Chapter Text
"I should come with you to Utapau," Anakin argues for the tenth time.
Obi-Wan pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling a migraine coming and knowing exactly who’s responsible for it. "Anakin—"
"I should! I know what the Council said, but they're wrong. I'm your commander! I'm supposed to be there for this kind of mission, you can't just leave me in the Temple, grounded like a child." He spits the word like a curse. The beads of his padawan braid flash in the sun when he shakes his head in disbelief.
From the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan can see the beeping light of his comlink indicating that Cody is once again assuring him that they're good to go whenever he's ready and changing the departure time calculations. Just like he did ten minutes ago, when Anakin decided to pester him until he got what he wanted.
Being chastised by the Council the previous day doesn't seem to have been enough for his padawan. At nineteen, Obi-Wan had received a few severe criticisms from one of the best but sternness lightsaber instructors at the time and promptly did all he could to never give him any reason to find him lacking again. He still thinks about it sometimes, right before falling asleep, the burn of mortification still lingering in his mind after so many years.
At the same age, Anakin had argued back in front of the entire Council and stormed out of the room as if he hadn't been the one to disobey direct orders and almost jeopardise an entire relief mission.
It was the first time Obi-Wan felt ashamed of his padawan.
"You need me," Anakin persists.
Obi-Wan almost rolls his eyes. "Do I?"
"Yes! Especially when we're supposed to face Grievous—"
"We?"
"—and I don't understand why I can't—"
"Because you've disappointed me!" Obi-Wan snaps, finally running out of patience.
Anakin freezes.
The words came out colder and louder than he wanted, but at least it makes Anakin shut up.
"You've been insolent and disrespectful, and not only in front of the Council. Your recklessness and arrogance have been compensated by your sheer power and skills until now, but it won't always be enough. It shouldn't be enough. You're so blinded by your need to win that you don't even realise that the cost of victory sometimes just isn't worth it."
"But I was right! My plan worked better than our orders, and we managed to save—"
"That's not the point!" Obi-Wan shakes his head, pushing a button on his comm to let Cody knows he'll be there in a minute. Alone. "The Council didn't want you near another sensible situation, and I agreed. You're a padawan, Anakin, and if you can't be bothered to respect your own master, you will abide by the Council's decision."
Anakin stays silent for a few seconds, his mouth slightly open and eyes wide, as if surprised. As if he genuinely didn't expect his master to condemn his behaviour.
His expression turns dark suddenly, a storm brewing in the lines of his face and the intensity of his gaze. His hands come down, hidden behind the sleeves of his robe, but Obi-Wan doesn't need to see them to know they're locked in tight fists.
In the Force, his presence grows larger and heavier.
"I won't be one for much longer," he growls around his clenched jaw, seething resentment barely hidden in his tone.
"I did talk with other masters about knighting you soon, that's true. I thought you were ready, but now..." Obi-Wan trails off. His comlink blinks again. Behind him, waiting on the ship, troopers are starting to wonder why they're not in hyperspace already. He's too tired to be kind to Anakin today. Truthfully, he doesn't feel like Anakin deserves it. "...Now, I fear that I failed to teach you what it means to be a Jedi."
He doesn't need the Force to feel molten anger rolling through Anakin at the words.
"Wh—"
"I would tell you to meditate on your behaviour but I'm quite certain I'll be wasting my breath, so I'll just ask you to stay in the Temple until I come back. We will talk later."
"Stay?" Anakin repeats, stunned. "But you know I was invited by the Chancellor! The opera—"
"Well, you can tell him that you were right about one thing. You are grounded like a child."
Anakin takes a step back, as if slapped.
As he opens his mouth and his brow furrows in a terrible expression again, he goes from burning furnace to cold with fury in the Force. For half a second, Obi-Wan thinks he'll say or do something that he won't be able to take back. His right arm moves up jerkily, stops in mid-air, but then seems to think better of it.
Anakin sends him one last look.
At this moment, Obi-Wan doesn't recognise his padawan.
Then, durasteel shields are erected between them, shutting down their bond completely and there is nothing to recognise.
Anakin turns around and leaves. Without bowing, without a nod. He's already just a tall and dark silhouette walking away when heavy footsteps stop right next to Obi-Wan.
"You all right, General?" Cody asks.
He might have been harsher than usual. Harsher than he intended.
