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Obi-Wan knows something is wrong before he finds Anakin pacing in the Hanger. The force has been swirling at the edge of his awareness all morning, a low-level warning. Now Obi-Wan has found the eye of the storm.
Rex and Cody are nearby, hovering next to an empty starship like they’re planning their get away. Cody appears as straight-backed and calm as he is in the trenches. Rex looks exhausted. Obi-Wan wonders how long Anakin has been in this state.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan calls when he grows close. “Is there a reason this could not wait until midmeal?”
Anakin stops mid-step, spinning on his heel to glare at him. “I told Ahsoka we were no longer having midmeal with you. She’s on the Resolute, where it’s safe.”
“I sense,” Obi-Wan says slowly, glancing at the troopers moving about the Hanger around them, “that there is something I’m missing. Why don’t we find somewhere private to sit down so you can fill me in?”
Anakin shakes his head. He turns and paces away from Obi-Wan, the force churning around him.
Obi-Wan ventures closer. Rex and Cody watch his every move, clearly waiting for some misstep.
“I cannot help you keep Ahsoka safe if I don’t know what the problem is.” Last he heard, there had been no reports of Separatists into this sector, let alone near the Negotiator. “And if Ahsoka is truly in danger, I don’t know how wise it is to leave her by herself on the Resolute.”
Anakin laughs, a rough sound that sets all of Obi-Wan’s instincts on edge. “Since when have you had an issue with leaving people?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve heard the rumours, Master. How long were you planning on hiding this from me? Were you ever going to tell me?”
Obi-Wan glances at Rex and Cody. They stare stiffly back at him, giving nothing away. The hanger is a buzz of noise around them as troopers prepare for the upcoming mission on the planet below. They carefully give both jedi a wide berth, leaving them in an isolated pocket of silence but still in clear view of the rest of the troops.
“You have me at a loss, Anakin. If you are cross with me–”
Anakin whirls around, face like a thunderclap. “I heard you left a youngling to die.”
“What?” Obi-Wan fights the urge to laugh at what must be a joke.
“I heard you abandoned a padawan in the middle of an active warzone without even their lightsaber to defend themselves. I heard the padawan was barely out of their training beads, even younger than Ahsoka.”
The words fall somewhere deep inside him, landing with an impact Obi-Wan barely registers. He wishes he had misheard or misunderstood, but there is no mistaking the utter repulsion twisted up on Anakin’s face. Aimed at him.
“You think…” His tongue is heavy in his mouth. He fumbles for words for the first time in recent memory. “You think that I would abandon a child in the middle of a warzone?”
Anakin raises his chin. A silent challenge. “Haven’t you?”
“And this warzone,” Obi-wan says, because he has to be sure. “Did you hear where exactly–”
“Melida Daan.”
The world feels far away. Obi-Wan feels far away. He shakes his head, a strange ringing in his ears. Is this why his troopers were acting so strange this morning? Were they watching Obi-Wan and trying to reshape their idea of him to fit this new rumour? Did they believe he was capable of such things?
“When did you hear this rumour?”
“Early this morning,” Anakin says, “when I was speaking to an old friend. Apparently all of Coruscant knows what you’ve done.”
Obi-Wan feels ill. He presses a hand to his stomach as though he could calm the sudden roiling nauseous through touch alone. “And you believed it immediately without any evidence.”
“I do have evidence.” Anakin shoves a datapad at him. Obi-Wan takes it with numb fingers. “Much of it is censored given this is the senate’s copy of the mission log. But it’s the official record. I checked.”
Obi-Wan skims through the report. He already knows its contents well. He’d written it, after all, and reread it more than once during his probation period, trying to reconcile his own shaky memories with the way the people around him spoke of his ordeal. He’d hoped reading the facts laid bare, objective and clinical in size 10 font, would help him understand and maybe dampen some of the rage that always consumed him in those days. But it never had. It had only ever made him feel worse.
The presence of three jedi are noted in the mission log - two Jedi Masters and one Jedi Padawan. Names and dates have been redacted, as they sometimes are in public records containing private and personal information, especially when a minor was involved.
