Here's a Siri/Obi viggie. Not sure what to call it… angst. It's in the Jedi Purges. Enjoy.
Summary: Siri cannot end the torment which is residing in her soul since her apprentice's death. Suicide is the only way out… until Obi-Wan meets her, and everything ends in a drastic struggle that is nothing what it seems.
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Only Demons Walk Alone
Only demons walk alone.
Anakin Skywalker is the only demon I know. I don't define demons as being made purely of darkness. Those beings are the Sith, or another word I'm not to inclined to say. Demons are beings that battle the darkness, that battle for the light. Even from light years away, I know Anakin isn't entirely gone. I know better than that. I won't hold him to that standard, to that world. He's a demon. Obi-Wan doesn't call him that, but I know it's what he thinks: Anakin isn't too far gone to be save, but he isn't the one to save him.
Obi-Wan. My dear, sweet Obi-Wan. The young ones, the initiates and young apprentices, mock him. They sneer at his name and share a look of loathing with their friends. They call him the downfall of the Jedi, the one who ruined the Order. He trained the bad one. He trained the forsaken one. He trained Darth Vader. He's as bad as Vader, the dark one.
Whenever I hear the words uttered in the same breath, I turn and snap at them. They are young, I understand, but no one should ever think that. Their Master, too, tell them not to say the words. They tell their apprentices that Obi-Wan Kenobi is a respected Master in the Order, one of the most talented and dedicated Knights to ever grace the Jedi Temple.
But they never tell them that they're wrong.
The Masters are beginning to believe the false truths. The younger ones, mostly, the ones that took Padawans just to teach the skills that are needed to survive. They are losing faith in the Order, in the Force. They blame Obi-Wan. Everyone needs someone to blame, right?
The Jedi Order is falling apart.
When the Temple fell, we lost many. We lost the great warriors, the older Jedi. Mace Windu. Kit Fisto. Luminara Unduli. My own Master, Adi. My apprentice, Ferus.
That wound alone sent me on a suicidal rampage on our first safe planet, someplace on the Outer Rim. It's been so long since that day that I've forgotten. It's a minor detail, nothing more. I remember the big things that happened that day. Two weeks after the Temple fell, we arrived on the cliffy planet. A day after that we hiked up to the mountains to seek refuge, to seek shelter from those who still believed in the Republic. They gave us their home, their camp. We would leave in a week or so, when our presence treathened the kind people who gave us their home. A day after that I hiked to a high cliff that overlooked a ravine.
I was going to jump. Ferus was dead. The Jedi were being hunted for a bounty, the honor turned into a scar along that back that marked us for death. I might as well be dead. There was no reason to live. The Code had no meaning.
There is no death.
Ferus was dead.
I was going to jump.
Obi-Wan followed me to the cliff. I don't know why. He had probably sensed my mood, my distress. He took my wrist. Held on firmly. Pulled me to his chest. Put his arms around me. And let me cry. He let me wallow in my self-pity and grief. I told him of my anger for Vader, for everything, of the burning hole inside me that seemed to have no end. I told him the Code lied.
Ferus was dead. There was death.
I told him the emotions that raced across my mind, although he probably felt them in my tears. The self-pity. The grief. The anger. The lost of faith. The red that burned in my eyes whenever I thought of Vader. The guilt.
He was my apprentice. My charge, my responsibility. So many years ago, when I had first taken him as my Padawan, I made an everlasting vow to protect him, to place his life before mine at all costs. To keep him alive. I was supposed to watch him to Knighthood, to stand at his side and cut his braid, and proclaim him a Knight ready to serve the Republic.
My responsibility, my charge. My job to keep him alive.
I wasn't supposed to let him die.
Obi-Wan let me lose control and sob on his shoulder for hours, let me scream my rage to the sky for only him to hear. He wiped my tears with a tenderness I wasn't used to seeing from him and comforted me with warm words and firm hugs. He let the world collapse around me and then built it up again by himself.
I told him my loneliness. No one would talk to me. The Masters had their own guilt, their own grief. I couldn't burden them with my lost apprentice, my Ferus. Many had lost their own. I couldn't lay it on their shoulder, which all ready carried the weight of the world. He looked at me sadly, then told me something I will never forget, for as long or short as I live.
"No one deserves to walk alone, Siri. No one needs that. I'm here, Siri. Let me walk with you, okay? I'll walk wherever you need."
I don't think he meant it literally, honestly, but I stood up and began to walk down the cliff. He followed me, his face grim and resolute. I started down the cliff on a ledge, Obi-Wan a moment behind me. It was a steep cliff, slick from the monsoons that took the planet, but we made our way tediously down. Step by step. Slowly.
When we reached the bottom, we crossed the chasm, not too quickly. We took our time over the small river along a log and up another trail to the cliff opposite the one we had just come down. It was terrible going, and Obi-Wan nearly plunged off the cliff as we traveled up it. I spun around and grabbed his shirt just in time. When we reached the top, it was twilight, and the sun cast a brilliant array of colors over the horizon.
Obi-Wan smiled at me. "Guess we walked the path, huh?"
Silently, I turned and started down the path we had taken. I went about it quickly, nearly slipping once or twice. I wanted to run, but I knew that would be terrible. I'd fall, break my neck. Kill myself. Do what I had set out to do in the first place. Cease to exist in the spindles of the galaxy and seem as if my name had never been made.
