A/N: References to the Obi-Wan Kenobi series ahead.
Chapter One
"You seem a little on edge."
This is the first time Obi-Wan has spoken to me since we left the speeder five minutes earlier and the sound of his voice jars me. Truthfully, his presence altogether jars me. I fix him with an appraising glance across the expanse of the elevator, but I don't have a ready response to his observation.
It has been several hours since I awakened to my old life, and I haven't had much time to adapt. Obi-Wan had charged into my private quarters soon after with his pronouncement that we had been summoned before the Jedi High Council. And though, after that substantial passage of time, I should be used to him existing within my personal space again, I am still struggling to acclimate myself to the reality of having my former master, the man who had once left me for dead, stand less than three feet away from me.
I'm also a bit flustered to discover that after so many years of intense hatred for the man, my feelings for him are rather muddled. I still seem to be waging that same age-old internal battle. I'm caught between craving his acceptance and approval and, conversely, wanting to cleanly separate his head from his shoulders with a sweep of my lightsaber. It's a strange conundrum.
Clearly, "on edge" doesn't even begin to describe what I am experiencing at all. I'm a churning mass of contradictory emotions…fear, longing, disgust, regret, hatred, love, shame, resolve… Each of them is fighting for dominance, rattling about in the furnace of my heart to take control but I can't just feel one thing because I feel all things simultaneously.
I've had little time to contemplate my next move or decide how I am going to use this opportunity to my advantage. I've spent so many years priding myself on taking decisive action, my ability to do what needed to be done and not look back (or so I had convinced myself). But right now, in this moment? I have no idea what I should do. Quite literally, I want to crawl out of my own skin. My heart feels like it has taken up new residence in my throat. It pumps there heavily, making it difficult for me to swallow, to even catch my breath.
My old master is much changed from the last time I had seen him, far removed from the broken, disheartened man who had left me behind once again on a desolate planet to burn in the flames of my own sins albeit figuratively that time. He had still walked away, however, was forever walking away from me.
He stands across from me now, his genial features unlined by years of hardened battle and unspoken trauma, his beard pristine, his eyes sparkling with merriment and mischief. He wears the standard cream and tan Jedi robes associated with many within the order, high brown boots, crisp tunic…the perfect Jedi he's always been. It is a sharp contrast to my own dark robes of deep brown and black. The darkness to his light. I suppose, in hindsight, the disparity had between us always been evident.
But, when I look at him now, I do not see that perfect Jedi. I'm not in this moment. Instead, I see the man who had watched as flames engulfed me on the black sands of Mustafar while I struggled to save myself. The pain had been excruciating but, even in that hellish agony, I had refused to plead for his help. Still the words had been there the entire time, poised on my lips. Help, me. Obi-Wan, please help me. Don't leave me here.
He had known it. He had felt it. I know he did. But he had turned and walked away. And the memory of that moment, the sheer loathing I felt for him had been burned into my brain, seared there like the scars that had been seared into my damaged flesh, ever since.
Admittedly, though, there is another memory now that sharply conflicts with the first. I also see the man who could have easily destroyed me only three standard weeks earlier during our last brutal confrontation on an abandoned moon. He had gotten the upper hand, the figurative high ground once again and I was beaten. Proud as always but beaten just same…and he could have finished it. He should have finished it. Instead, that man had regarded me in pure, anguished regret rather than the disillusioned self-righteousness I had come to expect from him.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Anakin…for all of it.
The two men are the same, just as the man standing less than three feet away and grinning at me affectionately is the same. I know this intellectually yet; I am struggling to reconcile these contrasting sides of him in my mind. I remain as conflicted about my old master as ever.
His apology had affected me deeply, though I didn't want to admit it then and I certainly don't wish to dwell on that now. I had expected sanctimonious pontifications and trite Jedi platitudes about the infallibility of the Jedi and inherent evil of the Sith. I had not expected genuine regret and grief from him. Disappointment? Of course. I was forever incurring that man's disappointment and censure. That was nothing new. After all, I was his greatest failure. But actual sorrow, a sense of loss? The realization had left me stunned even as I had vowed to destroy him.
But Sidious had known. Even after Obi-Wan had walked away from me, convinced that Anakin Skywalker had been lost to the darkness forever, Sidious had known otherwise. Somehow, he knew even before I did. He knew that the man I had formerly been still clung to life within the embers of my dead, dragon heart and I knew that would not bode well for me. I was all too familiar with the punishing measures my master could take, would take to ensure that Anakin Skywalker was snuffed out of existence forever. He would do it because I could not.
