Notes: Many thanks to mithrissa, for her kind, encouraging PM finally kicked me off my lazy butt so I could write. I'd just been waiting for a bunny to come to me, but with her words, I decided to actively hunt one down. Worked pretty well, I think.
2: To Be in This Moment
"Can we eat at home tonight? May we? Huh?"
Obi-Wan looked down at the little boy at his side, walking quickly to keep up, sometimes skipping for a step or two. Sometimes he tried to remind the brand-new Padawan to walk two steps behind and to the side, to move with dignity and calm, but it never quite seemed to sink in. And it wasn't really important, just for a casual walk through the Temple. The young master offered a small smile, amused despite himself.
"Tired of the food in the refectory already? I hope you aren't under any illusions that my cooking is better. It isn't."
Anakin shook his head. "No, I'm not tired of the food . . ."
He didn't elaborate, but Obi-Wan thought he understood. Anakin was tired of the sheer size of the dining hall, tired of the constant struggle to find a place to sit, to make conversation with young initiates and Padawans who already had established friendships. He was tired of all the looks, curiosity or skepticism or awe or some hidden emotion, the countless eyes aimed at the sandy-haired boy from Tatooine, the maverick master's final project, the apprentice of the first knight to kill a Sith in a millennium, the child who carried so many rumors with him wherever he went that it seemed a miracle that the young shoulders weren't bowed and hunched beneath the invisible burden.
"So could we eat in our quarters tonight?" Anakin asked again, interrupting himself. He looked up at Obi-Wan, and oh, the bright blue eyes were so very hopeful.
"Certainly," the older Jedi replied, and was a bit surprised to hear the gentleness in his voice. "We'll just stop by stores and pick up something I can make with a relatively large probability of success."
"I can help!" Anakin grinned, skipping again. "I helped Mom cook all the time."
Obi-Wan shook his head gently, but did not rebuke his apprentice. In time Anakin would build new memories of his life here on Coruscant, grow new connections with the Jedi who were now his family, his home. Eventually these constant references to his old life would fade and vanish, and the master would finally know that his young charge had found his place. Obi-Wan was willing to wait. If nothing else, this little learner certainly was teaching him patience.
They chose a simple meal, in the end—grilled sandwiches with seasoned tuber wedges, fior beans on the side, and pre-made snowberry cakes for dessert. A couple of the sandwiches were too black on one side and too light on the other, but the tuber wedges were excellent, Anakin having shaken them in the seasoning mixture with such vigor that Obi-Wan had to stand on his tip-toes to clean reddish spatters off the ceiling. Anakin just giggled and jumped off the counter, holding the spatula like a small, stiff flag, and the master couldn't help but grin.
It had been a long time since he had grinned. Truly grinned, with teeth showing and heart full, not merely smiled, with lips closed and mind distant. The first was an expression of the moment—the second still lived in the past.
It was good to be in the moment. It was a good moment.
At last they sat at the table, Anakin chomping his food with the ravenous delight of all growing boys, Obi-Wan eating with a bit more deliberation, but no less pleasure.
"Eat your vegetables, Padawan," he said, and shook his head when the boy made a face and turned those bright blue eyes to plead for clemency. "Don't try that innocent look with me. I'll bet it never worked on your mother. Fior beans are very good." He took a large bite in demonstration. "Mmm. Yummy."
Anakin's little face twisted in doubt. "Yeah, right. Don't try that 'mmm, yummy' face on me. I'll bet it never worked for your master."
Obi-Wan grinned again, and came as close to laughing as he had for what had to be countless ages. The laugh didn't quite come out, though—it stirred in his chest, then settled back when his eye fell on the window. For a moment he watched the familiar air traffic streaming by, the soft red light of sunset gleaming off shining metal.
Without meaning to, his mind slipped back to other quiet dinners eaten at this table. Obi-Wan was nearly always tired during those—eating here instead of in the refectory usually meant that they had just returned from another stressful mission, or Obi-Wan had simply dragged himself back here after an exhausting training session and couldn't find the energy to leave. A time or two Obi-Wan had even fallen asleep with his head on the table, and woke in his own bed, the covers tucked carefully around his shoulders. The peace and comfort of those wakings was enough to overcome his embarrassment at dozing off over his meal, though each time he vowed that he would never do it again.
Obi-Wan tried not to remember, he truly did. He knew that it was selfish, that he owed his attention to the boy who occupied his here and now. Anakin deserved a master who lived in the moment, not one who was constantly slipping off into his own mind. It wasn't fair of Obi-Wan to absent himself like this. With a painful wrench, he dragged his eyes back to the little boy who sat across the table, studying him with a curious solemnity, still chewing his last bite of sandwich.
"Are you sad?" Anakin asked.
Obi-Wan blinked, and could not answer. He had no way to put this into words, to explain that it wasn't so much sorrow as it was absence. He wasn't sure that words even existed.
Once, when Obi-Wan had still been an initiate, he had been alarmed to realize that one of his front teeth was wobbling, that he could move it with his fingers. He had shown it to his friends, who assured him that this was normal, though he didn't quite believe them. Garen, in an attempt to be helpful, reached over, grabbed the tooth, and pulled it out with one sharp jerk. Obi-Wan had stared at the little piece of white bone on his friend's palm, the pale flush of red at the root, and fought a strange swirl of nausea.
It wasn't the sharp pain that had shocked him so much as the sudden sense of something being missing. That little thing in Garen's hand had been a part of him, and now it was gone. He explored the gap with his tongue, tasting the thick, salty rush of blood, and fought the urge to yell at Garen to put it back, to restore his mouth to the way it ought to be. Even then, he knew that that could not happen. In one, blistered moment of surprise, he had been irrevocably changed.
This was the same, but infinitely worse. Instead of receiving a larger, stronger tooth in exchange for a small, blunt one, he was trying to replace his immensely strong, always-there master with this open-faced, sparkly-eyed child of the desert. It just didn't fit. But it was what he was supposed to do, wasn't it?
"You look sad," Anakin went on, nervously filling the silence. "Your eyes got all far-away and dark, like my mom's used to sometimes when she was looking at me, and I knew she was thinking that I would always be a slave, always stuck on Tatooine working so that other sentients could make money. But you don't have to be sad for me—I'm gonna be a Jedi now, because of you. Because Master Qui-Gon made it happen . . . ."
He paused, then tilted his head, as if the new perspective would help him understand his still-silent master. "Are you sad because of Master Qui-Gon?"
"I'm sorry, Anakin," Obi-Wan choked out after another aching moment of strained silence. "I'm not sad, not really. I just . . ."
The child nodded in grave understanding, popping another wedge into his mouth, his short legs swinging under the table. "You miss him. I miss my mom, you know."
"I know," Obi-Wan said softly, and fell silent.
No, replacing one with the other would never work. It didn't fit at all. They would have to make something new between them, just as Anakin would have to make a new life here. It hadn't been going all that well, so far. But they had time.
After all, each moment was followed by another one.
And all were brimming with possibility.
"It's all right," Anakin said. He lifted a fior bean on his utensil and looked at it skeptically, then stuck it into his mouth. His face opened in obvious surprise. "Hey! Fior beans are good!"
And at last, the laughter that had stirred in Obi-Wan's chest found its way out of his mouth, with a sweetness and ease and shocked and pleased him. "I told you. And we still have snowberry cakes."
Anakin grinned, and kicked his legs a little harder.
The moment was very good indeed.