Chapter 8 – Sandstorms

Author's Note: Enjoy the actual genuine conversations. :)

WARNING: None, unless excessive snuggling counts :D

~ Amina Gila

Anakin stirs from his half-asleep state at the first inkling of danger in the Force. He hasn't felt this comfortable in a very long time. The all-consuming depression that has been crushing him isn't gone, but it's... a little better.

But no, he really, really doesn't want to move. Obi-Wan's arm is wrapped almost protectively, possessively, around him, and he can feel the long-buried affection from his former master. All he's wanted to see for so long and thought he never would again.

Anakin knew something was wrong with his master, but he would never have guessed time travel. Obi-Wan lived ten years without him – it's no wonder he acts so differently sometimes. And he saw a future where Anakin finished Operation Knightfall at the Temple.

He really doesn't want to think about that, what Obi-Wan must've seen when he went back there. Guilt is already clawing at him, and the knowledge that he would've done so much worse is... It's no wonder Obi-Wan's been acting the way he was. It still hurts – for as much as he can really see that he deserved it now, because of how close he came to doing exactly what happened last time – and there's still a part of him that's afraid he's going to lose... this. Maybe especially because he doesn't deserve to have it.

For a moment, Anakin remembers the brief flashes he'd picked up on from Obi-Wan's nightmare, clearly of something in the future. Flames and screaming and an armored (presumably) cyborg... Anakin really does not think he wants to know what happened on Mustafar. Why Obi-Wan actually believed him dead. What did he do? Nothing he didn't deserve, but...

The feeling of danger nags at him again, Anakin shifts, lifting his head to scan their surroundings. The wind is starting to pick up, and he instantly knows what that means.

Obi-Wan stirs, hand moving up to lightly brush through his curls. Something tightens and warms in him at once. He's been unusually touchy since they finally started talking, and it's... weird.

"Master," Anakin calls quietly, reluctantly pushing himself up, disentangling them.

"What?" He sounds decidedly grumpy at being disturbed.

"Sandstorm. We should go back inside before it hits."

"How can you tell? I have lived on Tatooine for twice the length as you, but I still cannot figure out how you always knew."

"Perhaps you're getting less Force attuned in your old age," he can't help quipping.

Obi-Wan throws him a dirty look. "I am not old, Anakin. Your family needs to stop calling me that."

"Sorry," Anakin replies, grinning. "It's not my fault only me and my children are capable of seeing your true age."

Obi-Wan huffs. "Why did I ever want you back?"

That does sting, but he knows his master doesn't mean it seriously. "Who else would keep your life interesting?"

"That is the truth," Obi-Wan grouses. "But I do not need quite this much chaos."

"You know, you're not too mature for your age." Anakin chokes back a laugh at the disgruntled look on Obi-Wan's face. He could swear if there was a pillow around his master would probably have thrown it at him. "Come on, go inside. What do you do about sandstorms, anyway, Master? Hope it doesn't blow away all your possessions? Or do you have some way of blocking off the entrance? What if a womp rat came inside and tried to eat you?"

"Why do you think I keep a blaster with me?"

"The galaxy's most uncivilized weapon? No idea."

Anakin stands up shakily and walks to the edge of the cave, jumping off. He shields himself with the Force to prevent the sand from flying everywhere when he hits it, but it's not as though it isn't already everywhere. He loathes Tatooine.

"What did I say about frivolous use of the Force?" Obi-Wan complains, climbing down. Anakin can't help noticing how he doesn't have his blaster with him. He would much prefer not thinking about that right now. He doesn't want to think about how he nearly died only hours ago.

"You remember that ten years later?" Anakin asks incredulously, "Did you really memorize all those lectures from rehearsing them so many times?"

"You are an absolute beast," Obi-Wan declares flatly.

"I'm not the one who decided to live in a cave when I had a perfectly functional family who would be very happy to have me."

"You're not thinking ahead, Anakin. That would put them in danger." He actually sounds annoyed, or maybe he's pretending to be too much. Anakin stops on his trek into the cave and turns back.

