Author's Note: So, I read the wiki… a lot… like I love wikis. I seriously do. I'm addicted to the wiki and trivia and generally indulging my obsessive tendencies (can tendencies still be the right word? I don't know) Anyway. There is a character in the expanded universe, Siri Tachi, from a book(?) that I have not read but she gets some mentions here. Sorry if I f it up.
Conversation II: An Open Heart
Anakin was two steps back from the doorway, hands twitching at his side and shoulders tense when Obi-Wan opened the door to his quarters on the Star Cruiser.
"I thought you'd come by," Obi-Wan said nonchalant. "Come on in." Anakin remained standing in the hallway, frowning and searching his old master's unreadable face with his eyes. Then he relented and entered the small sparse cabin. Obi-Wan closed and locked the door before returning to his seat at the small table bolted to the wall. He picked up the comm that was lying there and flicked it on. The holographic image of Satine Kryze appeared looking patient and questioning.
"Apologies, my dear, it's Anakin," Obi-Wan told her.
The former Duchess nodded and said, "I'm sure you have lot's to talk about." She cut the transmission and her transparent blue figure disappeared. Obi-Wan dropped the comm device and leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh. Anakin remained standing in the middle of the room awkwardly, still tense and his hands fisting and releasing nervously.
"Are you going to sit down or are we going to have this conversation standing. I don't know about you but I'm exhausted." Obi-Wan rubbed a hand over his face. "This damn war just never seems to end. It would be nice to at least feel like we're making progress for a change."
"How long have you known?" Anakin cut right to the chase and Obi-Wan couldn't blame him. Hours ago they had been in a messy spot, caught between a rock and a hard place. It didn't help that Anakin was too worked up and head strong to be of any help. So Obi-Wan had done the one thing he thought might snap his former apprentice into form. He'd bodily dragged Anakin off the bridge and hissed in his ear, "Calm down! What would your wife say if she could see you now? For her sake, pull yourself together!" And thirty seconds later Anakin had come up with a daring and reckless but ultimately successful plan that got their badly damaged cruiser, her crew, and the crew of their escort to safety. Now though, the battle done and the danger passed, Obi-Wan had to deal with the aftermath of revealing his knowledge of Anakin and Padme's secret marriage.
"Since we deployed."
"Three weeks? You've known for the better part of a month and said nothing, not to me or the council or… anyone?"
"No. I haven't even told Satine but I'm fairly sure she knows."
"Why?"
"Why haven't I told Satine? I didn't think it was my place."
"Master."
"Why didn't I tell the Council?" Obi-Wan hesitated before answering his own question. "I didn't think it was the right thing to do."
"For who?"
"Take your pick," Obi-Wan made an all-encompassing gesture. "You've been married for more than two years and I only suspected you were having an infrequent affair so clearly it's not harming your performance as a Jedi. Turning you in would only cause a scandal in the Order and we don't need that. Getting you taken out of the war would be bad for morale and bad for the Republic."
"You make it sound so easy."
"Oh, it wasn't," Obi-Wan said bitterly. "You broke my trust, the trust of the Council and your vows to the Republic."
"I have never broken any vow, not to Padme and not to the Republic."
"You vowed to obey the Council, for better or for worse." Obi-Wan shot back.
"As if you've never disobeyed the Council when you thought they were wrong."
Obi-Wan swallowed, that he couldn't deny. The cabin became eerily silent as each man looked at the floor, lost in his own thoughts. Obi-Wan's drifted back to Satine, perhaps his greatest and most blatant defiance of the Council.
"Thank you, Master." Anakin's voice made Obi-Wan look up. The younger man met his eyes briefly then turned his gaze back to the floor, "for not turning me in."
"Just don't let it be your undoing."
"Master?"
"Love is a powerful emotion. The Council has it's reasons for forbidding attachment. Love leads us to fear of loss and anger because of loss, natural emotions all of them, but they can lead to the dark side. Qui-Gon tried to explain that to me years ago, but I wasn't ready to listen then."
Anakin slowly sat on the edge of Obi-Wan's bunk, hands clasped between his knees. "Master Qui-Gon?"
"Yes. He…" Obi-Wan swallowed visibly. "You remember Master Siri Tachi." It wasn't a question. Anakin just nodded and remained silent. At the time of Siri's death he had wondered if there had been more of a relationship between his master and the blonde Jedi.
"When Siri and I were young, still Padewans, we fell in love." Anakin's brow furrowed but he didn't interrupt his master as he continued, "Qui-Gon and Yoda spoke to us then, urged us to put aside our feeling and warned us of where it might lead. I… I had seen Qui-Gon after Master Tahl's death… you would not have recognized him."
