Alec

[ihateflying]

That first mission, when he'd chosen Alec almost on impulse, based on bare glimmers of ... an independence and kind of intelligence that set him apart, turned into more. Every time he was given an assignment that didn't involve an entire blasted army, he chose Alec - and chose him with increasing deliberateness.

The mission to Upatu to bring in Grievous did involve an entire battalion, but it also called for exactly one Jedi to go in alone, to find the separatist leader before ships landed or troops deployed.

So, he went in alone, he found and engaged Grievous. When the absolute swarms of droids were deployed and Grievous realized that - again - running away was the best option, ships descended and boots his the ground.

He felt them all as individual lives, but he was most aware of Cody... and Alec.

He stayed on Grievous, trusting the Clones to handle the droid army, and keep them off his back so he could do his job. It wasn't anything all that unusual up to that point. A lot of dodging, some near misses, a chase, and a brutal hand to ...cyborg fight that ended with him using a blaster of all things to finish Grievous off.

He made it back to the battle arena, gave Cody instructions to move the troops to the higher levels and had his fallen light-saber returned to him by Cody. It was all... perfectly normal.

Until it wasn't.

Until part way up the steep rock wall he became the target.

Of his own men.

There was no malice or ill intention to warn him. Just suddenly at the center of a hornet swarm of fire. He had just about enough time to register that his men were shooting at him before the rock ledge he was on was hit.


He fell, slamming hard into the edge of the cliff face on his way down.

That alone would have knocked him unconscious, but the feeling of other Jedi deaths across the galaxy tearing through his mind pushed him even deeper into unconsciousness.

He hit water, a small opening of an underground river by luck -

Which, really, ultimately, only meant that he was going to drown, since he was deeply unconscious.

Comments

[ihateflying]

He turns his hand over, very carefully and slowly so he doesn't... spook Alec into withdrawing, so he can lightly catch and gently squeeze his fingers.

"You should bother sleeping. We both should. We have a lot to figure out when we wake up." Where are they going? What are they doing? He has no idea, and he knows Alec doesn't either, but for right now - all he wants is to let his body and mind shut down from sheer exhaustion, but to do it while being able to feel Alec breathing beside him.

[kissthatgoodbye]

It's not a bad plan by any means, except the part where Alec really doesn't want both of them to sleep at once. He wants to stay awake, keep watch - he wonders how long it will be before that impulse passes, given the scope of the way they were all fooled this time - but he knows he just can't right now. Not for as long as Obi-Wan will need to sleep. Not for as long as Alec wants him to sleep.

But he'll do his best. He watches but doesn't pull away his hand, letting their palms sit comfortably together.

"Sleep," he agrees. "We've earned it."

[ihateflying]

"I'm not sure I've earned anything," he murmurs, but ultimately it doesn't matter. He's so exhausted that he can't not sleep and once he's out it is true, deep, sleep - loss of consciousness mandated by his body, with or without Force, having hit the wall.

He still keeps his hand on Alec's until Alec pulls away though.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec makes it, stumbling and tripping in and out of real consciousness, another hour before he too is forced to give up and give in to his body's demands for deep, true sleep. He's not sure when he ends up pulling his hand back to himself but it's not the first or second time he stirs fitfully, checking around himself out of conditioned habit as much as instinct before drifting off again.

By the third time he's folded his arms around himself but he still stays close, as comforted by the warmth and breath of someone familiar at his back as Obi-Wan is; he makes it another half day before the trauma of his memories and mind are greater than his body's demand for rest and his eyes open and stay open. He doesn't get up yet but rolls over to stare at the door and listen to Obi-Wan beside him.

[ihateflying]

He wakes up feeling physically better and emotionally-

emotionally he just feels... empty.

Anakin is dead, Padme is dead, and both their children are alive. The Republic is gone, the Empire has risen with its Emperor. The Clones are firmly in his hands, the Order is gone, the Jedi are targets to be killed on sight.

Anakin's children will be safe enough with Bail.

He and Alec - and Yoda, he supposes - will be safe nowhere. There is no more framework for either of them. It makes sense that they stick together, but there is no good answer for where they go from here.