They’re included the author of the document though. Obi-Wan Kenobi is stamped at the bottom, beneath a block of black redactions. He wonders if it was an accident that his then-title - Jedi Padawan - was obscured. A larger part of him thinks they must have done that on purpose.
Anakin continues to pace as Obi-Wan reads. He’s muttering to himself, only occasionally raising his voice loud enough for Obi-Wan to hear him. “I never trusted the council to have the best interests of a youngling at heart, of course they would let something like this slide.”
Obi-Wan has read enough. He lowers the holopad, swallowing. “You think I would be given a seat on the council if this were true?”
“I’ve seen the mission report, Obi-Wan! You can’t deny it.”
“You’ve seen a highly redacted version of a report emerge from the depth of the senate. You’re close with Senator Amidala, are you not? Surely, you’ve seen firsthand the way politicians can spin tales.”
Anakin scoffs. “I know how to spot a fake. That report is the real thing.”
“This is an official document, yes, but one that contains no dates or other names.”
Anakin shakes his head, hearing but not taking in his words.
Obi-Wan closes his eyes and tries to center himself by naming his tangled emotions: anger that someone has dug up an old wound from his childhood and tried to turn it on him like this; shame and guilt and panic from that childhood version of himself who never truly left Melida/Daan; and something like betrayal that his padawan would believe this of him.
On his return to the Jedi Order, it had taken Obi-Wan a long time to learn how to deal with his experiences on Melida/Daan. Everything had felt like too much back then, and he had been scrambling to keep his head above water, playing catch up on his studies and trying to please his master and the council while still processing months spent in gorilla combat. He’d felt constantly wrongfooted.
He had repaired his relationship with Qui-Gon eventually, but now that he’s a master himself, having already raised a rebellious and wayward padawan and helping care for his spirited grand-padawan, he had begun to look back on that time with new eyes. The idea of leaving Anakin or Ahsoka the way Qui-Gon had left him… it made him feel ill.
“What have I done to make you think I'm capable of this?” Obi-Wan waves the report in the air. “What have I done to make you so quick to judge me instead of seeking out the truth?”
“This is the truth.”
“It’s not the full truth. Someone is lying to you, Anakin.”
“Palpatine is not a liar!”
Obi-Wan can’t stop himself from scoffing. Of course this was orchestrated by Palpatine. And of course Anakin believed Chancellor’s half-truths over Obi-Wan. It hurts, but it isn’t especially surprising. “How many times must I tell you that the Chancellor is trying to manipulate you--”
“Shut up!”
The force swells with the force of Anakin’s rage. Obi-Wan feels like a boat thrown about in a storm, churning waves beating against his hull, threatening to drown him.
“I trusted you,” Anakin goes on, eyes wild. “The Council gave a youngling recently freed from slavery to someone who had already abandoned a youngling. Who’s to say you wouldn’t have done it again? Who’s to say you won’t still do it to another padawan or one of the shinies? To Ahsoka?”
Cold anger rises up to eclipse the hurt. His voice comes out steadier than he feels. “Since you didn’t care to do your research, let me do it for you: I logged that report on behalf of my Master when I was fourteen years old.”
Anakin stares, silent and blank-faced as he processes what Obi-Wan has said. He shakes his head. “No. Qui-Gon—he wouldn’t--”
Obi-Wan laughs. The words bubble up before he can stop them. “You would believe the honour of a man you knew for a week, but not the man that raised you?”
Anakin wavers, all the anger leached out of him. “So the padawan that was abandoned… That was…”
“Me,” Obi-Wan finishes. When understanding dawns on Anakin’s face--and then, half a moment later, horror—it doesn’t feel like a victory. Obi-Wan may have won the argument, but he just feels tired, down to his bones.
He glances to the side and finds Rex looking just as wide-eyed as his General. He can’t be sure whether Rex believed in the rumours or whether he’s shocked that Obi-Wan was involved in this way. Anakin had probably ranted at him—at the entire 501st, perhaps—after his discussion with the Chancellor. Obi-Wan supposes he can’t fault Rex if he had believed it.
