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bedlamsbardI refuse to acknowledge this as actual fic, but it does appear that the scenes have started being consecutive.
Anakin’s dreams are restless, fire and death and the face of the man she’d seen in Artoo’s holos. She wakes up gasping with her hand clenched on her lightsaber hilt and a fleeting hope that her bad dreams haven’t disturbed Obi-Wan’s sleep, but when she sits up to check, she’s relieved to find that Obi-Wan is still asleep, one bare foot protruding from beneath her blankets. Anakin scrubs a hand over her face, dropping her lightsaber in her lap, and shoves her hair out of her eyes. She’d gone to bed without taking the glove on her durasteel hand and she peels it off slowly, flexing the metal fingers. It’s not an oddity anymore, the way she’d thought it would be at the beginning of the war; some days it seems like the Order has more Jedi with cybernetic limbs than not. Not Obi-Wan, though. All Obi-Wan’s limbs and bones are her own and original.
She tosses the glove aside, on top of her robe, and lies back down, holding her lightsaber to her chest. They shouldn’t be here. They should be back in their own universe, wearing themselves out against the Separatist troops – killing and dying and worse. She’s done horrible things for the Republic, for the Order. For herself. She’s never been certain if she’s actually bothered by them or if she just thinks she should be. Anakin flips the lightsaber between her fingers, watching the dull gleam of the emergency lights off the metal.
The Force gathers around her like the smell of the desert before a sandstorm, and Anakin is on her feet without a conscious thought, her lightsaber blazing up. Obi-Wan kicks the blanket aside and leaps up, lightsaber in her hands, and the figure by the door raises empty hands.
“Peace,” he says, and lifts the hood of his Jedi robes away from his face.
Anakin has never seen him before, but she knows him like she knows her own heartbeat. She knows who he might have been, once upon a time. She’s standing on the other side of the room, lightsaber shining between her hands.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Anakin says.
“And you are Anakin Skywalker,” the old man says.
Obi-Wan deactivates her lightsaber with a buzz of sound. Anakin follows, a moment later. She’s not wearing her belt; she keeps on holding her lightsaber, curling her fingers lightly around the hilt.
“Master Kenobi, I assume,” says the old man, looking at Obi-Wan like she’s some old record Master Nu’s found in the Archives. “Fascinating.”
“I could say the same,” Obi-Wan says. “Luke said you were dead.”
“He is,” Anakin says. “He’s pure Force energy – can’t you feel it, Master?”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan says shortly, and stares at the old man like she’s personally insulted that he would go against the Code like that. “What do you want?”
The old man blinks at her, but most of his attention is on Anakin, a fond, sad smile tugging at his lips. “Luke told me, but I wanted to see you for myself,” he says, and reaches out one hand to touch her face, pushing her hair behind one ear. His touch buzzes against Anakin’s skin, like weak Force lightning, and she flinches back, the hair on the back of her standing up. Obi-Wan steps forward, her hand flexing on her lightsaber hilt.
The old man ignores her. “You are so beautiful,” he says. “You look so like him.”
“I’m not him, Master Kenobi,” Anakin says, stepping back from his touch, because it hurts. Force lightning is pure energy and so is he. She wonders if Obi-Wan would flinch from his touch too, or if it’s just her.
“But you are,” the old man says. “You’re yourself, but you’re him, too. You’re walking his path. You have done what he did.”
Anakin breathes in. “I am not him,” she repeats.
“But you haven’t told her what you did either,” says the old man. Anakin looks aside, away from Obi-Wan and clenches her durasteel fist.
“What are you talking about?” Obi-Wan says evenly, moving sideways again. Anakin knows what she’s doing; she’s trying to put herself between the old man and Anakin.
“Ask your former Padawan.”
Anakin tosses her hair, giving him her best sneer. “I am not him,” she says for the third time, and reaches out with her mind for the Force, searching for the steady flame of this Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Force-ghost, and shoves.
He flickers out of sight as if he’s never been.
