Beyond Reality

Author's Note: Don't ask what this is lol. I hope it's not too confusing... The background details area bit weird. I tried to explain everything properly but idk if it worked. Didn't really come out like I had in mind but... here it is. :)

~ Tirana Sorki


A hand lightly trailing across his back is the first thing Anakin registers as he slowly blinks himself to wakefulness. The touch is light enough that he thinks it was intended not to disturb him but well –

He's a little hyperaware of his surroundings lately.

Anakin opens his eyes, blinking at the bedroom surrounding him.

The Emperor's bedroom. One of his, anyway.

Obi-Wan's sitting on the bed next to him, watching him. How long's he been doing that? When did he wake up? His hand stills when he sees that Anakin's awake, but he doesn't pull away.

Anakin rubs a hand across his face, trying to chase away the still lingering exhaustion. Being in an entirely new place like where he is is completely draining. "Morning already?"

"If you can call it morning in a place between time and space, yes," Obi-Wan replies dryly.

Anakin smiles faintly, though this entire concept is still so new to him. "I suppose so."

His no-longer-former master's yellow eyes meet Anakin's for a moment.

Anakin averts his gaze. It's too unsettling to look at him like this, yellow eyes and dark Sithly robes. It's everything he taught Anakin was wrong and now that's what he is. Not that he's one to speak.

Not when he's Fallen too.

He doesn't think he'll ever get used to seeing him like that. This is Obi-Wan and – and now he's a Sith, and he's – also the Emperor of the new Sith empire that was going to be Palpatine's until they killed him together.

But it's not his Obi-Wan.

This one is... one who appeared from another timeline, he said. The concept is still baffling to him. But it's clearly true because this Sith version of his former master looks a little older, and he feels so different.

Dark.

But not all bad.

His master's hand trails across his arm. Which is – well, exactly his point. Obi-Wan's not this tactile. Anakin's always been the touchy one.

Not that he minds exactly. It's just weird.

Different like everything is now.

Anakin rolls onto his back, sighing quietly.

His sudden movement makes his master pull back.

He... really doesn't want to wake up. He's just – exhausted. He might have this version of Obi-Wan, but everyone else in his family is gone. He still destroyed the Jedi. So many of his boys were lost there. He hasn't seen Ahsoka or heard from Rex. And –

The last thing he knew, saw of his own Obi-Wan was... right before he met this version of him.

They were fighting on Mustafar.

He'd hadn't been thinking when he attacked Obi-Wan but he was there to kill him after betraying the Republic, and he couldn't just not fight back. He'd been so scared and then years of anger had exploded, and –

He doesn't know how it was about to end.

"Don't try it."

"You underestimate my power."

The last things they'd ever said to each other.

Anakin jumped and the next thing he knew, a purple portal was appearing out of nowhere, and he fell right through, but not before seeing Obi-Wan falling through a different one.

He'd landed back on the landing platform near the ships again, and Obi-Wan had quite literally appeared through another portal.

He'd thought it was the same Obi-Wan at first, even if he looked entirely different but it didn't take long for him to realize that wasn't possible.

This Sith version of him... wanted to rule the galaxy. He wanted Anakin as his apprentice, as a Sith. He promised to save Padme's life – and kill Sidious.

Anakin didn't really believe him. Not at first.

He didn't really have much choice, though. Not – He'd tried to attack him at first because he thought that's what Obi-Wan was intending but he'd just frozen him using whatever technology he uses to jump between time.

It hadn't even hurt so he has no idea why he's so upset about it. He has no idea why he can't get that out of his head.

It's just – he'd been so scared, scared that he was about to hurt him the way his Obi-Wan had been and he couldn't even move, much less fight back.

His Obi-Wan was going to kill him, wasn't he? Maybe. Even if Anakin can't imagine him truly going through with it.

This one hasn't hurt him at all. Not really.

He did save Padme's life. That means everything to Anakin. He loves him simply because he is an Obi-Wan but everything is so complicated now. Maybe that's just because he hates what he himself has become and there's nothing he can do about it.

It made more sense to expect Obi-Wan to be angry, not supporting him. That should make Anakin feel better.

He has no idea why it's making him feel worse.

