Obito had made it a point not to linger by the memorial stone.
Before the Kannabi bridge, it had been out of ignorance as well as a general discomfort, the idea that his name, Rin's, Kakashi's, anyone he knew could be etched on that stone. When he returned it was with the certainty that his name, for some short time at least, had been engraved there.
Kakashi, Rin had quietly told him, had been different.
During Obito's absence he'd spent hours at a time there. Every time he was late to a mission or a meeting, instead of simply disappearing into thin air, you would almost inevitably find him staring dead eyed at the stone. Even when Obito returned from the dead, every now and then when Hatake Kakashi disappeared, Obito wondered if he wasn't lingering there.
Mourning the ghosts of those who weren't quite dead.
As for Obito, he could not or else would not bring himself to openly grieve for the Uchiha Obito that could have been. The boy whose name was, perhaps, still engraved there.
Lee, however, must have felt differently.
It was only a few days before they were due to depart for worlds unknown. Obito's packing was almost done but, as usual, he thought Lee's last-minute double checking wasn't unwarranted. That, or perhaps he simply wanted to see her. Even more than Kakashi, sometimes more than Rin, he found himself gravitating towards her and making excuses as well as time to go and find her. Somehow, in all the places he could have found her, it was seated crosslegged in front of the memorial stone.
At first, he thought she didn't see him. She stared straight at the memorial, not even blinking, attention not wavering from it in the slightest. However, she addressed him before he could even think to, "Did you know that there are only two names I've managed to take back from that rock?"
Obito blinked, looked down at her, throat suddenly dry. She didn't look at him though, just kept staring ahead, casually speaking as her eyes moved over the names of the dead, "Yours is still there, Uchiha Obito, it hadn't seemed right to try and carve it off. The other, Hatake Sakumo's, the village forgot to carve on in the first place."
"Hatake Saku—" Lee didn't explain though, didn't allow him to even ask.
"And yet there are so many others, too many familiar to me, and every once in a while I ask myself if it was worth it. I could take them back, you know, each and every one of them. I could annihilate that stone and all others like it. There are some in this village who know it, Minato, who holds supreme power, knows it dearly. But I've never done it, just two names, and that's all."
"Shishou," Obito said quietly.
Finally, Lee looked up at him, "I really am tired, Obito. I know that I don't look it, but I'm—"
"The war's over, shishou," Obito reminded her gently, something that he often had to remind himself, even after more than two years.
"Yes," Lee agreed quietly.
Just that small, simple, yes. Not a question of how long, or if it really was over, or even if it was over would it ever be over for them or the dead they'd left behind. Just that one word, yes.
He could leave, he supposed, leave it at that. Maybe moments like these deserved to be buried and forgotten.
He didn't though, instead he stood and asked, "Do you think it was worth it?"
Lee laughed, a quiet and bitter thing, "Well, isn't that the question, my young apprentice?"
"I always imagine, that if more knew, they'd say no. I, after all, more than anyone before me have the power to change the world as we know it. I could change the very fundamentals of reality to my own favor. There would be no war, no death, only Lee's benevolent shinobi society… But I never wanted that."
A breeze swept through, winding its way through stalks of drying grass, and lifting Lee's red hair away from her headband for a moment, "Perhaps I'm short-sighted, or cruelly indifferent, but I always have believed that would be doing a disservice to mankind. Peace, that is to be earned by mortal men like Namikaze Minato or else his firstborn son, not for me to force upon us. Only then will we remember its worth and the price we've paid for it."
Obito sat next to her, crossing his legs, and staring ahead at the stone with her, "What about me?"
"You weren't dead," Lee said with another small laugh, "That helped significantly."
"I might as well have been," Obito noted, "Anyone sane probably told you I was buried beneath a mountain and rotting away in the dark."
Which, he had been, but not in the sense they'd meant it.
"I honestly don't know," Lee said, and it was so casual, and yet the sound of that admittance forced the wind out of Obito's lungs. "I didn't really know you, then, I never was close to Minato's other students aside from Kashi. I knew Kakashi liked you, more than he'd admit, and you were Minato's student, but others had died before you and arguments like that weren't enough for me before."
"I wasn't supposed to be back that long," Lee noted, looking somewhere far past the Obito of the present, "I only just got back from the front, was all too soon going to be sent out again to mirror Minato's performance against Iwagakure. The war was nearly over, and we could all taste it, and my taking care of whatever aftermath remained from Kiri or Kumo would tie things up with a neat little bow."
