Selfless
Anakin, I've come to train your son.
Obi-Wan Kenobi stepped into the cool, shaded interior of the house. He could sense the tension in Beru and Owen Lars, but they made the attempt to be gracious, offered him something to drink and a stool to sit on.
"Luke's in his room," Owen grunted. "Sent him there for a tantrum. That boy has his father's temper."
That's what I thought, too. For so many years: Anakin, control your temper.
"How old is he now?" Obi-Wan asked. Not that he didn't know, just that he could think of nothing else to say.
Beru called for the boy.
"Three," Owen said. "He speaks well, though. We've made sure of that. My father taught me young just the same."
We always accept what came before, pass it on. Jedi, too, even without fathers and without children. Never questioning. Never challenging.
Except you.
A small boy in a white tunic shuffled into the room. The Force flowed around him like a stick in a stream, barely disturbed and him unaware. That would change today.
And yet Obi-Wan hesitated.
"May I speak to the boy in private?" he asked.
Beru nodded immediately, but Owen wavered. The war in his expression was clear, his unease apparent in ripples.
When Obi-Wan had first brought an infant Luke to the Lars farm, Owen had shown him the grave markers: one for his father, one for a sister, his birth mother, and his step-mother. It was the last that gave him pause.
"He did what thirty men couldn't," Owen recounted, eyes on the grave and voice hushed in something more than reverence. "And his eyes."
Nothing more needed to be said. Obi-Wan knew what Owen had seen in those eyes.
Passion. It was forbidden to a Jedi. Strong emotion was not the way of the Light, but rather a calm detachment, the undisturbed grove from which to observe the world and see objectively as others could not.
Or so it was taught.
Anakin, you were never calm. You were never detached.
And when I looked into your burning eyes on Mustafar and said I'd failed you, I had no idea.
I still had no idea.
"Behave," Owen said at last, waiting until Luke nodded obediently. Then, to Obi-Wan: "I'll check back in a while."
Beru squeezed her husband's hand as they exited, a small gesture almost hidden. Years ago, Obi-Wan would not have noticed. There was so much he had not noticed.
Even less he'd understood.
In the silence, Luke fidgeted, scraping his small bare toes on the floor, shooting curious glances at Obi-Wan. It was not the first time they'd met, but the boy was still so young, it was hard to know what he remembered. His blue eyes were red-rimmed with the evidence of recent tears.
Obi-Wan tensed. His instinct was to ignore, to find the calm within and teach Luke to do the same—quickly—so the evidences of passion would be removed.
It was what he'd done with another blue-eyed boy, all those years ago.
When I said I'd failed you, Anakin, I was right. But the hatred in your eyes only increased at the confession. I had failed to make you a Jedi, to smother the roaring furnace inside you that consumed the good.
But that wasn't my true failing, was it?
I'm listening now, Anakin.
I'm listening too late.
"Come here, young one," Obi-Wan said gently, patting the stool beside him.
Luke frowned, an expression familiar from a different face.
Anakin had always scowled to be called young, to be reminded of what he was lacking when he was always lacking so much.
From the Jedi's point of view.
"Luke," Obi-Wan corrected, swallowing.
The boy shuffled forward and climbed onto the stool, seating himself with his legs dangling. It was eerie to see this younger, smaller echo of a boy so familiar. Obi-Wan found it difficult to look directly at him, but he required himself to all the same.
He meant to speak of the Force.
Instead, he said, "You seem upset, Luke."
Your thoughts betray you, Anakin.
Luke sniffed. He wiped a small hand across his nose, shrugging.
"Perhaps we might come to a solution." Obi-Wan leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. "Tell me the matter."
It was a command. Always a command.
Luke shook his head.
"I'm fine," the boy murmured, clearly a lie to avoid another lecture or punishment.
Obi-Wan winced.
You cried so much in those first days as my apprentice. Grief at losing your mother, losing Qui-Gon. And I had my own sorrows to bury, sorrows I was not permitted to feel.
