Be Honest

We were sitting in his apartment, drinking tea and staring basically at nothing. Well, Obi-wan was probably thinking deeply about something. I was staring at nothing. There was a cream-colored wall across from us that had absolutely nothing hanging on it. No pictures or posters, or anything. The silence was so thick it was stifling. I finally just set my cup of tea on an end table with a loud clanking sound and look over at my old master with a loud sigh. I can tell that he's come out of his trance by the slight smirk on his face. He doesn't respond to my quiet huff, though. He simply takes another sip of his tea and continues to stare straight ahead. "Can you say something?" I ask, irritation leaking into my voice.

He leans back and turns his gray eyes on me. I feel slightly angry for a moment at the sight of his dull gaze. Ever since this blasted war started, his eyes had never returned to their normal clear blue hue. The anger fades as quickly as it appeared. "What would you like me to say?" he asks.

I roll my eyes, realizing that if I engage in this particular argument, I will most definitely lose and we will most definitely just end up back to where we started. Staring at nothing. Instead I grin and give him a rueful look, one that he narrows his eyes at. "Nothing. I have a question, though."

He is definitely suspicious, but he only nods slowly. "Feel free to ask it."

This would be interesting. "Have you ever kissed a girl before?"

I can tell that he's instantly annoyed. He looks away and sets his tea down before running a hand through his hair, proof that he is annoyed for sure. "Why do you need to know?"

He's evading, which means he has kissed a girl, which means that the normally stoic, fearless, witty Negotiator has a love history. He's caught. I know it and he knows it. My grin turns into a smirk. "You're avoiding the question, master."

He glares at me, but I continue to stare at him, knowing that he won't lie to me. He never has. "This is not a conversation I want to have right now." His voice is clipped, edgy, and biting. Not a good sign.

But clueless knight that I am, I fail to acknowledge that and proceed with said conversation. "Oh, come on, master. It's not like it's a sin to kiss a girl. It's only natural."

He sighs, long and loud. Suddenly he looks as old as he acts. This conversation is not going where I intended it to go. It was supposed to be light-hearted and joking, but for some reason I've struck a nerve. "Yes, Anakin. I have kissed a girl. And before you ask, it was not a simple peck on the cheek either. Now can we please talk about something else?"

I frown. He's almost begging and it doesn't suit him. At all. There aren't many moments like this. When I'm the one that's helping him out rather than the other way around. Right now is one of those rare times where I know I can't just let him weasel his way out of this. It was the same way with the conversation about Qui-gon's death. This is something that he obviously needs to talk about. My answer is short and sweet. "No."

He looks at me, the dull gray eyes suddenly flashing dangerously. "This conversation is over," he says quietly, but firmly.

The hardness in his tone combined with his famously penetrating glare would be enough to silence even the most persistent of politicians. But it's not enough to silence someone who's known him for over ten years. I soften my gaze. "Master, who was she?"

He closes his eyes and leans back on the couch, sinking deep into the cushions. "Anakin…" The hardness is gone, replaced by a note that I would almost describe as pleading.

"You need to talk about it," I say, gently urging him on.

He smiles briefly at the irony of me turning one of his own lessons against him. Then he opens his eyes and stares at the wall. "Her name was Siri Tachi."

I almost laugh, but at the last instant decide that it wouldn't really be appropriate. He has to be kidding, though. From what I knew about Siri Tachi, she was a loose spark of a Jedi, always rebelling against the Council and jumping fearlessly into hopeless battles she had little chance of winning. Compared to my unflappable former master who never ceased to obey the Council's every wish and hardly ever encouraged acting before thinking, she hardly seemed the type for him. "Siri Tachi? Didn't she die?"

He let out a short, bitter laugh. He had never been bitter before. Then he turned and stared right at me with pain-ridden eyes. "Yes. Yes she did, Anakin. She died as I held her in my arms."

Crap. Why had I wanted to have this conversation? These serious conversations always seemed to end up letting me know how much more pain my master had been through than any other man in existence. I swallow, suddenly guilty, and look at the floor. "I'm sorry."

When he speaks next, his voice is tight with emotion. "You don't need to be. It wasn't you who watched her die. It wasn't you who tried everything you could to prevent her from passing only to find that your best efforts weren't enough."

He always blamed himself for stuff that was never his fault. That was one of his few faults. "It wasn't your fault."

He smiles. "I've tried to convince myself of that every day since her death." There's a long awkward pause before he speaks again. This time he's looking at me again. "Love is not wrong, Anakin, as long as you understand what love is. It is not possession, it is not mere attachment, and it most definitely is not based solely on desire. Love is much more powerful than any of those, yet it is so simple that it is often overlooked."

"Did you love her?" I can't help but ask. Even so, my voice is barely a whisper.

His eyes glisten with moisture, but the tears don't fall. Somehow, he always kept them in. "I still do."

He would tell me many of his secrets in the coming years. He would open up to me over and over again, spilling his past out in captivating stories that involved a lot of pain, a lot of regret, and every once in a while a splash of humor. Who would've thought that my master once pranked Master Yoda? Through those years, he never once asked me about anything terribly personal. He just stood by my side, offering a shoulder to cry on in the moments I would break down from the stress life brought along, or providing a target for me to rant and rave at. I think he hoped that someday I would confide in him like a son would confide in his father, that I would ask for his advice on subjects other than battle strategy or how to get a senator off my back.

His patience would eventually transition into denial. He never stopped believing that I trusted him like a brother. And the truth was, I did. I just hated to admit that I'd ever failed in anything.

He thought he knew me well.

Had he really known…. but he didn't, because I never told him.

"It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear." ~ Henry David Thoreau