If he closed his eyes, he could see it, Lee three years younger walking through the gates covered in blood, dirt, and exhaustion beyond measure. Only just having the chance to reach her apartment and close her eyes when they came for her with a mission scroll.
"But then in comes Kakashi, finding me before anyone else, even Minato, more polite and formal than I've seen him in years. And he asks me to do what no one else has the time, energy, or stupidity to do. He asks me to travel alone into enemy territory and bring back Uchiha Obito's body from beneath a landslide."
Lee glanced then at Obito, and her eyes, once again Obito could read nothing in them for all that they seemed to glow with emotion and power, "Maybe it was because Kakashi wasn't asking me for death, like so many seemed to, and that he wasn't asking me purely for life either. Just a body, Minato's student who had been left behind with so many others. Something, that somehow, had been too much to ask anyone else."
"It likely cost me the hat, you know," Lee said with a grim smile, "I know I was in the running, considered with Minato. I don't think they ever forgot though, that for all I destroyed Madara's threat before they even realized it existed, I willfully disregarded orders for a thirteen-year-old chunin I didn't even have the decency of knowing. I was, at the end of things, my master's apprentice."
"Did you want to be hokage?" Obito asked, clearing his throat as his voice scratched at it.
"No," Lee said, breaking out of her somber reminiscence with that single word and a smile to follow it, "That I've always felt was best left to Minato anyway. I never would have been able to the handle the paperwork or logistics. I'm just here to look intimidating."
She stood, pulled him up with her, and moved them away from the stone and back towards the village, "Come on, let's leave the dead buried for now. For you and I, there are other worlds than these."
"Tell me, Lee, about your worlds again."
Obito didn't know how much time had passed, not in terms of home, only in the standard republic days. Even that, however, had little meaning in the void between the stars. Life became a series of pitstops on planets of the Force's choosing. The best and brightest of all his worlds.
Alderaan, Endor, Hoth, everything the Force had promised and more… All these strange, diverse, worlds that each looked as if it had spent billions of years forming. And Obito had to say, that Endor's trees towered over Hashirama's, that these were Konoha's forests in thousands of years. More, that the aurora borealis over Hoth, dancing through the frozen landscape, was one of the most ethereally beautiful things he'd ever seen.
In between, a cramped space ship that grew more cramped with every passing hour, hurtling onward into the black pit between stars in search of something none of them could see. Only the Force himself seemed calm and certain the rest of them left guessing, doubting, and wondering if the Force knew how to lie.
Because what would that thing do to keep Lee here if he could?
Obito didn't think he'd figured that out yet, even with time and close proximity, the force hadn't realized that the dangling thread of hope that Lee might stay wasn't as present as he thought. He, after all, was still trying to figure out what Lee was.
So, they waited, in a floating metal box, communication back to Tobirama on Coruscant getting slower and slower as space and time stretched between them. Obito, just as he had on Tatooine months ago, felt as if he was constantly waiting for that other shoe to drop.
"Lee," Minato-sense's voice prompted.
Minato-sense's voice, Obito thought with a smile, that wasn't quite right anymore. With time and proximity, it was starting to sound like Haruki's voice somehow. Perhaps, when Obito and Lee did finally return to Konoha, Obito would have to spend months thinking that Minato-sensei looked exactly like Haruki rather than vice versa.
He looked up, there, in the realm of Obito's dreamscape, was Haruki staring out at him kindly behind Namikaze Minato's features.
He was getting better, Obito thought, not only did he look like Minato but the shape of this shared dream almost resembled Konoha. Obito didn't know the name of this planet, if it even was a planet, but they were seated in a grove of blooming sakura trees. Next to the lazy river, with the pink petals drifting downwards, it was almost as if it was a spring day inside the village.
Of course, as always, it wasn't.
Obito opened his mouth, to remakr once again that he wasn't Lee, but then closed it with a sigh. He'd been singing that song for too long now, months by Coruscant's calendar, and even Obito was starting to get tired of it. Some days, it was just easier to nod his head and pretend he really was some cynical, scarred, masculine half of Eru Lee.
"Haven't you heard enough about Konohagakure?" Obito asked, knowing of course the answer was no, Haruki would never hear enough.
