Anakin was surprised when his old Master walked into the anteroom of his little prison cell, tired
and hesitant. Quiet stilled over the prison cell, causing even the hum of the energy field surrounding Anakin to fade away. A palpable essence, the result of everything they had done and said in their lifetime together, stood between them, aiding in the chasm that had cracked under their feet. For a long while they gazed at each other; Obi-Wan's face masked in a film of calm resolve, while Anakin could feel his jaw work tightly.
He wished Ben had come in. The younger man could snap his nerves but there was not the
emotional weight that sagged Anakin's shoulders now.
He knew what had prompted Obi-Wan's arrival. Bail's ship had jumped into hyperspace not too
long ago and it only made sense that the Jedi would try to bring 'their' Chosen One back to his
senses.
"This won't hold me forever," he stated, unable to stand the breach. He should either be fighting on Obi-Wan's side or against him, he could not live in this stalemate. "My Master will come for me."
A startled jerk was Obi-Wan's only response at the honorific that had once only been for him.
"Possibly."
"We have a connection. He'll find me and the Jedi will tremble," Anakin probed, remind his
iformer/i Master that they were no longer bound.. He had not been able to feel Palpatine's dark presence for some time. Not since he'd felt a surge of it surrounding his supposed grandson, but he knew it must be there.
"Ben has taken care of that," Obi-Wan explained. Silence permeated the space around them, the
chasm separating them. "Is Palpatine really any better then I?" came his old Master's sorrowful
question.
"We're moving," he stated, ignoring the pain in Obi-Wan's voice and the words that questioned him to admit a truth he could not yet comprehend.
"We are," Obi-Wan nodded, allowing the dodge, his eyes roving over the spartan furnishments in
Anakin's cell. "Are you comfortable?"
Snorting, Anakin folded his arms in front of him. "So concerned for my welfare. Where was that concern when our lightsabers were locked?" His plan to fake his redemption had seemed to fall through the cracks of they abyss opened up between he and the man who raised him.
"You choose that path," Obi-Wan said after a struggled breath. "It wasn't what I wanted."
"Yet it was you who came to me," Anakin reminded sharply, his ice-chipped eyes boring into Obi-Wan's azure pair.
His old mentor did not flinch, he never did. "I had to try to bring you back."
"But there is no try, Master. There's only do. What did you do? You attacked me. Not the best
way to bring someone to the light, I'd wager," Anakin hissed coming as close as he could without
burning his skin on the energy shield. A sly smile curled his boyish features. "You hate me now, don't you?" That caused Obi-Wan to wince, his penetrating gaze wavering from Anakin's. "Must be disturbing with all that Jedi goodness inside of you. That you hate the boy you made."
A struggle warred over the bearded features, a struggle another might have missed. But not Anakin. He knew his Master's weaknesses, could see the hidden emotions boiling inside of him. The struggle ceased and Obi-Wan's gaze was once again the facade of a Jedi. "I don't hate you, Anakin. I hate what you've become, but I can't hate you."
"Careful, Obi-Wan. It is unwise to hide from your true feelings," Anakin said snidely, a nagging
sensation building at the base of his stomach.
"Which isn't to say that I'm not blazing angry with you," Obi-Wan said in reply, his tone going cold with the strength of his emotion. "You turned your saber on me, you have killed people that I held as family and destroyed what was good and pure inside of yourself."
"And you remain innocent in this, I suppose?" Anakin growled.
Obi-Wan blinked at the question, the shook his head. "No, I'm not blameless. I admit I made
mistakes with you, Anakin. Perhaps I was too hard, too soft at times, but I did my best." He
swallowed, pain thundering on his features before blowing away like a summer storm. "If I caused you pain, know that it was done in the belief that it was for your own good. But this..." and his hands waved to the cell Anakin was imprisoned in. "This, I won't take blame for. You know what is right. You made a choice and you will be held accountable for it."
"You planning on killing me, my old Master?" Anakin asked, keeping the mocking tone to his voice. Fear, always fear, it swam through his veins, pumped as blood. It was his life force, his constant companion. Fear was all he knew. He had to become fear to dominate it. "I won't go easily."
"Your death would do little good for the galaxy, Anakin," Obi-Wan said quietly, his voice strained with repressed emotion. "But there are worse things then death. Something that you still have yet to learn."
"The galaxy must always come first," Anakin quipped wryly. "For the great noble Jedi."
A sadness, deeper then anything Anakin had ever seen on his former Master, lined Obi-Wan's face. "I wish I could bring you peace."
Anakin closed his eyes, denying the rise of the weakness inside himself. He had loved Obi-Wan;
as father, brother, and mentor. It was so easy to fall back into that pattern of listening to this man, of seeking his approval. He could not allow the return of that love to make him vulnerable. "You speak of an impossible absolution."
