Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandoms:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Collections:
2021 Obi-Wan Kenobi Gen Exchange
Stats:
Published:
2021-09-11
Words:
6,528
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
76
Kudos:
628
Bookmarks:
114
Hits:
5,043

Chosen

Summary:

Anakin Skywalker dies while defending his young padawan from General Grievous. As the Order reels from the loss of one of their best, no one is more shocked than Ahsoka and Obi-Wan.

Wasn't he a Chosen One, Obi-Wan wonders, how do you fail someone like that?
No master wanted her, Ahsoka worries, will it be any different now?

They each have to confront their doubts and fears, facing the legacy of their broken lineage in order to move forward.

Notes:

This is a mix of your first and third request, with lineage feels, a cocktail of angst, fluff and whump, but a focus on Ahsoka & Obi-Wan bonding, by creating the Angst through Anakin's death. I hope you enjoy it, and I thank you deeply for the opportunity to explore this dynamic.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

 

 

Obi-Wan stares at the pillar of light as years of his life go up in flame, in a furnace of ultra-hot plasma, turning blood and bones into fine ash, and fine ash into nothingness.

Transforming an entire man into memories.

The Force roils through the funeral room in deep swirls of sorrow and pity. Not everyone liked Anakin Skywalker, but no Jedi could be insensitive to such a loss, or to a master's pain. Obi-Wan feels the concern that washes over him, heavy over his own high pitched grief, Ahsoka's muted shock and Rex's droning anguish.

Hands come to brush against his robes, alight on his shoulders, his arms, his hair. Kit Fisto envelops him in a hug and Plo Koon presses clawed fingers to his brow, sending cooling tendrils into his darkened mind.

'You will endure this, Obi-Wan,' he says, his rebreather muffling the whispered words. 'But you need not be strong now.'

'He is right,' comes Mace Windu's voice from somewhere behind him, another hand sliding between his shoulder blades with suggestions of calm. 'The council will relieve you of all duties for the time being. Your only task is to look after yourself. See a mind healer if you need it. And my door is also open to you, at any time.'

The kind words roll over Obi-Wan like water, refreshing but doing nothing to lift the fever that grips his mind. He nods to the masters, watery eyes never leaving the light. Talking would not be productive right now.

Time heals all wounds. A truism that should come with a warning. Time is subjective, and in the wake of a terrible wound, it enjoys slowing down, dragging every last moment to excruciating length.

Obi-Wan stays rooted to his spot for an eternity and a half. Suns rise and set, moons form and escape their orbits, stars are born and lost to equally fiery deaths, and then, at last, Anakin Skywalker's last light too fades from the world.

Ahsoka's strangled sobs ring over the incinerator's clicking noises as it powers down, snapping Obi-Wan out of his trance. He takes a step towards her, disoriented—when has the room grown so dark, so empty?—but he finds her already smothered in trooper uniforms, embraced as she is by Rex, Fives and Jesse.

He titters on the spot, uncertain what to do now. What to do next. He's never buried a padawan before.

He shouldn't have to. No master ever should. It's a sad, if expected risk, that a padawan might have to bury their master, as Ahsoka does today. Jedi often flirt with danger after all, even when the galaxy isn't in the throes of war, and a master has to protect more than just their own lives. It is no failure to die saving your apprentice's life. It would be easier, if Obi-Wan could only trade places with Anakin, spare himself the pain and the guilt.

Anakin is—was, had been, past tense now, always—a knight. He had a padawan of his own. But they'd been on this last mission together, and it's a master's prerogative to teach and tease their former student over the years, even after the Force-bond is severed. Their role is to guide, and to protect. 

'An abject failure, you are not,' comes Yoda's voice, accompanied by a gentle tap of his cane.

'Master, please do not read my mind now, of all times.'

'Read your mind?' The old troll scoffs, manoeuvring his hover-pad in front of Obi-Wan, commanding his attention. 'No tricks do I need to read your mind, young Kenobi. Broadcasting your emotions through the Force, you are. Like a beacon.'