"No," Haruki answered, leaning forward and giving Obito a very frank look, "Because I still don't understand."
Of course, he didn't, Obito couldn't help but think. And god, it had to be something about the confinement of space, but he almost felt fond exasperation for a moment there. Maybe it was just the fact that Haruki wore Namikaze Minato's face, or maybe it was worse than that. Given that Obito's feelings towards Minato-sensei seemed to be growing more complicated by the minute, maybe it was just that some part of Obito was starting to like Haruki.
He was a creepy overpowered bastard, but in his own way, he truly was like Lee. Sometimes Obito could see it in his smile, or in the brightness of his eyes when he looked at something, he thought was new and strange. Worse, his persistence, while it remained unnerving some part of it was starting to remind Obito of himself.
In Haruki's place he could see a twelve-year-old Uchiha Obito screaming to all the world that he would be hokage someday and he would marry Rin no matter what the rest of them thought about it.
Yes, as much as Obito hated to say it, there was a little bit of Uchiha Obito in Haruki's soul.
Not that he'd ever admit as much or let it do anything to change his mind. The closer they got to this planet of his the closer Obito and Lee got to leaving, and there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hell Haruki was going to take that well.
That other shoe, the one where the Force figured out their plans, hadn't dropped yet after all.
"Alright," Obito said, forcing his mind back to the current conversation, "What don't you understand?"
"Why is it so important that Konoha be there?" Haruki asked, "Outside of my reach."
"I'm pretty sure that's not how Lee's thinking about it," Obito said, rubbing the back of his head with a sigh, "She just wants to leave Konoha where she found it."
Lee owed him for this. Well, no, that was a lie, he was doing this for her. Creepy Force dream patrol was best split between them, or in Obito's opinion kept as far away from Lee as possible. Obito could handle, mostly, Haruki the creepy invasive bastard but for all the guy was unwillingly growing on Obito (like a fungus) that didn't mean he liked the idea of him hanging around Lee.
He had, after all, chosen Minato's face.
For all the Force seemed out of touch, Obito would always remember that he had been clever enough to choose that face of all faces.
"Where she found it?" Haruki balked, and Obito blinked, looking up and finding himself staring at Minato-sensei's completely flabbergasted expression. Sage, had Obito ever seen his sensei caught that off-guard? Maybe with Kakashi in the beginning, years before Obito had graduated, but Obito had never had the chance to personally witness it.
"Sure," Obito said slowly, feeling something turning in his stomach, the idea that he'd said something he should have kept quiet, "Lee's from England, remember?"
They had told Anakin that, hadn't they? Yes, Obito was sure they had, that Lee had immigrated to Konoha from nowhere when she was only four. Granted, Anakin might not have listened, but at this point Obito thought anything that passed through Anakin's head had gone straight into the Force whether he was listening or not.
"Yes, but—" the Force stopped, a slow, dawning realization beginning to draw on Minato-sensei's features. This look, now this look Obito had seen. Once, in a world that had never happened, as Namikaze Minato the yondaime hokage had realized he'd have no choice but to sacrifice his own soul to seal away the tailed beast.
"It's not important," Obito quickly said, brushing off his comment, "As shishou constantly says, England is anything but exciting."
Haruki said nothing, just sat perfectly still, watching Obito through those eyes that glowed far too brightly. Even the blue sky overhead, Obito thought, paled in comparison somehow.
Finally, he said, "You truly are not Lee."
Obito started, then couldn't help it, but broke out into wild laughter, "You just figured that out?!"
"Lee isn't from Konoha, there…" Haruki said, though this appeared to be more to himself than Obito, who was still caught in his own hysterical laughter, "Whatever's in Konoha, if there's anyone in Konoha, must not be like me or her. You, Senju Tobirama, you're not a part of Lee."
Obito kept laughing, unable to stop himself, and in between fits of giggles managed to get out, "I've been telling you for months. And just now, after just that, you finally put it together."
God, it shouldn't be funny, but how was Haruki dumber than Lee? It was such a Lee moment, in its own way, and yet he could never see even a younger Lee saying something that stupid with that much of a straight face. And he'd seen Lee-shishou say the dumbest stuff with a straight face.
Not limited to such cliché motivational wonders as: "Dreamwork makes the team work".
