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Chapter Text

When the cleaving of Anakin’s heart happened, there was nothing left to do but die. The clouds blackened, the flame of the universe fanned out of existence - there may as well have been an apocalypse, Anakin Skywalker had no more saving on his hands to do. 

His last mission in life was to follow his master into the cold embrace of the Force, and walk with him the path of forever into oblivion. 

During rapid acceleration, usually those first few seconds of pushing the lever that activated the hyperdrive, pilots experienced what was called somatogravic illusion. The feeling of climbing. The sounds became muffled, the speech of others turned into a slur of incoherent words, with gravity pushing back on the engines so intensely it erased the vestibular system inside a pilot’s ear and mimicked ascend. 

That was how Anakin Skywalker felt just about now. There was nothing but gravity in his ears, he was nailed to the ground, desperately trying to clamber up high to a mountain without a peak, a vertical tunnel without an end. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi had been shot. All that was left to do was die. 

-

The hallway should have been just that. A hallway. Nothing more than permacrete and durasteel, fluorescents that hummed like dying stars. But in this moment, it stretched—corridor upon corridor, the walls breathing like lungs, narrowing, swallowing him whole. Every step echoed like a funeral bell rung too soon.

There was blood on his gloves. Not Obi-Wan’s. Not really. But he couldn’t stop seeing it—slick, unreal, a shade that didn’t belong in the galaxy except on holodramas or temple tapestries that depicted war like it was noble.

 Obi-Wan had fallen like a leaf giving up its place on the branch. And Anakin had screamed—he remembered screaming—but it had torn out of him with no sound. Just the pressure, like being crushed beneath a thousand atmospheres. The Force had turned inward and shattered his ribs.

The medics said the words. They dripped out of their mouths like rain on transparisteel, sliding down, irrelevant. Flatline. No resuscitation. Gone before he hit the ground.

And now—

Now, the temple was too quiet. The rooms too wide. His tunics didn’t fit right anymore, didn’t smell like oil and sand and spice and Master.

He didn’t cry.

He couldn’t.

Because crying was for things that could be fixed.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was not broken. He was ended.

And so was Anakin Skywalker.

-

The Temple was not built to bear witness to this.

Not to the march of a broken thing.

Not to Anakin Skywalker, armor scorched and fingers trembling, carrying the body of Obi-Wan Kenobi like it still had warmth in it. The light filtering through the archways caught the blood on his boots. The silence shattered around him, reverence turning into horror, and yet no one stopped him.

No one dared. 

The scorch mark was still visible—dead center, seared through robes, skin, and bone. A blaster bolt to the chest, a soldier’s kill. It hadn’t even been personal. That was the worst part. Obi-Wan had died like any other casualty. As if he were disposable. As if he weren’t everything.

Anakin kept walking.

He climbed the stairs of the Processional Way, passed the Temple guards at the Great Gate and simply walked.

His grip was too tight, like he feared someone would snatch the body away. He stepped over stunned initiates. Past Masters who bowed their heads. Through halls that once smelled of incense and now reeked of burnt flesh.

Behind him, Ahsoka trailed like a shadow that didn’t know where to fall. Her face pale beneath the blood-slick streaks on her cheeks. She had run out of things to say an hour ago. She had tried—Force help her, she had tried.

“He’s not going to wake up,” she had whispered once.

Anakin hadn’t acknowledged her at all. 

Now, she glanced to her right, catching movement in the edge of her vision—Master Windu. Still, quiet. Sharp-eyed. He stepped into pace beside her, robes untouched by battle, his mouth drawn tight.

“I tried,” she said quietly, voice cracking just enough to sting. “I didn’t know what to do. He just—he ripped him away from the medics. Said they were wrong. Said he wasn’t dead. And then he just started walking. I didn’t—I couldn’t stop him.”

Windu said nothing for a long time. Just watched Skywalker vanish down the next corridor like a stormcloud in a bottle.

Then, finally: “Go clean yourself up, Padawan Tano.”

Her eyes went wide. “But—”

“I will take care of your master,” he said, placing an assuring palm against Ahsoka’s tear-stained cheek. 

There was no warmth in his voice. No cruelty either. Just inevitability. Like the edge of a sword. Like thunder before the break.

Ahsoka stepped back, her limbs suddenly too light, too shaky. She didn’t want to see what would happen next. Didn’t want to see Anakin crack open like a star going nova.

And Anakin—Anakin knelt in the Hall of Repose, arms still wrapped around the corpse of the only man he ever trusted with the ugly parts of his soul.

He smoothed Obi-Wan’s hair back, dirt streaking the once-perfect auburn. Pressed his mouth to his temple. Whispered things like it’s okay and you’re just tired and I’ll wait right here, take your time.

The room smelled like ozone. Like endings.

And above them, the Temple’s great skylight let in the moonlight, burning bright and useless.

-

Their first mission together was supposed to be simple—negotiate trade access, assess the blockade, report back. Easy. Clean. Political. 

Except nothing was ever clean when you were dragging a half-feral nine-year-old out of the slave pits and into war rooms where Senators smiled with teeth.

Anakin had been silent the whole way down. Staring out the viewport of the diplomatic cruiser, eyes fixed on the swirl of clouds below. He hadn’t touched the food, which was … disconcerting, to say the least.

Hadn’t asked questions. Another red flag that made Obi-Wan wary.

The boy was never quiet.

When they landed, the greeting party was late. Kenobi stood tall in his too-new robes, wondering if he was meant to offer his Padawan his cloak against the wind. Wondering when he started thinking like Qui-Gon.

The moment passed.

They walked.

The city rose like a blade from the red earth—sharp, chrome-edged, all bureaucracy and blaster towers. Obi-Wan spoke with the local governor. Anakin stood beside him, small and rigid, until one of the guards made a joke. Something crude about Jedi and their “adopted wards.” 

Anakin broke the man's nose.

“I told you to stay calm,” Obi-Wan said tightly, crouching beside him. His tone was clipped. Cold. “You don’t respond to every insult like a Hutt with a credit chip.”

“I’m not a Hutt,” Anakin spat, lip trembling. “I’m a Jedi.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth opened, then closed.

He had nothing kind to say. And kindness, he feared, might break them both.

But later that night, long after the incident was resolved, Obi-Wan brought a bowl of warm soup into the boy’s chamber. Set it down without a word. Watched him pick at it in silence.

And then: “You were right to defend yourself.”

Anakin looked up sharply. Hope flickered behind his lashes.

“But you must learn the difference between instinct and control,” Obi-Wan added, softer. “Because if you don't… this galaxy will eat you alive.”

Anakin blinked. “What if I don’t care about the galaxy?”

“What?” Obi-Wan said with a smile. “You care about everything. Far too much for a Jedi’s taste, might I add.”

That was the first time Anakin had seen him without armor on. Not robes, not phrik plating, not lightsaber stance.  He climbed to Obi-Wan’s lap and put his arms around his neck. Obi-Wan reciprocated the hug immediately.

“I care about you the most, Master. I want you to be proud of me.” 

Anakin didn’t know if his master smiled or frowned or disapproved. But he held him either way. 

-

The quarters were dark when they arrived. Obi-Wan always turned the lights off - preservation of energy. 

Anakin didn’t turn on the lights. He knew every corner of this room—every dent in the table where Obi-Wan had slammed his mug in frustration, every scorch mark on the floor from Anakin’s half-finished saber projects. This was the closest thing either of them had ever called home.

So he brought Obi-Wan here.

He laid him on the bed like one would a sleeping lover—slowly, reverently, as if the motion might jostle him awake. The blanket he draped over him was the same one Obi-Wan always kicked off in the middle of the night, complaining about how hot the room got when Anakin insisted on sealing the windows. It smelled like sweat, and lavender oil, and the remnants of life.

Anakin tucked it up to his chin.

He smoothed Obi-Wan’s hair again.

Held his hand.

Said nothing.

Mace Windu followed him in. Stopped at the doorway.  Arms at his sides.

Anakin’s thumb was tracing the same line over and over—across Obi-Wan’s knuckles, the bridge of his fingers, the spot where calluses met silence.

“I’ve seen people come back,” Anakin whispered, not looking up. “I’ve seen the clones heal with wounds worse than this. He just needs rest. That’s all. I’ll call for Master Luminara, she’ll heal him.” 

Windu’s voice, when it came, was soft. Frighteningly so. “Anakin.”

“He’s not gone.”

“Anakin-” 

Anakin’s head snapped in Windu’s direction. “I said—he’s not gone.” He gently returned his eyes to Obi-Wan, voice calm. “I would know. Our bond—” his voice faltered. “I would feel it. There would be... something. A break. Static. But it’s quiet. It’s just quiet.” 

Windu stepped in, slow. “The medics confirmed—”

“They’re wrong.”

The room crackled with heat from a fire no one could see. Anakin’s grip tightened on Obi-Wan’s hand.

“Skywalker,” Mace said gently. “We need to prepare the body. The rites. The—”

“Don’t touch him.” Anakin’s voice cut like a vibroblade. His head snapped up. His eyes were not the ones Windu remembered—too bright, too wild, glassed over with something that wasn’t quite madness but no longer hope. “You touch him and I’ll—I’ll—” 

Windu lingered for a moment longer. And then turned back to Obi-Wan. Pulled the blanket up again. Tucked it tighter. The door hissed closed behind him.

And Anakin stayed exactly where he was.

The world had ended. And he was still here.

That, more than anything, was the cruelty of it all.

-

It was nearly nightfall when the door hissed open again. Anakin could tell by the scent of dust and leather, by the thrum of energy that came with the man’s footsteps—too casual, too quiet, too knowing.

Quinlan Vos stood just inside the threshold, expression unreadable beneath the curtain of dark hair that had fallen into his eyes. His cloak looked like it had been grabbed off a floor somewhere. He wasn’t in formal robes. Not even close.

Trust Mace to send a sandstorm into a funeral.

“Nice place,” Quinlan said, voice hoarse. “Little cold.”

Still, Anakin didn’t move.

Quinlan took a slow breath and stepped closer. His gaze landed on Obi-Wan’s still form—wrapped in that threadbare blanket like it was any other night, like he’d wake up groggy and grumbling about tea.

“Don’t you think,” Quinlan murmured. “that it’s … a little cold for him here, Skywalker?” 

Quinlan crouched by the bed, just out of reach. He didn’t try to touch either of them. His hand hovered over the floor, braced against nothing. Like the ground itself had turned treacherous.

“He ever tell you about Teth?” Quinlan asked. “First time we got caught in a canyon slide. He lectured me for three hours after. Said, ‘A Jedi must observe terrain carefully, Vos. Perhaps if you thought with your mind instead of your biceps—’ ”

“ Shut up ,” Anakin croaked.

Quinlan tilted his head. “There he is,” he said. “Thought you might have died to.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Quinlan’s smile cracked like glass.

“I know exactly what I’m talking about, Skywalker.  I knew the man before the beard. Before the High Council. I’ve seen him bleeding in dirt and laughing like a fool and losing sparring matches on purpose just to keep you from sulking.”

Anakin’s jaw clenched.

“I’ve seen him in love,” Quinlan added, softer now. “Not with me. But... you learn to recognize it.”

That broke something.

Anakin jerked forward, shoving his hands against Obi-Wan’s chest, as if to force the lungs to fill again. “Then help me!” he shouted. “You know how strong he is! He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t just go . He wouldn’t leave me.”

Quinlan flinched. Not from the words. From the sound of them.

“I’ve been trying,” Anakin whispered. “I’ve been asking the Force. Every second. Every breath. He just needs more time. He always needed more time. You know him.”

“I do,” Quinlan said quietly. “Which is why I’m here.”

He finally moved forward, pressing one hand to Anakin’s back—not to push, not to take. Just to remind him that someone else existed in the room who was not dead.

“Do you think he’d want this?” Quinlan asked, not unkindly. “Or do you think he’d want you to get off your sorry ass and finish what he started?”

“I don’t care what he’d want.”

“Liar.”

Anakin’s shoulders trembled.

“He told me,” Quinlan went on. “Once. That if he ever died on the field, I am to take over. Make sure you're alright …Will you let me, Anakin? Will you let me take over?” 

