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Chapter 28
Anakin didn't know how long he sat on the floor in front of Ahsoka's prison. Didn't know how many times he tried to break through the formidable wall that consumed her mind and tried to replace it with every single memory he thought might be useful to her—to help her understand the dark side so that she could be free of it.
She never responded. Not even a glimmer of life.
They'd had her sedated when she'd lost control. When she became a mindless puppet of the dark side. When she became a walking corpse to do Sidious' bidding. When she suffered and Anakin couldn't do anything to help her.
Anakin didn't know how long he was there, only that when Obi-Wan and Rex each took one of his arms and hoisted him off the floor, Anakin's muscles screamed in agony at the movement. The world spun circles around him. Anakin let himself be dragged only because he couldn't bother resisting. He turned back anyway. Over his shoulder, Anakin watched Ahsoka fade from view.
Again. Always.
Obi-Wan and Rex hauled him back to medbay and set Anakin on a cot beside the wall. If words were exchanged, Anakin didn't hear them. Rex left at some point. Anakin only realized Obi-Wan was still in the room because he dragged a chair close to the cot and sat, unleashing a sigh. A sigh of displeasure—disappointment in the situation? In Anakin?
Anakin swallowed hard and blinked away tears that stung his eyes. Ahsoka deserved his tears, but Anakin didn't deserve to let them fall. He was the reason she suffered. He was the reason everyone suffered, because he was the reason Sidious wasn't dead.
"How many more people are going to have to suffer?" he muttered into the deafening silence. Visions of Darth Vader leaped to his mind after they'd been quiet for so long. He flinched against them. He was letting them in—he realized that now. But he deserved them. "I should have stopped him. It shouldn't have gotten this far."
"You are not to blame for Sidious' actions," Obi-Wan said, quietly—tiredly. He leaned forward in his seat and folded his hands under his chin.
"Yes, I am. It's my job to stop him. It's what I was made for." Anakin hung his head. Flames from Mustafar danced through his memory. A terrible black suit stole into his mind. Something he had rightfully deserved in another life—and still did.
No matter how much progress he thought he made, he always fell short. He had found a way to spare Leia and Alderaan, and Sidious took the Jedi instead. Sidious took the Jedi and destroyed the Republic because he'd distracted Anakin, and Anakin fell for it like he always did. Everything from the future was falling into place: the Empire, the destruction of the Jedi, the enslavement of the galaxy. The only person who seemed to benefit from the vision and escape from harm was Anakin—and he didn't deserve it.
"We need to hit him hard." Anakin rose from the cot and moved towards the door, but his legs wobbled underneath him. He had lost a decent amount of blood again, or so they told him. Chills rattled up his spine, and he wound his arms around himself and leaned against the wall for support. "We can send in a distraction while the bulk of our forces locate the weapon and destroy it. That will free the others and weaken Sidious."
"Whoever goes in first will be killed," Obi-Wan said. Anakin felt his glare but didn't look at him. "It's certain death against the full power of Sidious, the Jedi, and whatever forces Sidious has manipulated to his side."
Anakin stood straight and forced his muscles to obey. He blinked several times to clear his vision. Everything continued to blur. Once he got moving—once he really focused in the Force—nothing would stop him. That was what the Force had originally intended for him in the future, anyway. The will of the Force was for Anakin to give his whole self to stop Sidious.
"I'll do it," he said, and he realized how self-destructive it sounded only when he felt a pulse of hot frustration from Obi-Wan that his former Master didn't bother to conceal. Anakin added, "Sidious doesn't want me dead. He'll do whatever he can to keep me alive. Meanwhile, the rest of you can—"
"Out of the question."
"Why? If we strike now, we have a chance at ending this. Once everyone is free, we can take Sidious together," Anakin said. "What do we have to lose?"
"You, Anakin. We have you to lose." Obi-Wan rose. His face tightened and his eyes burned with quiet frustration. He dragged in a long breath and let it out. "And though you seem to think you're expendable, I'm not opting for a tactic that willingly hands you to Sidious."
Obi-Wan flinched as he said the words, and he turned away from Anakin.
"That isn't what I meant." Anakin huffed.
He paced to the other side of the small room and back again. The short trip left him breathless. His teeth chattered as another round of chills swept through him. Nuisance of a fever! He considered grabbing the blanket off the cot, but Obi-Wan would only grumble at him for it.
"Sidious is destroying people. He's made everyone slaves, and he'll keep doing it until he's stopped." Anakin's voice trembled along with his useless muscles. He wanted to blame the fever for his emotions running pathetically high, but they always ran high. Because he couldn't control anything. Because he couldn't do things quite right, no matter how hard he tried. "It's my job to stop him, and I will. Nothing else matters."
