He woke what was probably some hours later, to a chill and the sound of his heart beating faster than normal. Opening his eyes, he attempted to look around, and then dropped his head back to the metal of the bench as the world tilted and he was hit by the feeling of having been stepped on by a tank.
Ow…
What had – right. Vader.
Gingerly, the Jedi raised a hand to his neck. The puncture holes had scabbed over, thankfully, though the area around them was tender to the touch. Probably bruised. It wouldn't, from what he could feel, be the only area: the struggle had been short, but violent. He could see a dark bloom of colour on his wrist, to start with.
Once again, he absently wished for the Force, before dismissing the thought. He didn't have it, and while it would have helped when he was struggling against Vader, there was nothing he could have done once the venom had entered his system.
Pushing himself upright, he stretched, relishing that the control of his limbs had been returned to him, at least for now. He was under no illusions that this would be a one-off. Even without Vader's sinister promise of finding out just how much control he could have over Obi-Wan, he would have known the Sith would return. Vader enjoyed having power over others too much not to, especially those that had once had power over him, whether that authority had been by virtue of position or emotional.
Obi-Wan had been both, and Vader apparently hated him for it. Hated him, and wanted to have him under his control, as though that would destroy the past power Obi-Wan had had over Anakin, as his Master, and as his friend. Sith Lord's did not need friends, after all. They did not need wives either, if what Anakin had done to Padme was any indication. Going by their habit of killing them, they also considered themselves above having Masters.
Obi-Wan did not know all that much Sith philosophy. Despite this he had, before Order 66, been one of the Jedi who knew the most about it. Partly because of his position on the Council, which granted him access to many restricted records, but also because of his experience in the field. He had defeated Maul while fighting the temptation of the Dark side, and granted, Maul had not quite died – you would think that cutting someone in half with a lightsaber would kill them – but he had been defeated, and Obi-Wan had defeated his own darker emotions. Maybe it had been because he had been fighting a Sith at the time, for he was most definitely not the only Jedi to have struggled with the darker emotions, but he had found that after, he had understood. Understood why Maul could hold onto a thousand year old grudge, and kill for it. When he went on missions as a new Knight, both solo and with his Padawan, he found that he understood those who would destroy others so much better.
He had thought it normal, up until mentioning it in a friendly discussion with Mace Windu, who had appointed himself surrogate mentor to the young Knight, had caused an alarmed reaction.
His understanding grew as the years passed and he saw more of the galaxy. Understanding what motives people had, that was normal, encouraged, but understanding those motives, understanding what drove the corrupt, the ones who had they been Force sensitive would have been Darksiders, was not. Knowing, yes, understanding, no.
Then the Clone wars had erupted, and Obi-Wan had found himself in the middle of a war, and getting into fights with more Sith. Never the Sith Master, just Apprentices and Acolytes, but that had been more than enough. He had seen what drove Asajj Ventress, and sympathised despite disagreeing, and resolved to bring her back to the light. It was an endeavour his colleagues had labelled unwise, even foolhardy – but he had been right, in the end, about her.
He had been wrong about Anakin.
Or – no. His faith in Anakin had been a product of his promise to his Master. He had had to believe, because if a teacher does not believe in their student then that student will have no reason to believe in themself and their ability to learn. He had come to believe in Anakin himself later, after getting to know the boy, but that belief had originated as the belief of a teacher in his student.
The boy is dangerous.
Sometimes, he really hated being proved right. And he didn't even know why Anakin had fallen.
Solitary imprisonment was, above all, boring. He was confined to a metal box, with a ledge set in one wall as it's only feature, with no indication of how much time had passed other than the occasional plate of something that might have passed as a meal and cup of water, which he suspected were delivered at irregular intervals. He considered counting the time between them to find out, but he was not quite that out of things to think about.
Other than the solitary, he was not being tortured, something that he found slightly baffling. All the Sith he had encountered were the types to go straight for causing as much pain as possible to the prisoner. Vader was included in that list, which meant that Darth Vader was not the sole person in charge of his treatment.
A chill went down the Jedi's spine. The only person he knew of that had the power to override Vader was the Emperor himself. And if the Emperor was overriding Vader on the matter of Obi-Wan's treatment, it meant that the Emperor was taking a hand in Obi-Wan's treatment, making note of his presence.