Cody stands beside Rex with his arms crossed, lips pressed into a flat line. After working with his Commander for the better part of two years, communicating across countless war tables and battlefields, Obi-wan has gotten very good at reading Cody’s micro-expressions. He sees this one often, usually when someone or something that Cody had no faith in inevitably let him down: I’m disappointed, but I’m not surprised.
The disappointment is directed at Anakin. Not at Obi-Wan.
Anakin stares at Obi-Wan like he’s seeing him for the first time. Obi-Wan scrubs a hand over his face. He feels like his teenage self all over again, unlucky and untalented and yearning for more love than a man like Qui-Gon could give.
“Obi-Wan,” Anakin says. Then, slightly shakier: “Master.”
Obi-Wan is vaguely aware of the troopers moving around them but can’t bring himself to care if they have overheard any of this conversation. Tomorrow, he will have the energy to berate himself for getting so emotional that he had such a private conversation in a public place.
“I should inform the Council about this,” Obi-Wan tells the space over Anakin’s shoulder. He draws his robe around himself tighter like a shield. “They will want to get ahead of this should the press catch wind of this story. We don’t need any more bad publicity.”
“Bad publicity? Master--”
“I’ll be in my quarters. Cody can handle anything else if you have need.” Obi-Wan spins on his heels and marches away. Anakin calls after him, voice growing louder and louder as he goes, but Obi-Wan doesn’t stop. Cody falls into place by his side. He half-expects Cody to comment on what had happened, but he stays silent on the long journey back to Obi-Wan’s quarters. It makes it a little easier to put one foot in front of the other.
“I’ll clear things up with the troops,” Cody finally says when Obi-Wan’s door is in sight.
Obi-Wan exhales noisily. “Thank you, Cody.”
Cody nods and leaves. Obi-Wan lets himself into his quarters, door closing behind him, and then just stands there. He really should contact the Council, but he can’t bring himself to face anyone right now.
He tries to meditate, but his mind is spinning and he finds it impossible to release his emotions into the force. His hands are tingling. The world narrows down to the tightness in his chest, the burn of his eyes, and he feels--feels–
He stops. Breathes deeply. Grounds himself by naming the emotion: Angry. He feels angry.
Obi-Wan has spent years rationalising what happened on MeliDaan. He’d given Qui-Gon no choice, he told himself. Obi-Wan was the one that decided to leave the Jedi Order. He’d only been a Padawan, sure, but he was still a Jedi and a stubborn one at that. And his Master had been kind enough to take him back when he had called. Obi-Wan should be quiet and grateful and not cling to the past.
Why, then, was everyone else now so horrified by what had happened? When Obi-Wan had returned to Coruscant all those years ago, there hadn’t been this torrent of rage and disgust at what had happened to him. There had been scrutiny and scorn and several months of probation. It feels like betrayal all over again that people are upset by Qui-Gon’s actions now, all these years later.
The door chimes. Obi-Wan can feel Anakin on the other side, his emotions politely shielded for once. Obi-Wan waits another moment but there's no impatient banging at the door like he would typically expect from Anakin.
He considers leaving Anakin out there to sulk, but abandons that petty thought quickly. He’s let his emotion control him enough today.
With a wave of his hand, the door slides open. Anakin edges into the room, shoulders hunched and eyes down like he’s twelve years old again and waiting to be scolded for skipping class.
Obi-Wan sighs. “Sit down, Anakin.”
Anakin stays standing. “Master–”
“I won’t have this conversation with you looming over me even more than you normally do. Sit down, Anakin.”
Anakin sits cross-legged in front of him. He fiddles with his tabards, glaring at the hessian mat beneath Obi-Wan. “Why didn’t you tell me, Master?”
“It was clear that you idealised Qui-Gon. He was the man that saved you from slavery, that promised to make you a jedi. At first, it hurt too much to talk about Qui-Gon, and then it felt cruel to destroy that image you had of him just to satisfy my own feelings on the matter.”
