A/N: Yes, I know Anakin didn't meet Grievous until ROTS. Do I care? No.

I don't have the time to update much right now, but this work was mostly done, so I finished it and decided to post it. It's a one-shot, at least for now, though I'd be interested in exploring this universe more someday.

The Separatists had attacked an insignificant planet. Insignificant, except for the ionite mines filling the planet. Grievous was launching a campaign to capture the ionite mines for the war effort. And this might prove to be the Separatists' undoing. At least, that was what Obi-Wan was hoping.

The battle had been fairly even so far. Obi-Wan and his troops had pushed through one side and met up with Anakin's on the other to trap Grievous in the middle. Unfortunately, Ahsoka's contingent of troops was getting pounded elsewhere on the planet. However, Obi-Wan had engaged Grievous in a lightsaber battle, Anakin joining him soon after. But Grievous had ducked away from them and fled into a cave.

Obi-Wan stopped at the gaping, dark mouth of the cave. "We're in luck."

"In luck? Grievous ran straight into that cave. There could be dozens of turn-offs and side tunnels. We could never find him," Anakin said, gesturing at the cave.

"Such a negative Nancy," Obi-Wan commented as he started into the tunnel. "First of all, it's not a cave. It's a mine shaft."

"What good does that do? That means there's definitely other outlets he could escape in. If he knows these mines, he could make his way to the surface and escape us, again. And then all of this would be for nothing and we would have wasted our time, again, and lots of clones will die for a barely inhabited planet and the Separatists will go on to take another planet, and another planet, and we'll get to them just in time to save the planet but never in time to capture the leaders, and…"

Obi-Wan restrained a smile at Anakin's headlong plunge into the negative outcomes. He led his stressed apprentice through the mine shaft by the light of his lightsaber. He knew Anakin had been sick and under a lot of stress lately which just made his tendency to spiral and see the absolute worst outcome in any situation worse. "Oh, calm down, Anakin. This is an ionite mine, which may give us the advantage."

"How? What's ionite?"

Obi-Wan drew in a deep breath, glad for a chance to share his knowledge without his former apprentice complaining about lecturing or learning useless knowledge. "Ionite is a very rare metal that is not well-known, as, before its discovery here, it was only found on the planet Bandomeer, a mining planet which is currently trying to develop its agriculture. However, it can be very dangerous as a weapon if developed as such."

Anakin groaned. "So can many things. Can you skip the lecture? How does an unrefined metal that could one day be a weapon help us now?"

Obi-Wan squashed down the irritation that rose in him. "Anakin, if you'd let me finish…" He took a deep breath and forced himself to let it go. "Ionite can make mining equipment go dead. It can kill timers and alerts and other instruments, which is particularly dangerous for the enslaved undersea miners. Ionite was one of the things we—I mean, they—feared the most."

"We? What do you mean, we?"

Obi-Wan's face grew hot. "I said they."

"No, you said we. You said ionite's one of the things we fear most," Anakin pressed.

Obi-Wan pushed on through the tunnel. He came to a fork and headed right. "I think it's this way."

"Were you an enslaved undersea miner?" Anakin asked.

"Anakin, I don't know what you're talking about." Obi-Wan kept his back to his former apprentice. He was beginning to wish he'd never brought up the ionite.

"Obi-Wan." Anakin's voice grew serious and maybe even a bit stern. "If you were enslaved once, I think I deserve to know."

"It's fine, it was… it's not important…" Anakin wasn't going to give up until he pried the story from Obi-Wan, was he? "Oh, all right. It was a long time ago. I was twelve and had been sent to the AgriCorps on Bandomeer because no one wanted me. Master Qui-Gon was sent to the same planet for a mission negotiating between Bandomeer mining corporations and Offworld. He had refused to take me on as an apprentice because I was too aggressive and couldn't control my anger, which of course he was right at the time, but he should have seen it as a challenge, not—" Obi-Wan clamped his mouth shut on the cry of the abandoned twelve-year-old still inside him. "Anyway."

"You were seen as too angry to be trained? Really?" Surprise coated Anakin's voice. Obi-Wan looked back. Anakin's eyebrows were raised, and he seemed to have risen out of the funk he had sank into.

"And reckless, and impulsive…" Obi-Wan continued. He'd never really shared his younger years with Anakin, because when he first met Anakin, he'd been too ashamed of them, and now, it was just easier to bury it inside than dredge up the memories and the hurt and confusion and abandonment Qui-Gon always seemed to stir up. Much better to dwell on his days before with Yoda, who was always kind and loving and there for him, or his days after with Anakin, the most obnoxious, amazing little brother he had.

Anakin snorted. "You, impulsive? I find that hard to believe."