Obi-Wan is there almost before he’s gone, seizing Anakin’s wrists and helping her to a seat on the bed. “Ani, did he hurt you?”she demands, kneeling in front of her. “Anakin, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she says, but she feels sick, nausea rising in the back of her throat at the thought of the old man’s words. He knew. How did he know?
The Force. The answer comes unbidden to her mind.
“Anakin, what was he talking about?” Obi-Wan says gently.
She closes her eyes, breathing in, and puts her lightsaber gently to one side. “I don’t know what this Anakin did,” she says, “but I think that maybe it was something awful. I –”
“Anakin?” Obi-Wan prods when she stops, looking up at her with worried blue eyes.
“I need you to know the things that I’ve done,” Anakin says, and opens herself to the Force, so that she can show Obi-Wan instead of trying to find the words.
When it’s over, Obi-Wan lets go of her hands. She steps away from Anakin, putting a hand to her mouth, and half-turns away. Anakin closes her eyes and pulls her legs up onto the bed, pressing her cheek to her knees. The memory-sharing has left her exhausted and wrung-out, so that all she wants to do is curl up in her blankets and cry until Obi-Wan stops looking at her like that.
“Master?” she says, hearing the pleading note in her voice.
Obi-Wan takes her hand away from her mouth and massages her forehead, looking tired.
“Master, please say something,” Anakin begs.
“Anakin, you should not have done that,” Obi-Wan says, but the words sound flat to her ears and Anakin curls up further.
“I know.”
“Do you regret it?”
No. Yes. “I don’t know.” She closes her eyes. “I – regret losing control. I regret that I – that I allowed my emotions to overcome me even afterwards.” She looks up at Obi-Wan. “I have been working on it, Master.”
“Mmm,” Obi-Wan says.
Anakin looks up at her desperately. “Master, it will never happen again, I swear to you by the Force –”
“It should not have happened once!” Obi-Wan says, her voice rising. She turns away from Anakin, reaching for her boots. “I’ve failed you.”
“Where are you going?” Anakin demands, starting upright.
“To think!” Obi-Wan snaps back, yanking her boots on and reaching for her belt and robe.
“Master, I’m sorry,” Anakin begs, crossing the room to her. She puts out a hand to touch her partner’s shoulder, but jerks it back when Obi-Wan levels a glare at her. She’s never seen Obi-Wan look at her like that before.
“Are you sorry for the lives you took or because you betrayed m – the Order?” Obi-Wan says, and flicks her fingers at the door, which slides open with a slight uprush of Force energy that Anakin can feel like a finger of cool breeze along the back of her neck.
“Master,” Anakin pleads, following her towards the door. Obi-Wan doesn’t look back, just waves at the door again, and it slides shut between them.
Anakin stands looking after her, alone and unhappy in the Force, and whispers, “Master, I’m sorry.”
*
Miserable as she is, Anakin has been at war long enough that she knows to sleep when the opportunity is offered. She had wrapped herself in her blankets and her robe and curled up on the bed, and dreamed those same awful dreams – fire and sulfur and pain, two blue lightsabers flashing in the gloom of a volcano. When she wakes up, she finds the room still empty – Obi-Wan had never come back. Anakin lies still in the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and reaches out with a tentative mental finger of the Force to pinpoint her master, who turns out to be on the Millennium Falcon’s bridge. She gives the equivalent of a knock on the door of Obi-Wan’s shielding and is politely but firmly rebuffed. Obi-Wan’s shielding is better than hers; Anakin is well aware that she leaks emotions to anyone telepathic or Force-sensitive within ten miles when she’s upset, but she doesn’t even get a hint of what’s going through Obi-Wan’s head.
She drags herself out of bed, exhausted despite the sleep, and ties her hair back in a tail before pulling her boots on. When she makes it into the common area, Luke gives her an odd, uncomfortable look, and Anakin wonders tiredly exactly how Force-sensitive he is. She makes a half-hearted attempt to shear up her shielding that would make Obi-Wan blush for shame if she found out.
“Everything all right?” he asks, offering her a cup of something hot.
Anakin takes it, muttering thanks, and drops into a seat. Artoo beeps inquisitively at her. “I’m fine,” she says, and wraps her robes around herself like a shield.