Anakin let out a sound like a laugh and a sob strangled in the same breath.

“He also said,” Quinlan added, “that he’d haunt you into your next life if you ever let your grief turn into vengeance.”

A long silence.

Then Anakin muttered, “Then why isn’t he haunting me now ?”

Quinlan stayed there beside him, hand firm on his back, gaze fixed on the man neither of them were ready to say goodbye to.

And for the first time in hours, Anakin didn’t flinch when someone stayed. “I don’t know, kid. I don’t know.” 

-

The dawn bled slow through the Temple spires.

It painted everything in red - liars' light, cruel and warm at the same time. It dared to touch Obi-Wan’s face, glinting off the hollow curve of his jaw, the dried blood beneath his collar. He looked serene, like a man asleep in a world that no longer had a use for him.

Anakin hadn’t moved.

He was curled beside the body now, legs drawn up, one hand still clutching Obi-Wan’s wrist—not for a pulse. That illusion was gone. He just… couldn’t let go. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

He lay his head on Obi-Wan’s chest and embraced him with his whole being.

The door slid open with a whisper.

She didn’t knock.

Padmé stood in the doorway in a senator’s cloak she hadn’t changed out of in days. Her hair was frizzed at the edges, her eyes puffy from tears she’d tried to wring out in private.

She took one step in, then another. And her breath caught.

“Oh, Ani…”

He was beyond language now. Her eyes fell on Obi-Wan’s body. She covered her mouth with her slender hand. 

“Ani …” she managed to utter, “aren’t you hungry? You must be hungry. Or at least thirsty. You need to drink something, Anakin.” 

“I need him ,” Anakin whispered.

 “I know. I know you do. But they need to take care of him. It’s … Anakin, he has a hole in his chest.” 

“No.”

“Anakin.”

“I said no .”

The walls cracked around his voice. He turned, eyes wild, face pale with sleeplessness and fury.

“You don’t get to take him away from me too.”

Padmé’s face broke. “I’m not —”

“Yes, you are! You always are ! You all are!” He was on his feet now, hand flying toward the walls like he wanted to smash something, anything , just to feel it bleed. “Windu, the medics, now you—you all talk about rites and bodies and closure like he’s not coming back . Like he’s just—just gone. ”

Padmé’s breath hitched behind him. “Ani … He is,” she said softly. Too softly. “I’m sorry.”

Anakin stopped.

The silence clawed at the corners of the room.

And then—

Anakin turned. Slowly. His eyes flicked to the bed. The rumpled blanket. The unmoving shape beneath it. He blinked.

The scent crept in slow. Barely there. Faint at first, like old cloth left too long in damp air. But then—richer. Thicker. Sweet and sour, an undertone of metal, skin, salt, and slip . Something organic unbinding.

Anakin stiffened.

No.

He leaned in, almost involuntarily. His eyes scanned Obi-Wan’s collarbone, then the edge of his jaw, where the stubble had begun to darken. Where the skin—oh Force, the skin—

There was a faint discoloration there. A flush that wasn’t blood. A greenish tinge where once there had been warmth.

No no no no no—

“How long has he smelled like that?”

Padmé blinked.

“How long has he smelled like that ?” he said again, louder this time, voice climbing, splintering . “Why didn’t I—why didn’t I notice it—why didn’t—”

He crumpled.

Like the Force had just dropped its hand and let gravity have him. 

Anakin’s eyes widened, frantic. He yanked the blanket down.

The neck.

The chest.

The hole.

The wound was puckering. Darker now. The edges curling inward like burnt paper. His hands flew forward before he could stop them—grabbing Obi-Wan’s wrist, searching for something, anything , and all he found was a limp, waxy limb that didn’t feel like Obi-Wan anymore. The skin was too firm. Too cold.

How had he not noticed?

How had he slept beside this?

How had he whispered to a body that was already rotting?

“Obi-Wan,” he gasped. “Obi-Wan, I—I didn’t—”

And then it came. The sound.

Like his lungs collapsed in on themselves. A keening noise, guttural and sharp, love tearing open from the inside. He pulled Obi-Wan to him, cradling the corpse like it could still register heat, like love could reverse cellular decay, like grief could cheat entropy.

Padmé rushed forward just as he screamed .

It was not a human sound.

It was a sound meant for gods and animals and children who never got to say goodbye.

She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, the stink of death between them, the taste of it thick in the air, and still he sobbed like the world had ended.

Because it had.

Because now he knew .

Obi-Wan Kenobi was gone.

Not a metaphor. Just a tragedy.

Gone.

And nothing—not the Force, not the gods, not even love—was going to bring him back.

-

The mission on Alzoc III had gone to hell before it even began.

The blizzard came fast—stormfront from the northern cliffs, battering the extraction site before the clones could get a signal out. The gunfire didn’t stop, not even when the whiteout started. The droids pressed on with the kind of logic that ignored weather and blood loss.

Anakin had been separated from the rest of the unit. Too reckless. Too far ahead.

When Obi-Wan found him, he was half-buried in snow, limp, his saber casting an eerie halo in the drifts. His breathing was shallow. Blue lips. Crystallized lashes. Fingers curled inwards, twitching against the hilt even in unconsciousness.

“Anakin.”

Obi-Wan dropped to his knees. Pressed a hand to the boy’s chest, searching for life. The Force, where is he, where is he—

Then—there. A flicker.

He gathered Anakin up without thinking. Cradled him close, arms shaking with cold and panic, his own robes soaked through. His forehead pressed to Anakin’s. He was whispering without realizing it.

“You stubborn little idiot. You can’t die here. You can’t die yet.”

The wind screamed above them.

“I told you to wait. I told you—” his voice broke. “You never listen.”

Anakin coughed.

Barely. But enough. “Just hold me.” 

Obi-Wan nearly laughed. Or cried. He couldn’t tell.

And when they finally made it back to camp, when the medics took him, when the worst was over and Obi-Wan was standing there with someone else’s blanket on his shoulders, watching Anakin sleep under heatlamps and bacta mist—

He didn’t go far.

He sat beside the cot.

And held his hand.

The clones whispered that night. About how close it had been. About how the General had looked like a ghost himself, snow still in his beard, face tight with something more than cold.

No one asked questions.

They all saw what he refused to say.

-

The blanket was his. The vigil was his. The love was his.

They came to take his body. And Anakin let him go.

It’s what Obi-Wan would have done, too. 

Chapter Text

Anakin was packing like a man running from fire.

Spare tunics. Ration bars. His lightsaber—not clipped to his belt, just cradled loosely in his hand. He would be forced to surrender this during the final check-up of the quarters and sign the forms for the quartermaster. He’d be long gone before that happens.  He wasn’t wearing his robes anymore, which was as much as he was willing to give up. Just the black under-tunic and dark gloves. Civilian enough.

Ahsoka knew.

She leaned against the frame of his door, arms crossed, not saying anything at first. Just watching. The sun was higher now. It hit his cheekbones like it was trying to kiss him goodbye.

“You’re not supposed to leave without official Council approval,” she said finally.

He didn’t look up. “Not a Jedi anymore.”

That made her flinch. “You’ll always be a Jedi, Master.” 

A beat.

Then: “So where are you going?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

Anakin shoved a charger pack into the side of his bag harder than necessary.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, softer now. “We still don’t know who hired Hardeen. The Council’s looking into it—”

“The Council,” he snapped, “is the reason Obi-Wan is dead.”

“Master …” 

“They took and took and took from him,” Anakin said, looking at his boots, furiously folding a shirt, “until there wasn’t anything to take anymore.” 

Ahsoka swallowed. “And what—you’re going to do what they wouldn’t?”

His jaw clenched. His hands stilled.

“That’s not what this is,” he muttered.

“Then what is it?” she asked, stepping into the room. “I’m worried about you. You’re shutting everyone out. You’re talking in circles. And now you’re vanishing in the middle of the night without your Jedi robes or clearance to do so—what are you gonna do, Anakin?”

Still no answer. 

“You’re going after Rako Hardeen, aren’t you.”

He finally turned. His eyes were tired, swollen. The grief hadn’t gone anywhere. It had just hardened.

“I can’t do what I need to do as a Jedi, Ahsoka,” he said, each word measured like it hurt to say. “It wouldn’t be right.”

She stared at him.

And then, her voice sharp as glass: “But it would be right to kill him as a civilian, is that it?”

She shook her head, biting down on the heat behind her eyes. “That’s not justice, Master. That’s revenge.”

He turned away again. “You sound like Obi-Wan.”

“I learned from Obi-Wan.” Anakin stopped dead in his tracks. For a second, she thought he might shatter on the spot. But she also knew that they were more alike than the Council would ever admit. She pressed on. “You did too, remember? That used to mean something, Anakin.” 

He picked up the bag.

Ahsoka stepped in front of the door.

“You walk out now,” she said, “you’re not coming back.”

Anakin’s gaze flicked to her—young, furious, scared—and something in him twisted. He pulled her delicate frame to his chest with one free arm, kissing one of her montrals.

“I know,” he whispered. I’m sorry, Snips. 

And then he stepped around her.

Didn’t look back.

-

The motel stank of rust. It was the kind of place you didn’t book so much as inherit —the last room left after no one else wanted it. A hallway with flickering lights. A door that whined on its hinges. A bedspread crusted with coffee stains or come or who knows what.

The walls were thin enough to hear someone coughing next door. Or sobbing. Or both.

Perfect.

Anakin closed the door behind him and let the silence press in.

No windows. No comms. No temple sensors. No Force signature. Just one man, one room, and the hum of recycled air that tasted like sweat.

He dropped the duffel bag to the floor.

Then knelt.

The planks weren’t real wood, but they peeled back like they were. A maintenance grate had been unscrewed and forced into the floor long ago. Someone else had hidden things here once—vials, credits, maybe a burner chip. Anakin scraped it clean and shoved the bag inside. The lightsaber, too.

Not because he didn’t need it.

Because if he kept it on him, he’d remember who he was.

And that was the one thing he couldn’t afford anymore.

The floorboards clicked shut.

And for a moment, he just sat there. Palms on his knees. Breath slowing.

The Force hummed faintly around him still, like an old comlink left on, waiting for transmission. Anakin didn’t reach for it. He hadn’t reached for anything in hours.

He stared at his hands.

These hands had pulled starships from the sky. Had held the beating hearts of friends. Had brushed through Obi-Wan’s hair, just hours before it stopped growing. They shook now. Trembled like they didn’t know what they were anymore.

The Force had always felt like breath. Like ocean currents. 

Like him .

The lilt of his voice when he meditated beside Anakin. The flare of his presence in battle.

The way the light bent around him, softened, warmed.

That was the Force. He was the Force. My force.

And now?

Now it was a grave.

A vast and starless cold where there used to be home .

Anakin closed his eyes. “I don’t want it,” he whispered. Not like this. Not if it doesn’t have him in it.

The Force didn’t answer. Or maybe it did—but only in silence.
Only in the absence of what had once been Obi-Wan’s thread in the weave. Only in the ringing quiet where his presence should’ve been, filling every corner of Anakin’s mind like sunlight through open blinds.

Obi-Wan had always been his translation. His compass. His anchor to the Jedi, to peace, to sanity.
And now he was a corpse wrapped in a blanket.
And Anakin was still expected to feel . To reach .
As if the Force had not made itself into a liar the moment it let Obi-Wan fall.

No.

He would not listen to that silence anymore.
He would not pray to a god that answered devotion with rot.

With a shuddering breath, Anakin reached inward—not to embrace, but to close .
He found the threads, the invisible strands that tied him to the ether, and he did what he had never done before.

He cut .

One by one, he severed the lines.
The way Obi-Wan had once taught him to loosen emotion—to breathe through rage, through fear. Anakin used those same methods now. But this wasn’t release.

It was annihilation.

He imagined doors slamming shut in his soul.
He locked the windows. Bolted them.
He bricked up the passageways, every channel through which the Force might speak.

And the moment the final knot came undone, he gasped.

It wasn’t pain. Not exactly.
It was blindness . It was deafness .
It was being flung into space without a suit—soundless, directionless, unheld.