Anakin reaches out slowly, impulsively, catching Obi-Wan's wrist and pulling it toward him, pressing it against his chest.

Both for the emotion and the –

So he can get a closer look at the watch-like object on his master's wrist which definitely isn't that. It's the device he uses to reality jump.

And to freeze him.

He doesn't know if Obi-Wan would let him look at it up close otherwise and he doesn't really feel comfortable asking. Not after –

How the only thing he can think about when he sees it is being stuck on the landing platform on his knees, with no way to do anything and no idea what was even happening. The device looks so harmless compared to that. But the technology is – fascinating. He wants to know what all those buttons do.

Probably shouldn't start pushing them.

"Are you alright?" Obi-Wan's voice breaks through his thoughts. Worried, fussing, the way he so often does. As though nothing's even different.

"Yeah," Anakin mutters, gaze darting up instinctively to look at him. "Just... tired."

Obi-Wan's hand reaches up to touch his face, brushing his curls back. "That happens when you aren't used to jumping between realities. It can get overwhelming."

"Didn't know you meant quite this much."

"I did warn you and you insisted on coming."

Well, that's fair.

Anakin pushes himself up, looking around the room. Obi-Wan had explained to him on Mustafar that he's an interdimensional traveler something or other. And he'd told him that there's a building between space and time where he was staying before he came back to the closest timeline to his own that he could find.

It's set up very much like Obi-Wan's room at his apart at the Jedi Temple but it just feels... different. It feels of the Dark Side. Of anger.

And of years of pain and grief.

He doesn't know what to think about – that part.

"What happened to my Obi-Wan?" Anakin blurts without thinking.

Obi-Wan stills. "I am no less your Obi-Wan than he is." He doesn't sound annoyed exactly but there's still a certain sharpness there.

Ugh.

He doesn't have the energy to deal with it right now. He's just – "I know that. And that's not what I mean." Anakin squeezes his eyes shut, resisting the sudden ridiculous urge to cry.

Maybe the problem is that he's newly a Sith and has no idea how to control feeling so much all at once instead of constantly trying to suppress it.

Or maybe it's just that he has no idea how to handle the guilt smothering him.

"I didn't hurt him," Obi-Wan replies grudgingly, "Even if that would have been well deserved."

"How?"

Okay, his Obi-Wan was a traitor and he was about to hurt Anakin and he knows that. He could see the vengeance burning in his eyes, but –

Maybe it's just that it's making him feel unreasonably guilty that it's like he just replaced Obi-wan with a darker version of him now that he – betrayed his own. Which is not what happened but it feels like it anyway.

"You don't know what he was going to do to you."

Anakin swallows past the lump in his throat.

He doesn't want the answer. But this Obi-Wan would know – he said he saw the future.

"Where is he?"

"I dropped him off on Tatooine."

"...Why?"

"That's where he would have stayed, if this had continued forward."

Hmm. So Obi-Wan was going to survive then. It's unreasonably relieving to know that now. At the time Anakin had – He doesn't want to think about it. Or anything. "What changed with you? How did you become... this?"

Obi-Wan's quiet for a long pause.

"The future I lived was not one I was willing to let stay true," he replies, a certain roughness to his voice. He always gets like that when he talks about whatever happened. He seems angry. Anakin doesn't think it's at him exactly but it's just... unsettling. It's not that he doesn't trust him but – he just feels different. Anakin doesn't really know him. And he's his Sith master. A very different one than he thinks Sidious was going to be, but Anakin still doesn't really know what to expect.

"My reality was falling apart and I fell into the multiverse. I found... a place where others with similar fates had gathered, creating a... society of sorts. I got technology that allowed me to move through space and time. But what I wanted most was to have you back. I worked on it for years but there was no way to get back my own Anakin. So I came here. You – are the closest to how mine was." There's so much grief and guilt there.

It's strange to think there's other versions of him out there, another version who this Obi-Wan raised.

"How long has it been since – since then for you?" Anakin queries uncertainly.

"I lost track of time. Decades."

Decades.

He lived decades without Anakin. Decades frozen in time, so he looks the same age when really, he should be far older than this.

There's so much about this he still doesn't understand, though.

