Late at night, in the darkest hours just before sunrise, a new dream came to Anakin, slipping through the black of his mind to rise up in soft, hazy detail that he would only half-remember the next day.
He was standing in a dim, windowless room jammed with strange silhouettes that all smelled of metal and solder, someone's hand on his shoulder and a group gathered around him. The shadowed forms were so much taller than Anakin that he had to look all the way up at them as one barked a command. "Well, come on, nyee, if you can. Do it!"
It was talking to him, but what did it want?
Another slapped him across the face. He snarled, fists curling, but the hand on his shoulder gave a quick, nervous squeeze, warning him against fighting back.
"You lied to us! He can't do anything," the first one said to someone behind him.
"He can! I've seen him!" came the oily, panicked response, punctuated with a hard smack to the back of Anakin's head. "Show them!"
Silent and still, Anakin. Do not give them what they want, he found himself thinking with a fierce determination. The thoughts had a strange echo he couldn't understand: the entire dream did.
The voice behind him spoke again, sniveling, as Anakin glared up at the vague features of the giants all around him. "I swear to you, he can do things. He's worth double what I'm asking!"
"No, he can't. Do you feel anything, Kadae?"
Kadae, apparently the one furthest left to Anakin, shook his head. "Nothing. There's nothing there. Either of them."
"Deal's off," the first voice announced, gesturing around to the others with an indifferent wave of its hand. "Boska. Boss is waiting." It spoke over Anakin's head to whoever was behind him as the large, intimidating shapes began to lumber off. "Don't waste our time again."
As the shadows left, the hand still on his shoulder, Anakin felt a deep sense of relief. He did not want to go with them. He wanted to stay here, even as he felt a dangerous rage building in whoever stood behind him.
That feeling remained long after Anakin awoke from the dream, puzzled and bleary-eyed as the details glowed in sharp relief for only a moment before beginning to fade away. Stay here. I want to stay here.
Where was here? It took a moment to place his surroundings in the early-morning gloom, to correctly orient himself to the reality of the sheets and the pillow and the endless rivers of light outside in the night sky. Obi-Wan's apartment.
He got hurt. I'm taking care of him.
"Am I sure this isn't a dream too?" he asked the ceiling, dazed, as the world hesitantly fell back into place one odd truth at a time. You're nursing a Sith. Who was more than likely sent to seduce you to the dark side. You're hiding him from the Council and planning to kill his master, and oh, oh yes… in just a few short encounters you've decided that not only is he a friend, a very attractive friend, but you're going to save his very soul and bring it back to the Light. Sure you don't want to add 'End the war.' to the list?
"This is insane," Anakin muttered in a half-hearted nod to logic, no real belief in the statement as he stretched and yawned. He knew it wasn't insane. His entire life he'd followed his instincts, and his instincts told him Obi-Wan meant him no harm. He'd decided in less than a day he liked Ahsoka. Why couldn't that be true for Obi-Wan? Why couldn't he be attracted to him? Why couldn't there be a chance he could save him?
"I am the Chosen One," he said with even less enthusiasm, rolling his eyes and getting up to take a shower in the attached refresher. As the water misted over him, a fancy system of jets and warm streams, he scrubbed some alertness back into himself and went over what he needed to do that day. The Council sent me a message last night about speaking at the Senate in a few days so I'll need to open that and review it. I need to check in with Ahsoka and see how she's doing. And I need to get my meditation in if I can. If Obi-Wan's open to it, maybe we could try it together. I always do better with someone else there.
He sat in the living room as the sun rose, soft light washing in like the sea across the floor, reading through the speech the Council had sent him and starting to memorize it.
It began with a note from Master Koth, one of the seven remaining members of the Council. Anakin shook his head as he saw the old numeric honorific after the Master's name. Five of our own Council gone in the last year, no time or true masters left to replace them, and the galaxy wonders why we have had enough. "Knight Skywalker, this is the speech we have prepared for you. Please let us know if there is anything you would like to add or anything you are uncomfortable with. While some feel that the prophecy is more of a tradition than a fact, I am not one of them. I, and many others on what is left of the Council, believe that you are the one to save us. While that may be through glory in war, I suspect it may just as strongly be through showing the galaxy what a true Jedi is and bringing more families around to allowing their younglings to join our way of life. The future is in you and your Padawans, not a stale collection of old men and women like us. Thank you and please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you prepare beforehand."
Anakin frowned at the datapad, one he'd found back in the kitchen and cached his files on from his comlink. He'd noticed the lack of Padawans in the halls for years, and the increasingly empty seats at the Council meetings that couldn't be explained away entirely by missions, but hearing it laid out this bare was disturbing.