Obi-Wan straightens and turns his attention back to his mental walls, but finds only rubble and ruins. He sighs and sets to work rebuilding what he can.

'I'm sorry master. This day has been...'

'A lot. Yes. For all of us. For you, in particular. You must be kinder to yourself. Losing a padawan is never good, never easy. Much, you have on your mind. A natural process, this is. Trust in the Force. Look at your emotions and release them.'

Obi-Wan tries, fails, huffs, and looks away. Yoda's stick does not come though, as he half expected. Only a gentle tap of a small clawed hand.

'Not now, young Kenobi. No perfect result am I expecting from you. Not now, but think on it, you should. Meditate, you must. Knight Skywalker was his own man, and not your fault is it, that he died on his mission.'

Obi-Wan looks at the grandmaster with a weary frown. 'It was my mission too. And I trained him and—'

'Finish not this sentence!' Yoda exclaims. 'Think, my young friend. How many apprentices have I lost? To time, to enemies, to accidents? Worse it is, that I lost some to the Dark Side... Yet still here, I am. Still strong. Still training new Jedi. Or helping. Old, I am. Failed often, I have. It changes not my duty.'

Obi-Wan nods. He understands the words, the concepts, even if they don't quite connect, emotionally. His own master had come close to repudiating him several times, and he had, more or less, in the end. They'd rarely seen eye to eye, Qui-Gon often reproaching him for feeling too much, for not flowing with the Force's will.
Obi-Wan had wanted to be different for Anakin. No matter how hard things got, he had stayed by his side. There had been no talks of repudiation between them, no tension—not of that sort.

'But how do you fail the Chosen One?' Obi-Wan asks, his desperation tinged with bitterness.

Qui-Gon and his prophecies! 

It had put pressure on both of them, that title. Obi-Wan couldn't fail the Chosen One, even if he was his first Padawan, even if he had never been a Knight on his own, even if he hadn’t chosen him. And Anakin couldn't fail being the Chosen One. Excellence was expected, and he'd had years to catch up on, and many things to prove.

But how much wrong could you really do, against a prophecy of greatness?

He looks to his great-grandmaster, seeking an answer to douse the flames of a past on fire.

'Was it even in my power to change the future by failing him? Or was this pre-ordained? Has he already accomplished what he was destined for? Was Qui-Gon... Was it all...'

'It matters not!' Yoda exclaims. 'You cannot change the past, Obi-Wan. What is done is done, and the best, you've tried to be, and the best, Anakin always strove to become. Yet this has come to pass. The Force decides in the end, what is to become of all of us.'

Which is a convoluted way of saying he doesn't know, Obi-Wan figures. But it is reassuring somehow, to see that he isn't alone in his confusion. That he isn't missing out on some obvious solution.

Nothing more obvious than that choice to split up. That turn to the right, chasing after Grievous instead of staying by Anakin and Ahsoka's side, and picking the wrong direction.

In the privacy of his room, folded on his meditation cushion like a man twice his age, Obi-Wan turns to the Force and finds it mournful, an echo of his own emotions. It doesn't speak to him, the way it had in his youth, plaguing him with visions and whispers that guided his hands. It only sings back wordless grief, like Anakin was dear to it as well. Like it understands.

This too is soothing. Obi-Wan feels less alone in the depths of meditation, when he settles to begin an inventory of his soul. Because it would not do to release his emotions without first understanding them... So he combs through his memories, from first meeting Anakin and the painful days that followed, through their complicated relationship over the years, twisting and changing, until he couldn't tell master from apprentice, only friends.

He recalls Anakin's smiles, when presenting him with a fallen tooth, with a kyber crystal, with a padawan braid.

He remembers the frowns, the self-doubt, the arguments, and also the hushed meeting, after Ahsoka's arrival, when they'd returned to Coruscant and Obi-Wan had left their common apartment for a smaller one. Anakin had come with him under the guise of helping him carry his boxes, and sitting close he'd let his shields collapse, showing him all the doubt and uncertainty that Obi-Wan too had once felt, hugging a young freed slave on Naboo and watching his master's pyre.

