Chapter Text
ANAKIN
When he’s little, after he first comes to Coruscant, Anakin finds it hard to adjust to life in the temple. At first, others make fun of him sometimes, the other younglings or padawans at the temple. They say that he stands too close to Obi-Wan. They say he ‘hangs off his robes’. Insinuate that Anakin is a coward. That he is like a child holding onto Obi-Wan’s robes for support.
It’s insulting. It’s untrue.
It isn’t fair!
Anakin says those sorts of things later, when he is asked to defend his actions. For the time he loses it and lets his fists talk instead of his glares or words.
“Younglings are not meant to fight unless they are doing so in class, Skywalker,” the master says, all disapproving eyes and shaking heads.
“They started it,” he replies mulishly. But it doesn’t matter.
He gets in so much trouble for the fight. Because, after all, he’d won. It doesn’t matter that there were five of them and just one of him. Because Anakin has won, he is the one who is punished. Just another injustice in his opinion.
“We are Jedi. We do not fight unless absolutely necessary.” Which is, of course, what they say, because it is still peace time and the jedi only go out for negotiations. There is the occasional skirmish, but fighting is a lesson in tradition more than it is in actual need. The Jedi do not think there will ever be a time when Jedi need to really fight much.
So he gets in trouble and pouts. Pouts and fusses, because he doesn’t have any friends and it isn’t fair and Obi-Wan isn’t there to make him feel better because Obi-Wan is important and off on a mission.
Anakin had wanted to go, but Obi-Wan wouldn’t allow it, much ot Anakin’s shame and frustration.
“I could come with you,” he’d said hopefully, but Obi-Wan had merely ruffled his hair. Given him that indulgent and slightly sad smile.
“When you are older, Anakin,” Obi-Wan had said softly.
“I’m old enough,” he’d argued. “And I’m a Padawan. I’m your Padawan. Why do I have to stay here with the other learners?”
It isn’t fair, Anakin had thought. But whenever he says this Obi-Wan just shakes his head and his eyes go distant. Anakin guesses that, at times like that, Obi-Wan thinks of Qui-Gon. Maybe he’s looking off into the distance for advice. Maybe he’s regretting the fact that he, rather than Qui-Gon, is stuck trying to teach Anakin. Anakin, for his part, doesn’t really care. He just wants to be where Obi-Wan is.
“Anakin, you’ve come to the temple much later than the others. It is rare to become a padawan when you are your age. I do not mean to make it sound as though you are less talented, so stop making that face. But for now, your place is here. In a house of learning.”
“I could learn with you,” Anakin had tried, though he’d known he’d lost the argument already.
“Learn here first, padawan,” Obi-Wan had said, with an affectionate look.
And yeah, maybe Anakin had clung to his robe a little. Tried to pull him back so that Anakin could try another argument. So that he could get Obi-Wan to see how useful and important it would be for Anakin to come too. But that hadn’t worked out for him. The only thing that happened was that some of the other younglings had seen and made fun of Anakin for it. And then he’d gotten into a fight.
The punishment Anakin gets from the masters at the temple is nothing like the hurt he gets when Obi-Wan comes back. Obi-Wan just gives him that look of disappointment. That frown and furrowed brow that says he wishes Anakin would behave himself. And his master is muttering something about how Anakin will need to stay in the temple longer than he’d thought. So that Anakin can learn to control himself.
So Anakin spends a few years in the temple, much to his frustration. Well, his and the others at the temple, because Anakin isn’t happy to be too young for missions and to be left behind by Obi-Wan, and he lets everyone know it.
It’s a time of relative peace, so younglings and the younger padawans spend most of their time at the temples instead of out on missions. They are segmented into groups that are (allegedly) to be good friends and support (though Anakin spends a fair amount of time fighting with everyone). They’re all sequestered into different parts of the temple. Being taught history. How to control the force. How to fight (honorably). How to speak for peace. Different languages and persuasion tactics. They’re being taught and taught and taught and all Anakin wants is to be out there. with Obi-Wan, doing things.
