Hero_With_No_Fear

[ihateflying]

There are precious few decisions that are easy.

When it comes to decisions regarding Anakin, even fewer of them are easy. The decision to never tell Anakin that his 'jokes' about Anakin being the death of him aren't really jokes? As near to easy as they come.

The decision to tell Anakin that Padme is pregnant? More difficult than any decision to date - except perhaps leaving Satine to stay with the Jedi. That he had made that decision - had that experience - may be making the decision harder. He knows what the consequences of this can be, and likely will be, and-

And allowing things to play out would be much more comfortable for him, on a number of levels. It may also well be the right thing to do.

But he has decided, so it's time to act.

He makes time to find Anakin, and says with simple directness but utter seriousness: "We need to speak. In private."

Comments

[ihateflying]

He should probably consider Anakin's implied confession more deeply, along with the guilty expression.

He would do so - in a moment.

In this precise moment, he was incredulous and offended. He looked down at his Jedi robes and then back to Anakin. "I've no idea, Anakin. It is almost as if I might be inclined toward sensing things. Maybe a touch of force sensitivity no one quite routed out before now."

...Sorry.

[hero_with_no_fear]

“Well, you never noticed anything before!” Another uncontrollable confession.

And he saw how much trouble he was causing himself so he shut his mouth and scrubbed at his eyes, because he felt everything unraveling, and he just couldn’t stop it from happening.

But, no matter what, Obi-Wan was his closest friend. And if anyone would be understanding, it would be him. Right?

“Have you told anyone else?”

[ihateflying]

He'd... never noticed anything before.

Right.

Well.

He's just going to leave that one alone, though it wasn't nearly as much of a confession as Anakin seemed to believe it was.

In this context.

(He missed plenty of other things, though).

"Of course I haven't said anything to anyone else!" Anakin is his friend. That said: "Do you know what you're going to do?"

[hero_with_no_fear]

That was a relief, written all over Anakin’s face and the way his shoulders fell. He took a deep breath. Relief for now.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I really don’t.” And that was the honest truth. The further Padmé’s pregnancy progressed, the less sure Anakin felt since that night she’d told him.

“Padmé was planning on going back to Naboo, but now things are-” He wasn’t sure he should tell Obi-Wan about his visions, that didn’t go so well last time with his mother.

[ihateflying]

There was more than one thing he could have responded to there, but opted not to. He was relieved by Anakin's relief, and the direct answer and the first real admission of the discussion: that he didn't know what he was going to do.

There was, however, one very pressing thing. "Things now are what? The war, or something else?"

[hero_with_no_fear]

Anakin wanted to trust Obi-Wan with his visions. Still Anakin held back. Once bitten, twice shy. Because wanting wasn’t the same as having trust. There were things he trusted with Obi-Wan - in a lightsaber duel, he knew Obi-Wan would always have his back. But attachments were a different kind of battlefield.

His hesitation was telling.

But he said instead, “She doesn’t want to leave until things in the Senate return to what they were before the war, and the Chancellor returns his emergency powers.”

[ihateflying]

The hell of it was, even with the hesitation, that was a perfectly plausible 'excuse'. It made sense for Padme, and especially within the state of... everything.

He nodded slightly.

"Would she be more willing to return if you went with her?" He had no desire to force her hand, knew she was stubborn as all get out, and could take care of herself. That wasn't, really, the point. Because there was more than herself to take care of.

[hero_with_no_fear]

“How would that end the war faster?” Anakin pointed out.

“And besides, if I go then...” he looked down. Why did he have to choose? He hated how afraid he was of losing Obi-Wan. “I’m not a Jedi anymore. I need to stay.”

[ihateflying]

"Anakin, you are my brother and I love you but to the war you are one man - your presence or absence will make no great difference one way or another." Even as powerful as Anakin is, even as a General, even leading his own troops. "The war does not need you. Padme and your children with her do. Your attention would not be divided, which would benefit everyone."

His expression and tone, as well as his stance, all softened. He doesn't want to lose Anakin, either, but that was not the point, either. "I came very close to leaving the Order once. I'm glad I didn't, but circumstances were different." Circumstances were better.

[hero_with_no_fear]

“No I mean, Padmé won’t just-” he started to say, but that last part stopped him.

“Wait- you almost left? When?”

[ihateflying]

"Before I met you, though not by very much."

If he answered the question, it made it more likely that Anakin would answer his, right?

"Padme won't what?"

[hero_with_no_fear]

That was not a satisfactory answer. And Anakin would not let it go at just that.

“Why did you almost leave? Why did you stay?”

