Precipice by shadowsong26

Captain: Chapter 8

As always, Anakin took the Waterfall on a roundabout route away from Tatooine. And, as always, he felt that weird mixture of relief and disappointment. Relief because-because the planet was what it was, and his memories were what they were, and it was still hard, being here.

But, at the same time, disappointment because, at least for now, he had to leave Leia behind. When she was a little older, ready for training, things would be different. But for now, she was safer staying with Owen and Beru, and he came to visit as often as he could. Which was not often enough by a long shot, but...

He shook his head, and focused on flying instead. Hopefully, by the time he and Rex got to the rendezvous with Obi-Wan, all of that would have faded. As much as it ever did.

Rex wasn't in the cockpit with him; he'd set up a punching bag down in the hold to try and work out some of his own tension that way. It didn't seem to be helping all that much, but at least it was keeping him busy. Sometimes, that was all anyone could do, when faced with what felt like impending doom.

Anakin had, of course, told him what Obi-Wan had said, that everything would be fine, but it probably wouldn't make much difference until the actual meeting. Just like it had taken Leia to really drive home to Rex that Anakin had meant it, and he'd forgiven him in person from the start. Obi-Wan's came secondhand, which made it that much harder.

But all of that would be straightened out soon enough, travel time aside. Along with whatever that meeting Obi-Wan had taken had been about. He'd sent two messages on the subject-first a request to stand by, then, a couple days later, a brief, "all clear, details when we meet."

The two days in question had been awful- because, sure, Obi-Wan had gone dark for missions before (Anakin never liked it, but grudgingly admitted that it sometimes had to happen), but the fact that this had come up suddenly and was for a couple days had just made it worse. Fortunately, he'd had Leia (and a few projects Owen had asked him to work on) to keep him busy, or he might have actually gone crazy, waiting on that second message. As it was, if he'd had any idea where the meeting was, he probably would've flat ignored his orders and gone to help right away.

Which, come to think of it, was probably at least part of why Obi-Wan hadn't told him. That, and they could never be 100% sure how secure their conversations were, so they tried to avoid details like that except in person. There would have been a preset distress call, of course-probably on a timer that Obi-Wan had to restart at frequent intervals; that was how he usually did it-with all of that information. It wasn't a perfect system, but it had worked so far.

We should work out something better, he thought, before the delay in getting the message to me gets him killed.

He'd bring it up, after they'd covered everything else. He had several hours in hyperspace to try and brainstorm some ideas. Maybe Rex would have some suggestions, too. They'd figure something out, anyway. Just like they always did.

The trip itself was quiet and uneventful, even if it was still sort of tense. Obi-Wan had beaten them to the rendezvous, which meant that his meeting had been closer than Tatooine. Which didn't actually tell Anakin all that much about the content or who he was meeting with, but it was still something.

He'd brought the Waterfall in for a landing under a moss-covered rock overhang at the edge of the swamp. It was a tight fit, and maybe a silver lining to meetings on this particular planet was that it took some actual skill for him to approach it safely.

It was nice, when he got to accomplish things. Concrete things. Especially after a string of days mostly spent waiting.

They were halfway down the boarding ramp when Rex paused, once again working himself into a tightly coiled spring of anxiety.

Is he going to bolt again?

Anakin didn't think he would but, just in case, he paused as well, ready to intercept if he did.

"Maybe…" Rex said. "Sir, maybe I should stay here. With the ship. Not...not rush things."

"It'll be okay," he said. "I told you. Everything'll be okay. Trust me on that, all right?"

Rex took a deep breath, then steeled himself and nodded. "All right. I trust you, sir."

"Good," Anakin said, smiling briefly at him. "Come on, follow me. And be careful-the mud gets up to your hips a couple places on the path. Oh, and watch out for snakes."

"...good to know, sir," Rex said, then fell into step behind him.

On a normal planet, it would have taken about a half-hour for the two of them to get from the overhang to the small patch of relatively dry, solid ground where Obi-Wan was waiting for them. But because this planet was not normal, it took half the afternoon.

Still, they made it, without getting stuck too badly or bitten by any of the snakes (just a few hundred insects). Obi-Wan, of course, was perfectly composed, having already settled himself in and started making tea.

"Oh, wonderful, you made it," he said, standing up and brushing himself off lightly. He had clearly been there for a while; he was mostly dry.

"No thanks to all the kriffing mud," Anakin muttered, offering Rex a hand up onto solid ground.

"Well, if it bothers you that much, we could have our next meeting on Jakku."