No one could have possible suspected what would happen with the separatists in the years to come, so they aren’t training the padawans for war. They aren’t teaching them military tactics. They aren’t allowing them to really do things. Everything is theory and balance. Anakin doesn’t really like it, but he puts up with it, because Obi-Wan has told him, if he’s good, that Anakin will be allowed to come on missions if he learns well. Though, Obi-Wan warns Anakin, he’s fairly certain Anakin will find the missions as boring as meditation at the temple.
It takes another two years before Obi-Wan treats Anakin like a proper padawan (at least to Anakin’s eyes), bringing him out of missions. Only a few though. Obi-Wan had been right though, for the most part Anakin finds them horrendously boring.
He finds it hard not to fidget. Not to make comments under his breath. Not to use the force to move objects around the room just to entertain himself while the adults talk.
Obi-Wan has to lecture him on patience after every meeting. But then, after the lectures, they practice with light sabers, and that is always much better. Obi-Wan is just as good at fighting as the masters at the temple. Better even. And Anakin is sure that he learns things the other padawans never will. And, best of all, if Anakin behaves, he gets to fly the ship home.
At fifteen, his master allows him to come out on the occasional mission that might get a bit messy.
The ones that track bounty hunters. The ones that can, if only for a few hours, go into the depths of the seedier sides of Coruscant. He takes to it with ease. Albeit there are more conversations (read: arguments) about impulsive behavior and risk taking. Though, as Anakin is more than happy to point out, Obi-Wan really can’t get all that judgy because he takes some crazy risks as well.
His master just shakes his head though, mutters something about it being different. About how Anakin needs to be careful. How he has so much left to learn.
It’s annoying, but it gets Anakin out of the temple, for that he is happy. Because, even though it’s been years, Anakin hasn’t actually made any friends among the other padawans. The most he can hope for is begrudging mutual respect. But he doesn’t really have proper friends. Obi-Wan is the closest he has, and he doesn’t see the man nearly as much as Anakin would like.
The lectures about ‘restraint’ and ‘safety’ and ‘impulse control’ don’t really change when he’s well into his sixteenth year.
Obi-Wan seems a bit more tired with it, a bit more exasperated, because it hasn’t really changed - Anakin still jumps into the fray without thinking of his escape strategy. Anakin still acts first and ponders later. Anakin still fights rather than talks his way out of a confrontation. But, in many ways, other things have changed.
For one, Anakin is now almost always away from the temple with his master. He feels like a proper padawan. One that is doing well, because Obi-Wan has him moved. Away from the learners in the temple. Out of the shared room he’d had with several of the other padawans. Has him moved to the end of the hall where the Jedi Knights stay. Where Obi-Wan stays. The place for padawans who go on almost all of the missions their masters get assigned. So they are on quick notice to get on a shuttle at any moment.
It’s what Anakin had always dreamed of. And if his room is little more than a shoebox with a bed and a small cupboard for his robes, then that is just fine. It’s not like he’s there most of the time anyways. Because, as Anakin has grown, so has Obi-Wan.
Anakin is proud of his master, who is held in high regard and is requested often to go on missions. They spend most of their time out of the city. Out in space, where Anakin feels more at home.
Obi-Wan lets Anakin fly the ship more often. Let’s him suggest plans (even if ultimately Obi-Wan chooses his own plan more often than not). His master lets Anakin make jokes and, when they spar, Anakin even begins to win on occasion. It’s a pivotal year for them. At least from Anakin’s perspective. And, in his mind, its just the start of greater things to come.
By seventeen, they are practically inseparable - Anakin and his master. So they don’t notice it. The growing. It just sort of happens somewhere between missions and eating together and training sessions and lecturing. It happens without either of them paying attention to it, so, in many ways, it's a surprise when Anakin ends up the taller of the two of them.