The speech itself was eloquent and no doubt half-written by Master Mundi and the other half by Grandmaster Yoda. It reminded the Republic of the thousands of years of Jedi service, and of his own service, relying heavily on tales of their victories but adding in some heartbreaking losses to even out the tone, before ending with a vow that the Order would fight on as their brave few allowed.
Anakin didn't like the idea of sitting in a floating pod in the middle of that huge room, almost lecturing the galaxy's leaders on everything the Jedi had done and how little help they had received for it, but he had been chosen and he would do it to the best of his ability.
The sun had crept in long rays across the floor and Anakin had memorized half the speech by the time Obi-Wan woke, his presence nudging Anakin's mind.
Awake. You?
Yes. Hang on. Anakin erased the speech from the datapad and dropped it back off in the kitchen on his way back through, coming to lean around the open doorway into Obi-Wan's room.
He was sitting up again, leaned against the headboard, eyes closed. "Can I skip breakfast and just have that shower?"
Anakin considered this. "Not hungry?"
"No."
"After the shower, you have to eat something." He came over and helped Obi-Wan sit up and push his legs to swing over the side of the bed, putting his arm around Obi-Wan as they stood together in an awkward mix of limbs. "Come on, old man."
Obi-Wan chuckled, an entire night of rest and the fact Anakin had actually stayed the night clearly lifting his spirits. "How old do you think I am?"
"One or two years older than me?"
"Oh, ancient, then," he grunted as he straightened up with some effort.
"Hideously so," Anakin dead-panned as he helped him into the suite's refresher, a wide space with a nanoscreen separating the standing shower from the long, modern lines of a counter and stool and a separate door that led off to the toilet. "There we are," he said, lowering Obi-Wan as carefully as he could to the seat before taking a few steps over to start the water and click the screen on. "I'll stay right outside. Call me if you need me."
Obi-Wan eyed the shower as if it were on another planet, frowning at the clouds of fog and mist starting to swirl up. "Ah… Is now too early to call?"
"No," Anakin said gently, pleased Obi-Wan wasn't going to try to tough his way through this. You can trust me. "You don't mind?" he asked, motioning between the two of them and then the shower. As handsome as Anakin found Obi-Wan, there was only the slightest awareness of his attraction for Obi-Wan in his thoughts at the moment: this was too close to what life was like with his clones, the absolute lack of privacy normal and expected on longer campaigns and the wounded always cared for, no matter what. The memories of blood and pain, sometimes his own and sometimes others', were more than effective in stripping romance out of the picture, at least for now.
"No, I don't mind. You don't?" Obi-Wan asked, trying to hide his grimace as he gently touched his stomach through his shirt. "We all know everyone looks their sexiest helpless and unable to tend to themselves. I mean, this could be a ploy on my part to make you fall in love with my inability to stand for long periods of time."
"You're clearly feeling better," Anakin smiled, helping Obi-Wan pull his shirt off over his head. He tossed it on the counter and took his own off, adding it to the pile. "Here's a towel. We'll get you in and have you sit on the floor, and I'll sit on the ledge in the back."
When he turned back Obi-Wan had tugged off the rest of his clothes and had the towel on around himself, bent back showing he was tired already. "Sure you want to do this?" Anakin asked, leaning in to check the warmth of the water. It ran hot over his fingers, pleasantly so. "I could put you back in bed."
"No, no. I want to be clean again," Obi-Wan sighed as Anakin came back to stand over him. Anakin remembered the first time they'd trained, just days ago, and how different Obi-Wan had looked then. The two versions were like completely different people, this one more human and less bizarrely perfect. He felt a swell of affection for Obi-Wan again, for this wounded bird still beautiful despite all of its injuries.
"How is it you always beat me? Every time?" he wondered aloud as Obi-Wan clutched his shoulder and Anakin's hands went around his waist. They moved into the shower, Obi-Wan dropping the towel aside before they crossed the barrier and Anakin lowering him to the floor as slowly as he could to sit with his back to Anakin and the main shower jet falling across his chest and lap.
As Anakin sat down just out of reach of the sprays, bare feet comfortable in the hot water that pooled on the tiled floor, Obi-Wan finished pondering his question as he lifted his hands to let the water spill over them and splashed his face. "I can read you, Anakin. You're terribly obvious," he said between his fingers, rubbing at his cheeks and stubble.
"That's a lie. No one else can read me," Anakin said with a shrug, handing Obi-Wan a pod of shampoo over his shoulder and watching as he worked it into his hair, fingers disappearing in a cloud of damp auburn and lather.