We reached the bottom of the ravine and ran. I sprinted over the log above the river and towards the other cliff. Obi-Wan chased me, his breath hard. I grasped a rock of the cliff and pulled myself up, wanting to run but knowing I couldn't. I began to walk quickly up the path, Obi-Wan a step behind me. I went at it savagely, feeling the air escape my lungs rapidly.
I didn't care.
We climbed to the top of the cliff, to the point I had been about to throw myself off of. I began to run again, this time at a sprint so fast I felt as if I was slipping forward. Obi-Wan raced after me, not so fast, just fast enough to keep me in sight. I circled our camp and went once more towards the cliff. When I reached the edge I turned and started back around. I rounded the camp again and once again came upon the cliff.
I stopped. Peered over the edge. Sat down heavily.
And once again cried.
I left it on the path we had gone along. All the emotions, the feelings, the sense of failure, the lost of faith… I left it in the footprints of my feet. I laid everything I had down, leaving a part of me on the ground I never wanted back. I shed the rage and hurt, emerging as something different, yet the same. I was still Siri, still a Jedi Knight.
I was no longer a Master. I left the title there, too. My title went with Ferus to the Force. I deserved it, yes. I didn't want it, no. I left that on the path, too.
Void of anything, I sat down. Obi-Wan came to a skidding halt and panted, hands on his knees. I looked up at him numbly in the dim light. It was the dead of night, with the only shine coming from the brilliant stars and twin moons. Sweat drenched his tunic, his hair was plastered to his head. I supposed I looked no worst, no better.
I smiled at him sadly as he sat down. He looked calm, as if nothing had happened at all. It amazed me. I had left a part of my soul on the run, and he had gained an extra mile. I couldn't understand it. How could something affect me to the point of breaking down, and not even send a flicker of difference in his eyes?
"Why didn't you leave it there?" I asked.
He looked at me, the weight of a giant mounting on his shoulders and rearing its head. He laughed. "What I have I can't leave behind, Siri." He stood up, stretched, and began to walk back to camp without another word. I watched him for a second, then followed. I would not let him leave without giving him back what he had given me.
I caught him. "You can walk with me, Obi-Wan. I'm not scared."
He smiled a smile that seemed stranded somewhere between rage and sorrow. His eyes were so pain stricken I wanted to look away, but I held his jaded cerulean gaze. I would not look away. I would not be the lesser one. "My path is a lonely one, Siri," he said. "I walk it alone."
He tried to get away again, but I caught his arm and looked at him, furious despite my tiredness. "No. You told me no one deserves to walk alone. Let me walk with you. I'm here, okay?"
He smiled that smile again. "I do, Siri. I deserve every ounce of it."
"You're being dramatic," I said, finally looking away.
Suddenly his arms snaked out and grabbed my shoulders. I can't say I was afraid, because I knew Obi-Wan would never hurt me, but I was… disturbed. His eyes were frightening, the pain and rage in them seeming to tilt out of the content of his eyes and spilling onto me, showering me with his emotions. I had to look away, I couldn't hold that gaze and not feel the emotions I had just shed rustle and try to return to me.
"I trained him, Siri," his voice nothing more than a rough whisper. "I trained him and failed. I deserve to die. I deserve to walk in life alone. Just leave me be. You can't look and me and say you don't hate me for my failure. You can't look at me and say I didn't play a part in Ferus' death, because I'm just as responsible as Anakin was. I failed. I trained him. Let me be."
He let go and started away, his walk that of a haggard old man. I watched him, stunned, my pain threatening to rise up against me and slam through the barrier I had created. I had left the pain, but it wanted me back. I looked behind me, almost expecting to see Ferus standing there. My dear apprentice.
I chased him, spun Obi-Wan around, and slapped him. It wasn't hard, but it was firm. Anger replaced the pained look, and I saw his hand clench. "You lied to me, Kenobi. You told me no one was supposed to walk alone. You lied. You believe in the Code. You don't lie. So walk with me."
He regarded me wryly. "So you believe in the Code again?"
It was I who clenched my fist this time. "I only wavered, Kenobi. I'm back now." I shot a glance down the road we had come, saw my ghosts threaten to rise, and looked away. "I'm back now."
"Nice for you, Siri. I'm glad I helped."
I wanted to slap him again, to send some sense into that fouled head of his. "Only demons deserve to walk alone, Obi-Wan!"
He laughed then, sending waves of rage down my spin. "Very poetic, Siri, and it's true. I'm a demon, so hey. You're right."
I let him walk away this time. I clenched my fist, turned my eyes downward, and closed the lids.
I would never reach him.
He's so stubborn, Obi-Wan Kenobi. He lets nothing in. I will always and forever love him, but I will never be able to help him. The only thing that could heal his soul would be Anakin turning back, his darkness falling away to reveal the light he had once basked in, the goodness in his soul.
Maybe Vader will take the light back one day, but I won't live to see it. This I know. I'm not meant to. This is for Obi-Wan's eyes, not mine. I didn't love Anakin like he did. If he does turn, I wouldn't want to see it.
I hate Vader, I'm not ashamed to admit it. He turned my Obi-Wan into a shell of a man that lets nothing in and only goodness out. He takes nothing in return for the generosity he gives. He wouldn't if he could. He isn't bitter, not yet, but I can see the lines starting in his eyes and the roughness that is starting to edge his voice.
He doesn't deserve to walk alone.
Only demons deserve that.