How do I raise another being and not fail them? Or grow too attached? How can they think I'm ready for this, when I don't have any of the answers?

Yet he'd done so well, in the end. Ahsoka has grown to make both of them proud.

Sometimes Obi-Wan wonders what Qui-Gon would have thought of her, had he lived to meet her. But if he had, who knows how things might be different? Perhaps Ahsoka would never have entered their lives at all. And in the end, for all that he misses his old Master,  Obi-Wan would not trade his grandpadawan for anything.

The hours pass and the hurt remains. It's a balancing act, a walk on a tightrope, pain and grief uneven weights trying to topple him as he teeters forward. But Obi-Wan is an old hand at this sort of thing, and the war has given all of them more opportunities to practice. Many masters have lost their padawan, to droids, to Sith and their assassins, to Grievous, to the blood-soaked sands of Geonosis...

In the end, he's not as unlucky as some. His apprentice hadn't fallen. He’d died proudly, slaying Grievous, defending his own padawan, furthering the war effort... Obi-Wan has to make it matter. And he still has Ahsoka...

Ahsoka. 

 

 

Ahsoka knows she isn't Togruta in the sense that most of the galaxy would understand it. Not any more than any Togruta brought up in a mixed crew of Bounty Hunters, or one adopted by a Mandalorian clan. Raised among aliens, dipped in Jedi culture for as long as she can remember... She is Jedi first, Togruta second.

Of course she receives extra lessons about her own culture, they all do.

Just like Mirialan knights take younglings back to Mirial for their own rituals, Master Shaak Ti had taken her to Shili for her first hunt, to earn her akul teeth. But it had been performative. Ahsoka had the skill to do it, so she did. She celebrated, had the headdress made and wore it... Because it was what was supposed to be done, the steps to follow. It gave her insight but it never changed who she is, what she is. Jedi.

All this, Ahsoka thinks, is nurture.

Nature however, dictates that in her time of grief, every last Togruta padawan and youngling in the Temple must find her, and huddle with her with as much skin to skin contact as they can manage. It's just something they feel, something that's needed, to give and to receive.

So she goes to the Room of a Thousand Fountains, knowing exactly where to sit to think about Anakin and maybe feel his presence, if only through memories, and they come. Two younglings beg their way out of class to crawl into her lap, and Master Ti stops by, silently caressing her lekku, massaging in the whorling patterns of uk-bat'h, the "healing touch that makes the spirit strong".

Ahsoka falls asleep and wakes up smothered by a different set of children. They brush her cheeks and ask her questions about Anakin, begging for stories of their missions together. She regales them until darkness settles and the bioluminescent lamps of the gardens flicker on.

The next day, Reidi is the first to find her. She's thirteen, a golden togruta apprenticed to Mace Windu. They know each other well. Reidi is as much a lightsaber nut as Ahsoka ever was, maybe even worse. While Ahsoka worked hard on her saber and polished her Jar'kai because she'd wanted a strong master to notice her, Reidi works on her forms like a being possessed. She claims she'll master them all and then create her own. She's the terror of the sales, and now she curls down next to Ahsoka, wrapping her strong wiry arms around her neck, burying her head in the crook of her lek without a word.

Next is Nelka, with her dark tan and purplish stripes on curved montrals, typical of the folk of the Yras northern steppes. She's apprenticed to healer Vantem, and though she is lanky and seems quiet and shy, she can pin a Dowutin to a medbay bed with an impressive Force-powered grip and won't hesitate to use it.

'How are you feeling?' she asks, brushing her fingers over Ahsoka's brow, pinching her montrals for signs of sagging, pulling her eyelids up and giving her a critical once over.

'Like I'm being prodded,' Ahsoka deadpans.

'I got worried when you didn't come to us.'

'I've just been here... But I have to go see a mindhealer every day. Council makes me go.'

