A/N:

TW: Non-graphic nudity scene involving another character… Also, PTSD-esque flashbacks

OOO

Chapter V

(Voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi)

I know that if I don't get myself calmer before the mission begins, there will be trouble. Operating from a place of emotion never does anyone any good—well, perhaps my timeline's Anakin, but it certainly did not serve him in the long-run. So, the moment the Council releases us, I dodge Anakin and Qui-Gon's attempt at further discussion about the mission—well, Qui-Gon's anyways, Anakin just sort of stands there glowering at me—and head to one of the meditation rooms at the far end of the Temple. This space, one of the original rooms from the then-smaller Temple, is barely used by anybody given that there are far nicer, better-set-up, more well-lit ones in the West Wing. But I don't seek any frills; I seek silence, and peace.

I close my eyes, drawing in a deep breath, and once more allow myself to sink into the Force. Its comforting presence enfolds me, and for a blessed moment I float in its warm embrace. Then, just as suddenly as the peace came, it goes. I begin falling. Down, down, down… as if in the mouth of an endless tunnel. When I finally hit the bottom with a whole-body jar, I find myself on Tatooine. Binary suns burn with pitiless heat. Around scurries resilient life. Lurking everywhere is capricious death. The sands glow in the evening light, and I trace the edge of a rock, feeling its desolate echoes in the Force. The rock is strong with the Dark, for some reason. Though, such is the nature of life: dark and light exists in duality, the key is to always seek the latter—

"You've always believed that so persistently," says a voice.

My head snaps up; my heart gives a judder. "Anakin!" But not just any Anakin: my Anakin. The one I knew and who knew me, one untouched by the hand of fate or wrongheaded choice. He smiles in a happy, who-may-care way as he stands with broad arms crossed and brow quirked. "What're you doing here?"

"I think the better question is, what're you doing here?"

I shrug… and in so doing notice the ache in my back. I examine my hands afresh, seeing the wrinkles. Said hands find my face, smooth over the weather-beaten skin. I am myself again, the true old man who dwells within me. "It's home," I say finally, "of a sort, isn't it?" But I think, Home is where you are.

"I suppose so. But wasn't your home always the Jedi?"

I look away. "It was."

"It isn't still? After all… you sought them again in this new timeline you're now enjoying."

"It wasn't about seeking them," I say. It's about it being the only life I've ever really known. It's about, in terms of the timeline, it also feeling like the best place to put myself. But I also know it isn't the entirety of the reason I stayed. "I couldn't leave you." Even though I only watched from afar, I couldn't bear to abandon my responsibility. I still can't.

"But you already did."

"What… what do you mean? I've always been there, even if you haven't seen—"

He shakes his head at me, and as he so does… his beautiful sky eyes shade sulfur, burning in their depths with the broiling magma of Mustafar. "I always knew you'd fail me, Obi-Wan," he says, voice low and rough and almost inhuman. "It's your fate. Failed me that time, failed me this time…"

"Darth," I whisper, horror seeping into me like ice water in my veins. I stumble back, brace myself on the head of the rock. My hands scrape and the skin stings. "No."

"No matter how many times you try, you always will fail, old man." He stalks closer and closer with each word, a predator on the prowl. I cannot find the strength within myself to resist, or to so much as move a muscle when he reaches up a flesh hand and runs it along my cheek with a cold, cold smile. I am rooted to the ground, immobile, unable to stay, unwilling to go. "I must say, though: I do appreciate the effort. I never knew how much you cared…"

I can only shake my head. Always, I thought my care had been too obvious. It took me a long time to realize my attachment—and the depth thereof—but that attachment I'd denied even having… looking back it had all seemed painfully obvious.

Not to him, it would seem. Darth continues on ruthlessly, "I know Qui-Gon does—care, that is. But… even as much as he is like a father to me… he still can't cut it. Couldn't, I should say, since I cut him." And he gives a short, resonant laugh. Qui-Gon? I wonder frantically. What's happened?

"But you. You left me, Obi-Wan, no matter what you told yourself. You left me and that hurt. Do you have any idea… how much that hurt?" His fingers are digging into my cheekbone now, hurting, bruising.

"Anakin," I manage, "I thought it was for the best. I didn't know… I didn't know you'd even mind—"

"LIAR!"