He has been so tired recently, the war effort so demanding, and Anakin so highly strung that it was bound to come to an argument. Getting Anakin to obey him lately has been like reining in a hurricane, taking up all his energy and patience. Truthfully, he doesn’t know what to do with him anymore.
Obi-Wan sighs.
No, he can’t think like that.
Despite all his shortcomings, Anakin is a brilliant and dedicated padawan. He doesn’t deserve to suffer unnecessarily for Obi-Wan’s own exhaustion and carelessness with his words.
He will make it better when he comes back. They will sit together and they will talk. They've gone through rougher patches in the past, and they've always managed to find their way back to each other. They can do it again.
Moreover, taking a quick break from the Outer Rim, the fighting and the violence might be good for Anakin. He might even find time to centre himself better away from it, and be more open to discussion after that. And at least, Obi-Wan doesn't have to worry about his safety when he's in the Temple and not on the battlefield, only listening to the orders he agrees with.
"I will be." His tight smile probably doesn't fool his captain, but Cody nods anyway.
Yes, Obi-Wan thinks as they walk towards their ship, he will apologise for his bluntness and hope that Anakin will do the same the moment he comes back.
For now, he needs to focus on Utapau.
They will have plenty of time later.
Relief passes briefly in Yoda's eyes when the old master sees him, but his large ears fall down when asked about what happened on Coruscant.
That's how Obi-Wan knows that the situation is beyond disastrous.
Yoda tells him he's one of the few Jedi who survived Order 66, and Obi-Wan only hears a loud ringing in his ears.
When he learns that the Temple has fallen, that thousands of his brothers and sisters have been killed, murdered in their rooms, their beds, their home, that they heard from no one until now and there is a good chance that none of them survived, Obi-Wan wants to deny it. Wants to tell Yoda he's wrong. That at least one of them must have escaped.
Not because he doesn't believe it.
But only because his padawan cannot be one of them.
He walks through the bodies lying in the Great Hall of the Temple with Yoda and he feels so much that it's like he's feeling nothing.
He calls on the Force, wraps himself in it, focuses on breathing to keep his thoughts on anything else than the sight in front of him.
Still, Obi-Wan cannot help himself but make sure that none of them is him.
They can't stay too long, they're only here to dismantle the signal calling back the Jedi to Coruscant before fleeing and never coming back, and still.
Still, Obi-Wan takes minutes they don't have to check his apartment.
If there is one place he would be, one place he would wait for him, then for sure—
It's empty.
Still, Obi-Wan flips the couch and opens every wardrobe twice.
Yoda doesn't say anything when he comes back alone.
Later, back on the ship, he does put his little claws on his arm and pats him gently.
Despite the weight of guilt and regret in his chest slowly growing heavier, Obi-Wan finds it comforting.
Years pass.
Obi-Wan, who grew up in the Temple constantly surrounded by Jedi, who spent the last three years between identical clones, who didn't even get a few days to himself between being Qui-Gon's padawan and Anakin's master and always dreamed he would eventually be able to sit back and rest once Anakin was knighted, finds himself alone for the first time.
Truly alone.
He doesn't like it.
He gets used to it anyway.
"Thank you again for your help, Obi-Wan.”
“It was nothing. I barely had to take any detour at all.”
Above his holoprojector, the tiny face of Bail Organa doesn’t show any change. Obi-Wan can hear him say all the same,‘detour from what?’
Obi-Wan is grateful for the pretence. He crosses his arms in front of him, clearing his throat.
“And what about…” He trails off. Saying his name is becoming harder and harder.
This time, Bail’s expression turns into compassion. “It was a girl. Right age, right background, but it wasn’t him. I’m sorry.”
It almost doesn't disappoint him anymore. His hand presses on his mouth for a second, just long enough to compose himself.
"I see. Well. Thank you anyway."
"Obi-Wan, about that." As his voice takes a more formal tone, Bail straightens up. He vaguely looks like he's going head-to-head with a tough political adversary. "I know you already refused many times, but I feel the need to reiterate my question once again."
"Bail—"
"You never refuse any favour I ask you for the Alliance. You're already doing most than many for the cause and you know it. Don't you think it is time to move on?" he persists, twisting a knife in an old wound in Obi-Wan's heart planted there years ago. He is trying to do it gently, Obi-Wan knows, but the fact remains that he can still feel it bleed. "Even if you had the means and the credits, you know it's impossible to search the whole galaxy for one person on the run. But in the rest of the galaxy, the climate of fear and censure is getting worse each day. You've tried. I know you've tried so hard for the past ten years, and I admire that. But we could really use your help. You've accepted many tasks through me already, and you could do so much more if you accepted to join, officially. Be part of the movement."
