#kenoblogging

“I grew up around tramp transports and shady operators, which means I know a thing or two about flying under the sensors.”

“Of course,” said Agent Varrak, her lips thinning into an ungenerous smile. “You grew up on Tatooine. The perfect preparation for a life of skulduggery.”

Anakin smiled back, just as unamused. “Yeah. It was. Y’know, I’m surprised I never saw you there.”

p 178

“Don’t misunderstand me. Your compassion is admirable. You are a truly good man. One of the very best I know. But you’re also a Jedi, and we cannot allow ourselves to become emotionally involved.” A deep breath. A sharp sigh. “Bant’ena Fhernan is not your mother.”

Anakin leapt to his feet. “You leave my mother out of this!”

“Anakin!” he hissed. “For pity’s sake, keep your voice down.”

Hard-breathing silence as Anakin struggled for self-control. And then he shook his head. “You don’t understand, Obi-Wan. You’ll never understand. You’ve never been a slave. You have no idea what it’s like to be completely helpless. To know your life could end at any moment on someone else’s whim.”

“That’s true,” he admitted. “But -”

“No. There is no but,” Anakin said flatly. “You’re wrong. Okay? You’re wrong. So just sit there and be wrong. Or get the other lamp set up. Or start looking for a comm hub so I can hopefully punch a signal through to the Temple. Do something, Obi-Wan. Do anything. Anything except try to tell me that I’m wrong. Because I’m not.”

pgs 308-309

“...you were very good with Doctor Fhernan tonight.”

Anakin’s jaw tightened. “Obi-Wan-”

“No, no, I meant it,” he said quickly. “I’m not trying to - my intention isn’t to - it’s a compliment, Anakin. What you said to her. About forgiveness. It was very powerful. That’s all I meant.”

“Oh,” said Anakin, Wary. He exchanged the wire stripper for a micro-pulse-reader, then tested a circuit and muttered, “Okay.”

“So ... who forgave you?”

Anakin stilled. His expression, in profile, was a muddle of surprise and resignation. As though he’d been expecting the question and yet couldn’t quite believe it had been asked.

Obi-Wan was feeling a little surprised, himself. He hadn’t meant to ask it. As a rule he avoided deeply personal conversations. Especially about the past, which couldn’t be changed. And expecially about Anakin’s past, so gnarled and tangled and littered with traps.

I really am weary. I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “It’s none of my business. Forget I asked. I’ll-”

“My mother,” said Anakin, his voice low. “My mother forgave me.”

Oh. Well. And how, exactly, could he answer that? Because the odds were good that whatever he said it would be the wrong thing. Shmi’s death was a minefield of regrets and failures, for both of them.

“Just before she died,” Anakin added. “She didn’t - she was -” He took a deep, shaky breath, then let it out incrementally. “She didn’t actually say I forgive you, Anakin. You know. For not ssaving her. For not going back to Tatooine and freeing her. But I could see the words in her eyes. I could feel them. She forgave me.”

What that meant to Anakin, Ibi-Wan could only imagine. But his mother’s forgiveness was only half the question. He rested his head against the solid side of the desk.

“And when are you going to forgive yourself?”

Anakin returned his attention to the comm hub. “Who says I haven’t?”

“Anakin. Please,” he said. “If you’d rather not talk about this, just say so. But don’t treat me like an idiot.”

“Fine,” said Anakin, and pulled out another comm relay circuit. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Except - that wasn’t good enough. This thorny, unhealed issue needed some kind of resolution. Unless Anakin could find a way to reconcile himself with Shmi’s murder, he would never find peace. Her cruel death would continue to haunt him, to feed his fear of failing those he cared for the most. Fear was Anakin’s greatest weakness. It always had been.

Such a dichotomy. He is the most fearless man I have ever fought with ... yet a part of him remains that small, frightened boy who left Tatooine eleven years ago.

The boy he knew, to his shame, he’d sometimes failed to reach.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself, you know,” he said. “If you want to blame someone, Anakin, blame me. We both know I encouraged you to leave Tatooine behind. What happened wasn’t your fault. You really must stop punishing yourself for it. I’m sure your mother wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want -”

Anakin dropped the circuit and mini pliers and stared. Such an intimidating, adult stare. The atmosphere crackled with a sudden, dangerous tension.

“Yeah. Okay. And which part of I don’t want to talk about this just - slipped right on by you, there?”

All right. This was a mistake. He’s not a child anymore, Obi-Wan. You keep forgetting that. “Sorry. I’m - tired. I don’t know what I’m saying. I think I will take a nap after all. Wake me in half an hour, would you? If I don’t wake of my own accord?”

For a moment he thought Anakin was going to change his mind ,was going to break his self-imposed silence and tell him everything that had transpired on Tatooine, when Shmi died. Because there was more. He had always known there was more than the bald fact of Shmi being kidnapped and killed by Tusken Raiders. He just didn’t know what. And he’d never let himself think about it. He had only let himself hope that one day Anakin would find his way to telling him the whole story.

Please. Let one day be this day. I have a feeling it’s important.

Anakin nodded. “Yeah, you get some rest, Obi-Wan. You look beat.”

So. Not this day after all.

Disappointed - fleetingly aware that somehow he’d managed to mishandle a rare, important moment - Obi-Wan closed his eyes and was instantly asleep.

pgs 313-315

“Maybe if the politicians won’t don what needs to be done, we need to do it. Because somebody needs to. You wonder why people believe the lies Dooku and his cabal tell them? It’s because they’re desperate. The Republic’s abandoned them - or it never cared in the first place. In the end it’s the same thing. The rich stay rich and they make sure the poor stay broken and ignorant in the gutter.”

Obi-Wan stifled a sigh. Oh Anakin. This was about his childhood. Again. About the indelible fingerprints slavery had left on his soul and his psyche. Qui-Gon, did you never once stop to think of that? Did it never occur to you the damage might run too deep?

too deep for what, obi-wan? want to finish that thought? pgs 369-370

followed by further arguing (I never said the republic’s perfect / the senate’s corrupt, it’s been corrupt for years, long before the trade federation’s blockade of naboo), but it’s late and I’m getting tired to keep typing whole pages, I should’ve thought this out properly before embarking

Anakin wasn’t entirely wrong about him. He’d never been a slave. Never been beaten for a mistake. Never crawled beneath threadbare blankets, starving, and fallen asleep with his mother’s tears on his cheeks. He didn’t remember his mother. He’d been raised in the Temple, safe and loved.

I have compassion. I have empathy. What I don’t have are scars.

pgs 371-372

In the darkness, there was a soft sigh. “Anakin, how are you feeling? Truthfully?”

If he said hungry, Obi-Wan would throw something at him. But he was. He was ravenous. And he hated, hated, feeling hungry. The sensation stirred too many memories. 

p 382, and boy does that put a different slant on this once-fantastic moment earlier:

“Sleep?”Anakin groaned. “How do you expect me to sleep when I’m starving to death? Are you sure there aren’t any bis- Hey! Don’t do that.”

The last words came out muffled, because he’d used the Force to plaster a sheet of old flimsi invoice across Anakin’s face.

“Hush,” he whispered severely. “Before somebody hears us.”

And having managed the last word, for once, he rolled onto his side - and summoned sleep.

Dr Aphra: That's funny. I'm a woman who doesn't believe in sure things.

Darth Vader: [beat]

Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth (p 319)

obi-wan, two pages ago: I’m worried about you anakin, what’s wrong?

anakin, two pages ago: I don’t want to talk about it, leave me alone.

anakin, now: what’s wrong with obi-wan? why won’t he talk to me?