Anakin grips his tabards tighter, wrinkling the coarse fabric. “How badly did he hurt you, Obi-Wan? What else have you kept from me?”
Obi-Wan sighs. “It’s more complicated than it sounds. Qui-Gon helped shape me into the Jedi I am today and I’m grateful for that, but we were not always good for each other. Sometimes I wonder if we were the right people for one another, just at all the wrong times.”
Maybe a younger Qui-Gon would have had more room in his heart for Obi-Wan. Maybe if they both had more patience, if Obi-Wan was not such a brash and troubled child, they might have been a more functional pair.
“Sometimes,” Obi-Wan goes on, “I wonder if that’s true of us, too. The right people for one another at all the wrong times.”
Council Member Obi-Wan Kenobi would surely have been a far better match for preteen Anakin Skywalker. Anakin deserved the version of him that wasn’t drowning in grief and overwhelmed responsibilities. The version of him that was more patient, more understanding, more settled.
But then again, if Anakin were his Padawan now, he would have been sent to the front lines. A child taken straight from slave to soldier.
“Master--”
Obi-Wan scrubs a hand over his face, feeling wrung-out. He mumbles into his palm, “Maybe we were always the wrong people for one another.”
A mechanical hand grabs his wrist and yanks it away from his face. Obi-Wan winces, trying to pull back, but Anakin holds on tight enough to hurt. “How can you say that? I know it wasn’t your choice to take me in, but to resent me so--”
“No, Anakin, I have never resented you. You’re so bright in the force-- you were the light guiding me even when all felt lost after Qui-Gon’s passing.”
Anakin’s grip loosens. He hunches in on himself, still holding Obi-Wan’s wrist as though worried he would float away without the tether. “Then how could I be wrong for you?”
“Oh Padawan, you were never wrong for me. Sometimes I fear that I…” He fumbles for the right words, silver tongue abandoned him. “I know how badly you wished it was Qui-Gon that was your master. It’s true Qui-Gon and I were not good for one another, but I believe he would have been a very different man to you than he was to me.”
“What? He hurt you when you were just a youngling.”
“That doesn’t mean he would have hurt you. If you became his padawan, I would have still watched out for you to make sure you were safe, but Anakin, you were so joyful and bright in the living force. Qui-Gon had loved you so much, if you had been the one with him way back when… I think he would have learnt to be patient.”
“What are you saying? You thought he left you because you weren’t enough? Obi-Wan, you were a child! You didn’t deserve that, surely you know that.”
“No child should be left in such a hostile environment,” Obi-Wan agrees, “but the situation was more complicated than it sounds, and my relationship with Qui-Gon had already been fraught. I was a disagreeable child, and impatient and impulsive, and--”
“You?” Anakin laughs with disbelief. “You sound like you’re describing me as a padawan.”
“You were easy to love, Anakin.”
“And you weren’t?”
Obi-Wan falls silent. Anakin shuffles forward, half-tangled in the long-folds of his robes, and shakes Obi-Wan’s arm. “You can’t believe that, Obi-Wan. What happened to you was not your fault, and it certainly wasn’t because you’re hard to love.” Anakin’s grip tightens, growing painful again, even as his voice grows wet. “I never should have believed the rumours.”
When Obi-Wan pulls his wrist out of Anakin’s hold, his skin is an irritated pink. “This is not the first time your friend the Chancellor has been allowed to drive a wedge between us.”
Anakin is quiet for a long moment. “No. I guess it isn’t.”
Obi-Wan is too exhausted to pick up that old argument. He feels like his insides have been scrubbed raw. All he wants is a quick sonic and then sleep. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I shouldn’t have shown you this side of myself.”
Anakin sags closer until their sides are pressed up against each other, arm to arm and leg to leg. “You’re my brother, Obi-Wan. I want you to be able to show me every side of yourself.”
Obi-Wan leans back against Anakin and, just for a moment, lets him take some of the weight. “Okay, Anakin. Okay.”