Obi-Wan is a Jedi.
He shouldn't need the words of a politician to remember to let go.
But perhaps that's why these days, Obi-Wan struggles to think of himself as a Jedi.
"I—" he tries, without truly knowing what will come out of his mouth.
"Don't you think he would have liked that too?"
It's too much. Bail shouldn't have pushed it that far and he seems to realise it instantly, eyes softening dangerously towards pity. Still, he braces himself and clasps his hands behind him, not offering any apologies. Probably because he knows he's right.
It is time. It has been time for a while now. It's only Obi-Wan's selfishness and his desire to be able to cling to one last thing —but the most important one, a small, deceptive and very-unjedi voice whispers in his mind— that has kept him roaming the galaxy for years in vain.
It still feels like he's giving up on him.
Resignation is heavy and condemning on his shoulders. A burden he will have to bear, joining the rest of his remorse.
Silently, he asks for forgiveness in the Force.
"All right," Obi-Wan hears himself concede. He feels so much older than he is. "All right. How do I join your Rebellion, then?"
They keep calling him General.
He has stopped correcting them after the third respectful nod and grave acknowledgement, but there is something unnerving about men and women acting as if he never left the front line. It's even more disconcerting when it comes from people young enough to barely remember the clone wars.
The Rebel base Bail sent him to is bigger than what he expected. More crowded too. There are people perpetually moving around, talking in comms and looking busy. It will take a while to get used to that again.
"There is something we were hoping you could help with," General Cracken says once he has shown him his new quarters after a short tour of the base.
Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. "I do hope I could help with more than one thing, General."
"Well, yes, I'm sure. But this wouldn't be an official mission, but more about your Jedi background."
"Ah," Obi-Wan says slowly. Cracken grimaces, waving at him to follow him in the hallway. "And what would that entail?"
"A few years ago, two Jedi kids joined us. A bit rough around the edges, the both of them, and the oldest always looked grim or ready to punch someone, but he wasn't bad. Used to accept the worst missions and go head first into danger, lightsaber out. When he almost got killed for the twentieth time, we had to transfer him to Sato's cell. The Phoenix Cell," he explains as they walk. "Turned out he's also an excellent pilot."
For half a second, hope flares up in him. One last echo of a desperate Jedi master, one last treacherous whisper his mind has conjured up millions of times before, of 'what if it's him? what if it's my padawan? He's strong enough to have survived until now, he's clever enough, he's good enough, he deserves—"
Obi-Wan crushes the thought brutally.
The black hole in his chest will never disappear. The loss, deep and visceral, will never leave him.
But he can at least control it.
He crosses his arms, hiding them in the sleeves of his robes. "I'm sensing that you aren't telling me all of that just so I can reunite with another Jedi."
"Not really. Sato decided to ground him two months ago. Said he was too reckless. He agreed, but didn't take it well."
"And you think that I could help him."
For a second, Obi-Wan hesitates.
Would he be the best person to help? The past few years have been harder than he cares to admit. He's less patient, less sociable than he used to be, and his connection to the Force is... weak, at best.
He is here to try, though.
Obi-Wan doesn't know how to help himself, deal with himself, but help others... Caring for others is easier. Simpler. And would occupy his mind for a time.
"We don't have a lot of Force-sensitive people around, and even fewer who can relate and have the time or the will to help him, but it’s clear he needs someone to talk to. It's that or we permanently assign him to repair work, and we all know that he won't bear it for much longer. He's not the friendliest person around, but..." Cracken sends him a knowing look. "...We could really use his skills."
Integrating Force-sensitive people into their cause might be a high risk to take for the Rebel Alliance, but there is no denying their worth. Especially for former Jedi. From a neutral point of view, there are many benefits to keeping them around despite the open hunt the Empire has declared on them, and the target they put on the Rebels.
Or their precarious inner balance, apparently.
Obi-Wan understands that. He fought a war, he knows the way someone like Cracken would look and access people and what they can bring to the table. It is also why he's here, after all.
"I see. And I'm guessing you're not simply showing me the way to your favourite restaurant right now."
Cracken smiles slightly, before sliding open the doors to the hangar. Obi-Wan has to blink a bit when the light of the end of the day hits him right in the face, blinding him for a few seconds.