Haruki didn't seem to mind Obito's laughter at his expense though, barely seemed to note it, as instead concluded, "You're truly just a sentient."
"Hey now," Obito said, wiping the tears of mirth away, "I'll have you know I take offense at that, Haruki, we sentients are more capable than you realize."
Obito, stifling one last chuckle, looked across at the man and noted, "Of course, you do know you have to call me Obito now, don't you?"
For a moment he didn't seem capable of responding, capable of even seeing Obito. Instead those blue eyes were dazed and distant, only focusing on Obito after far too long of a pause, "I suppose, at the end of things, you truly are only Uchiha Obito."
Ah, there was the insult, and it did smart but it wasn't unfair. Why be Obito, after all, when you could be Lee? Obito supposed he understood, but all the same, he repeated the words he'd once said to the Force when they'd first become acquainted with one another, "The trouble is, that I've worked so long and hard to be Uchiha Obito, that at this point I wouldn't choose to be anyone else."
Haruki didn't seem to be in the mood though. He stood, in that alien and graceful motion that was smoother than even what Minato-sensei could maange, and walked down to the river. For a moment Obito just stared at him, noted how still he was as he stared down at the water, and then with a groan stood and walked after him.
"I don't understand," Haruki said quietly, a simple, summarizing statement with no feeling behind it. As if after too many hours wasted this was the only thing he could conclude.
"You know," Obito remarked, "That's common for sentients, I hear. Being in a constant state of confusion."
"No," Haruki said, "I don't understand how… I just don't understand."
He spared Obito one last look, and this one, this one reminded Obito exactly who he was talking to. This was not his friend, not even a puppet of his sensei, but something utterly alien who did not look on him or anyone else kindly. However much he smiled or contented himself to questions about Ichiraku's ramen stand…
Without a word, he stepped out of the dream, and as he did so with his white cloak billowing behind him, he looked exactly like Minato-sensei, the yondaime hokage, had looked as he'd walked confidently to his death on an October 10th that had never happened.
"Obito, ask again," Obi-Wan prompted, earning a groan from his shinobi companion. It was not, by Coruscant's standard time, early in the morning, but Obito had just woken up from sleep which always made him more irritable and unresponsive than usual.
Once, Obi-Wan would have found it obnoxious, these days he'd grown so used to it he barely even noticed anymore.
Obito hissed, even as he threw together his usual morning kettle of ungodly strong tea, "Kenobi, he's not going to give a different—"
"Ask again," Obi-Wan repeated with a patience that he didn't feel.
"Haruki?" Obito asked with a sigh, not even looking at the avatar of the Force who, upon being summoned by Lee's pet human name for him, appeared in the doorway to the main hold and pitiful kitchen with a smile on his face.
"Yes, Obito?" the Force asked, smiling slightly at the way Obito twitched when it said his name. That was a new and somewhat unnerving development, one morning Obi-Wan had woken up to suddenly find Obito (who before had always been addressed as Lee when he was addressed at all) was now Obito Uchiha.
Obi-Wan didn't know what he'd done to earn his name but he must have done something and now the Force's attention lingered on him almost as much as it did Lee. It wasn't quite the same intensity, the same awe, but instead a nagging curiosity to figure out what it was that made Obito Uchiha so different even from the likes of Tobirama Senju.
For now, what it meant to Obi-Wan, was that the Force more than ever paid attention to every word that left Obito's mouth. Obi-Wan planned to take advantage of that.
"What's happening on Coruscant?"
The Force kept smiling as he walked inside, leaning against the cabinets to stare directly at Obito, who as always bristled under the eye-contact, "Do you always have to do that you creepy fu—"
"Why are you always so concerned about Coruscant?" The Force asked.
"Kenobi's concerned about Coruscant," Obito responded but The Force hardly seemed dissuaded, "The concerns of my sentients are not yours, Obito Uchiha, as you so often point out."
"Yes, well, call me nosy," Obito groused back, "What's happening on Coruscant?"
Before the Force could answer, or more likely disregard answering in favor of asking some other question, Lee walked in. As usual, somehow in what substituted for the mornings in deep space, she looked worse than Obito did. Red hair flew in all directions, uncontained by ponytail or braid, and she walked about in only thick woolen socks, a loose sort of undershirt, and skin-tight shorts stopping partway down her thighs.
In short, she was walking around in what would have been a jedi's under clothing without a care in the world.
