Poster Boys

Anakin Skywalker curled the fingers of his mechno-hand into a loose fist and pounded on the door. Then he waved it open and entered without waiting for an answer.

"Hey," he addressed the empty room, striding across the small space with a swift glance at its bland walls and simple furnishings. "You can't hide forever." He passed into the second room, little more than an empty cell with a narrow slit-window and a sleeping mat set into an alcove on its far side. He flicked the lights onto full power with another casual gesture. "Oh."

The untidy heap of thermal blankets stirred, and a hand emerged just far enough to wave the lights back down to a tolerable dimness. "Anakin," a familiar voice groused. "Where are your manners?"

"I knocked."

Obi Wan sat up, comically disheveled, and glowered at the intruder. "I presume this is an emergency of the direst nature."

The younger man leaned against the doorframe, smugly amused. "I heard you were back. So I went to the healers first, and when I discovered that you weren't there, I came to celebrate. It's not an emergency, it's a kriffing miracle."

"Ha ha," the Jedi master intoned. He cast off the blankets – threw them at Anakin's head, in point of fact – and stumbled wearily into the 'fresher. When he returned a few moments later, hastily pulling his tunic into place, he fixed the impudent visitor with a very dry look. "Or perhaps I simply didn't have you with me, to lead the way into trouble."

But neither his movements nor his wit were fast enough. Anakin caught a glimpse of the still-healing blaster burn scored across his friend's left side and ribs. "Or get you out of it again," he added, chidingly. "You're injured."

"A scratch."

Anakin folded his arms over his chest, mirroring the other man's posture. "You should be with the healers after all."

Obi Wan snorted. "I don't think so. I haven't time to be fussed over. It's nothing a few hours rest won't mend. Besides, I'm perfectly fit for duty." His glittering eyes dared anyone to contradict this assertion.

"Okay, master, whatever you say." Anakin stepped aside as the other man brushed past him, muttering something about tea. In the adjacent room, he wandered over to one of the meditation cushions and settled himself on its broad surface. "Actually, that's good. I came here to talk to you about duty."

Obi Wan paused in his tea-making and cast a cynical and dubious glance over one shoulder. "Really."

"Yep." Anakin plastered a look of angelic innocence on his face. "I've been asked to take a difficult assignment and I need your help."

Now he had his former mentor's full attention. Steaming tea-bowl in one hand, Obi Wan sank onto the other meditation pad – slowly, with a very soft hiss of indrawn breath.

"Master! You need to have someone look at that blaster wound."

"I did. Sergeant Coric patched me up on board the cruiser. What assignment?"

"Sensitive diplomatic affair. I would truly appreciate your guidance."

The older Jedi's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He took a thoughtful sip of tea. "And you were chosen for this sensitive diplomatic affair why?"

Anakin shifted. "The Chancellor requested it specially. Did Coric give you a nerve blocker?"

"Yes, and I have no intention of taking it. And if you want me to help you run for the office of vice-chancellor, the answer is emphatically no."

The young Jedi changed tactics. His relationship with Palpatine was a touchy subject at best. "You always taught me to recognize my limitations and ask for help when it's needed. I'm gonna need you on this one, master. In fact, I think it should be you instead of me. I'm not up to the task."

"What task, Anakin?" Obi Wan was testy; maybe it had been unwise to callously interrupt what had likely been his first sleep in days.

"Well…." A swift offense was the best defense. And the best offense, too. "He wants me to appear in the New Year's parade tomorrow morning. You know – on the Senatorial barge. With all the government muck-a-mucks."

Now Obi Wan's eyebrows crept upward sardonically. "He wants a Jedi mascot for his entourage?"

"A representative. Somebody who can speak for the Order – somebody skilled in …uh...public relations."

The tea bowl was emptied and deliberately set aside. "I'm sorry, Anakin," Obi Wan demurred, playing innocent in his turn. "But I've just arrived back from the front lines. I'm far too weary to handle such a sensitive assignment. As you say, it is important to recognize our own limitations."

"A minute ago you were perfectly fit for duty!"

"Alas…with age, comes frailty. And you are always reminding me of my impending senectitude. It seems I shall have to accept that limitation too."

"Ha! Old men are supposed to be benevolent, master. Helpful and supportive of the younger generation."

"Tell that to Dooku."

Anakin's prosthetic hand clenched reflexively. He quickly changed the topic again. "Look. We both know you owe me one, Master Kenobi."

"Oh, I most certainly owe you one, my young friend." Obi Wan rose to his feet, not-quite gracefully, and shrugged into his cloak. "What about some fresh air?"