"Sorry. You don't have to... deal with him right now, or at all really, but if you feel like you could help get over... the whole Jedi thing, here's the guy."
He nods towards a bright part of the hangar, pointing towards a disembowelled starship.
Obi-Wan almost corrects him. He scowls, wanting to object that they can't 'get over the Jedi thing' because it isn't a job or a bad memory to forget, but the annihilation of their home, roots and family, something done in front of the whole galaxy and nobody stopped it. Something more personal than he could even imagine, and that even talking about it that many years later still feels like reopening an old wound. But he refrains.
Cracken doesn't mean to be so callous. He didn’t feel all the lights of the Jedi disappearing in the Force at the same time, cannot compare it to anything. And Obi-Wan wishes that he never will.
"Name's Lars. I don't even think anyone but Sato knows his first name."
Someone is sitting on the ground in the middle of the wreckage.
Only the back of a dirty tunic is visible between various ship parts scattered on the ground, shiny metallic plates and what seems to be a very chatty astromech.
Later, Obi-Wan will be embarrassed that he didn't recognise him right away.
The burning, golden ray of light where the man sits could be to blame, and it's only when he casually twirls a wrench between his fingers, along with the reflection of the screwdriver stuck in his mouth, that Obi-Wan's mind turns into white noise.
He only knows one person who's reckless enough to keep their tools in their mouth and debate technicalities with an astromech.
"I'm sorry General, but I think..." Obi-Wan whispers, before swallowing with great difficulty. "I think I'm having a hallucination."
"What?"
Obi-Wan barely registers his feet moving. He only knows that he needs to check, to confirm that he's simply losing his mind. Or that he's being haunted.
Cracken says something behind him but it's so inconsequential right now that Obi-Wan doesn't even register it.
He walks, fast, without thinking, because it can't be, because he wants it to be and it's exactly what he was trying to avoid, this— this untameable belief, which must be a delusion at this point, that he tried to give up, to let go, to be free of.
And despite all of that, he throws all his admirable resolutions away for a second of hope not even a day later.
He should be ashamed of himself, ashamed of his stupid naïveté, but—
Obi-Wan's footsteps are loud and hurried, and the man turns his head behind him.
When he sees his face, Obi-Wan stops dead in his tracks.
The Rebel Alliance, the noises of the hangar, the whole kriffing galaxy don’t exist anymore. He sees him and time and people are of no interest to him and would never be again.
It can't be Anakin.
But it is Anakin's eyes that grow large and wide. It is Anakin's mouth that opens in an O of surprise as the screwdriver falls from his lips in a resounding clank on the ground, Anakin's hair, so long now, that frames a face missing the roundness of youth and far paler than it used to be, but still so painfully Anakin.
This is my padawan. Alive. That's Anakin. That's my Anakin.
His feet are stuck to the ground. He wants to call out for him but his throat is too dry.
It turns drier when Anakin finally blinks, closes and opens his mouth rapidly, before gasping the tiniest, most hesitant noise Obi-Wan has ever heard Anakin make. "Master?"
It's instinct that makes him move. He lunges at him and Anakin barely has time to scramble to his feet, stumbling forwards in his haste just in time to collide against Obi-Wan in a violent hug.
No words are strong enough to encapsulate the leap of his heart when his arms close around him and grip at the back of his tunic, or when Aanakin squeezes back with too much strength, or the — real, genuine, absolute— feeling of a warm and tangible body in his arms that smells like oil, sweat and the sun. Like Anakin.
If it is a delusion, his mind is really giving it all, Obi-Wan has to admit.
"Is that you?" Anakin asks, voice muffled against his neck. "Is that really— Obi-Wan, are you really here?"
Obi-Wan's arm tightens again, and he feels more than hear the quiet sob Anakin lets out at the gesture. "Who else, padawan?"
Anakin lets out a sharp bark, somewhere between a laugh and a cry.
Gently, Obi-Wan runs his hand up between Anakin's shoulder blades, squeezing his nape and pulling away a bit to take a look at him.
He needs... he still needs to make sure that this is real, that this is really him.
Anakin huffs indignantly, upset that he has to let go of his death grip on his master and throws his arm around Obi-Wan's shoulder in retaliation, and for a second they stumble together before Obi-Wan's foot slips on a piece of metal.
Obi-Wan takes Anakin down with him.
They fall in a heap on the floor.