“We should be coming out of hyperspace soon,” Luke offers.
“To see Master Yoda?” Anakin inquires.
“Supply run,” Han says from the doorway. Obi-Wan is with him, looking like the very picture of the original implacable Jedi Knight. Anakin looks at her hopefully, doing her best to project contrition, and comes up against the unyielding barrier of Obi-Wan’s shielding again. Anakin may have really put her foot in it this time.
“We’re not just out here on a pleasure cruise, you know,” Han goes on. “We’ve got business to take care of before we can even think of ferrying you around the galaxy. Which you’re going to have to pay for, by the way.”
Anakin resists the urge to beat her head against the table, but really, she should have seen this coming. He’s exactly like every other deepspace pilot that had passed through Mos Espa when she’d been a kid on Tatooine. “I can fix your ship,” she says, before Obi-Wan can do more than open her mouth to reply.
Han looks outraged. “There’s nothing wrong with my ship!”
“Nothing that will keep her from flying and flying fast, but you’ve got a busted ion canon, an air filtration system that’s on the brink of kicking it, a water recycling system that could use a few tweaks, and I can make her engines more efficient,” Anakin says, reaching out with the Force and sinking herself into the guts of the ship with a sigh of relief. This, at least, she knows. “And I really don’t think you want your air to kick out when you’re in the depths of deep space. Oh, and I can fix Threepio’s wonky leg, too.”
“How the hell do you know all that?” he demands.
“The Force,” Anakin smirks.
“Anakin is a very gifted mechanic,” Obi-Wan murmurs, much to Anakin’s gratification.
She smiles hopefully at Obi-Wan, but her partner doesn’t meet her eyes, and Anakin drops her gaze again. “That should be enough to pay for anywhere we want to go,” she says.
“Hmmph,” Han says. “I’ll need to check that out myself.”
Anakin shrugs.
“How does a Jedi Knight learn about the inner workings of a starship, anyway?” he goes on suspiciously.
“The same way I know how to deliver a baby and my master knows the intricacies of the Alderaanian law code,” Anakin says. “Practice, experience, and the Force. And some really embarrassing lessons at the Jedi Temple.” She grins hopefully at Obi-Wan, who drops her stony façade enough to allow a faint hint of amusement before the walls go back up. “And that horrible clunking sound when the air filtration system starts to cycle up.”
“I was going to get that looked at when we got back to Hoth,” Han mutters. “Fine. We’ve got time for you to take a look at it before we reach the planet, and if you need any new parts, we can pick them up in the spaceport.”
Anakin nods, relieved to finally have something to do.
“Excuse me, Master Anakin,” Threepio inquires, “but how did you know that I was experiencing difficulties with my leg?”
“It’s not part of your original design,” Anakin says, putting the cup down and leaning forward. “When I made our C-3PO, I pulled in code and circuitry from a bunch of protocol droids that Watto had picked up here and there, but most of it I made up myself. I’m guessing that this Anakin did the same thing. If you just stick another part on, it’ll work fine as long as everything’s connected, but it will always be just that little bit off.”
“Wait,” Luke says, “you made C-3PO? By yourself?”
“Sure. Apparently,” she preens, “I was a prodigy. Even for a Jedi.”
“You were not a Jedi then,” Obi-Wan reminds her, rolling her eyes. “Force-sensitive children tend to be very precocious as a whole.”
“Oh, yeah? What were you doing when you were nine?”
“I,” Obi-Wan says pointedly, “had already been a Padawan for five years at that point. I believe that was the year that Qui-Gon and I were on assignment undercover in a smuggling ring in the Ha Shien system, so when I was nine, I was running drugs. Which is actually not as impressive as I thought it would be when I began this sentence.”
Anakin laughs. Han and Luke just look startled.
Obi-Wan seems to remember she’s angry with Anakin and tucks her hands into the sleeves of her robes. “You’d better take a look at those systems, Anakin,” she says. “We’ll be landing on the planet in less than an hour.”
“What planet?” Anakin inquires, standing up.
Obi-Wan’s mouth twists, but it’s Han who answers. “Jabiim,” he says.