"I am a Sith. Have to get in my daily allotment of lies or my eyes might go back." Obi-Wan said, voice wavering as lifting his arms stretched muscles too close to his wounds.
"Do you like it?" Anakin leaned over and started rubbing the shampoo in for him, Obi-Wan's hands falling away into his lap and a soft, thankful sigh escaping into the humid air.
A pleasant eternity later, he remembered as Anakin was washing his hair out in small handfuls of water that he'd asked something. "Do I like what?"
"Being a Sith."
Obi-Wan tried to turn back toward him, but was only able to turn his head, his profile fine and beaded with tiny droplets of mist. "It's not a matter of liking or not liking, Anakin. It's having goals."
Anakin picked up the conditioner and worked the lotion in next, enjoying the feel of Obi-Wan's hair wrapped up in his fingers. When had he ever done this for someone else? "On Niidai II you said your goal was me. That still true?"
"Yes."
"I'm flattered," Anakin said, glad Obi-Wan hadn't laced that with the same sexually-charged smirk he'd gotten the first time this came up. We're beyond that pretense now, right? That you're just interested in sex? "I'm not sure how being a Sith gets you me, though."
"Becoming a Sith kept me alive when I should have died. So you could say it will eventually get me you."
Anakin washed his hands off in the water and started rinsing out Obi-Wan's hair, his hands cupped together as Obi-Wan tilted his head back toward him. I knew it! I knew it wasn't a willing choice! He washed out the last of the the conditioner and handed him the soap bottle, appreciating the strong line of Obi-Wan's back as he started to rub some into a lather. "What happened?"
"Nothing I care to talk about," Obi-Wan replied nonchalantly, working the suds along his arms and then up and down his body as best he could sitting on the tile.
Anakin watched him, the elegant line of his shoulders and the scars that traced along them obscured by drifts of white until he leaned forward to wash the soap away. "Any other goals?"
"None that you'd like."
"Are those goals yours or your Master's?" A faint echo of the original tension between them flared to life, the mistrust of Nidai II made lazy by the soothing fall of water and the intimacy of the situation, but still there.
"Both of ours. Unless I'm lying again."
Anakin brushed aside his disappointment at Obi-Wan's response and plunged forward. "When he dies will you still keep them? You'll be the Master, then, right? You could choose not to keep them, couldn't you?"
Obi-Wan canted his head, face unseen, as he continued to wash himself. "It depends, Anakin, on what you do." There was no trickery here, just weariness as Obi-Wan started to rinse himself off, and his answer was almost lost in the patter of artificial rain drumming on the shower floor.
Thoughtful, Anakin helped pour water over his back and brushed away some extra foam that had gotten caught in his hairline at the nape of his neck. "What do you mean? If I turn? You know that's not going to happen," he said in quiet reproach, fingertips lingering along the strong lines of Obi-Wan's neck as his thumb brushed away the soap.
Obi-Wan only pointed and Anakin reached up to turn the water off, leaving them in a cloud of steam and the gurgle of the last of the water draining away. As Anakin handed him his towel and Obi-Wan tucked it around himself, he mused, "If you are still the Council's man after all of my efforts, then I will happily let you put your blade through me as they will no doubt command you to do."
"What if you become the Council's man? I mean, a Jedi?" Anakin asked with the same aloof air Obi-Wan had just used to discuss his own murder as Anakin helped him back up to sit on the stool again and handed him another towel.
He readied himself for one of Obi-Wan's light, airy laughs at this suggestion, and was stunned at the flash of disgust in Obi-Wan's tone, so much so that he took a step back. "I will never, ever serve the Council. I would kill myself first." At Anakin's startled expression, Obi-Wan seemed to realize what he'd said aloud and looked off into the distance, trying to compose himself.
"Why do you hate them so much?" Anakin ventured, trying and failing to reconcile that hint of spiteful venom with the same vulnerable soul he'd felt through the Force during their first healing session.
Obi-Wan scrubbed the second towel over his head and through his hair, face disappearing beneath the soft folds. When it reappeared again, the towel loosely draped over his shoulders, the flare of rage was gone, smoothed into a field of ice. "They took everything from me."
"The Council?" Anakin shook his head. "I don't understand. What happened? What exactly did they do?"
"Why do you have to know? What makes you think I want to talk about it?" The ice splintered and cracked, white lines of anger shooting through it. "Why don't we talk about one of your horrible memories? Your master, perhaps?"
"I… I'm sorry," Anakin said as Obi-Wan's retort cut clean through him, draining the blood from his face.
