unrepentant | ic contact.

[ He can feel it happen: under his palm, in the dissipation of the Force, over the shiver of the bond between them, freshly churned by their meeting on the cliffside. Obi-Wan doesn't move away, other than sitting up again at the younger Jedi's hip. His finger stay splayed, sliding an inch as he repositions to rest on Anakin's diaphragm. Obi-Wan barely contains the urge to rub a soothing circle on his belly as he watches Anakin's breath start to stutter into an even cadence. ]

No.

[ His voice is quiet, little more than a whisper. ]

I was already up.

[ He worries the words in his mouth, do you want to talk about it?, but swallows them down. That gives Anakin too much room to manoeuvre around the topic, something he has become a subtle master at as he has grown. Gently, carefully: ]

Was it the same nightmare?

[It's difficult not to be soothed by it- even if it's only along his edges. Every time he's had one of these visions before, they've lingered with him long after waking not simply for the sights and sounds, or even the sense that he's living it. But he also knows, a part of him has always known, that it's because the danger is true. That it's a warning.

The fear and worry will live in him, but Anakin will have to quiet them in his duty as a Jedi. He knows the pattern for this too.

He becomes aware of his limbs slowly, as if meeting them for the first time; sinks into the present. Anakin knows what to do when he wakes from a nightmare and has to pretend that isn't so. ...But Obi-Wan has seen him in these fits before- and he knows what visions are clinging to him. He's laying the same way he'd been found, stretched on his back- but as the moment stretches Anakin looks away. He sinks back onto the pillow and turns his red-rimmed gaze back to the ceiling. Shuts his eyes.

Later maybe, he'll feel shame or embarrassment. But the dream's fear and pain and desperation have hollowed him out. Only a dull horror remains.]

Yes.

Usually I don't shout.

I know.

[ He gentles, because they may not share living space in the Temple anymore, but they have been stationed together many times. In retrospect, though, it dawns on Obi-Wan that while he had thought these dreams to have stopped — like everything else, Anakin was simply hiding their frequency and intensity.

He allows the silence to stretch, feeling the rise and fall of Anakin's chest under his palm, giving him time to come back into his body. After a long moment, he moves his hand to Anakin's forearm, the black durasteel is cool under his palm. He squeezes the metal with the same pressure he would have used on the younger Jedi's flesh arm and tilts his head toward the open door. ]

Come, get some fresh air.

[With his eyes closed he can narrow his awareness of the world to just a few details: the careful rhythm of his breathing, the weight of Obi-Wan's hand on him, the sounds from a far off open door. And then, finally, the quiet in the bond they share. Anakin doesn't know what it is, in the end, that coaxes him back. Only that he finds his way there; Obi-Wan's palm finds the plating of his arm and Anakin's eyes open at the gentle squeeze. He nods once, the gesture strangely clumsy.

It's exactly what he wants- to go outside. To get some air. To try and make all of this small enough to- make right. And Obi-Wan isn't promising those things. But he's promising to walk there with him. Anakin, watchful if not yet hopeful, rises because he's called.

It's only pants he wears to bed, but as he curls forward to sit on the edge of the mattress, Anakin is able to reach blindly for a side chair and tug another piece of fabric free. A shirt. It's loose and soft, like those he'd worn on Naboo, and Anakin doesn't bother with the ties at his throat. He climbs obediently to his feet instead, pushing both arms through the sleeves like a child roused from a nap.]

[ It's only when Anakin starts to move than Obi-Wan moves as well. He stands up from Anakin's hip to loiter at the foot of the bed, watching him. Remembering what he does of the dreams about Shmi, he can see this is much worse. Anakin carries his mother's death with him, and the weight of it carries forward into his nightmares about Padmé. Of course he would look for the most extreme option, when the alternative that haunts him is so unequivocal and brutal.

One step at a time, he reminds himself.

The shirt he pulls on is almost sheer in it's softness. Obi-Wan is sure he has never seen it before, and it makes him wonder for a moment if perhaps he'd found it somewhere in this world. Then Anakin is climbing to his feet, and Obi-Wan puts the thought away to lead him out of the quiet dark of the home's interior into the glistening blanket of stars and cool illumination of the moon. It's so bright it casts shadows.

Obi-Wan turns to look at Anakin's profile, saving his words to let him adjust to the change. ]

[He's aware of the change in their proximity, as Obi-Wan withdraws and moves away from his side, nearer to the threshold of the room- but in an abstract way. What's a few feet when they'd so often been deployed to different parts of the galaxy? So close to waking Anakin hasn't yet thought to seal himself up, to close his side of their bond; but there's a quietness to his thoughts that speaks to years of diligent practice. Anakin might not be able to control his emotions, but he's long since learned how to pull those thoughts into himself- to keep them from being incidentally seen and known.

