Chapter 98: The Homestead

"If you can't find him, you aren't looking hard enough!" Anakin shouted at the severely cross hologram of Aayla Secura. "We know where he lives, we know the places he likes to go, why is this so hard?!"

"You haven't found him either, Skywalker," the Twi'lek snarled, her lekku squirming in irritation. "And let's remember how that assault on Mustafar went, shall we?"

"Don't say it, don't even-"

"Two thousand clones dead, a Star Destroyer blown up, and the team that made it to the ground?" She laughed, hard and angry. "Eaten by a rancor." She paused, took a deep breath, and shouted, "And he wasn't even there!"

"I know!" Anakin snapped, running his hand over his face and trying to take deep, calming breaths to bring his emotions back under control. It wasn't working. "I know...look, maybe that team couldn't make it, but if we get the right team on the ground-"

"No." The answer was swift, hard, and left no room for compromise. Secura may have been on the Council, but she was making all the wrong decisions. They couldn't meet this Sith Lord with caution, he needed to be met head on, bold Jedi meets Sith brashness. If he were on the Council, he'd make them understand this. "There is no right team for this mission," she continued. "It was luck that got them on the ground in the first place, and they were killed the second they stepped inside the compound. We won't be able to land another team safely."

"Yes we can, with the right pilot, we can," Anakin said swiftly. "I can get us down there safely. Get me a team and-"

"Nobody will go on this with you, Skywalker, it's too risky." She crossed her arms. "Suppose you don't make it down there. Then what? We lose another team, and we lose you. We don't even know what's in that palace. Even Tarkin thinks attacking Mustafar is stupid, he's livid that you attacked anyway!"

Anakin sighed heavily. She was right, of course. Three weeks out on a tireless search for Obi-Wan was beginning to fray his already raw nerves. They had seen him nowhere, and it was almost like he had disappeared completely, like he somehow wasn't part of the war anymore. It was like his task had suddenly been completed, and he was content to just sit back and watch the rest of the galaxy burn, the result of the sires he had set. The Mandalorian Empire had calmed, its position firmly established, and Bo-Katan sat on the throne vacated by her sister, a harder ruler than peaceful Satine, and it showed in the way she handled diplomacy, which was not at all.

Obi-Wan wasn't on Mandalore, or in Hutt Space, now the Mandalorian Empire, of that he was certain. After all, if Anakin lost someone, he sure as hell wouldn't return to the planet he lost them on. It was one of the reasons he kept so far away from Tatooine, but now that Kenobi had tampered with his family, he'd have to return. He'd been putting it off, though, but he wouldn't be able to any longer, not when Kenobi's trail was cold, and his brother may have been the last one to see him. Owen may know something.

"Maybe this isn't unusual," Aayla said softly when Anakin didn't respond. "We can count on one hand the number of battles that he's been involved in during the war."

"That we know he's been involved in," Anakin corrected, and she nodded.

"Yes, but that's the point, isn't it? He's been covert and secretive since the beginning, nearly everything he does is underhanded and used as set up or a distraction for something else. We're hunting him the wrong way, and he's trapping us because of it."

"...Tarkin said the same thing."

"He's right, Anakin. Hunting him isn't working. What we need to do is predict his next move." She shrugged. "Or, we look for Master Quinlan, who is an ostentatious bastard."

Anakin snorted with repressed laughter. "Wasn't he sort of like an undercover Jedi spy?"

"Yes, but one that left broken bottles and heartbroken women in his wake." She winked at him. "I'll find Master Vos, and if Kenobi isn't with him when I find him, I suspect he'll show up quickly."

He nodded, feeling significantly better for having discussed something of a plan, even if it was very basic. "Keep in contact, Master Secura. I'll be looking as well."

"May the Force be with you, Skywalker," she said softly, and the com blinked out, leaving an irritate Anakin to stand on the bridge of his ship, his Admiral by his side, unamused, and tapping his foot in irritation.

"Oh!" Tarkin said brightly, at just the right moment when there were no sounds on the bridge, and Anakin tensed in surprise. "Has sanity reasserted itself?"

"...maybe..."

"Excellent. Because if you're done sending people on suicide missions and otherwise wasting our time chasing shadows, we have a war to fight."

"We have been fighting, Tarkin," Anakin sighed, but a quick glare from his Admiral silenced him. He had been acting badly, and quick flares of his temper had forced Tarkin to take control more than once. He couldn't help it. Thoughts of Obi-Wan set his blood boiling, and he couldn't get the thought of him and Padmé out of his mind. He thought they may be visions. They had been before, but he didn't know it then, and Qui-Gon had said that it would happen again...