Without a word Obito tossed her a clay tea cup which she caught with a grunt.
Immediately, as always, the Force was distracted by her presence and broke into his extraordinarily childish grin (one that reminded him too often of young Anakin Skywalker), "Lee, you're awake!"
"Unfortunately," Lee said, before with a shudder proclaiming the same words she said every time she woke up after eight hours of sleep, "God, I hate mornings."
"You always say that," Obito responded blandly, just in time for the kettle to start whistling.
"If I always say it," Lee bit back as Obito poured himself, then her, a cup, "Then it's always true."
Taking a long drink of the piping hot liquid, not even flinching as it all too likely burned her tongue, she leveled a stare at Kenobi, "Are you still passing on the tea?"
"Yes," Obi-Wan said with no regrets whatsoever.
"How do you survive?" Lee asked.
"Some of us, Lee, are morning people," Obi-Wan merely responded with a smile, although that wasn't quite it, it was more that Lee and Obito were the least morning people he'd ever met in his life.
"Right, what were we talking about?" Lee asked as she settled into her own position leaning against what little counterspace they had.
"Coruscant," Obito answered easily even as the Force shot him an amused look.
He was getting better at that every day, Obi-Wan thought. He looked so human now, acted so human, that you barely even noticed. More than that, he had caught on to some of their dynamics, and Obi-Wan didn't know if either of them had realized it yet but where they were once a duo they were slowly morphing into a trio.
The Force, slowly but surely, was making a place for himself among them.
"We were not discussing Coruscant," the Force started but Obito cut him off without shame, forgetting, for a moment, what the man he called Haruki truly was.
"Yes, we were, specifically what's been happening," Obito stated confidently before taking a sip of his own, cooling, tea, "Especially now that Tobirama's god knows how many hours behind us and virtually unreachable by comms."
The Force gave Lee a truly pitiful look, one that was almost pleading, but Lee just smiled and said, "Tell us about Coruscant, Haruki."
"Anakin Skywalker is still attending his courses, a padawan in name but needing the preliminary training before he is handed off to Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Qui-Gon Jinn is in mourning over his second lost padawan, discusses it often with his former master Dooku, and they debate the merit of leaving the order themselves."
Obi-Wan started, moved forward, but as always (even though he had been asked to come, had been made copilot and more on this strange journey) the Force hardly seemed to see him, "He has been kept in the dark regarding his padawan's exile, told an un-truth by the council that it was Obi-Wan Kenobi's own decision, and he is grappling with the decision of whether or not to believe it. He consults the Living Force often, however, it provides him no answers, only glimpses of Lee Eru."
Lee frowned at this but said nothing, merely continued drinking tea as the Force continued to report, "Sheev Palpatine moves slowly and carefully, the hard part is done but there is much to go, and he is now with his power slowly watering the seeds of separatism in the border worlds of the republic. In a few years, they will be ripe for rebellion, and the civil war which will tear apart the republic will begin."
And there was nothing Obi-Wan Kenobi could do about it.
He had tried and failed. The only thing left for him was to follow more closely behind the Force than he ever had before and see where it dared to lead him.
Obi-Wan sighed, then asked, "Is he watching the comms?"
At the lack of response, he turned to Obito who, as always, sighed himself and repeated the question, "Is Palpatine watching the comms?"
"Yes," the Force said simply, "The jedi's at least, Tobirama Senju's he has not hacked yet, though he eagerly waits for the opportunity. It hardly matters, though, the jedi will never listen to Tobirama Senju."
Still, Obi-Wan supposed that being able to talk to someone, for now, was a relief. Even if that man was Tobirama Senju, who only a few months ago Obi-Wan would have balked at relaying anything of import to.
Before Obi-Wan could press any further though, the Force seemed to decide he'd had enough, "I am done talking about Coruscant."
Obi-Wan could feel it in the air, that edge of impatience, a growing fear and unease within the Force. Something about this situation, about the concern towards Coruscant, about Obito Uchiha, about all of it was setting the Force on edge the way it had been before it knew what to make of Lee Eru.
"Did you have something else you wanted to say?" Lee asked, a small amused smile on her lips, one far too light for the atmosphere.
"We'll be reaching them soon," the Force finally said, looking away from the three of them, "The crystals I promised you."
"Really?!" Obito asked, nearly spilling tea over himself in his astonished excitement.