My flesh is beginning to fall inwards under the strength of his grasp, as the bones give and grind. Agony and horror suffuse me, melding with the building hiss and whisper of the wind, which repeats, You failed, you failed, you failed me… "Anakin—please—I can't bear this… I can't bear it—you're breaking—"

"It doesn't matter what you can bear or not. You wanted to play with time, Obi-Wan? Well, you succeeded. I still am who I am—but you left me without you. Once more, you have failed me. Failed me because you put me on someone else's shoulders, when I have always been yours to handle! You blame Qui-Gon… but you should blame yourself, and you know it.

"I am your fate."

…

I open my eyes, gasping for air, but my lungs feel filled with water. I choke, gag, cough desperately until at last, some semblance of breath returns to me. My mouth is bitter, corrupt, filled with the sand of the desert. The turbohammer that is my heart pounds, pounds, pounds. I thrash wildly… until at last, I remember where I am. Not Tatooine. Coruscant. The Temple. Still here.

Still going to fail.

I throw my hands over my face and begin to weep.

So much for finding peace.

…~oOo~…

It is a pale, wan face which greets me in the reflective surface of the ship's refresher mirror. Bracing my hands on either side of the sink, I observe the man who looks back at me. His face is young yet, too young, perhaps, for the shadows within the gray-blue eyes. The hair remains long, as I have seen no reason to cut it into the post-Geonosis battle-ready style yet. In truth, I always preferred the style I sported prior to the Clone Wars, but after them I had far bigger fish to fry than maintaining my Anakin-termed "Jedi mullet". A single reddish-brown strand has fallen into those haunted eyes, and I take up a hand to push it out of the face. At that ghost of a touch to the face, the dry, cracked lips accordingly quiver. I turn away, breathing hard, loathing the man behind me in the reflection. Get it together, get it together. It is less a chant so much as a prayer. Get it together, Kenobi. It was a dream, it was a dream, it wasn't real. It wasn't—it doesn't mean anything—

What if it means everything…?

"Hey."

I spin round, grabbing the attacker by the hand he has dared to set upon my shoulder, twisting the wrist back to immobilize the possible route of assault, setting my saber to his jaw. I will defeat him; I will kill him! I will do whatever I must to avoid failing—

Qui-Gon Jinn raises an eyebrow. "That was," he remarks finally, "fast."

My hand drops to my side, my arms releasing. I step back. Draw a shuddering breath. Boom, goes my heart.

"I apologize," I say stiffly, and do not meet his eyes.

Thankfully, he pretends nothing at all just occurred, going on to remove himself from the wall and remark that, "Anakin says we should be making our next hyperspace jump in an hour or so. I thought you'd want to know."

Boom.

"Thank you."

"Would you like to come up to the cabin for some breakfast?"

"No, I've already eaten. But thank you."

"You know," a voice drawls, and Anakin saunters into our little hall corner of the blazes here, "you don't need to say 'thank you' in every reply you give."

Boom, boom.

"I know," I say. If I were of the spirit, I would have made a joke of that, adding thank you after a sufficient pause.

As it is, I appear to have pissed off the young Padawan for some reason I don't attempt to parse. It has been like that for all of our trip so far, though. Why should it change now on the second day? He does the head-toss movement that only brings his braid back into his eyes, then demands, "So, what's with you avoiding us the past day and a half? We have the plague or something?"

"Anakin." Qui-Gon's voice is fatherly in its chiding.

"No. I'm not going to keep ignoring it. I've tried being nice." Oh? I wonder when that was. "But you're so stuck up, Kenobi, you can't even respond to the simplest outreach."

"What outreach would that be, Anakin? Attempting to goad me into a duel through methods of stalking, or throwing a tantrum like a five-year-old when I refuse?" I return smoothly. It's a low blow I regret almost immediately afterward, especially since I never bothered to inform Qui-Gon of that bit. In fact, Anakin himself probably doesn't know that I witnessed his little post-rejection tirade the other day.

As it is, the boy flushes the color of ripened beets, eyes rapidly darting between me and Qui-Gon and finally back to me with flames in them. Unable, it seems, to come up with a better retort, he cries, "Kriff you! I don't even know why the Council assigned you to this mission. We'd be ten times better off without you."

In all my bitterness, I cannot disagree. "Yes," I muse, "perhaps it would have been." Only in reverse: I go alone instead of the three of us.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I was agreeing with you, young one." From a certain point of view, at any rate.