"Small skirmishes on moons nobody cares about doesn't count as fighting, General." Tarkin whipped out the datapad that he so often carried with him. "Right now, there are major battles on Cato Neimoidia, Anaxes, Zanbar, and it looks like they're fighting on Mygeeto." He snapped the datapad shut. "Again. General, you can make the difference in any one of these battles, as well as the hundreds of others that are happening all across the galaxy, and instead, we're out here wasting our time hunting a man that has it out for you." He sniffed and tucked his datapad back into the folds of his jacket. "It's a terrible misuse of Republic resources."

"This isn't personal, Tarkin, Kenobi's a threat to us all!"

"Oh, don't give me that!" Tarkin snapped, his veneer of cool slipping for a moment before he straightened up once again. "He's gone. The Shadow King indeed, he's disappeared now that the Mandalorian conquest is complete, and the only thing we've heard from him these past few weeks are small things aimed right at you. He doesn't care about this war, General, he cares about you." He sighed heavily and stepped closer to the Jedi. "Sir. We can't chase a man like that. He wants us to chase him, he wants it. He wants you angry, and it's working, and he wants to engage us, but on his terms. If we ignore him and return to the war, he will come to us."

Anakin looked over his Admiral carefully and felt relief wash over him. "You're sure."

"I'm sure." He straightened up. "Or else, he'll do something big and destructive to get attention, but that at least gives us something to work with. It's better than chasing shadows as we have been."

Anakin nodded. "You're right. Thank you, Tarkin."

"My pleasure, General."

Anakin patted the man on his shoulders. "Set a course for Tatooine, I need to see my brother." He turned away and quickly began walking off the bridge. He didn't want to look at Tarkin's absolute shock and horror.

"Sir!" the Admiral cried after him. "Sir, we just talked about this!" Anakin pretended not to hear him and strode out of the bridge to go meditate in his cabin. He had a great deal of anger he needed to get under control.

"You have," Owen said as he laid a plate of Beru's stew in front of his brother, "very nice, very helpful friends."

"O-oh yeah?" Anakin asked, his voice tense and high-pitched as he tried, and failed, to keep the strain out of him. Owen had wanted to talk about his marriage to Beru, about Anakin's training, about news from the war, about the war in general. By the time news got out to Tatooine, it had been warped and twisted so much that it was hardly more than exaggerated fabrications based on bits and pieces of what actually happened. Everyone knew there was a war, of course, but nobody really knew anything about it, certainly not who was fighting or why. Tatooine's harsh environment left little room for worrying about much other than the status of the vaporators, or where the Tuscans were moving towards.

Even things that happened on the planet became tall tales by the time they reached Owen's ears. The recent attack, or attacks on Tatooine had been shocking, but only because everything had been destroyed, and even that didn't last. Jabba the Hutt, supposedly, came and quickly patched things up, reestablished the cantinas and the vital repair shops as the people slowly began to rebuild. But at the end of the day, Owen remembered the attacks because, on that day, he housed not one, but three Jedi Masters in his home, and not just for a few hours, for two days. And with business out of the way, it was the only thing the farm boy had wanted to talk about.

"The green one," he said as he sat down across from Anakin, "Luminara. She was very quiet, but she helped get us some needed supplies from the Jawas for half of what they were asking!"

Anakin frowned, pretending to listen intently. It hadn't been that long since she had escaped Republic custody, and he wondered how much Kenobi had taught her. Barriss never had any talent in the Mind Trick, but she had always been an impressive diplomat like Luminara. And, ironically, like Obi-Wan. If she was using those skills combined with the mental manipulations of her new Master, it could be very, very bad. Nobody wanted a second Negotiator wandering around the galaxy. "Yeah, she's..." Anakin started, stuttering when he tried to think of something her would say about the actual Luminara. "She's...very good with people."

"I know! She was really impressive! She said she'd come back and teach me some negotiation tactics, if she has the time when the war's over! When do you think that'll be?"

"No!" Anakin gasped, covering up his sudden outburst by shoveling soup into his mouth. He took hit time to slowly swallow, pretending that it was hotter than it was. "No," he said again, calmer, smiling slightly to ease the surprise off Owen's face. "She's really busy with the war, Owen. Jedi can't just do what they want, you know?"

