(A/N) Dark!Obi fic, first time writing him as dark, excited to work more on it. First chapter in a continuing story, set between the end of Clone Wars and the beginning of ROTS, with one major death exception, which is addressed here. Please R and R, let me know what you're thinking!

He could hear the crisp snap of plasma behind him. He didn't have to open his eyes to know it would be blue, or to see the metallic hand clamped around it. "I was waiting on you to arrive."

"You didn't know I was coming." The fact that he was yet to kill him was proof, proof of everything he had come to realize was wrong with the Jedi. To not kill him, one who had become such a threat, because of some arrogant belief that he would return to them was a clear sign of how deficient their code was. How easily they could fall. He had wasted so much time, had been fooled by that arrogance himself, but his path was clear now, severed from theirs. "Don't lie to me, Obi-Wan. Or do you have a different name now?"

He opened his eyes then, feeling the anger roll off of the man in waves, the pristine sense of pain and betrayal. He could feel his new powers broiling underneath his skin, relishing in it. But, unlike the repression of the Jedi, he was free to have any attachment he wished, and this man behind him, one who might be seeking to kill him, was the closest thing he had ever had to a son.

"Do you fault me, Anakin, for a choice that you might have made as well?" He stood in one fluid motion, his black robe gathering around his shoulders loosely, his lightsaber staying latched onto his belt. He would not need it. Not for this. "You saw your destiny on Mortis. How can you condemn me for wanting much of the same things you do?"

"We are not the same," the Jedi's face was pulled back in distress. Obi-Wan could hardly believe that they had sent Anakin to destroy him, it was again a clear oversight by a council who refused to take charge of their own decisions. "Not anymore, Obi-Wan."

"You have been sent here to kill me." Anakin's face, as it always had, betrayed his emotions. He had never quite mastered the control that Obi-Wan, whose lips now ticked into a smooth smile, had managed all those years ago. "I can't help but think that was an unnecessary cruelty."

"I made them send me." Anakin said in what would have been a cold tone if it hadn't been accompanied by a pained expression, and his inability to meet his former master's eyes.

"Did you not believe them? I assure you, what they say is true." And of course, it was. Dooku was now his master. He was not Sith, not yet. There could only be two, and when Sidious fell as was destined, he would take his place at his master's side, inherit the power of the dark side. So much had fallen into place when he had left the Order. His ability to have a torrent, but short-lived affair with the assassin who had been killed by Dooku only weeks in, his final right to release his anger into the storm that now surrounded him in a violent storm. He was free to hate, hate Maul for his killing of Qui-Gon; he was free to fight, fight against the tyrannic injustice of a Republic that now stood for nothing; free to love, his current affair with the long distant Duchess of Mandalore was now a centrepoint that his life revolved around. After this, he would meet her on one of their secluded planets, where they could shed whatever shells they had constructed and simply exist as lovers in the world. "You always had to see for yourself."

"Don't talk like you understand me," His reaction to Obi-Wan's amused tone was violent.

"But I do, Anakin. More than you know." He let out a long breath. This moment had been long in coming. But now, free of the bounds that had so long restrained the pair of them, he could speak of it. "I know of your marriage, your attachment to Padme. I doubt the Jedi would be too happy to find out about that."

"We have made it work. I don't care if they know."

"The fact that they do not says otherwise." Obi-Wan drawled again. "If they knew Anakin, you know what the Jedi would say. What they would do. Your entire life of work for them means nothing." He paused, watching the effect his words had. He did not want to hurt the man in front of him, and he knew that they would not fight, but his words seemed to be enough. "It is hard to imagine if they knew of her pregnancy, Anakin. Your child would not be safe from them. You know this."

He spoke the words with simple honesty: a child of the great chosen one, what a prize that would be to the Order. A powerful child, free of any attachment to an equally powerful father, trained in the ways of the force and corruption. The thought chilled him, a reminder of all that had changed. Anakin stayed silent, his eyes on his oldest friends.

"You can join us. It is not to late, there is still power you do not know." He could see as well as feel the anger, revulsion, and conflict that battled within the man. "Soon the Jedi will fall. The galaxy can once again be free of oppression."

"You're lying."

"I have no reason to do so." Obi-Wan said, and through the humming blue glow of Anakin's lightsaber, he could see a track of sweat cut down his face. "You know how I value life, Anakin; I would not join a regime that was intent on murdering innocent people." He again saw the hesitation, the almost agreement. "Or have you forgotten?"

"I haven't forgotten anything, Obi-Wan." He stepped in a circle around Obi-Wan, who kept his arms loose, making no motion towards his lightsaber. "I find those words hard to believe form a Sith. The Sith do not believe in peace."

"Peace is a life." The old mantra of the Sith code came to him. "Justice is not, however. Think of all the Jedi would not do, would not justly secure in the name of Peace. Slavery, for example. Why was your mother allowed to remain in slavery on Tatooine, in clear suffering? The Jedi are afraid, of inciting riots, of making the Senate angry. It restricts them, they no longer stand for what they once did. They are unintentionally cruel, but in some ways, especially when a group has that much unrestricted power, that is far worse than any intention they may have. Think of Ahsoka, despite my protests, the council expelled her. When they offered her place back, she refused. She, too, has seen the ruse of Jedi corruption"

He had struck an open nerve, that he knew. He could see the open pain, feel the open frustration. Anakin was finally seeing what he had come to realize. The cruelty, the absence of justice, the lack of righteousness. The Jedi, who claimed to be the protectors of the innocent and yet they took children from families who did not know enough to stop them, let families be slaughtered in a war they had no place fighting in, defended a Senate who withheld supplies from civilians of planets that did not agree with them.

"You didn't come here to kill me." Anakin's attention snapped back to him, as did the blade of his saber, which if he had been standing any closer, would have been exactly level with Obi-Wan's chest. He opened his mouth to protest, but Obi-Wan waved a hand. "If you had, you would have already."

"Come back to the Order, Obi-Wan. It needs you." He let the blade go more lax in his hand, but kept it pointing at his old master. "I need you."

"Then stay." In a snap, the blue blade disappeared into its handle, and Obi-Wan could feel the surge of the dark side of the force. But still he did not move, made no motion to protect him. What he could feel was not danger. Not rage, or anger, or hate. Instead, his blood buzzed with life, the training bond between him and Anakin reignited with a much stronger emotion.

Joy.