A Jedi does not succumb to passions.
With every rebuke, you fell more in line. Or so I thought. I never imagined the tears still existed outside my view.
I never imagined all that existed outside my view.
Palpatine was unafraid of your passions, and by embracing your sorrows, he also had the opportunity to encourage your fears.
I didn't know how, Anakin. I didn't know. I was raised in the cold and calm from birth, surrounded by the traditions and taught to never challenge.
And even with you right in front of me, screaming to be heard—
All I wanted was the quiet.
Peacemakers, they called us. Selfless.
But before the clone army, there was the Jedi.
And we had no selves to give.
Except you.
"I had a friend," Obi-Wan whispered, breaking the silence, "long ago. Can I tell you about him?"
Luke's bright eyes sparkled with curiosity. With life.
"He cared very much about everything. We were meant to follow orders together, and I only cared about the orders, but he cared about strangers along the way. He cared if the orders were right. He cared if they would hurt people, if there was a better way. He cared about me."
"What's his name?" Luke piped up.
"The people who truly loved him called him 'Ani.' I think that was the name he liked best."
Luke frowned deeply, processing. "Is Ani gone?"
Obi-Wan swallowed hard. Something deep inside burned, an ember in the constant cold.
"Yes," he whispered. "Ani is gone."
Luke reached out to pat his arm, a blue-eyed Skywalker caring about a stranger.
"My mother and father are gone," the boy confided. "I never even met them. Not once." He took a deep breath. "Uncle Owen says it's good, but it doesn't feel good."
Oh, Anakin. It should be you in this seat.
"There are many ideas in the universe," Obi-Wan said, "about what's good and evil."
I failed you. Not because I couldn't force you into the frozen mold of a Jedi, but because when I told you, Trust your feelings, Anakin—
"Trust your feelings, Luke. They will lead you to the truth."
—I never meant it.
Obi-Wan's eyes burned.
I wanted you to trust the Jedi, trust the Order, trust the Tradition. As I did, as we all did. And when you trusted yourself, as we professed you should, we punished you for it.
I punished you for it.
I'm sorry, Anakin.
"Uncle Owen won't let me have a speeder," Luke confessed, wiping his nose again. "I saw one in Anchorhead. It floated and everything! It's orange, and I love it."
As a Jedi training a future Jedi, Obi-Wan should have spoken about the importance of detachment from material possessions. He should have taught that Jedi do not seek for anything but connection to the Force.
But in his mind, he saw another blue-eyed boy grinning over speeders and space freighters; he saw a boy who sat next to him in a dozen different cockpits, hands sure on the controls, ready to try things no one else would dare.
And succeeding.
Before Anakin ever failed, before he fell, he succeeded. His passion won negotiations, stopped assassinations. It saved lives.
It created lives.
If you were here, Anakin, would you teach your son to be a Jedi?
Hesitantly, Obi-Wan reached out to touch the boy's hair, and it was a different set of curious blue eyes he saw staring back.
"I hope you get a speeder one day," he said, voice cracking. "I hope you have dreams, and you accomplish them. I hope you care about people and clones and droids, even if others tell you not to, even if it seems pointless to care."
I failed you, Anakin. If I fail him, it will not be in the same way. I will not train him to suppress his passions; I will not train him to fall in line.
I will let him show his tears.
I will let him experience the world, the good and the bad.
I will tell him what I believe his father would have told him if only given the chance.
And when the time comes, I will let him choose.
Even if he chooses the dark.
"Luke, I hope you learn to love and hate, and in the end, you choose the love."
Obi-Wan ruffled the boy's hair and squeezed his shoulder. He stood.
"Mister Kenobi"—Luke hopped off his stool, caught the hem of Obi-Wan's tunic—"you're crying."
And Obi-Wan managed a smile. "Because I care."
It will never be a Jedi that saves this galaxy, unless it's one like you. One full of dreams and passions.
A Skywalker.