"A month, by the standard calendar…" the Force confirmed. He laced his hands together, a very solemn and human gesture, one Obi-Wan believed was stolen from the jedi rather than from Konoha.
He then looked back at Lee, straight at her and not even lingering on Obito, "You know I love you, don't you?"
Lee gagged on her tea, spluttered, and could only ask, "What?"
It was so comical, and yet, so heartbreaking because the Force couldn't see her reaction for what it was. He couldn't see that she took him, took it, anything but seriously no matter what face he happened to be wearing.
"Just as I have learned how to be afraid, known how to feel aching loneliness, I love you," he tried to smile, but it was shaking, and couldn't reach his eyes, "But that doesn't matter, does it? Because it's not the same and I know it just as well as you do. At best, I am a shadow of a man, a clone made of smoke and air, and anything I feel or am is made of the same."
"Haruki—"
"No," he said, cutting her off forcefully, "I know, and you're right, I have known even before you came to find me. I have… Always been wanting."
He looke down at his borrowed hands, flexing them and watching the muscles move in fascination.
Then he said words that Obi-Wan didn't understand, but all the same felt like a turning point of some kind, a decision which could not be unmade and would change everything Obi-Wan had ever known once again, "This is not tenable, for any of us."
Anakin, to his alarm and horror, still dreamed the Force's dreams.
He'd find himself talking to Obito or else Lee, not always at night, but sometimes drifting towards them in the middle of meditation. It seemed that even though he'd been set aside by the Force, replaced by a shadow clone's body, Anakin still couldn't escape its shadow.
Was it bad that Anakin was still always grateful, even when waking up covered in sweat, that he'd been passed over?
Even if it meant Obi-Wan Kenobi was gone, no longer a jedi, even if it meant Lee and Obito in space with it, he was still grateful. And that made him…
So ashamed sometimes.
To the point where, whenever he felt one of those golden soul sucking dreams crashing over him, he'd always shudder and shrivel before he was assimilated into the Force. Thinking, in that moment, that maybe this small glimpse of the lifeblood of the world wa something he deserved.
If not for this moment then for Mustafar, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Padmé.
This dream though, somehow even in the beginning, immediately felt different.
There was no sliding into the greater persona of the Force, suddenly Anakin was there and everything, for the first time, felt so clear. This was nothing he had seen, nothing he had planned, and yet he knew what he must do.
All other paths had failed because it simply could not be done in the worlds he had made. He could not create himself, no matter how he had tried or how close he had been to succeeding.
But Lee, as he had noted over and over, was capable of that which could not be done, of miracles.
Even though he had said it to his sentients, to what he'd thought were her sentients, he had almost forgotten that it applied to his greater self as well. Lee could do what he could not, she played by rules he had no knowledge of, and if he wished to do the impossible then he must play her game instead of his own.
He was wearing the guise of Namikaze Minato once again, only this time there was no hint of Tatooine in there, no assimilation into his own worlds and origins. Instead it was Namikaze Minato as he'd once been, eighteen-years-old, dressed in the standard wear of a jonin.
He faced Lee, herself painted younger, seventeen, inside of what had once been their small and cluttered apartment before Namikaze Minato had left to move in with Uzumaki Kushina. Uchiha Obito would see this apartment many times later, remark to himself how bare it looked, but he would not realize that was because most of its heart had left with Namikzae Minato.
By the time Obito would see it, years later, only a shell of the place remained.
Lee looked about at their surroundings slowly, no sign of an expression on her face, and then back towards him, "Why are we here?"
He didn't answer, because that was not the true question, that was not the heart of this room and she knew it as well as he did. She knew why they were here, even if she would never say it.
"You once told Obito," he started in Namikaze Minato's younger voice, "That you had never considered sex with Minato."
She didn't answer, she didn't need to, for all that she was opaque he caught enough glimpses, at time, to stitch it together.
"You weren't lying," he continued, "However, there was that one moment, where you might have. Do you remember?"
The dream shifted, blurred into a memory, with Lee trapped somewhere in the hazy gauze. She was suddenly in the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her body, moving over towards the dresser and rifiling through for civilian clothing.
"You were seventeen, he was eighteen, you were still living together even though he was now seriously dating Uzumaki Kushina. It was raining outside; you'd taken a shower and forgotten your clothes."
