darkforcerising | OPEN POST

His mental image was definitely of Anakin's birthday cake with a slab of butter. Except it was blue, or green.

He was confused and surprised by the laughter - mostly confused - but hearing Anakin laugh was worth a very sincere smile, regardless, and he returned the hug (though somewhat loosely). He also turned toward the voice in his ear and kissed just under Anakin's jaw.

"I'd like you to take up cooking food you know. I'm not sure you'll convince me of buttered cake - with or without whipped cream."

"Really?" Anakin said, sounding surprised. "You'd like that? Even after all the food I messed up while you were convalescing?"

He was surprised Anakin missed the biggest part of his reasoning. Surprised enough to actually spell it out.

"Of course, I would. You've lived a whole life I know very little about, but is a big part of who you are. A whole different reality. I want to know as much as you'll show me." Because he was curious but most importantly -

because it was a big part of Anakin, and he loved Anakin.

Anakin peered at Obi-Wan for a moment, then grinned and shook his head. "You say that now." But he gave Obi-Wan a peck on the lips.

"If you want, I have pictures and media on the personal device I had on me when I got here."

He flashed a smile, though still slight, at Anakin for the grin and gave his arm a light squeeze in return for the kiss that was there and gone so quickly.

"I do - and I'll keep saying it." Because Anakin was his. "We have our evening plans sorted, then."

After Leia had gone.

"Sure, I'll need a moment to configure the data transfer to Goose... but sure," Anakin said. And this time his kiss was longer. But not so long that they forgot about breakfast. Because Obi-Wan smelled like fruit and Anakin's job was to chop the fruit.

Despite Anakin's rough chopping skills, breakfast was a success.

The problem was, the closer they got to Leia's visit, the worse Anakin felt. Not that he thought Leia would be a disappointment - she was still a baby, even if she cried at him she would not be a disappointment. It was him, he was nervous. He didn't want to mess this up. He knew that while he was genetically Leia's father, Bail was her father. If this went wrong, Bail would never let this happen again, and Anakin made no assumptions about Bail's opinion of him.

He tried using the project of transferring the data from his iPhone to Goose as a means to distract his mind until Bail and Leia showed up. But he lost focus easily and had to stand up frequently, using any excuse to do so. Water. Bathroom. 'Finding' the right tool, only to find it in the pile he was working from. And then he'd sit back down again to work.

Thankfully he was sitting and working when Bail did show up.

He watches Anakin's restlessness and inability to settle and feels somewhat helpless to do anything about it - or, at least to do anything useful to help him.

He does manage, mostly, not to be infected by it and to start restlessly pacing around himself, but there's more than once that he's tempted.

He also manages not to get snappy with Anakin. He doesn't entirely understand, but he does sympathize enough to not interfere.

He's curled up in the corner of a sofa when Bail shows up, smiles and immediately goes to get him - while keeping his mind, though not so much his eyes - on Anakin.

"I can't quite decide if it's appropriate to offer you a drink in a home that is actually yours...."

Bail knew with absolute certainty he could trust Obi-Wan. And there was a time when he believed the same about Anakin Skywalker, too.

But times had changed. The things Vader had done, the things he did – information Bail knew that others didn’t – made him cautious. From someone who didn’t experience the Force the same way Jedi did, on what was he to ground his anchor of trust when the veil between good and evil, right and wrong in matters of the Force seemed so arbitrary to him?

He knew there was no reasoning with people like Palpatine and Vader – or at least, despite all his diplomatic, political training, he could see no path to reason with them. But how Anakin could exist when Vader did – that was a mystery Bail was sure he’d never figure out.

That was too many unknowns for Bail to be comfortable.

He trusted Obi-Wan, absolutely. But even as he was relying on him to help the rebellion, the best Bail could say about Anakin was that he wanted to trust him. Call him a hypocrite, he just couldn’t help how he felt.

And maybe, maybe it wasn’t Anakin but really just the fear that Anakin represented – Leia’s biological father. The reasons Luke and Leia were kept from Vader weren’t present with Anakin. So what did that mean for him and Breha? Who’d both loved Leia the moment they each met her? Where did they stand as her parents now? Losing Leia would break their hearts.

But Bail was a man of his word, and he arrived, with Leia in his arms, at the appointed meeting time. He greeted everyone with a smile only half practiced.