Obi-Wan glowered at the far wall, his jaw clenched and clearly fighting a torrent of words from breaking forth and hurting Anakin further. The ones that finally escaped surprised Anakin. "Don't apologize," he said with a heavy, resigned sigh. "I… shouldn't have said that."
"I just, I don't, I don't understand how you're a Sith. You're not like them. Not at all." Anakin stayed where he was, leaning against the counter, arms folded to stop himself from going over and grabbing Obi-Wan's arm. Why don't you see that?
"I didn't want to be one. That's certainly not what I grew up hoping to be." In his golden eyes, a shade brighter than they usually were, Anakin saw only infinite sadness. "Not at all."
"What did you want to be?" he murmured, eyes not leaving Obi-Wan's.
"Happy," Obi-Wan whispered, half to himself, as he shifted his gaze away. "Happy and safe with the ones I loved." The sorrow in his words and the haze of the Force around him hung as thick as the clouds of mist in the room. "But I think it may be too late for that now."
Sympathy and guilt warring inside him, Anakin could barely resist throwing his arms around him and hugging him as hard as he could. Instead he squeezed his arm, trying to smile for him. "Look, you're tired and I'm a bastard and you need your rest, ok? Come on, let's go."
Obi-Wan said nothing as Anakin slid his arm around him again and lifted him to his feet, lost in thoughts dark enough the edge of them seeped into view through the Force, black auroras suggesting something truly awful Anakin couldn't see. Worried, Anakin racked his mind for something to distract Obi-Wan: the wisps of sadness and hate were frightening to watch, like the end of the world about to come over the horizon in the form of a black sun. Maul or some other Sith must have done this to you, tricked you. The Council would never kill someone! That's what it is, right? You think they killed your family? Your loved ones?
The awful feelings slipping past Obi-Wan's shields left no room for doubt that he had experienced tremendous loss. That's why you're so lonely, isn't it? Why you want me so much?
You want a new family.
"Want to beat me at sabbac?" he asked out of nowhere as they started their slow amble back to Obi-Wan's bed.
The distance in Obi-Wan's eyes faded at the ridiculous suggestion and the worst of the despair retreated back behind his shields. "Beat you at sabbac?" Obi-Wan asked, puzzled, his face so close to Anakin's Anakin could feel his breath on his cheek as they walked. "Are you not any good?"
"Terrible." I don't want to talk about this anymore. Please. Just smile again?
Anakin was rewarded with the tremulous, faint beginnings of one: if he had been further away than right next to Obi-Wan he might not have seen it. "I think there are some cards in the room you slept in." They returned to Obi-Wan's room in silence, and he wordlessly took the folded clothes Anakin handed him from a set of drawers, taking a few deep breaths and calming himself as Anakin stayed close but turned to the view outside.
A long stretch of minutes later, when Obi-Wan gently touched Anakin's back to signal he was both dressed and ready to talk again, Anakin decided to try to make him smile one more time and banish the last of the setting eclipse that had disturbed him so. "I'm not kidding when I say 'terrible', you know. I once actually got kicked out of a casino-port in the Iwiq system because they thought I was trying to pull something, I lost so many hands in a row. True story. They thought I was running a distraction for someone else."
"Oh, then we should definitely bet," Obi-Wan said, and Anakin was relieved to see he wanted to change the subject too. "Go get the cards and bring them in here."
I'm sorry I brought all of this up. I shouldn't push you. "What were you thinking of betting?"
"Well, we'll start with our sabers and go from there. I figure I will own everything you have by sundown," Obi-Wan said dryly as Anakin walked out, raising his voice so he'd be able to hear him. "I think I'll start by making you my Padawan-Apprentice."
"I was a terrible Padawan," Anakin called, only half-jokingly, from the other room. "You sure you want me?"
"I'll be a terrible Master. We'll make a good pair."
They both laughed, just a bit, and just enough to break the earlier tension. The rest of the day passed in Anakin losing his saber, ship, the Temple, and half of Coruscant before they moved on to dinner and quiet reading, that delicious friction between their souls slowly finding its way back into the silence between them. Anakin found this little world, with its small demands of food and bed and healing, was the happiest place he'd been in a long time. He wondered how long he could stay here, with Obi-Wan, like this.
But reality intruded and he had to return to the Temple a day later, after Obi-Wan finally started moving around on his own and insisting they meet for practice down in their mock training hall a day or two after Anakin's speech to the Senate.
"Too many holo crews likely to try to catch a word with you the day of," Obi-Wan said their final evening together, the last night of the strange convalescence of a Sith by a Jedi, as he nodded to the muted holoscreen draped down in front of the Coruscant skyline.