Obi-Wan shook his head. Anakin seemed to have grown up with this belief that Obi-Wan was this perfect Jedi that always followed the Code and always did everything right. He wasn't sure where it came from, but it couldn't be farther from the truth. Anyone without the blindness of awed youth should be able to see he was little more than an abject failure. The only thing he hadn't failed at was raising Anakin. "I used to be quite impulsive before—" He stopped in his tracks. Before Melida/Daan. Before he followed the Force and his impulses and got punished for it, kicked out. He had succeeded in what he set out to do, but Cerasi (oh, Cerasi) had died, and though Yoda had eagerly welcomed him back, not even condemning him for his choice, Qui-Gon had judged him and never truly given him his trust back. Though to be fair, he'd never really trusted him in the first place.

"Before what?" Anakin asked.

"Before…this one mission and it's not important so don't ask," Obi-Wan said. He couldn't bear to speak of Melida/Daan to Anakin. It would destroy his vision of Master Qui-Gon, and he didn't want to be the one to do that. "To return to the point, Xanatos had a plan to destroy all but the Offworld mines on Bandomeer, some of which were undersea mining platforms. And of course, Offworld primarily employed slaves and indentured servants. I was poking into some Offworld packages at the greenhouse I was supposed to be working at and Xanatos captured me and sent me to work in one of the mining platforms."

Anakin stepped forward so that he was by Obi-Wan's side again. His face was twisted up in that same expression he had worn when going against the Zygerrian on Kiros. "What happened?"

"Well…" Obi-Wan didn't mean to spill his memories, but now that he'd opened his mouth, they just kept coming. "I didn't think Qui-Gon would come for me. I mean, why would he? He'd rejected me, and Guerra said that even Jedi disappeared down there, so…I had to survive as best I could. I'm not sure how long I was there, not too terribly long. I still kept poking around the platform for Offworld stuff, trying to help with the mission even though Qui-Gon…" He paused at the word about to come out of him. Did it sound somewhat bitter? Maybe. But it was the truth. "Rejected me. I was caught and they thought I was stealing, so they sentenced me to death and tossed me off the platform. Thankfully, Guerra, another miner there, caught me and pulled me to safety. Soon after, Qui-Gon came and he was able to use the Force to shut off the collar around my neck even though I couldn't. He took me to shore and stormed the building where they were holding the detonators and shut them all off. Guerra was waiting for that, and after the collars were shut off, he led a revolt. Master Qui-Gon couldn't get the collar off of me, so he gave me the detonator, and after Xanatos trapped us in a mine about to explode and destroy much of the planet's surface and the inhabitants' livelihoods, I offered to use the collar to blow the door off so Master Qui-Gon could save the mine, then when he revealed ionite had just been discovered in that level of the mine, I set the timer of the bombs against it. Master Qui-Gon disarmed them, chased Xanatos off, then asked me if I would be his padawan." Clanking echoed ahead. "Here, Grievous must be this way."

"He… you… it…. You had… and a… he asked…" Anakin sighed. "Why didn't you tell me? It would have been nice to know as a padawan that you…understood."

"Understood?" Obi-Wan turned to Anakin. He had been sure Anakin would say, "Oh, that's nothing. You see, I was…" and spill all the horrors he must have endured as a slave for nine years. "Anakin, I was enslaved for barely a week at most. You were enslaved for nine years. How could what I went through ever compare to your experience?"

"Yeah, but…you didn't think anyone would come for you. And you had…you had…" Anakin's hand curled into a fist. "The collar," he almost growled. "How are you not…" He trailed off.

"Not what?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Angry," Anakin said. "For what they did."

"I was," Obi-Wan said. "Even before I was enslaved, on the ship over to Bandomeer, I found out how Offworld treated their miners and kept trying to fight the Hutts. Almost got myself killed multiple times. But eventually, I realized if you hold onto anger, it can only destroy you. Sometimes you are able to reach justice, and sometimes you aren't. You must always strive for it, of course, but you can't hold onto anger or it'll poison you and the ones you are angry at will probably never be harmed. Of course, I still struggle with it sometimes, but I let myself feel it and let it go, as we're meant to as Jedi, and most of the time, it works. When it doesn't, I hold it in until I can let it out safely."

Anakin blinked furiously. "I…" He cleared his throat. "I never realized you struggled with anger."

"It's not something I like to talk about," Obi-Wan said. "I'm not very proud of it."

"I…you let yourself feel the anger?" Anakin asked.

"Of course," Obi-Wan said. "Anger is natural, as are all emotions. There's nothing wrong with emotions, only with how they drive our actions. As Master Qui-Gon always told me, the best way to let go of your emotions is to feel them."

"I…I never realized," Anakin said.

They rounded a corner. Grievous was sprawled on the mine floor spitting foreign curses. Obi-Wan allowed himself a smile. "I was hoping that would happen. I suppose ionite damages more instruments than just timers after all."

Anakin grinned. He said nothing more about Obi-Wan's tale until they had secured Grievous in a holding cell on board the Resolute and were walking to the bridge together. "Maybe sometime soon you can tell me more about when you were a padawan."

"Perhaps." Obi-Wan patted Anakin's shoulder and walked with his brother to the bridge.