[ihateflying]

He sometimes truly believed that Anakin was repayment for the things he had put Qui-Gon through - and that if he listened hard enough he'd hear Qui-Gon laughing at him.

"Her name is Satine. A duchess." A politician. "Qui-Gon and I were sent to Mandalore to protect her. They sent bounty hunters after her. We spent a year on the run, under... difficult circumstances. I got... attached." He fell in love. "Her world was left nearly destroyed, and she was committed to rebuilding it. Qui-Gon was committed to leaving. In the end, she was a pacifist with an obligation to her people, and I was a Jedi. Now, Padme won't what?"

[hero_with_no_fear]

“I knew there was something between you and her!” He hadn’t had much interaction with the Duchess, but he’d never seen anyone get under Obi-Wan’s skin the way she had. It had been amusing to watch.

But now it was sad because The Duchess was dead at Maul’s hands. They could never be.

His smile fell as he looked at his former master. “I’m sorry.”

He floundered for a moment as he tried to backtrack.

“I just meant, me being able to go with Padmé to Naboo won’t persuade her because she won’t leave until she feels her job is done. And I can’t leave the Order yet either.” Not that he wouldn’t leave the Order at some point, just not now.

Not while he still had no solution to the problems of his visions.

[ihateflying]

"Yes. Well done. You were very perceptive."

His shrug and the snark that came with it did not actually mean that he was unmoved, by memory or sympathy. Simply that neither one was wanted (because there was pain there, if he looked too hard) and there were more pressing matters.

"Why can't you leave the order now?"

[hero_with_no_fear]

“Because I can’t!” Would that answer suffice for what he was unwilling to explain?

[ihateflying]

"What's stopping you?"

No. No it would not.

[hero_with_no_fear]

Anakin was too stressed, too sleep deprived to keep himself from finally saying, “Because I have to figure out how to keep Padmé from dying!”

[ihateflying]

All right.

That was new information.

"Why do you think staying in the order will do that?"

It was not the first question he wanted to ask. It was the question he, for now, allowed himself.

[hero_with_no_fear]

It had made sense at the time he first thought it. Gain access to the Master-only section of the archives, find something that could help him keep Padme from dying. And then Palpatine asked him to be liaison on the Council and Anakin had thought that was the key - he'd be a master if he was on the Council. But that didn't work out, instead, it just seemed to make life more difficult.

"I... don't know. I just thought..."

It was some inarticulable idea that the Jedi "helped," that they "had the answers." Something he'd learned as a slave and couldn't shake now even if most of what he saw was the Jedi entangled in conflict. Half the Jedi's fault, half forces working against them that they couldn't detect. But they also hadn't helped his mother.

Once you learn to distrust someone, it's hard to go forward, to try again. To believe that next time you make yourself vulnerable for someone to prove themselves, that time it won't hurt. And the shadow of his mother's visions was long.

"She's going to die... I've seen it."

[ihateflying]

Yes. He liked to believe that he could learn from his mistakes. He was very, very, ill equipped to be a Master when he'd taken on Anakin, and he was still not much better.

The one thing that could be said for him was that he tried.


He wouldn't brush Anakin off again, though his meeting of him here, now, was as a friend rather than a Jedi. In some ways, perhaps, that made it easier for him. There was... less of a script he felt tied to.

"Have you told her?"

[hero_with_no_fear]

Well, that wasn't "All dreams will pass." So it was already better than last time.

Anakin was willing to give a little more.

"Yes. I... told her the night I first started getting the visions."

[ihateflying]

He would take what he could get, as he could get it.

"And what was her response?"

[hero_with_no_fear]

She just said "Oh," that first time I told her... Just "Oh," like it wasn't terrifying.

And if he had the mental capacity to juggle one more ball, he might realize that that's exactly how he'd react if someone, like Obi-Wan or Ahsoka, had a vision of him dying - Oh? And he might even take it as a dare.

But he was tired of losing - His mother, Ahsoka, Fives and how many other clones, all the way back to Qui-Gon or even further to all the friends he lost when he was a slave. When did he get to keep the people in his life? He knew the Jedi forbid attachments, but he couldn't seem to exist without forming them with... well, anyone who got close enough.

"She isn't concerned," he said. "But the visions are just like the ones I got about my mother."

[ihateflying]

"Of course she wasn't concerned." It was not disbelief of Anakin. He can't say for sure those visions were not the result of fear of loss, but he wouldn't dismiss them, either.

Not listening had really had not worked out well the last time.

"Did you tell her that?" He paused. "It wouldn't make that much difference. She needs to be convinced that moving, or at least being better protected, is her duty for the time being. Or to at least allow you to stay with her as yours."