Chapter Text
The two suns were bright as Obi-Wan landed on Tatooine. Leia was safe, back with Bail and his wife. Luke was safe too, on the moisture farm under careful watch of Owen. Seeing both of them was a sober reminder of his friend. Luke reminded him of Anakin with blonde hair, just the same shade Anakin had when they had first met, all the years ago when Obi-Wan was still a Padawan. And there were Luke’s eyes — blue like a clear sky, like the lightsaber held in Jedi’s hands. Leia, as much as she looked like her mother, had the same edge as her father; she would get her way with no regard for rules.
Obi-Wan took a breath, dipping into the force, to gain just a second for himself. It felt good, to feel the Force around him, inside him. He hasn't dared to use the Force before, not until he had to help Leia, not until the fight with Vader when he let it run through his very essence, stopping stones and aiding him. Coming back to him in full strength. It was good to feel it again underneath his skin, buzzing with the energy of everything around him. Part of him wanted to let go of his attachments, like in the old days when everything was simpler.
As happy as he was that the twins were safe, and more at peace than before, he still wanted to clear his mind. In his home, he sat down, closing his eyes. Meditation came easy to him, no matter how long he tried to avoid it. He wanted to clear his mind, to consider his biggest regrets, and biggest what-ifs, and let them go. He was done with the nightmares of Anakin’s fall and all the what-ifs. What if Anakin’s light has not dimmed? What if Obi-Wan decided to help him, not fight him, or if he noticed the sighs before? Maybe his friend wouldn’t be dead.
His thoughts strayed back to Leia and what he told her about her parents. He wished he could’ve told her more. Maybe if Obi-Wan brought Anakin back to life with his stories, Anakin from the past, the person who was compassionate with a brave heart, if he would honor his friend’s memory, he could sleep for more than one night without nightmares.
Something in Obi-Wan broke again. In his mind, he saw Anakin, clad in armor, leading his man to the battle, and then the image was consumed by the yellow eyes and screams of ‘I hate you.’ It wasn’t supposed to be like that.
Darth Vader was wrong, Obi-Wan thought. I did kill Anakin when I left him to burn in his own hatred.
He was still sore after the fight with Darth Vader. The images of Anakin’s face, the way he told him he killed Anakin himself. Obi-Wan could swear that his friend was still in there.
I’m not your failure.
Obi-wan closed his eyes tighter. The Force around him smothered the pain in him, smoothing wounds and burns. The world around him was spinning, Darth Vader changing into Anakin and back. It couldn't have been the Sith Lord to tell him he's not to blame. Maybe, just a small what if, Anakin wasn’t as dead as everyone told him to be. It was a sobering moment when he realized Anakin wasn’t dead, he was lost, but maybe not forever. He was a prisoner of his mind, of the dark side of the Force. If only Obi-Wan could save him, break him out of the cell, and understand why.
The Force swirled around him and promised him answers, but Obi-Wan didn’t know how to access them. After all, even the Jedi didn’t know everything about the Force, no one dared to immerse themselves fully in the all-knowing tide. It was a sweet song, it was as dangerous as the scorpion preparing to strike. Obi-Wan knew that even Yoda wouldn’t dare to try to do what he was about to do. Obi-Wan felt a pang of fear; his medi-chlorian count wasn’t that big, his connection to the Force wasn’t the greatest among Jedi, and many were more suited for the task.
Yes, during the meditation Jedi would immerse themselves in the Force, connecting to it, letting it guide them to find answers. No one ever dared to follow it to the source. To find the core of the Force, filled with answers that the human mind was not prepared to be given.
Yet, everything around him was promising that everything would be fine, giving him hope to find the light he was missing. He wasn’t sure if it was possible but there was no reason why he shouldn’t try.
Show me, he begged the Force, show me what happened ten years ago.
He felt the pull, his body disappearing, leaving only his essence in the Force and then he was standing in the middle of the universe.
All around him, there were stars. Galaxies. He could see star systems, all around him, pulsing with life. Big nebulae, left from dying stars, ready to bring to life new ones.
He remembered how a mirror mission brought him and Anakin to the dead system.
“Stars can die—?”Anakin had asked him then, unspeakable fear in his eyes.
“It is the way of the universe, which is another manner of saying that it is the will of the Force,” Obi-Wan had told him. “Everything dies. In time, even stars burn out. This is why Jedi form no attachments: all things pass. To hold on to something—or someone—beyond its time is to set your selfish desires against the Force. That is a path of misery, Anakin; the Jedi do not walk it”
Obi-Wan remembers those words very well. In the Force, he heard an echo, repeating, again and again, All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even stars burn out . One of the nebulae caught his eye. Big cloud shaped like a dragon, threatening to swallow him whole. Looking at his eyes, Obi-Wan’s heart sped up, his muscles tightening in fear. He had never known this kind of fear. Of losing everything he had ever loved, of being burned from the inside as dark wanted to swallow him whole. His breath hitched as he realized it wasn’t his fear. In the Force, he was looking at Anakin, his life force, his stars, his fears.
Oh, Anakin, he thought, you were so—
Scared. Lost. Hopeless. Burdened.
The Force hummed around him, moving him towards the dragon. Part of Obi-Wan wanted to get back but the dark was holding answers, terrible answers. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he wanted to know anymore. The Force didn’t let him go. What had started, needed to finish before he could get back to his life. If he was able to get back.
