Where Darkness Sticks

It was almost a month after he'd arrived at the Temple that Anakin was finally fed up. Four weeks. Four weeks he'd been there and while he still struggled with almost every class he was in, he'd learned a lot.

For example, Jedi didn't meditate anywhere near as much as his Master.

Seriously, what was so great about it? Every single time Anakin turned around, Master Obi-Wan was sitting on the floor, eyes closed, and focused. A boy wondered after a while if Obi-Wan was merely sleep deprived for some strange reason. He'd find his Master meditating in the rare mornings where Anakin didn't need his Master to wake him; he'd come back from classes to find Obi-Wan meditating, after dinner was more meditation, and once, when Anakin had woken up in the night to use the refesher, he'd found his Master meditating.

What was up with that? Why did Obi-Wan need to meditate so damn much?

Anakin had originally thought it normal until he started to really look around the Temple. Other Jedi, be they Knights, Masters, Council members, whatever, wouldn't meditate as much as Obi-Wan did. Jedi would spar, teach, learn, go out on missions, they even did normal things: like having meals together at the cafeteria and just talking. Socializing. You know, interacting with others? Yet Obi-Wan didn't, as far as Anakin could see. He just meditated.

No, that wasn't quite true. In those first two weeks, Jedi Anakin assumed to be Obi-Wan's friends would drop by, but they didn't do so as much any more. Not that Anakin could blame them for that, given that all Obi-Wan seemed to do was commune with the Force. (And how did one do that again? Anakin still couldn't touch the Force whenever he tried to meditate...)

So Anakin was a little fed up. And mostly, a little lonely. Because if Obi-Wan was meditating so much, didn't that also mean that he didn't want to spend time with his new Padawan? And Anakin was starting to get scared that maybe his Master didn't like him and that's why he retreated even being in the same room.

They were currently sitting at dinner. The only time they ever really talked, and it was usually limited to polite inquiries about each other's day.

"Master?" Anakin asked, courage already fading fast.

"Yes, Padawan?" Obi-Wan didn't even look up from his datapad.

Anger flared. Anakin was at least worth looking at, thank you very much!

"Why, Master?" he growled.

At last, his Master looked at him, a brow raised.

"Padawan?"

"Why Master?" And anger was quickly replaced with pain and sorrow. "Have I done something wrong? Did I mess up somehow? Is that why?"

Obi-Wan blinked, setting aside his datapad and looking at him directly in the eye.

"Anakin," he said precisely, "I do not understand what you are asking."

And there wasn't even any feeling in those words.

Anakin was acting the most out of control since he'd arrived, surely Master Obi-Wan should feel concerned? Worried? But there was nothing. "Why? Why are you always meditating? Am I boring? Am I a bad apprentice? Did I-"

A hand settled on his shoulder, and Anakin saw something flash across his Master's face; something so fast he couldn't identify it. And Anakin realized he was crying.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said quietly, and there was grief in that voice. "I'm sorry, Anakin." No more feeling. "I... Come with me for a moment."

He swiped furiously at his eyes, rubbing the tears away, following his Master to the common room. Anakin sat down where he usually did on the couch, right in the corner where he was surround by worn, plush, softness. Obi-Wan, however, didn't sit where he usually sat in the matching armchair. He sat on the other side of the couch, facing him.

Things were quiet for a moment as Anakin struggled to get his roiling emotions under control.

Finally Obi-Wan let out a sigh.

"It seems I owe you both an apology and an explanation." And his Master slumped forward, his head in his hands, shoulders drooped as if weighed down by the galaxy. "Forgive me, this will take a different explanation than what I'd say to a fellow Jedi. You just don't have enough foundation yet and I need to think of a different way to say something most Jedi can actually see."

Anger flared.

"That's not my fault!" he cried out. He was trying so hard; he didn't need another reminder of how far behind he was.

"No, it's not," Obi-Wan agreed.