'You don't sound pleased about it?' Nelka asks, laying down next to her on the moss, giving younger Reidi a pat.

Ahsoka sighs, closes her eyes and looks inward, to where her master used to be.

'Even if it hurt, I sort of didn't want them to take the bond away.'

'Because it would end things?' Reidi asks, squeezing her arms tighter.

'Yeah...' There's nothing now, in that part of her mind. Just numbness and a hole shaped like the man she'd grown to love so much—more than she ought to, as a Jedi. More like a brother than a Master, at times. 'It's like it was my last proof he really existed and—'

Reidi slaps Ahsoka’s forehead, none too gently.

'You got your memories and you got who you are today, and you got holos and you got his lightsaber. You have lots of proof he loved you and trained you and you'll never lose them.'

Nelka says nothing but curls closer against Ahsoka's side, cradling her left arm. They let time flow over them, listening to the trickling of water, the buzzing of insects, the distant laugher of younglings on a visit to the Room, the many creaks and groans of a living Temple forever settling around its inhabitants. They sink into a haze, a common meditation, until someone arrives and rouses them with hurried footsteps. Ahsoka cracks an eye open at Reidi's groan.

Padawan Karnak, a young Zygerrian apprenticed to Quinlan Vos, stands in front of them, giving Reidi skittish glances. The two have a tumultuous history, from a time when Karnak had mistakenly believed he could push younger and smaller Reidi around in combat, but he's since learnt his lesson. He wrings his hands and sways from foot to foot, gathering his courage.

'Well?' Reidi asks, snappish.

Ahsoka doesn't have the energy to chide her, and anyway Karnak perks his ears up and forward. 'I'm so sorry!' He exclaims. 'Knight Skywalker was so awesome! Such a famous pilot! I always wanted to go out with you to see him fly and I—' He stops, looks down at his feet, ears drooping again. 'Can I join?'

The only species that craves skinship more than Togrutas, in Ahsoka's experience, has to be Zygerrians. There just aren’t many of them in the Order.

'You're cute,' Nelka declares with a laugh. 'Come on then.'

And just like that, Ahsoka is blanketed by warm bodies again, humming brightly in the Force, cocooning her and sliding back down with her through the layers of meditation to the edge of slumber.

Ahsoka.

A voice is calling her, and it takes a while to drag herself back to consciousness. The unthinking dark is so mellow and welcoming... But the bodies against her are stirring too, and soon she finds herself blinking up at—

'Ahsoka?'

'M-master Windu?' she asks, bleary eyed. 'Master Malicos?'

The padawans startle awake in her arms, looking about in confusion and gasping at the Masters peering down at them.

'Master!' Reidi exclaims. 'Were you looking for me?'

Windu smiles. 'No, but now that I've found you I may as well take you away. Nelka, Karnak, you can come with us too. I'll show you something interesting.'

Nelka gives Ahsoka a concerned look. 'Will you be alright?'

'Sure.'

'Do you just want us to leave, Master?' Reidi asks, unabashed. 'You can just say it.'

'Yes, thank you Reidi, I'm aware I can just speak my mind, especially when you're concerned,' Windu answers with the look of one who has polished their patience till it shines. Ahsoka has seen it often enough on Obi-Wan's face, when talking to Anakin. 'I'll show you my favourite part of the gardens down here, that only younglings can climb to,' he says, gentling his voice. 'Let's give Ahsoka and Master Malicos time to talk.'

The padawans follow him after one last hug and squeeze of a lek. Ahsoka waves them away and Taron Malicos sits himself next to her on the moss in their stead.

She studies the man carefully. Though their features aren't the same, Ahsoka can't help but compare him to Obi-Wan. They have the same style of beard and hair, except Taron Malicos is all shades of whites and silver. As a Jedi Shadow he often disappears on long missions with classified debriefs. She hasn't seen him in months actually, and finds that he looks more ragged than she remembers. Thinner. His hair lacklustre, more grey than silver.

