Anakin stands there, lit up like a demon in the fires of Hell, and he knows he going to die. The feeling tugs at his bones and every second feels like a million years. The man that was his brother is now a slave to the Dark Side. (He has to believe he's a slave, that his brother did not choose this over everything. Over him.) The war cost him greatly, and he has nothing left to give.
He thought.
But he stares into his brother's eyes (his golden, golden eyes) and the last fragment of his soul shatters. The world is nothing now.
He drops to his knees on the ashy, sloping ground, and it all ends with a flash of blue light and burning pain.
In another universe, another world, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a little less broken.
"Anakin, stop! I have the high ground!"
Vader- no his brother - because he can feel it now, the tiniest flicker of light- snarls back.
"You underestimate my power?!"
"Never." he sighs softly. And when Anakin leaps for him, he executes the forbidden strike. It's effective, brutal, and devastating. And as Anakin burns, Obi-Wan says…
"I loved you Anakin! You were my brother!" You still are, he thinks. And then flames engulf Anakin, and bitterness, grief, sadness, and love all come in a rushing swelling wave, threatening to drown him.
"I hate you!"
But he can't drown, not yet. Because the galaxy has hope, still, and he will do everything he can to protect it.
But this is not that world.
And Obi-Wan Kenobi's head rolls down the ashy slope and bursts into flames.
[][][]
If this is the Force, then frankly, he's disappointed. His head is throbbing and his neck feels like it's on fire. His ears are the first to come back, buzzing in and out. Slowly the buzzing fades and the beeping of machinery comes into focus. Touch comes back next, and he feels bedsheets beneath him, and-
-Someone is holding his hand. Something startles inside him at that. He wonders who it could it was, but for all of nine Cornellian hells, he just wants to sleep.
He wonders if he's in Cornellian hell. Perhaps the force just spat him back out and sent him there. Why do Cornellians have nine Hells? Isn't just one Hell enough? He concludes there's probably enough scum and villainy on Cornellia to fill nine Hells. The hand holding his shifts, and the person begins to sing.
Welcome to my lowly home,
Green rolling fields and where sheep roam.
I follow you to the barnyard gate,
High ho, don't go!
Little older now, I see you again
Livin' sweet as the King's hen?
I follow you to the barnyard gate,
High ho, don't go!
We're off to war for these fields of green,
Them wolves don't last you tell me.
I follow you to the barnyard gate,
High ho, don't go!
My father's dead and you're far gone.
Blue glass eyes shattered, bleeding tears,
I follow you to the barnyard gate,
High ho, don't go!
The war's over, were free you say,
Except for your soul- you look away.
I follow you to the barnyard gate,
Go my love, away, away.
He opened his eyes at some point in the song and sees a teenager, long waves of ginger hair slipping down her shoulders and pooling near her waist. As she sings the last words her hand brushes his cheek and he flinches. Something cracks in her steel grey eyes.
"Am I dead?"
"Was. For three and a half minutes." Her voice is rough with emotion.
He raises one shaking hand to his neck, but only feels uncharred skin. How? The girl clicks her tongue disapprovingly.
"Come on, your going to ruin all the hard work. Mom will kill me." Now she sounds more like Satine from her teenage years. A normal teenage human female, he supposed.
"What happened…"
A snort. "I can't believe you don't remember this. The weird old foreign guy across the street, Yoda? Yeah, you allergic to something in that crap of a soup. Your throat swelled up, you were in a coma for a week, and ta-da."
The only thing he could think was- Yoda poisoned me? The next thing he realized is that he owed a lot of people a lot of credits.
His eyelids begin to droop, and he sighs, unconsciousness a familiar friend. As the world fades, one last sound passes through the haze.
"Love you, Dad."
[][][]
Vader stands above him, a snarl on his face. Blood and soot, fire and lava swirl around Vader, strangling him, drawing him closer to the dark star that was his padawan. Vader leans down, lips brushing his ear.
"You think I would ever leave you, Master ?"
[][][]
He screams.
Something shatters, and a shrill ring fills the air. It's too much like the chaos of a battleground, he wishes Anakin were here.
"Hush, my love. Anakin is coming, dearest." Satine appears above him, an angel in hell, so real, so alive …
"I thought I lost you…" he croaks. Satine brushes away tears he didn't know he had shed.
"You stupid man . I almost lost you ."
I know, that day I thought Maul killed you, I was so close to falling. Voices murmur in the background, and then Anakin is there too.