"Right now, Master, there's no place in the galaxy for me that will keep my family safe. I haven't forgotten Sidious is looking for me." The danger is growing closer, and he can hear the wind in the distance now. Sand is starting to shift around, and Anakin heads farther inside. "Do you really have nothing to block the entrance?" he asks, "Don't you know how dangerous that is? And where'd you put our lightsabers? What if the storm exposes them?"

"It never did in the future," he defends, "And everything that needs protection is farther inside."

"This was stupid," Anakin replies, "People die in those storms." He tries his best not to remember... her. One of his best friends on Tatooine, other than Kitster. She'd died in one, thrown out of her house by her master, for some unknown indiscretion, most likely. He still feels a deep, aching grief thinking about it.

"It was never a problem for me in the future," he huffs. "I don't see why it would be now, unless it's because your very existence attracts trouble."

Under other circumstances, that might not have stung as much as it did now – thinking of the Temple and everything – but he shrugs it off. "You did agree only days ago that I saved your life ten times," he retorts. "– ten years ago, for you."

"I never agreed to that," Obi-Wan shoots back, "I had a perfectly functional escape plan in order before you barged in on Cato Neimoidia."

"How much time have you spent convincing yourself of that over the years?"

"I had little else to think about," he retaliates, "Other than watching your son."

Anakin stills at the words, thinking again of how badly he just wants to see his children. Maybe Obi-Wan is right that it isn't safe right now, but... "He was on Tatooine?"

"Yes. I gave him to the Lars to raise. Leia was on Alderaan."

It hurts in some way, that Obi-Wan already knows his children, and he doesn't. He doesn't even know when he will. "They were separated?"

"To keep them safe from Sidious," he explains, "We knew it would attract attention when they were older."

The wind is picking up, sand whipping around in the entrance. The cave is deep, thankfully, but he still can't fully shake the memories of those times he was nearly trapped in a sandstorm himself.

"There was a tenth time," Anakin adds quietly. He can't say why he's mentioning it right now, given how... touchy the subject is for both of them. "In – the Chancellor's office."

Obi-Wan frowns, "I escaped on my own."

"Palpatine only spared you because I joined him. I... I imagine he knew I would refuse if he killed you."

He stills, for a long moment, before reaching over to touch his shoulder. "How's your... injury?" he asks instead.

Anakin shrugs slightly. "It's much better than it was. It'll be gone soon." Maybe. Hopefully. It will scar though. That will always be there, a constant reminder of what Obi-Wan did to him that night.

The wind outside is howling now, sand blowing in the entrance, and they move to the far side of the cave to avoid it. It's deep with many twists and turns, and it should be enough to protect themselves unless the opening is covered and they suffocate. Not as if that's likely to happen though.

He feels vulnerable asking this, but he needs to know. "How can you stand having me here?" Anakin asks. "After everything you know I was going to do. How?"

Obi-Wan studies him in silence for a moment, not as if there's much to see. It's too dark in here. "I never stopped caring for you. I couldn't."

It's the first time Obi-Wan has admitted to caring for him, and Anakin doesn't know how to react to this. What is he supposed to say to that? "You were still willing to... choose your duty over me." This isn't... easy. Anakin really doesn't know how to handle it but feeling Obi-Wan's touch is so calming and grounding, and he still wants it. Maybe it's just making him act irrationally right now. "I am grateful you... kept me living," he says, awkwardly. "Even if it has been hard. It was... selfish of me." They both know what he's talking about.

"Yes, it was," Obi-Wan agrees, "But I regret causing you to believe that I would truly not want you."

"It's..." Anakin shifts uncomfortably, unable to meet his master's gaze. "I saw you feared me. I may have imagined it, but I..." His instincts whisper at him to stop talking, because his master will be disappointed and angry but really, he can't be any more than he already is.

He already knows Obi-Wan doesn't trust him. He never has nor will. Crying about it won't change it, even if he often wants to. It certainly didn't help with Hardeen.