Anakin glanced up from the history datapad he'd been reading, embarrassed to find another reel of his highlights splashed across the screen large enough to be a sail. Between dramatic text and far-off shots of battles, they made him seem unreal: the tiny figure almost lost in the chaos of battle leapt and danced and left only destruction behind on his way to victory. Every time, every clip. Win after win.
"They make it look so easy," he said with distaste, lifting his hand to wave across the screen. The channel skipped along to a drama of some sort and he sighed and turned it off with another flick of his fingers, settling back on the cushions of the long bench with his arms spread out. "How about the other Jedi? Or my clones? Where's the feature on them and how many of them die every campaign?"
"Everyone needs a hero, they'd say." Obi-Wan shrugged, nestled into the end of the bench with his chin resting in his hand and his elbow propped atop one of the lush pillows that lined the back of it.
"I'm just doing the best I can. I just want to help people."
Obi-Wan regarded him with a fond smile that sent a low simmer of desire through Anakin's veins. "I know you do, Anakin. It's what makes you who you are."
"You care about me, don't you?" he asked before he could stop himself.
"I do," Obi-Wan said in a hushed, tender way that made his strange eyes seem like a trick of the light rather than their true color. "How could I not after this?" He reached out, sliding his hand over Anakin's. It was a gesture of thanks and a test in slow motion at the same time, the touch a breaking of that one rule Anakin had been so insistent on out in the Tower garden.
Anakin's breath caught in his throat as Obi-Wan's fingers came to rest over his, and without looking away he slowly turned his hand over, so that their palms met in a gentle sweep of heat and the Force.
Obi-Wan's shields were up, as they always were: Anakin barely noticed it anymore, which was why that faint touch of curious hope that blossomed around them both stood out so much. He wasn't letting Anakin in, but he was letting that emotion out. Trust me, the feeling whispered, true and bright and the same as Anakin's as he squeezed Obi-Wan's hand and shifted over to lean in against him, entranced.
They met with closed eyes and in a gentle kiss, as if there had never been Sith and Jedi and tricks and bargains, as if this was the first time they had ever touched other than to fight and wound. With a light hand, Anakin caught the back of Obi-Wan's head and held him, fingers tightening in his hair as that kiss and the ones after it grew deeper and harder, pure notes of need sung with silent lips.
Obi-Wan's hands came up slowly as they did, his fingertips traces of warmth along Anakin's jaw, and Anakin realized with both happiness and lust that they were trembling with eagerness. The shy beat fed his own spreading desire, his body pleasantly tense as they drew apart and then together again with eager mouths and tongues.
I want to kiss him forever, Anakin thought to himself as their lips met again in a blissful smolder and Obi-Wan's hands sank down through his collars to wrap around his waist, holding him close.
Anakin pushed him back slowly, carefully, down into the cushions as his hungry mouth found the flushed skin of Obi-Wan's throat and then his shoulder as he tugged his shirt open, never quite pressing his chest against his, trying hard to remember through his desire Obi-Wan's recently healed injuries. Sinking down slowly over him, doing his best to keep them in mind, he let out a quick, guilty curse when Obi-Wan twitched, and immediately sat back up. "We should stop," he whispered, hating every syllable but knowing it was the right thing to do.
"I… fuck. I don't want to," Obi-Wan sighed, the puff of air teasing Anakin's cheek as he sat up and stole another kiss from him, hands rubbing up and down his arms.
"I don't either, but we should. You're not fully healed." Anakin swallowed and leaned back, not completely out of his space but no longer so close temptation was impossible to resist.
Knowing he was right, Obi-Wan closed his eyes and moaned in frustration. "Damn it," he said, lying back against the cushions, chest a long, gorgeous hint of pale skin in the folds of his opened shirt. "Damn it. Damn it."
The lovely sensation of Obi-Wan's kisses lingered on Anakin's mouth and throat and chest, little promises of future lust. With a stupidly exaggerated grin, Anakin offered, "When you're better?"
Obi-Wan burst out laughing, a sound as beautiful and true as the feeling in the Force had been earlier. "Oh yes. When I'm better."
They shared a smile as loving and intimate as any kiss, the rest of the night passing with a new, fragile layer in the heady, unspoken tension between them.
The day of the speech itself came and went in an unremarkable series of hours spent waiting in one place in the Senate and then being moved to another and then waiting in that place and being moved to another, each new room smaller and smaller like a box slowly closing in on him until there was nothing but empty air around him for what felt like forever in every direction and a bright, hovering light in his eyes as he spoke passionately and forcefully the words the Order had given him to say.