"Isn't jumping through time like this... dangerous? I mean..."

His face tightens. "It can be, if done too much."

And he's risking that anyway? Anakin has no idea what the right thing to do in this situation is. It's not something the Jedi ever talked about, but he doesn't think the Jedi would approve at all. Not that he is a Jedi anymore but -

Anakin frowns, looking around the room again. Something about this place feels – off.

It's an overwhelming energy of just – something.

He doesn't know.

But he can feel what feels like trillions of life and so much death and darkness all at once all interwoven into one. It is unbearably overwhelming.

"Who else is in this place?"

"Other survivors of timelines, those who... want their own."

Want their own.

That just...

It doesn't sound Jedi-like at all. It doesn't sound right either. You can't just decide that someone timeline belongs to you or whatever. Right? Obi-Wan's just in Anakin's to help but is that really true about everyone else here?

Is it even his place to ask about it? He's a Sith apprentice now. He still has no idea what comes with that.

"What do you want of me now, Master?" Anakin asks uncertainly.

Obi-Wan slides off the edge of the bed, standing. "Wait here. There's some matters I need to take care of while I'm here, but I would prefer it if no one else realized you were here."

That sets off alarm bells in his head instantly.

"Why?"

"There are other variants out there who might want you as theirs."

What –

Want him as theirs? He's not an object. Even if he doesn't much know how to be anything else. That makes him even more wary about this place, though.

It feels like there's a lot his master's not saying.

Obi-Wan's watching him, arms crossed. "Something wrong?"

"It's just – this is never what you taught me was right. I don't understand how that could change so much. I know you just wanted to – to have me back but I don't – What if this is dangerous?"

Obi-Wan shifts a little, moving to press a button on his watch-thingy.

Air catches in Anakin's lungs for a moment, as he's half expecting to get frozen again or something – but instead a purple, shimmering portal appears in the middle of the room.

"Come with me," Obi-Wan says, approaching the portal.

...oh.

Everything's fine, then.

He lets out the breath he doesn't even remember holding. He has no idea why he's being so jittery about it anyway. It's not like it even hurt. Come on.

Every Sith he's ever known has done far worse to him.

Anakin follows Obi-Wan uncertainly into the portal. Doesn't have a reason not to.

That floaty feeling rushes through him and the next thing he knows, they're standing in some other room entirely. It's large with various pieces of equipment in it but what catches his attention instantly is the large glass window spanning the entire wall opposite him.

And outside is –

What is that?

There's blueish glowing... strings of sorts, twisted and tangled and expanding out and out into infinity.

Wait.

Those are –

Realities.

Timelines.

Some of the timeliness are fading out and withering away and – That must be the death he's sensing. He didn't realize timelines could just die like that. It's extremely unsettling.

"That one is ours," Obi-Wan tells him, motioning to one of the hundreds curving past the window. "And I will do whatever it takes to protect it and keep it from going the direction it has to so things don't fall apart again. That is... the only way."

That just feels –

Anakin understands so well wanting to make things better. But deliberately forcing choices? He knows – what that's like. That's not exactly what this is but he just doesn't know. It doesn't feel right even if he can't even put into words to explain how it's not. He hasn't tried to argue with his master as a Sith yet. Doesn't really... want too yet.

"What do you want most, Anakin?" Obi-Wan asks, studying him.

Anakin blinks. "I – don't know?" What kind of question is that, even?

"Of all the things you have ever wished for. Think about it."

He wants to hear something. Anakin's not sure what.

The question feels far too personal for him to want to answer. He tries to think about it for a moment anyway, though.

There's really –

So many things.

He wants his old life back. He wants none of what he did to have happened.

He wants his family back.

He wishes Ahsoka had never left.

He – wishes he had some idea what it meant to be free.

So many things.

He thought when he finally got the chance to have a family with Padme, everything would be better but it's not. She's still recovering but he already knows she's angry at him and he's afraid of what that could mean. She did want him dead before. He has no idea if that's changed.