"I don't speak of absolution. You cannot erase what you have done, Anakin. You cannot erase the past. I speak of forgiveness. I would have forgiven you anything, I would have given you anything. Except the darkside." Obi-Wan smiled, a strange twinkle lighting his otherwise abysmal eyes. "That was then. I've changed. Even the Jedi must change. Now, even knowing what you've become, I can only offer you forgiveness. Redemption, is something you'll have to find on your own."
He walked out then, as quickly as he'd come in, leaving Anakin with his own thoughts. Were Obi-Wan's words more tricks? He'd once trusted in every word Obi-Wan had uttered. Of course, it had not meant that he had adhered to it, but he had always believed those words had contained some measure of truth. His doubt to their importance in his life, had always been the dividing line between Jedi adages and himself. What need did a former slave have for forgiveness, for pushing aside his anger at injustice?
iOf course he would offer me words of hope. He could not afford to tell me the truth. That he'd rather see the Sith Lord dead/i Anakin told himself, now pacing his tiny cell. iHe never
understood me. He wasn't there when the life wafted out of my mother, he didn't see her murderers going on about their lives as though they had little to do with her demise. It's his fault that I slaughtered them, his fault that I've become this heartless Sith./i
'This, I won't take blame for. You know what is right. You made a choice and you will be held
accountable for it.' Obi-Wan had said.
Anakin shivered, falling onto his bunk and bringing the covers around him. iSpace is cold/i
Padme had once told him as a child. He thought he'd become immune to the cold, until it was a part of him. Isn't that what it meant to be a Sith, immune to the weakness of pain. Of its own accord, his mechanical hand rose to his face. He flexed the fingers of the mechanized hand, it could take a number of hits, could be shot at, and the pain was only minimal. He needed to be like the droids he'd once cobbled together in the darkness of his Temple quarters. He needed to be cold.
hr
"Distracted you are," Yoda said at his sided, poking Ben's calf with his gimmer sick.
Ben shrugged glancing down at the aged Master that would have, will have, taught his father. "Obi-Wan's talking with Anakin," he explained looking out the corridor window to where Anakin's cell was. Stretching out, he could feel the tempestuous emotions brewing in that tiny cell. He feared that both souls would be blown away in the strength of unseen winds.
He had come back in time to instigate the change in his grandfather and the Jedi, but now could find little footing in his path ahead. It was these times, with his father's sense so close yet irrefutably changed, that he wished for the guiding had of Luke Skywalker, the Jedi Master. Or perhaps the sharp wit of his mother. He missed them all at that moment, his Aunt Leia and Uncle Han; Jaina, Jag, and their little baby; Jacen and Danni, Tahiri. He had never known Anakin Solo.
All of that could change, though he doubted he would be a part of their lives, he could watch on from the Force, waiting for his father and mother to mature, watching while they struggled, perhaps even falling in love yet again. Aunt Leia and Uncle Han arguing about something completely intangible to everyone around them; their children, his cousins, would get a chance at life. The Yuuzhan Vong would come regardless of what he did, but perhaps his sacrifice would bring a different life to those who'd come before him.
"Can you see them Master Yoda? In the future? Can you see what will be?" Ben asked,
remembering his father's stories of his short but intense training period. Perhaps Master Yoda could see what Ben hoped for in his heart.
"Know you do unsettled the future is," Master Yoda answered after a brief moment of reflection.
"No more can you do today, young one."
Ben nodded, feeling his shoulders slump. He closed his eyes, focusing on keeping the poison at bay. Sometimes he felt so cold inside, the Vong venom stealing all warmth from him. Not even the Force could rekindle the banked flame that once burned in him.
"Rest you need, long have you traveled," Yoda said gravely.
"I fear to lay myself down," Ben admitted, his instincts forcing him to tell Master Yoda the truth.
Heavy green eyes watched him. "Fear what do you?"
"The dark," he whispered. "To close my eyes and be forever blind to what will be. I fear to die and leave unresolved that which the Force set me to do." He shook his head, wanting to feel the fire inside of him once again. Instead of the maw of emptiness in his belly. "I'm not my father. You don't know him, but you will. He was, will be, strong. He'll face whatever will come at him and he will not falter. He believed in goodness and light, he drew it out of people, showed their light hidden under shadow."
"Strong your connection to him was," Yoda ventured. "Empty his absence has left you."
"I was the last," Ben said forlornly. He straightened his shoulders, forcing himself to show some
measure of self-decorum. "I am the last. The last of what was but will not be again."
Hobbling off, Master Yoda said, "Come. Come, hold off the darkness I will. Sleep for a time, until your training we begin."
Sighing, Ben knew better then to argue with the Jedi Master. He followed Yoda into once of the
cabins. Shrugging out of his vest, he tugged at his boots before stretching out on the bunk. A three-clawed hand touched his forehead as she closed his eyes, attempting to settle his racing mind. He felt Master Yoda's essence bump against his own and he created the tiniest chink in his impenetrable shields to allow the diminutive Master in.
"Damaged you are. Heal young Skywalker, Heal."