He bent over with a cry, clutching his head. His stomach lurched. His lungs collapsed around the effort to breathe.

There was nothing left.

The galaxy had gone mute.

No whisper of life. No thrum of presence. No Obi-Wan.

It was just Anakin . 

A man with no god. A warrior with no war. A disciple with no master.

And somehow, he was still alive.

Somehow, he had to keep breathing.

He slid down against the wall, eyes blank, body vibrating from the rupture. He wasn’t sure if he’d scream or sleep. Wasn’t sure which would make the silence worse.

All he knew was this:

If the Force had ever loved him, it had died with Obi-Wan.

And if it hadn’t—then he wanted nothing more to do with it.

Anakin Skywalker—The Chosen One, General of the 501st, Knight of the Republic—was gone.

What remained was the man who would find Rako Hardeen.

And end him.

-

Without the Force, the world dulled.

Not the way Anakin had expected. Not quiet. Not numb.

Just distant.

His boots struck the pavement harder now. The shadows moved without whispering secrets. People passed without leaving echoes. He could no longer sense lies in the curvature of a stranger’s mouth or feel danger sliding in on the edge of a breath.

He wasn’t defenseless. But he was no longer himself.

It was like walking underwater—slower, heavier. And somehow… clearer. Like the absence of the Force had burned the fog away from his thoughts, leaving only sharp edges.

He could focus.

He could think.

He could hurt .

The pain hadn’t vanished. Not completely. The suffocating weight that had once coiled around his ribs was looser now, yes—but still present. A phantom limb. The shape of grief where Obi-Wan used to be.

He hadn’t realized how much of Obi-Wan lived in the Force until he couldn’t feel it anymore.

His legs took him to Level 4313 without quite asking permission. The depths. The stink. The flickering neon signs that pulsed like dying stars. He passed a woman vomiting into an alley and a Rodian selling knockoff spice tabs in a box that had once held children’s toys.

He kept walking.

And then he saw the glow.

A bordello called The Hollow Moon . No windows. Just a red-light threshold and a doorman who didn’t ask questions when Anakin walked in.

The room was thick with perfume and smoke and something sweeter—sedation. Bodies moved in the half-dark, limbs draped across velvet couches. Laughter too loud to be real. Moans too polished to hurt.

She found him, not the other way around.

Human, or close enough. Pale skin, violet eyes that were probably cybernetic. A dancer’s frame wrapped in synthsilk. She smiled without meaning it.

“You new in town?” she asked, already draping herself across his arm.

Anakin didn’t answer.

He let her lead him to a back room.

He didn’t ask her name.

Didn’t tell her his.

She talked a little, at first. Soft things. “What do you like?” and “You seem tired,” and “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll take care of you.” He didn’t respond. He didn’t need lies. He didn’t need comfort. He needed the noise. The skin. The heat.

She straddled his lap.

And for a second—just one second—Anakin almost pretended she was someone else.

Someone with auburn hair. Someone with calloused fingers. Someone who didn’t moan like a holovid actress but gasped like it was real , like it meant something , like the touch between them had weight —

He shoved the thought down. Hard.

He let her kiss him.

He let her unbutton his shirt.

And when her hands touched his chest, when she murmured something sweet into his ear, he shut his eyes—

And saw the green bloom of rot spreading across Obi-Wan’s collarbone.

His breath hitched.

She paused. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he rasped. “Just—don’t talk.”

He buried his face in her neck.

She didn’t ask again.

And Anakin Skywalker disappeared for a while.

-

It didn’t start when they met.

It didn’t start on Tatooine, or Naboo, or even in the war.

No, Anakin thinks, sitting on a bench in the lower levels with the stink of last night still clinging to his collar, the sweat of a stranger still clinging to his chest, legs heavy, head full of static—

It started the first time Obi-Wan lied to him.

He said, I will train you.

But what he meant was I will try not to resent you. What he meant was You are not him. You are not Qui-Gon. But I will do this anyway.

And Anakin had wanted him anyway.

It was in the way Obi-Wan watched him. Like a duty. Then like a puzzle. Then like something precious that might explode.

It was in the way he never praised Anakin without sounding afraid of what that praise might become.

The way he’d say Well done, Anakin like he was throwing a lit match into dry grass.

The way he’d say You must control your emotions then held him and kissed his hair when he was sad.

In his worst moments, Obi-Wan saw through him. Knew when he was lying. Knew when he was lost. Knew how to say You’re better than this in a voice so calm it made Anakin believe it .

He loved him for that.

He loved him for the silences. For the way he sat with him in ship bunks and watched stars pass, saying nothing.

He loved him for the temper, the pride, the arrogance wrapped in civility, faux humility. For the fierce, useless adherence to rules that Obi-Wan himself hated. For the way he apologized without saying sorry.

He loved him like fire loves oxygen.

Too much.

Too hard.

Too fast.

And now—now there’s nothing to burn.

Anakin stood. The air was sour. The world too bright. His head throbbed.

And then he saw him.

Across the plaza. Coat turned up. Gray streaks in his beard. Scar over one eye. Moving fast, hunched low, face tucked into his collar.

Anakin froze. Drunk, miserable. 

Rako Hardeen.

He moved.

Across the street. Through the crowd. Faster. His heart beat loud and fast—Force, no, there was no Force . Just muscle. Just instinct. Just him.

He grabbed the man by the shoulder and spun him.

A fist met cheek. Bone cracked.

The man went down hard, tried to yell—but Anakin was already on him , knee to his chest, fist to his jaw, again, and again, and again—

“ You killed him! ”

The man screamed. Not words. Just noise.

“ You shot him like an animal!” 

Another punch. Blood.

Someone yelled. A bystander. A vendor.

Anakin didn’t hear.

He dragged the man up by the collar and slammed him into the wall. His face was unrecognizable now—pulped flesh and panic.

It wasn’t him.

It wasn’t Rako Hardeen.

But it didn’t matter. He looked like him. 

Anakin needed to practice for the actual kill, he needed to feel the rush, the justice, to confirm that this was the right thing to do. He needed to feel anything else other than pain lest he fractured and threw himself into the abyss.

He didn’t have a lightsaber on him. But he did have a knife. One movement. And the man’s neck opened. He let the body fall.

And stood there.

Breathing hard.

People screamed. Footsteps ran. Someone called security.

Anakin stood in the center of it, red on his boots, eyes glowing.

His hands didn’t shake.

But his heart did.

Because he wasn’t a Jedi. And Ahsoka was wrong. T his wasn’t revenge.

It was devotion.

Chapter Text

The holding cells at the Coruscanti Police Precinct reeked of sterilizer and burnt caf. Somewhere down the hall, a droid was glitching—its voice modulator skipping on repeat. "Please state your crime. Please state your crime. Please—"

Chief Malreaux rubbed his temples as he stared through the interrogation glass at the man hunched on the other side of the table.

Not man , really. Not anymore. Anakin Skywalker used to be light incarnate—a war hero, holonet sweetheart, the Jedi who could walk through fire and come out laughing.

This wasn’t that.

This was a collapsed star in human shape. Slumped, silent, eyes glassy and rimmed red, wearing civilian clothes - or rags, he should say. 

The chief was a man of middle age, a bit older than Obi-Wan (unlike Obi-Wan, he would not be frozen in time) and probably the only cop in the city who wasn’t corrupt. 

And the chief felt uneasy now. More than uneasy. Because his department had no budget for Force suppression cuffs - not only because they were military issued and expensive, but mostly because his force did not stand a chance against a Force user.

A stray Force user - that was the forte of the Jedi Order. But now … 

Malreaux leaned into the comm. “Skywalker?” 

No answer. Just breathing.

He tried again. “Son, I—” a pause, a recalibration. “I’m sorry to hear about Master Kenobi.” 

Anakin blinked. Nothing more.

Malreaux exhaled and stepped inside the room.

The door hissed. Anakin didn’t look up.

“You know,” Malreaux began, voice hesitant in a way he wasn’t used to hearing from himself, “you were a pain in the ass as a kid. Every week, some officer dragging you in for illegal pod races, slicing into public systems, graffiti bombing the Outlander Club with your call sign—SKYGUY, was it?”

Still no reaction.

“But your master always came. Stern face, soft voice. 'He’s learning,' he’d say. 'He’s better than this.'” Malreaux studied the figure across from him, voice turning low. “Guess we were all wrong.”

Anakin's jaw twitched.

The Chief didn’t flinch.

“You killed a man. In the street. Witnesses said it was brutal. Personal. Like you were trying to kill someone else. ”

Anakin looked up.

It wasn’t a glare. Wasn’t defiance. Just vacancy. The kind of look you only see on people who’ve run out of names for what they’ve lost.

Malreaux sighed. “Look… I don’t know if this’ll ease your pain or make it worse, but I’m only saying it because Kenobi was a friend. He’d want this said.”

Anakin stilled.

“They caught the man who killed him.”

And just like that—Anakin moved . A sharp inhale. Eyes sharpening to something more human.

“What did you say?” he rasped, voice barely more than paper scraped across rusted metal.

“The Jedi caught him. Not long ago.”

Anakin leaned forward, fingers twitching. “Who?”

Malreaux raised a brow. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“ Tell me what? ” Anakin’s voice cracked like thunder over dry stone.

“It was your Padawan.” A pause. A smile, faint and tired. “Well. Former Padawan, I guess. Tano. She tracked the bastard down herself. Nearly gutted him.”

Anakin sat back, stunned.

“How many days…” he murmured, mostly to himself. “How long was I—?”

“Three. Maybe four.” Malreaux tapped a data slate. “You’re lucky they didn’t bag you as a corpse.”

“Am I.”

Malreaux pulled a chair and sat, elbows to knees. “Look. Normally, I’d hand you over to the Jedi Council for judgment. But as I have just learned—you’re not one of them anymore. Which means your fate lies with Coruscant’s criminal code.”

“Good,” Anakin said flatly.

“You’ll be tried by peers. A jury. Maybe get life. Maybe less.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Do you have a lawyer?”

“No. Don't want one.”

Malreaux squinted. “You sure , kid? We’re talking premeditated murder. You’re not just going to prison . You’ll be sent to the Coremax tier. You know who they lock up there?”

Anakin smiled, sharp and bitter.

“Yes.”

Malreaux studied him. “Anakin … you’re better than this.” 

“Am I,” Anakin said again. 

A beat.

A longer beat.

And then:

“Skywalker… are you trying to get sent where they put the worst of the worst?” The Chief tilted his head. “Why?”

Anakin stood slowly. For the first time since the arrest, he looked alive . His voice was low. Calm. Measured like a bomb with a countdown. 

“Because I want to meet the man who killed Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

-

The descent into Coremax was like falling through someone else’s nightmare.

No windows. No sky. No sunlight. Just durasteel spirals coiled beneath the planet’s crust—one floor down for every crime against sentience. The air grew heavier with each level, thick with recycled breath and something less definable. Something like regret that had curdled.

Anakin stood still as the turbo-lift shuddered to a stop.

The guard beside him didn’t speak. Just scanned him one more time. Eyes flicked to the datapad, then back to his face.

“No belongings,” the guard confirmed. “No contact privileges. No medbay exceptions. You’re in with violent convicts, Skywalker. You so much as twitch wrong, the shock cuffs go live.”

Anakin didn’t respond. He barely blinked.

The doors hissed open.

Level C-6 was colder than it had any right to be. Rows of cells, each one lit by an overhead strip so pale it made everyone look already embalmed. Screams echoed down somewhere in the far right wing. A distant riot chant. Maybe a fight. Maybe someone losing what little mind they had left.

This was a place for monsters.

Good.

The Force wasn’t with him anymore. That was fine. He didn’t need it.

Let the monsters come.

They led him through the gauntlet. Prisoners stared from behind fields of flickering red light, hollow-eyed and hungry. Some shouted. Some just laughed. A few recognized him—not the Jedi, not the war hero—but the face . One they’d seen on the HoloNet, blue-lit and smiling, back when he was still a man who saved things.

Now they saw the truth.

Anakin Skywalker had fallen. Not like a meteor. Not like a villain.

Just… quietly. Like a curtain being drawn.

“Cell 009,” the guard muttered.

The door slid open.