It would seem to be the wrong move. "I'm ten times the Jedi you are!" Anakin rails. "And you know it! It's the only reason you won't fight me, you're too scared to lose!"

Qui-Gon attempts to step in, but it's me who actually interrupts him. "Pride cometh before the fall, Anakin," I scold, automatically taking on my exasperated-Master tone. "You would do well to take heed of the maxim. You are not all powerful, nor ought you to be."

"Someday," he hisses back, "I will be. I'll be the most powerful Jedi ever!"

And then there is only silence.

It's true enough that his potential reaches so high, but I really have nothing to say to it. Nothing except, It is not of a Jedi to seek power, Anakin; it is of the Sith. Jedi seek knowledge, understanding, but never power. We seek to surrender to the power of the Force. But somehow, I just can't speak. I'd look to Qui-Gon to handle it, but it doesn't seem like that will be happening. Disgusted, I turn away. Though I cannot say exactly who my disgust lies with: Qui-Gon, for not being at all what I expected for Anakin, Anakin, for seeking such un-Jedi-like things, or myself, for allowing any of it.

Since I was lying about the breakfast part, I push past them in order to find myself a mealpack. Whatever I choose is thoroughly foul, but I shove the orangey stuff down along with the thin, brothy substance, the better to keep myself going, no matter what. No matter what.

…

I realize that something is wrong about ten minutes afterward. For one thing, I suddenly notice that it feels as though a dozen needles are pricking the lower part of my throat. For another, breath becomes rather difficult. Finally, a fog of dizziness sweeps over me, threatening to enclose me entirely in its curtained grasp. Something is wrong, I know. Something is wrong. A very vague memory stirs in me: of that same abhorrent flavor of orangey substance, though served in an ice cream at the time—

I stumble through the hallways, bracing my hands on the metal as the world weaves back and forth. It is Anakin into whom I run. Anakin, who scowls and utters, "If you're here to apologize, I don't want to hea—Obi-Wan?" And suddenly there is terror in his voice.

I wheeze, clasping him hard. "Hoi," I utter. "Hoi… Allergies…" I cough, sputter. Can't breathe. Throat closing up… Anakin yelling for Qui-Gon, Anakin's face flushed with panic, his anxiety bleeding all over the Force… Qui-Gon running in, rushing to me, device in hand—a sharp, thick needle impaling into the flesh of my thigh… Breath returning… yet fainting happening nonetheless…

…~oOo~…

Beat.

Beat.

Beat…

When I swim feebly back to consciousness, the first thing I notice is the cold. The next thing I notice is that the source seems twofold: first a blasting cold source of air, and secondly something reminiscent of ice on my wrists. No… yes… yes, it is ice. It is cold air….

The moan falls from my lips unbidden, and then I hear a sharp intake of breath. Then an equally shard-filled exhalation. "Can you open your eyes?" his voice asks.

Anything for you, I think dazedly.

Anakin lets out a second breath. "Good," he utters, and removes the cubes of ice from my wrist. They are lumpy and misshapen, and I wonder how they ended up in his hands, given I don't think this ship is equipped with an ice maker in the refrigeration unit…

He hops back to my bedside, looking like a ludicrously overgrown youngling in one of the cramped little plastic chairs provided on the ship. "How're you feeling?" he asks, slow and low.

"I've felt better," I croak. My stomach heaves, and then I must rush to the fresher—where I am violently, noisily sick. Of course Anakin stays right there, because of course he does. After it's finally over, I slump against the wall, content never to move again.

"I've felt better," I reiterate.

He breathes out for the third time. "Come on. You need to get in the shower." And he promptly begins to tear at my clothing—

"Anakin!"

"Oh, come on, Obi-Wan. You nearly died. Are you seriously about to be prudish right now…? You are. You're really about to—Force. You're something else." Intriguingly, there is little resentment in the tone. More… wonderment?

I press the shirt which he tried to peel away closer to my chest and skitter a little distance away on the floor. "Thank you for your help," I say. "I will… take it from here."

"You feel well enough to?"

"Of course."

"You're lying."

I'd come up with some pithy retort, but nothing really comes to mind. As it is, I can barely keep holding up the shirt, stars dancing before my eyes, nerves alight with a cold, clawing sensation… I find myself having fallen to the floor, cheek pressed against the cold, cold tiles... Did I pass out again?