As she drew out a worn looking sweater, the memory of Namikaze Minato, whose body the Force was wearing, opened the door. He was soaked, rain dripping down blonde hair and into his eyes, but even so he stood halfway in the door and halfway out of it.
"It was this moment," he said with his door on the handle, watching with wide eyes as Lee held the sweater upwards, "This single, solitary, moment that became a might have been. Do you remember what happened?"
Lee, still holding the sweater, trapped in the memory, quietly said, "He left."
Minato, no longer a memory but a might have been, closed the door softly behind him, "He flushed, stammered, and left. He moved out the next morning, tried to brush it off and say it was time, but you both knew differently."
"If he stayed," Lee said slowly, with a forced detached calm, "He could never have stayed with Kushina."
Minato stepped forward, raking soaked hair away from his face, looking at her intently, "But he might have stayed. He could have stayed, Lee."
Then, reaching her, and gently taking the sweater from her even as she stared up at him with impossibly young and wide eyes, "I will stay, Lee, if you will."
And Anakin, for a moment, remembered himself, remembered that he was not the Force, but felt himself trapped all the same. Minato's hands removed a towel that both was and was not a memory.
Somewhere in his head his heart was pounding a drumbeat growing more and more erratic as the shadows lengthened and the toppled towards the bed. Anakin didn't want to look, couldn't see anyway as they somehow weren't at the right angle, but didn't need to look to have some sinking feeling in his stomach.
The apartment drifted into the barren sands of Tatooine, where once a woman named Shmi had lived in slavery and had been miraculously gifted a son from nothing. Seeds, the Force had said, planted in a barren desert.
"This never happened," Lee said, words slurred and out of focus, but her eyes were returning as she looked up at the Minato that wasn't Minato at all.
"No," the Force agreed, brushing her hair back from her face gently as he breathed the words into her ear, "But does that matter."
She sat up, pushed him back, forcing herself to stand stumble backwards on the dunes, "Yes, because I didn't choose this!"
"You would have chosen this—"
"But I didn't!" Lee hissed, breathing deeply and walking backwards, out of the dream even as he scrambled after her, "And I don't regret the paths I've chosen, no matter how painful and disappointing they might seem."
She laughed then, standing on top of the dune, and even though she wore no clothing, had had her clothing torn from her, there was no vulnerability as she looked down at Namikaze Minato.
With a growing, cruel smile, she pointed down to him and concluded, "You chose the wrong face."
"Obito!"
Obito groaned, then stiffened and sat upright as a sharp elbow jammed into his side. Twisting around he found Lee looming over him, hair in disarray and eyes wild.
"Shishou?"
Where were they? Yes, their tiny bedroom in the ship, always a little too reminiscent of the cave. What had happened? Nothing had happened, they were sleeping, it was Lee's shift with Haruki tonight in dreamland. But something had happened, by the look of it something terrible had happened.
She moved forward, breathed a sigh of relief, and rested her forehead against his. Before he could push her back and ask her what happened her hands moved forward, under his shirt.
He stiffened, "Shishou, what are you—"
"Trust me," she said, but it wasn't a request or a plea, it was an order, one he didn't dare ignore.
He lightly grabbed her wrists, made to push them back, but she didn't move, simply repeated the same words, "Trust me, Obito."
She didn't move forward, waited for him to make some decision, even as his mind raced in twenty different directions. Somehow, he understood he could push her off, he didn't have to do this, whatever this was. However, there was a reason why they were doing this, one she apparently couldn't explain, and if he did't do it then something would happen.
Trust, yes, it came down to trust.
Whatever was happening…
Did he trust her?
Was that even a question?
He let go of her wrists, watched as she shuddered in relief once again, and then proceeded to take off his shirt. He didn't ask, even when it became very clear where this was headed, even when they shouldn't be heading this way as it had been stupid the first time and would be stupid the second time.
He didn't ask, he couldn't seem to make out the words the same way she couldn't seem to make out the explanation.
Afterwards he just, laid there, not sleeping and staring up at the metallic ceiling, idly tracing circles in her bare skin. Even then, even as she fell into exhausted sleep against him, he somehow couldn't ask.
He couldn't even begin to find the words to form the question.
Author's Note: I told you that plot would happen. Among other things.
Thanks for reading and reviewing, reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Star Wars, or Harry Potter