AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey! This is a revamp of my fic by the same name. If you've read the first version, be prepared for a bit of a twist, nothing major, mostly just a lot more description. Anyway, please R & R!
A REASON TO LIVE
CHAPTER ONE
Obi-Wan Kenobi paced slowly back and forth in Bail Organa's quarters on Coruscant. He stroked his beard, a habit he had developed when he was deep in thought. Staring out the window, Obi-Wan watched the smoke rise from the Jedi Temple. He was uncertain as to why that saddened him so. After all, the Temple was only a building. 'But perhaps,' he reasoned, 'it is just the final straw, as if the sacking of the Temple is the final death knell for the Jedi.'
"It doesn't matter," he found himself sighing aloud. "The Jedi are truly gone… regardless."
The events of the past week weighed heavily on him. His friends, teachers and companions were all dead, save one. The younglings had been slaughtered; their faces haunted Obi-Wan's dreams. He was in hiding. However, these circumstances were not as grevious as what he himself had witnessed. Anakin… Anakin was gone.
Obi-Wan had spared his old apprentice the death blow, but that did not mean much. The memory of fighting Anakin, the man he had trained from a boy, the one who had saved his life countless times, the man he thought of as a brother, was almost more taxing than he could bare. Tears burned at the back of Obi-Wan's eyes, threatening to fall. Slowly inhaling, he attemped to release his grief into the force, but his guilt kept him from letting go.
It was all so overwhelming. He couldn't shake the feelings of exahaustion and gnawing grief. Obi-Wan couldn't count the number of times he had been physically ill since his return from Mustafar. Whenever he let his mind dwell on recent events, he would become violently sick, as if his whole being was trying to reject this harsh new reality.
Obi-Wan really did not want to get sick again, so he tried to distract himself by finding something else to do or think about. Lightsaber drills were out of the question. Who knew how dangerous that was with the Emperor so close and very precious few Force sensitive people around to mask Obi-Wan's Force signature?
Instead he took a moment to look around Bail's quarters. The Senator had been very kind to shelter Obi-Wan, the now exiled Jedi, at great personal risk. Luckily, the new Emperor was too busy securing his horde on power to search for Obi-Wan at the moment. But everyone knew that would not last long. Still, Obi-Wan found this place strangely comforting. The walls of the main living space were a tranquil shade of blue. The room was sparcely decorated with furniture. A sofa and a table sat along the wall in front of the window. A potted plant sat on a woven rug. Bail even had a shelving unit with dusty paper tomes next to his holovision. Upon further examination, Obi-Wan learned that most of the archaic paper books there were detailed studies of Alderaanian history.
For some reason, that did not interst Obi-Wan. Try as hard as he might, he couldn't shake Anakin out of his mind.
'Anakin', he sighed, lamenting the fate of his former Padawan learner. Thinking of Anakin's fall reminded Obi-Wan of Xanatos, and instantly, he understood Qui-Gon's unrellenting guilt. He felt like a failure. He had failed Anakin somehow, and even worse, he had left him for dead.
'No,' he mentally abated himself. 'It was Darth Vader that I left for dead. That man, that twisted creature…' he shuddered with the memory, 'that was not my Anakin. There wasn't a trace of little Ani or my saber-brother in that monster.'
An inquisitive whirring of beeps and blips pulled Obi-Wan from his comtemplations. R4D2 tottered his way toward his master. Obi-Wan chuckled saddly at himself. He hadn't even sensed the noisy 'droid's approach.
"I'm alright, Arfour," he answered the 'droid's next series of sounds. "Go on, play your transmission."
Obi-Wan sat on the sofa, facing the diminuitive mech 'droid as a blue holofoil projection of Master Yoda was displayed onto the coffee table. Obi-Wan noticed that Yoda looked as stoic as ever, despite the horrible turn of events.
"Time to decide the future of the children, it is," Yoda spoke gruffly, always one to get down to business at hand. "Meet at the co-ordinates I give you, we shall." With that, Yoda poked at something invisible with his grimmer stick and the transmission ended.
'Yes, the children,' Obi-Wan thought, '…Anakin's children.' He bent to retrieve the co-ordinates from Arfour. 'How could he have ever given those precious lives up for the empty promises of the Dark Side?' It pained Obi-Wan to think of the twins growing up without knowing the brilliant man their father had been and the wonderful woman that was their mother. 'How can we ever keep them safe? If Darth Vader or the Emperor knows where they are, then the galaxy is done for! I feel it in my very core,… the children are the only ones who could ever turn Anakin. They must be kept safe! I owe that much to Padme and Anakin.
Obi-Wan retrieved his cloak from a hook by the door and prepared to sneak his way to the building where Yoda awaited him. 'If only they could remain in the care of the Jedi, then perhaps they might stand a chance if found. At least one of them needs to be trained to confront Vader!'
The idea came to him as he passed from shaddow to shaddow in the streets of Coruscant. ' I could raise the boy…,' he reasoned, 'the Anakin I knew would never return to Tatooine. I could raise him there He'd even be close to the only family he has left, and I could and train him as best I can. I may not be as good for the job as Master Yoda, but I'd be much less conspicuous with a small human child.'
He pondered the idea for the rest of his short walk to where Yoda awaited. He realized that he actually wanted a chance to raise the boy. He felt he owed it to his old friend, just as he had owed it to Qui-Gon to train Anakin. He only hoped that Yoda would agree with him.
Obi-Wan didn't' have much time to build an argument. It was a futile effort to try anyway, as Yoda probably already had an idea of where Luke should go. He arrived at his destination soon enough. Obi-Wan recognized the building as one of the many Senatorial office complexes. Yoda was awaiting inside, and if his hunch was correct, so was Bail Organa. Pausing with his hand grasped around the durasteel door handle, Obi-Wan prepared himself and walked inside.