darkforcerising | OPEN POST

"You're even less behind than that," Bail said, giving Obi-Wan a sidelong glance. "Do you respect Anakin?"

"Of course I do." Though, in fairness, respect was a broad umbrella. There weren't many people Obi-Wan didn't respect on one level or another.

Just some of those levels were 'walking evil he'd like to kill'.

"Then you are ahead of a great many number of people, my friend," Bail said. "You're not undeserving of happiness."

"I'm not sure I truly believe that anyone deserves anything," he said, thoughtfully. "Not in the grand scheme of things. It would imply that life - the galaxy, the universe - was fair. One of the things I heard most from Qui-Gon was that life is neither fair nor unfair, it simply is. But of course it carried on to saying that it is up to us to make it so." He paused and then just - "I don't deserve anything, but I'm not going to throw my relationship with Anakin away, Bail. If I were going to do that the threat of losing him wouldn't have driven me to using the Dark Side."

Bail was going to counter with his own beliefs about who did and didn't deserve but Obi-Wan hamstrung any thought he was preparing.

"... What happened now?"

"Oh." He ... hadn't - "I didn't quite explain that directly, did I?" Just a lot of talk about the nature of the Force. "I didn't have the focus to use the 'Light' side of the Force when I found Anakin - too much emotion. I used what I could reach."

Bail blinked. Yes, their last conversation hadn't covered that.

"Forgive me if this question is rude, but... isn't that a bad thing?" He remembered their bonding trip very clearly, and Obi-Wan was quite a different person at the height of their ordeal.

"It is a terrible thing." He didn't consider the question rude, he just didn't understand how it was a question at all. "Anakin yanked me back, but that's a statement of him, not me."

Bail hesitated another second, because he remembered what they (him and Obi-Wan) had had to do to help Obi-Wan get through Zygoola.

"And you aren't using the Dark Side now?"

After he said that, he realized how ridiculous that question would be if Obi-Wan was still on the Dark Side.

"With all due respect, Bail, if I were I'd either be frantic or utterly unresponsive. I suppose there is a third option of lying through my teeth but nothing I've ever experienced makes me believe I could be that functional under the influence."

Which of course... could also be a lie, but still.

"Fair," Bail said, raising a hand in a gesture of retreat. That was good enough for him. Bail had seen Obi-Wan at his worst already, and Obi-Wan looked far from what he did on Zygoola.

"Is this why you think you don't deserv-" he stopped himself and corrected his question, "you shouldn't be in a relationship with Anakin?"

He accepted the 'retreat' without further commentary and was even reassured by it. The other thing made him go a little wry. "Not entirely, but mostly, yes."

Bail pauses for a moment, to let go of his puzzlement over Obi-Wan's hang-ups, and then asked, "Setting aside those other reasons for a moment, based on this idea you shouldn't be in a relationship with Anakin because you used the Dark Side-" was he phrasing that right? He didn't know the Force well enough to be sure, but he continued, "Why should Anakin be in a relationship with you? You said he'd lived all of Vader's life-" Also still weird, "So, shouldn't he also be excluded from having a relationship with you?"

"That's a deep philosophical question," he said, trying for light but actually a little uncomfortable. "Is what someone has done in a previous life grounds for any action or in action toward them in their current one? If you remember doing something you have never actually done, is that a thought crime or just unfortunate?"

"Obi-Wan, dare I say you're avoiding the intent of the question?" Bail asked, deadpan.

"Is that how he would explain it, or are you placing him on a pedestal?"

"I don't have an answer to the intent for the question but I can think of several reasons that he shouldn't have a relationship with me, without touching the question of the Dark Side - which I still don't have an answer for."

He paused a moment to answer the second question: "He'd explain it differently, but he hates himself."

"What are those several reasons you believe prove you shouldn't have a relationship with him?" Bail was still far from thinking stabbing Obi-Wan with a lightsaber to make him cooperate was the right course of action outside of Dark Side possession. But maybe a good shaking?

"Because if you assume that what he did in another life applies and is still who he is, then he's someone I knew from the time he was nine and someone that I chopped the limbs off and left on fire."

Just to be... blunt about it.

"Okay, yes," Bail agreed, "I see the complications with that. But you're both adults now- what does he say about that?"

"If we've discussed it, I haven't noticed it." Which wasn't the same as not having discussed it, exactly.

There was no surprise there on Bail's part. He crossed one arm over his chest and used this other hand to cover his face because he needed the extra veil of cover to hold in the witty retort. When he knew he wouldn't break his serene expression, he tried for more logic.

"You are both adults, his opinion matters just as much as yours. At some point, Obi-Wan, whatever flaws you have, you have to try looking at yourself through the value your partner sees in you."

That particular remark stopped him in his tracks.

That was the most reasonable, sensible, comprehensible thing anyone had said to him in --

well, quite a while and certainly ever said to him about relationships.

If he'd been a different sort of man he would have kissed Bail.

He literally stood stock still for a moment, mouth open because he got that. Was it easy to do? No. But he understood that and was so relieved that, in spite of everything....

He laughed.

If he hadn't, he might have cried from the same emotion:

Relief.

Oh, did something he say finally hit home? Bail was beginning to worry he'd lost his skill.

Bail smiled, dropping his hands and took up the more casual pose of holding them behind his back.

"Does this help solve some of your hesitations?"

"It does not make me any more confident, but it does mean I have some understanding which is progress and will help." It also meant he was less likely to argue with Anakin about being there, or so inclined to withdraw, if only by a bit. "Thank you."

"I'm glad I could help," Bail said, not mocking, but sincere.

"Do you want to continue on this path or turn back?"

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