He smiled, laughed, scratched the back of his neck in mild embarrassment. "Yes, I know, Anakin." He grinned broadly again. "The other one, the one with the tattoo? He talks a lot. I thought Jedi were supposed to be...you know, quiet and contemplative and stuff, but he wasn't like that at all." Owen smiled warmly at his brother. "Kind of like you!"

"I don't talk that much!"

"No, but you don't do that meditation thing very well, right? Your teacher was always telling you stuff."

Anakin sighed. "That's what Jedi Masters do, Owen, they tell you stuff. My friends, Owen, what else did they do?" The boy just shrugged, and Anakin groaned. "The talky one, Quinlan. What did he talk about?"

"I don't know, the war, mostly. We don't get much news here." He smiled again. "He was really touchy, though. He touched everything. All the time. When he wasn't out scouting to make sure things were clear for them to leave." Owen turned his attention to his soup just in time to miss the horror on Skywalker's face. Master Vos' talents in psychometry were well known, and if the rogue Jedi had been in that home touching everything...maybe Kenobi didn't learn much about Anakin, since his visits were infrequent, but he'd know everything about his family. Possibly more than Anakin knew himself. Rage flashed through him, hot and cold all at once, and he tightly gripped the spoon in his hand, the concave metal bending under the pressure of the Force. Tarkin had been right. Kenobi wasn't targeting the Jedi anymore, he was targeting him, and he was going after his family to do it. His wife. His brother. It was wretched. Cowardly. If Obi-Wan Kenobi were even half a man, he'd stand and face him instead of striking from the shadows like some slippery snake.

"The other?" Skywalker asked softly, looking to his bent spoon and descretely hiding it under the table while he unbent it. "What about the other?" Anakin almost vomited when a warm, wide smile graced his clueless brother's face.

"He was the best, Anakin! He was so much like you!" The color drain from Skywalker's face and his shoulders shook as he repressed the retching of his stomach. He was, without question, going to be sick. "He was unbelievably helpful. He even fixed up the vaporaters! I don't know what he did, but the water's never been sweeter or cooler than it is now."

"Y-you don't say..." Sith magic. It must have been, he was doing something...

"He's really good with mechanics and stuff, yeah. He even fine tuned the droids, fixed the broken ones and optimized my speeder!" Owen smiled brighter than Anakin had seen in a very long time. "Do you work with him on mechanics too?" Anakin absently nodded. He wasn't listening anymore. Something must have been done here that wasn't weirdly helpful. Why would he go out of his way for farmers, let alone Anakin's family? Was he going to hold them hostage later? This couldn't end well, not at all. "He looked to be your age, brother," Owen said between spoonfuls of soup. "But he said he was a Master. Can you be that young and be a Master?"

Anakin shook his head. "No, you can't..."

"...he must be unbelievably talented!"

"He isn't, Owen!" Anakin finally snapped, leaping to his feet and bearing down on the unsuspecting farmer, and Owen just slunk down in his seat to stare up at his brother. He wasn't afraid. He was concerned for his compassionate brother. He seemed so...angry, something he was never before, and never truly witnessed like this until the day their mother died. "What else did he say, Owen?" Anakin asked harshly. "What else did he do?!"

"...nothing much, Anakin," Owen said softly. "He wanted to know mostly about what it was like out here. I talked most of the time. He asked about how I met Beru, how I liked moisture farming, the things we did when you came here...he asked about our mother." Danger flashed in Anakin's eyes, and when Owen saw it, he held his breath, afraid of what he may do. It was the same look the passionate man had in his eyes when he had killed the Tuscans.

"...what was his name, Owen?" Anakin whispered, his voice like ice.

Owen opened his mouth to answer, then stopped, wriggling back up into his seat and looking away as he thought. "You know..." he said softly. "I didn't get his name. He stayed with us for two days, I must have heard it..." He shrugged. "I think we just called him Master."

Anakin had enough. With a vicious snarl, he tore out of the room, taking long strides through the homestead so he could stand out in the swirling sand and whipping winds of Tatooine. He hated it here, and what was worse, Obi-Wan had been in the house for two days with his followers, not doing evil, it seemed, but making nice. He didn't sense the Dark Side within the homestead, didn't feel the influence of Sith evil like he could in Padme, and as he dashed across the dunes to the nearest of the fifty plus vaporators that Owen kept on his territory and opened the service panel, he found that the innards had been tampered with, not just optimized, but severely improved. For a moment, Anakin almost admired the genius of the work involved, was uncertain why he had never thought to do such a thing before to improve the condition of the valuable water, but farming had never been to Anakin's taste When he had remembered that this was Obi-Wan that did this, he shouted in frustration and slammed the panel shut, trudging back through the sand to the homestead.