In the end though that also means there is no bad answer. He takes Bail's help - and money - and gets the two of them on their own personal transport, trying not to push Alec but also trying to make sure he continues to function - and sets a course for the outer rim. Which planet they'll land on remains to be seen but in the immediate aftermath it doesn't matter. The most important thing is getting away from the Core, where the presence of the government - the empire - is stronger. To the backwater worlds that are more or less forgotten and lawless.

Once the course is set and the ship is more or less handling itself with autopilot he goes in search of Alec. "I won't apologize to you again but I don't think the desire to will ever entirely fade."

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec, he stated multiple times, does not have a preference.

It's true, and that makes it easy to follow Obi-Wan where he leads, to fall into step just behind his right shoulder, to help pilot the transport until it's all about setting coordinates and flight paths that he doesn't care about. He speaks even less than he did before, although there are a few moments when he takes a deeper breath or opens his mouth like he might, but then he doesn't. Fubctioning is what he does. It's easy. He does it.

When it's just the two of them and the low hum of the engines, the pull of empty space passing by incomprehensibly fast outside, Alec has claimed a seat beside one of the tiny view holes where he's sitting, elbows on his knees, not particularly engaged with anything. When Obi-Wan speaks though he looks up and the weight of his attention is behind his eyes. It's what he has right now, until he registers the words and his eyes narrow slightly.

"What would you apologize for?" he asks, not dismissive, but earnest. He's been thinking. He has a lot to think about.

[ihateflying]

He takes a seat across from Alec, watching him rather than what's outside the view port.

He smiles, slight and tired in response to the question.

"That's the rub, isn't it? So many things I can't claim to be sorry for, or even to regret, without making a liar of myself." He isn't sorry Alec is here. He isn't sorry Alec broke the hold the chip held on him. He isn't sorry that Alec was there with him at some of the worst moments of his life - so far - or managed to do what he, in the end, could not and finish Anakin. "Not being... more worthy of it, I think, and not being able to help more now."

[kissthatgoodbye]

For a moment there in between, before Obi-Wan continues and clarifies, there's a brief, sharp spark of something like anger that he quickly smooths over into his ready blankness again. It's still there, but held in check, silent and out of physical sight.

"Worthiness isn't yours to judge," he shrugs instead. "Regarding me, anyway. I thought you were, I think you are. Because of that, I have free will now to do so. I could argue that's all that matters."

[ihateflying]

"You're right in that your judgement as to what's worth it to you is the only one that matters. Unfortunately, judging my own worth is as much part of being Jedi as the cloak, light saber, and force abilities. I will try to keep my mouth closed about it."

Truthfully he just had a lot of free floating guilt that he wasn't hanging onto so much as it was hanging on to him. It was complicating the issue, but it was what it was and he would... ride it out until it went away or didn't.

"You've been quiet."

[kissthatgoodbye]

"If it helps you decide, I haven't changed my mind."

He thinks only Obi-Wan would think such a thing. He's still a soldier after all. He doesn't need to speak to fulfill his function, and isn't expected to by anyone but this man.

It takes the edge off his buzzing thoughts, a little.

"I've been thinking. Trying to make sense of it. But there's none to find, is there?" This is not a real question. He goes on without waiting for an answer: "I won't fight clones anymore."

[ihateflying]

That Alec hasn't changed his mind does help. Knowing that and believing it help. They don't make everything go away, no, but that's because he'd been telling the truth about judging himself continually.

"I... understand what happened, but no, there isn't any sense in any of this." A pause and slight smile. "I'm glad you won't, I think. Frankly, I'm done fighting at all."

Very, very, completely done. Defend if outright attacked? Probably, but no further than he had to and not if he could find any other way.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Obviously Alec understands the words done fighting at all; as they apply to him, though, it's a bit more difficult for him to conceive of. He'd been expecting something, but not that. Not really.

"You think that's possible?" he asks, skeptical.

[ihateflying]

"To not fight at all?" he asks, then shakes his head. "No, I don't believe that is truly possible. There will always be people who are looking for the fight and I've no intention of lying down and dying for them."