Their relationship has changed somehow, and Anakin doesn't really know what or where or what it means for future.

"I did... fear Vader," Obi-Wan admits grudgingly. "Briefly. He looked just like you."

"How do you know he's not me?" He doesn't know how that slipped out. "How do you know I'm not him?"

"You didn't do what he did," Obi-Wan replies, his voice oddly quiet. "You never massacred those he did, and you... are different."

"But he was also once me." He was also a child, lost and begging for his master's support.

"The Dark Side destroyed him. There was nothing of you left in him."

Anakin doesn't know why he's trying to argue that point. It's not as though he lived through it. Obi-Wan did, not him. "In truth, I know nothing of the Dark Side. All Sidious told me before going to the Temple was to show no mercy, which I am well-accustomed to."

"I cautioned you against that," Obi-Wan replies.

It makes the age-old anger burn inside him swell again, and Anakin pulls back, turning away, struggling to tamp it down. His master is either too good or too infuriating to understand. "You don't understand."

"Then I want to," Obi-Wan replies, unruffled, "I want to know what I nearly lost you for."

How in the galaxy is he supposed to answer that?

How is he supposed to tell his master that the years he longs for and misses were Anakin's nightmares? It's not as if it couldn't have been worse, and that's what upsets him the most. That's what always makes him feel like he's losing his mind. "How am I supposed to tell you that?" Anakin demands roughly. How am I supposed to tell you that I'm a tool and a weapon and that I'm yours? How in all the galaxy is he supposed to say that because the only person in my life who showed me mercy except my mother since Qui-Gon was a Sith Lord who never cared about me – he was using me, and I'm his tool and weapon as much as I am yours?

"I don't know," Obi-Wan replies.

It's so easy to be angry, but he can't and won't do that right now. Instead, he sinks to the floor, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Why are you asking me this?" he asks wearily, "I know you care about me, but you don't trust me. You never have, and I don't know why. Where – when was I not – what you wanted me to be?"

For the first time, Obi-Wan seems to be at a loss for words. "It has been ten years, and my memories of this time are... no longer fully clear, but I never remember distrusting you, Anakin."

Anakin huffs out a breath. "It feels as though we are on completely different levels of reality." It hurts thinking about. His master lived ten years without him, and Anakin can't imagine what that must have been like. Of course, he's not the same, but it also hurts, because this might be Obi-Wan but it's not really his Obi-Wan, either.

"I agree," Obi-Wan says dryly.

And Anakin doesn't know how to talk to him. He once did. He did before he married and before the war and Hardeen and before his Knighting. He was always open with Obi-Wan because Obi-Wan was all he had, but his master so often pushed him away, and when he had Padme or Rex or Ahsoka to talk to he didn't need to go to Obi-Wan anymore, because they would never push him away as much as his master did.

"You asked me why I am... violent," Anakin says, "Or whatever unflattering term you say it as. The Council only accepted me after Master Qui-Gon died because I was a weapon. They wanted to use me as a tool of destruction, and you trained me for that. What else was I supposed to do? If – if I wasn't that, what would you have done? If I wasn't this Chosen One? I would have just been... someone. I would be only another slave the Jedi don't have time or resources to care for and I'd have come back here, wouldn't I? Except I wouldn't be able to leave."

"Anakin," Obi-Wan says softly. He sits across from him, sand crunching beneath him. "We would never have abandoned you."

He swallows, trying to force back his bitterness and the tears suddenly burring his vision. "Like you left my mother? Like you left Ahsoka?" He feels shaky, and he's angry at himself for having a breakdown about this right now. Obi-Wan shouldn't have to deal with it. "And I owed you for freeing me. For giving me a life. Everything."

"I can't deny the Council wronged them, Anakin," Obi-Wan concedes finally, "But I had no idea you felt like this about it."

"Of course, you did not. You never asked me, and it didn't matter. You gave me life, and I owed it to you to be... what you wanted."

Obi-Wan reaches towards him, touching his arm. "I never saw any of it, Anakin."