There was nothing in the lines he didn't agree with: the Jedi had fought hard and long for the Republic and would continue to fight as long as they were able and good people were willing to trust the Order with their Force-sensitive children. And no one in the gargantuan cavern of a room missed the subtext of those lines, the subtle reminder that if planets did not send enough children, there would be no Jedi down the line and there would be no mystical defenders of the galactic society they were all part of. The Jedi were dying and needed fresh blood, Initiates and Padawans who could grow up to be the next Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. Younglings who could grow up to stop monsters like the Separatist bombers that had cost the galaxy brilliant minds and diplomats like Chancellor Sheev Palpatine and Senator Padme Amidala.
"We Jedi say there is no emotion. That there is only peace. No ignorance, only knowledge. No passion, only serenity. What does this mean? It means that we strive to be better than we were born, that we take our gifts and use them to serve others. We only wish to serve the galaxy, and we will, to our dying breaths. I will. I swear it." He touched his chest, giving a bow, as he spoke out into the crowd.
"But I and the other Jedi that now fight in your war will not live forever. Help us to make sure the Order will live on to serve others. To serve your children. To serve your grandchildren. Help us to keep the Light alive, I beg you. We all stand together in the Light, or we all die alone in the Dark," he ended, the grand chamber trapped in a perfect, crystalline moment of silence before it erupted into a storm of near-deafening applause.
Shaken, pulling back the Force that had rolled out away from him in impassioned drifts, Anakin would have gone on speaking forever if he could have avoided what happened next: the annoying cloud of holodrones and questions, the forest of mics and babbling faces he had to push through to get back out to the speeder the Temple had sent him in. What grated on him most was the incorrect names thrown at him as he flew away, back to the blessed peace of the Temple: "The Chosen!", "Master Skywalker!", "Jedi Anakin!".
I'm just a circus animal to them. Make noise and hope it looks. The vehicle slid into its proper lane, rocking as he corrected for the wind tunnel he dove down into, and he let out a sigh to be pulled out and away by the faint ruffle of wind all around him, trying to sooth his nerves. I really hope that was a one-time assignment.
It wasn't. The Council was so pleased with the Republic's reaction to Anakin's speech they planned for several more to be given over the coming months, with Anakin to stay planetside to rest up and recover in the meanwhile. He listened to their praise and their desire for more appearances with a blank, impassive face and found himself wondering if he could hide somewhere. Somewhere off-world? Way off-world?
From the studiously neutral expression on Ahsoka's face, standing next to him as she was part of the order to remain planetside, she felt the same way.
How you doing, Snips? he asked as they walked out, sending the Force to hug her. Sorry I haven't been around much lately.
I've been better, Master. And it's ok. She found a smile somewhere and put it on for him, though it was clear she was still tense about whatever was bothering her. Where you off to today?
"Oh. Well, I don't know. I thought I could stay here and do some sparring with you?" Talk to me, Snips. Please?
Ahsoka's flush of emotion through the Force, simple and happy surprise, made him feel both relieved and guilty. "That would be really nice, Master. But I'm going to wipe the floor with you."
They fought and joked and smoothed over the hairline crack that had begun to appear in their bond, and he started to feel a little better about Ahsoka and wondered if what he'd found on their last mission was just some sort of stupid thing Padawans did these days. There's no harm in it, after all. Right?
When Anakin met Obi-Wan again for their training the following day, taking a very long and circuitous route to get to the old factory, Obi-Wan met him on the floor with a grand, sweeping bow as he tossed him his practice saber. "Chosen Anakin Jedi Grandmaster! What an honor to have you in my training salon!"
"Oh, don't even start." Anakin caught the handful of metal easily and turned it on, spinning it to point back at Obi-Wan.
"Just warming you up for our duel," he shrugged, settling into a ready stance, clearly ready to forget about the speech himself.
"Trust me, I don't need it," Anakin said, and threw himself at him, embarrassment and frustration and that sweet friction back between them sending him in hard, bone-rattling thrusts and spins against Obi-Wan's matching blade.
What would become routine for the next month followed: Anakin losing the duel, though hits on Obi-Wan starting to happen more and more regularly, and then Obi-Wan working him through the form drills of defending against Juyo and a final freestyle match where Anakin would fight Obi-Wan using the double-bladed staff he'd rigged out of the practice sabers.
Anakin and his pride were both pleased to note he did better at dueling Obi-Wan when he was using his approximation of Maul's weapon. It was only a week and a half into their now six- to eight-hour practices when he found himself several hits into a combination that actually thrust aside Obi-Wan's twin sabers, leaving him wide open for a hit.