Perhaps my time traveling endeavor hadn't been solely born of some unselfish desire to right my past wrongs. Perhaps it had been equally born of self-preservation. Whatever my true motivation had been, I am here now, and I must determine what my next move will be. I cannot do that with Obi-Wan so close, clouding my judgment. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a way to extricate myself from this current situation either.
As unnerving as it had been to have Obi-Wan enter my quarters this morning as if the last ten years of bitter recrimination between us had never happened (because from his point of view, it had not), it was fortuitous that he'd arrived when he did. My desperate search for some clue that would indicate the current year or, at the very least, my present age had come up empty. I had been contemplating venturing into the temple archive for answers when Obi-Wan arrived and informed me that there had been an attempt on Padmé's life, unknowingly providing me with the answers I sought.
There is a tendril of disappointment that I cannot entirely dismiss. I hadn't traveled back quite as far as I had hoped. Sidious has still been afforded ample time to set his plans in motion. His subtle manipulation and influence over the impressionable Anakin Skywalker that had been my past self has already begun. At this point in time, he is merely arranging all the necessary players into their respective places and preparing for his grand finale.
Gone was the hope that I could end it before it ever began and leave the Jedi order to return to Tatooine and my mother. I know that she's alive right now but, given the timing, I can't be sure for how long. Her torment with the Tuskens had already begun. Further, even if I could miraculously thwart her death this time around, I would be unable to completely mitigate the damage Sidious had already done.
It's possible that I can, at the very least, prevent the Clone Wars from happening at all and, if not, at least minimize the damage they cause. This endeavor doesn't have to be a total exercise in futility. Most importantly, I know that I am strong enough to face him now, having spent the last decade as an ardent student of the dark side. Yes, I'm strong enough to face him…and destroy him.
But before I could even begin to formulate how to bring that plan to fruition or scrabble together a desperate strategy for getting to my mother, I first had to face the Jedi Council to receive my "assignment." While being confronted with Obi-Wan again had filled me with a vat of churning emotions, causing me to vacillate endlessly between anger and regret, the prospect of facing the Council again only filled me with contempt, disgust and another emotion that felt like something akin to…guilt.
I wasn't of the mind that the Jedi order could be saved. They had grown too complacent in their own greatness, too convinced of their own infallibility. It needed to be cleansed, to be forged anew with fire and blood. I firmly believed that was their inevitable end but…I wasn't so certain that I wanted to be the one to bring that end about. Not anymore.
All those contemplations had swirled around in my mind as I had fallen into step behind Obi-Wan as we winded our way through the sacred halls of the Jedi Temple. That short journey to the Jedi Council's chambers had been, quite frankly…brutal. Everywhere I turned I was confronted with the ghosts of my past, walking, talking corpses who smiled and greeted me with earnest geniality, oblivious to the monstrous betrayal that had been unleashed upon them in my former time. I saw them as they had been that terrible night…broken and dismembered, headless, limbless bodies strewn about the gleaming temple floors like discarded rubbish…the sightless, dead eyes of the younglings condemning me.
For many years I had pushed the bloody events of that night to the very back of my mind. I had justified the Purge as a necessary evil, an appropriate penance for the Jedis' hubris and hypocrisy. I had counted the slaughtering of those innocent younglings as an act of mercy, a liberation from their bonds of slavery. Whatever guilt or shame I had felt back then, the dark side had whispered its comfort, twisting what was truly reprehensible into something righteous instead.
What I had done the night of the Temple Siege hadn't been murder. Never that! It had been freedom. Justice. For those doomed younglings who would have had no future outside of a defunct Jedi order and for me. I saved them.
But no matter how deeply I had submerged myself in the dark side, none of those rationalizations and excuses had ever truly absolved me. Not entirely and I knew that. That part of me that was Anakin Skywalker kept niggling at me, reminding me that nothing could wash away the bloody stain of those slain Jedi from my hands. And nothing ever would, even if no one could see that blood now, even if I had wiped all traces of it from history itself. It was still there.
That night I had been able to coolly detach myself from my pitiless actions, to observe myself as I mechanically dispatched one Jedi after another from some lofty, remote peak high above the Temple spires. I had turned those acts over in my hands, analyzed them closely, clinically, just as Sidious had instructed me to do. I let the horror engulf me. I recognized I had become something despicable. From that distant place outside of myself, I was able to acknowledge my crimes as loathsome and evil, but also recognize that them as necessary. I simply weighed the lives of those Jedi in the balance against the life of my wife and the choice had been surprisingly easy.
