darkforcerising | OPEN POST

"We'll take him back!"

Defensive? A little.

Anakin was silent at that, enough wits about him to think it through.

"Luke needs to stay safe," he said at last. "And he is safe with Owen and Beru and they probably love him already." That last part said a bit begrudgingly. And how fair was that to Owen and Beru? He wasn't trying to just use them. There was a lot of guilt floating on the surface of his emotions mixing with regret and sadness. Guilt from a memory of a life more advanced than this one, where he'd coldly ordered Owen's and Beru's death like a thousand other executions.

No, he wouldn't try to hurt them this time.

"We'll think of something."

"Anakin...."

SLowly, patiently, gently.

"I am going to borrow him for an hour, not take him away from them. No matter how much guilt I have for what I did to you, or how many regrets about the ways I fail you, and the power both of those give you over me, my priority is Luke."

In truth, Luke was the reason he was still alive.

And when Luke is 'done' , he won't be.

"Obi-Wan," Anakin said flatly. "Taking him for an hour is not the precedence you want to set for yourself here. You'll be known as that crazy guy living at the edge of the Dune Sea that snatches kids for an hour for who knows what purpose. And that is not a good look, even in this galaxy. Owen might try to shoot you."

He shrugs. "It's a reputation and reputation I already intended to cultivate, and if entire armies can't hit me, Owen certainly can't."

He was doing it.

Deal with it.

Edited 2020-01-10 16:49 (UTC)

Anakin still had a card left to play.

"That is my son, and we are not kidnapping him for an hour. We will figure out something else."

"It's your son from a previous life, I brought him to Owen two days ago. You are meeting him, I am doing this and unless you intend to get revenge by cutting off my legs, you can't stop me and frankly at this point even the success of that is questionable."

"Doesn't make him less my son," Anakin said, this time there was an edge to his voice.

"Children aren't objects. I don't have to cut your legs off, I can just restrain you."

He gives Anakin a look for that remark, but what he says outloud is: "If you say so."

Anakin thought about giving Obi-Wan a demonstration, thought about daring him to try to get up. But he dismissed that quickly because he suspected that would not be good for his friend's psyche, given what he'd gone through the past few days.

So Anakin switch tactics.

"Why are you so insistent on this? You don't have to make anything right with me."

"I don't have to do anything except watch over Luke and eventually be killed by you. That doesn't mean that this isn't right, and I'm insistent on it because it is the right thing to do. For you and, I think, him."

"No," Anakin insisted, not letting Obi-Wan get away from his question. "Children need stability. Why do you want this?"

"He's less than a week old. He isn't going to be destabilized by seeing you." That was just ludicrous.

...That wasn't an answer, and he knew it.

Anakin understood what ramifications there would be if they went through with this idea. It wasn’t that Luke would remember, but that the Lars would. And that would shape how they treated and raised Luke.

So Anakin didn’t counter with that, he just asked again, “Why do you want this?”

Lars would only remember if allowed to remember - and he would be, because all that was going to happen was Obi-Wan borrowing the baby for a bit.

"Because I spent days with him on the way here, Anakin." Fine. Have your answer.

“So you want to see him, too?” Anakin’s voice was sympathetic.

"Did you always remember your previous life?"

Moving on.

Anakin’s deadpan look at Obi-Wan’s evasion would be hard to miss. But he figured he’d pushed the older man far enough on that topic for now.

“You mean, was I child with memories of committing massacres, attacking my wife and friends, destroying governments?” he asked.

After a pause, “No. my life was very... basic until one day, as an adult, these memories just started coming back to me... I did not handle it well at first.”

"I can't imagine that there is any handling of that well, at any age, though I won't pretend I'm not relieved you weren't having those memories as a child."

It would have been worse.

And that evasion had not been subtle but then it hadn't actually needed to be, had it?

“I used to be so afraid I would just... wake up one day and be... him.”

That had been a long process, to completely reevaluate his morality. What he was capable of doing. Who was he really after knowing what it felt like to participate in a massacre that spanned a galaxy, or stand by and watch a planet with millions of people blow up, or torture his own children.

He smiled, sadly, and that sadness went much deeper than his smile. It was woven all the way through.

"You didn't just wake up one day him, even in the life he's living."

“That’s not that comforting.”

An admission the Jedi was probably not any less afraid of that possibility still.

He wanted to joke about each of them getting a pass if they wake up to other choking them in their sleep. But really, only Obi-Wan deserved a pass on that.

Obi-Wan pushed up on an elbow at the ... not sound of Anakin's voice, but something less concrete to look at him.

It was entirely too damned cold for them to be out of the covers at all, but still-

"Look at me."

Anakin heard the seriousness in Obi-Wan’s voice and even pushed his drawn hood back from his eyes so he could meet the man’s level gaze.

"I am not afraid of you."

That isn't absolution for the past - for either of them - and Anakin could probably still push him into fighting far, far, harder than he should but meeting Anakin's eyes, being very serious and very firm about it.

"Not what you are now, and not what you think you could become again."

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Omg my autocorrect corrected ‘that he’ to ‘the Jedi’ wow autocorrect wow

I read it right anyway, which is the really amazing part.