Obi-Wan's back will make him pay for this for a few days at least, but for now— for now, the weight on top of him is all that matters. Anakin pushes himself on his elbows, finally looking back at Obi-Wan.
In his mind, Anakin had stayed nineteen.
But only the dead stay the same age, and Anakin is alive. So alive.
His lower lip is trembling, his eyes are bright and his curls almost bounce around his face by the sheer force of his excitement.
His young and impertinent padawan has lived in his mind for so long that Obi-Wan struggles to take all of this man in front of him. He's an adult now, with deeper lines on his face, a faint scar running over his right eye —and when did he get that— and broader shoulders.
Of course he's an adult, Obi-Wan realises. It's been ten years.
Somehow, Obi-Wan had forgotten that his padawan could have gotten older.
There isn't any padawan braid in his hair and it makes sense, of course it makes sense, to survive for that long without getting caught by the Empire, it is logical to get rid of any aspects of their old Jedi life.
It still aches when his fingers brush the patch of hair where it should be.
"You have oil on your face," Obi-Wan blurts out stupidly, as he strokes his curls away from his face.
"I do!" Anakin laughs and his voice is too loud, with a note of slight hysteria. "And you... You're here, you're— I—"
Tears gathered at the corner of his eyes start to fall on his cheeks silently, rendering him speechless.
Anakin had wept a few times when he first arrived at the Temple. Obi-Wan had done his best to soothe him, give him verbal and physical reassurances that he was here for him, and the boy had seemed to find comfort in it for a time. "You're a bit of a cry baby, aren't you?" some haughty padawans had said to him once, after finding Anakin struggling with his homework.
After this, Obi-Wan had been called to the instructor's office to answer for his padawan's mean hook and unpredictable temper.
After this, Obi-Wan had never seen him cry again.
All the memories come back all at once, and several emotions he can't even name are distinctively perceptible in his voice when he marvels "oh, Anakin," before pulling him back to him.
For once the name doesn't bring him sorrow and regret.
Anakin lets himself collapse on his master and buries his face in Obi-Wan's neck, weeping like a lost child, fingers clenching around his tunic. Obi-Wan makes soothing noises against his hair, shushing him softly, reminding him to breathe and carding his fingers in his curls. Just like he did all those years ago.
It seems to make it worse and better at the same time. Anakin tries to hide his weak sniffles and wet hiccups by smothering himself in Obi-Wan's collar. Obi-Wan's chest tightens with all the fondness he can't contain anymore.
"You're ruining my clothes," he smiles, trying to get the rapid thumping of his heart under control.
"Master," Anakin whines between two deep breaths, and the title and the tone make Obi-Wan want to keep him in his arms forever. "Can you please wait a minute before scolding me, I'm trying to have a nervous breakdown here."
Obi-Wan chuckles. He's barely surprised to feel that his eyes aren't completely dry either.
Oh, how he missed his padawan. Him, his sarcasm, his intensity, his petulance.
"How did you... When—" He has so much he wants to say, to ask, he doesn't know where to begin, how to form words that would convey all he has accumulated in the past few years and dreamed of telling Anakin, and how can one really—
"So I'm guessing you two know each other already."
Cracken's flat tone brings Obi-Wan's jumbled thoughts to a halt.
He opens his eyes, suddenly realising the positions they're in. In the middle of a hangar, in front of strangers who aren’t gaping at them yet, but he can definitely see a few peculiar looks thrown their way.
"Oh.” He releases his grip on Anakin, tries to sit up and save what's left of his dignity.
Anakin's hands tighten around the front of his tunic for a second as Obi-Wan moves. He lets go slowly, reluctantly. One last nuzzle against his neck, and Anakin's face comes out of his hiding place, flushed, eyes cast downwards. Obi-Wan is pretty sure he doesn’t want anyone to notice how he presses the back of his hand against his cheeks, rubbing discreetly.
He almost pulls Anakin back to him at the sight.
Instead, he inhales and puts a steady hand on Anakin's shoulder, helping him lean back on his knees.
"Yes," he says, breathless. He can't even turn his eyes away from Anakin's face. "Yes, he's..."
He's mine.
That's what he means to say. What he wants to say. What feels right.
He's mine and I'm not planning on leaving him ever again.
A few seconds of silence pass before Anakin looks up almost defiantly despite his red eyes.
"He's my master," Anakin answers for him.
The words are easy, simple in his mouth. Obvious.
At this very moment, the black hole in Obi-Wan's chest doesn't feel that big anymore.