And his eyes are blue, as blue as Naboonian waterfalls, as blue as the kyber blade of a lightsaber, blue as the glow of stars in hyperspace… Anakin swings down into the chair beside him with all the grace and impatience he remembers…
...but something different. Something that makes this man, not Anakin, but not quite Vader either. His movement, the two flesh hands, the lack of the jagged scar running down his face-
"I don't know you." And force does that scare him. Perhaps before the war, before Zigoola, before Mustafar, he would have given whoever this is the benefit of the doubt.
But the Obi-Wan Kenobi that came out of the Clone Wars was not the same one that went in. He realizes there's a nurse standing over him, telling him to breathe. How broken is he then, that he can't remember to breathe?
"You're not broken, Ben." The soft hum of Not Anakin's voice unconsciously soothes him, his brain battling with his heart. So he focuses on Satine instead. It's still conflicting, but in a different way, a way he was used to and lived with since the day he met her. She's not dressed like a duchess- a simple blue shirt and tan slacks, her long blond locks up in a tail behind her head. She looks like she hasn't had a good nights sleep in days. A surprisingly decent amount of sleep, considering the fate of the galaxy.
He clears his throat and grimaces in pain. Satine takes his hand.
"You're not supposed to talk, love. Your throat has taken quite a beating."
Oh force, it has, he thinks hysterically.
Satine places her hands on his face beneath his chin, taking the strain off his aching neck, foreheads touching.
"Ruhe, meine Liebe." It's breathtakingly intimate, the kiss of her people and a guttural tongue flowing between them. Minutes pass in Satine's soft monologue until he finally bites the blaster bolt.
"That's not Mando'a. What is it?"
"You do not remember how you helped me strip the Fuhrer from his throne? How they never found his body? How I whispered the Hebrew song I sang for my lost sister's Bar Mitzvah in his dying ear?"
He shivers, breath trembling. "I remember Maul tearing your people apart, then killing you. I remember hating the colors red and black ever since."
"So red and black has always killed my people." It's not a question.
"Yes." The answer rings true in the Force, and he hates it. Satine stares down at him, icy blue gaze sharp, and force , Satine is the only one that can make him feel like an animal tied down for slaughter.
"You are not Ben."
When he answers it's desperate, choking, but full of relief. "Yes." She nods.
"Then prepare yourself. I do not know what you had, but this is what you have now. Focus on the present, nothing more." She rises, and he can imagine the rich robes of a duchess flowing around her.
"Yes, my lady," he gasps, and she presses one slim finger to his lips.
"Good." She turns gracefully and leaves the room. Anakin finally speaks. When he does, it comes out as a comical squeak.
"What the hell was that?"
Obi-Wan turns to face him and cocks an eyebrow. "What?" Anakin makes an elaborate hand gesture, mouth gaping like a fish as he tries to find words.
"What was… like…" He finally settles on a word. "Foreplay!" He grins in triumph, and Obi-Wan groans.
"Wow, Skyguy, are you really that dumb?" A voice says from the door and a dark skinned teen with bleached hair with blue stripes bounds in on the balls of her feet. Anakin sputters.
"Well, I mean- you saw that right?"
"Mm-hm."
Anakin throws up his hands in exasperation. "Well, what was that then?!"
"Foreplay," Ahsoka smirks and then rolls her eyes. "I don't know, Skyguy. It's just how they work." She shrugs. "It's how they're wired. Like how I think girls are hot and guys are not. Oh, that would make a good T-shirt! I'll have to see if Alli wants one."
Anakin rolls his eyes. "She's bi, Snips."
"So? One step in the right direction I'll say." A light snore interrupts them, and they both stare at the now sleeping figure of Obi-Wan. "Do you think we bored him to sleep?" she whispers, grinning slyly.
"No… He's just weary from his travels." A new voice says from the doorway. Ahsoka smiles gently.
"Hey, Alli girl? Gonna come over?" In Anakin's humble opinion, Ben's daughter had always been a bit creepy. He couldn't feel happier for his best friend, don't get him wrong, but god forgive him that girl gave him the creeps. She was all the dreaminess from Ben with the cold sterile mind of Satine and she learned to throw a knife at the age of six. Damn creepy if you ask him. Snips, on the other hand, seemed to take the girl under her wing the moment they meet, Snips six and Alli eight. Despite the age gap, Snips always seemed to fit a little bit better in with the modern world than Alli, and since they met Snips had made it her personal mission to show her the ropes.
She was still showing them.
Alli approached her father's bedside, eyes far away. "He dreams of you, Uncle," she mummers. "Your eyes burn like flames." Anakin swallows.