He alleviated Obi-Wan’s dilemma and said, “Leia has her bottle, but I would enjoy some tea.” He noted that Anakin held back.

“Let’s go into the sitting room, shall we?”

"It will give Leia room to play." And space to decide who she wanted to go to - or not - and space for the rest of them in the more metaphoric but more important sense.

He looked between the two men, probably the two men he trusted most in this galaxy , that mistrusted one another.

"Let me grab a tray quickly and then Bail can lead the way with Leia."

Because having tea meant making tea and - he could heat water rapidly, with the Force, but he'd still prefer to not be floating that hot water about. It could, however, brew while they were all in one room.

Anakin did hang back, very much appreciating Obi-Wan taking the lead. He didn't know what to do with himself, his hands, where to place himself, except for not being able to take his eyes off Leia.

Someone taking control here, someone he trusted absolutely, was a good thing.

He nodded to all suggestions and waited to follow everyone into the sitting room.

Obi-Wan got the tray for tea - and fruit, because snacks might be useful - put together quickly, and then -

handed it to Anakin to carry, so Anakin would have something to do with his hands, and so he could keep a hand lightly touching Anakin's back.

He went into the lounge, and deliberately chose to sit not in a chair but on the floor.

"Why don't you put the baby down," he suggested to Bail. "Has she been here before?" He assumed yes but he had no real way of knowing.

"She has," Bail said. It was a question he could answer easily.

He hesitated. There came a point when someone had to give. If he couldn't find assurance in this setting, he would never find it.

But he also knew they needed to. The same fear of losing Leia made him sympathetic to Anakin's situation. Confronted with it, he couldn't not see it.

He took a seat on the ground, like Obi-Wan, forming a corner of a triangle between him, Obi-Wan, and Anakin.

It was the hardest thing to do, placing Leia on the ground, half way between him and Anakin, and let her crawl forward to him. But he did it.

And turned to Obi-Wan, "About that tea."

He turned his attention to turning the hot water and tea into tea while Bail chose where to sit, sat, and put Leia down.

He could feel the tension all around, of course, and while he didn't truly understand - couldn't - he understood enough to feel terribly for both of them.

He handed Bail the mug of tea, then took one himself. There was one for Anakin, but he didn't want the baby to scald herself with it and the baby was headed that direction.

"That's good. Familiar places and her Dad should keep her happy." Dad being you Bail. Not reassuring for Anakin, maybe, but less hurtful than the opposite would be. Because Anakin knew who was raising his daughter and however much it hurt - he suspected was Anakin was also grateful.

Grateful and understanding didn't mean that Anakin wasn't hurt. A lot.

He was floored actually.

Why did Obi-Wan have to say that? Bail had his wife, her family, his family, supporting him. Anakin only had Obi-Wan.

On some level, Anakin knew Obi-Wan was just trying to help, but boy was that the not good to hear right then. And it placed Anakin in a position of having to manage a surge of emotion in real time without the benefit of privacy. He couldn't get up and leave, though part of him really wanted to because the only way to fully deal with these heated emotions was to sit with them until they passed and it was easier for him to do that on his own. He couldn't say anything, not that he really had anything to say about it, he knew that anything that itch to jump from his tongue first were thoughts that should be filtered. And an explanation would just make things unbearably worse.

He couldn't help feeling this meeting was a mistake.

Anakin knew he wouldn't be able to hide everything he was feeling from Obi-Wan due to the bond they'd forged together, but he withdrew as much as he could.

And he tried as much as possible to force his emotions aside and focus on Leia, who'd crawled to his legs and took liberty to use his knee to pull herself up to standing. It was a bit uncanny how she looked at him - with curiosity, but he couldn't shake that she was actually observing him.

He didn't know what he was allowed to do, if picking her up would upset Bail. He tried smiling at her, though his attempt was woefully weak. She cocked her head to the side and started moving along his leg, trying, it seemed to him, to get a better look at him.

He felt the response, though of course he was much more acutely aware of Anakin's withdrawal. His immediate response was to withdraw himself and do the best he could to shield his end of the bond between them.

His own emotional reaction was, at least, that way muted from Anakin as well. Even if it wasn't much more than a flash of fear, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and ... for lack of better description, a loss of confidence.

Not that he had much just then to start with.

He'd screwed up, he knew it, he didn't entirely understand how but he also knew there wasn't much he could do about it, right then.

