Title: Tangled web, chapter 5
Author: Hyyp chick
Pairing: Obi-wan/Anakin
Rating: R
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns everything
Summary: Anakin's Dark side makes an encore, and Yoda dishes out the pearls of wisdom.

"Anakin stop!"

Padme wailed, sobbing under the shimmering brilliance of his blade, petrified by what he might do to her. His weight on top of her was oppressively restrictive, like it never had been when she'd begged for him to sit astride her. Her weeping was hysterical, and frightened as she was she couldn't prevent the pitiful squeaks from escaping her.

Anakin's right hand remained steady, clutching the 'saber inches from her neck. His left hand smoothed salaciously over the satin nightdress that adorned her, following the curvature of her delicate and fragile body. He tugged at the material to free it from under his knees but instead the thin restraint just tore away from her skin.

Padme cried out as she felt the gown tear but this only served to increase the proximity of the lightsaber to her throat and she stifled her terror.

Unprotected from the slight cloth as her body now was, Anakin ran his hand over her curves once again.

"Anakin, please"

Padme begged desperately, wishing he would just let that hot azure sword swipe through her rather than force her to stomach such a violation. And by him.

She loved him.

He snaked his defiling fingers back up her torso over her trembling skin and wrapped them possessively around her neck and jaw, lifting her head as if to kiss her.

Padme closed her eyes. She didn't want to see his assault; she could feel it sickeningly weave through her veins with every tainted touch. Then she felt his weight shift and he was dragging her up from the bed with a firm, almost suffocating grip on her neck. She hit the back of her head as he slammed her against the nearest wall. Lightsaber still ignited, he now stood its length away from her. His hollow debased laugh echoing around her room.

Padme vainly attempted to cover her modesty, shamed to be naked in front of him now regardless of how many times she had been so before. As he looked straight into her terrified eyes she could see that his own beautiful and sensuous orbs were devastatingly tinted, even under the cover of nightfall.

Then suddenly his eyes changed. He stumbled back slightly, reeling from his own actions as if his conscience had lost him and had suddenly found him again. His laugh twisted from its perverse shrill to a stutter of disbelief until he fell silent completely. He deactivated his weapon. Padme watched nervously as he re-clipped the 'saber to his belt and ran his fingers through his tussled hair seemingly in shock. He fell back to perch on the edge of the bed, washing over his features with his shaking hands.

"Anakin?" Padme's voice quivered as she recited his name. He looked up at her with disgust.

"Do you really think I would degrade myself by fucking you?" He spat condescendingly, "Do you think I'd want to put it anywhere near you? Anywhere where that's been?" He sniped, pointing to the unconscious male heaped unceremoniously on the floor.

Padme shied into the wall, oddly more ashamed that he didn't want to rape her than if he actually had.

"I heard you spoke with Master Windu today, you said some things, bad things Padme, things that weren't true"

Anakin stood and strolled over to the window, his arms encased in the sleeves of his tunic. It gave Padme the opportunity to dash to the bed and retrieve the sheets from the floor. She wrapped them around her naked body tightly and stood back into the opposite corner from where Anakin was currently gazing over Coruscant's busy nightlife.

"You said Obi-wan…" Anakin faltered, his voice hitching as a lump caught in his throat.

"I lied Padme" He turned to face her, his features pleading with desperation, "I never slept with Obi-wan, never! I just said it to…I don't know why I said it, I've wanted to, I love him Padme, but I lied" He spat on the floor physically disgusted with himself now.

"But you said…" Padme began to reason as the comprehension of how she had hurt him set in.

"Obi-wan is under arrest. The council, Mace, Yoda, they're keeping him from me. Because of you"

Padme shook her head. "Arrested?" She questioned.

Anakin nodded, blinking traitorous tears from his eyes.

"What do you want me to do Ani?" She asked, willing to pander to his wishes, anything to get him out of her apartment.

"Tell the truth" He hissed righteously.

"I'll go to the Temple first thing Anakin, I'll tell Master Windu that I lied"

Anakin nodded with satisfaction and padded out of her apartment in silence.

The Temple gardens really were the most perfect place on the whole of Coruscant. The last shards of moonshine lit the dancing water pools and accentuated the beauty of the plants and flowers that grew there. It felt pure to Anakin, as if just sitting here would cleanse his soul. Muted droplets dribbled down his cheeks.

