A/N: Special thanks to DS2010 for your lovely reviews. Here is an extra-long chapter . Also, thanks to everyone for your amazing support of this story. Every follow, favorite, and review is much appreciated.
Hope everyone enjoys reading. Things are getting exciting now, lots of drama coming!
Also, spoiler warning for Kenobi. It's an adapted scene, but still pretty reminiscent.
/
Chapter Five: Reflections of You
I drew a deep breath. "Explain," I said finally, my voice measured. "How did we get here?"
I wasn't sure exactly when all this had become a 'we' but no one contradicted me.
Anakin started it off. "Well, I don't know if you remember, but at the peace parade, I met the chancellor. I guess that's when it all started. He said… He said he would be ' watching my career with great interest'."
A sixty- something year old man saying he'd be watching a young boy with 'great interest'. Well, that wasn't creepy at all. Just, I managed to hold my tongue. "All right. And then what?"
"Well, nothing much. Nothing that gave an impression anyways. Sometimes, when we'd go to the Senate, Palpatine would come up and say hello. Ask how Anakin was doing. But frankly I didn't think much of it."
'You didn't think much of it?' I thought, wanting very badly to exchange heated words with my august former Master. "Okay," I enunciated. "And how did he get to the point of recommending he be given time alone, unattended, with Anakin?"
"It was all rather sudden," said Qui-Gon.
"Yeah," Anakin jumped back in. "After we got back from the Vrin X mission—well." He bit his lip, gaze flitting from his master's.
"Anakin and I had a bit of an argument," Qui-Gon stated. "I happened to mention it to the Chancellor when I was reporting on the mission. That was when he offered to speak to Anakin."
The troublesome pupil. The grandfatherly politician offering his influence. His aid. No doubt, this was the picture that Palpatine wanted to paint.
But the canvas did not suit in any way.
"I see," I said. And it was true. I saw more, even, then they probably wanted me to see. Anakin and Qui-Gon rarely argued. So rarely. So far as I know, which admittedly wasn't everything, their master and Padawanship had been going quite well; Qui-Gon was like a father figure to Anakin, who revered him in turn. Their personalities were compatible. Their views on the force seemed similar.
However, I had a pretty good idea about what the argument may have stemmed from. That wasn't my business though.
"Then what happened?"
"I thanked him, but said that I believed I could handle things just fine."
Well, he'd shown sense there. Some measure of my faith was restored. "And then what?" I had to ask. Clearly, that hadn't been the end of it.
"… Then, he threatened me."
"What?!" Anakin yelped. "You didn't tell me that!"
"Be at peace, Anakin. I was about to tell you when Obi Wan came."
Somehow, I got the sense that this was one of his selective truths. I couldn't criticize. Though I doubted he had intended to tell his young apprentice this portion, I asked, "Threatened you?" the better to get us back on topic.
Division among us would only serve one. The one I refused to serve in anyway.
"He didn't threaten in so many words," Qui-Gon said. "It was more implicit, when he mentioned that the Jedi operate under the supervision of the Senate."
Understanding flooded through me. "So, he threatened to force your hand."
"Not in so many words. But yes, that was the impression I got."
Anakin swore under his breath. "That's a lot more ominous than I thought," he uttered finally.
I worked over my words. "Yes," I said. "I would say so. The question is what we will do about it."
"What can we do? He's the Chancellor." Already, Anakin sounded defeated.
I arched a withering eyebrow. "Oh, there is a great deal that we can do."
"OK, firstly: wow. That's a little intense. Second, I get what Palpatine said was bad. Wrong. But… would it be so bad if I agreed to meet with him?"
"Yes." My voice had lowered an octave. Thunder gathered in my heart, crackling through the force. Gossamer thoughts flitted at the edge of my mind, just out of reach.
I could only think: 'No, no, no. Palpatine with Anakin? No.'
"Why? It's not like anything absolutely terrible's gonna happen."
I almost smiled at his naïveté. He had been a slave, but perhaps his mother had done a better job of protecting him than I'd thought. Well, it wasn't my job to tell him. That fell to his master. If we were thinking the same thing, that was.
Though in truth I couldn't be certain what exactly I thought about all this.
I exchanged a glance with Qui-Gon, whose own countenance was grim. "Anakin," he began. "It is rather disturbing that Palpatine would ask for time alone with you like this, you, a young man. An… attractive young man –"
The boy laughed. "Oh, you don't think – you don't think he's trying to kriff me, do you?"
I felt myself flush. Well, at least that part didn't need to be explained. While I took some solace in that, I had no idea what to say next, especially when the laughter died on his lips and his eyes bulged.
"Oh, Maker," Anakin whispered, paling. He took a step back. For most, it would've been a very small gesture. For such a composed young man, however, it might as well have been a scream. "That is. That is what you think."
My expression showed nothing, I knew. Nor did my surface emotions hint at any fraction of the turmoil raging inside me. "We cannot be certain," I said. "There are a number of possibilities." While sexual advantage taking seemed one of the most obvious, I doubted Palpatine—a wise, strategic man—should go for such a move, because of that very obviousness. Political things, taking power over the Jedi… there were numerous possibilities I would go over in time.
But for now, I felt it far safer to move forward with that assumption. Given my intuition never failed me when it came so strongly—so Ben-like, as I'd started calling it—I knew I must listen. The why didn't matter, just the what.
And the what was indigestible.
Anakin shook his head. His voice cracked as he said, "But you think so. Both of you."
"I don't know, Padawan. All I know is that… whole matter unsettles me."