It takes Anakin a while to notice it because there's usually a few feet between them. When they're sparring, when they are in such different stances, height is irrelevant. But if he stands right next to Obi-Wan, then the older man has to look up at him. Tilt his head back rather far too, if Anakin gets close enough.
The first time Anakin notices it, he really likes it. It makes him feel powerful.
Foolishly, this power makes him feel like Obi-Wan will treat him like an adult. But, he doesn’t.
No, his master still treats him like a boy of fourteen rather than the young adult he is at seventeen. So when he says, “I’m ready for the trials.” He does not get the rare proud smile that he hopes for.
No, rather, Obi-Wan gives him a look. A ‘I can’t believe you suggested that’ look. The one reserved for when Anakin has done something incredibly foolish.
“No, you aren’t.”
“Yes, I am,” he retorts.
He gets chided in response, with a look and a shake of the head. So Anakin frowns, brows furrowing as he moves in, a challenge of sorts.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, looking up at him with a smile. “Take a step back. You’re too close.”
“Sorry, master,” he says, obeying the request, his frown deepening.
They don’t talk about the trial again for years.
It’s worse (Obi-Wan’s dismissive behavior), two years later, when Anakin finally tells Obi-Wan how he feels about Padmé.
He can’t help it. The idea of seeing her again is too much for him to bear. So he talks about remembering her. Speaks of his memories of her. Of her beauty. Because, through all this time and change and challenges, he’s dreamed of Padmé
But Obi-Wan just tells him to be calm. Tells him to be professional. Reminds him of the role of the Jedi. That they are here to deal with a threat to the Senator, nothing else. That this is about duty.
And all the while that Obi-Wan talks, Anakin is drifting closer until Obi-Wan lets out a sigh.
“You’re looming again,” Obi-Wan says simply. And he is.
Somehow, even though they’d started at opposite sides of the elevator, Anakin is now hovering by Obi-Wan’s side.
It’s just a thing that Anakin does. The hovering thing. Except Obi-Wan had started to call it ‘looming’ sometime last year.
“Sorry, master,” he says. And this is another thing that he does.
Anakin apologizes to his master, a lot. Sometimes he means it, often he doesn’t. But he’s mastered the art of looking contrite, the illusion at least, if nothing else. Sometimes Obi-Wan believes him. Sometimes he doesn’t.
Right now, he doesn’t. Which might have to do with the fact that Anakin has not actually taken a step back. Because, if he does, he feels like he is capitulating to Obi-Wan’s other comments. The ones about Padmé.
“I dream of her, master. I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind for years, and now I’m going to see her again. Going to be near her again. Get to .. to talk to her again.”
Obi-Wan raises a brow at that, something close to alarm on his face. “Anakin, you can’t possibly think to pursue her.”
“Why not, master?” he asks, and maybe it comes off a bit more whiney that he wants it to.
Obi-Wan, for his part, just blinks at him for a few moments. Seeming in shock at the mere suggestion of it. That is, until his master’s brain seems to catch up with him and then, much to Anakin’s annoyance, Obi-Wan appears to have a whole list.
“She’s much too old for you.”
“She’s only five years older than me, master.”
Obi-Wan frowns. “She knew you as a child.”
“I am no longer a child, master. I believe I can get her to see that.”
“Anakin,” his master says in that voice of extreme exasperation that Anakin thinks is probably reserved for him, “she’s a senator.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Anakin grouses, because, really, this isn’t how he thought this conversation would go.
Okay, so he hadn’t exactly expected his master to be supportive of the whole thing. The man had, after all, been pretty strict about the whole ‘attachments are a concern’ lesson (Anakin could swear he’s heard that lecture so many times he has it memorized). But he hadn’t expected Obi-Wan to have so many objections to it and be so dismissive of Anakin’s true feelings for Padmé.