He wants to stop failing but he feels like he's floating wildly in a void where he's always going to fail and where he's always going to lose and –

"I have seen countless realities. I crossed countless realities," Obi-Wan finally speaks again, "And what I saw was that every reality was different and yet – the same. You may have been eventually found yourself content with your place in the timelines, but I cannot say there was ever one were you were truly... happy. Not for long. And to ever get there, you always went through so much needless pain."

Ever?

Nowhere?

How other versions of him live doesn't directly impact him but it still floods him with an even more overwhelming sense of hopelessness than he's already been feeling.

"I know you wanted to be free and... with everyone in your family, am I right?"

"Yes," he agrees numbly.

He never has felt free, not even as a Jedi. Not truly.

And – someone in his family is always gone.

Mom is never coming back.

Padme nearly died, even if Obi-Wan reversed time on her to keep her alive.

Ahsoka is... still out there, but she was gone so long and he doesn't know how she'll feel about seeing him again, if she knows what he's become.

Sometimes, he couldn't help wondering if there was a... just somewhere out there where this wasn't true, where things were just – better.

Where he didn't always fail everyone.

But apparently that's not true and he has no idea how to feel about that.

"The future you would have lived had I not interfered would have been... dark." He can swear he sees guilt in Obi-Wan's eyes for a moment. "And no reality is truly – better."

"What is it in these realities that makes me – an Anakin?" he asks bitterly, but also more lost than anything else, "Is it that we're always meant to fail?" He wouldn't ask something so vulnerable any other time but he feels so hopeless suddenly he almost doesn't care.

Anakin almost jumps when Obi-Wan's hand gently touches his shoulder, pulling him around to face him.

He just looks away, struggling to blink back at the tears.

"What makes you you Anakin is – your heart. How much you care. How much you do for your family and for – anyone else, even when you don't have to help them. And your impossible stubbornness no matter what you face. Just because you fail sometimes doesn't mean it's all on you. I have seen other versions of you. I lost my own Anakin and I can never get him back. I don't want to see you go through any of what he did. I want you to be happy. I want to give you everything you've ever wanted. I've spent all my life being your master. Maybe this time I want to actually... be your parent too."

Anakin blinks, looking up at him slowly, almost incredulously.

The tears that are burning his eyes spill, but this time for an entirely different reason. "You – mean that – "

Obi-Wan doesn't say things like that.

His smile is humorless and bitter. "You were always my light, Anakin. I never realized how much until I lost you because of my own choices."

What choices? He wants to ask but he doesn't.

"And... from what I have seen of all reality, the only way to give you whatever it is you desire is like this. I know you may question my methods, but this is the only way."

Thinking about where things were going, he knows just how close everything was to going to pieces completely with no turning back. And he knows –

Obi-Wan isn't wrong.

But –

But if this is the only way they can make things better, then –

He doesn't know anymore.

He wishes someone could just give him an answer. But that Obi-Wan is doing all this for him means more than any words ever could. "Thank you," Anakin whispers hoarsely, tears still falling.

Obi-Wan steps closer, pulling him into his arms. Anakin sinks into it without protest, burying his face in his shoulder.

"Tell me anything you want me to do, anything you want back, and I'll find a way."

That genuinely hardly feels fair, considering how many other people have lost everything.

"Can't we help other people too?" Anakin asks hopefully.

Obi-Wan shifts a little. "Of course. If that's what you want."

He really means it, doesn't he?

What if I what I want is to not have this blood on my hands anymore?

To have something of my old life back?

To have my Obi-Wan back too even if I don't want to lose you either?

To have Ahsoka back?

To have Mom and Fives back?

But the truth is, he thinks his master would say yes to all of those and he's almost afraid to ask, afraid of what lengths he might go to make it happen.

For – him.

People don't do things for Anakin. Not like this.

"Why?" Anakin asks finally, "Why would you do this? Why for me?" He's not worth it.

"Because I should have long ago." He squeezes him a little tighter, as though he fears Anakin's going to disappear.

By what Obi-Wan's planning to do, he's not just Emperor of the galaxy.

He's Emperor of the timeline.

And Anakin doesn't even know if he wants to stop him anymore. Not – not if it means he can finally help.

Being here in this place between time is just too much, though.

"I just want to go back home," he whispers, face buried against his shoulder.

Obi-Wan squeezes him tighter. "Then we can go."

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