Inside: a cot bolted to the wall. A basin. A blank slate of stone-gray nothingness. No sharp edges. No loose parts.

Anakin stepped in.

The cell closed with a hiss like the last breath of a dying thing.

There was no ceremony. No interrogation. No guards hanging around to ask if he was sure. He had signed the paperwork with a bloodied thumb and the words I plead guilty .

That was enough.

He sat on the cot. The frame groaned.

The air smelled of sweat, metal, and rot. Not unlike the morgue room.

Not unlike him .

From the hallway outside, he heard a voice bark something—laughter followed. A name being called over the comms. Not his.

“—Hardeen, your laundry’s late again. Keep stinking up the west wing and I’ll shove it down your throat—”

Let the days pass. Let the world rot. Let justice, if such a thing still existed, sit and fester in the belly of this prison.

Because the man who killed Obi-Wan was here.

And Anakin would wait for him.

-

The Coremax refectory was a cavern of threats. Metal trays clattered against dented tables. Grime-black boots scuffed across the floor. The food was something like protein, something like fuel, dispensed in beige scoops that steamed faintly but smelled of rot.

Anakin stood at the end of the serving line, eyes flat, jaw set. The kitchen droid took one look at him and decided not to ask questions.

He took his tray and scanned the room.

There were no safe corners here. No friendly faces. Every seat came with a risk assessment. Every glance held weight.

But Anakin wasn’t looking for safety.

He was looking for him .

Somewhere in this pit was the man who had taken everything. And when the time came, Anakin would know. He’d feel it like a rip in the air.

He stepped forward, moving slow, calculating.

That’s when it happened.

A loud laugh broke across the room. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just—easy. Confident. It came from the center table. A group of roughened men hunched around a tray with smuggled cards, one of them gesturing animatedly with a half-eaten ration bar in his hand.

And then that man looked up.

His face—scarred, blunt, older than the file photos Anakin had seen in the temple archives, but unmistakably shaped like violence. A hunter’s face. Cold eyes. Lethal grin.

He saw Anakin.

He stopped dead .

The laughter choked in his throat.

He dropped the bar.

The tray, the game, the entire table—forgotten.

He stood.

For a second, the room went too quiet. Not fully—just perceptibly. The way a crowd senses blood in the water before the first scream.

Anakin froze mid-step.

The man stared at him like he’d seen a ghost.

No. Not a ghost.

A reckoning.

“Hardeen,” someone at the table muttered. “What’s wrong with you?”

The man didn’t respond. Didn’t blink.

Anakin narrowed his eyes.

He didn’t even realize he’d stopped breathing. Hardeen took a step forward. Not aggressive. Not welcoming either. Something between awe and panic , blurred under the surface of a practiced face.

And Anakin…

He felt nothing.

No recognition. No tug in the Force. No echo of his master’s final moments.
Just silence.

And yet…

Something crawled down his spine like a whisper. A wrongness he couldn’t name.

He felt … A connection.

They stood there, ten feet apart, the tension coiling like a wire stretched too tight.

Then Hardeen did something unexpected.

He smiled.

Not smug. Not cruel. Not even cocky.

Just… broken.

Like the beginning of an apology that hadn’t figured out how to end.

And Anakin—Anakin’s fingers curled around his tray like he meant to break it.

-

He didn’t sleep.

There was no such thing as rest in Coremax. Only submission, only surrender. And Anakin Skywalker didn’t sleep. He waited .

He studied.

Rako Hardeen.

A bounty hunter. A marksman. The kind of scum the Jedi kept tabs on, the kind of scum that would be skilled enough to kill a Jedi master.

Rako Hardeen was right here .

He moved through the prison like a man with currency. Everyone nodded to him, not out of fear, but out of loyalty. Respect. He played the long game—gambled, joked, smuggled favors under the guards’ noses.

And around him—satellites.

Bounty hunters. Mercenaries. A rotating constellation of men who had once worked with him. Maybe still did.

Anakin watched them all.

Watched the way they deferred to him. Watched the way they waited.

He was building something. That much was clear. A job. An escape. A riot. Whatever it was—it was coming.

And that was fine.

Because Anakin wasn’t interested in escaping.

He was interested in getting close .

Let the job happen. Let the crew form. Let the trust build.

And when Rako finally reached for him—when he leaned over one afternoon and said, “You’ve got skills. We could use you when the lockdown lifts”—Anakin didn’t even look up from his tray.

He just said:

“What makes you think I want to get out of here?”

And Hardeen?

He hesitated.

Just for a second.

Just long enough.

Anakin smiled, faintly.

Hook, line, bloodied bait.

-

They didn’t let prisoners near metal. Too many sharp edges. Too many old grudges waiting to bloom.

But they did let them have sonic picks—tiny vibra-tools issued for dental hygiene. Short-range, low-power, not much more than a buzz at the end of a plastic shaft.

Not dangerous.

Unless you rewired the ultrasonic motor to reverse feedback.

Unless you pried open the casing with your nails and stripped the plasma pulse diode from the security socket in the wall panel next to the sink.

Unless you were Anakin Skywalker and you didn’t need the Force anymore to build a weapon out of spite .

Three days in Coremax and he had his answer. Hardeen was building a job. There was going to be an escape. He was recruiting bodies, storing rations, testing guard patterns. And Anakin?

Anakin didn’t care.

Because he wasn’t interested in justice anymore.

He wanted an ending.

He wanted a throat .

The sonic pick sat in his palm now, the motor casing filed to a point, just long enough to reach between the bars. The diode buzzed faintly when pressed to the pulse trigger. At close range, it would vibrate like a vibroblade.

And it would go in .

He sat on the edge of his cot, hand loose at his side, head bowed.

Waiting.

Like a sermon before the wrath.

The hallway beyond his cell echoed with lazy footsteps. The guards were doing shift change. Everything was quiet. Still.

Then—

Whistle.

A low one.

Someone trying to sound like they didn’t care.

Anakin looked up.

Rako Hardeen stood outside his cell, arms folded, that same lazy swagger draped across his spine like an old jacket. He leaned in slightly, a glint in his eye.

“I remember you now,”  he drawled. “Aren’t you that kid whose Master I killed?”

A beat.

Anakin’s lips twitched.

The blade came up like a prayer.

It slid through the bars, fast, precise—not rage, not madness, just mathematics. Right between the fifth and sixth ribs.

Hardeen gasped.

His eyes went wide. His hand scrambled against the vibro-slick handle, trying to grip, trying to stop the truth from being forced into his body.

Anakin didn’t let go.

He leaned forward, pushing the pick deeper until it met resistance. Cartilage. Bone. Breathing.

And then—

“Yes,” he whispered, almost reverent. “I am.”

Hardeen staggered back, hands slick with blood.

“My name is Anakin,” he said louder now, voice a rising tide, “and I am the man whose love you gunned down!”

The alarms blared like the gates of hell cracking open.

Guards swarmed from both ends of the block, shouting, screaming, blasters drawn. Cells slammed into lockdown. Red light flooded the corridor.

Anakin dropped the pick. Raised his hands.

Smiling.

No— grinning . Like a man possessed, like a wolf who’d finally caught the scent of blood and found it sweet.

They tackled him to the ground, cuffs snapping over his wrists, boots crushing his spine, voices shouting over each other—

“ Inmate assault— ”

“ Attempted murder— ”

“ Get the med droid—he’s still breathing— ”

But Anakin just laughed.

Laughed like the air was wine, like the world had stopped lying for one, perfect moment.

They dragged him down the hall, kicking and laughing, blood staining the floor behind them.

“Rot in hell!” he roared. “Tell Obi-Wan I did this for him when you get there!”

-

The solitary cell was soundproof. No guards. Absolute abyss of silence. Anakin never did well with solitude. 

Just four walls, a thin blanket, and the echo of Anakin’s own breath shaking loose in his chest.

The laughter had stopped hours ago.

He lay on the floor, cheek pressed to duracrete, heartbeat bruising the inside of his ribs. His limbs felt made of static. His knuckles ached from the strain of not holding a weapon anymore.

The light never turned off.
There were no windows.

Just time.

And time was a bastard.

It crept over him like a second skin, pressing down until the weight cracked something open, and memory spilled in.

-

It started, as so many of their arguments did, with Obi-Wan saying something he didn’t mean to say aloud. Or at all.

“I am bound to hell for this.”

The tent was dim. The wind outside hissed over the ridgeline. Somewhere not far off, clone troopers murmured over a campfire, too tired to laugh.

Inside, Obi-Wan sat with his elbows on his knees, hands steepled over his mouth. His beard was darker than usual, damp with sweat and dirt. His eyes were distant. Raw.

Anakin, younger then, freshly scarred but not yet hollow, watched him with something soft in his chest. Like worship.

“What was that?” he asked.

Obi-Wan didn’t look at him.

Anakin shifted, sitting cross-legged on the makeshift cot they’d shared during the campaign. “You’re not going to hell. If anyone’s going to hell, it’s me.”

Obi-Wan still didn’t answer.

“It was a tough three days,” Anakin tried. “That’s all. You did everything you could.”

Obi-Wan’s voice cracked low and dry. “It wasn’t enough.”

Anakin’s brow furrowed.

Obi-Wan dragged a hand down his face, the heel of his palm pressing into his eyes like he could wipe the guilt out from behind them. “My men died. Because I misjudged the terrain. I told them we had time. I was wrong.”

“You were tired,” Anakin said sharply. “You hadn’t slept in two cycles.”

“And now they never will again.”

Obi-Wan exhaled like it hurt to do so and began to rise.

Anakin reached forward, caught his wrist.

“Stay.”

Obi-Wan blinked. Slowly. His entire body was pulled taut, like his skin no longer fit right. “This isn’t what we’re supposed to be.”

Anakin chuckled, amused by the childish sentiment, so uncharacteristic for Obi-Wan. “But it’s what we are, baby.”

He pulled him down gently, and Obi-Wan didn’t fight it.

Didn’t kiss him, either. Not at first. Just lay there, shoulder to shoulder, as if proximity could absolve him.

It was Anakin who shifted closer. Anakin who curled around him like a sun-starved vine. Anakin who rested his hand on the rise of Obi-Wan’s chest and whispered, “At least we’ll be warm in hell.”

It was meant to be a joke.

But Obi-Wan didn’t smile.

He rolled toward him then—touched their foreheads together like it was prayer. And said, barely audible:

“I never should have touched you like this. It’s wrong.” 

Anakin held him tighter. And whispered, “I don’t care.”

-

Now—

The cell in Coremax was freezing.

Anakin lay in the fetal curl of someone who had once been touched by something holy. The memory of warmth kept him alive.

And for the first time in days—

He slept.

Not peacefully.

But with Obi-Wan’s name on his breath.

Absolved by devotion. 

He hoped to wake up in hell. 

Chapter Text

Three weeks of silence.

Three weeks of stale air, dry food, and a light that never dimmed. Anakin had lost track of time somewhere around day nine. Or maybe day ten. What came after rage wasn’t clarity—it was blankness. A slow smothering under the weight of still being alive.

The door hissed open with a mechanical sigh. A guard grunted.

“Get up, Skywalker. Back to gen pop. Try not to stab anyone this time.”

The guard slapped the light switch and left. The air felt colder. Freer.

He rose slowly, like the gravity had thickened. His body still ached from where they’d slammed him into the floor. But it wasn’t pain that stopped him.

It was what he found waiting on the cot back in his cell.

A folded piece of synth-paper. No name. No scent. No trace.

Just one sentence:

“You're not done yet.”

He stared at it for a long time.

Didn’t react. Didn’t tear it up. Just tucked it into the lining of his shirt.

The cell’s an upgrade in the worst possible way. No durasteel bars through which a prisoner can breathe, see without distortion or in Anakin’s case - reach through. 

A shimmering field of light stretches across the threshold through the force field. Pale blue and barely visible unless viewed at an angle, the containment barrier crackles faintly whenever someone gets too close, repelling with a force that could knock a grown Wookiee flat. Inside, the walls are smooth durasteel, sterile and unyielding, with no seams or weak points, nothing that could be turned into leverage. A narrow slab juts from one wall, doubling as both bed and punishment. The light overhead pulses at regulated intervals, engineered not for comfort but for control, calibrated to keep the prisoner disoriented enough to comply—but conscious enough to suffer.