Something was wrong. Something had to be. There was no way that Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sith Lord extra ordinaire Darth Lumis, would murder Jedi, burn planets, raise empires to undermine the Republic, seduce his wife, and then come to Tatooine to improve the lives of a couple of farmers. The thought was unthinkable, especially considering that Owen was Anakin's family. He hadn't been shy about taking away other things from Skywalker and the Jedi Order as a whole, so why should now be different? Something else was here. Something had to be. The comlink on his wrist beeped as he strode into the homestead, but he ignored it, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead to keep from seeing his mother's grave, filled with the fear of what he would feel if he so much as glanced in the direction. Just knowing it was there was sending him into a near panic as it was, his heart pounding, his lungs vibrating with every breath, his hands beginning to tremble with fear and pain and remembered rage.

The feeling was so like what he now felt for Obi-Wan. Back then, with his mother, there had been the visions of her dying, suffering, in pain, the chilling grip of fear that held him when he thought of losing her, the blinding rage that sunk bone deep when she had died. The grim satisfaction of driving his lightsaber into the hapless Tuscans. The feel of power that coursed through him when he understood how much they feared him. The joy he got in watching them fall...all of it so, so like his new fears of losing Padmé. There were the dreams that plagued him of her passions with a Sith Lord, the fear they may be real, the anger, the hate that overtook him when he knew his dreams were visions, the deep freeze of the Force when he had looked upon the dark bruises that Kenobi had left upon her soft, pale skin...

It was Sith manipulation, he knew it was, and the only way to save her from it was to destroy them. All of them, but Obi-Wan needed to die first. Qui-Gon had pulled him from the brink before, had saved him from allowing his wrathful temper to get the best of him, had kept him from killing the girl he loved in a blind rage when the Dark Side had so, so smoothly whispered to him for revenge, and Anakin knew how good revenge felt. The temptation to give in was severe, especially when he knew, knew that Kenobi would continue to attack him like this, and Padme would be used again and again until the Sith Lord was dead, or she was. Anakin wasn't sure at the time which he'd prefer, but now, with some distance between him, he saw it a bit more clearly. Padme wasn't at fault, and they couldn't be happy, be truly together until Obi-Wan, her old love, her first real love, had been slain. And yet...

There was still the nagging pull in the back of his mind that deep down, she wanted Obi-Wan, craved his touch, yearned for his passions, and the slow, snaking, poisonous thought began deep in his mind, slowly spreading until it was all he could think of. What if, what if, Padmé fell in so easily with Anakin because he reminded her of Obi-Wan Kenobi? It would not be the first time he was told they were similar. Qui-Gon had said it often before they found out his ultimate fate. They shared a love for flying, a talent for mechanics, a skill Anakin had now seen first hand, they both loved royal women, were both passionate, had something of a rebellious streak, a certain defiance within them that, while manifested very differently, let them to be, as Jedi, highly unconventional. The more Anakin tried to turn his thoughts away from such toxic ideas, the more he thought of them, until be began thinking with obsessive ferocity that, maybe, Padmé had been wishing that he were Obi-Wan this whole time, had pretended that it was Kenobi inside her instead of Anakin in the deep of night. Maybe, given the opportunity, she willingly fled into the arms of a lover, and the darkness they sensed in her was nothing more that her dark desires for a man she knew was evil.

Anakin cursed under his breath as he furiously strode through the wide open courtyard of the Lars homestead, examining the depressions in the hard, compacted sand where the Umbra had sat down. He shut his eyes, sighing in relief as he focused on anything but his wife, his rival, the war, and instead imagined the ship that belonged to Obi-Wan Kenobi. With the knowledge of what the ship looked like couple with the depressions in the sand, he could get an idea of the modified ship's size, the magnitude of its size, the elegance of the sleek design, and he could almost imagine the luxury of its interior. It must have been magnificent. After he killed Obi-Wan, he'd have to take it. He always wanted a ship like that, and it seemed right to take something the Sith bastard held dear.