Anakin swears.
Anakin’s dreams are restless, fire and death and the face of the man she’d seen in Artoo’s holos. She wakes up gasping with her hand clenched on her lightsaber hilt and a fleeting hope that her bad dreams haven’t disturbed Obi-Wan’s sleep, but when she sits up to check, she’s relieved to find that Obi-Wan is still asleep, one bare foot protruding from beneath her blankets. Anakin scrubs a hand over her face, dropping her lightsaber in her lap, and shoves her hair out of her eyes. She’d gone to bed without taking the glove on her durasteel hand and she peels it off slowly, flexing the metal fingers. It’s not an oddity anymore, the way she’d thought it would be at the beginning of the war; some days it seems like the Order has more Jedi with cybernetic limbs than not. Not Obi-Wan, though. All Obi-Wan’s limbs and bones are her own and original.
She tosses the glove aside, on top of her robe, and lies back down, holding her lightsaber to her chest. They shouldn’t be here. They should be back in their own universe, wearing themselves out against the Separatist troops – killing and dying and worse. She’s done horrible things for the Republic, for the Order. For herself. She’s never been certain if she’s actually bothered by them or if she just thinks she should be. Anakin flips the lightsaber between her fingers, watching the dull gleam of the emergency lights off the metal.
The Force gathers around her like the smell of the desert before a sandstorm, and Anakin is on her feet without a conscious thought, her lightsaber blazing up. Obi-Wan kicks the blanket aside and leaps up, lightsaber in her hands, and the figure by the door raises empty hands.
“Peace,” he says, and lifts the hood of his Jedi robes away from his face.
Anakin has never seen him before, but she knows him like she knows her own heartbeat. She knows who he might have been, once upon a time. She’s standing on the other side of the room, lightsaber shining between her hands.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Anakin says.
“And you are Anakin Skywalker,” the old man says.
Obi-Wan deactivates her lightsaber with a buzz of sound. Anakin follows, a moment later. She’s not wearing her belt; she keeps on holding her lightsaber, curling her fingers lightly around the hilt.
“Master Kenobi, I assume,” says the old man, looking at Obi-Wan like she’s some old record Master Nu’s found in the Archives. “Fascinating.”
“I could say the same,” Obi-Wan says. “Luke said you were dead.”
“He is,” Anakin says. “He’s pure Force energy – can’t you feel it, Master?”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan says shortly, and stares at the old man like she’s personally insulted that he would go against the Code like that. “What do you want?”
The old man blinks at her, but most of his attention is on Anakin, a fond, sad smile tugging at his lips. “Luke told me, but I wanted to see you for myself,” he says, and reaches out one hand to touch her face, pushing her hair behind one ear. His touch buzzes against Anakin’s skin, like weak Force lightning, and she flinches back, the hair on the back of her standing up. Obi-Wan steps forward, her hand flexing on her lightsaber hilt.
The old man ignores her. “You are so beautiful,” he says. “You look so like him.”
“I’m not him, Master Kenobi,” Anakin says, stepping back from his touch, because it hurts. Force lightning is pure energy and so is he. She wonders if Obi-Wan would flinch from his touch too, or if it’s just her.
“But you are,” the old man says. “You’re yourself, but you’re him, too. You’re walking his path. You have done what he did.”
Anakin breathes in. “I am not him,” she repeats.
“But you haven’t told her what you did either,” says the old man. Anakin looks aside, away from Obi-Wan and clenches her durasteel fist.
“What are you talking about?” Obi-Wan says evenly, moving sideways again. Anakin knows what she’s doing; she’s trying to put herself between the old man and Anakin.
“Ask your former Padawan.”
Anakin tosses her hair, giving him her best sneer. “I am not him,” she says for the third time, and reaches out with her mind for the Force, searching for the steady flame of this Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Force-ghost, and shoves.
He flickers out of sight as if he’s never been.
Obi-Wan is there almost before he’s gone, seizing Anakin’s wrists and helping her to a seat on the bed. “Ani, did he hurt you?”she demands, kneeling in front of her. “Anakin, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she says, but she feels sick, nausea rising in the back of her throat at the thought of the old man’s words. He knew. How did he know?
