Work Text:
Case File #918-41-A8-883SKY-18BBY
Access: Restricted, Highly Classified
Incident Date: ■■ BBY/Tatooine
Summary: This file documents the aberrant actions of General Anakin Skywalker during an incident [...]
Time, for Anakin, was a relentless river, reminding him that being the Chosen One meant very little outside of words and expectations. It made him feel small, in the way normal people were. Important in the eddies of their lives, not pieces meant to reshape the flow of the river itself. Because of that, he'd never truly resented it.
But now the steady ticking of the clock dragged him forward. He dreaded the sliver of sky visible from his bed shifting from a dreary gray of light pollution to faded blue, heralding that the night had become last night and tomorrow had become today.
A day he’d been oddly resigned to. The worst had already happened, after all. What could possibly be worse than being labeled a murderer sentenced to exile in the Outer Rim? All that rage and despair that had festered within him, a tumor eating away at his soul, had been excised not through meditation or forgiveness but by the inarguable, immutable truth, scraping him clean, leaving him raw.
Leaving him empty.
Anakin had no idea who he was bereft of his anger, his fears, devoid all his grievances and nurtured injustices.
In an hour, the door would unlock and Obi-Wan would escort him out of the Temple. Not as a grand spectacle for shaming—Anakin’s expulsion from the Order would be too difficult to explain to the Republic.
A Republic that might even forgive their hero, if they even saw an issue with what he’d done to begin with.
How they intended to explain his absence, he hadn’t cared yesterday, and still didn't. In the ringing silence that had fallen after Windu had read their decision, Anakin had almost asked them to just execute him if they were that afraid of what he might do.
But that had never been their way. It had been his.
The only person not to say a word during the trial, had been Obi-Wan. He’d stared out the window, remote save for the occasional jaw clench as Anakin’s punishment was decided. Nothing had filtered through their bond. A wall had stood between them from the awful day Anakin had wavered and almost killed Windu.
Anakin could only imagine how disappointed Obi-Wan must be. He knew everything, because the Council had looked inside Anakin to gauge how close to falling he’d come. And while the answer had disquieted them, it was his actions on Tatooine that had marked him as irredeemable.
That, and the fact that he still felt no remorse for ridding Tatooine of the Tusken Raiders. He couldn't. They deserved it.
But—the Council had also become aware of Padmé, about their child together, and had promised to provide her with support. She'd be safe, finally free to seek medical care, to live without secrets, and he'd be…
And he wouldn't be there. He wouldn't know which of them was right, if it was a girl or a boy. What their name would be. He'd leave his child without a father, and Padmé without a husband.
And yet, he was conscious of the unfairness in that only now he spared her a thought.
Only now, because last night was written in the scratch of Obi-Wan’s beard, the warmth of his breath, the clench of his fingertips.
Only now, because Obi-Wan was asleep, pressed close, limbs intertwined like flowering vines, one knee tucked between Anakin’s thighs, the other leg hooked around his hip, his arms cinched around Anakin’s waist.
A part of him still couldn’t reconcile how the Obi-Wan he'd grown up with was the same man who had laid him down on the bed and devoured him, who held him so tightly now. But the rest of him understood perfectly well. He couldn’t not.
Anakin was many things—misguided, proud, foolish—but he wasn’t stupid. The moment he’d cut down the Chancellor, a fog had lifted, revealing a world that wasn’t hostile or out to get him. The world as it truly was, not filtered through the venom Palpatine had poured into his ear.
When Obi-Wan, appointed as his guard for this final night in the Temple, had cupped his cheek, Anakin had glimpsed what hid behind the mask.
Obi-Wan hadn’t been angry with him. The silence hadn't been disappointment.
Obi-Wan had been grieving.
Anakin shifted. His arm, trapped under Obi-Wan’s shoulder, was numb. His mechno-hand didn’t retain heat well, so he traced idle shapes through the covers bunched at the low of Obi-Wan’s back, sparing him from an unpleasantly cold shock.
These fleeting moments were all he’d have for the rest of his life; taking as much as he could was just another manifestation of his flawed nature. And so what? The future stretching thin ahead of him promised loneliness.
The room smelled of sex and tears. Tacky tracks on his cheeks implied he'd been the source of those tears, but he didn't remember actually crying.