With a sigh, Anakin accompanied him out the door and down the adjacent passage. Anyone who could call Coruscant's polluted atmosphere "fresh air" was not firing on all drives, in his opinion, but he kept the observation to himself. Obi Wan loved nothing better than to watch the sunset from one of the Temple's upper level balconies; it seemed to be a private ritual of sorts. To be invited to join in the observance of this solemnity was, in itself, a quiet honor and a show of deep affection. And possibly an advantageous location to continue the argument: calm and pensive Obi Wan was easier to persuade than cross and acerbic Obi Wan. By now, Anakin knew both of them very well.

"So you'll do it for me – as a personal favor?" he pressed his point as they stepped out into the cool evening air. The city spread below them. Anakin's eyes roved over the ragged silhouetttes of the planet's endless metrolpolis, the frenetic web of air traffic.

"You must admit that is problematic, Anakin. The Chancellor asked you to do the same as a personal favor to him; whatever my individual disposition in the matter, I cannot transfer the fulfillment of a personal trust from you to myself."

Poodoo. Sly and philosophical Obi Wan was the worst of all. This was going to be an uphill battle, like always. "I don't think he was attached to the idea of me being the one. He wants a representative of the Order. We need a stolid, respectable image. You would be far better than me in that capacity."

"A rabid gundark would be better than you in that capacity. And if it's a matter of public image, you mustn't forget that you are the Hero Without Fear."

"I was afraid you would say that," Anakin grumbled.

"I thought you were Without Fear." Obi Wan gripped the railing and gratefully leaned his weight against it, eyes drinking in the bleeding radiance of day's end. Fire sank into the horizon's dark embrace. A few clouds swelled in pillars of smoke around the sun's pyre.

Anakin stared at the cityscape, the flitting vehicles, the distant sky-rises. Going to the parade would mean leaving Padme very, very early in the morning. He tried another gambit. "Representative Binks will be there. He never misses a parade. He'll be thrilled to see you again."

Obi Wan laid an earnest hand on his shoulder. "Anakin. I would die for you." The Force warmed with his sincerity. "But dealing with Jar Jar is another matter entirely."

"That's selfish, master."

"Says the expert." Obi Wan sagged a little further against the railing. The sun's last rays were quenched on the murky horizon. Distant holo-boards and industrial beacons blinked in the darkness, tracing intersecting grids and circles over the planet's broad sphere. A cold breeze, laced with the tang of carbon and speeder emissions, picked up and tugged at their cloaks.

Anakin led the way back inside. They wandered toward a lower concourse, headed for the meditation gardens. "All right," Anakin reasoned with his friend as they slowly ambled along the Temple's hushed corridors. "I confess. It's a formal event, and I don't feel polished enough to tackle it. The intricacies of high-society etiquette are not my strong suit. You have to admit that's true."

Obi Wan slowed their pace yet further. "I hardly see what difference it will make; in my experience, most the Senators and their aides will be soundly inebriated before the barge even leaves the docking pad."

"And you would send an impressionable youth like myself to keep company with such debauchers? Shame on you, master."

"Impressionable? Forgive me if I laugh."

"Besides, I have mission reports to complete. That surely takes precedence over a political talk-fest."

The gardens were lovely at night; softly luminous spheres lined the winding footpaths and silent moths danced in the moist air. Gravel crunched mutedly beneath their boots as they started down a well-worn path, following the curve of a burbling rivulet. "Sometimes, Anakin, duty calls us to do that which seems trivial or foolish to our initial perception. It is important in such cases to carefully discern the will of the Force. And it is clear in this instance that you have been called upon to endure this trial. I wish you fortitude and patience, of course; but it is clear that your destiny lies along whatever path that parade barge is going to take tomorrow morning."

"What? Sorry, master, I fell asleep halfway through the lecture."

Obi Wan sank wearily onto a bench and Anakin sat beside him. His comlink chimed.

"Skywalker."

To his surprise, it was Sergeant Coric who spoke. "Sorry to disturb you, sir. But I wanted to make sure General Kenobi followed up with the healers. He's got two busted ribs under that blaster burn, and if they shift any further it ain't gonna be pretty."

Anakin skewered his friend with a very meanningful look. Obi Wan's expression was as bland as bantha milk and orcu porridge. "He's in good hands, Coric, Thanks."

"Yes, sir."

When the link was severed, Anakin resumed the debate. "I just covered for you again, General. So you really owe me one. It's your turn to play poster boy."

The Jedi master scowled at a clump of flowering yarba across the way. "Don't make me pull rank on you, Anakin," he sighed, hinting at apology, but conveying absolute determination. "I will if I must."

The young man was undeterred. "If you can pull rank, then so can I. I'll send Snips in my place."

