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Happily Ever After

By Aiko "Kitty" Skywalker

The rain had stopped its feverish pounding only to be replaced by the thunderous crashes of fiery demon rocks flying from the dunes filled to the tip with billowing and crackling waves of lava thrown forth from the mountain high above their heads. Yet Obi Wan never seemed to notice.

His eyes were focused strictly upon the boy, no the man, before him. He was Anakin Skywalker, the young apprentice of Obi Wan Kenobi; however, Obi Wan could feel his grips of his mastership over the young apprentice slipping. He wouldn't be his apprentice anymore; he would be Palpatine's, no not Palpatine, the Emperor's.

"Anakin," Obi Wan whispered lightly, yet it was loud enough for his opponent to hear. "Anakin stop this, please Anakin I don't want to fight you."

"Well you shall have to old man, or perish." Anakin snapped back surprising his master with his vicious initial response.

"I shall not fight you." He said again, trying to press it into his apprentice's head.

This time the only response was the blur of Anakin's blue lightsaber flashing past the edge of his face.

"Why did you not strike me my apprentice?" Obi Wan asked, hiding the fear in his voice excellently.

"Too easy it would have been to destroy you. I want a battle out of you."

"A battle is what you shall not have."

Anakin's eyes narrowed. This time he wouldn't miss. Swinging high a blue and shinning lightsaber contrasted with the red hues that powerfully portrayed the sky, Anakin dove at his master.

This time Obi Wan was prepared. Quickly he lunged his blue lightsaber up to defend his attack. Again and again and again Obi Wan defended, yet never struck in an offensive manor. He would not strike his apprentice, no matter what had become of him.

"Just as I thought Obi Wan, you are weak. I can sense your fear, just as you once said you could sense mine."

"No Anakin, I do not fear you, I fear what has become of you, I am not even attempting to hide that from you. But that fear shall not stay for long my apprentice."

"I am not your apprentice Obi Wan! I never was! You've always held me back, you've always told me to stay put, and you've always told me that I'm too weak! You have always treated me like I'm some sort of insolent fool! You treat me as though it was my fault that Qui Gon died! That's it! You've always blamed me for Qui Gon's death! Well it wasn't my fault "master", too bad you never figured that out."

"I never blamed you for Qui Gon's death. That wasn't your fault, it wasn't my fault, and there was nothing anyone could have done!"

"Bull shit! It was your fault he died! He was a real master, you, you have always failed me."

"Yes Anakin Skywalker, I have failed you. I failed you because I could not stop your turning. Maybe I just didn't teach you the truth…"

"Yes! You never taught me the truth. You taught me that the light side of the force, the Jedi, was the best, was the most powerful. No Obi Wan, the dark side is my place."

"Please Anakin come back!"

"No!" and with that Anakin began a feverish onslaught of attacks with his saber. All Obi-Wan could do was parry and pray to the force that he could hold on.

Anakin was better with a saber than he remember.

"The dark side is what causes the power to course through my veins! I am stronger now than I ever was with you. How can you say I wasn't? You're a heartless, cruel, backstabbing master."

"Anakin I never betrayed you."

"You rapped Padmé."

Obi-Wan's eyes grew clouded with puzzlement. How could Anakin ever say this to him?

"Never." He stated simply, blocking another onslaught.

"Never? I highly doubt it. I know what you did to her!"

"How? How do you know this?"

"Palpatine told me! Palpatine told me that you slept with my wife then in a heated argument killed her. He told me everything. He told me about how she was pregnant because of you but you couldn't stand the child. You rapped my wife."

"I never did anything to Padmé! She is alive in safe on Tatooine where you left her carrying your…" Obi-Wan's voice trailed off into oblivion. He silenced himself before he said too much.

"Carrying my what?"

"Nothing, nothing at all."

"Than you admit that she's dead?"

"She isn't dead Anakin! I saw her just a week ago before heading off to find you."

"That's when Palpatine told me you killed her. If you tell the truth have you been in contact with her since your departure?"

"Well no,"

"And your ship's log will prove your statement?"