He mostly remembered… everything else–Obi-Wan’s sweat, the trembling of his fingers; the determination as Obi-Wan kissed every scar on his body with fervent devotion, starting with the scar that had almost taken his eye and finishing with the ragged pink skin on the top of Anakin’s left thigh from his first mishap handling a lightsaber.
While Obi-Wan had mapped out the proof of these past mistakes, Anakin had greedily traced valleys of muscle covered in pale, freckled skin. Appearances were deceiving. Obi-Wan looked unimposing, but there was strength in his shoulders, in the flex of his biceps as he’d pinned Anakin down, thumbs sinking into the dip of his hips to mouth at his abdomen. There was nothing of the civilized Negotiator when Anakin had pulled him up by fistfuls of graying hair to kiss him again while the Force trembled around them.
No words had been spoken. For Anakin, there had been no thought of his wife, of the Code, of anything. He was a hollow thing, a dead man walking, a memory destined to fade away. He could take this with him, the answer to an unspoken question; he could give these last hours to Obi-Wan, if Obi-Wan wanted them.
Nobody need know. And even if they guessed, Obi-Wan was too vital, too good, to be punished.
Despite that, Anakin should have felt guilty. He should have been wracked with self-loathing. He wasn't only abandoning Padmé—he was betraying her. Rather than going to her, he'd chosen someone else.
His chest lifted in a noiseless sigh that filled his lungs with the musk of come and sweat. His gilded fingers continued to stroke Obi-Wan's back through the covers.
Should but didn’t, was Anakin's downfall. Should have sensed the darkness in Palpatine. Should have avoided falling for Padmé. Should have... the list went on. If he lingered too long on that, it would make him think that he should have stayed on Tatooine. That if, given the chance to reset his life, the galaxy would have been better off with him trapped at the outer edges of it.
Should, but even at his most maudlin, he knew that he wouldn’t. That he didn’t have it in him.
Sunlight crested the horizon. The sleepless city roared with thousands of vehicles carving paths across the dawn sky: speeders, airbuses, space freighters; ships and shuttles, the last of which he would soon board.
My final morning, Anakin thought, bittersweet nostalgia twisting in his gut. His last Coruscant sunrise.
For fourteen years, Coruscant had been his home, the place where he had learned, lived, and failed. There were to be no more late-night runs to Dex's for greasy burgers, no more wandering the Room of a Thousand Fountains, the cool spray on his face a fleeting escape from the city's heat. No more invitations to the Senate building to have tea with the Chancellor.
No more casually forgetting that he had his own assigned apartment in favor of crashing in the old one he had shared with Obi-Wan.
No more the Team. It was over.
Tears pricked at his eyes. He squeezed them shut, but the sting remained, like a desert storm trapped behind his lids, gritty and relentless. Anakin swallowed, tasting the briny tang of snot as his face grew blotchy and heated. Affected by his inability to control himself, the Force buckled around him.
"Anakin?"
Time, whitewater rushing forward, tumbling him along, a pebble caught in the current.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan repeated, raspy with sleep. His fingertips dug into Anakin’s spine, then smoothed up and down with the heel of his palm.
A terrible, fragile feeling welled up from inside Anakin, pushing against his ribs—ugly, needy, familiar. It thrust him into the past, when nightmares had plagued him. The air had smelled wrong, and the city had been too bright and too noisy for a boy born in the stillness of a desert. Nightmares of red lightsabers and the disapproving faces of adults who thought him too old to be trained.
Nightmares that had led him to the foot of Obi-Wan’s bed, huddled on the floor like an abandoned foundling when the Freedmen couldn't feed another mouth.
In the same way he hadn’t offered empty platitudes when Anakin had been small, Obi-Wan nudged their bond. While one hand rubbed Anakin’s back, the other ghosted between his shoulder blades to sink into the tangled curls at his nape.
Obi-Wan was the sunlight to Anakin’s storm, steady and comforting, but dangerous in his own way. A desert boy whose skin had cracked and burned under the sun didn't forget that. Yet, Anakin still lapped up the warmth, seizing it eagerly.
The parade of lasts continued. The last time he kissed Obi-Wan’s collarbone; the last time Obi-Wan stroked the high point of his cheek with his thumb; the last time they breathed each other’s air.