No more needless sacrifices. Padmé, the Jedi, the Republic—they suffered only because of Anakin's poor choices, present and future. Anakin was the only sacrifice the Force ever truly intended. Anakin and Sidious together.
"You matter, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, slowly. "Not because of your duty, not because of the prophecy—you matter." Obi-Wan took a step towards Anakin but halted at a slight distance. "I know you want to defeat Sidious, but you are more than just the Chosen One, Anakin. To Padmé and your children, to Ahsoka, to your men, to the Order, to the Republic… to me. You matter. You are not a tool meant to do a job and then be thrown away."
A shudder went up Anakin's spine and a breath caught in his throat. Qui-Gon had said similar things. But Anakin didn't view himself as a tool. He didn't view himself as worthless. Perhaps he had at one time in his life, as a slave. As a slave, disobedience meant destruction. Failure meant punishment or death. But Anakin had been free since he was nine.
…have you ever felt good enough?
Qui-Gon's question hammered into Anakin's mind, again and again. Each time Anakin heard it, he envisioned one of his many failures. His mom, the slaves, Padmé, the Republic, the Jedi, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, the whole of the future—his list of failures was endless. Every time he failed, he knew he wasn't good enough. It wasn't a matter of what he felt. He was born for one thing and one thing only, and he couldn't do it. It didn't matter if he was Jedi or Sith, he failed either way, and everyone suffered because of it.
Anakin wasn't good enough.
"I am glad for your concern for others, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, and his voice was tremendously soft. Softer than Anakin had ever heard it. "But you need to understand the difference between selflessness and self-destruction. And the only way you can do that is to understand how much you are worth. If you hear only one thing I say, let it be this: you matter."
Anakin stared at the gray wall. His vision blurred with tears that he tried to blink away, but they defied him. He didn't know why. Silly words—they were just silly words. But Obi-Wan didn't say silly words. He didn't say things like this, and Anakin didn't know what to do with it. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. Everything hurt. He closed his eyes against the tears.
"My head hurts," he said, and his voice cracked.
"Sit down. You aren't well." Obi-Wan took Anakin's elbow and guided him towards the cot, and Anakin shuffled along without resisting.
"Just this stupid fever." Anakin sat on the edge of the cot and bowed his head.
"You overdid it again," Obi-Wan said, and he sighed. There it was—the disappointment. "The holocrons probably aren't helping."
"They shouldn't be affecting me at all."
"You aren't immune to the dark side."
"I should be."
Obi-Wan sat on the edge of his chair, folded his arms into his sleeves, and stared at the floor. Silence fell over them, normally comfortable, but nightmares continued to claw into Anakin's head. He knew they haunted him because he let them, but he didn't know what to do to stop them. He'd tried to be better, to make amends. He wanted to do what the Force wanted, but he couldn't.
"It seems you think you should be a lot of things, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, quietly.
"I should be better." Anakin's voice broke and betrayed him. "I have one job, Master, and I can't even do it. We even had a second chance, and everything's going back to that terrible future, no matter what I do. The Force tried to let me fix it, and I couldn't do it. I'm tired of not being enough."
Anakin ran both hands over his face to wipe away tears and then covered his eyes.
"Anakin—"
"Don't," Anakin said in haste. His lungs tightened in his chest and stole his breath. Everything hurt. "I know what you're going to say. Don't. I know. I already know. I—"
"Anakin, I'm sorry." Obi-Wan spoke firmly, but his words dripped with emotion Anakin had never heard in Obi-Wan's voice—no, he'd heard it once. On a black beach on Mustafar in another life.
Anakin let his hands fall from his face. Obi-Wan had hunched forward and folded his hands in front of his mouth. He took a deep breath and met eyes with Anakin—and Anakin couldn't look away. Pools of emotion, of grief, of sorrow, stirred in Obi-Wan's eyes, to the point he looked close to tears.
"Anakin, I am sorry I ever let it come to this," Obi-Wan said. "You blame yourself for things you have no control over, and yet you completely disregard legitimate mistakes made by others. You hold yourself to impossible standards—"
"They're not impossible, Master." Anakin maintained eye contact, refusing to look away or back down. Refusing to let Obi-Wan make light of this or take blame for something that had nothing to do with him. "I'm the Chosen One. I was made by the Force to do one thing. What if the Force intended for me to defeat Palpatine when I was nine? What if I was meant to destroy him right away? What if I've just been making mistake after mistake for the past thirteen years, and because of me, millions of people have had to suffer and die?"
"What if Sidious is to blame?" Obi-Wan asked, his tone clipped with anger—and sorrow. "What if, instead of blaming a nine-year-old boy, we blame the man who willfully manipulated and deceived the entire galaxy? What if, instead of blaming a youngling, we blame the adults who didn't protect him from the Sith Lord in the first place?"