"I know. You never needed to. I was not your... responsibility. You may have chosen to train me, but I was never able to be..." He feels sick. He feels dirty. He killed people. He killed the people who freed him, and he loathes himself for it. "I'm sorry," he blurts out shakily, a few stray tears escaping. "I failed you, Master. I know nothing I say can undo what I have done, or what I would have done, but I..." He craves to hear an I forgive you but Obi-Wan will never – should never – give him that.

"Tell me what happened," Obi-Wan requests. "From right after we landed the Invisible Hand."

"I... went to the Senate and Padme told me she was pregnant."

"I still cannot believe you married," Obi-Wan grumbles.

"It was the happiest moment of my life," Anakin continues, fading back into the moment. He remembers that with glaring clarity, and he thought everything would be fine. "I thought we would have a future and a life together, but that night I had a vision of her dying. She was calling for me. Asking me for help – the same as it was with my mother." It hurts to even think about, like a blade digging into his heart. It was so, so close.

"Then what?" Obi-Wan inquires. "What did you do?" He's not happy, and this is why Anakin never wanted to talk to him about their problems when they were younger, because he didn't want to hurt Obi-Wan. He knew his master would be upset because this could never have been intentional – it's unthinkable – and...

"I told Master Yoda first thing in the morning. That's why I was late for the briefing."

"Before, you said that he told you to do nothing?" Obi-Wan asks.

"He did, and I – I couldn't do that. I couldn't just let her die." He breaths in shakily, remembering the emotions crushing him in that moment. (Remembering how Obi-Wan reacted when he told him the first time.) And it's still like everything he did was for nothing, even if he doesn't know what it was that changed Padme's fate. Obi-Wan time traveling, perhaps? "I... it was only because of her and our future that I... could stay together during the war, and even back when I was a padawan."

"A padawan?" Obi-Wan asks. "Why? What would you have struggled with then?"

He doesn't want to talk about this, but – "Being your padawan was... not easy."

He frowns. (Maybe there's a hint of hurt there, too.) "I know we sometimes had difficulties, but I didn't know you struggled so much with it."

Anakin has absolutely no idea how to talk about this because he really, really doesn't want to seem ungrateful. "You raised me. You cared for me. I... am grateful for that, but sometimes... You were all you needed to be, but perhaps I am blaming you for something that's not your fault at all." Anakin scrubs a hand over his face again. He feels small. "I was so lonely. I didn't understand anything back them, and the only person who would tolerate me was you and then Palpatine." It hurts. That was the one friendship he thought was sincere. "And with you, you always had to be... better. In control. You were my master first, but I wanted you to be someone you were not. I know it's not fair of me to expect this of you."

Obi-Wan has been watching him in silence until now. "I never noticed any of it."

"I know it was never intentional," Anakin continues. He can feel Obi-Wan's emotions with clarity, his horror and confusion and... He should stop talking. "You told me never to trust myself. Palpatine told me to only trust myself. And when you made it obvious you didn't trust me, it was so easy to follow him. He pulled the act on so well. I can't believe it was all feigned."

Obi-Wan reaches over, touching his arm. "I'm the one who let you see him. He had us all fooled. And I did trust you. I don't know why you would think otherwise."

He suddenly feels inexplicably exhausted. "If you trusted me, you would have listened to me. You constantly... belittled me. It's not as if this is the first time you left me out of a mission."

Obi-Wan inhales sharply. "I thought that had been settled." He doesn't sound so certain.

"Settled now?" Anakin asks, "I do not fault you for it. It was... as I said. I understand you don't trust me. I understand now, but not before."

"Anakin," Obi-Wan says softly. There's a strange amount of uncertainty in his voice. "It wasn't about trust."

Anakin swallows past the lump in his throat. "Then what? Why?"

"It was so long ago. I wanted to prove the Council my attachment to you wasn't hindering my duty."