There are no windows. Just the hum of the force field, the faint scent of ozone, and the inescapable weight of silence.

He didn’t even get the chance to sit before the door opened again .

And in stepped the man he’d stabbed through the ribs .

Alive. Breathing. Dressed in standard orange, torso wrapped in fresh bandages that stretched high across his collarbone.

He leaned against the wall like they were old drinking buddies. The guard who’d let him in was already gone. Of course he was.

Anakin tilted his head, slow. Deliberate.

“Well,” he said. “Look who decided not to die.”

Hardeen smirked. “I don’t go down easy.”

“You bled like a motherfucker.”

“Sure, but I walked out. You got the solitary suite.” His eyes roved over the room. “Nice to be back, though.”

Anakin stayed still.

“Here for round two?” he asked, voice soft like the inside of a storm. “Or just feeling brave?”

“I’m here for business, ” Hardeen replied.

He stepped further in, posture relaxed, but there was a twitch in his fingers. Painkillers or tension. Anakin wasn’t sure which.

“My offer still stands. The job pays high. Gets us out. I don’t forget talent—even if it tries to ventilate my lungs.”

“I told you before,” Anakin said. “I’m not leaving. I’m not running. I’m not building a crew.”

He stepped forward, eyes sharp enough to cut. “I just want to kill you. For what you did to Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

That made Hardeen flinch. Only a little. But it was there.

“You really think I don’t know what that feels like?” he said. “To want someone back so bad it feels like your skin is inside out?”

Anakin blinked. Once. Slow.

Hardeen stepped back. He was already at the door. The guard - Hardeen’s trusted guard - was waiting.

He turned, one hand on the panel, and said over his shoulder:

“You care about everything, Skywalker. Far too much for a Jedi’s taste.”

Anakin froze. He froze .

Anakin whispered: “What? ”

His chest was tight. His pulse suddenly wrong .

Large, calloused hand that represented his entire world curled around the baby fat of his cheek like it was the only true thing left in the galaxy.

“You care about everything. Far too much for a Jedi’s taste.”

That wasn’t in the archive files. That wasn’t public. That was theirs. His. 

-

The Temple gardens smelled like rain and burning incense. Somewhere in the distance, a wing of younglings were practicing their levitation drills—laughing, shouting, full of the kind of brightness that hadn’t yet learned about war.

Anakin hated that sound today.

He found Obi-Wan on the lower balcony overlooking the northern district. Robes loose, a cup of something herbal in hand, back straight as a saber. The breeze tugged at his tunic, but nothing else about him moved.

“You’re the first person I’m telling,” Anakin said, coming to stand beside him.

Obi-Wan didn’t look over. “That’s rare.”

Anakin took a breath. “Padmé and I finalized the divorce. Two days ago.”

Still, no reaction.

“We agreed it wasn’t working,” Anakin continued. “I told her everything. She was less furious than I thought she'd be.” 

Obi-Wan sipped his tea.

“Are you going to say anything?”

“Should I?”

Anakin turned sharply. “Okay, what the hell is this?”

“What is what, Anakin?”

“You’re acting like I killed your cat - I thought this was good news?” 

Obi-Wan finally looked at him. His eyes were tired. So tired. Like the years had started stacking up wrong inside his ribs.

“I just find it impressive,” he said. “How seamlessly you jump from one adultery to another.”

Anakin’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

“You married her,” Obi-Wan said, setting the cup down. “In secret. Lied to the Council. Lied to me.”

“I’m not lying now—”

“Oh no. No, now you’re noble. Now you’re tragic. Now you’re a martyr for the cause of love.” He shook his head. “You think doing the right thing absolves you from doing it badly.”

Anakin’s hands curled into fists. “I told her the truth.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “You told her.”

Anakin flinched.

He hadn’t expected that. Not from Obi-Wan.

“I told her,” Anakin said again, slower now. “That I couldn’t live a lie. That I couldn’t be with her and still live with myself. I told her that no matter how big my heart is, it won’t fit both of you—and I had to choose. So I did. I chose you. So what exactly are you angry about?”

Obi-Wan stared at him like he was a slow-learning Padawan again.

“You didn’t invite me,” he said.

Anakin blinked.

“To the wedding,” Obi-Wan went on, voice dangerously calm. “You didn’t invite me. You didn’t tell me. You didn’t look me in the eye and say, ‘I’m getting married.’ Your droid got to go, Anakin. The fucking droid. And I got the leftovers two years later.”

Anakin’s voice cracked. “You’ve known for months.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan snapped, finally breaking. “And I pretended it didn’t hurt. Because that’s what I do, isn’t it? I play my part. I smile and I train and I guide and I bleed quietly. And then you walk in one day and say, ‘Well, I’ve fixed it now,’ like you’re confessing to replacing a repulsorlift coil.”

“I didn’t know you—” Anakin stopped himself. “You never said anything.”

“I shouldn’t have to!” Obi-Wan shouted. “You’re supposed to know!”

The silence after that hit like a gut punch.

“I know when you need a soup, when you need space, when you need to punch something! I’m the one who knows!” 

The sun had started to dip behind the Temple towers.

Anakin’s voice was raw when he finally said, “You’re the only person I’ve ever loved this long.”

Obi-Wan looked at him. Something inside him cracked—but didn’t spill.

“You’re an idiot, Anakin Skywalker.”

And he walked away.

-

The bribe was simple: a coil from the bunk heater, smuggled from solitary. Melted and rewrapped. Could restart a speeder engine if you knew where to insert it.

“No need, Skywalker,” The guard  said. “Dues were already paid.”

Anakin narrowed his eyes. “What dues?”

The guard gave a lopsided grin. “You want your five minutes with the bounty? Be ready tonight. You’ll get it.”

And then he was gone.

Anakin stood in his cell for hours. Staring at the wall like it might bleed a confession.

-

The hallway was off-schedule.

Too quiet.

The cameras blinked red—looped footage, probably. No other inmates. No footsteps. Just the distant hum of power systems and the sound of breath dragging through metal vents.

The guard unlocked the door with a code he didn't write down and shoved Anakin forward.

“Five minutes,” he said. “Make 'em count.”

Then he left.

The room was small. No window. One emergency lamp overhead casting everything in soft ruin.

Hardeen stood in the center, back stiff, arms crossed like he was expecting negotiation.

He didn’t get it.

Anakin struck before the door had hissed shut.

A blur of movement, a crash of bodies, Hardeen slammed against the wall hard enough to shake the light fixture loose. Anakin’s forearm braced against his throat, crushing cartilage. The air fled his lungs in a rasp.

Hardeen thrashed—but not effectively. His ribs were still healing. He coughed wetly, eyes wide.

“Where did you hear it?” Anakin snarled.

“Wh—what—”

“The phrase .” Anakin leaned in, face inches away, eyes burning. “What you said to me in my cell. That line— You care about everything, far too much for a Jedi’s taste. ” His voice cracked like a whip. “That is not something anyone should know. That is not public . That is mine —that’s his —you do not get to say that unless you—unless you—”

His arm pressed harder. Hardeen’s heels lifted from the ground.

“Tell me the truth. Now. How are you quoting my dead master?”

Hardeen’s mouth moved, no sound. His hands clawed at Anakin’s wrist, feebly.

Anakin’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me, damn you!” 

Still no answer.

So Anakin shoved harder.

“Say it! ”

Then—

In the kind of voice that comes just before unconsciousness:

“Anakin… let me go. ”

Anakin didn’t ease up.

So Hardeen—gasping now, lips parted, voice barely air—said:

“Darling... you’re hurting me.”

Anakin froze. Just long enough to feel the tremor in his own hands. Just long enough to remember. 

That voice. That phrasing. That intonation .

He heard it in another bed. On another night. In another life.

He loosened his grip a fraction.

Just enough for Hardeen to draw a rattling breath.

Just enough for Anakin to step back and say:

“…what the fuck is going on here?”

-

Anakin was on the ground.

Not thrown, not beaten. He had lowered himself . Slowly. Quietly. Like a man kneeling before something holy or ruined—he no longer knew the difference.

In front of him, Rako Hardeen— no .

Obi-Wan Kenobi stood in someone else’s skin. Piece by piece, the man Anakin had buried returned.

He looked down at Anakin and said, softly, because he had nothing else:

“I had to.”

Obi-Wan shifted, unsure if the boy even breathed anymore, so still he appeared, solid as stone.

“It’s Cody,” he said lamely. “The guard. I wouldn’t come into a den of lions without my commander. And you would have known that, Anakin— if you hadn’t cut yourself off from the Force. ”

Anakin stood up. Without a word. And began walking away.

Obi-Wan blinked. “ What— where are you going?”

“Back to my cell.”

“What?”

“I’m going back,” Anakin said flatly. “You’re done with me, right? You said what you needed to say. I can go.”

Obi-Wan stepped forward. “Anakin, I really think we should-”

Anakin turned slowly, and in that moment he looked more ancient than any Jedi had a right to be. “I killed a man.”

Obi-Wan’s lips parted.

“I killed a man, that’s why I’m here,” Anakin repeated. “I killed him with my bare hands. In the middle of the street. Because he looked like your killer. I was high. I’d been fucking whores in the lower levels, anythin with a pulse, really, that would make me forget that you were dead. And I saw a face I thought belonged to the man who took you away from me .”

He stepped forward, voice sharp. “But here’s the part you missed.”

Obi-Wan said nothing, watching Anakin, terrified for his boy’s soul.

“I realized it wasn’t him,” Anakin said. “Before I was done. I knew. ”

Obi-Wan’s face drained of color.

“And I still did it.” Anakin’s breath hitched. “Because I didn’t care. Because I wanted someone to pay.”

Obi-Wan’s voice barely made it out of his throat. “Anakin—”

Anakin’s eyes were red now. Not from rage. From nothing left to burn .

“Goodbye, Obi-Wan,” he said.

He turned. And didn’t look back. “Good luck with your fucking mission.”

Chapter Text

They were watching him.

He could feel it; in the yard, in the mess hall, in the long metal corridors that stank of unwashed armor and old regrets. The crew circled like nexu around a limping kill. They didn’t talk much, these bounty hunters, but silence here meant calculation.

He was being measured.

Weighed.

And if he was found wanting….

"Rako Hardeen’s gone soft," one of them muttered two days after the incident. The one with the scar like a lightning bolt across his temple—Grakk. Sloppy with a shiv, but dangerous enough in a corner.

“Saw him get wrecked by a Jedi,” another added. “Didn’t even swing back.”

“Used to be he’d gut a man for lookin’ at him wrong.”

Obi-Wan let them talk. Let the image of Hardeen, the brute, the killer, the original blueprint, fracture in their minds.

Fine.

Let them doubt.

It made what came next easier.

-

The confrontation came in the maintenance corridor. No cameras. No guards. Exactly where he would’ve picked, too.

Four of them.

“Been a while since we saw you bleed,” Grakk said, chewing something like spice-tar between his teeth.

Obi-Wan said nothing.

“You’re not acting like yourself.”

Still nothing.

“Maybe you’re not Rako Hardeen anymore.”

And that’s when Obi-Wan moved.

No hesitation. No warning.

His elbow cracked Grakk’s jaw sideways before the man even finished his sentence. The next one came at him with a makeshift blade—Obi-Wan caught his wrist mid-swing, disarmed him, and drove his knee into his solar plexus hard enough to drop him like a sack of synth-sand.

The third tried to run.

He didn’t get far.

Obi-Wan slammed him against the wall, then ducked the last one’s punch and broke two fingers before hurling him across a power crate.

Five seconds.

Four men down.

Obi-Wan—panting now, stitched ribs aching, blood from someone else’s mouth on his shoulder—straightened slowly.

He didn’t speak.

He just looked at them.

Let them sit in it.

“ Now that’s more like it,” said the Twi’lek with the cybernetic eye—Ves Vorr, the unofficial recruiter for Dooku’s job.

He leaned forward, smiling like a lizard in the sun. “Thought you’d lost your edge, Hardeen. Glad to see you’re still a bastard.”

