Rating: PG
Category: POV (Obi-Wan), angst, wistful remembrance
Setting: Sometime after Anakin's turning
Summary: Obi-Wan's thoughts on Anakin's turning
Spoilers: TPM, trilogy (I guess)
Feedback: Yes, please! sleeperdown@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.dreamwater.net/pottedcactus/erjika
Archive: Where ever is fine, but if you let me know, I'll be happier!
Disclaimer: Don't own em, no moolah for moi. Lyrics by Richard Ashcroft.
AN: Lyrics from "Feel," by the Verve. The song's actually optimistic-sounding, but the lyrics are angsty.
As darkness cooled my life
We moved to a different side
I pulled the guilt right over my eyes
As I rose to meet, to greet the sky
Anakin. What happened? Have I been that cruel to you? So much changed, and I never even noticed until it was too late. Too late.
You were so good at shielding your thoughts. Never once did I suspect. Even in your training, all the anger you harbored in your youth, I thought you handled it well. And now I know you only contained it. Slipping it into a little corner of your mind, where it grew and grew until you could contain it no more. You never mentioned it to me, for fear of a rebuke. Oh, Anakin. Was I that harsh? We both know what a poor teacher I made. No experience, I didn't even want you in my life in the first place.
But I grew to love you. Do you understand that? I loved you. Both of us were pained by the loss of Qui-Gon. Our relationship grew from that. I stopped seeing you as a chore, an unhappy promise. I found joy in being with you, in teaching you. Yet you remembered our first days too well. I changed too, but you didn't notice either. It's almost funny, in a morbid, ironic way. What led to our demise was simply not listening to each other, and that's the first thing we are all taught at the Temple.
I've never felt this before
To see you dead on my floor
I can't recall a single day
That's gonna make this pain sail away
You were wonderful. Despite what anger lay within you, you were still innocent. You were young, and your youth brought a bit of happiness in my life, happiness that could come from no other. A bright spot in a bleak galaxy.
Memories of you are so hard to cling to. All I can remember is seeing that look of pure hatred in your eyes, all your fury channeled into a single gaze. The last thing I saw from you before you fell.
Where is the boy with the bright-eyed gaze? The boy that found joy in every lesson? The boy who only wanted to help, to become a Jedi? All your goals and dreams, shattered in the face of the one thing you should have despised.
My senses have been so cold
Didn't know how to feel or hold
For a second I felt something new
For a second I believed in you
So seductive is the Dark Side. You found belonging there. Believing yourself to be a burden to me, believing that all my affection was a lie, you turned to the only other thing that would accept you. You found acceptance. Paid at a terrible price.
Yes, I loved you. But you have changed into something so monstrous, I can't even think you to be the same person you once were. Anakin is dead. Replaced by some mechanical nightmare.
Yes. Anakin, the boy, is dead. There is no other explanation.
~finis~