
The Healers predicted that Anakin would be six feet tall and broad. Obi-Wan didn’t know how to feel about that one.
“He’s coming back,” Aayla said. “I should go. You two have some things to talk about.”
She stood from her chair and left before Obi-Wan could thank her.
4
“Master, you’re lost.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No I’m not, Anakin,” Obi-Wan insisted, holding his lightsaber higher as they trekked through the tunnels.
“Yes you are Obi-Wan.”
Obi-Wan whipped around to see Anakin grinning. “One more word out of you, young one, and I’ll light you on fire to use as a torch.”
Anakin’s grin only widened. “But then who would watch your back when the Caridans catch up with us?”
Obi-Wan grunted. He had a point. He turned around again and paused before the fork in the tunnel. “Blast it. Which way?”
“Ha, knew it!” Anakin cried gleefully.
“Be quiet,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m trying to think.”
“I can hear them,” Anakin warned. “They’re not far behind us.”
“Left,” Obi-Wan decided.
They turned and continued on, the cave sloping downwards as they went. That had to be right. They needed to descend towards the Kidron Valley.
He heard footsteps closing in. Anakin was right.
“Master, something’s wrong,” Anakin said. He stopped.
“What do you—Anakin!” Obi-Wan shouted as the ceiling caved down towards them. He thrust Anakin ahead of him, sending him tumbling down the tunnel away from the advancing Caridans, and then the ceiling collapsed.
(-------)
Obi-Wan awoke suddenly. His cheek stung. He blinked and gasped as he felt hands in his hair, pulling his face up. When his vision returned to him, he saw four humans – Caridans, identifiable by their clan tattoo markings on their faces – standing before him. He flexed his hands experimentally; he was in Force-containing bonds.
“Where’s the kid?” one of the women asked.
“What an odd way to introduce oneself,” Obi-Wan commented. “My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and you are?”
The hand on his hair tightened, and another hand slid around his throat.
“We would kill you, Jedi,” a voice behind Obi-Wan threatened, “if not for the kid. If you don’t want to cooperate, we will do it.”
Obi-Wan’s thoughts flew through his mind as quickly as Anakin usually flew their speeder. Why did they want to know about Anakin so desperately?
“There was no child with me,” Obi-Wan said, deciding to play it safe. “To whom are you referring?”
“Your apprentice,” the same woman growled. She stepped closer to him and put a hand on his chest. “We can’t leave a young Jedi running around. Even the kids can cause trouble.”
“Oh?” Obi-Wan asked. “I wasn’t aware another Jedi was assigned to this mission.”
The woman slapped him. He winced and began to gently lower himself into meditation. Force, he hadn’t done this in ages. Maybe Quinlan was right. Maybe spending the past few years at the Temple was making him soft.
“Get it out of him,” the woman ordered, “any way you can. If he doesn’t talk by nightfall, we’ll kill him and see what the kid can do.”
She stalked away, but Obi-Wan did not hear her last footfalls as he sank deeper emotion, yet peace ignorance, yet knowledge passion, yet serenity chaos, yet harmony Death, yet the Force emotion, yet peace ignorance, yet
(--------)
“—come on, if you don’t wake up this time I’ll, I’ll, I’ll fucking mess with the TV wires! Yeah! And then you’ll never be able to figure it out because you’re just stupid when it comes to machines, no offense.”
Obi-Wan coughed and cracked his eyes open. He was lying on the ground, his head in Anakin’s lap. His padawan jumped and cried, “Master! You’re awake!”
“—nakin?” Obi-Wan asked. He gasped when he tried to sit up, the pain flooding back to him in tsunami waves. This was the detriment of meditation, he thought through gritted teeth. He scanned his body and didn’t see any damage, thank the Force. Waking up to a missing limb – or worse – would have been quite the awakening.
“You shouldn’t move,” Anakin urged. “I think you might have some nerve damage. Those bastards electrocuted you too much.”
Obi-Wan glanced to his left to see bodies lying on the floor, still smoking from the lightsaber holes. How in the world had Anakin beaten them all?
“’ow did you find me?” Obi-Wan ground out.
“Followed the Force,” Anakin answered. “I snuck in here in disguise, so we should probably get going.”
He lifted Obi-Wan off the floor with the Force. It came easily to him, naturally. He had made so much progress.
“Why did you do that?” Anakin asked as he levitated Obi-Wan down a hallway.
Obi-Wan screwed his eyes shut against the nausea-inducing movement of the ceiling. “Do what?”
“Throw me away,” Anakin said.
His voice sounded dull.
He already knew the answer.
“To protect you,” Obi-Wan said truthfully. “It’s the role of… the master.”
A wave of nausea overtook him. Anakin might have been able to levitate him, but it certainly wasn’t the steadiest ride.
“Well, it’s the role of the padawan, too,” Anakin said stubbornly. “Next time, don’t do it, OK?”
Obi-Wan’s heart burned at the tone of voice, but he couldn’t agree to that.
“No promises,” he said instead.
5
Anakin came to him bashfully, shamefully, like Anakin never had before. He lingered in the doorway as if it weren’t his flat, too. Obi-Wan looked up from his half-finished report on Geonosis and leapt to his feet.
“It doesn’t look great, yet,” Anakin warned. He extended his right arm and flexed a gold, skeletal hand. “I’m gonna make modifications and make it look less freaky. It looks like 3PO did when I had to leave him unfinished.”
He snickered, but then composed himself again. He seemed to draw in a great breath before he said, “Master, I’m… I’m so sorry.”
Obi-Wan felt taken aback. Anakin hadn’t apologized to him – and meant it – in a very, very long time.
“Whatever are you sorry for?” he asked.