"Yeah," he muttered. "Well, that's really nice for you."
I blinked. Anakin was never so disrespectful towards Qui-Gon. Though no doubt this whole thing put him under great strain.
"What'll we do, then? Huh? He's the Chancellor. He can order us if we refuse, can't he? What can we do?" The boy's voice shook, and I was reminded that for all his burgeoning height and rapid facial maturity that was what he was.
Just a boy.
Palpatine was sick, whatever he wanted. And I intended to find out his exact purpose. But only after I made certain Anakin was safe, protected, and well.
I spoke before Qui-Gon could. "We will do what we must."
OOO
Dear Ben,
There has been a… development. Chancellor Palpatine, who you already know I wouldn't trust with a ten-foot pole, has suddenly started requesting to meet with Anakin. I say 'request', but really he has demanded it. Threatened to use whatever means he must to get it.
Needless to say, such does not sit well with me. Qui-Gon and I are operating on the assumption that the man is a lecher after the handsome child. This wouldn't be such a shock in the Senate. Politicians get away with far worse than molesting young boys. Chancellors do.
But I must tell you, and maybe you only, that I am not so certain. Qui-Gon doesn't seem entirely so either, but cannot come up with any other good reason. And what can I, for my part, tell him? That my feelings point me to another direction also—
But one that leads to the dreams of someone else's life that I have, and the person to whom I write in my journal to separate out my thoughts and feelings? I doubt that would go too well, even with Qui-Gon.
Truthfully, I'm not even sure what I would tell him. I still have no explanation myself.
Something stirs in the Force, something dark. I cannot pinpoint it precisely. But the darkness surrounds the Chancellor, all of his office, and indeed, much of the Senate. With every year it seems to grow thicker. It began after the Naboo crisis, with the return of the Sith.
None of it sits well with me. Palpatine's threats and attempts toward Anakin Skywalker. The Senate strife and darkness. The Sith. I can't help but feel that these things are all intertwined, but I struggle to search out the thread to pull that will unravel this elaborate tapestry.
Guide me, if you would, Ben.
It feels silly to ask you—I mean, I just went to Qui-Gon's to ask if you're a real actual person I am dreaming of, or a person who was—but I know of no better method. I feel that you have answered before.
It's funny. Everyone thinks I'm this ultra-wise youngster. A rising star in the Order. Someone actually called me that the other day.
Only four years ago, I would have all but killed for these labels. These laudings. But now, I just want clarity. The Force grows darker each day. No amount of serenity or peace seems to pierce that veil.
And piercing that veil holds the answers we all need, I know. Even the answers to the questions we don't know we need to ask.
Perhaps especially those.
Please help, Ben. I think… I think you may be my only hope.
~ Obi-Wan
OOO
That night, I dreamed. Dreamed more completely and fully about Ben than I had before. He'd answered my pleading.
After, I wished he hadn't. Because I remembered. Remembered all of it, all of its details and depths, and darkness.
OOO
"Leia! Go!" I tell her urgently.
"No, Ben!" argues the little girl, that fervent light in her eyes so reminiscent of that Someone Else from so long ago. "I won't go without it you!"
"Of course not," I soothe. "You don't have to. Just get the ship started. I'll be there soon, once I take care of the Inquisitor."
Though my half-truths are rusty, this is a child. She has her limits of perception. "O-okay," she says, voice trembling a little. "I'll see you there."
"Yes," I agree, unsure whether or not I'm lying. "Now go."
And she does.
And the Huntress comes, her voice echoing around the cargo room in its soft sibilance. "Obi-Wan…"
The near-foreign name slices through the air with all its memories and pains.
"Obi-Wan… I can feel you… your fear…"
I shut my eyes. 'Thump' goes my heart. 'Thump, thump, thump.' I should attack, I know. Go on the defensive.
But it's never been my way. Even less so now.
"You don't have to be so scared," says the Huntress. "You aren't going to die." But she forgets to lower her voice enough when she adds, "Today."
I shudder. It's not death I fear. She's misinterpreted. It's for Leia, and for Luke. Without me there to protect the boy—if Leia doesn't get away—
"Lord Vader will be pleased."
—I jar, my thoughts thundering to a stop. Vader.
Vader.
—Vader?
No.
It can't be.
"Oh," she says, gentle as a mother soothing her injured child. "You didn't know… you thought you'd killed him? I'm so sorry, no. He's alive, Obi-Wan. Your apprentice lives.
"And he has been looking for you for a long time. He'll be pleased to… reunite with you."
The moonlight slants through the clouds and floods down through panes of the ceiling, shining onto the crates, behind some of which I cower. The Huntress's footsteps 'clack clack clack' along on the tile floors. Her dark presence chokes me. Yet nothing can compare with the shocks of fright, unbelief, and utter terror roaring through me now like a typhoon.
When I catch his reflection in the silvery crate, I almost cry out. Nearly give myself away. But… as I move, so does he. The face is older, lined, and far more haggard. I haven't looked in a mirror in oh, going on seven years. But, I realize, it is my face. Not anyone else's.
Mine.
Obi-Wan Kenobi's.
What must Vader's face look like now, after what I did to him? What he survived?
Oh, Force. It can't be true. It can't.
Anakin, I cry out in my mind, the word a sob.
OOO
A/N:
Let me know your thoughts! Will Obi-Wan make the connection between Anakin and Vader? Go on obliviously? What will happen with Palpy now that they're all committed to resisting?
I don't think I'll be able to update tomorrow, sorry. :( But hopefully Friday will be clear.
See you at the next chapter,
Rivkah