Obi-Wan wiped his mouth and didn’t answer.

The bruises on the floor would do the talking for him.

-

There was no mirror in the cell; not a real one, anyway.

Just a polished scrap of durasteel bolted to the wall, scratched and dented from years of use and violence. But it was enough.

Obi-Wan stared at it now. At the stranger staring back.

Rako Hardeen’s face.

Square-jawed. Brutal. Blood crusting at the temple. One eye swollen from the brawl.

He wiped it with a rag. It stung.

He didn’t care.

There was no mission brief here. No Jedi Council. No moral absolution.

Just his own reflection, refusing to flinch.

He had won the fight.

He had secured the crew.

He was earning their trust. The plan was working.

And yet. 

Obi-Wan exhaled shakily and leaned his head against the wall, forehead pressing cold against metal. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the way Anakin walked away .

Didn’t even look back.

Didn’t scream. Didn’t beg. Just— left .

And the part that hurt most was that Obi-Wan had deserved it.

Because this mission—this entire infiltration—had never really been about Palpatine for him. That was the surface. The briefing. 

The excuse - I’m doing this to save Anakin’s friend. He would thank me for it later, he would forgive me once he learns that I did it to save someone he loves. 

The one he murmured to himself everytime the guilt of doing something so horrific to Anakin came crawling up his throat, suffocating the love they both sacrificed so much to build. To maintain. 

But underneath?

Obi-Wan closed his eyes.

Underneath, it had been about Anakin .

Deep, deep in the folds of himself, where he never let the light in, not since Qui-Gon died and left him with nothing but a boy and a promise, there was the real reason.

A reason he hadn’t even admitted until Anakin said goodbye.

And now it was screaming in his skull.

He had wanted Anakin to feel it.

The loss.

The betrayal.

The void.

When Anakin married Padmé, it hadn’t been just a lie. It hadn’t been just against the Code.

It had confirmed everything Obi-Wan had spent years swallowing like poison.

That he was the backup plan.

Not the first love. Not the great passion. Just what was left.

Padmé had gotten the stolen glances, the shared secrets, the future plans.

Obi-Wan had gotten the aftermath.

The apology.

The scraps.

He told himself he’d forgiven. That Anakin’s divorce meant a second chance. That they could start again. But when Anakin said he’d left Padmé for him … Obi-Wan hadn’t felt elation.

He’d felt rage .

Because what did that mean? He was the consolation prize?

Obi-Wan Kenobi, second to Padmé Amidala .

Just like he had been second to Anakin —after Qui-Gon found him and decided he was more important .

Just like Obi-Wan had been second to the Jedi Order. Second to every mission. Second to the Council’s demands. Second to destiny .

And maybe—

Just maybe—

Some twisted, angry part of him wanted Anakin to feel that too.

To feel what it was like to lose the only person who tethered you to the galaxy. To be left behind.

To scream into the Force and have no one answer.

And so, he’d let Anakin believe he was dead. He’d let him grieve. Let him suffer.

And now—

Obi-Wan lifted his head. Looked into Hardeen’s face again. And hated it. Because now he knew the truth. This wasn’t a mission. It was revenge.

And it had cost him Anakin.

-

The hall to Cellblock D was paved with good intentions. 

Obi-Wan walked it slowly. The guards said nothing. Cody had arranged it. One visit. No escort. No gear.

Just him.

He stopped outside the cell. Anakin was sitting on the cot. Back turned. Posture loose. Too loose. Like a string left to uncoil.

Obi-Wan swallowed.

“Anakin.”

No answer.

He tried again, softer. “It’s me.”

Anakin didn’t move.

So Obi-Wan stepped closer to the force field. Close enough to see the edge of his profile. 

The tired, set jaw. The skin under his eyes, sunken like something starved.

“I know you don’t want to hear from me,” Obi-Wan began. “And I wouldn’t blame you if you never did again.”

Still nothing.

“But I—I have to say this anyway. I have to try.”

Anakin’s eyes flicked over, but he said nothing.

Obi-Wan leaned forward. “I was wrong. I never should have taken the assignment. Or at least … not without telling you about it.” 

He inhaled sharply, the words cutting on the way out. “It was cruel.”

Anakin’s fingers twitched.

“I told myself that you’d recover. That it was necessary. That perhaps you … wouldn’t even miss me.” 

Anakin’s lip twitched downward. For a moment, Obi-Wan thought he was going to try and punch his way out of his cell, voltage be damned. 

Obi-Wan’s voice trembled now. “But the truth is—I wanted you to hurt.”

Anakin turned his head slightly. Not fully.

Just enough.

Obi-Wan pressed on. “When you told me you divorced Padmé, all I could think was Why now? Why not before? Why not before you swore vows to someone else? Why not when it mattered?”

He exhaled a bitter laugh.

“I told myself that … That Jedi don’t need to be first. But I lied.”

Obi-Wan placed his palm as close to the force field as he could, waiting for Anakin to extend his so they could meet somewhere in the middle.

“I wanted you to feel what I’ve felt. That empty. That unwanted.”

Anakin stood.

Slowly. Quietly.

He walked over. Stopped just before the shadow of Obi-Wan’s hand.

And then met his gaze.

The Force trembled, barely there, like a thread pulled too tight.

“You did,” Anakin said, voice flat.

Obi-Wan’s mouth parted. “Anakin—”

“I felt it,” he went on. “And I keep feeling it. Every minute of every day in this cell. While the Force is gone and I have no idea how to get her back. While my hands remember what murder feels like. While I begged the desert deities, even my dead mother, for you to not be dead.”

Obi-Wan’s throat clenched. “I’m so sorry.”

Anakin looked at him for a long time.

And then—quietly, not cruelly—he said:“Good.” He stepped back. “Now go.”

Obi-Wan stayed there. Hand still outstretched. Someone came up behind him.

Cody’s voice. “Time’s up.”

Obi-Wan didn’t move.

And Anakin turned his back once more.

-

Anakin didn’t notice the hallway was empty.

Didn’t notice the guards had stepped out, the cameras flickered off.

Didn’t realize he was walking straight into a trap until a heavy hand slammed into his chest and pinned him against the wall.

Cody.

He was fuming.

“Sir,” he said, voice like steel dragged across a whetstone. “With all due respect— you need to shut the fuck up and listen. ”

Anakin blinked. “Excuse me—?”

“You’re excused,” Cody snapped. Anakin pushed against his arm, but Cody held fast and Anakin didn’t particularly feel like hurting another innocent.

“You’re hurting,” Cody growled through his helmet. “So is everyone. It’s war - do I need to remind you that of all people? But you - you’re fucking up the mission and you are fucking up the General. And for what? So you can feel righteous? He apologized!” 

Anakin’s voice was low. “He lied to me.”

“He did,” Cody said. “And he regrets it. Every breath. I’ve watched him try to sleep ever since he got here. You think I don’t know him? I was there when he pulled you out of Geonosis, bleeding. I was there when he buried his goddamn heart in the Temple so the Council wouldn’t see he loved you.”

Anakin’s jaw clenched.

“You think you’re punishing him,” Cody continued, “but all you’re doing is confirming his worst fear: that he never mattered as much to you as she did.”

“That’s not true,” Anakin hissed.

“Then prove it. ”

Silence.

“He’s not sleeping. He’s barely eating. He’s still progressing with his task , but I can see it—he’s coming apart.”

Cody stepped back finally. Let Anakin breathe.

“You don’t get to walk away,” he said. “Not from him. Not from this. If you have any love left for that man, man the fuck up .”

Anakin stared at the floor.

His throat burned.

Cody scoffed once more, bitter and tired. 

-

The laundry room was abandoned.

Third sublevel. No cameras. Just the hum of  machines, the scent of steam and soap and rusted metal grates underfoot. Cody had arranged it, like he arranged everything — without fuss, without questions - for Obi-Wan’s shift in the laundry room on the second level to come up at the same time Anakin’s did on the third.

Obi-Wan was already there when Anakin walked in.

He turned, slow. The overhead light flickered. He looked tired, but ready. Like he knew this was coming, and had resigned himself to the aftermath.

“Anakin,” he said, quietly. “I’m glad you -” 

Anakin crossed the room in three strides and slammed him into the dryer door with a thud.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Their mouths crashed.

No grace. No rhythm. Just teeth and spit and mourning disguised as anger. Obi-Wan gasped, but Anakin didn’t let up. His hands were already at the waistband of Obi-Wan’s prison-issue pants, yanking them down in one brutal motion.

Obi-Wan tried to speak again, but Anakin shoved his thigh between his legs and pressed hard.

“I said—shut up.”

Obi-Wan moaned.

Low. Involuntary.

It broke something in Anakin.

He shoved him back against the wall, kissing down his throat. Obi-Wan’s hands clenched in his shirt, torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away.

“This is a mistake,” Obi-Wan breathed.

“We’re way past that,” Anakin growled, biting down on the curve of his neck hard enough to leave a mark.

Clothes were half-off, twisted, bunched around ankles. Anakin dropped to his knees and pulled Obi-Wan down with him. They hit the floor with a thud, tangled in each other, boots scraping concrete.

Obi-Wan's voice cracked. “Anakin—”

But Anakin was already there—hands on his hips, mouth on his chest, marking every inch he could reach with teeth and tongue. His palm slid down between Obi-Wan’s legs, fingers curling tight, squeezing hard enough to hurt.

Obi-Wan gasped. Bit his knuckle. Thrust into it anyway.

He didn’t protest.

Not when Anakin slicked his fingers with spit and pressed them in, slow and punishing.
Not when Obi-Wan swore under his breath, head falling back against the dryer with a dull clang .
Not when Anakin leaned over him and whispered, voice shaking with fury:

“Say my name.”

Obi-Wan’s jaw clenched.

Anakin twisted his wrist. “ Say it. ”

“Anakin.”

“Louder.”

“ Anakin. ”

Then—

He was in.

No gentleness. Just one brutal thrust that knocked the air from both of them. Obi-Wan’s nails scraped down Anakin’s back. Anakin didn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. He set a pace fast, hard, relentless— mean .

The room echoed with flesh on flesh, the hiss of breath, the harsh creak of machinery.

Obi-Wan clung to him like a man drowning.

Anakin leaned down, lips dragging over his ear. “You should’ve stayed dead.”

Obi-Wan whimpered.

“But you didn’t. So now you take this —you take me —because you’re all I have left.”

Obi-Wan’s whole body tightened.

Anakin kept going. Fucked him through it. Held him there with one hand splayed across his chest like he needed to own something—just one thing in this broken galaxy, this broken life.

When Obi-Wan came, it was silent. Violent. His whole body shaking, lips parted, eyes squeezed shut like he was in prayer.

Anakin followed seconds later, buried deep, mouth pressed to his throat. He bared his teeth. Bit down. Broke skin. Drew blood. Licked it clean with his pink tongue.

And hated how much it still felt like home.

-

The first time after laundry had been in the boiler room.

Heat coiled through the pipes like veins, hissing with pressure. Obi-Wan’s shirt had been soaked with sweat before Anakin even touched him.

There hadn’t been words. Not really.

Anakin had backed him into the wall, dragged his mouth over Obi-Wan’s throat, claiming territory, and yanked his waistband down with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. He hadn’t undressed them all the way. Just shoved fabric aside, angled Obi-Wan against the railing, and took him.

He had fucked him standing up—hard, brutal, his forehead pressed between Obi-Wan’s shoulder blades, his teeth clenched like he was trying not to sob.

Obi-Wan had gripped the pipe. Let it burn into his palms.

He didn’t say stop. He said, “Don’t be gentle.”

So Anakin obeyed.

-

There had been a closet behind the industrial garbage chute. No lights. Just the hum of the prison heart, the dust, the cold metal shelves.

Anakin hadn’t kissed him. He grabbed Obi-Wan by the collar and pulled him down to his knees.

Obi-Wan hadn’t resisted.

He had taken it. All of it.

And when it had ended—when Anakin had shuddered through his release, jaw clenched, chest heaving—he had tucked himself away with blood on his lip and said:

“I hate you for what you did.”

Obi-Wan had looked up with a slow, hollow frown.

“ I know. ”

-

They hadn’t even made it to the supply crates.