'How are you, Ahsoka?' he asks with a pleasant smile and neutral tone.

Really, she should be the one asking. 

'I'm fine, thank you—' She starts, and is interrupted by a loud scoff.

'What a political answer!' Malicos laughs. 'I never knew you were aiming for a seat on the Council of Reconciliation!'

'That's not fair, Master.'

'We don't have to always be fair. Otherwise Yoda wouldn't be so free with his cane, now would he?'

'Mmh, I wouldn't know.' Ahsoka squints at him, suspicious. 'What do you want with me?'

'Some honesty would be a fine start.'

'I'm already seeing a mind healer for that.'

Malicos barks a surprised laugh. 'Ooh, but you are Skywalker's padawan!' He sobers up then, and pats her arm. 'He's raised you well.'

Ahsoka nods at the compliment, not trusting herself to speak. She waits in silence for him to spell out what he wants from her, but Malicos remains cryptic.

'I understand how you must feel,' he says. 'Or something close to it. At least Skywalker didn't go down alone.'

'You understand?' Ahsoka asks, confused.

She's never felt more adrift and disconnected from people. Even with warm skin rubbing against hers, even showered with the love and care of her peers, she feels like she's standing alone on an asteroid just large enough for her two feet. Yet here is Malicos, floating by in the void, offering a hand for her to take.

'I can imagine, at least,' he says with a nod. 'I have my own reference to base myself on.'

She curls her fingers against his palm, tying a connection between their minds. A small doorway appears in Master Malicos' mental walls, cracking open in invitation. Ahsoka knows at a glance what sort of memories she'll find behind it, if she accepts. The hurt that seeps out is so familiar, like an echo of her own, in a different voice and pitch.

Curious, she joins him and—

There's a world drenched in blood. It's on her hands, her clothes, her tongue, and it isn't hers.

There's a pitch black sky, a pitch black land peppered with bioluminescent stalks that twist and turn, sway in the wind like mocking fingers pointing at her as she runs, her Master's weight heavy on her shoulders, her Master's life sticking to her skin, pooling in her boots.

There are shrill cries and calls of pursuit, the baying of alien hounds, set on a pungent scent, and above it the stink of her own terror, pulsing through the Force.

There's the cold embrace of a familiar ship, the cold voice of an AI, pronouncing death, and the colder weight of a Sith artefact, pressing against her ribs like it wants to burrow itself there, a thorn in her heart.

And then hot, hot, the hatred. Scalding under her skin and setting her mind aflame as she takes off, hands shaking over the nav console. Come, she hears herself think in a low voice that isn't hers, come and find me, so I can kill you all. Come on, come on...

But the stars are silent, and she alone among them. The ship drifts in the dark as the life systems power to their lowest settings. She releases her feelings in puffs of white breath, as best she can. Frost creeps against the transparisteel, and her Master-not-Master's face is pale as snow, his Miralukan eyeless gaze turned to the Force and scattered there, lost forever.

Ahsoka opens her own eyes and turns to Malicos, this jovial man she's only known as Mace's wild crechemate, a Jedi Anakin used to look up to, often found whispering nonsense in Obi-Wan's ear and laughing together. Confident, wise, a great Jar'kai practitioner, and... Someone just like her.

'I... I'm sorry. I never knew.'

Malicos gives her a small, sad smile.

'My master's death is public knowledge, but it was well before your time. And the details of it... They make for an awkward conversation. I don't have cause to bring it up often.'

Ahsoka looks down to her hands, almost surprised to find them clean. There had been so much blood.

'I wasn't there for Anakin,' she whispers. 'I was in the room but... Grievous knocked me unconscious. I didn't see it happen.'

'Ah, "if I'd been there it would have been different", right? If you can, try and save yourself that struggle. People used to tell me it wasn't my fault, that it's as the Force wills, that acting differently might not have changed the outcome...' He waves his hand, dispelling the arguments. 'The truth is uglier and simpler, Ahsoka. It's in the past. It's over.'