"Umm… great?"
Ahsoka stands, a good foot taller than the older girl, and takes a hairbrush to the other's hair, gently untangling the fiery red curls. She was in one of her 'trances'- minutes to hours far away from the real world. Anakin tries, he really does, but he doesn't understand how Ben and Satine live with it. He is a good uncle - visits every weekend, spoils her with gifts- and he did know Alli had some… stuff, but he never actually had to go through it every single day until Ben's coma. To engage in some argument with a tongue as sharp as Ben's or to have himself rangled into a game of chess when suddenly she just stops, or stands there staring at you blankly, or walks to a window or a wall and stares and stares for hours on end.
F-ing creepy if you ask him.
[][][]
Obi-Wan feels his eyelid slipping closed again to the familiar banter of Anakin and Ahsoka. It's quite annoying, really, how his sleep schedule isn't up to him anymore. He wants to ask Ahsoka if she knows the girl with red hair and Satine's voice, but his body doesn't give him a chance. In the back of his mind before he's completely under, he feels another enter the room, glowing gently in the Force. Sleep it says, and he does.
[][][]
When he wakes, the red-haired girl stares down on him, unblinking. She glows in the Force, signature a soft blue entwined with grey. She's strong and seeped in the Cosmic Force. He knows that far away look in her eyes, and he immerses himself in the force as well and sends his own pale blue tendril to hers.
Hello, young one. Surprise flashes through the force.
No one's ever met me here before. He chuckles softly, and she smiles. They think there's something wrong with me, you know. When I come here.
Ah, somtimes… disconcerting for the outside observer when one goes this deep in the Cosmic Force. The equivalent of a nod, and then-
So that's what it's called? The 'force'?
Yes. She hums softly.
It's so pretty here you know. I can see everything.
Your quite skilled, even untrained. You would make a powerful Jedi.
She shakes her head. I've seen the Jedi from here. They're interesting, but not who I want to be.
Remorse flows through him. Understandable, child. Now, I think we've officially crept Anakin out long enough, I can feel his distress.
A hum of agreement. Show me out?
He did.
[][][]
They break into the real world with identical gasps, feeling the force ebbing away like water.
"I always hate it when I come back," she mutters. "It feels like I'm leaving a piece of me behind." Predictably, that's when Anakin cuts in.
"What the fuck was that?! " Obi-Wan groans.
"I thought I had installed better manners in you, my former Padawan. And you, young one, I don't think we've been formally introduced-"
" FORMALLY INTRODUCED?!"
"What the FUCK is a PADAWAN?!" The red-headed girl storms from the room, then, and Obi-Wan can't help but feel as if he's royally screwed something up. Anakin half rises from his chair.
"Alli-"
"Leave me the FUCK ALONE, Uncle!" The door slams. Anakin turns to him, enraged. And force, he can feel the burning heat of Mustafar, and the acid air scorching his lungs- he blacks out.
[][][]
When he wakes again, it's the middle of the night, and Satine sits by his bedside. She starts talking, an answer to his silent question.
"Your name is Ben Kenobi. You were born and lived in London, England until you turned 18 and got drafted for the army. You were under the command of General Jinn. I'm the same age, and at the time was in the inner circle of Hitler. He didn't know I was Jewish. I was his bounty hunter, carrying out 'killings' while I sent them into hiding. We met on opposite sides of the battlefield, and I was shot and captured. You were stationed to guard me, and we fell in love. I told you everything, and you helped me smuggle more people out of the country. Eventually, I made my way back to Hitler's side and watched over the weeks as he steadily became more and more enraged. Mistakes were made, and Hitler lost. He found out then that I had been smuggling people out for years. We both shot at the same time. You found me just in time. I thought I would die that day.
"We moved to America because Dooku wouldn't let me into his house. Anakin took you in, and you guys 'hit it off' to use American slang. We've lived for 20 years. Our daughter, Alli, is 19, and Anakin and Padame adopted Ahsoka when she was 6. Ahsoka two years younger then Alli, that makes her 17. Padame and Anakin had twins a few years ago, Luke and Leia are nine now. Alli was diagnosed with cognitive difficulty at age three. You loved her all the more for it."
Obi-Wan swallows. What kind of world am I on, if the Force is treated as a disorder? What will happen to me? "I don't know what to say," his voice trembling. "I… my name's not Ben… This is some Sith trick… it has to be..."
Satine purses her lips. "I assure you, Ben Kenobi, this is very much reality."
"Obi-Wan," he gasps, struggling for breath. "My name's Obi-Wan."