Anakin shrugged listlessly. “I haven’t been a good padawan for the last few months.” Try years. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m… afraid, and I know I shouldn’t be, but I am, because I’m afraid I can’t make up for what I’ve done.”
Obi-Wan knew that fear well. It had kept him awake at night: would their relationship ever return to what it once had been?
“Anakin,” he said, crossing the room and looking up into his face, “you shouldn’t worry anymore. You don’t have to make up for anything. All padawans go through a phase, and you just saved my life about three times on Geonosis.”
Anakin smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked.
Obi-Wan resisted to say that he just had.
“Yes,” he said, “of course.”
Anakin looked out the window behind Obi-Wan. “The senator has asked me to escort her back to Naboo, to make sure the threat has passed. Should you… should you come with us?”
Obi-Wan almost gaped.
He knew what he was asking. He knew he wanted Obi-Wan to come, to be a barrier against the strength of his desires, to stop him from doing things he shouldn’t. Obi-Wan wasn’t blind; he knew that Anakin harbored feelings for her. He suspected he always had. And he knew she harbored feelings for him.
If he went, he could quash this. He could stop Anakin from going down a path that would lead to pain and anguish and heartbreak.
But perhaps regret was more powerful and vicelike.
In his mind’s eye he could still see the immense royal chambers, the bedspread blue and silver, the colors of Kalevala. He remembered the way their knees brushed when they watched the crystal waterfall. He could still feel the way his mouth would hurt when she would make him laugh and the way his stomach would roil when she would argue. It still haunted him, that day on Sundari: the sunset against the bleak Mandalorian nuclear wasteland, the stiff bow, the impassive face still unused to wearing the headpiece.
Anakin had already fallen, that much was clear. That could not be undone. It could never be undone. It would always be there, and would always linger, so long as the love was true.
If he could spare his padawan – his friend – any portion of that pain that so gripped him in the dead of night, then he would.
“I think it’s best if you accompany her alone,” Obi-Wan said. “I have another report to write, as per usual. The Council wants me for something, though they won’t tell me what.”
Anakin still looked uncertain.
Obi-Wan put his hands on his shoulders. “This is for you and Senator Amidala to discuss alone, Anakin. I trust you to make a reasoned decision.”
Anakin nodded.
“I’ll start packing,” he said.
1
Anakin sat back in the speeder and adjusted his cuffs. He hated formalwear, but it always made Padmé look at him like that, so he didn’t mind it too much.
“It will be nice,” Padmé said, “to act like a normal couple for once.”
Anakin glanced up at the building. “Yeah, if she ever gets down here. And where’s Obi-Wan? He was supposed to meet us here five minutes ago.”
“She’s still upset over the trade route deal,” Padmé guessed. “She doesn’t want Mandalore to have to turn to the black market.”
Anakin sighed. “Alright. I’ll go see if she’s ready yet. You call Obi-Wan. Make sure he’s not tied up at the Temple, even though I told Ahsoka to push him out of the door on time.”
Padmé smiled as he jumped onto the balcony. The guards let him through the doors, and he entered what could only be described as the seat of luxury. Three fountains, glass windows, white columns, the works. Anakin didn’t even want to think about how much this place cost.
“Duchess?” he called as he walked through the hallways. “Uh, Duchess Satine? It’s Anakin. You’re running a bit late!”
Satine burst through the door. Every hair and earring was in place, but she still looked frazzled.
“I’ve just been contacted by the Chancellor,” she seethed, storming past Anakin into her living room. “He informs me that because Mandalore is to remain neutral, we cannot even access the corporate trade. That incorrigible man!”
Anakin followed her silently as she typed something onto a holopad. She was still barefoot, which was odd to see. After a second, she turned to face him. “I’m so sorry, Master Skywalker. I shall only be a moment.”
“No problem, my lady,” Anakin assured her.
She put the holopad down and bent over to pick up the shoes sitting against the wall. “I am terribly sorry for making you all wait, although I’m sure Obi-Wan isn’t here yet, seeing as he can never find time outside of his precious war.”
Uh-oh. Alarm bells rang in Anakin’s head.
“Um, he’s just making sure he looks amazing,” Anakin told her. “He said he wanted this night to be special.”
Satine’s shoulders sank. “He did?”
Shit, Anakin did it now. “Yeah. He was raving about it all day.”
Satine looked thrilled.
“Uh, I’ll go wait in the speeder,” Anakin said. “Finish up your duties, and then I’m sure Obi-Wan will be here.”
Satine eyed him suspiciously, and Anakin rushed towards the balcony. He jumped over it into the speeder and collapsed into the seat. Before Padmé could say anything, he slammed his finger into the commlink on his wrist.
“Obi-Wan, come in you bastard,” he hissed.
“No need for that talk, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said sourly. “I’m almost ready.”
“Well, you better be extra ready,” Anakin threatened. “Wear that white suit. I told Satine you were taking forever because you wanted to make the night special. She’s pissed as all hell about the trade routes, and now your tardiness.”
“Anakin, you said what?! Force, now I’ll have to change! And what do you mean about making the night special? This isn’t a date, no matter how much you insist—”
Padmé mouthed he doesn’t know it’s a date?
Anakin covered the comm link. “Well, you’ll just have to pretend to get through dinner. And hurry up!”
He hung up.
“The things I do for that man,” he said, shaking his head.
Padmé arched an eyebrow. “Ani, I thought you told them this was a double date.”
“Eh, I didn’t exactly say that,” Anakin admitted. “It’ll be good for them. You should have seen them on the Coronet.”
“You should have heard Satine ranting,” Padmé agreed. “I suppose, sometimes, other people know what’s best.”
“Yup,” Anakin said.
Obi-Wan better thank him later.