'But Anakin wasn't supposed to die...'

He was supposed to see her knighted. To give her a sibling in their lineage, to drag her on dangerous missions until their knees buckled with age.

'He was just Human, Ahsoka. So am I. And Soln a Miraluka, you a Togruta... None of us are immortal or invincible. What-ifs only harm you. If your Master loved you, then you know this isn't what he'd want for you.'

'No, but...' Ahsoka bites her lip. The conversation is angling in directions she's never taken before, and speaking these new truths scares her. 'I feel like... I don't know how he would want me to react, if that makes sense? Like if our positions were reversed, I'm not sure how Anakin would react. I'm thinking he might have... Mmmh... Not taken it as well as I am?'

Malicos frowns but doesn't chide or dismiss her.

'I see. Yes, Skywalker had a bit of a hot temper and a vengeful streak, for a Jedi.' He peers at Ahsoka with his ice blue eyes, voice as cold as his gaze. 'But he's dead. He's never swapping with you. You're the one left behind, the one hurting. Anakin got his pound of flesh. Or metal. He killed Grievous and saved you. He had that satisfaction, so let him rest like that. You should work your way back to happiness as best you can, because that's an easy thing to know he would have wanted.'

'What if he wanted revenge?' Ahsoka counters, truculent. 'Against Dooku, the Sith, the Separatists, the Hutts!'

'Is revenge the Jedi way?'

She deflates with a sigh. 'No, Master.'

Malicos pats her shoulder, gentle and projecting quiet emotions. 'A padawan losing their master is more common than you'd think. Even before the war. And it's one of the worst trials we can face. It draws us too close to the dark side.'

Ahsoka recalls her rage, her feeling of total impotence in front of Anakin’s body, and the white hot hatred Malicos had shared with her, that still lingered in his heart despite his best efforts to purge himself of it.

'Does it ever go away?' she asks, dreading the answer.

To her surprise Malicos shrugs. 'I suppose so. Everyone is different, every case unique. Soln—my Master—died during our first mission together after I was knighted. It made things... Difficult, for a while. I was alone.' He looks away, in the direction Master Windu has taken Reidi and the others. 'Mace helped a lot during that time. Came with me on missions to show me I wasn't cursed... Here's some free advice Ahsoka: don't ever accept undercover work with Mace Windu. But also don't fret. You're still a padawan, and you'll get a new master. They will guide you through this, and you won't be facing it alone.'

Ahsoka stops herself short of squirming, settles for wringing her hands instead. Malicos cocks a silver eyebrow and waits for her to speak, but how can she? What sort of self respecting Jedi would whinge right now, about their dead master not choosing or wanting them? Yoda has never made a secret of his intentions. She was about to age out, too fiery a youngling, not wanted by any master, and Anakin too much of a firebrand. Striking two birds with one stone, that's what her apprenticeship had been about.

Now... She's older, wiser. Comparatively at least. Surely... Surely Master Malicos is right, and someone will want to continue her training. But the uncertainty is eating at her.

'I don't know what to do about my men,' she says instead. 'Rex and Jesse and... Everyone really loved Anakin, but they'll be wanting a new general and I wish...'

She wishes it could be her, but she's only a masterless padawan, no matter the rank they slapped on her in the GAR.

'That's why I was looking for you.' Malicos says with a smile. 'I was in between missions and Mace reached out to me. He asked me to take over the 501st.'

'You?' Ahsoka gapes. 'Uh— not that it's bad!' She hurries to clarify, waving her shock away. 'It's just... You're a Shadow.'

'Hopefully a smart one, bright enough to pick up the subtleties of command... That's the thing. I was talking with Kenobi, and I requested you come with me on our first outing, so you can introduce me to your ship and your men. I could use your guidance, and I think the clones will be more at ease if you're there too.'

Ahsoka brightens at the idea. She's been dreading a long stay at the Temple, going to the mind healers and awaiting her fate, it takes so much agency out of her hands. This though, being allowed to rejoin Rex and the others...

