Unfinished Business


There were moments of lucidity now and again, moments when it seemed he woke from a sort of daze or even sleep. Every once in a while his mind would focus, sharpen, and time would crystallize again. He would feel boundaries again, remember words, remember things that a moment before had been distant fragmented dreams. The last time it had been to say goodbye, after a fashion, to the children. They were on their own road now, they were safe, and at last the universe didn't need him anymore. He could rest now, truly sleep, truly become one with the Force.

But he'd woken again here, in some constructed vision of dark trees against a darker night, and the harsh flickering light of a small campfire. In uniform. In the form his mind still took despite sixty-three years of life and in stubborn defiance of the wrinkles, the hair that had turned from red-gold to white, the aches and weariness the Force hadn't been able to soothe away. He felt like himself again, young, vital, strong.

He looked up and around slowly, scanning the silent indistinct outlines of the trees surrounding the clearing, feeling that peculiar tingle of apprehension creep up his back. "Master?" he asked quietly of the forest, wondering if this was another of Qui-Gon's tricks.

Movement in the darkness, and the sound of footsteps. A tall figure, a bit of the darkness moving of itself, and for a split-second he was certain it was Qui-Gon. Then the figure came into the circle of light cast by the fire.

"Ani?"

Maybe there was some kind of justice in the universe after all.

Anakin Skywalker stood at the edge of the firelight, still dressed in the black armor in which he'd spent the last twenty-three years of his life. Yet the scuptured helmet was gone, as was the broken and sickened thing he had become that day on Mustafa so long ago. Obi-Wan looked up into the troubled face of the boy he had trained, the boy he had sworn to his dying Master he would make a Jedi ... the man who had been his brother.

Anakin looked down at him with uncertainty in every line of his face, and pain still in the sky-blue eyes. "Master?"

"Ani ..." Obi-Wan stopped, swallowed nervously.

"Can I sit down? I -- wanted to talk. Before I ... you know." Anakin shifted his weight, seeming just as troubled by all this as Obi-Wan was.

"Is this your doing?" Obi-Wan asked, gesturing around them at the odd vision of a forest.

"Not really," Anakin said.

"Not really?"

Anakin shook his head. "Not entirely." He edged forward and sat down carefully on the fallen log on the other side of the fire from Obi-Wan. He was silent for a long moment, darting glances up at his Master.

"Ani," Obi-Wan said softly when the silence went on a moment too long. "What's done is done."

Anakin closed his eyes at that, gave a shaky sigh and reached up to rub his eyes wearily, then stopped and grimaced at the black-gloved hand. He shrugged helplessly. "Master, I -- I wanted to say ... I'm sorry."

"Ani --"

"I know sorry doesn't cut it, I know I have no right to expect you to understand --"

"Ani," Obi-Wan said, raising his voice over the rush of words.

Anakin stopped and looked up at him, grief and pain the jagged brittle ice of near-madness in his eyes.

"Ani," Obi-Wan repeated softly. "I forgave you the moment Padme told me of the visions."

Anakin convulsed in on himself in a sharp spasm of silent overwhelming grief at the name of his long-dead wife. "Padme --"

"I forgave you again the moment the children were born," Obi-Wan continued. "I was there. I was holding them the moment Padme died."

"Padme --"

Obi-Wan sighed, watching his former Padawan clench black-gloved fists in his long hair in his grief, then had an almost premonitory flash of the brown-gold hair torn out by the handful in the violence of grief. Getting slowly to his feet, he walked around the fire and sat down beside Anakin, slid an arm around the trembling shoulders.

"I -- I -- killed her --"

"What?" Obi-Wan asked, shocked. "You did not."

"The Emperor said -- I -- killed -- her..."

"You did not kill her," Obi-Wan said sharply.

"The -- children -- my children -- killed her..."

Obi-Wan grabbed the armored shoulders, wrenched his Padawan around to face him, grabbed the gloved wrists and pulled Anakin's hands from his face. "You did not kill her! Anakin, listen to me! You were lifemated and neither of you knew it! It was your injuries, the pain you went through, your madness, and the trauma of carrying two children that killed Padme! Did you die while Palpatine was putting you back together? Even for a moment?"

"I -- " Anakin gulped down a breath, the young face soaked with tears. "I -- think I did, I don't remember. It was all just -- pain. So much pain."

