OMFG! Anakin might do ~something~ *pearl clutch* (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} darkforcerising) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} makebelievelog, |
Anakin shifted before continuing. He crossed his legs and his arms, not for the first time noticing the position felt different without Jedi robes.
He kept his gaze directed at his own legs as he spoke. “We both know… had Palpatine been here when I arrived, had just five minutes more passed back in our universe before I arrived here… I thought I needed him, he promised to help me prevent Padmé’s death that I kept seeing every night in visions, and I thought that I needed to take whatever actions were necessary to get that help. I suppose, even serving him, though I hadn’t followed the thought to that conclusion quite succinctly.” He looked up then, over at Obi-Wan. “I don’t mean I will believe that, in the sense it has yet to happen back in our universe. I mean I did believe that when I first arrived.”
His commission had been a thought, a willingness to sacrifice everything for one, self-centered desire. Had he not received intervention by way of being shown the full consequences of his actions he would have become Darth Vader. Only a state of mind, sure, but just one result of that selfish thought was sitting next to him, haggard and broken. How could he not feel responsible for Obi-Wan’s state of being?
That thought had festered and grown beyond the cage of Anakin’s mind and had reached into his friend’s heart. It had ripped out everything the Jedi Master cherished and loved, not even the smallest shred of hope or light was spared, and it had replaced in that hollowed cavern a cold, vacant despair that Obi-Wan’s training only allow to manifest as soul-crushing guilt. It was in that darkness, where night blocked from all attempts at healing, that Obi-Wan was anchored. This was the truth of it, the irreparable damage Anakin had wrought upon his Master, his father, his brother, his closest, most dear friend with the start of an unchecked thought.
Anakin hadn’t the right to be the one to lifted his friend from the ashes of this wreckage and return him to the life he justly deserved. But, as fate would have it, Obi-Wan had few options; they both had little choice but to rely on one another. Will of the Force, perhaps.
“I am different from the man in your memories, you’re right.” Anakin fought the urge to add, ‘And don’t let that admission go to your head either.’
He reached out his hand and gripped Obi-Wan’s arm. It was a gesture that echoed back to what Shmi would do for him all those years ago in moments of strife. Comfort through touch was not a natural Jedi concept, not when emotions that necessitated such expressions were forbidden to begin with. But, he was Anakin Skywalker, bucking the Code was his specialty. It was what was essential now, and that’s what mattered. “And because of that you need to accept I understand I should be accountable for what I was willing to let happened to you and everyone else. Otherwise this gift will be wasted.”