But - and this was an important shift to him. "But there's no need for me to seek the fight, any longer. Not in any regard." And really, even before the war, that was what his role in the Order was. There were others who had done other things, but it was all he'd wanted and all he'd done.

He was through with it.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec has a mixed reaction to those words, although his expression remains difficult to read; he's aware that Obi-Wan is likely to know anyway but it's not like there's anything he can do about that. He is skeptical and hopeful, he does and doesn't want that, he is restless and he is tired.

But mostly, he doesn't really know what that means the future looks like, at all.

"You think they won't find us?" is the most pressing concern. There's a lot of them, now, and barely any us. "Or that Organa won't try to pull you back in? Or Yoda?"

[ihateflying]

"I think that it is unlikely for many of 'them' to know that either of us are alive." Not with the shit-show that order 66 was, and that does apply for Alec as well, especially after their disappearance into what looked to be a closed body of water. "That is especially true with Anakin dead." No one to report back.

He pauses there, because sure, people may find them and Jedi and a rogue Clone will be targets, still, but not personal ones.

"Yoda and Bail may bring me back in if either of the twins has enough force ability to need to be trained, but they won't otherwise. If they brought me in otherwise, or to fight, they'd risk losing their teacher."

[kissthatgoodbye]

He is trained not to bounce his foot, or tap his fingers on his knees, or chew his nails or lips or cheeks. He is trained not to fidget when he's anxious or restless, not to broadcast his doubts because no one cares.

No one cares when he doesn't know what to do, because he'll get orders sooner or later anyway. But that's not true now.

"And you're okay with that?" he asks, gaze heavy on Obi-Wan, searching. "You can be... content?"

[ihateflying]

He doesn't know.

He doesn't feel like Alec is the person he should be discussing the missing framework and purpose from his life. It would be... self-centered, at best. Make him appear blind, or destroy whatever trust is there, at worse.

He isn't going to lie though.

"I won't know until I've tried," he admits. "But I am certainly finished with fighting for the foreseeable future."

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec is ignorant, not stupid, not naive. He lacks life experience, not competence or cognitive ability. In many ways he lived a sheltered life up to now, with very narrow focus and very narrow context.

He is certain that no general and no soldier will ever be completely content not to fight any longer, but he does know that it means, "Then you're no longer a general, and I'm no longer a soldier. We'll have to find something else to be."

[ihateflying]

He quirks one corner of his mouth up. "I was never meant to be a General. None of the Jedi were. I was meant and trained to be a guardian, though, which always involved combat."

It's just a different kind of combat. "We'll still have to find something else. Right now, I'm leaning toward 'people'."

[kissthatgoodbye]

Another strike for ignorance: Alec doesn't know much about the Jedi or their purpose, except as leaders of the Clone armies.

That gets set aside in favor of a sharp intake of breath at that word, at that suggestion, and he looks up just as quickly. People.

"That's - simple for you to say."

[ihateflying]

It isn't ignorance that truly matters, anymore. The Jedi are... no more. It may help Alec understand Obi-Wan, but Obi-Wan doesn't find that of much importance.

"Most things are simple to say and much harder to do. This one just more so on both fronts."

It really is not going to be easy for him, either. At all. The idea terrifies him. It terrifies him more because it isn't something he wants, it's something he simply sees no alternative to.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec is watching him, searching for any misgivings, doubt, deception. It's not that he necessarily expects Obi-Wan, specifically, to lie to him so much as he expects to be excluded as he always has. It will take time to overcome this, like anything else, not the least because he doesn't even know it needs to be overcome at this point.

It does mean he's used to watching, though, even if he doesn't have Obi-Wan's extra Force sense to work with: "What do you see as being the biggest challenge facing us?"

[ihateflying]

The good news, possibly the only good news, in this entire situation is that they are both resilient and Obi-Wan at least is patient.

Really, really, patient.

"The biggest challenge in staying alive at all, or the biggest challenge in my plan of being people?" Those are two different answers, though of course they can't become anything if they are dead.