"I was closest to him." Anakin shook his head. "I should have known—"
"No, Anakin, you shouldn't have known—you couldn't have known. He barely tried to deceive the galaxy and succeeded, but Anakin—he tried with you. He got close to you, he learned your weaknesses, and he used them against you. His approach to you was intentional and personal. That's why it worked."
"I was a fool." Tears relentlessly crowded Anakin's eyes despite his best efforts to blink them away. He didn't know why.
"No. You were a child," Obi-Wan said. "I was the fool. It was my responsibility to protect you, and I didn't. I gave you to a Sith Lord instead."
"It doesn't matter, Master," Anakin said, and he shook his head against Obi-Wan's efforts to take blame. Words from a conversation between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in another life jumped to mind, readily accessible from his list of reasons he'd failed. "You said it yourself—I was a Jedi. I was trained. When Sidious revealed the truth, I was an adult. I should have known better. I screwed up."
Obi-Wan stared at him. Stared through him. He wavered on the edge of his seat, swallowed hard, and blinked hard.
"Anakin," Obi-Wan said, and he reached across the slight space between them and gripped Anakin's upper arm. "Anakin, that's not how abuse works."
Anakin's heart stuttered, and his breath caught in his throat.
Abuse? He'd been deceived like everyone else. There was nothing unique about his situation. Palpatine had never laid a hand on him—he'd been a friend. He'd lied, but his lies had been packaged in kindness. There was nothing abusive about it. Sidious had praised him and encouraged him when no one else did. He'd been his confidant in everything: the Tuskens, Anakin's marriage to Padmé, his concerns about the Jedi, his insecurities—Anakin stopped.
The more Anakin had trusted Palpatine, the less he had trusted anyone else. The less he trusted the Republic, the Order, and Obi-Wan. Until Anakin had no one left. Sidious had played so many games with him for so long. He'd pulled strings—subtle strings, but strings nonetheless. Anakin had played along—he'd let him. As a child, as an adult—he let him.
"I wasn't…" he said, but the words died on his lips. He had let Sidious play games with him, because Anakin didn't realize he was being played. "I didn't… I wasn't…"
"Oh, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, full of grief, and a watery shine lit his eyes. "You truly have no idea what he's done to you, do you?"
"I should have known better," Anakin said without strength.
You are not a slave anymore, Qui-Gon had said, because Anakin still acted like one. Because Anakin had still let Sidious lead him wherever, a puppet on strings, and Anakin never even noticed. He let him because he didn't know. He was a slave and he didn't know. He'd been isolated from people who actually cared about him, and he didn't realize. He'd been puffed up and beaten down, and he didn't realize. One of the most brilliant but wicked men in the galaxy had gone out of his way to fill Anakin's head with fear, hate, and anger—and Anakin never realized, and he let him, and it worked.
Anakin Skywalker, the perfect slave, from birth to death.
"I should have known better," Anakin repeated, but his voice broke and tears spilled down his face.
"No, Anakin," Obi-Wan whispered. His grip on Anakin's arm tightened, and he leaned closer. "Because when someone does that to you, it isn't your fault. You may have made terrible choices, but a deplorable man did horrible things to you that lead you there. He groomed you, he manipulated you, and I let him. That is not your fault."
Anakin's head swam.
"I am sorry," Obi-Wan said with such grief. So much emotion. He reached across the divide and wrapped Anakin in both arms. "I am truly sorry, Anakin."
Anakin stiffened, his breath strangling him. Obi-Wan believed that Sidious had hurt Anakin. That somewhere in all of the games, Anakin had been a victim, too.
You are not a slave anymore.
Anakin had been such a fool. He was a stupid fool.
Something inside Anakin broke as realization settled deep in his heart and in his bones—that he had never been free.
Anakin broke down and wept. He buried his face against Obi-Wan and wrapped his arms around him, holding tight. Obi-Wan only returned the embrace that much tighter, his hands steady on Anakin, his breathing steady—steady. One of the few things in Anakin's life that remained steady, no matter what. Anakin was a disaster, and Obi-Wan didn't let go.
Obi-Wan never had, had he? Even in the future, even after Anakin surrendered to Sidious and did horrific things, Obi-Wan still loved him. He had loved him enough to come for him after death, to make a way for them to be together again.
Anakin had believed such foolish things for so long—he was such a fool.
"I'm sorry, Master," Anakin said into Obi-Wan's shoulder, and he wept. "I'm so sorry."
"So am I." Obi-Wan brought a hand to the back of Anakin's head, warm, comforting, and steady. "So am I."