“It has to do with everything, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says in his voice that he usually says ‘Anakin, really’, to reprimand him for some slightly unorthodox behavior. “Her first duty is to the senate. To the Republic. To democracy. Like ours should be to the Order. We are Jedi.”
“Love and connection are part of the light side of the Force. How can it be bad of me to love her?” Anakin argues.
His master’s eye twitches a little at that. But then there is a sigh. A deep tired sort of sigh, and Obi-Wan drags a hand down his face. “You are a padawan.”
“What does that mean?” Anakin asks with a glare, because it feels like a non-sequitor.
“It means she is an accomplished senator. Even if she were to choose a… dalliance with one who was so much younger than herself, and one that required her to be in a secret relationship, and went against her sense of duty fo the republic, and she moved past the fact that she carried you around as a child, then she may take issue with your rank being that of such below her own. You are still a padawan. She is a senator in the Republic. It is a great divide of authority.”
Anakin doesn’t like all the qualifiers. He really doesn’t like that Obi-Wan has a point. Not in the slightest. It's annoying. It’s infuriating. Especially as his master could do something about this. Could have done it years ago. Should have done it years ago.
“You could change that. I am ready for the trials, master. Let me take the trials. I could be a knight.” True, a knight is quite a bit lower than a senator in the equivalency balancing, but it’s a start in the right direction. And, really, Anakin should have been a knight ages ago.
“You’re not ready for the trials.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, Anakin, you are not,” Obi-Wan says with a sigh.
Then he looks up at Anakin, and his neck is tilting far, because, without thinking, Anakin has really gotten all up in his space. Gotten very close. Forcing his master to look up at him.
Obi-Wan frowns, then says, “Step back, Anakin.”
And, like a good padawan, Anakin goes to the other side of the elevator. Telling himself he isn’t brooding.
The frustrations don’t end there. Even though Anakin has proven himself by taking out that assassin droid and hopping a ride on it to get back to the sender, Obi-Wan still doubts his ability to handle a mission on his own.
Padmé will be safer off the planet. If she goes into hiding. But the Jedi council can’t just send anyone with her. Not only because she won’t allow it, but because they don’t have many Jedi to spare. Anakin can handle it. He knows he can handle it. And, what’s more, he wants to.
But Obi-Wan objects to it. Obi-Wan doesn’t think the pair of them should go off together. Though, really, Anakin isn’t sure if it’s because Obi-Wan doesn’t trust Anakin to play bodyguard or because of Anakin’s feelings for Padmé. Either way, its really annoying.
Thankfully for him, and Padmé, the council disagrees with Obi-Wan’s objections. There is some grumbling from Obi-Wan once the decision is made but, ultimately, he can’t go against the council. Not with this.
“Be careful,” Obi-Wan says, putting a hand on Anakin’s arm.
“Yes, master,” Anakin replies. And it sends a thrill through him to see that look on his master’s face. The one that is part worry, part carrying, and a hint of pride. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know,” Obi-Wan mutters, “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried you’re going to do something dangerously stupid.”
To which Anakin can only grin.
Anakin tries not to think about Obi-Wan once he’s on Naboo with Padmé. He feels as though he should embrace every moment with her. His time to convince her that everything Obi-Wan had warned him against is wrong.
That she isn’t too old for him, that love is more important than duty to the Republic (or at the very least that one doesn’t hinder serving the other), that even if they had met when he was a child Anakin is no longer a child, that their roles do not matter, only how they feel about each other. Or how they could feel about each other, if she doesn’t get hung up on this.
And, he hates it, but Obi-Wan had had a point, it is difficult for Padmé to see past his title of padawan.
She’s nervous about it. At first she treats him like a child. As though she is actually in charge of the mission, rather than him. As if she can decide what they do and don’t do. As if she can decide who it’s safe to contact and when.
But then it changes. Things shift in the weeks they spend on Naboo together. And, one night, when the moment feels right and there is a gentle breeze in the wind, they kiss.