He paused, contemplating that horror for a second. Another karking desert planet, without Leia there to make it worth tolerating…

"Have I mentioned how much I love mud, Master?"

Obi-Wan grinned at him, then looked past him to Rex, eyes growing quiet and serious again.

Behind Anakin, Rex tensed, and he fought the urge to do the same.

You said this was okay, I need this to be okay, please-

"It's good to have you back on board, Captain," Obi-Wan finally said softly.

"It's...it's good to be back, sir," Rex said.

And...that was that.

Well, that's not exactly fair, Anakin thought. Rex was mine, why did Obi-Wan have so much less trouble convincing him he was forgiven?

And then he realized how horrible that thought was and it took a few seconds to drag his focus back to the present moment and out of his ever-present guilt.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Sorry," he said. Don't be jealous, don't be jealous, it's probably because you broke the ice, that's all. He found a spot to sit down. "So, what was this meeting about?"

"Ah," he said, and sat back down as well. "I met with Senator Organa."

With-

An emergency meeting with-

No. No, no, no, no, no, nononononono this can't be happening this can't what no-

"Sir?" Rex put a hand on his arm, which at least jerked him out of that particular moment of utter frozen terror.

Which had been ridiculous, anyway. If something had happened to-if something had happened, he would have known. He would have felt it. He would have known.

Would you? Would you really?

He buried that deep, the only way he really knew how-and it was like he was out of his own head for a second, seeing him drop back into old patterns, patterns he was trying so hard to break, he'd been trying so hard for two kriffing years but-

"You didn't tell me," he snapped. He'd gotten to his feet at some point; he couldn't remember doing that; that was bad, right?

But it was easy, it was so easy, it was too easy to lash out instead of taking a breath and thinking this through. Some part of him knew that, some part of him was begging the rest to stop for a minute, to wait, but it was swallowed up by the roar of his heartbeat in his ears.

"No, I didn't," Obi-Wan said. He had stayed where he was, seated on the ground. "There wasn't time, and I didn't want you to panic until we knew there was reason."

"Didn't want me to-" Behind him, Rex was backing away, stop this, stop this, you're supposed to be better than this, why aren't you better than this. "What the-what happened to no more secrets, Obi-Wan?"

Which wasn't fair. It wasn't like he was telling Obi-Wan everything-though things that were technically from before they'd made that promise didn't count; and the nightmares were just-Obi-Wan needed him to be okay, he didn't need to know about the guilt or the sleepless nights or the constant echo of you broke the world, you were supposed to save everyone and just look where you are now-

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said. "Look at me. Look at me."

He was shaking now. The initial-it was over, the moment was over, the guilt had killed it (for now, at least-never thought I'd be grateful for my karking guilt), and he was shaking. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"I know," he said. "And you're right, we did promise. But there wasn't time, and…" He shook his head. "I had my reasons. And I am telling you now, at the first opportunity."

"I know," Anakin echoed. "I know, I know." Do better. Be better. You have to stop this.

"Sit down. Breathe."

Wordless, he obeyed. It was easier to obey right now, to not think.

"That's better, right?"

He nodded, and it almost wasn't a lie.

"You're doing better, you know," Obi-Wan said, after a moment where they just sat there, the tension slowly, slowly, slowly bleeding out of the air.

He blinked, and looked up, uncertain.

"Not so long ago, you would have held on to that-you would have stormed off, gone and done something reckless, refused to speak to me for days," he said. "But you caught yourself. You calmed down on your own-or, mostly, at least. You're doing better."

He...he hadn't thought about it that way. Huh.

"Oh," he finally said.

Obi-Wan smiled a little at him. "All right?"

"Yeah," he said. He took a breath, held it for five counts, and let it out slowly. His heartrate had almost returned to normal now. "Yeah, all right."

But-

Rex, he thought, with another wild stab of guilt. "I'm sorry, Rex," he said. "I didn't-I'm sorry." He wanted to say 'it won't happen again,' but he'd thought that as recently as this morning, and obviously he was wrong. And he didn't want to lie.

"It's all right, sir," he said, quietly. "Really, it is. Like General Kenobi said." And he wasn't-he wasn't lying, or minimizing to make Anakin feel better. Or if he was, he was hiding it really well. He had been wary, but it had faded along with Anakin's...with Anakin's rage.

I don't deserve you. Either of you.

He closed his eyes, and tried to release that thought, or shut it down, or something. Letting the guilt spiral out of control wouldn't really help with anything, either. ...I'm going to have to meditate later, aren't I. For hours.

But that was later. And, okay, Obi-Wan maybe had a point about why he hadn't told him, and there was a difference between Secrets and holding back operational details when there was no secure way to share them.

