The hours crept by agonizingly slow.
It had been two days.
Two days since his last trek to the Lars homestead to get a glimpse of young Luke, two days since the unexpected appearance of the man that, for the past three years, had been dead to him.
Two days since the galaxy turned upside down.
For Obi-Wan Kenobi, it had been the longest two days of his entire life.
Standing in the rough doorway to the small, dusty room that served as his bedroom, he bit his lip, eyeing the sleeping form draped across the flimsy sleeping pallet under a thin blanket that Obi-Wan had picked up during one of his supply runs into Mos Eisiley over the years.
This was, as his old Master had been fond of saying, quite a peculiar situation.
Master, why do you not speak to me? Obi-Wan sent the thought out into the Force, desperate for guidance, for advice, for someone to talk this over with.
But, as he had been ever since Anakin's arrival, Qui-Gon was silent.
Suspiciously so.
Obi-Wan had a feeling that his Master was purposely ignoring his calls, so that he would have to deal with this sudden turn of events on his own, and it wouldn't make a difference how many times he called for him.
Death had not made Qui-Gon Jinn any less stubborn.
And with his former Master refusing to be of any assistance, Obi-Wan had found himself helplessly sitting about his small hovel, patiently- and nervously- waiting for Anakin to regain consciousness.
It had taken him several minutes to shake off the utter shock of seeing his former apprentice, the man who had been both his son and brother and then his betrayer, stumble across the sand to collapse at his feet. So many emotions had risen up inside of him then, overwhelming and overpowering...
He had immediately begun to shout for Qui-Gon.
After a while of silence, it had become clear that his Master was not going to answer this time, and Obi-Wan had finally forced himself to look back down at the face of the unconscious man at his feet.
And he had sunk down into the sand beside his Padawan, weeping.
All at once, he'd felt like a Padawan again, lost and confused, in need of someone to guide him, someone to tell him what the kriff he was supposed to do.
Never had he felt so overcome with simultaneous grief, hope, fear and anxiety.
When Anakin did not awaken as he shook the younger man's shoulder, Obi-Wan had been alarmed to realize the younger man was entirely too warm, his skin was flushed and hot to the touch, and his eyes had been rolled up in the back of his head.
Shock, most likely, given the circumstances.
A tentative probe with the Force had indicated that, while he was clearly in psychological distress, there didn't seem to be any physically wrong with Anakin over than exhaustion and a few broken bones, and some damage to his prosthetic limbs.
But after two days of drifting in and out of half-lucid consciousness, Anakin still had not come around, and Obi-Wan was growing concerned. The boy was feverish and, if the incoherent murmurs escaping his lips during his restless sleep were any indication, delirious, as well.
Clearly, something drastic had happened to send Anakin into such a state of disarray.
Much less to send him crawling back to Obi-Wan's side.
"I hate you!"
Even now, he could not forget the look on Anakin's face that day, the wild fury, the burning hatred that gave his eyes an unnatural glow, the malice twisting his lips into a snarl.
At that moment, Anakin had hated him, wholly and completely, every failure and injury between them over the fourteen years they'd shared surfacing with an emotional storm that could not be contained. Anakin would have killed him then, had the Force been less kind, and he would have done so without so much as a blink of the eye.
He had not been in the right state of mind on Mufustar, the psychotic madness that had overtaken him had been the work of a master dejarik player, carefully planned and plotted over the span of a decade.
Palpatine had done quite the number on the boy.
And yet, here they were.
Three years since the burning of the Temple, since the onslaught of the Purges, since the galaxy had turned on its side and father and son, brothers in all but blood, drew arms against one another.
The Jedi were all but extinct, only a handful of them had survived and those who had were in hiding, constantly fearing for their lives. The Republic had fallen and a terrible Empire had risen in its place, and the galaxy suffered under the Sith's rule.
And Obi-Wan had gone into exile, full of shame, bearing in his heart the price of his failure.
Never had he expected to look upon his old Padawan again, lest it be the moment before his execution. He had been certain that the Force would keep him hidden, that Anakin would never find him here on Tatooine.
The one place Anakin had vowed to never return to.
Yet somehow Anakin had known where to find him, and the younger man had sought him out, apparently not to kill him but to seek his help.
Appearances could be deceiving, however.
After all, this was still the man who had betrayed the Order, who'd turned his back on years of friendship and brotherhood, who had ushered in an era of darkness when he was supposed to be a herald of the light.
Anakin Skywalker had been a Jedi, and a great Jedi at that.
But Darth Vader was a Sith, a mantle willing chosen and well-earned.
Which man was it that had stumbled to Obi-Wan's doorstep in such a state, who now rested in his bed?
Obi-Wan didn't know, and that worried him.
The man he'd carried into his home two days prior looked like Anakin Skywalker, the eyes were clear again, his presence free of shadow, but then again the dark side was a powerful foe, there was no limit to its treachery.
Was the darkness tricking him now?
Letting him see what he wanted to see, giving him false hope, only to lead him into a fatal trap?
The Anakin he knew, the boy he'd raised and trained and spent years fighting alongside, wasn't particularly fond of tricks, he preferred direct confrontation, open warfare and head-on battles. He had the mental shrewdness, not to mention the cunning nature, to set such a trap, but he'd seldom chosen to go that route.
But a lot had happened in three years time.
Anakin had changed, he was not the boy that Obi-Wan remembered.
Obi-Wan wasn't the man he'd been then, either.
Still, he liked to think that he could still read his former Padawan, that the bond between them had not been completely shattered by the events leading up to Mufustar.