The clouds were closing on him, wrapping him in a blanket of loss and regrets. It circled him, clinging to him tighter and tighter, covering his vision, making him breathless, he wanted it to stop, to make it go away. It stopped.
He was staring at his body lying on the ground on the ship. The clash of red and blue caught his eye and then Obi-Wan was looking at Anakin fighting against Dooku. Palpatine – Lord Sidious – was looking at the fight very carefully. Looking for signs. Signs that Anakin would fit as his apprentice. Obi-Wan strode towards him, ready to fight him, to yank Anakin from his grip.
He was stopped.
It’s not your fight, the Force told in his mind without words. Observe, understand but don’t intervene.
Out of the window, the dragon came looking for them. Obi-Wan stepped closer to Anakin and the Force let him. Without the intention to stop this, intending to understand, he watched as Anakin’s heart opened. He leaped towards Dooku, stronger with each passing second as Obi-Wan lad unconscious and oblivious to what had happened to Anakin. Obi-Wan in the Force saw the same thing as Dooku at that moment. Felt the same twist in the Force as Anakin gave into his anger.
Anakin was natural. There was a thermonuclear furnace where his heart should be, and it was burning through the firewalls of his Jedi training. He held the Force in the clench of a white-hot fist. He was half Sith already, and he didn’t even know it.
Dooku was losing a fight with Anakin, but Anakin was losing the fight with the dark. Outside, the dragon was getting closer and closer to the ship.
“I sense great fear in you. You are consumed by it. Hero With No Fear, indeed. You’re a fraud, Skywalker. You are nothing but a posturing child. Aren’t you a little old to be afraid of the dark?”
Obi-Wan could only watch as Anakin fought with his emotions, trying to keep the fire inside him in its restraints, trying to focus on the light side of the Force. Then he understood the fear in Anakin. He was scared of that part of himself, all those years. When the Jedi council said he was too afraid to be Jedi, driven too much by his emotions, this was what they meant. Obi-Wan finally understood why they kept everything from Anakin. And then he was angry at them. Angry for not helping Anakin, for pretending that ignoring was going to solve all their problems. For using Anakin in their war.
The rage was burning like a dragon. It wasn’t his rage.
“Don’t fear what you’re feeling, Anakin, use it!” Sidious barked in Palpatine’s voice. “Call upon your fury. Focus it, and he cannot stand against you. Rage is your weapon. Strike now! Strike! Kill him!”
Obi-Wan watched as something in Anakin broke and new pieces came to replace it.
Watch, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Force told him, watch as the darkness consumed him.
Obi-Wan let the Force guide him and he was watching the scene in front of him with different eyes. He was watching through the Force. Dooku’s Force signature was dark, full of fear, clashing against Anakin’s bright one. It took him a second to realize that in the Force Anakin was no longer the bright light he was used to feeling. It was fire, a flame burning Anakin’s beliefs. For a second, he was no longer a Jedi, he was a machine made for fighting, fear that was stopping him was turning into anger, fueling his every move. He was burning.
He was burning then, just the same as he was burning on Mustafar.
Obi-Wan saw how Anakin understood he was given permission by Palpatine. His strikes were more focused, he knew what he wanted, and what he wanted would just happen. His thoughts were creating a reality. He cut Dooku’s hand, then another one. He took his lightsaber. Obi-Wan realized that the Sith’s lightsaber was in Anakin’s flesh hand. Nothing was separating him and the dark side anymore. He crossed the blades on Dooku’s throat. The flame that was Anakin was burning brighter.
Obi-Wan wanted to scream as Lord Sidious was creating his new apprentice, as he told Anakin to kill Count Dooku. Wanted to stop Anakin as he saw the way his hands uncrossed, as the saber cut through the flesh. As the heroic victory of Anakin Skywalker changed into murder.
The flame died down, leaving only soot. Anakin woke up.
“What—? I— I couldn’t stop myself… He was an unarmed prisoner.”
The dragon outside was too close. It swallowed the ship with all of them. Obi-Wan covered his head with his arms as the currents of the Force quickened around him, threatening to throw him down into the eternal void.
He was standing on a pathway, his feet igniting the floor underneath him. It was dark, yet Obi-Wan saw everything perfectly. There were stars in the distance and there were sounds all around him, so many sounds he didn’t know what to focus on. In front of him was standing Anakin, yet Obi-Wan somehow knew it wasn’t Anakin. The presence in front of him didn’t feel like his Anakin. It was just that, he decided, a shadow of a man.
“Who am I to you?” the ghost asked him.
You’re my brother, Obi-Wan wanted to answer, my Padawan, my friend. His voice failed him.
“I asked that myself at that moment, you know,” the ghost explained, and in its eyes, Obi-Wan saw Dooku’s headless body. The echo of the question in Anakin’s mind. “Who am I?”
Obi-Wan reached out. “Anakin,” he finally said but he didn’t know how to finish.
“You know, Obi-Wan, it’s easy to pretend it wasn’t my decision. That my fall wasn't your fault. All the Forces in the galaxy were against us.”
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan started again but the ghost raised his hand, stopping him.
“There is more for you to see and to understand. There is—” For a second the shadow was Anakin. With eyes full of emotions, the hope that Obi-Wan wanted to see all the time in Anakin. The same life in his voice. “There’s so much I want to tell you. But you need to know all of it, no matter how difficult it will be to see. I can’t wait to see you again, Master”
The pathway underneath him broke, and then Obi-Wan was falling, seeing the universe spin around him, the Force percolating his whole being. He was ready to learn.