Anakin was silent, trying to picture the man he remembered from his childhood, the embodiment of the Jedi Order and virtues falling to the Dark Side.
"Do you understand what I'm saying, Anakin?"
The younger man looked down at his hands and turned them over as he frowned. Obi-Wan held back a sigh and waited patiently. Finally Anakin shook his head.
"I don't believe you, Master."
"You don't believe that love can lead you to the Dark Side?"
"No, I don't believe you truly loved her." If Anakin has been looking, he would have seen how the words hit Obi-Wan, like a physical blow. His face froze, breath caught in his chest as he fought with a sudden irrational surge of anger. Anakin was just still shaking his head. Obi-Wan had his face under control again by the time Anakin lifted his and continued, "If you did then why not kill him, that bounty hunter scum? You could have? Instead you just turned him over like he was another common criminal."
"Magus was punished for his crimes," Obi-Wan said mechanically.
"You see. How can you say you loved her and then sit here and tell me you didn't want to slit his throat?" Anakin demanded.
"Enough!" Obi-Wan's hand smacked painfully on the table and the loud noise echoed in the enclosed metal room. He stood up and paced across the room, arms folded. "I did want to kill him and you're right, I could have, but unlike you, Anakin, I think of people other than myself! I loved Siri and I don't give a shebs be hut'uun what you think. I didn't kill that waste of breath because if I had I would no longer be the man she loved." Obi-Wan ground his teeth and gripped his arms, fighting the heat of anger and old pain in his chest. His voice thick and breaking he asked, "What kind of legacy would that be? She dedicated her life to the Code, just as I have. To make her legacy my fall from the light… that would kill her twice." Obi-Wan shook his head, eyes glistening. Those words he'd told himself after her death but never said aloud hung heavy in the air of the small metal room.
"Obi-Wan—" Anakin, rose from the bed, hand outstretched but he was cut off.
"Get out!" Obi-Wan didn't look at his student to see him flinch but said more kindly, "leave, please, before I say something I will regret."
"Yes, Master," Anakin said softly as he walked toward the door, pausing in the open frame he glanced over his shoulder worriedly at the figure inside, standing facing the gray wall, shoulders hunched and head hanging. "I'm sorry, Master," Anakin said for what it was worth. The door closed and Obi-Wan was alone with his grief.
He breathed deeply of the stagnant metallic tasting air of the cruiser. Obi-Wan ran a hand over his face and looked up at the close ceiling, eyes focused far away. He remembered Siri, her bright smile and vitality. He knew she had lived a full life of duty and honor and died with no regrets just as he had no regrets. Before he'd learned of Anakin's marriage he'd never wondered what might have been between them, accepting whole heartedly that he had made the right choices.
Obi-Wan sat back in his chair at the small desk and stroked his bearded chin in thought. Anakin made him examine new possibilities. Maybe a Jedi could have attachments that did not hinder their commitment, perhaps attachments that even helped them. Could Jedi love with open hearts and deal with their grief openly instead of hiding it away behind denials of their natural feelings? Could it be so wrong to want to be connected to the world and the living Force? Didn't the Jedi use their connections to people and the world, their compassion to draw on the Force?
Obi-Wan shook his head. He picked up the hollo comm on the table and turned it on. Moments later Satine appeared, looking curious. Seeing his face she frowned.
"It would seem your conversation with Anakin did not go very well."
"No," Obi-Wan said, not bothering to keep the exhaustion of the already taxing day and strong emotions out of his voice.
"Do you want to talk about it," She asked, moving in the hollo to a chair and sitting patiently.
"No." He answered honestly, perhaps another time. Eventually he would have to tell her… about Siri… about Qui-Gon… about Anakin and Padme… but not then. "I'd rather hear about your meeting with the Chancellor."
"It was as unproductive as the last one."
"Tell me anyway, I need something else to think about."
Satine smiled understandingly in the Hollo and nodded. Obi-Wan leaned in to listen and let his anger at Anakin, his grief for Siri and his nagging questions fall away for a while. He just listened to Satine talk and plan, her soft voice undulating and soothing even as she ranted. After the day he'd had, it was a welcome escape.
Author's Note: shebs be hut'uun means a coward's ass in Mandalorian (Mando'a). Coward is about the worst insult Mandalorians have (they don't seem to care much who your parents were) and I'm assuming Obi-Wan picked up some colorful words from the Clones. (Some elite clones were trained by Mandalorians and elements of their culture filtered down through the ranks (at least among the Kaminonan Clones.).) TLDR; it's cursing.