A blonde boy of about eight appeared in the doorway between the bedroom and the living area of a standard Jedi quarters. He surveyed the back of a sofa with an appraising, calculating look, head tilted to the side. He took several brisk steps forward, tensed, reached out into the Force and catapulted himself up-and-forward, legs tucked up under himself. He landed, like an overgrown kitten, onto the narrow back of the sofa and balanced for about four seconds before tumbling unceremoniously over onto the cushions of the sofa, landing with a soft oomph.
"You overshot again, Luke."
Luke looked up at the Jedi Master watching him from the entrance to the kitchen and pouted. "Did not."
"Then why did you fall over?"
"Papa!"
Anakin raised his eyebrows in a gesture reminiscent of Obi-Wan. "We should go or we'll be late."
"You don't care about being late," Luke said, getting up.
"I care about you being late."
"Not fair."
Anakin smirked and guided his son out of his quarters by the shoulder. "All the Masters and Knights will be there to watch your year spar. If we hold them up for too long, I will have at least twenty angry Jedi lecturing me. I don't have the patience for that."
Luke giggled.
"Oh another thing: I got a holomessage from Senator Organa earlier. You will get to see your sister soon."
Luke made a thoughtful face.
"What? You don't want to see Leia?"
"I do. Only…she's very snotty sometimes."
Anakin laughed. "Only when you pull her braids." He disliked having Leia so far away, but Alderaan had the best school for budding political minds in the entire Republic, and Leia had inherited her mother's talent. Besides, the Organas were looking after her.
Thinking about Padme still hurt, even after all these years. Sometimes, Anakin lay awake at night wondering if he had made the right choices. He couldn't imagine what would have happened had he stayed on Coruscant, what would have happened if he had come back, but he knew that the choices he made had cost him his wife.
Luke, sensing his father's sudden drop in mood, even with Anakin's shields pulled up, walked calmly at his side, gnawing at his lower lip.
They finally got to the training hall and Luke went to join the other children while Anakin went to find Obi-Wan in the spectator stands around the sparring ring.
"Nervous?" Obi-Wan asked when Anakin sat down beside him.
"No. He'll do fine."
"Cocky as always."
Anakin smiled, but it didn't quite meet his eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Obi-Wan folded his arms in a familiar gesture of frustrated disbelief. "We still have a bond, Anakin."
Still was a strange way to put it. Anakin had never expected that they wouldn't have a bond. After everything they'd been through, everything they'd…become since then, he couldn't imagine it any other way. It did mean that he couldn't truly hide any of his feelings from his former master.
"I was just thinking about Leia and how far away she is. I know it's the right thing for her and everything…"
"Well, you have Luke here."
"Why can't I train him?" Anakin squinted and Obi-Wan instinctively reached out to put a hand on Anakin's shoulder, soothing the wave of agitation he could sense coming from far away.
"It's better—"
"Don't tell me it's better that I don't get to train my own son. I thought we decided to get rid of that whole attachment nonsense."
Obi-Wan sighed. "It's not nonsense, Anakin, it's the Jedi way. It always has been. Look at how much grief it has cost you already."
"Not only." Anakin looked up, meeting Obi-Wan's gaze.
It was a loaded topic, one that could be pulled either way, no matter how one looked at it. It had been attachment that had almost turned Anakin to the Dark Side. But it had been attachment that had forced Obi-Wan to go against the Council that day. He could still remember so clearly standing at the landing ramp with Anakin, about to depart on his mission to capture General Grievous, saying goodbye and wondering if it could in fact be for the last time. As he walked away, something inside him had rebelled. He had stopped at the end of the ramp, looked up to Anakin and felt his heart scream a warning and the pain was overwhelming, the sort of thing he had never felt before. "Come with me" and Anakin, bewildered, had run to him like he was still a child and mouthed, "but the Council?" And Obi-Wan had told him that he would deal with the Council. He needed Anakin on this one.
So they had gone, together. When Palpatine's message reached them, asking Anakin to come back and save him from the injustices of the Jedi, Obi-Wan had been able to stop him, to coax him into trusting him with words and touches that he had always meant but had never before had the courage to expose.
The Jedi had always been Obi-Wan's life. The Code was his guide, his comfort. But having broken away from it once, he found it disturbingly easy to do again and again. Because Force knows what would have happened if he hadn't taken Anakin with him.
Palpatine – Darth Sidious, that is – did not go down without a fight. They lost over half the Jedi Order in the attempted coup. And Padme. Anakin had almost lost control again after that. Obi-Wan still was not sure if he deserved any credit for keeping Anakin in the Light that time around – Luke and Leia probably deserved that honor.
The rebuilding of the Jedi and the Republic after the war inherently meant that some things had to change. But old habits die hard and while Master Yoda was alive – which would probably be forever – certain things would unlikely change much.
Anakin, who had become lost in his thoughts watching the younglings line up in their sparring pairs, suddenly said, "You could train him."
Obi-Wan laughed. "No, thank you. I'd rather not inflict another Skywalker on myself."
Anakin gave a small laugh.
"We'll find Luke a good master, don't worry."
"I'm not worried. Worrying is your job."
"Ah. Of course."
Anakin sat back, leaning sideways just slightly so he could press his shoulder against Obi-Wan's for comfort. There wasn't much more they could do in public, in good sense, but it was enough.
"Tell me you're not training with Yoda again tonight," Anakin said, suddenly changing the topic.
"Hm? Why?"
"I bought some Noobian wine. Thought we could try it."
"You hate wine."
"And you hate all other alcohol. I don't have a lot of choices here."
Obi-Wan smiled knowingly, trying to not imagine too vividly what the rest of their evening might look like. "No, I'm not training with Yoda tonight."
"Good." A smile of anticipation teased at the corners of Anakin's mouth as Luke and his partner walked out into the sparring ring.