Anakin had shoved him behind the conveyor belt, hand already down his pants. Obi-Wan had leaned back and spread his legs with a sigh, eyes fluttered shut.

It had been fast. Desperate.

Anakin had finished him with a growl and slick fingers, and then brought his hand to his mouth like it was sacred, licking the taste from his fingers like a dog, watching Obi-Wan pant through it.

Neither of them had said a word.

They had gone back to work like nothing had happened.

-

Sometimes it had only been a hand in the dark.

Anakin hadn’t needed to ask. Obi-Wan had turned, lifted his shirt, offered skin like penance.

Anakin had breathed him in, kissed the small of his back, pressed his forehead there. “Do you even want this?” he asked.

Obi-Wan had whispered:

“I want you . Always.” 

-

Anakin had taken him in a mop closet without saying a word, and Obi-Wan let him—because pain was easier than forgiveness.

-

The plan was in motion.

The bounty hunters were packing. Smuggling in weapons disguised as cleaning tools. Mapping escape corridors. Clocking guard rotations.

It would happen in twenty hours.

Maybe less.

Obi-Wan found Anakin alone in the utility bay, sitting on a crate and stripping wires from a blown fuse box like he could unmake the prison with his bare hands.

Obi-Wan shut the door behind him.

“We’re ready,” he said.

Anakin didn’t look up.

Obi-Wan stepped closer. “This is our last window. I’ve secured the timing with the outer crew. We’re going to hit the guards between the second and third shift. Get to the shuttle dock.” 

Anakin wiped grease from his hands, slow. “Congratulations.”

“I’m not letting you rot in here.”

Now Anakin looked up.

Obi-Wan’s eyes flicked across his face—trying to read him, trying to find a fracture in the concrete.

“This is your best chance,” he said. “Of returning to your life. Our life. If you help me save the Chancellor, the Council will reconsider. They’ll see this for what it is—grief, trauma. You can still make up for what you did.”

Anakin snorted.

“You still don’t get it,” he said, rising. “I don’t want to go back to my old life.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “Anakin—”

“I’m not interested in being the Jedi’s errand boy. Not the poster boy for the Republic’s war machine while you and I play pretend. While we act like we don’t love each other. I’ve done that once already. With a woman. I’m not doing it again.”

Obi-Wan flinched like he’d been slapped.

“Oh,” he said, voice sharp and brittle. “Because your woman —unlike me—was worth all the trouble.”

Anakin’s eyes snapped to his, wild and wounded.

“You’re a fucking idiot , Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan blinked. Just once.

“I love you,” Anakin said, and the words came out broken, bloody, like they’d been locked behind his teeth for too long. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life. I think I love you more than anyone has ever loved anyone in the history of life.”

Obi-Wan said nothing.

“I can’t forgive you,” Anakin whispered. “Not because I don’t want to. Because if I do—I’ll fall to pieces. I’ll split apart and not come back. This - whatever it is I feel - is the last thing that tethers me to sanity. I cannot give away its power by forgiving you.” 

Obi-Wan looked at him for a long time.

And then nodded.

“I understand,” he said. “But I’m still not letting you rot here.”

Anakin exhaled through his nose. Shook his head.

“This is my sentence, Obi-Wan. Not yours. ”

“No. It is,” Obi-Wan said softly. “All of this. Every inch of this is my fault.”

A beat.

Anakin sighed. Rubbed his eyes.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll help you save the Chancellor.”

Obi-Wan straightened.

“But after that,” Anakin said, stepping past him, toward the door, “I’m going back. To serve my sentence. Just like I said.”

Obi-Wan turned, lips parted.

They would argue about the very same subject three weeks later after they have saved the Chancellor, only that time - Obi-Wan would come out victorious. 

-

And he did. 

Sort of. 

The Chancellor was safely returned to Coruscant and the Naboo would talk about their festival for generations to come.

But the motel hadn’t changed.

Still smelled like mildew. The air conditioner still growled like a dying droid. The floorboards were still stiff with old stains no one wanted to question.

Anakin stood in the middle of the room, shoulders drawn tight, his old pack slumped at his feet. He didn’t have to search. He knew exactly where he’d hidden it.

He knelt.

Pulled up the warped floorboard.

And there it was.

His lightsaber.

Wrapped in an oil-slick rag. Cold to the touch. Silent.

For months, it had sat buried beneath rot and metal, untouched. Just like him .

Obi-Wan entered slowly, boots soft on the floor. His face was his own again—no mask, no borrowed voice, no more lies. His robes were pristine once again. Anakin stood with the saber in his hand.

“I left it here,” he said. “When I cut myself off from the Force.” 

Obi-Wan said nothing.

Anakin turned, leaned against the wall. “You want to know how I did it?”

Obi-Wan nodded once.

Anakin stared at the saber hilt.

“It wasn’t like flicking a switch. It was more like… closing a door in your mind. One you’ve kept open so long, you don’t know what the world sounds like without it.” His voice was low. “I didn’t do it out of discipline. I did it because I couldn’t stand what it showed me.”

He met Obi-Wan’s eyes.

“You were always the Force to me.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth parted, breath catching.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t know what it was. Just this… this thing inside me. I could feel people before they entered the room. I could move things, know things. I thought I was cursed.”

He looked down at the saber again.

“But then I met you. And suddenly I had a name for it. For all of it. The strength. The quiet. The fire. It was you , Obi-Wan. You were the name of the Force.”

Obi-Wan stepped forward, voice trembling. “My love…”

Anakin’s hands dropped to his sides. “I almost killed you,” he said on an inhale to avoid pain splitting him open.

Obi-Wan shook his head immediately, wordless but with so much understanding in his bright blue eyes.

“I almost killed you,” Anakin crossed the distance between them in two steps, close now, crowding Obi-Wan against the cracked wallpaper.

“Call me your love again,” he whispered. “I want to know I’m yours. That I’m your only love.”

Obi-Wan’s hands rose, tentative at first, then firm—cradling Anakin’s jaw, stroking the line of his cheek. “You are,” he said. “You always have been.”

Anakin closed his eyes. Exhaled. Then leaned in.

The kiss wasn’t frantic, wasn’t hungry. It was slow. Reverent. Their lips moved like they were remembering something. Like they were stitching the Force back together between them.

Anakin laid him down on the motel bed, fingers trembling as he undressed them both. The sheets were stiff, the air too warm, the lights too harsh.

But none of it mattered.

Because this time, there was no lie between them. No mission. No rank. No rules.

Only skin. Only breath. Only truth .

They made love like it was the first time they’d ever been allowed to. No desperation. No guilt. Just the two of them, in the stillness, in the ruin.

-

The bed creaked with every breath they took. Cheap sheets, thin mattress. But it held them.

Anakin lay on his stomach, head turned toward the window, one arm draped lazily over Obi-Wan’s waist. His hair was a mess of curls and sleep and quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t ache. The kind that stayed .

Obi-Wan’s fingers traced his spine—slow, soft. “I’m sorry I ever made you feel like you were second to me.”

Obi-Wan stilled.

“You never were,” Anakin said. “Not to Padmé. Not to anyone. I just didn’t know how to choose you. I didn’t think you’d choose me back.”

Obi-Wan leaned down. Brushed a kiss to his shoulder.

“I chose you a long time ago,” Anakin whispered. “I just didn’t say it. And by the time I tried, I’d already hurt you.”

Obi-Wan kissed his neck, once. Then twice. Then rested his forehead against his skin.

“I hurt you too,” he murmured. “More.”

They lay like that a while longer. Wrapped in everything they hadn’t said. In everything they finally could.

“What now?” Anakin asked eventually, fingers sliding along Obi-Wan’s hip. “We saved the Chancellor. We’re not in prison. We’re not hiding.”

Obi-Wan shifted, just enough to look into his eyes. “I won’t force you to go back to the Jedi.”

Anakin looked away. Thought about it.

“You saved the Chancellor,” Obi-Wan repeated. “You nearly arrested Dooku. You fought for what was right even when you were hurting. You belong with us. With me. ”

Anakin turned back to him. “I cannot go back.”

Obi-Wan nodded.

“I can’t live in half-shadows anymore,” Anakin said. “I can’t be your secret. I won’t.”

“You shouldn’t have to be.”

“And I could never ask you to abandon your family. To abandon your beliefs.”

Obi-Wan leaned in, kissed him—soft and sure and full of something that finally, finally , didn’t taste like regret.

“My love,” he said against Anakin’s lips. “My love.”

Chapter Text

Anakin lounged in a back booth of the cantina, boots up, cowl drawn low. He’s let his hair grow out a little over the last couple of years. There’s stubble on his jaw, dust in the weave of his tunic, and a sun-scorched leather belt he probably stole from a Hutt lieutenant. Nobody recognized him - that’s the point.

The man across from him was jittery. Too clean. Tried to hide his accent. “I need your help. It’s a short job. In and out. I’ll pay double the usual rate.”

Anakin drank his shit ale, one arm propped up.

“They’re children,” the man adds. “Hutt-owned. We just want to get them to—”

“I’m not interested in your credits,” Anakin said. His voice was dry as bone. He lifted his drink and took a long, slow sip. “But I am interested in your cargo.”

The man blinked. “You’ll take the job?”

“I’ll handle it,” Anakin said. “You just disappear.”

“But the money—”

“Keep it.” He leaned forward. “I cannot guarantee the chip removal before taking off, so you'd better give those credits to a skilled medic and take care of it yourself before take off - but if I find out this is a trap, or if you're planning to resell those kids, I’ll find you.”

Anakin stood up, abandoned his drink.

The cantina light shifted with him. His boots echoed across the floor, metal and sand colliding. When he reached the alley behind the bar, he pulls a battered commlink from his coat and flips it open.

“Padmé,” he said, the faintest softness under his voice now. “Got a situation. Three kids. Might be more. I’ll need clearance in the Senate refugee corridor, and we’ll need to scrub the IDs.”

There’s a pause on the other end.

Then: “Already done. I’ll see you at the embassy safehouse.”

He smiled, just barely. “Thanks, Senator.”

And then he’s gone, into the blistering wind; just another man with dust in his boots and a war in his heart.

-

The twin suns had just begun to lean west when Anakin reached the top of the ridge. He parked the speeder where the sand would cover his tracks by morning and walked the rest of the way down toward the Lars homestead—shoulders low, grey shirt open, hand on blaster - like any man from Tatooine coming home.

He was supposed to be gone two days. It had been six.

Beru would have made stew.

Owen would pretend not to be worried.

He didn’t expect the third voice.

He didn’t expect laughter.

Anakin froze at the lip of the entry shaft, dust catching in his throat.

It was unmistakable.  That measured timbre, warmer now than it ever was in the Temple. Less clipped. Civilian.

He climbed down the ramp and stepped inside the kitchen. And there he was.

Sitting at Owen’s table, in Owen’s chair, eating Beru’s food. His tunic was soft civilian linen. His beard was longer. His eyes—well. They hadn’t changed at all.

“Oh,” Beru said, smiling up from the stove. “There you are. You’re just in time. I didn’t know when you’d be back, but I figured I’d make enough for—”

Anakin didn’t hear the rest.

His eyes were locked on Obi-Wan.

And Obi-Wan—Obi-Wan stood.

Slowly. Cautiously. Like a man walking into a dream that might punch him.

“Hello,” he said.

Anakin’s voice was low when it came. He kept his hand on his blaster as of je half-expected Hardeen or some other monster clawing out of Obi-Wan Kenobi's skin and punching him right in the Force.

“What the fuck are you doing here.”

Beru’s smile faltered.

Owen coughed into his cup. 

Obi-Wan raised his hands, not in surrender—he never surrendered—but in appeal. “I didn’t come to fight.”

“No,” Anakin said. “You came to eat. ”

Obi-Wan swallowed. “This wasn’t how I wanted this to go.”

Anakin stepped closer. Just enough to cast a shadow on the floor between them.

“Not here.” 

-

They stepped outside into the twin suns. Beru didn’t stop them. Owen didn’t ask. But she whispered ‘oh no’ to him on the tail of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s boots.

The wind kicked up as they passed the hydroponic tanks. Anakin squinted into it, arms crossed.