Them or Padme'. There was never any question that I would always choose her.
While my conviction in that regard has changed very little in the ensuing ten years, my consideration of my actions that fateful night has changed, especially in these last few weeks. I have since tumbled from that proverbial lofty peak I'd perched myself upon and I am still falling. I try not to think about what awaits me when I finally hit bottom. The fall itself has been excruciating enough.
I am besieged by such shame and guilt and regret over what I've done that I feel physically ill with it. I know that Obi-Wan must sense the shift in me, the differences that he cannot reconcile, the darkness that he cannot justify. I can feel him observing me with quiet speculation, probing the edges of our tenuous Force bond though I am careful to keep myself shielded from him. I know that he's confused by my caginess, but he doesn't press me about it. I don't suspect that will be the case for long.
Since this morning, he has been growing progressively more concerned over my behavior, albeit in his quiet, introspective Obi-Wan Kenobi way, most especially after we appeared before the Council together. I'm sure that it hadn't escaped his notice that I'd been unable to look a single Master in the eye during our debriefing that morning. However, he may have attributed my behavior to my typical obstinance when dealing with the Jedi High Council.
For that, I am grateful even while I fear the explanation will not hold. When that happens, he will certainly press me for answers I cannot give him. He had no way of knowing that the true reason I couldn't meet those masters' eyes had little to do with disdain and everything to do with that knowledge that, whether directly or indirectly, I had been responsible for the deaths of nearly every person present in that room.
My gut twists sickeningly with the brutal reminder.
Unsurprisingly, however, my silent agony had not gone unnoticed by Grandmaster Yoda. But then, he had always been more perceptive than the others though this often made him emotionally inaccessible, as most Jedi tended to be. Still, he could be counted on to, at least, acknowledge a person's inner turmoil even if he ultimately did little to relieve it.
"Padawan Skywalker," he'd grunted after his usual series of hems and haws that were intended to convey that he was thinking deeply about a matter, "troubled you seem. Something to share with this council you wish?"
The comment had made me jump slightly, not because I thought he sensed what I was keeping so carefully hidden but because he hadn't asked the question in that first timeline. The deviation from script had left me unnerved. I was quick to recover, however, and dismissed his concern.
"Not at all, Master Yoda." Unfortunately, I hadn't sounded very convincing to my own ears when I made the reply, so I wasn't entirely surprised when Yoda expelled a dubious grunt in response to it.
"Much conflict I sense in you, young one. Guarded, you are."
Didn't he always sense conflict? How is that new?
Thankfully, I had been mindful enough to keep that scathing thought to myself in the moment. Instead, I had told him that I was troubled to learn of the attempt on Senator Amidala's life and that was the disquietude he sensed in me. It was a plausible excuse and hadn't entirely been a lie either. I was well aware of how distraught Padmé had been in the aftermath of that assassination attempt and her guilt over Corde's death, though she had done a fine job of concealing her distress behind a mask of brave stoicism at the time.
There is a very large part of me that wants to be with her right now, to take her in my arms and comfort her, to allay her fears. While I am very aware of how all of this will eventually end, for this Padmé in this time this is all just the beginning of something more sinister and the threat remains nameless and nebulous for her.
Her sense of security has been shattered. She needs reassurance and answers. I'm simply not certain anymore if those things should come from me…not when I've proven myself so very unworthy of her and her love.
And so, in sharp contrast to the near vibrating anticipation I had felt that first time when the Council had handed Obi-Wan and I this assignment, I now saw an opportunity to alter events in some small way to keep our courses from colliding at all this time around. I also saw a chance to pave a way for me to get off of Coruscant. It was for that reason that I suggested to Yoda that perhaps another Jedi should serve as protector to Senator Amidala, one who did not already have the added responsibility of a young padawan. I even went so far as to recommend Master Windu as an alternative for the assignment, though it had galled me utterly.
However, I told myself that I was being practical. Mace Windu was strong in the Force. He was the only master on the Council who had even come close to defeating Sidious. And he would have too had I not foolishly intervened. Not even Yoda had been able to accomplish that. Windu would serve as a capable and effective protector for my wife. Besides that, I had neither the time nor the patience to go through the motions of pretending that I didn't already know the identity of Padme's would-be assassin. There was my mother to save and Sidious to deal with.
