title from "wire to wire" by razorlight.
how do you love on a night without feelings
despite everything, obi-wan still believes in anakin
Obi-Wan fears the moment when he will find Anakin's body.
His lightsaber is warm in his hand as he traverses the sacred halls of his home, stepping over and around the bodies of clones and Jedi and Temple employees as he and Yoda head to change the recall signal. His head still aches from when the bond he share(s)d with Anakin ripped apart and he still can't believe—
Yoda told him that Anakin stayed at the Temple while the masters confronted Palpatine. Obi-Wan believes he must have died defending the Temple when the clones and—and the Sith (an apprentice or Dark Acolyte or whoever) attacked.
Obi-Wan does fear the moment when he will find Anakin's body, but he'll be proud, too. Dying in a fight, with honor, protecting his own in a blaze of glory.
(That's how Anakin wanted to go, when his time came. In a rare moment of intimacy, they confessed how they dreamed of death.)
(Obi-Wan admitted to wanting the same, despite knowing a Jedi shouldn't crave glory.)
(A Jedi should not anticipate death, either—should merely wait for their time to come and welcome death calmly and openly. But—and it's only been recently he's realized this—they're not very good Jedi.)
They reach the communication room, and Obi-Wan goes to turn off the recall signal. He still hasn't found—
Does he even want to? When he watched Qui-Gon die—it was—it was—
Finding Anakin would be just as bad, if not worse. Qui-Gon was like a father—but his relationship with Anakin was so much closer. So much more dangerous, because they chose to ignore death, instead of acknowledge it, and move on, like he did with Qui-Gon.
Obi-Wan finishes his task, and moves on to the security station, to see who did this—and not—not for revenge. He's a Jedi—even now, when the Order lays in ruins—he's a Jedi.
Yoda says, "Only pain you will find."
"Then it is pained I have earned."
And it is—this is his own choosing. But he has to know—he has to.
For Anakin. He has to see who could defeat the most powerful Jedi the Order has ever produced.
And when he finds—he finds—
In some other galaxy—if everything had turned out right—he would be pleased to find his former padawan survive the attack on the Temple.
But now—
But now, it is Anakin—Anakin—his brother—who murdered hundreds. Anakin who stormed the Temple—their home—and—and—
He can't—he can't understand it, can't see where he went wrong, and how—why would—not Anakin. Never Anakin. The boy he raised and the man he fought alongside would never have betrayed the Order. This surely is some cruel, terrible, awful joke—some dream or nightmare or vision, and he'll wake up to find Anakin complaining about being up before the sun, and the jedi alive and whole and alive not murdered by a man who fought alongside them who put the jedi before duty who was kind and powerful the greatest man obi-wan had ever know the man who would never have harmed the jedi the jedi who take care of their own and oh, anakin anakin anakin—
Obi-Wan comes back into himself to find his hands twisted in his hair and sat upon the floor, Yoda looking at him with sympathy and—
No. He won't. He can't. Not to Anakin, despite it all. Despite the bodies strewn throughout the Temple, and knowing exactly who did it.
"I won't do it," he declares, voice hoarse and shaking from unreleased emotion. "He's my brother—I can't do it."
"Gone, your apprentice is, consumed by Darth Vader."
Obi-Wan doesn't notice the slip, but he feels it, in his heart. And this—this gives him the strength to stand and unwind. He reaches into the Force—his anchor for over thirty years—and breathes in, out, in, out, centering himself. Unclenching his hands, he faces Master Yoda, bows, and walks away.
He won't kill Anakin.
But maybe—perhaps—he can save him.
He doesn't once look back.