Look at that! So much quicker than I was expected - though not as quick as you all deserve.
Thankyou for your viewership :)
There will be one more chapter coming to finish this off. Please Read and Review
Mylirial.
The War
The black – deep brown – cape unfolds into the space, thrust aside by the clenched fist of its owner.
Obi-Wan sits up automatically, and clutches at his ribs, which the healers have seen fit to deem broken in three places, courtesy of a rather nasty engagement with one of Dooku's latest minions. The black look on his former padawan's face confirms what he had already guessed. The council meeting did not go well.
'They're letting him get away!"
'Anakin' He tries to placate the young man, to stop him before it becomes a tirade.
They have both been pulled to their extremes, multiple times since Geonosis, with very little reprieve. Somehow whatever black master lending strength and counsel to the separatists has painted a bright red target on both of their backs, a fact only confirmed by their latest encounter. The news of Maul's impossible resurrection threatens to put another nail in the coffin of any hope they might have had two years ago – that the war was winnable.
"We know where he is Master," Anakin begins to pace around the white chamber. "we can be on his tail in a matter of hours. Someone should, who else is there?"
'Nevertheless, that will not be your mission.' Obi-Wan says emphatically, half sitting up, gingerly testing his strength. Even if Mace Windu had not made him privy to that in no unclear terms, he is not so blinded by their friendship to see what the council has already judged; that Anakin on this mission is dangerous. Dangerous to them all.
But the blunt statement stops the younger Jedi in his tracks, and that thing between them, that Need to know that lies behind every interaction, behind every order that Anakin has ever obeyed, rears its head, threatening to poison this conversation as it has poisoned others with increasing regularity in this accursed war.
Sometimes their bond is a bridge, twice forged; once through their intense apprenticeship, cut short as his own was by the War, and then through this partnership. It makes them a lethal team, knowing each other so well. Sometimes he feels as though he does not know when he ends, and Anakin begins.
And sometimes it is as though they are forever meeting each other for the first time, shaking hands at Qui-Gon's side.
Tense silence has followed his last statement, and then the young Jedi erupts.
'Farking- That is bushuda Obi-wan!'
'Anakin.' He barks automatically at the language, and the man turns toward him with a snarl.
'We're the closest to catching him than we have ever been,' even as a knight now, and with a padawan of his own, Anakin has never truly been able to hide his heart, to train the passion, the compassion that cries 'I will save them.' It makes him an opponent near impossible to defeat. If he goes after Maul and his cronies, Obi-Wan knows that he could win.
"I can do it. I will do it; for you, for Snips, for Qui-Gon-" He is gesticulating wildly.
Obi-Wan voice increases in volume, and he sits on the edge of the bed now, one bare foot bracing him on the cold floor, his battered body protesting all the time. "Master Windu has ordered us to remain here – where we are out of danger." Where I am out of danger. "The council will deal with Maul, that should be enough for you."
It is not, he should know that, and Anakin seethes for a few breaths, and turns his back to look out the window, to gaze out at Coruscant at night. The silence between them is stretched thin. When Anakin breaks it, his words drop like cut glass, breaking the surface tension between them.
"I am going to kill him, master." His voice is quiet, but his eyes are black, and he looks out into the coruscant sky as if to find their mutual enemy and drag him back from the star he has hidden himself on by mind power alone.
"Anakin" Obi-wan says again; whether it is the use of the honorific, or the rage in Anakin's burning eyes that raises the wall inside him he does not know.
"They can't keep me here, this has gone on too long,"
"You will control your feelings," Obi-Wan cannot help raising his voice, "you know where they-' but his former apprentice turns on him to interrupt, his frustration flooding over the hastily constructed wall between them.
"Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering - Kriff it master." His tone is sardonic, his gaze dividing, "Were you angry when that thing killed Qui Gon?" His long, swift strides bring him half a step from his master's face.
Obi-Wan recoils, his soul turning inwards, though he barely flinches outwardly. "What?"
Anakin thrusts his finger into Obi-Wan's, 'Do you know they're still showing that kriffing footage in the training sector, and in the history classes?"
'Anakin-' What reason does Master Skywalker, the most renowned duellist in the order, have to be studying first-year padawan duelling modules?
His former apprentice's face twists into a jeer and he continues with barely a pause, 'Come padawan! Marvel at the first Jedi to fight a Sith in a thousand years." He makes a sweeping gesture to an imaginary audience, "Take note of the serenity that Obi-Wan Kenobi showed when he sawed his opponent in half!'
"Anakin!" he is on his feet now, one arm bracing his chest, the other clenched in a tight fist. He draws himself up as much as the pain will allow, and steps into the storm of Anakin's anger.
The sarcastic voice in his head murmurs that it is rather unnerving to be gazed down on by his former padawan, whose eyes are heated points of intensity.
"When you looked into Maul's eyes as he fell," his padawan's voice is deadly calm now, his rage tempered into a shaft of besker steel. "Did you mourn him? Did you show him compassion?" He spits the last word.
And there it is. Obi-Wan looks away, must not look at him. Because there are some questions that he himself will not answer. Because nothing he says will absolve him of that moment.
A Jedi shall not know revenge.
Anakin storms over their bond; what he does not see, he guesses, and he is too strong, and knows his master too well for his guesses to be false. He shakes his head, scornfully.
'You play your part well Master Kenobi, pretending you are content to accept, to submit, pretending that everything in you doesn't want to finish the job." He laughs emptily, bitterly, "You hate that he is still alive Obi-Wan, you hate him, and you're too much of a farking hypocrite to admit it."
"Enough." Obi-Wan finally drags his gaze to meet his padawan's, and decides, in one small act of surrender, to bare his heart on his face. He does not know whether he asks for mercy or seeks judgment in other man's eyes, but he does not hide from the dividing stare. He lets the young man see the deep rage; evidence of his failure. Lets him see the nightmares that his actions have brought him over the short years of his life.
Anakin's anger does not diminish, but his eyes widen, and something soft washes over his countenance. The personal appeal has always worked better than blunt force – Obi-Wan should have learned that years ago.
For a moment Anakin teeters on the thin blade of mercy and rage. Then a muscle twitches in the younger man's jaw, and it sets hard like concrete. He has seen too much, and his face twists again into a snarl.
He turns on his heel, throwing the final word over his shoulder. "Then spare me the lecture about my kriffing feelings." He disappears, his dark cape chasing him from the room, leaving Qui Gon's padawan alone with the past.