"Your tears are for whom?"

Anakin startled at the sound of Master Yoda's voice. He looked up to see the little green troll leaning over his gimmer stick in front of him.

"Myself" Anakin admitted honestly.

"Upset with yourself you are?"

"Yes" Anakin affirmed dejectedly, returning his gaze to his feet.

"For what happened in the Temple hmm? For what happened with the Senator?"

Anakin's eyes shot up to meet Yoda's, horrified by his knowledge.

"A dark path placed before you it was, but take it you did not, have faith in yourself you must"

"I'm ashamed of myself" Anakin confessed.

"Yes yes, ashamed you will be, your conscience this is teaching you right from wrong. In the future your shame now will guide your path".

Anakin watched as the revered Jedi Master struggled to clamber up onto the bench beside him. He wanted to giggle, or help, but knew better than to do either. He cleared his throat to dispel his imminent laughter once Yoda was seated.

"Don't you want to know why I was at Padme's? Why I nearly…did what I nearly did?"

"Know this I do. Know this do you. need to speak of it we do not"

Anakin sighed heavily, his focus was distracted by the dangling green stumpy legs swinging away like those of an excited youngling.

"She lied about Obi-wan. She's going to tell the truth in the morning. Will you let him go then?"

"Innocent Master Kenobi is, free him we will"

"I started all of this Master. I lied to Padme, I told her I'd slept with Obi-wan, I haven't not ever I promise, but I said that I did"

The Jedi Master turned his head slowly to face Anakin, with an expression that suggested he already knew. He pricked up his ears as if signalling for Anakin to continue.

"We'd been having an affair. I think I loved her at first, but then, well all I could think about was Obi-wan. She was touching me, coming on to me and I just wanted it to stop, so I said…"

"What did you say, hmmm?" Yoda interceded, prompting Anakin to recall his exact untruth.

"I said that…he fucked me like a dream" Anakin confessed, his cheeks flushing crimson with the admission.

"Want him to you do, hmm?"

Yoda quizzed with a gossipy tone. Anakin spun round in horror at the Master's question. The little troll chuckled and Anakin relaxed his shoulders, even if his mind was still on edge.

"Master Kenobi released will be, see him in the morning you can. But the truth he must hear from you, young Skywalker"

"What?!" Anakin exclaimed in shock.

"One lie turns to two lies, two lies lead to more lies. Your lies made questions of his character, tell him the truth you must"

"I can't! I can't tell him that! Master Yoda he'd never forgive me, and I can't lose Obi-wan I…" Anakin halted his stream of thought abruptly.

"Love him you do? Pff, love him you think you do. Willing to hurt him before hurt your pride you are. Love him you do not"

"I do so!" Anakin shouted, enraged by Yoda's presumptions before realising that he sounded like a whiny youngling. And that he'd openly admitted such a major transgression of the code to the grand Jedi Master.

"Need to hear this Obi-wan does, not Yoda. Yoda needs not your love, Skywalker" He chuckled to himself as Anakin was still rearranging the words in his head.

"Tell Obi-wan what you will, but there is a difference between sex and love Anakin. If love Obi-wan you do tell him what you told her you must. If only lust after him you do, lie to him as well, you will."

Yoda leapt from the bench and began to hobble back towards the door.

"Aren't you angry with me? Aren't you going to lecture me on attachment, on the code? Aren't you going to expel me?"

"Not today, young Skywalker. Today you teach yourself the lesson", and with that he disappeared.

Anakin relaxed back into the bench musing over Yoda's words. He couldn't tell Obi-wan what he'd said to Padme, he just couldn't. But if he didn't, if he lied to him too or even just omitted certain details he knew he would get that twisted knot in the pit of his stomach reminding him of Yoda's pearl. If he loved him, he would tell him, and if he didn't tell him it meant he didn't love him.

Anakin had a sickeningly crushing feeling, like he finally knew how that spot between a rock and a hard place felt. He'd sleep on it 'til morning. Maybe dawn would bring option C with her glittering golden tendrils, one where he didn't have to tell him but he would still love him. He curled up in a ball on the wooden slats and wished to all the worlds of all the stars that he would wake up an optimistic, naïve youngling on Tatooine, whose only loves were his Mother, fixing things, and flying.