And that was partly true. Mostly, however, I'd made my suggestion purely out of cowardice. The thought of facing Padme' again after what I had done absolutely paralyzed me.
Of course, the response from the Council in the wake of my recommendation had been mildly dubious, most especially had I'd incurred incredulous stares from both Obi-Wan and Windu. Even Master Yoda had been shocked into momentary silence by my rare show of pragmatism. However, I hadn't cared that my inexplicable reversal on wanting more responsibility had likely served to heighten their suspicion and mistrust of me. I was determined to get to my mother and protect Padmé, even if that meant protecting her from myself.
Finally, after a lengthy pause, Yoda had said, "Share your concern, I do, young Skywalker. But request you and Master Kenobi for this mission specifically the Chancellor has." My distaste at learning that Palpatine had orchestrated the assignment (though I cannot imagine why I was surprised to discover this) must have been evident on my face because Yoda had added almost in speculation, "To accept this mission, reluctant you. Unforeseen this is. Very curious indeed."
I could feel him probing me then, much the way Obi-Wan had been probing me all morning and, in Yoda's case, he wasn't nearly as subtle. Nor was he deterred by the resistance I put in his path. Wisely, rather than prolonging the argument and risking the canny master infiltrating my defenses (and because I was more than eager to conclude the encounter altogether), I had deferred to the Council with exaggerated humility.
"Not at all, Master Yoda. Whatever the Council requires, I will do."
To his credit, Obi-Wan managed to restrain himself from commenting on the exchange at all until we were well outside of the temple walls. He waited until we were firmly ensconced in a speeder, zipping neatly through the heavy traffic towards the Senate complex before he finally broached what had clearly been nagging at him since that morning. I'd resisted the impulse to heave a tired sigh when he started to speak.
"I must say, Anakin," he had remarked with deceptive nonchalance, "I'm rather astonished by this newfound show of obedience in you. It's quite remarkable."
By sheer strength of will I had held myself back from snarling at him. "You do realize that people can change?"
His eyebrows had practically shot up to his hairline with that reply. "Oh. And you've changed, is that it?"
"It's not an impossibility, you know! I am capable of change!" The doubt I had sensed in him niggled me for more reasons than I cared to admit. He, of course, had denied the unspoken charge.
"I don't doubt that you're capable of change, my young padawan," had been his smooth, soothing reply, "I'm merely marveling over the speed with which the unprecedented transformation has come about."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Only two nights past you were sneaking from the temple to gamble on illegal races in the Coruscant lower levels. That is hardly a show of docile obedience and yet, it appears you've undergone quite the conversion since then. What could have possibly triggered such a marvelous turnaround?"
Time traveling back into your 19-year-old body had ways of changing a man. Wisely though, I'd bitten back the retort and mumbled instead, "Maybe I just want to be better."
I knew that he was only teasing me, hoping to coax me out of the brooding mood I had settled into just as he often did, but he couldn't understand that this wasn't some typical, teenaged mood swing. I was figuratively buckling under the weight of my own transgressions, drowning in guilt and shame, feeling utterly impotent even after accomplishing so great a feat as turning back time. Because, despite that initial success, I still had no idea how I was going to change anything or even if I truly could.
Furthermore, in the litany of my numerous sins, the loss of Padmé and our unborn child remain the greatest of all my regrets, the reason I hate myself the most. That self-hatred had fueled me and strengthened my connection to the dark side for a decade, but it had also destroyed me in inches. I could not see her again. I cannot.
In the years that have passed, my abiding love for her has never waned. If anything, my devotion to her has only intensified since her death as has my realization that I am wholly undeserving of her love. I never was. And if there is one gift that I can bestow to my beloved angel after everything I've taken, it is that she is never subjected to the futility of loving me. She certainly deserves better.
Truthfully, that could be said about anyone who has ever been misguided enough to put faith in me at all…the Jedi High Council, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, even my own clone troopers. I had failed and betrayed every single one of them in one way or another, Padmé most especially. That is the very reason that my determination to reach back into the past had very little to do with my own redemption.
Beyond clearing the stain from my beloved mother's name, I care very little about restoring honor for myself personally. What I want now…what I need is to restore to those I love what I had so cruelly stolen from them. That…and to make Sidious pay with his blood. Beyond those two singular goals, nothing else matters to me.
