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Anakin finished tying up his ropes and bulled his letter once over them. He looked awesome. Little light of hope to this war, came with the black ropes he had always dreamed of. Maybe other Jedies will look at him a little funny and the propaganda section is going to hate him showing up in black attire but they can suck it.
He hadn’t thought it was ever going to be possible for him to wear all black, not before he had mentioned to Obi wan why he was so keen on the color. Told her the legend of Tatooine. The Ekkreth, freedom fighter who would save the slaves, always dressed in black, a color hard to come by on a planet with bleaching suns. Funny how a single peace of information made such a difference.
At the sound of opening door Anakin walked to the living area to greet Obi wan (no he still hadn’t moved out).
”Hey, master, I got my new ropes.” Obi wan’s expression wasn’t quite what Anakin had hoped for, it was too stiff. His master might have helped him to get the ropes but he knew she wasn’t totally happy with the look of them.
”Please don’t call them funeral ropes.” His comment made Obi wan to flinch.
”Master, has something happened?”
”No.”
”It has. Was it something at the Council?”
”No.”
”That’s a lie. I know you can’t tell me what you talk about but you damn well don’t need to lie to me!” Maybe Anakin shouldn’t have let his anger rise like that but it still didn’t explain why his master’s shields just crumpled and she began to cry.
Anakin was too stunned to do anything and so he just stood there watching as Obi wan leaned against the closest wall and cried her eyes out.
Anakin was so confused he nearly missed the petty whisper Obi wan managed to say. ”They want me to hurt you.”
Who the kark was they? And why would they ask Obi wan of all people to hurt him. Sure his master hurt him all the time but she didn’t know that, and Anakin wouldn’t tell her because she wouldn’t understand him. But Anakin was quite sure everyone around them thought they were inseparable so who would…
”They don’t fucking care!” Obi wan wailed.
”Who?” Anakin asked bluntly.
”They, they want me to fake my death.” She sobbed, but she was slightly calmer now, and Anakin still didn’t understand anything of what was going on. Faking once death was extreme, sure, but Quinlan did that like every other week.
”The Council wants you to fake your death?” His master didn’t look at him.
”And how would that hurt me?” Anakin had to be missing something here.
The familiar blue eyes signed even brighter than normal when his master looked straight at him.
”They didn’t want you to know.”
”They…”
”They wanted to sell it with your reaction. They, they wanted me to fucking use you.” Obi wan had now apparently gotten over the crying part and was positively fuming with rage. And Anakin was too, because what the kark was the Council doing behind his back? First they don’t even want him in the karking order and now they want him to show the whole galaxy just how damn bad he’s at controlling his emotions.
Then his mind caught on to much more important fact. He wasn’t meant to know. And he knew only because of his master. Only because Obi wan told him what was supposed to be a secret mission.
”Why would you tell me?” Obi wan whipped around to look at him from where she was basing around the room.
”I… ” She was hesitating. ”I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to look at myself if I hurt you like that, not after you already lost your mother.”
”But why risk a mission, why not just decline?” He purposefully didn’t acknowledge her comment about this mother.
”They had me promise I would take the mission before they told me the details. They aren’t going to let me back off.”
”That’s… But this has to be an important mission.”
”It is, it might help us to end the war but you will just have to act, okay.”
”But why tell me, aren’t I suppose to be able to let go?” He didn’t know why he wanted to hurt himself by having this conversation at all but he was just so fed up with everything.
”Why is it so damn hard for you to accept that I care for you, that I don’t want you to hurt?”
”Isn’t being a Jedi much more important?”
”Nothing is more important than you!”
That shut Anakin up. Never in his whole life had anyone else than his mother said he was the most important thing. Even Padme hadn’t said that.
”You have been the only only one to keep me going for the past twelve years. I don’t care what the code tells me to do or not to do. Since the moment you came to my life I had a purpose to protect you and I’m not going to let you go just because you are a fully trained knight.”
”But…” He couldn’t decide what he wanted to say. A tiny voice inside him screamed the years old argument of ’You didn’t even want me to became a Jedi’.
”The Council might be too blind to see it but I should never have even become a Jedi. I was always so hopeless at following the code but only Force knows how easy it would be to break it for you, Anakin.”
”You are a perfect Jedi!”
”No I’m not, not even close or I wouldn’t love you so damn much. Because I do love you, you been like a brother to me since the day I took you in.”
”Obi?” Anakin sounded like the nine year old who had once dreamed of hearing such words.
”I’m so sorry, dear one. Come here.” Obi wan pulled him into her embrace and Anakin melted into it.
The hug felt so safe Anakin didn’t want to end it and apparently neither did Obi wan, and so they just stood there leaning on each other. Anakin buried his face to the crook of Obi wan’s neck and breathed in the familiar sent of her soap and tea.
”I love you so much, Ani.”
”Love you too, Vanny.” If Obi wan was aloud to use nicknames so was he. Obi wan bulled him into an even tighter hug and pressed a kiss on his forehead before bulling apart.
”Can you do me a big favor?”
”Sure.” He would probably agree to anything Obi wan would ask of him, even to meditate with her.
”There’s few more who should know that I’m alive. Can you tell them, if I don’t have the time to?”
”Of course.”
”And everyone else will just have to cope with it.”
”Who do you want to know the truth?”
”I think Ahsoka should know, but please don’t tell her you aren’t supposed to tell her.” Half truth wouldn’t hurt his padawan and so he nodded with agreement.
”And please tell Cody, I don’t want to break his hearth either.”
”Cody?” It was quite well known that the clone commander had a crush on his general but…
”Oh, Anakin you aren’t the only one who can have a little affair going on.”
”You’re with Cody?” And then, ”I don’t have an affair!”
”Don’t try that on me, my young padawan. You have been sneaking out to Padme’s for as long as you met her again two years ago. So if I’m dating my commander you have nothing to argue about.”
”You knew?”
”Oh, I’m surprised so few seem to know, but your men have a running bet on when you two will be caught.”
”They don’t have a bet!”
”Yes they do.”
”That’s... No.”
”Oh, yes!”
”Well they won’t have one much longer.”
”Promise me you will tell Cody as soon as possible.” Obi wan said seriously.
”I will.”
”Thank you, Anakin.”
”Always happy to help. One more thing though. We’re not quite on the same situation.”
”What do you mean?”
”I already married Padme.”
”You what! And you didn’t tell me! Who taught you manners?”
”You did.”
”You little sassy! After this mission you better invite me to dinner and properly introduce me to her as your wife, you hear me!”
”I’m sure she will be delighted to have you as a guest.” He answered with a goofy smile.
”Very well then. Tell her the truth Anakin, it’s better you don’t keep secrets from your wife.”
”What?”
”You hear me. If she can stand a marriage with you, she deserves the truth.”
”Thank you Obi wan.”
”There’s absolutely nothing to thank me for.”
”Okay, sis.” They hadn’t had such a lighthearted conversation since the beginning of the war, maybe even longer, and Anakin felt like his smile was too big to fit on to his face. Not having to keep the secret from Obi wan anymore felt so much better already.
Obi wan began to make herself tee and Anakin was about to leave, so he could try to find Ahsoka and his men so he could show them his new ropes, which already seemed to be bringing good luck, when Obi wan called for him.
”And Anakin?”
”Yeah?”
”Don’t wear those ropes to my funeral.”
-
And few days later, after the tragic ’death’ of the beloved Jedi master Obi wan Kenobi, Anakin stood beside a flaming pyre, the warm orange of the flames dancing on his plain white ropes.