What could he have done that would have attracted the Emperor's attention? He supposed surviving might have done it, but it had been a fluke, chance and the sacrifice of a friend that had allowed him to live when so many had died. From what he had seen and heard, Palpatine was focusing on consolidating his Empire, leaving the mop up of Republic Loyalists and the emerging groups of rebels to his apprentice. Darth Vader's former identity of Anakin Skywalker had been very helpful to the Empire in that respect. He had heard it quite a few times of late - Skywalker had been a hero of the Republic, after all, so he couldn't be supporting something truly bad – maybe he knows something we don't? And it went the other way too. Those who knew the full extent of Vader's crimes tended to look on Obi-Wan with suspicion, and he knew there were rumours circulating that maybe he was working with Skywalker. They were The Team. Skywalker betrayed us, so Kenobi could do the same. No one is above suspicion.
No one is above suspicion. While proving to be an annoyance for Obi-Wan right now, it was a good concept. He remembered with black humour Mace Windu's pronouncement that the only reason Palpatine had not been under suspicion of being the Sith Lord they were looking for was that he already ruled the galaxy.
Given that Palpatine had turned out to be Sidious, those fighting against him were wary from the still fresh memory of being betrayed from within; hence, the suspicion against Obi-Wan. General Kenobi, part of the The Team that was Kenobi and Skywalker, who were close as brothers. It made sense. And it left a bitter taste in the mouth of someone who had been just as betrayed by Anakin Skywalker as they had.
To distract himself, he pondered what he knew of Sidious. While he had met plenty of times with Palpatine, occasionally alone, he had never come face to face with the unmasked Dark Lord of the Sith. He frankly had no desire to. He was not a match for Sidious, who had orchestrated a galactic war, shielded his presence from and manipulated the Jedi Order, destroyed said Order of Jedi, and had seduced Anakin to the Dark Side to rule the Galaxy. Obi-Wan had stood in direct opposition to him on some of those issues, like destroying the Jedi Order and Anakin's Fall, and he had failed to prevent either.
It had been Obi-Wan's experience that even the most evil of people still had some good in them, and even the best of people had some darkness in them. Palpatine baffled him because of this, because despite searching for something that could help him understand, so he could use that understanding to predict, and then use against – he had been unable to find even the slightest bit of goodness in the Sith Master. Palpatine was not about to be brought down by some moral he still held to in a misguided fashion because as far as anyone had been able to find, he didn't have any. Vader still wanted to save people as Anakin had, though it had narrowed from "everyone" to "my empire, by means of the death of all those who disagree with it", and his definition of the word "enemy" was frighteningly inclusive at "anyone not in total agreement with me". Asajj had wanted revenge for the loss of light in her life, which she had believed to be the Jedi's fault. She had wanted that revenge because she recognised what she had lost, and wanted it back, knew it was impossible to get it back in that form and so wanted to hurt those who had hurt her.
Sidious…wanted power. And more power. And while there might be something Obi-Wan was missing, the fact remained that he was missing it. He could see nothing in Palpatine but darkness. It was like looking into a black hole, and that black hole had sucked Anakin closer and closer until he was so firmly entrenched that Sidious could turn him against the Jedi Order. And Obi-Wan had missed it.
What was most likely four days passed in what seemed to be forever. Obi-Wan was used to that; he had been captured and tortured before, and solitary was one of the mental games he had been taught how to resist. Oddly though, it also passed very quickly, far quicker than Obi-Wan had been expecting it to, although in reflection he realised perhaps he should have. Time flies when you are dreading something, after all. Since Vader had fed on him, had controlled him in that way and declared that he was going to test the limits of that control, Obi-Wan had been dreading what would happen next.
Vader didn't know how far his control with the venom (and what Obi-Wan was increasingly suspected was some unconscious use of the Force) extended. No one did, and no one included Obi-Wan, who was apparently slated as the test subject.
How far would Vader be able to control him? He had disabled Obi-Wan's physical defences, had ordered him about. Obi-Wan had not been able to defend himself, or even misinterpret the orders. Despite considerable mental discipline, his dreams came up with imagined answers, things that Vader could order him to do and he would have to go through with and watch helplessly. And every time, he woke up with his neck aching.
It was perhaps, he thought, a good thing when the Stormtroopers came to get him. At least then he could stop wondering.