They kiss and it changes everything. She tries to deny it at first. That everything hasn’t changed, but it has.
Everything has changed because Anakin now has someone of his own. Someone who cares for him above all else. Someone who wants him for him, not because he’s the chosen one or whatever. And there’s the physical affection, which is nice and new.
Sure, his mother had given him hugs and the occasional kiss on the cheek, but that’s different. Very different from the way affection of a lover feels. Anakin has never felt desired before and, the way Padmé looks at him after their first kiss, speaks of a different type of connection and desire. He likes it. Likes it a lot.
But there are still lingering concerns.
Ones that Obi-Wan had pointed out (much to Anakin’s endless annoyance). Like the secrecy their relationship will need to be under. Like the differences in their statuses. These two are the ones that concern Padmé the most.
She can handle the age difference. She can handle his inexperience. She can get over the fact that she once gave him a piggyback ride in light of how very much he’s grown (his height, his muscles, the sharp cut of his jaw). And, out of the other two major concerns, she can even come to terms with the secrecy of it all. But it’s the status that seems to really bother her. Specifically the title of padawan he carries around with him.
It comes out, a bit more than it probably should, one evening while they’re sitting in front of the fire. It’s just the two of them, and they’ve been luxuriating in their own little world.
“I don’t want to go back after this mission is over,” Anakin says, pulling her close.
She smiles at him for a moment before she gets that serious face. The one that he doesn’t particularly like. It reminds him too much of Obi-Wan and he instinctively knows he’s not going to like what she says next.
“We need to go back. I … we have important work to do.”
As soon as it is out of her mouth, Anakin hates it. Because she tacked on the ‘we’. It took her a moment to realize how bad it was to leave him out initially. And, really, it speaks of a lie.
Padmé doesn’t really think he has important work. Not right now. Not in the same way that Obi-Wan does.
He frowns, pulling way. “When I go back, I will just be his padawan again.”
“You don’t like being his padawan.”
“No, yes, that isn’t what I mean. It’s not about Obi-Wan. It’s about the fact that I could be a knight. That I should be a knight already,” he says, standing and beginning to pace before the fire. “If he would only recommend me for the trials.”
“Why can’t you go for the trials yourself? Can you not speak to the Jedi council about taking it?”
Anakin lets out a huff of frustration. It isn’t her fault that she doesn’t understand. She’s not a Jedi. But there are rules. So many rules among the Jedi. It’s frustrating.
“No,” is all the says. “I can’t. Obi-Wan needs to approve of me doing it. He’s holding me back. He’s jealous of my power!”
Maybe he says it too loudly. Or maybe there is a look on his face, in his eyes, but Padmé is sitting back. Putting distance between them and, in the Force, he can feel her pulling slightly away.
He doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like the way she looks away from him. The way she clenches her hands. As if he’s in the wrong somehow here. As if his behavior has shocked her. Has made her uncomfortable.
“I’ll talk to him again,” he says, coming to sit beside her. “Obi-Wan has to see that I’m ready. I mean, the council sent me on this mission. They know I can protect you. They know I’m ready. Obi-Wan is just so… so.. He can be so frustrating. He treats me like a child sometimes. He forgets I’m a man grown. Obi-Wan doesn’t understand. He’s not like the others. Even Windu acknowledges that I’m the chosen one, but Obi-Wan is always lecturing me. Talking to me of patience. Of moderation. He just doesn’t understand. Not everyone can be him. So calm and centered all the time. It isn’t fair.”
“Ani,” Padmé says, putting a hand on his arm.
It stops him up short. Because he likes that she calls him that. That she is the only one in the galaxy who now calls him that. Her Ani. He takes her hand in his.
“Let’s stop speaking of Obi-Wan. Please,” she says softly.
And he nods. And they do. For a while. The stop speaking of Obi-Wan, but his master is never far from Anakin’s mind.