Stunned and thrilled, for a split second Anakin thought too much about how good it would feel to finally win and immediately received a boot to the chest, the hard kick shoving him back and erasing his advantage. "Stop thinking!" Obi-Wan grunted, already pursuing him back into the shadows that hung around the edge of their dueling ground and not relenting until he'd beaten him once again.
The low boil their attraction had come to stayed in the background as they trained, the two far too disciplined to consider the factory anywhere but a practice space.
The apartment was a different story, but the first week back at training Obi-Wan waved off Anakin coming back with him for his half of the bargain, instead staying and talking with him for a bit after training about the after-effects of the speech. "Too many holodrones still about." The second week he changed it to, "I owe you for helping me. You spent plenty of hours with me." The third he simply shrugged and said, "When we have extra time." Which was roughly never, both of them too exhausted from their marathon sessions.
Anakin initially tried to conceal the disappointment he felt, his pangs of need something intense physical training did nothing to discourage. At first he figured Obi-Wan was embarrassed that Anakin had taken care of him, and then the second week that Obi-Wan was embarrassed by their kiss, but by the third week he had started to wonder if something else was going on. "Why don't you want me up there any more?" he asked, trying to sound as casual as he could, during one of their practices.
"I want you training as much as possible. You can make it up to me later," Obi-Wan said matter-of-factly, reaching out to push Anakin's hand higher as their blades hummed, crossed between them once again as they reviewed defensive parries.
"Is Maul coming back?"
Obi-Wan considered this for a moment too long, and Anakin had his answer, one that chilled him all the way through. "When?"
"In roughly two months."
I will avenge you, Master. I swear. "Then I need to be ready."
With a grim look made an unearthly green-gold by the sabers resting together between them, Obi-Wan nodded. "Yes. As much as you can."
When Anakin came back late from another session one month after the Senate speech, the Temple quiet and asleep and no one in the halls as he slipped back toward his room, his comlink buzzed unexpectedly.
Frowning down at it, he realized it was Ahsoka. Why is she awake at this hour?
He hurried to her door, starting to worry as he realized another two weeks had slipped by with not much more than a few meals and practices together with her. It was hard to think of anything but Maul and the progress he was making and how precious little time they had before Maul returned from wherever. I have to be ready. I'm only going to have one chance.
His thoughts of Obi-Wan and their deal stopped cold, however, as he knocked on her door and took in the dark circles under her eyes as she wearily stood in her room's doorway and reported that she'd been comming in sick to her classes for the last two days and that she had to talk to him.
"Right now, Master. Please."
Anakin tilted his head, bewildered and concerned as the Force said nothing of physical illness to him. He wordlessly came inside, shutting the door behind him and watching her as she listlessly drifted back to sit on the corner of her narrow bed.
There was a nasty vein of stress and negative emotions that were too layered to easily sort through, but no illness he could see. "Ahsoka, what's going on?" Affection broke through his own side of the Force, wrapping tightly around her in a worried embrace. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"
"No. I don't know. I don't think so, Master."
"Hey, if it's the slicing then it's the slicing. You couldn't have done anything that bad," Anakin said, taking her shoulders in his hands and leaning down close to her. "Is that it, Snips?"
"No. Wait, you remember that?"
"What?"
"That I sliced into the records?"
Anakin blinked. "I asked you to search for two names, right? And you didn't find anything."
"Yeah," Ahsoka nodded, inexplicably saddened by what he had said, staring down at her lap.
I'm just great at people this week, aren't I? I'm not mad you couldn't find Obi-Wan or Arev in the records, Ahsoka. Why would I be? What's wrong with you? What's changed between us? It's not him. There is no possible way you could know about him. So what's changed?
Anakin looked at Ahsoka and the datapad on the table and back at her, suddenly dizzy. He felt a strange, unreal tug on his mind, like something inside of him snapping and unraveling, setting loose whole, unseen masses to fall aside from his mind like clouds from the sun. Changed. Changed. Something changed.
The sun burst forth into a bright, undeniable fact. "Someone changed my record," he said.
Ahsoka's gaze darted up to him, her fists balled in her lap and the Force surging around her with hope.
"Yes," he continued in an awkward staccato. "You… you... showed me." The glare was beginning to get to him, but he fought through it, pushing back against it, and it fell away with each word, each fragment of memory that came into view. "And I went to the Council."
Ahsoka's hands slid up to cover her mouth and she could only nod, apparently terrified of what might happen next.