The last time I’ll see him this way, Anakin thought, framing Obi-Wan’s face. He studied the tiny imperfections that made him so familiar: the glints of gold and silver swimming in the blue of his eyes, the crinkle of lines at the corners, the spray of gray at his temples. Obi-Wan had never lacked for admirers, and once Anakin was gone…
Well. It didn’t matter. He’d be gone.
For the small eon that existed within one minute and the next, they stared at each other. Obi-Wan attempted a smile, the laugh lines deepening, but it dissolved without coming to fruition.
Anakin didn’t even try. A smile wouldn’t sit right on him, not after so many weeks of scowls and despair. He just absorbed the tickle of Obi-Wan’s beard on his palm, the intimate weight of their naked bodies. It wasn’t even comfortable, with how sticky and tacky they were, with how his arm was on fire with a thousand needle pricks, but he memorized each sensation and then all of it as a messy, visceral whole.
They’d left marks on each other. Imprints of teeth and deepening bruises. It satisfied the petty part of him that these would last beyond the day’s end, serving as reminders: I was here. We did this together.
Words curdled in his throat. Maybe there’d never been a time to say them, and now, there would never be.
So instead, he broke the spell. “The shuttle won’t wait."
“That it will not,” Obi-Wan agreed. He took his warmth with him as they pulled away from each other.
Anakin packed no bag. There was nothing worth taking. R2-D2 would be returned to Padmé to watch over his family. His lightsaber had been confiscated. The detritus of his life, all his tools and half-finished projects, his blueprints, his drawings, his knickknacks—they'd most likely be tossed into an incinerator. No point in risking his belongings falling into the hands of impressionable Padawans who idolized the Hero With No Fear. Even he understood that.
The Council had set him up with a new bank account and enough credits to start afresh. Anakin had neither protested nor thanked them. He wouldn't be taking the data chip with him. He'd set aside enough money from his winnings in illegal podracing that the charity wasn't needed, or wanted.
(He also had no desire to leave them with a way to track him.)
Anakin showered and dressed in his uniform. It would have been strange not to, as all he had to do was avoid drawing undue attention. Afterward, he could buy new clothes, something that didn't scream Jedi.
In doing so, he'd also find a weapon shop. He didn't need a lightsaber to defend himself, but the lack of it was a gaping wound. Then, a barber. The Republic had a certain image of him. With those three identifying markers gone, few people would notice him. Even fewer would recognize him.
As such, he was finished well before Obi-Wan knocked on his door. He spent those last minutes staring out the window.
Why hadn't he called Padmé? She deserved a goodbye.
"Anakin?" Obi-Wan called out, opening the door, the bond vibrating like a plucked string. Did he think Anakin had fled?
“I’m ready.” Anakin dusted his hands off, a quick, fidgety gesture that served no purpose.
Obi-Wan scanned him as if searching for a smuggled lightsaber. With a cynical twist of his lips, Anakin rolled up his sleeves to show it was a baseless fear.
Maybe. One could never tell with Siths, right? Or in his case, an almost Sith.
“Come on then.” Anakin pushed the sleeves back down. Now that it was happening, it was best to rip off the plaster. Begging, kicking, screaming, none of it would change reality. “Let’s go.”
Obi-Wan had once told him he was just good at hiding stress he felt. He proved that for the last time as he walked by Anakin's side through the hallways leading away from the Knights' wing and toward the main gate. If there was one thing they were always on the same page about, even under these circumstances, it was moving in sync, their paths orbiting close enough to brush without colliding.
It was early enough that most learners were in the refectory, and masters were either already in the training halls or classrooms. They encountered few people on their way out, though Anakin sensed they weren't as unnoticed as appearances suggested.
If circumstances had been different, he would have muttered to Obi-Wan under his breath if he wagered whether it was Yoda or Windu watching them through the Force.
Since they weren't, he let the temptation to snark die. And as they left the Temple grounds on a speeder, the itch of surveillance stopped.
Obi-Wan glanced sideways at him while driving, clearly expecting a sarcastic comment. Perhaps out of kindness, perhaps out of a desire to not end things on such a somber note, Anakin obliged.
“Farmers driving wagons with cracked wheels take bigger risks than you.”