"Okay. I can definitely see you're 'fine'. Obi-Wan, I don't want to violate you, but this is legitimately insane. I just… I promise I won't look, alright?"

"What exactly is your plan here, Anakin?" Even if he does… strip me of my garments… there is still the actual matter of the shower, which goodness knows we could not—

"I'll get in with my clothes on, okay?"

"No," I whisper.

"Knight Kenobi. Are you really going to lie there all day in your own vomit just to avoid something that makes you uncomfortable?"

This? I think I just may prefer it. It isn't that I don't trust Anakin to be true to his word. Goodness knows he would have no desire to… well… I mean, the previous shower incident surely proved that. And, of course, there was a time when he did have to help me into a shower—when I got so ill with the flu after a mission to the Outer Rim. But he had been a boy, then, and my Padwan, and there was no other way. Today, here, we are practical strangers, and he is… well… not a boy any longer. (I'm not sure why this makes a difference, but somehow it does.)

However, his logic does eventually penetrate my insistent counteroffensive. At some point, we will be to Ansion, and I cannot show up vomit-smeared and half alive. Somehow… I feel that may contribute to the Jedi's growing bad name in the galaxy at large…

I shut my eyes. "Okay," I say finally, feeling as though I might spontaneously combust at any moment from humiliation.

But when it comes… it isn't altogether as humiliating as I expected. In a very strange way, I find the experience… Force. Would it make me perverted to say soothing? Yes, I suppose it would, wouldn't it? And yet I cannot deny the way that calm washes through me at the oddly gentle, fairly un-invasive way that Anakin's hands move over me, slowly peeling off each piece of my outfit until I am bare, shivering, eyes screwed tightly shut, thoroughly flushed in the face and—

Then he just stops.

"What?" I yelp.

Nothing. No reply. But I can hear his breathing, which comes somewhat fast all of a sudden, and with little breathy pants scattered in between. Is he having a panic attack? I wonder feverishly, irrelevantly: Does he need a bag to breathe into? If Anakin is having a panic attack… and he loses it… I swear I would rather die right here on the cold metal floor than have Qui-Gon Jinn come in to help me naked into a shower. Death, or even being thrown out the porthole into open space which will surely cause it, is preferable.

"Anakin—" I swear, I'm trying so hard to use my Negotiator voice, but all that comes out is a high-pitched, mouselike squeak—"could you please… c-continue?"

Whatever I've done appears to have worked. He begins again, unclasping the final item—my necklace—from around my neck and setting it, well somewhere… I don't look. "Come on," he utters gruffly, hand set protectively on my back. "Let's get you clean."

…~oOo~…

I shiver. Though a half-dozen blankets cover me up to the top of my chin, the cold proves unrelenting. Never before have space travel's effects seeped so harshly into my very bones. Yet I also know that the cold's origin does not only begin in such mundane places. My eyes are screwed shut tightly, as they have been for the last three hours. Somehow, I think if I open them, I might shatter, like the famously beautiful-but-delicate Telos flower on Sasiik, which breaks apart at even the slightest brush of sentient touch. If I open my eyes, I must face reality—and this silent, dark world I inhabit that is free from pain, fear, or care proves preferable.

But reality—or rather the persistent beacon of it—demands its due. "Obi-Wan?" Anakin asks.

For a very long moment, I consider feigning sleep. I'm not exactly sure how I might go about it, since I don't snore, but maybe even my breathing a bit more… But even I cannot stoop to such cowardly levels, and I know as much. "Anakin." I am proud, I must admit, of how even my voice sounds. Almost bored. Certainly not of the please never let me have to open my eyes again, I can't bear it for ten trillion reasons I could never have a long enough lifetime to explain variety that I feel.

"Are you… feeling better?" There is the faintest hint of fluster to Anakin's tone, and I can just imagine the way his head ducks down, his eyes flit away…

Since "yes" feels impossible, I opt for an, "Mmm."

"Do you need another Relief Shot, do you think?"

"No, I think we're good with those," I say hastily. He and Qui-Gon have both already applied one, respectively, and I rather suspect my body to be at its allergy-relief limit. If I were going to die from the Hoi exposure, I already would have. They can check me out when we get to Ansion in a few hours. Besides, the way my head is spinning and my heart is pounding cannot be a natural response to the epinephrin, though that may also just be from the substantial stress and graphic public humiliation of the day.