Anakin slouched further back, anger gone as fast as it had come. His Master wasn't pointing out how far behind he was. He was trying to accommodate. Which was more than his other teachers did. And that felt good. But this still wasn't answering his question.

"Anakin, when you where with... Qui-Go... before you and I met, you remember the creature that attacked you?"

He nodded, uncertain what that had to do with anything.

"What did that creature feel like?"

... Huh?

That question made no sense. This line of conversation made no sense. But Master Obi-Wan said he had to explain something that most Jedi can see. Anakin decided to follow the line of questions. At least for a little bit.

"Scared. Very, very scared."

"Why?"

Anakin scowled as his Master looked up to him. "He was scary!" Anakin stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "He was all dark and shadowy and... and... wrong! Just wrong!"

"Precisely."

That brought Anakin up short. "Huh?"

"You may not have been able to see it, and you didn't recognize it without any training, but you did sense it. That was the Dark Side. Beings that reach for the Dark Side always have that, wrongness, as you so aptly put it."

"Uh-huh."

Obi-Wan let out a sigh. "When the Dark Side touches you, it will not let go easily. It sticks and clings."

That sounded an awful lot like some of his lessons. But...

"Master, what does that have to do with you meditating?"

"I'm getting there." Another sigh, and Obi-Wan dropped his face to his hands again. "When I faced that creature... when... Qui-Gon was... The best way I can phrase it is that the Dark Side came very, very close to me. And I came very, very close to touching it."

"Wait, so you used the Dark Side?" Anakin shrank back, horrified. His Master was evil?

"No, Anakin, I didn't. But rather like a krayt dragon hunting out new prey, the Dark Side got my scent. And it has stuck and clung to me. I meditate so much because I'm trying to clean off that scent so that the Dark Side won't catch me again." A long sigh. "I haven't been giving you the proper time you deserve because of that. I worry that if I try and help you when I'm not ready yet, I'll pass the scent off to you."

Anakin's jaw dropped. So all that meditating, essentially ignoring him, was for his own good? That so didn't make sense.

"I promise Anakin, when you can meditate properly, at least into the first stages, I will show you what I'm doing. But for now, please trust that I'm not deliberately trying to hurt you. If anything, I'm trying very hard not to."

Author's Note: Hmmm, this was meant as a getting-to-the-point conversation for a different drabble, but looking at it, it stands on its own very well. Obi-Wan has to know that Anakin didn't grow up as a Jedi and thus requires some different explanations because he just doesn't have the foundation. He needs to adjust what he'd teach a regular Padawan to his late-arriving Padawan. We'd imagine a regular youngling could probably understand a basic statement about cleansing out some Darkness, but Anakin wouldn't. He can touch the Force in ways no one can believe given he doesn't have any training, but the more controlled means like meditation are going to take active little Anakin time to get there.

This also touches on a point Yesac made in The Finer Shades of Why (go read that fic), where Obi-Wan explained to Anakin that, thank-you, he'd lost Qui-Gon and that the Darkness doesn't let go easily, so of course he'd understand what Anakin had done when his mother was killed. It's a subtle change from canon. But then, that's what this fic is all about. ^_^

Oh, and for those of you curious (and impatient) for more drabbles, we have a couple of things to say. First, we update every other Saturday. Saturdays are kind of our "fanfiction" day. So today we post, next Saturday, we reply to reviews, and the Saturday after that we post again, repeating the cycle. For those of you still impatient, you can see some unfinished drabbles over at our livejournal page: http:/ mirrorandimage . livejournal . com along with various doodles and wallpapers and other stuff that we do. (We call this story Subtle Changes instead of Simple Steps at livejournal.)

We're also looking for a beta for this story of ours. Not a beta for grammar, we have that pretty well down, but for the Expanded Universe, seeing as how we only know the movies and the Clone Wars CG show. Wookieepdia is our friend, but we always worry that just looking something up might leave out some quality that is part of the scene/battle/information we're looking for. We do try to be accurate, even as we're changing things slowly and steadily to a different Episode III.

Next Chapter: The Force as a learning strategy.