A corner of Obi-Wan's mouth pulled upward. “Rude.”
Normalcy, however briefly, was regained. With it came a flutter in his chest, a stubborn thing insisting on ignoring reality. Anakin had kissed that mouth, had tasted the sweetness of the Corellian black tea Obi-Wan favored as their tongues met, hot and slick.
He flushed and looked away.
Congestion greeted them as they neared the starport. Anakin wondered what the Council would do if he missed the shuttle. If Windu weren't already as bald as polished marble, that would do the trick.
But despite Obi-Wan's driving and the traffic, they arrived on time. Anakin climbed out of the speeder, his shoulders hunched defensively. Obi-Wan parked, and Anakin was mature enough to not take off running; he waited.
Of course, Obi-Wan would see this through to the bitter end. His old Master wouldn't budge until Anakin was well on his way to Colla, then Azure, and beyond that, well, it was up to him.
A part of him was grateful for the delayed goodbye. That part uncomfortably resembled the useless organ in his chest that hammered a frantic rhythm before slowing to a sluggish thud when Obi-Wan touched his shoulder, his hand lingering for a few seconds before dropping away. As speakers listed flight plans and called out numbers, Anakin wanted to take back all the bantha poodoo about not throwing a tantrum. Rage that it wasn’t fair, that he’d been manipulated, lied to, used—
But he didn’t. And for once, it was what he should do.
Still, he was startled when Obi-Wan followed him past the security gate. No one so much as batted an eye at that. Had Obi-Wan used a mind trick? It seemed excessive. Uncomfortable with the lack of trust, Anakin frowned.
Evidently, Obi-Wan intended to be extremely thorough in making sure Anakin left Coruscant. He boarded the shuttle as well, shadowing Anakin until they reached his assigned seat. The commercial transport shuttle wasn't particularly large, with only half of the two dozen seats filled. No one occupied his row, so Anakin took the window seat.
"Alright," he snapped, exasperation and anger bubbling over. He couldn't bear to look at Obi-Wan. He'd had enough lasts. "Are you happy now?"
"Not particularly," Obi-Wan said, his voice too close for comfort. "You took my seat."
Anakin's head whipped around. Obi-Wan had sat down beside him, spreading his knees despite the cramped space. "I'm on the karking shuttle! What else does the Council want? You can't babysit me all the way to the Outer Rim!" His mechanical fingers curled around the edge of the armrest, the plastic creaking ominously.
Stars above, what had he done to warrant such distrust? He'd helped win the war, eradicated two Sith, and surrendered without a fight as they stripped him of everything. Did they want his sanity too?
"Anakin, truly; after last night, after what we've been through together, how could you think I wouldn't come with you?"
The world paused.
"What?" Anakin croaked.
For all of his composure, a hint of red peeked around Obi-Wan’s beard. “I long ago promised to leave the Order should you not be welcomed. It turns out that I still consider that promise valid. Assuming that I’m not overstepping, of course.”
"But you're on the Council," Anakin argued. He had enough ammo to blast this stupidity to shreds, and his blasters were cocked. "You're the Negotiator. You love the Order, being a Jedi. Attachments aren't your thing!"
"I am," Obi-Wan admitted. "And all that is true, yet no longer as important as I once regarded. I cannot reconcile how the Force and the Order can be at odds on this, but I do know that the Force is telling me that I’ve done enough. If that means my time as a Jedi is over, then so be it. To fear change and loss, rather than to have hope for the future—” he paused, his brow furrowed. “Am I wrong? Did I misread you? You—your marriage to Padmé…”
The image of her pale, frightened face flashed across Anakin's mind. Afraid of him, of the darkness he harbored. He still loathed Clovis, but like the Tusken slaughter, he did not regret his actions. Only that there had been consequences.
“She’s better off without me,” he said flatly, self-aware at last.
No doubt sensing what he intended to say next, Obi-Wan preempted him. "I assure you, I would not be." His hand rose, and Anakin didn't flinch as it cupped his jaw. “Yes or no, Anakin.”
It was selfish, he thought, to steal away the light of the Order. Someone as important as Obi-Wan would doubtless continue shaping history. There were future Padawans to train, missions to be undertaken, injustices the Negotiator could prevent.
Anakin should have said no.
He didn’t.