And then there is the fact that the person before whom I was most deeply humiliated insists on staying by my bedside like a sentry performing paid duty.

It takes me a while, though, before I am able to say, "Why don't you go have dinner? I'll be fine." Though I am unaware of the time, dinner sounds about right… "I appreciate you looking after me while Qui-Gon monitors the ship, but I am past the mandatory watch period—"

"You think I'm sitting here because of a kriffing watch period?" Anakin asks lowly, unbelievingly. "You think I'm going to leave you alone right now?"

Unsure what to do with that, I rather feebly repeat, "You should get some food."

"After today, I'm not sure I'll ever eat another mealpack again."

I wince. "Me neither," I mutter.

"Some karker is going to pay!" Anakin suddenly bursts out, wildly and violently. "Any low-level Padawan should've checked your profile and seen your allergies, made sure the ship didn't have anything with Hoi in it—and those idiots at the packing plant, who don't put labels on the Jedi supplies—"

"Anakin."

The one word alone is enough to silence him.

My lips have twisted into a faint, ironic smile. "You can't take down an entire food-packing conglomerate just because I happened to make a mistake with what I chose to eat."

"Watch me."

Unfortunately, I reflect, you probably could. But… the question remains as to… "Why does it matter to you?"

"—what?" A bit breathy.

Finally, I am prepared to open my eyes. The light in the room is dull, soft, illuminating his sun-bleached hair like a golden halo around his keen, fresh face. Nineteen. It seems so impossibly youthful as to bring an untenable sting of sorrow to me. He looks at me intently, absorbedly. Like he'd be content to look forever.

"We hardly know one another," I admit. "Why would you care what happened to me?" After all, you've been attempting to fight me so often, always with that look in your eyes. I know, I know you have wanted to hurt me…

He blinks hard. Looks away. Swallows. His voice is one of wind shifting over breaking glass when he returns, "Before I answer that, you owe me an answer to something, Knight Kenobi."

After the day I've had, and the care he has shown me, I know I would answer anything short of in-depth details about how I made my stew each day on Tatooine for nigh on twenty years. "Okay," I agree faintly. "Go ahead."

In response, he shoves a fist into his pants pocket, then shoves out his hand, opening the palm like a flower blossoming in spring. In the center rests the snippet of japor on a string, faded, the leather worse for the wear, but still quite recognizable as that which he dropped on my infirmary room floor all those years ago. Ironic we find ourselves here now, like this, with him about to ask what I suddenly already know.

Anakin's voice is measured as he demands, "Explain to me why you were wearing this under your shirt when I helped you today."

OOO

A/N: *cackles gleefully*

Admit it. You're simultaneously screaming at me/ wanting to cackle with me right now. Or maybe not. You could just be mad. But you know this author—she can't resist leaving ya'll on cliffhangers!

Also, side note: Obi-Wan really is allergic to Hoi Broth. The ROTS novelization mentions it. Since I mostly draw from the first six movies and Legends with a dash of making stuff up because it's fun, I figured Hoi might just be a general ingredient that could be present in other stuff. Thus this scene was born.
I actually drew from my own experience with an anaphylactic reaction myself, (though mine wasn't quite so dramatic as this). The reason they inject Obi-Wan twice with epinephrine is because they can't take him to any med center (which would be proper protocol) since they're already most of the way to Ansion and nothing is closer. That is not actually the proper thing to do; you inject once and then get your butt to the ER. So, not that I expect anybody to be taking medical advice from a fanfiction, but just thought I'd note it...

Until tomorrow,

~ Lilac

PS. *Obi and Annie in the refresher*

Obi: I'm so humiliated this is the worst experience of my life just about—and we all know I've been through some stuff! But being stripped naked and showered by someone who hardly knows me but who is Anakin… yeah. That's where I draw the line.

Annie: OMG HE'S HOT HE'S HOT HE'S—
Stay calm, stay calm… have to get calm. (He's so hot, he's so—)

Obi: OMG is he having a panic attack? Is my bod that terrible or something?

Annie: Wait a minute. Is that my japor snippet? Is my ANGEL WEARING MY JAPOR SNIPPET? I THOUGHT I LOST THAT THING!

Obi: *whispers* Can you please… er… keep going?

Annie: *deep breaths, deep breaths. Professional again –somewhat * Okay. This shower's gonna need to be a cold one.