The Force. The answer comes unbidden to her mind.
“Anakin, what was he talking about?” Obi-Wan says gently.
She closes her eyes, breathing in, and puts her lightsaber gently to one side. “I don’t know what this Anakin did,” she says, “but I think that maybe it was something awful. I –”
“Anakin?” Obi-Wan prods when she stops, looking up at her with worried blue eyes.
“I need you to know the things that I’ve done,” Anakin says, and opens herself to the Force, so that she can show Obi-Wan instead of trying to find the words.
When it’s over, Obi-Wan lets go of her hands. She steps away from Anakin, putting a hand to her mouth, and half-turns away. Anakin closes her eyes and pulls her legs up onto the bed, pressing her cheek to her knees. The memory-sharing has left her exhausted and wrung-out, so that all she wants to do is curl up in her blankets and cry until Obi-Wan stops looking at her like that.
“Master?” she says, hearing the pleading note in her voice.
Obi-Wan takes her hand away from her mouth and massages her forehead, looking tired.
“Master, please say something,” Anakin begs.
“Anakin, you should not have done that,” Obi-Wan says, but the words sound flat to her ears and Anakin curls up further.
“I know.”
“Do you regret it?”
No. Yes. “I don’t know.” She closes her eyes. “I – regret losing control. I regret that I – that I allowed my emotions to overcome me even afterwards.” She looks up at Obi-Wan. “I have been working on it, Master.”
“Mmm,” Obi-Wan says.
Anakin looks up at her desperately. “Master, it will never happen again, I swear to you by the Force –”
“It should not have happened once!” Obi-Wan says, her voice rising. She turns away from Anakin, reaching for her boots. “I’ve failed you.”
“Where are you going?” Anakin demands, starting upright.
“To think!” Obi-Wan snaps back, yanking her boots on and reaching for her belt and robe.
“Master, I’m sorry,” Anakin begs, crossing the room to her. She puts out a hand to touch her partner’s shoulder, but jerks it back when Obi-Wan levels a glare at her. She’s never seen Obi-Wan look at her like that before.
“Are you sorry for the lives you took or because you betrayed m – the Order?” Obi-Wan says, and flicks her fingers at the door, which slides open with a slight uprush of Force energy that Anakin can feel like a finger of cool breeze along the back of her neck.
“Master,” Anakin pleads, following her towards the door. Obi-Wan doesn’t look back, just waves at the door again, and it slides shut between them.
Anakin stands looking after her, alone and unhappy in the Force, and whispers, “Master, I’m sorry.”
*
Miserable as she is, Anakin has been at war long enough that she knows to sleep when the opportunity is offered. She had wrapped herself in her blankets and her robe and curled up on the bed, and dreamed those same awful dreams – fire and sulfur and pain, two blue lightsabers flashing in the gloom of a volcano. When she wakes up, she finds the room still empty – Obi-Wan had never come back. Anakin lies still in the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and reaches out with a tentative mental finger of the Force to pinpoint her master, who turns out to be on the Millennium Falcon’s bridge. She gives the equivalent of a knock on the door of Obi-Wan’s shielding and is politely but firmly rebuffed. Obi-Wan’s shielding is better than hers; Anakin is well aware that she leaks emotions to anyone telepathic or Force-sensitive within ten miles when she’s upset, but she doesn’t even get a hint of what’s going through Obi-Wan’s head.
She drags herself out of bed, exhausted despite the sleep, and ties her hair back in a tail before pulling her boots on. When she makes it into the common area, Luke gives her an odd, uncomfortable look, and Anakin wonders tiredly exactly how Force-sensitive he is. She makes a half-hearted attempt to shear up her shielding that would make Obi-Wan blush for shame if she found out.
“Everything all right?” he asks, offering her a cup of something hot.
Anakin takes it, muttering thanks, and drops into a seat. Artoo beeps inquisitively at her. “I’m fine,” she says, and wraps her robes around herself like a shield.
“We should be coming out of hyperspace soon,” Luke offers.