On the other hand, this had still been an emergency meeting with Bail Organa, and-

"Is...are…?" He stuttered a little. He couldn't get the question out; couldn't say their names; didn't trust himself not to break down again if he did.

"They're fine," Obi-Wan assured him. "Padmẻ and Luke are fine. Or they were when Senator Organa saw them last, anyway. That's not why he wanted to meet."

He slumped a little, boneless with relief.

Rex blinked, and looked like he was about to ask a question, then thought better of it.

I'll tell you later, he promised silently. When I'm not so-when I've had a chance to calm down all the way.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, okay." Another deep breath. "What did he want, then?"

"To show me this." Obi-Wan's face went grim, and he pulled out a datapad, calling up a grainy holovid of-

Oh.

It was a ten-second clip, but it only took him half that long to figure out what he was looking at.

So, he thought. So, this is...this is my replacement.

He thought he might throw up.

Because that could have been him. He hadn't told anyone-not even Obi-Wan-how close it had been, but he knew. He knew. And now there was someone else, some tall unknown being snapping necks in dark alleys, who was doing the Chancellor's dirty work.

Who had taken that shot for him.

How can you look at it like that, how could you, selfish- this is a sentient being, a person who was ruined because of you. Because you couldn't see what Palpatine was. Because even when you finally did, you couldn't bring yourself to end him. Because you failed at everything you were supposed to be.

Because.

Of.

You.

It took him-he wasn't sure how long, after the vid finally ended, to wrestle the guilt back into its box where it belonged.

A lot of meditation later.

"So," he finally said. It came out hoarse and painful, and he cleared his throat. "So, what do we do? Do we go after them?"

Obi-Wan studied him for a moment.

"Please?" Anakin said, and it had nothing to do with his original question. He just-couldn't.

Rex had moved closer again, a silent wall of support at his back, and he didn't have words for how grateful he was. To both of them, just for being there.

"All right," Obi-Wan finally said. "But later, we should talk. When it's not so raw."

Anakin nodded. "Okay."

"And I'm not so sure we should," he said, after another moment. "Go after them directly. At least not yet."

"Why not?" he asked. Tactics. I can do tactics. "The longer we leave them running around…"

"I know," he said, and sighed. "That is a problem."

"And-sorry, sirs," Rex said. "But wouldn't there be an advantage to going after him? To picking the ground? I mean, he's gonna come after you two someday. Probably."

"You're right," Obi-Wan said. "But I'm not sure we can focus on them exclusively. We have other work that needs to be done. I have contacts I need to cultivate, there are some more targets for the two of you to deal with, a few things we should investigate…"

And there were only two of them-because Rex could not take this being on; it would have to be him or Obi-Wan.

"So...what, then?" Anakin asked. "We just keep doing our work, pretend we don't know they're out there?"

"Not exactly," Obi-Wan said. "We watch, and wait, and see what we can learn about this being. Obviously, if we see an opportunity, we take it. But we don't go looking for trouble."

He sighed. On the one hand, they really didn't have the time or resources to go looking. On the other-this new...candidate...couldn't be very experienced. Not right now, at least. But the longer they waited to take them down, the harder it would be. "I guess that's the best we can do, for now," he finally said.

"And, when we get a chance," Obi-Wan said, "I think we should go to Dagobah."

...yeah. I think that's a good idea. Master Yoda might not tell them to do any different, but this was something all three surviving Jedi should probably weigh in on. And maybe he can help me sort through some of-everything. He hasn't really helped me much in the past, but things were all right on Polis Massa, and he doesn't need me to be okay like Obi-Wan does. It's worth a shot.

"I agree," he said.

"Then we'll plan on that," Obi-Wan said. "But in the meantime…"

"Yeah," he said. They had other work to do. Important work. Distracting work. The kind that helped him get by. The kind he was good at. It didn't do much to ease his guilt, other than it kept him from thinking about it for a little while, but…it was useful, and he was doing things.

And just like it had been his entire adult life, it was always there. When everything else was falling apart around him, he could at least count on that.

It would have to be enough.

Original Author's Note: Wow. Uh. So, this ended up a lot longer-and a lot darker-than I'd planned it to be. Uh. Anakin's head is not a happy place to be. I think I mentioned a while back, that he is getting better/doing better, but it's not a straight line, and he's got a long way to go still. But he's trying. And he's better than he was. And he recognizes that he's got some problems, and is really trying to fix things, you know?

Anyway. Uh. Thank you all for reading and sticking with me this far 3

~shadowsong