'I'd love to!' She exclaims, her lekku curling with anticipation. 'Do you have a date or—'

'Hah, now, don't get too excited. The Resolute is still being repaired and we both have things to do.'

Ahsoka cocks her head, curious.

'Both?'

'I have to record a holocron, and you... Kenobi wants to see you. When I left he was headed for your rooms.'

 

 

'Master!' Ahsoka calls out, seeing Obi-Wan waiting outside their quarters. Hers. Her quarters. 'Malicos told me you'd be here. You should have let yourself in.'

'I've come to visit you,' Obi-Wan replies with a slight smile, 'not to ambush you.'

'That's never stopped you before.'

'The opportunity to startle Anakin always superseded politeness.'

Ahsoka grins and waves the door open. There would be no more startling Anakin, but she hopes Obi-Wan will still stop by often, no matter where she ends up moving. She doesn't know how she'd feel, losing the both of them, one to death and the other to distance.

Obi-Wan follows her in and immediately goes to the kitchen corner, boiling water and popping a can of kaf open. It's his kaf actually, the one thing Obi-Wan left behind, probably foreseeing his many visits and not wanting to keep a canister of the stuff clipped to his belt at all times.

'Do you want something to drink?' he asks, hand already on her mug.

'Sure,' Ahsoka says, sitting down on one of the couches.

She doesn't really, but Obi-Wan is rolling with his momentum, keeping his hands busy, and Ahsoka can relate. She cleans up the low table to keep her own occupied. 

She hasn't been here much. Hasn't touched anything since the funeral. Everything is as they left it, before their last mission...

'Here.'

'Thank you,' she says, accepting a steaming mug.

Obi-Wan sits himself in front of her, blows on his own mug in thoughtful silence, and then before she can so much as blink he goes and downs the entire thing. Ahsoka stares, stunned. Clearly grief can do strange things to people, but she'd not seen that one coming.

'Are you alright Master?' She ventures when Obi-Wan gets up for a refill.

'Mmh? Yes. Sorry. I haven't slept since... Well, I've been meditating.'

Ahsoka feels a pang, something like guilt. She has done little else but sleep and cuddle and talk to mind healers. She hasn't been there for Obi-Wan, and hasn't thought to check in on him.

'Don't worry about me,' Obi-Wan says, reading her like an open book, 'I had things to do and I wanted to do them alone.'

This time he places the mug on the low table and sits back, crossing his legs, fingers clamped around his knee. Ahsoka sips the bitter drink and watches him shift, uncross his legs, slide to the edge of the cushion, lean sideways... She's never seen her grandmaster being this... This fidgety.

'I've been thinking.' He declares at last, sitting on the couch with his legs crossed in a meditative lotus, elbows resting on his knees. 'And I've realised that one of my most damning mistakes, as a Master, was the lack of communication.'

'With who?'

'Between Anakin and I. Between myself and everyone I care about. That includes you, Ahsoka. So I've come to talk.'

She can feel the heaviness of his mood, blanketing the room even as he smiles. She puts her mug down, leans forward. 'I'm listening.'

Obi-Wan, for all that he says he wants to talk, to air out these secrets he wishes he'd spoken sooner, stalls and chews on his lip and pulls at his beard. Ahsoka barely recognises the man. It makes her so anxious that she gets up and steps over the low table to sit down next to him. She takes his left hand in hers and brushes his knuckles.

'I'll listen to anything.' She says again.

Obi-Wan sighs. He looks at her, and in a half whisper, he shocks her stiff. 'I never chose Anakin for my padawan.'

He curls his fingers around hers, is the one caressing her knuckles now, while she stares dumbly.

'Wh— What do you mean?'

'We never talked about it, because it was always a sensitive subject for both of us... Anakin was found by my Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, you know that already.'

'Yes. But... he died.'

'That's right. But when he presented Anakin to the Council, they rejected him. Too old, too dark, too afraid. Qui-Gon insisted, saying he was a Chosen One, but they thought training him was too dangerous.'