"Yes,"

"Than how do I know you haven't killed her?"

"Contact her yourself than Anakin!"

"I tried! She won't answer me! That's why I believe you killed her."

Obi-Wan's mind registered his words. She wasn't answering her comlink. Interesting. Windu and Yoda must have already picked her up from Tatooine.

"I didn't kill her."

"Sith sticks you didn't."

"Ani please listen to me…"

"No one calls me Ani but Padmé! Do you here me wife rapper!" Anakin continuously on slaughter unskillfully, his skill seeming to fly away with his anger and his sloppiness reigned.

Obi-Wan knew it was time to end it. Pushing forward, he feverishly attacked back, skillfully and without anger. His form seemed at its top and Anakin knew it.

"You wont win this Anakin and you know it."

"Never shall I admit that. The Sith never surrender, especially not to a Jedi!"

"Anakin the council told me that if you could not be saved you had to be killed. I don't want to kill you."

"I'd rather die than join with a man who could rape his friend's wife and then kill her!"

"I didn't rape her!"

"Like hell you didn't!" he screamed and attacked again.

All that Obi-Wan could do was press back against Anakin's saber with his own. This sudden push from obi-Wan sent Anakin tumbling backwards, towards the edge of the lava pit. Anakin glared at Obi-Wan and then in one last desperate plea tried to reach out for something, anything.

But because of this Anakin's left hand was severed by grabbing a hold of Obi-Wan's lightsaber holding onto his lightsaber. In complete surprise he continued to tumble backwards and into the lava pit.

Obi-Wan dashed towards the edge, watching as Anakin fell to what Obi-Wan thought to be an instant death. Watching, he saw Anakin splash into the red hot liquid and his form push towards the surface, once, twice and then finally bobbing up a third time before being swallowed by the rivers of molten lava.

Obi-Wan knew there was nothing he could do. Calling down to Anakin, he tried to see if somehow he had survived. He tried climbing down, but the lava bubbling stopped him from doing so. Finally giving up, he climbed back tot eh surface.

Looking around he saw nothingness in this world, lifelessness. Somehow he knew he was the only life form still on the planet. His eyes suddenly caught a hold of an unnatural silver shine.
Anakin's lightsaber.

In one last desperate attempt to remember Anakin the way he had been before this all, the tears softly coursed down his cheeks as he knelt down towards the lightsaber.

"Anakin never could keep a hold of it." He said simply before turning and walking away into the night towards his ship.

Obi-Wan never did return to that damned planet. He had never expected Anakin to survive. But later the next year after the birth of the Skywalker twins who Padmé, Anakin's wife, had been carrying in her womb since the last time she had seen her husband on the light side of the force, Obi-Wan heard grave news from Old Republic supporters seeking quick refugee on Tatooine where Obi-Wan now lived while watching over Anakin's son Luke. The news was that a new Sith had risen to follow the Emperor as his mighty enforcer. His name was Darth Vader and as Anakin searched for the presence of Vader, he found the presence of Anakin. Anakin had been rescued by Palpatine and was now the great Sith Lord Darth Vader.

Obi-Wan did not report the news to Padmé, who was on Alderaan with the other twin, her daughter Leia, for somehow he knew that she knew before he did.

Never did Obi-Wan forget that day on that damned lava planet. The images of that fateful day were burnt into his memory forever. Never, he knew, would there be a happy ending for him because he knew that he had failed his Padawan when he had looked over the edge into the lava and seen Anakin's form bob up and down within the lava a few times before sinking into nothingness.

Fairy tales never came true for Obi-Wan as he had once hoped, and somehow he knew that there were no such things as "happily ever after"s.

Only fairy tales without an ending.

The End

OK that was, well, different for me to right. What is up with me straying away from romances right now?

Something must be wrong with me. I'm a hopeless romantic writing Angst/Action/Adventure stories. Romance/Angst yes, Angst/Action/Adventure, well this one must be my first.

Please review or e-mail me at aiko_kitty_skywalker@hotmail.com.

Later,

Aiko "Kitty" Skywalker