He flinched physically, but very slightly, then schooled his expression back into something that was 'mildly interested' and sipped at his tea as he watched Anakin and the baby.

"How long has she been crawling?" He knew nothing about babies this young, except what he knew about Luke.

Oh this was a speeder train crash disaster driven by well meaning intentions. For a moment Bail had to scrambled for a way to navigate the metaphoric flying debris.

"Just a few months now."

For all the Jedi's empathic powers, Bail found that his study of social interactions sometimes surpassed those he knew in the Order. He wanted to think it was because of his dedication to a life of a politician had made him so adept, but he had to concede the pilot of his personal transport probably managed better than a Jedi with social customs of any number of aliens. It didn't make him appreciate his friend any less, just made him wonder what the Jedi actually taught.

Bail could tell this would go nowhere good without intervention. He appreciated Obi-Wan's attempts at trying to set him at ease, but Bail didn't want him doing it at the expense of his relationship with Anakin. Or at the expense of Anakin's feelings either, he realized. Leia was his and Breha's daughter as much as she was Anakin and Padme's. And it was time he acknowledged he didn't need to fear that would change. Nor would Leia's residency on Alderaan.

"Obi-Wan, I'm afraid I must be selfish. There are matters about the rebellion I wish to discuss with you." That was an absolute, face-saving lie. For everyone. And he hope Obi-Wan would realize that and forgive for it when the ruse was revealed. "Will you walk with me?" And he set down his cup and stood up without hearing first if Obi-Wan was coming.

He recognized it as a lie, though he didn't give Bail quite enough credit for realizing that maybe things between he and Anakin had gone sideways.

Or, really, he probably gave himself and Anakin too much credit for hiding it.

He put his own tea down, put the tray on an elevated surface where it would be safe from baby hands. "Of course," he agreed, easily, stood and followed Bail.

If nothing else time alone with Leia and being trusted with her would be - Well should and could be - nice for Anakin. Whether it really would be, he no longer had any idea.

Bail was grateful that Obi-Wan at least agreed to walk and talk. Bail led them outside to a path that wound around the property.

"Do I need to explain that I don't need to talk about the rebellion?" Best to clear that up first.

"You do not." That was fairly evident, he thought, though: "Though you do need to tell me what you do need to talk about."

He wasn't looking directly at Bail. He was too busy enjoying the light and air. It just - it felt good.

Bail held back the urge to smile or react to that at all, he just continued walking and hoped Obi-Wan would catch up without having to spell it out.

"How are you liking Alderaan?" he asked instead of addressing the obvious. Partially because he didn't want to embarrass Obi-Wan, and partially because he did want to know how Obi-Wan was doing since their last talk.

He shot Bail a baffled look, then assumed Bail needed the space from Anakin interesting with Leia and decided to let him have it.

"I like it. It's such a stark contrast to Tatooine. There's something inherently... restful about even the scenery."

Oh dear. Well, Bail can focus on Obi-Wan's wellbeing first. Because it mattered, too.

And, ya, he's more than a little proud of Alderaan. He lets himself smile about that.

"I've never been to Tatooine, but I can satisfy my curiosity with your opinion of the place. I wish it was safe for you to travel into Aldera. Breha would very much like to meet you." He sighed. "I shouldn't let myself dream of an end to the Empire yet."

"The problem with Tatooine for me is less the climate and more the amount of human suffering and being aware of what Anakin's history with the place is. Being somewhere that the government takes care of its please is... refreshing."

He's proud of you, Bail.

"And you should let yourself dream. Why wouldn't you?"

"The Senate has never been interested in the condition of the Outer Rim planets. The current state of things only makes their disinterest and neglect worse. Alderaan is privileged to be both ruled by competent leaders and situated so the Senate cares for its continued peaceful existence. If either one or the other or both should be taken away, I have no doubt Alderaan would suffer similarly to planets in the Outer Rim."

He worried about the loss of the Senate's support every day. Any moment his activities with the Rebellion could be discovered and at best Alderaan would be occupied.

"Is that what you are doing? Letting yourself dream?" Bail turned the question back on Obi-Wan with a wry look.

He didn't stop walking, but his steps slowed as he turned the question over in his head. "I think so. At least in as much as I am hopeful for a particular desired outcome." It was pretty much the same thing, right? "If those aren't there, why are we bothering at all?"

He probably had more real dreams beyond that, but getting rid of the empire was important, even if those other dreams were vague.

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