He wanted to believe that Anakin had come here of his own free will, for no ulterior motive or purpose, simply because he needed help and knew that if anyone could- and would- help him, it would be the man who had dedicated a good half of his life to the boy's care and happiness.
It would kill him if it was all just a ploy, just another betrayal in an attempt to end his life, but he could not deny the likelihood of such a thing.
And then there was the nagging question of how Anakin had found him.
What if he'd discovered Luke's existence? What if it had not been Obi-Wan that led the young Jedi turned Sith back to Tatooine, but rather the luminescent presence of his three year old son?
Wouldn't Anakin have gone for Luke first, to ensure his son did not slip from his grasp?
Or, by some wondrous miracle of the Force, did Anakin still remain oblivious to the fact that his unborn child- his unborn children- had not perished with their mother that dreadful day on Polis Massa?
There was no way of knowing the answers to any of these questions until Anakin regained consciousness, and Obi-Wan was not in any hurry for that to happen.
Still... there was no mistaking the desperation in Anakin's eyes when he fell before him in the sand.
If the boy's plea for help, gasped just before he collapsed, was indeed sincere, then what might have driven him to such a dramatic reversal, what had caused him to crumble into the broken wretch of a man that had crawled across the sand like a dying bantha?
Anakin had awoken once the first night, wild-eyed and panicked, clearly terrified, but a soothing brush with the Force had eased him back into slumber, and he had not woken again that night, despite the evident turmoil in his sleep.
What has Palpatine done to you? Obi-Wan wondered, unable to smother out the sadness and pity that rose within him as he gazed at the still form sprawled across the sleeping pallet.
No matter what evils he had committed, Anakin was still the boy he'd raised, and Obi-Wan still loved him.
The real question, then, was whether or not he could trust this second chance, this seeming miracle from the Force.
Turning away from the sleeping quarters, Obi-Wan let the curtain affixed to hang from the doorway fall back down into place, effectively separating him from his sleeping Padawan-enemy.
Moving back out into the large room that served as both kitchen, living area and work space, all divided by square, stone pillars and whitewash walls, he slowly lowered himself down onto the cushioned bench, his knees creaking in protest.
Age caught up with a man much quicker on Tatooine than it did on Coruscant.
"What know you of old, hmmm?"
Despite himself, Obi-Wan almost smiled at the memory of Yoda, able to imagine the diminutive Jedi Master there in front of him, gimmer stick ready to tap him in the shin in reprimand.
The almost-smile quickly became a deep frown, however.
He should contact Yoda.
The former Grand Master of the Jedi Order might have some insight into the situation, and he certainly should be notified that Darth Vader, the Sith Lord who had brought the Order to its knees and continued to hunt the surviving Jedi, had ended up on his doorstep.
Even without the mask that Vader usually wore, Yoda would still see Vader.
"The boy you trained, gone he is."
Again, Obi-Wan glanced back toward the bedroom, eyes boring through the curtain, seeing the sleeping form of his former Padawan in his mind's eye.
"Master, help me..."
The subspace transmitter, safely hidden for use only in an emergency, taunted him.
He should contact Yoda, this was precisely the kind of matter that the wizened Jedi Master had requested Bail Organa equip them both with transmitters for in the first place.
It was the right thing to do, after all.
His duty.
"Duty and rules and regulations... that's all that matters to you, Obi-Wan. What about people? What about me?"
Obi-Wan sighed.
Anakin had been right that day on Grejiia so long ago, he did put his duty first, even above his own Padawan. In his heart, Anakin had always been the most important thing in the galaxy, but in practice... well, as Siri Tachi had once commented, he was always the model Jedi.
Siri, though, she had been anything but- a Jedi cut from her own mold, much like Anakin.
He knew what Siri would have done in his place, and he suspected he knew what Qui-Gon might have done, as well.
The only thing he didn't know was what Obi-Wan Kenobi would do.
And so he sat, watching the curtain behind which a Jedi turned Sith, friend turned enemy, son turned betrayer, drifted in unconsciousness.
Obi-Wan waited.
But for what he wasn't sure; for Anakin to awaken, for the Force to offer some mystical guidance, for Qui-Gon to break his silence and simply speak to him?
Perhaps all of those things, and perhaps none.
Perhaps he was simply waiting for something, anything, to change.
Because change was coming, he could feel it in his bones, in the air around him and the earth beneath his feet. The Force was tingling, ready to move, ready to shift, ready to act.
Anakin's arrival would have a profound affect on the galaxy, that much he was certain of.
Not even the Force knew how far-reaching those affects might be, to what extent the galaxy, and maybe even the Force itself, would change before the end.
As always, Anakin was the shatterpoint, the center piece on the dejarik board.
What role the Force had in mind for him in the coming days, Obi-Wan was not sure, but he knew, as he'd known deep in his heart from the very moment he first shook hands with the boy on Queen Amidala's spaceship as they left Tatooine, that his fate was intimately and forever intertwined with that of Anakin Skywalker.
Are we to kill or be killed, Anakin? Obi-Wan wondered grimly, his heart aching with so many bittersweet regrets and old pains.
Was that why the Force had brought them together?
So that they could have a rematch of their tragic, fated duel on Mufustar? So Sith and Jedi could battle unto the end, where one or both fell at the other's blade?
Was that the meaning of balance? No Jedi and no Sith?
Or was there some far greater, and infinitely more kind, plan at work here?
Only time would tell, once Anakin awoke.
And so Obi-Wan sat quietly, trying to meditate, reaching for a center of inner balance that he had not achieved in many years, not since Mufustar, not since the onslaught of the Purges and Order 66, not since he'd learned the terrible truth that his Padawan had not died defending the Temple but rather helped bring it to the ground.
And he waited.