"I would bet good money that you died on the operating table, and that is what killed Padme," Obi-Wan said firmly. He shook his former apprentice again by the shoulders. "She lived through the birth, but only just. Her body just could not handle the strain. She thought she had nothing left to live for."

Anakin squeezed his eyes shut, then fumbled for a handful of the black cloak and swiped it roughly across his face, trying to banish the tears. Obi-Wan sighed again in faint exasperation, pushed Anakin's hands away and mopped gently at the young face with his own tunic sleeve.

"Old habits die hard," he said with a crooked small smile when Anakin sniffled and looked at him questioningly.

"I killed you, Master," Anakin said solemnly.

"Like hell you did," Obi-Wan answered. "I let you."

Anakin just blinked at him, bewildered.

Obi-Wan snorted a laugh. "Anakin! Think!"

"I am. It still doesn't make sense."

"Luke. He saw you kill me. I meant him to." Obi-Wan sat back and regarded his former Padawan with troubled eyes. "I had to engineer matters. I needed him to think of you as an unredeemable enemy."

Anakin laughed shortly, bitterly. "It didn't work."

"No," Obi-Wan replied sardonically. "It didn't."

"Luke -- was convinced there was still good in me," Anakin said, the black-gloved hands now clenched on his knees.

"Yes," Obi-Wan answered. "As did Padme. Her last thought -- her last words -- were just the same. She believed to her last breath that despite all you'd done you were still a good person. Luke came to believe it too, despite my own and Yoda's best attempts to convince him otherwise." He grinned. "It seems he inheritted your stubbornness, at the very least. Though Leia far outpaces him there. Luke at least can be taught. "

"She's in love with a smuggler," Anakin said flatly, a touch of anger in his voice. "One of Jabba's smugglers."

Obi-Wan shrugged and stared into the fire. "The Force moves in mysterious ways, Padawan."

Anakin went abruptly silent, and after a moment Obi-Wan glanced up at him.

"I -- Master -- don't. Don't call me 'Padawan'. I gave up any right to that the moment I first struck at you on -- Mustafa." Anakin swallowed and closed his eyes, fresh tears beginning to streak down his face. "I failed you. I tried to kill you. I did kill you, in the end."

"And I tried my best to kill you," Obi-Wan said evenly. "I didn't listen. I didn't see anything was wrong. I never knew you and Padme were married. I didn't make clear to you that you could bring any care, any concern, anything to me, without fear of condemnation or judgment. I didn't try hard enough to help you. I failed you, Ani." He shook his head, ran a hand back through his hair as he always did in times of stress. "Yet you still call me 'Master'."

They were both silent for long moments, staring into the small fire, remembering.

"It's done with now," Obi-Wan said finally. "We've earned our rest. Let it go, Padawan. We're free of the past. Let it go. You can go look for Padme now. There is nothing that will keep you apart."

Anakin was silent for another long moment, then stood up slowly, reluctant to leave this odd pocket of time and illusion the Force had wrought. "Will you be all right?" he asked worriedly.

Obi-Wan shrugged again nonchalantly, then glanced up at his apprentice with a slight smirk. "I have -- plans. Promises to keep."

"Promises," Anakin repeated, plainly a question.

Obi-Wan chuckled and stood up. He put a hand on Anakin's armored shoulder and grinned up at his Padawan. "Did you think I was alone all those years on Tattooine?"

"You weren't?" Anakin said, bewildered anew.

"Not at all," Obi-Wan chuckled. He backed away. "Go find Padme. Go home, Padawan."

"Master --" Anakin stopped, shook his head. "Thank you."

"Go home. You've earned it," Obi-Wan said softly.

Anakin looked for a moment as if he wanted to say more, then shook his head again, turned, and headed off out of the light of the fire and into the darkness.

Obi-Wan watched as his apprentice's form dissolved into the darkness, feeling his presence grow fainter and then dissolve altogether into nothingness.

It was done. Ani was at peace at last. His work was truly done.

He sighed, bowing his head in relief, sorrow, and finally a sad kind of triumph. "The Force moves in mysterious ways."

"That it does, Padawan," came a soft voice out of the darkness.

The conversation had never ended, it seemed. They too had unfinished business despite a lifetime together. What he'd told Anakin was as true for himself as for his apprentice. Now there was nothing to keep them apart.

"Master," he said with a smile, turning to the voice as Qui-Gon stepped into the light. "What took you so long?"