“To see Master Yoda?” Anakin inquires.
“Supply run,” Han says from the doorway. Obi-Wan is with him, looking like the very picture of the original implacable Jedi Knight. Anakin looks at her hopefully, doing her best to project contrition, and comes up against the unyielding barrier of Obi-Wan’s shielding again. Anakin may have really put her foot in it this time.
“We’re not just out here on a pleasure cruise, you know,” Han goes on. “We’ve got business to take care of before we can even think of ferrying you around the galaxy. Which you’re going to have to pay for, by the way.”
Anakin resists the urge to beat her head against the table, but really, she should have seen this coming. He’s exactly like every other deepspace pilot that had passed through Mos Espa when she’d been a kid on Tatooine. “I can fix your ship,” she says, before Obi-Wan can do more than open her mouth to reply.
Han looks outraged. “There’s nothing wrong with my ship!”
“Nothing that will keep her from flying and flying fast, but you’ve got a busted ion canon, an air filtration system that’s on the brink of kicking it, a water recycling system that could use a few tweaks, and I can make her engines more efficient,” Anakin says, reaching out with the Force and sinking herself into the guts of the ship with a sigh of relief. This, at least, she knows. “And I really don’t think you want your air to kick out when you’re in the depths of deep space. Oh, and I can fix Threepio’s wonky leg, too.”
“How the hell do you know all that?” he demands.
“The Force,” Anakin smirks.
“Anakin is a very gifted mechanic,” Obi-Wan murmurs, much to Anakin’s gratification.
She smiles hopefully at Obi-Wan, but her partner doesn’t meet her eyes, and Anakin drops her gaze again. “That should be enough to pay for anywhere we want to go,” she says.
“Hmmph,” Han says. “I’ll need to check that out myself.”
Anakin shrugs.
“How does a Jedi Knight learn about the inner workings of a starship, anyway?” he goes on suspiciously.
“The same way I know how to deliver a baby and my master knows the intricacies of the Alderaanian law code,” Anakin says. “Practice, experience, and the Force. And some really embarrassing lessons at the Jedi Temple.” She grins hopefully at Obi-Wan, who drops her stony façade enough to allow a faint hint of amusement before the walls go back up. “And that horrible clunking sound when the air filtration system starts to cycle up.”
“I was going to get that looked at when we got back to Hoth,” Han mutters. “Fine. We’ve got time for you to take a look at it before we reach the planet, and if you need any new parts, we can pick them up in the spaceport.”
Anakin nods, relieved to finally have something to do.
“Excuse me, Master Anakin,” Threepio inquires, “but how did you know that I was experiencing difficulties with my leg?”
“It’s not part of your original design,” Anakin says, putting the cup down and leaning forward. “When I made our C-3PO, I pulled in code and circuitry from a bunch of protocol droids that Watto had picked up here and there, but most of it I made up myself. I’m guessing that this Anakin did the same thing. If you just stick another part on, it’ll work fine as long as everything’s connected, but it will always be just that little bit off.”
“Wait,” Luke says, “you made C-3PO? By yourself?”
“Sure. Apparently,” she preens, “I was a prodigy. Even for a Jedi.”
“You were not a Jedi then,” Obi-Wan reminds her, rolling her eyes. “Force-sensitive children tend to be very precocious as a whole.”
“Oh, yeah? What were you doing when you were nine?”
“I,” Obi-Wan says pointedly, “had already been a Padawan for five years at that point. I believe that was the year that Qui-Gon and I were on assignment undercover in a smuggling ring in the Ha Shien system, so when I was nine, I was running drugs. Which is actually not as impressive as I thought it would be when I began this sentence.”
Anakin laughs. Han and Luke just look startled.
Obi-Wan seems to remember she’s angry with Anakin and tucks her hands into the sleeves of her robes. “You’d better take a look at those systems, Anakin,” she says. “We’ll be landing on the planet in less than an hour.”
“What planet?” Anakin inquires, standing up.
Obi-Wan’s mouth twists, but it’s Han who answers. “Jabiim,” he says.
Anakin swears.