Sitting down hard on the floor, Anakin fought to sort through two identical sets of memories that ran parallel in his mind when he thought of that morning. The one on the surface was smooth and slick, hard to get ahold of, like catching reflections. That set said he had gone straight to the hangar bay from his room, and put on his mechsuit, and gotten to work on the ship.
Beneath that, the truth ran along in a cold river of sharp detail: I went to the Council, and I told them an informant had hinted someone had been in my files. And I told them someone had changed my Homeworld and Master Lineage file and they asked me to wait just outside the Council Room while they discussed the matter. Then they called me back in, and… Master Mundi… he… he raised his hand and everything stopped.
And they- Masters Mundi and Windu- fitted this nice new memory right over the truth, as neatly as a speeder body over the engine. While the rest of them watched.
"They mind-wiped me," Anakin choked out, revulsion turning his stomach at the word, at the memory of the Masters touching his mind and sliding it around like a puzzle, tearing the fragile seams of new, shallow memories to pull them apart and put new ones in, ignoring his flinch of pain as they forced the edges to line up and roughly stitched it all back together.
He looked up at Ahsoka in stunned disbelief, watching the awful scene happen again in his mind. "Over someone slicing into my record? Over something as small as that? Why would they do that? Why?"
Ahsoka flew off the bed and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his chest and letting out a sob that was loud in the little room. "They did it to me, too!"
"What?" Unable to believe what he'd heard, he pulled her away enough to see her wide eyes filling with tears.
Sniffling, Ahsoka nodded, trying to keep her voice steady. "I… I couldn't believe they'd do that to you. So that afternoon I…" She pointed at a cheap holocron up on her desk, the type Initiates and Padawans often used by the dozen for their studies. "I've been watching that every day since."
Anakin studied the innocuous collection of metal and glass resting on the simple wood table, suddenly afraid of it. "What is that?"
She reached up and tapped it before she buried herself against him again. They sat together, huddled in a tight embrace, as Ahsoka's face popped up into view, relaxed and smiling, the voice slightly distorted and tinny.
"Hey, self. It's me. So if you're watching this you saw the note I wrote that says, 'Hey, you! Watch this holocron.' and that's bad news because it means you don't remember what's on the holocron." Her tiny blue copy shook its head and rolled its eyes. "I can't believe I'm doing this. This is ridiculous. They didn't actually do anything to Master and I'm going to be so embarrassed I even made this thing I'm going to go chuck it over the East Wall in the gardens. Ok, self. This is past me, talking to future you. And we're in a lot of trouble if we're talking. Because right after past me makes this holocron, past me is going to go to the Council and say that my Master is acting strange and past me thinks someone snuck in and mind-wiped him so he'd forget going to see them about something that was bothering him." Ahsoka's tiny blue twin pointed left and then right and then left again as she explained, the gestures fuzzy in the holo. "Aaaaaand if past me comes out of the Council room not remembering that I went to go do that, future you is in deep trouble because that means they mind-wiped us too."
The constant hiss of emotions always circling Anakin's heart fell away, leaving only a towering, bloody rage. "They did it to you too. Over just a question?" Of all the things in my life that should not be happening, this is the worst. Not Obi-Wan. Not the training. This.
"Uh huh," she whimpered, crying into his tunic. "And I couldn't watch it at first because my head hurt so bad when it got to that last part, but then I was watching you get ready for us to leave on the mission and you turned the same way you turned when you went in the elevator to go up there and I remembered you going and me going. I couldn't tell you because you couldn't remember and it would hurt you if I tried!"
He held her close, burgeoning wrath as black as the void of space at the panic in her voice. "They will answer for why they did this to you." He added on, "To me," as an afterthought, lost in fury at the thought of anyone doing to his Padawan's mind what had been done to his. "I don't care if this is… what? Some deep undercover mission some Jedi is on they're worried about blowing? Some kind of attack they don't want outsiders to find out about? I don't care! Look, Snips, I'll go wake them up right now. Right kriffing now. We'll find out what this is all about."
Stinging and scraping as they went, his memories of that morning knit themselves back together, his subconscious reconnecting with his waking mind and allowing healing to begin. He couldn't believe it, but he had to. It was the truth.
How could they do that to me? How could they do that to her? For any reason?
"You can't go to them. They'll just do it again. To both of us. We're alone," she sobbed, all of the pent-up emotion of the last awful days finally releasing in tears and into the Force bond between them. "We're all alone and no one would believe us even if we tried to tell them."
"We might not be," Anakin finally said, mouth a hard line as she sniffled against him. "I know someone who knows how to shield better than anyone I've ever seen. He might be able to help us."
"I… I think this is bigger than someone changing your record. We can't trust any other Jedi, Master."
"He's not a Jedi."