Their eyes met. For a moment, the shared image of Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's ferocious Togruta Padawan, clad in her half-civilized synth-leather attire, let loose among the coiffed and perfumed ranks of Coruscant's elite, set the Force shimmering with suppressed glee. Anakin felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Obi Wan carefully stroked his beard. Temptation surged and writhed about them, beckoning.

"We mustn't," Obi Wan decided, with an undercurrent of regret.

"Pity. I thought we'd solved our dilemma there for a moment."

"But we have solved it, Anakin. You are going to the parade. Accept it and move on."

The younger Jedi straightened his back. "I propose a deal. You go in my stead, and I'll wipe the record clean. You won't owe me anything for saving your neck six times."

"Five times. And no deal. My counter-offer is this: you stop pestering me about it, and I'll omit that little mishap on Devaron from the Council briefing."

The mechno-hand balled into a fist again. "That's playing dirty!" Anakin objected. "Don't try any Negotiator stuff with me. I might point out that I was acting on your tacit permission."

"Stalemate," Obi Wan admitted ruefully, resting his head in his hands, elbows propped on knees.

"Maybe you should take Coric's nerve blocker, master."

But this suggestion was waved aside. Obi Wan stood, a bit shakily, and made for the exit at a controlled pace. Anakin hovered near, alarm ringing faintly at the back of his mind. "There has to be a way out of this," he mused. "I thought a solution always presented itself?"

"You could tell them you will be undercover," Obi Wan suggested. He wavered, and Anakin caught his arm. "Or you could sabotage the barge ahead of time. You do have a peculiar talent for destruction."

"Master…."

"Or," Obi Wan offered, warming to the subject, "You could could grant the holo-tabloids' dearest wish and behave in a scandalous manner, incurring the Chancellor's wrath and a general ban against Jedi appearances at public functions, thus insuring that none of us ever faces the same tribulation again. That would be the noble and selfless path, I think.

They were halfway to the exit. "Master, you don't look so good."

"What relevance does that have to my point?" Obi Wan demanded. He stopped, abruptly, pressing a hand to his injured side. Color drained rapidly from his face. "Blast it," he muttered, in annoyance.

Anakin thrust a shoulder beneath his mentor's arm and held on tight as the older man visibly staggered.. "Okay, now you are going to the healers. No argument." He guided them forward, alarm now loud and strident in his mind.

"Just help me back to my quarters," Obi Wan protested. "I've simply overexerted a bit."

Anakin snorted. "Nice try." Two more corridors, and a lift. He kept them moving forward. "You, Master Kenobi, are going to make a new year's resolution to acknowledge your own limitations."

They stumbled onward. The lift took ridiculously long to arrive on this level. At last, Anakin dragged them through the burnished doors and slammed a palm against the controls. Obi Wan leaned back against the smooth interior panel, his eyes closed. "A compromise," he proposed. "We skip the healer's ward and I shall attend the star-forsaken parade for you."

Anakin caught him as he swayed again. "Tempting. But no."

The lift halted outside the tranquil healers' wing. "If that is your best effort at negotiating a mutually beneficial solution, Anakin, I must say that you reflect quite poorly on your teacher. He must be ashamed."

"Shut up," Anakin said affectionately.

"Such disrespect," Obi Wan frowned, just before he finally collapsed in a dead faint. But that was okay, because there were two healers already waiting just outside the lift doors, and they helped Anakin carry his wounded friend inside and settle him in one of the small exam rooms.

"Don't tell me..." Master Vokara Che grumbled, hurrying in at the summons of her assistants. She cast Anakin a disapproving glare even as she set to work. "Why didn't you bring him in earlier?" she snapped.

Before he could form an appropriate retort, Anakin's comlink chimed again. The senior healer waved him away impatiently. Outside, in the quiet corridor, he answered the call. "Skywalker."

"My dear boy," the Supreme Chancellor's voice beamed at him over the link. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I need to inform you that the parade barge's departure time has been moved forward, to five-hundred hours antemeridian. We shall see you there, I hope?"

Five a.m.? Anakin gritted his teeth and sighed. "Of course, Chancellor. I'll be there."

"Excellent. I'll leave you to your rest, then."

Shoving the comlink back into its pouch in vexation, he stalked his way out of the healer's ward. Padme was not going to be happy. And what a way to start the new year. He slammed a pair of double doors open with the Force. "Kriff it," he muttered.

And how was it – how in the Force was it – that Obi Wan Kenobi always won this particular debate, even when he could barely stand upright? When he wasn't even conscious for the end of the argument? How was that? With another muttered imprecation against his master, the new year's parade, and the universe in kriffing general, the Jedi Order's resident Poster Boy stormed down the halls of the Temple, still puzzling over his defeat, and not at all looking forward to the new day ahead.