Clammy and damp with sweat, the fabric of his shirt sticks between his shoulder blades and his hair falls forward into his face. But Anakin wants to be soothed, and as he follows Obi-Wan through their still open front door he doesn't walk into a world that's calm and at peace. But the air is cool, and a blanket of stars cover them.

Barefoot in the grass, for a long moment Anakin only stands there- looking at the endless green lit up by a low, pale moon. He breathes. Listens. Wills the vision to stop echoing through him like a cry through a cavern, but it doesn't really. Even when it stops ringing in his ears, it doesn't stop wringing his heart.]

...How long have you been out here?

[ He looks haunted.

It isn't that Obi-Wan hadn't noticed this before, but he had always assumed it was in conjunction with the war. The longer it went out, the stronger the Dark Side became, the more exhausting things had become. The truth is when Obi-Wan went to Utapau and realized the extent of the situation, he hadn't expected to return alive. Not out of some kind of pessimism, but simply because the odds were greater against him alone than they had ever been before.

The knowing, now, is what changes everything. What Anakin is hiding, what Anakin is going through. Would he have left things the same way on Coruscant that day if he had an inkling of the struggle his former Padawan was going through? Would he have simply brought him along?

Would it have made a difference when Palpatine's claws were in so violently deep? ]

A few hours. [ He answers, pulling his eyes away from Anakin to angle up at the moon. ] If the movement of the moon is anything to go by.

[ They are still on the early side of dawn. The sky hasn't yet started to lighten up, but the world is beginning to stir in the Force. Night creatures following their instincts, returning to their homes as day creatures start to draw themselves out of dreams. ]

[Obi-Wan leads, drawing them both onto fields of cool grass and a mostly cloudless night. This entire planet seems to glow, but not at all the way Corusant does. This isn't a hazy, manufactured gold on top of layers and layers of poverty and desperation- it exists even before the sun rises.

Anakin makes it only a little ways outside the threshold at first, lingering there as if he has crossed some invisible boundary. He has, he knows that now- but it wasn't really in that doorway. It was before. Before even coming here. And then he takes another step forward. Another and another until he's moving further afield, out of the nearness of their home and into the plain. Cal Kestis said that the Jedi betrayed the Republic. That there was an attempt on the Chancellor's life. And only days earlier Obi-Wan had first begun to speak of it- how possible it would be for one man to be responsible for so much.

His chest rises and falls with the rhythm of a machine, a cycle that happens outside of his control, that keeps him alive simply because that is it's only job. It makes sense, he realizes now. Its me. The evidence is there in what Obi-Wan doesn't say and in what Cal doesn't know. I'm the traitor.]

[ It's quiet, but alive out here. The Force swirls around them, seemingly untouched for it's wildness. Obi-Wan can feel it's strange, indecipherable movement all around him. Present, talking to him, but in a language he doesn't understand. He and Anakin have spoken in the past about what it feels like for him in the Force, how loud it is, the constant movement. Is this what it feels like for him, always?

There's a shift in that ephemeral breeze, and Obi-Wan pulls his gaze away from the shadow of distant creatures flying passed the moon. Anakin feels like a nebula beside him, a coiling serpent of conflict. It's not the same sensation that had been ebbing off him after he woke up, this was something else. For a moment, in the starlight and the vacant look in his eye, he doesn't seem alive. Just a hollow shape where Anakin Skywalker once stood. A chilling sense of trepidation wraps around his spine. It prompts him to speak. To make sure: ]

...Anakin?

[He doesn't see Obi-Wan with his eyes; he looks out at a strange, quiet world instead. There's no scorching sun or whirring of traffic, not the smell of a week-long siege or the recycled air of another warship.

It isn't a bad place to be.
Even without-]

Obi-Wan?

[Anakin doesn't look back over his shoulder to address him. The line of his body isn't steady, but its firm. His footing is resolved. Perhaps the answers weren't clear from the beginning, but he's learned enough now from Cal Kestis. From the things Obi-Wan says and more importantly- doesn't say. Chancellor Palpatine is a Sith lord, a Jedi betrays the Republic by trying to kill him. The Jedi are eradicated.]

Do you ever plan to tell me?

[ Obi-Wan's heart plummets, then tries to lunge right out of his throat. It's the same terrifying sensation when the gravity goes out, when the side of the ship has blown and it's only the Force that will decide if they will live or die. All Anakin is doing is asking a question, and yet Obi-Wan feels his whole body react to the adrenaline of impending danger.

The question hangs in the air between them, oppressive, choking him. He swallows. ]

Tell you what, dear one?