I certainly couldn't explain any of that to Obi-Wan and so, rather than elaborating further on my statement about wanting to be better, I had simply retreated into silence once again. We had continued the remainder of our journey to Padmé's penthouse apartment in tense, uncomfortable silence. But I should have known that Obi-Wan wouldn't let the matter drop, especially with the way he kept stealing secret glances at me when he thought I was preoccupied with driving.
"I'm not on edge," I grumble finally in response to his earlier remark, readjusting my cloak with what I hope is an unaffected air.
He smirks at me. "Aren't you?" he challenges, "I haven't seen you this tense since we fell into that nest of gundarks."
"There was no 'we,'" I scoff testily, "You fell into that nightmare, and I rescued you in typical fashion!" I can vaguely recall saying something similar to him the first time around too, mostly because we've had this same circular argument in one form or another more than once over the course of our relationship. I'm slightly irritated by how effortlessly I fall back into the same pointless banter with him, as if there isn't a sea of reproach between us.
"Ah, yes…" he murmurs, seemingly oblivious to my growing annoyance, "I remember that now." He appraises me with a playful, sideways grin but when I don't return it, his expression quickly turns solemn. "I don't understand you, Anakin," he says, and I can easily detect the exasperation in his tone, "Your mood baffles me entirely. I had imagined you would be quite enthused about this mission!"
"Someone tried to assassinate her!" I bite back tersely, "What about that situation calls for enthusiasm?"
He has the grace to appear chastened, but the look on his face as he surveys me remains pensive. I try not to wither under his dissecting stare. "Of course," he murmurs, "That was unfortunate. However, I meant that you would be enthused over the prospect of seeing her again."
I don't bother feigning ignorance at his implication that I'm in love with Padmé. Besides, I have never hidden that truth from him. Ever.
"Aren't you the one constantly lecturing me to be mindful of my feelings?"
"And aren't you the one who has never made a single attempt to restrain them?" he counters softly.
The pointed reply disarms me, leaves me emotionally vulnerable and exposed. I don't like the feeling. "Does it matter? You know very well how I feel about her…what it means to me to see her again. I won't deny that."
"No. You're not denying it," he agrees, "But I sense that you are trying to suppress how you feel, among other things, and that is unlike you. I should like to know the reason."
"It's been ten years. I'm not that boy she met on Tatooine."
That boy died in the fires of Mustafar after he had murdered her and their unborn child in a jealous rage. I'm not sure who has been left in his place now. Not Darth Vader, Sidious's pathetic pet but no longer am I Anakin Skywalker either. That is yet another thing I must figure out.
Obi-Wan stares at me for a long moment, as if he can discern my thoughts through the Force despite the mental shields I've erected. "Yes," he murmurs after a beat of silence, "I can see that you have changed." He regards me with another scrutinizing look as if he is trying to discern the exact nature of that change, as if he senses the remnants of Vader lurking beneath my carefully constructed facade. I can feel him probing again and I stubbornly reinforce my shields against him.
He must feel and that fact clearly alarms him because he quickly asks me, "Anakin, has something happened?"
I school my features into an inscrutable mask. "I don't know what you mean."
"You know very well. You've never been particularly easy to read but you're more guarded than usual. Why?"
Anger is the easiest defense to fall back on and so I do. I'm familiar with navigating that one. It's almost second nature to me by now. "Is it so wrong that I would want to keep certain things to myself? You're not entitled to know everything I think and feel!"
"Of course not, but…if something is troubling you, I want you to know that you can talk to me, Anakin…about anything."
A snort of disbelieving laughter threatens to escape my lips and I compress them tightly to keep it at bay. It is a few seconds before I can trust myself to speak again and, when I do, the rage is controlled but vibrating beneath my every word.
"I'm fine, Master," I reply, deliberate in my use of the honorific though it feels foreign on my tongue, "There's nothing troubling me at all."
"You're quite certain?"
"Quite!" I emphasize through clenched teeth, "I'm fine. Stop fussing over me!"
The corners of his mouth turn up in a forlorn smile. "Easier said than done, my young Padawan."
Abruptly, my anger deflates out of me with his mild reply, and I feel incredibly tired in the aftermath, physically and emotionally. "It's nothing," I tell him again, "You're right. I am anxious to see her again. That's all. It wasn't fair to take that out on you."
Cheerfulness returns to his smile though I notice this time that it doesn't quite light his eyes. "Relax. There is no reason at all to be anxious." As the elevator finally slows to a crawl, he adds, "We are all old friends, remember? Besides, I think it will be good to see her again, don't you?"
Unfortunately, I am still internally debating my answer to his question when the doors finally slide open.