He growled when images of Padmé and Kenobi flashed through his mind again, and he reached out to the Force to help him suppress the anger, the suspicion, but it was little help. Padmé's feelings were...insignificant. Perhaps she truly wanted her vile lover, or perhaps it was Sith mind control. Maybe it was both, but it didn't matter, it really didn't. Obi-Wan's death would solve everything. With no Sith lover, there would be no influence on his pretty wife. With no other option, she would have to choose the Jedi over the dead, dead Sith Lord, and Anakin would do anything for his Padmé. Anything. To keep her safe, to keep her happy, her lover, her tormentor needed to die. With his death, they could finally be happy, with nothing else to stand between them. With him dead, the war would end, the Jedi would be safe, and Anakin would be granted the title of Master and a seat beside Qui-Gon on the Jedi High Council, as he should be. He was powerful, stronger than anyone in the Order, stood opposed to the Sith Lord that threatened them all. With that sort of power, he should be leading them.

He hissed, cursed again when he found his thoughts had again turned to Kenobi and Padme. Qui-Gon would tell him to distance himself, to let go of the anger, the thoughts of revenge, for the more he was rattled, the more of a target the woman became. He took a deep breath, and this time, felt his raging pulse slow, his ragged breathing calm, and slowly, slowly, he got a grasp on his emotions. For now, he would have to trust Padmé. The Sith were controlling her. That was all this was. He'd save her. He'd save her.

"Anakin?" The voice of his brother brought Skywalker out of himself, and Anakin gently smiled at the man, concern on his face. "Are you alright?"

He nodded, ignoring the comlink on his wrist that began to beep again. "I'm fine. Listen," he said slowly, measuring on if he should tell Owen what he housed here, and decided that arming him with knowledge couldn't be wrong. After all, Kenobi may come here again with worse intent. "The man, the...Jedi you took in. He's very dangerous."

"So are you, Anakin, you're-"

"He's not like me," Skywalker said swiftly. "His name is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he's...a rogue Jedi. He left the Order a long time ago, and now he's fighting against us." Anakin clenched his jsw, his mechanical hand balling into a fist. "He's fighting against me. He cut off my hand," he said, removing the glove to show his brother the golden colored mechanics of his artificial limb, and the farmer gasped softly. Anakin hadn't been here since the war began, Owen hadn't known. "And now, he's...attacking me personally. That's what being here was about. I don't know why he did the things he did here, but...he's trying to turn my family against me."

Owen bit his lip and nodded. "Nobody could turn me against you, Anakin. You're a good man."

"...and if I wasn't?" A sudden sense of dread filled Anakin, and he wasn't sure himself if he was good. But Owen just laughed, a warm smile on his face.

"My brother will always be a good man. If this..." He took a deep breath and shook his head. "I'll tell you if this...Obi-Wan?" Anakin nodded. "If this Obi-Wan comes around again, you'll be the first person I tell." He laid his hand on Anakin's shoulder. "He stayed in the spare room you used to stay in. I...don't think he slept. At all." He shrugged. "Maybe you can find something there."

With a nod, Anakin took long, purposeful strides to the spare room, the room he always used to use, and he was hit by a wave of nostalgia when he stepped inside, followed by nearly unbearable sadness. His mother used to sit there, just there, on the edge of the bed and talk about his hopes and his fears, what he wanted, his training, the Force, his Master, everything. He couldn't be here again, not ever, not in this room. Steeling himself, he entered, closing the door behind him for privacy, his sharp eyes looking around for something, anything, that indicated the Sith Lord had been there, but the room was exactly as he remembered it. With a sigh of frustration, he turned to leave the room and froze when he looked upon the back of the door. There, hung at exactly his eye level, was a note scrawled in an elegant hand, the edges of the paper rolled in slightly, off-white from exposure to Tatooine's blazing twin suns. He drew closer slowly, stepping cautiously as if the room were suddenly filled with traps, until he stood before the note, reached out and grabbed it in trembling hands, his eyes drifting over the words over and over again as if he did not understand.

Hello Anakin, it said. I never knew my family, so it was a pleasure getting to know yours. I think I'll keep them. See you soon - Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The incessant beeping of his comlink eventually drew him out of his focused, hateful rage, the Jedi seeing nothing but the words on the page blazing in front of him, even when he closed his eyes, imprinted deeply upon his retinas. "What?" he answered with a furious snap, pressing the button so hard that the valuable device threatened to break under his hard grasp.

"General," Tarkin said swiftly, almost excitedly, ignoring the rage in his commander. "Negotiator and Liberator have been spotted in the space above Onderon." Anakin could almost feel the man's superior smirk, even without seeing him. "Both Kenobi and Vos are there."

"That's Inner Rim, Tarkin, that's very close to home!" Anakin said excitedly, his voice trembling with anticipation and rage. "Call in everyone, Tarkin, I'll be up in a moment. Let's go hunting."