"That was it?" Anakin asks incredulously, "Even though you knew Ahsoka or I could blow the whole mission? You didn't have to – everyone knew you would never let our relationship cloud your judgment. You never have. What was there to prove, Master? What was there – unless –" He cuts himself off, sharply, before he can say everything else. He doesn't need to try to make Obi-Wan feel guilty about this. That's... that would be wrong.

"Perhaps it was just as much to prove to myself. I never knew I would... need that for future."

That Anakin highly suspects there would have been no future to need that for if not for – for that is something he doesn't breathe a word about. He never will. That is not a guilt his master needs to know, but he can still feel it so acutely, the pain of when he heard Obi-Wan was dead. His mother's death had broken him, and Obi-Wan's had shattered him entirely. It wasn't until – until then that he finally realized he feared losing Obi-Wan more than anyone else, except it wouldn't be through death because Obi-Wan is simply too stubborn and stupid to die. It would always be them turning on each other. Maybe it was always preordained, he wouldn't know – can't ever hope to understand the intricacies of the Force.

It's not enough to stop himself from breaking down and crying, though, and Obi-Wan's hand lifts to touch his cheek. Anakin leans into it instinctively.

"Our attachment was the one thing I was never able to let go of. I... do not believe I can." He sounds slightly uncomfortable.

"Why?" Anakin questions roughly. "Why would you care so much?"

"I raised you," he answers, after a pause, finger trailing across the side of his face, "But I can't explain it. You mean... so much to me. I once thought we were always meant to be together."

He doesn't know what to say to that, past the emotions choking him. It's all he's wanted to hear for so long, and never thought he would. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asks instead. "Why?"

"It wasn't the Jedi way," he replies simply, "I didn't want to encourage it. But I am no longer the Jedi I once was."

There are still so many things Anakin doesn't know. He has never had to live outside of war and violence, and he doesn't really understand how to not expect it to find them. He doesn't know how Obi-Wan managed to live through that. It must have been maddening.

"My children," Anakin begins, "What were they like?" Obi-Wan knew them for years. It's weird to think about. He hasn't even met them yet.

"A headache," Obi-Wan deadpans, amusement and annoyance flaring, "Just like you."

Anakin chokes back a laugh and leans closer. "Would they really be Skywalkers if they weren't both those things?"

"Probably not." He wants to ask when they can see them, but – remembering their last interactions about it stops him. Besides, he's knows thatit's not safe, and – "You can call Padme again, if you want," Obi-Wan says, "I would not be opposed to visiting them, except I do not know if Sidious will be able to track it."

"It's probably too dangerous," Anakin agrees, even if he hates having to agree. It's the truth. "I imagine Sidious will find us here soon. We will need an escape route, and we should have our lightsabers with us instead of buried miles away in the sand. What if we don't have time to get them before Sidious reaches us?"

"We would sense him the moment he exited hyperspace," Obi-Wan objects.

"What if we were currently in the cities?" Anakin points out.

Obi-Wan huffs. He probably didn't think about it. "Keeping them at the cave is dangerous too, if someone else finds them."

"Sidious is the greatest threat," he reminds.

"We can retrieve them once the sandstorm is over," Obi-Wan decides finally, sounding decidedly grumpy.

"So long as they aren't unburied, and someone else finds them first."

"We already talked about this."

"You're the one who was so concerned about the Jawas ruining our speeders. They would be even more likely to find a lightsaber."

"The Jawas stole everything they could at my cave," he complains, "And then sold it back to me. They didn't even clean it."

"Nobody cleans anything on Tatooine. Not out in the sand."

"It wasn't until coming here that I could actually understand why you hated it so much. And many things, truthfully. I cannot imagine it was easy to grow up in a place like this."

"It could've been worse," Anakin replies, because really, it could have been – he had his mother, and she always took care of him. Many others weren't so lucky.

He can feel a disturbing amount of unfiltered adoration through their bond and leans closer, dropping his forehead onto his master's shoulder again. Obi-Wan's hand slides from his shoulder to across his back, trailing across it gently before he pulls Anakin into a hug again. "I missed you so much," Obi-Wan murmurs.

Anakin missed him too, so much. He never thought he would have this again.

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