Anakin had been dreading the long overdue conversation with his former Master the entire quiet and tense walk to his quarters. His head reeled with the exposure of his wife and his children as well. He had tried several times to read Obi-Wan's mood, but could not get through the man's tight shielding. He tried to appear as in control as he could, but his insides felt like they were caught in a maelstrom. They reached his quarters and he overtook Obi-Wan as he walked in and took a deep breath in preparation for the epic scolding he knew he deserved.
The tension in the room was palpable, yet Obi-Wan could not figure out how to start the tirade he wanted to unleash on his former apprentice. That would be most unJedi-like, he told himself as he tried to calm his own inner turmoil. He caught Anakin hunched over himself with what looked like a permanent flinch on his face from the corner of his eye. A part of him relished seeing Anakin brought down a peg from his usual arrogant stance, but another part of him cringed inwardly as he knew that the arrogance was overcompensation for his terrible upbringing prior to being brought to the Temple. He finally stopped pacing and let out the only thing that he could think of at the moment: "What were you thinking? Did you truly believe that you would be able to carry on in such a manner with no one being the wiser?"
Anakin cringed - even though he had prepared himself for that initial reaction from Obi-Wan, he still hated the disappointment he heard in his voice. "I'm so sorry, Master. I wasn't thinking -"
"Clearly," Obi-Wan said bitterly. It seemed that the floodgates had been opened. He didn't even react to Anakin's flinch.
Anakin took in a deep breath and tried to center himself to no avail. He was already disgraced, might as well let it all go. "You truly want to know why I did what I did? You sure you want to hear what I have to say?" he said very lowly and quietly.
Obi-Wan knew that that tone of voice spelled an emotional explosion, but he was too wound up himself to back down. "I wouldn't have asked otherwise," he replied icily and braced himself for even more things he didn't want to know but didn't have the luxury of ignoring anymore.
"You want to know why I married Padme?" Anakin asked as he began pacing, something he always did when agitated. "With Padme I can be me - Anakin. Not the Jedi, not the General, not the Hero With No Fear, not the Chosen One," he sneered. "Of course now you have reason to be angry with me - now that you know what I've done. But, before that? You and everyone else were always disappointed in me. The Council hated me on sight and declared me some sort of menace at nine years old. The other younglings hated me and shunted me aside. You considered me nothing but a burden and only took me on to honor Qui-Gon's last wish. The only other person besides Padme that had shown any interest in me as a person with any kind of intrinsic worth had been the Chancellor - but now that turns out to have been as false as my hopes to free the slaves when I became a Jedi!" He shouted the last into Obi-Wan's shocked face. He commenced pacing again for a few moments and then sniffled and turned a tear-stained face to his former Master. "The only person who has never considered me a disappointment and hasn't tried to use me is Padme. She's the only other person besides my mother who cared for me as a person and didn't want something from me. I only truly feel like an actual person around her," he finished sadly.
Obi-Wan felt a stab of guilt. He had known that Anakin had his issues with the Order, but he had never realized just how far he had internalized all of those hurts. However, it still didn't take away the fact that he had knowingly broken the Code. "Why didn't you just leave the Order then? Why go through with this charade that has only hurt you, Padme, myself, and the Order as well? If you were truly this miserable this entire time, why not leave when given the chance?" he asked plaintively. Left unasked was, Why didn't you trust me? Was I truly that horrible?
Anakin huffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "I should have. But then the war happened, and my mother had just died. Padme was there, you know. When that happened. She was my one true rock when that happened. You didn't believe me. Then there was the war - I couldn't leave in good conscience. We - Padme - we," he swallowed and began pacing again. "We thought when the war was over we'd leave and go to Naboo or something. But, now that we know about Palpatine, that's probably not a good idea. I didn't want to disappoint you. I didn't want to prove to the Council that I wasn't good enough. I don't know what I wanted and it's never mattered before anyway," he said sullenly.
Obi-Wan had had trouble initially following the stream of consciousness rant, but he got the general gist. "Surely your entire time here wasn't entirely bad," he ventured cautiously.
"No, there were some good moments. But the general atmosphere here is so stifling, and you have no idea. As a slave I was not permitted certain behaviors or material things. I was not permitted to go to certain places or to say certain things. Those things were at least similar enough to not cause a complete culture shock when I got to the Temple. But I had never had my emotions or feelings dictated to. I had never been told that I had committed a crime in missing my mother."