He didn’t speak.

Obi-Wan did.

“I left the Order,” he said quietly.

Anakin didn’t flinch. “Congratulations.”

“They assigned me to Atrassan after the war,” Obi-Wan continued. “the Republic wanted a diplomat. A Jedi with a gentle hand. I helped broker their reentry to the Union. Cleaned up what was left of the garrisons. Taught a few classes. Mediated a few land disputes.”

“And how’s that going for you?” Anakin asked, flat.

“It went well,” Obi-Wan said. “It ended. Three years ago.”

Anakin blinked. And you’re coming to find me only now? 

Obi-Wan glanced toward the horizon. “I thought I’d come here. To Tatooine. Quiet. Familiar. Lonely enough to think. I … I didn’t think you’d want to see me. This is … quite an act of courage on my end if I say so myself.”

Anakin scoffed. “Of course, if you say so,” he crossed his arms, his last line of defence. “What was the plan, exactly? You’d stop by, have a stew with my brother, kiss my cheek, and walk into the sunset like we’re in a bedtime story?”

Obi-Wan smiled with what little strength he had. “You used to love my stories,” he said gently, then quickly recovered before Anakin's fury turned into sadness. “I just thought it would be polite to greet my nearest neighbors.”

Anakin’s brows drew together. “Neighbors?”

“I bought a house,” Obi-Wan said. “In Anchorhead. Nothing fancy. Stone walls, one window that leaks, so I’ll probably have sand in my living room all the time. But the view’s nice.”

Anakin stared at him like he'd grown a second head.

Obi-Wan smiled. Stepped forward. Reached out with careful fingers and brushed a thumb across Anakin’s cheek. Not quite a kiss. Not quite chaste. Anakin froze. 

“You look well, darling,” he murmured. “Very dashing in that the whole pirate get-up of yours.”

Anakin caught his hand. “Don’t do that.”

Obi-Wan raised a brow. “Do what?”

“Try and charm your way into my pants.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It is,” Obi-Wan said softly, still smiling - smirking. His hair was long again and there was more salt in his beard than Anakin remembered from that old motel room. He hated how warm his throat felt.

Hated that he could still taste Obi-Wan at the back of it.

“So what now?” he asked. “You just... live in Anchorhead and stop by for tea?”

“If you’ll have me,” Obi-Wan said. “If not, I’ll be polite. I’ll keep my distance.” 

Anakin looked away. Then—without quite meaning to—he smiled. Bitter. Tired. But real.

“Anchorhead, huh?”

“Number nine,” Obi-Wan said. “Next to the mechanic shop, the owner thinks I’m a spice addict.” 

Anakin snorted.

Obi-Wan took a step back. Hands behind his back. “Well. That’s all. I’ll be going now.”

Anakin watched him walk off.

Watched the suns stretch his shadow across the sand.

And for just a second, he wondered—

—what it would take to follow.

-

It was supposed to be a simple job. Secure the children. Smuggle them through a disguised cargo freighter registered to a corrupt Togruta merchant, steal his ship, get them to Naboo embassy where they could be repatriated. Freed. 

Of course, that was before Anakin ran into another player - or two of them, he should say - fucking up his mission. 

Turns out the father of those children - Jabba’s cook of all people - didn’t trust Anakin to handle the job alone. 

So he secured a plan B. And when plan B and plan A collided, the result was chaos.

Here they were.

Pinned down behind a collapsed moisture silo on the outskirts of Mos Zabba, with blaster fire turning the sand into glass, and Obi-Wan fucking Kenobi wielding a lightsaber like it hadn’t been three years since he swore he left the Jedi Order.

Anakin ducked another bolt and shot Obi-Wan a murderous glare. “You lied to me! Again!”

“I didn’t!” Obi-Wan yelled. “I left the Order!”

“You left the Order and still carry a lightsaber?!”

Obi-Wan deflected a shot so cleanly it split in two. “I’m a freelancer! ”

“Oh, fuck you! ”

Ahsoka, spinning dual sabers in perfect form, shouted over the chaos:

“Can you two just shut the fuck up?!” she barked, dragging one of the kids behind a crate. “You’re traumatizing the twelve-year-olds!”

Anakin rolled behind another overturned speeder and grabbed the last power cell from his boot holster. His blaster was fried. His ship was slag. The children were scared. And somehow, this —this chaos of lightsabers, snark, and righteous fury—felt more like home than anything had in years.

“You’re here on Jedi business!” Anakin snapped at Obi-Wan, rage white-hot in his throat. “You said you bought a house!”

“I did! ” Obi-Wan shouted back. “It’s quite charming! The ceilings leak!”

“Fuck your ceilings!”

That’s when the Hutt mercs got clever.

A sonic charge detonated behind them. The concussion wave knocked Ahsoka off her feet. The kids screamed. The dust cloud swallowed everything.

By the time Anakin stopped coughing, the battle was over.

His hands were bound.

A stun collar buzzed at his throat.

Obi-Wan slumped beside him, jaw bruised and lip split.

Ahsoka lay prone between two guards, glaring upward like she was daring the sky to apologize.

And overhead, sleek and obscene and gold-plated as ever, Jabba the Hutt’s floating palace yacht descended from the clouds.

Anakin groaned. “You both owe me so many fucking apologies.”

Obi-Wan glanced sideways at him and smiled, despite the blood. “I love when you get angry. You look so cute, darling.”

“ I swear -” 

“Gentlemen,” Ahsoka hissed.  “I beg you. Shut up. We are about to be fed to a sarlacc.”

Anakin narrowed his eyes. “Only if they can shut me up first.”

Obi-Wan winced. “Well. Good luck to them.” 

-

The throne room of Jabba the Hutt smelled like death, sex, and sweet rot.

Anakin had smelled worse. Not much, but worse.

He knelt on the polished bone-tile with stun-cuffs behind his back, sand in his boots, and a migraine blooming somewhere behind his right eye. Ahsoka was to his left, muttering calculations under her breath. Obi-Wan—stoic, bleeding, and infuriatingly calm—was to his right.

The guards confiscated three lightsabers. One from Obi-Wan’s hands. One from Ahsoka’s hands.

And the last one from Obi-Wan’s belt hidden inside his sand-proof tunic. 

The one Anakin gifted into his care in that dingy motel room. 

Jabba gurgled something vile. His Twi’lek majordomo translated.

“You will be publicly executed at dawn, for crimes against commerce and the Crown of Tatooine.”

“Commerce,” Ahsoka repeated flatly.

Obi-Wan tilted his head. “Fascinating.”

Anakin didn’t speak.

He was too busy watching the guards. Six. One drunk. One too new. Two packing illegal Tibanna-pressurized carbines, probably unstable. They had five children corralled behind a force-field, shaking but unharmed.

One of them—dark hair, wide eyes—looked at Anakin and mouthed, Help.

He felt the Force stir. For the first time in years, he didn’t push it away.

Obi-Wan, he thought fondly. That was the Obi-Wan effect.

Jabba was still rambling.

Obi-Wan leaned slightly. “They’re expecting us to beg,” he murmured.

“I’m not in the mood,” Anakin said.

“I’ll take the two on the left.”

“I’ll take the other four.”

“You’re cuffed, darling.”

“Not for long.”

Obi-Wan whispered, “On my mark—”

“ Now. ” Anakin surged.

The cuffs melted off his wrists with a supercharged jolt of the Force—burning metal and ozone and heat. Obi-Wan rolled forward, kicked one guard in the face, grabbed a saber from a belt, ignited it in one fluid motion.

Ahsoka flipped into the air and screamed .

Chaos bloomed.

Blasterfire. Screaming. One of the Hutts’ entertainers fainted. The majordomo tried to run and got impaled instead. Obi-Wan danced like flame through the guards, never missing a beat. Anakin wrenched a child from a collapsing platform and caught another one under his arm.

“Door!” Ahsoka yelled.

“I see it!”

The floor cracked beneath them. The ship tilted.

“Is this thing flying?!”

“It was! ”

Anakin saw one of Jabba’s braver guards aiming at Ahsoka—who was helping the youngest child.

He reacted on instinct, calling his lightsaber from the guard’s belt.

Saber out. Slash through the blaster.

Jabba bellowed.

Anakin stepped forward, blade humming.

“I’m done begging,” he growled.

And Jabba, the ancient coward that he was, surrendered.

-

They got the kids out. They took Jabba’s yacht. (Ahsoka suggested painting it pink just to be petty.) The Republic wouldn’t interfere—they wouldn’t dare. Tatooine was still “independent.” But there would be whispers. Trouble. It didn’t matter.

Later, aboard the stolen ship, Anakin sat at the viewport, still dusty and bleeding.

Obi-Wan stood behind him.

“I wasn’t on a mission,” he said softly. “I never lied about that. I help where I can. But the Jedi didn’t send me, I swear.”

Anakin didn’t turn. “And Ahsoka?”

“We work together. Quietly. Like you do. We heard there was a movement on Tatooine, a slightly disorganized effort-”

“Screw you, Obi-Wan.” 

Obi-Wan licked his lips, looked at his boots with a smirk. “A very organized effort to free the peoples of Tatooine.” 

“Uhuh. And it wasn’t my ex-wife who happened to tell you such a thing was happening?” 

Obi-Wan avoided Anakin’s eyes. No more lies, it’s what he promised. 

Anakin exhaled. “I don’t know what this makes us.”

“Us?”

“You and me. All of it.”

Obi-Wan stepped forward. Placed a hand on his shoulder. “It makes us a team, I suppose.”

Anakin looked up.

Yeah. He felt alive alright. 

-

Dinner was awkward.

Owen didn’t say much—Beru poured everyone second helpings and hummed through the silence, as if feeding former Jedi and revolutionaries was simply what she just did these days.

Ahsoka cracked jokes, stole Owen’s second helping, and pretended not to notice when Anakin glared across the table every time Obi-Wan said anything.

But by dessert—if you could call sun-dried fig pudding dessert—something shifted.

Anakin made a joke. Obi-Wan laughed. Ahsoka actually snorted 

tea through her nose.

And when Owen offered a stiff, “You’re welcome to stay the night,” Obi-Wan declined with a smile and said, “I have a roof now, actually.”

That’s when Anakin perked up.

-

They stood outside a little after that. The stars were sharp tonight. The sand had cooled.

Obi-Wan said, “Let me show you something.”

And Anakin— idiot that he was —said, “Fine.”

They took his speeder.

Anakin drove.

Obi-Wan climbed on behind him like he had a thousand times in another life, slid one arm around Anakin’s waist, and rested his chin lightly against his shoulder.

“Still hate flying,” he murmured.

“This isn’t flying.”

“It’s worse.”

Anakin huffed a laugh. “You’re a damn liar.”

Obi-Wan’s grip tightened. “Yes,” he said. “But not tonight.”

Anchorhead was quieter than it had any right to be.

Obi-Wan’s house sat just outside the main square, nestled behind a dying wind turbine and a stone wall covered in creeping mossroot. The house was small. Ugly. Perfect.

He led Anakin to the front step and opened the door.

There was no grand reveal. No speech. Just the faint scent of desert herbs, a worn rug, and a kettle on the hearth.

“Built the table myself,” Obi-Wan said, a little too proudly. “Crooked legs, but solid.”

Anakin walked the perimeter. Picked up a carved idol. Set it down. Ran his fingers across the cracked window ledge.

“You live here?”

“I do.”

“Alone?”

Anakin turned toward him. The silence stretched, warm and long.

“You’re not asking me to stay,” he said.

“No.”

“You’re not asking for anything.”

Obi-Wan stepped forward. “I don’t have the right to.”

Anakin studied his face—weathered, patient, still his.

He nodded. Just once.

Then he took a slow step closer.

And kissed him.

Just once. Then pulled away and said, “Let me fix that kettle. You don’t know how to heat water without breaking something.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “Still think I’m a liar?”

Anakin smirked over his shoulder. “A liar, a menace, and the most infuriating man I’ve ever loved.”

And then they made tea, together, like they had done on a thousand battlefields. Only this time, there was no war … 

“The only man I've ever loved,” Anakin smiled at Obi-Wan's back.

… only hope.