[ He isn't trying to act ignorant, but there are a great many things that
Anakin could be asking about. He doesn't not want to volunteer the wrong information. ]

[The entire world is calm and quiet around them, content to live and breathe on its own terms. Near his feet, a lone blue flower juts up from the grasses- sways gently on the breeze. You know what Anakin thinks simply, because Obi-Wan has touched lightly on many parts of their future. But he's avoided one in particular.

Anakin's face turns up not towards the stars, but towards a range of mountains stretching into the north. A dark cut out against the sky's glow.]

About what I become.

[ The words cut through him as clean as a light saber. Anakin could have just as easily reached under his ribs and plucked out his still-beating heart. Obi-Wan wonders if he might have preferred that to this conversation. He has to remind himself to breathe.

Anakin has done horrible, horrible things — but he cannot live with the idea he is lost. If he follows Padmé to the father of her child, then maybe... maybe...

But in his broken heart, some part of him already knows it's too late. Too late for the Anakin that raised his blade against his own family. Not this one, though. Not the man in front of him. ]

... I was trying to find you when I ended up in this place.

You asked me to trust you.

[It's a simple answer, maybe even a child's answer. But only a few nights ago Obi-Wan told him the identity of the Sith lord, and he's sharing a home now with two survivors of a genocide Anakin can scarcely imagine. He can't trust the Jedi, can't trust the Chancellor, can't trust himself. Perhaps he lost Obi-Wan the moment he learned just how flawed his Padawan has become. But the fault is his own. He knew what would happen if he told the truth, spoke about his dreams.]

Please don't lie to me.

I see how hard it is when you look at me.

[ The scant distance between them means Obi-Wan is looking at the dark, sweat damp curls of his hair on the back of his neck. The hint of his cheekbones in profile, long lashes cast low and hiding his eyes in the shadows of night despite the starlight above.

Watching him, he can't tell Anakin the truth: that the Dark Side has taken him, twisted him, had him do things he never could have dreamed about. Maybe because Obi-Wan isn't ready to face it himself. His intention on walking Anakin out here was to clear the boy's head; to give him some space from the nightmare of losing his lover. But Anakin's grief is so much bigger than that. Anakin's broad shoulders are heavy under the weight of his suffering, and Obi-Wan is helpless to do anything about it. His voice is quiet with the weight of confession. ]

I have failed you, Anakin. And I am... afraid.

[ How often has he admitted to a feeling like this outloud? He has always tried his best to be the stoic, still anchor for Anakin's maelstrom to whip around. Maybe that, too, is his failure. Maybe Anakin would have said something more, if Obi-Wan had showed him better his emotions were not wrong — just big. Bigger than most. ]

I am afraid that you have died as a result.

[He could almost see it- the grief that Obi-Wan wears like a shroud these days. It isn't so vivid and strong to be seen by any onlooker, but Anakin has been looking at him for nearly all of his life so far. He's shared the other side of their bond and known him across lightyears. Anakin can see it.

Obi-Wan's voice is quieter than he's ever heard it, and the answer is just so- simple. Anakin turns to look at him, heart wrenched with empathy because it's a fear he knows too. A blow that landed the moment Ahsoka was arrested and that has been bleeding ever since.] Oh Master. [The words are quiet in their forgiveness. Backlit by stars, Anakin closes the distance between them. His shoulders slope. It's this. Of course he could understand this.] Is that all?

[ Anakin comes close and Obi-Wan looks away. Not aversion, but some degree of embarrassment. He has known for a long time that Anakin wants something more — and once he had believed it was a stumbling block to Anakin becoming the Jedi Obi-Wan knew he could be. He's long since changed his mind about that. Anakin's capacity for love is what makes him such a great Jedi. He still does not think it's wrong, despite everything. Anakin would not be the first person to decide being a Jedi was not all that he wanted out of life, and the Jedi were no jailers. Padmé made him happy, and Anakin's happiness — he knows now — has always been important to him. More important than Qui-Gon's prophecy.

His old Master sits like a bruise in his heart, but it was nothing compared to Anakin. This attachment — and he knows that is what it is — is one he can no longer deny. We must destroy the Sith, Yoda had said. I cannot kill Anakin, he had answered and he knows if he follows Padmé to his former Padawan that nothing will change. Can he still call himself a Jedi when part of him is tangled so deeply in Anakin? Can he call himself anything, now that the Jedi are destroyed?

Obi-Wan looks down at Anakin's bare feet in the grass instead of at the empathy and understanding on his face. He doesn't need to look to know it's there — he can feel it ebb off him in waves, lapping against their unbroken bond. ]

If I had known sooner...

[ Maybe I could have protected you better. The sentiment trails off and he shakes his head, closes his eyes without looking up. ]

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