Obi-Wan flinched at the last statement. He remembered Master Windu's harsh dismissal of the child's feelings, but had been too wrapped up in his own resentment of Anakin at the time to realize just how horrific of a pronouncement that had been. That initial impression of the Council had to have been soul-crushing to that little boy who had already shown more bravery than most in willingly leaving all he had ever known behind. None of the Jedi present remembered their families - they had all been taken so young that it would have been an impossibility. With all that had been occurring lately, he hadn't really stopped to think about just how truly removed from the general population the Jedi really were. "What were your immediate thoughts about the Code? Not what you think about it now, as an adult, and I use that term loosely," he said, hoping to inject some familiar banter into an increasingly depressing conversation. "What was your first impression on learning what the Jedi life actually entailed?"
Anakin stared at him and did nothing but blink for a few seconds, then sighed and answered: "I thought that I had made the biggest mistake of my life, honestly. It sounded cruel to me. Even the slavers didn't deny us our family, whether blood or not, out of cruelty. That was rare. Most of the time families were split up as a business decision. Same with blowing someone random up to prove a point. They knew to only push so far - or else they would have had a revolt on their hands. Not that the slaves would have won or anything - but it would be bad business to have lost all that investment and then have to spend money on more slaves and train them…" he trailed off for a moment, then brought his eyes back to Obi-Wan's. "I was an outcast already due to my age, then factor in my upbringing as a slave, and add that stupid Prophecy on top of it. How was I ever to fit in here even if I had been the model Jedi? I should have left. All I can say now is I'm sorry - and I'm sure that you think that truer words were never spoken," he said bitterly as he sat down heavily on the couch, head hanging down.
"I don't believe that you are a sorry excuse for a human being, if that's what you're intimating," Obi-Wan reassured after a moment. "However, I do wish that you had spoken to someone here - even a mind healer - about what you had been feeling."
Anakin barked out a harsh laugh. "And tell any of the given Jedi here about my misgivings about their entire way of life? Do you think that any mind healer in the Temple would not have been offended immediately and demanded my expulsion? The Code is so tied into everything here - anyone speaking against it is immediately taken to task. That is the one taboo here, you do realize? Padme understands to some degree my frustrations, but she can't totally commiserate, since she is not a Jedi herself. She doesn't experience this frustration every single day - from every single quarter. The Code lends itself to thought-policing. It's exhausting, and I can't imagine how any Jedi get anything done with constantly having to check to see if their actions are up to the Code's standards."
Obi-Wan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes and took a seat next to Anakin. His head and heart ached and he wondered just how close Anakin had come to the Dark Side and how easily exploited he could have been by Palpatine had the twins not appeared when they had. A shudder went through him at the thought and he wondered if that was not one of the things that the twins were meant to prevent. He dared not ask Anakin, especially at the moment, but he would need to corner the twins at some point and ask them. The twins, that was another thing. "Padme is pregnant now, isn't she?" Obi-Wan asked with a moment of clarity.
"Yes, she is. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen with the twins currently within her versus...the other twins…" he admitted and trailed off. He didn't want to think too much on that particular topic, and he doubted his children did either.
"Is Palpatine aware that she is pregnant?" Obi-Wan asked carefully.
"I don't know, but she's gotten to the point where it's a little difficult to hide," Anakin said slowly, horror mounting at the implication.
"I suggest that we make sure that she will be offered as much protection as possible," he said with all seriousness.
"To protect her from a Sith Lord, she would need protection from the Jedi, and I can't think of any that would think too highly of her right now," Anakin said bitterly.
"Then perhaps it would behoove us to have you and someone you can trust do so."
"Why not just me? I can take care of her. Fulfill the Prophecy while I'm at it," Anakin sneered.
"Don't be dense. If Palpatine gets you and Padme cornered and desperate, what then?" Obi-Wan retorted in all seriousness.
Anakin shuddered. "I concede your point. There's just not many people that I feel that I can trust. And I'm sure that they all feel doubly so about myself," he said despondently.
"Let's not let ourselves get hopeless now," Obi-Wan said encouragingly. "Let's check on the Senator's whereabouts first and then we can work on who can do an adequate job of protection. After all, I'm sure that her input should be taken into consideration as well."
Anakin allowed himself a small smile. "Woe be unto them who do not." He knew that things were rocky with Obi-Wan, but he felt at least the man had his and Padme's best interests at heart, regardless of the motivation behind it. For all that Obi-Wan fought attachment and nagged him about the Code, he was prone to forming them - just not admitting to them. He doubted that that would be a good thing to point out at the moment. He'd save it for a more opportune time.