'Anakin?'

'Yes.'

'Anakin Skywalker, my master?'

'The only one.'

'Rejected by the Order??'

'Mmhmm. And when Qui-Gon defied them and declared he would train him anyway, the Council...' Obi-Wan looks away then, and his grip tightens. 'The Council reminded him of my existence. Qui-Gon... Just said I could be tried. That he had nothing left to teach me.'

Ahsoka gapes, horrified. 'In front of you?'

'And Anakin.'

'Oh, fierfek, I— I didn't know...' What a day for discoveries, she thinks. And somehow she suspects this is the tip of the iceberg. 'But then Master Jinn died, so what happened with the Council?'

'Darth Maul killed him, and I, well, I thought I'd killed him too, but you know how that went.' He chuckles darkly and looks back at Ahsoka. 'I held Qui-Gon in my arms as he was dying and he made me promise.'

'Promise what?'

'To train Anakin.'

Ahsoka stares and says nothing. She processes this information, reshaping the history of her lineage accordingly.

'I was still a padawan myself, I never... I had never thought about training anyone. I figured I'd be my own man for a while,' Obi-Wan continues. 'For all that I loved my Master, our relationship was always complicated. I was looking forward to striking out on my own and suddenly—'

'He was dead, and he made you promise to train your replacement...'

'Yes. I wasn’t sure I could do it. The Council still had their doubts, but agreed to let me train him. I had nothing against Anakin, mind you. Qui-Gon had just plucked him from his home, dragged him into a massive diplomatic event and planetary blockade, promised him the moons, and suddenly Anakin was alone, the Council had rejected him once, the only home he'd known was a slaver's workshop... I wasn't so cold as to hold any of this situation against him. No we— I'd say we got on well. He was such an eager learner...'

Obi-Wan's look becomes pleading, as if willing Ahsoka to understand him.

'But I never chose him, and in the worst moments of his apprenticeship I sometimes wondered if... If not wanting him for myself wasn't making me a poor master, or just... Not connecting with him properly. I—'

'Oh, Master, but he loved you so much!' Ahsoka protests. Anakin had loved a little too much. 'No matter what happened back then, it's not like he held anything against you.'

'Sweet of you to think so. The war sharpened the divide between us. He really needed some grounding. You were the best thing to happen to him, Ahsoka.'

They share a smile, neither with much heart in it.

'I just feel like I wasn't honest enough with him. Because I didn't choose him, maybe I didn't trust him as I should have? Maybe if I'd been more open about my own feelings, he might not have struggled with his own so much? Maybe he wouldn’t have felt like he needed to prove himself as the Chosen One. What if I—'

Ahsoka waves a hand to interrupt him. 'I just got a lecture from Master Malicos,' she says, 'about how terrible what-ifs are. Can I repeat it to you or should I comm Malicos directly?'

Obi-Wan laughs and frees his hand to rub between her montrals.

'Leave Malicos out of it. When he finds me brooding he turns into a bully.'

Ahsoka isn't sure what to make of that, but she contents herself with leaning into his touch. The static sound of the brush against the hollow bones of her montrals is so pleasant.

She considers what Obi-Wan has just told her, admitting to never choosing Anakin, just like Anakin had not chosen her. Speaking of his doubts, wondering if that situation hadn't affected their relationship negatively. It just fuels her own worries. She knows Anakin doubted her for a long time. He'd been stern sometimes, snappy, overruling her decisions. She hadn't felt trusted, but of course she'd been green, and in the middle of a galactic war. Nothing like Obi-Wan's first years with Anakin.

Still, she can hear Malicos' voice, saying it's more common than you think.

Obi-Wan had lost his Master too, and then he'd been alone like Malicos, but with a new padawan in tow. Had he resented it, despite his assurances to the contrary? Did Anakin resent her too?

'—talk to you about it first.'

Ahsoka blinks, coming back to the present. 'I'm sorry Master, what was it?'

Obi-Wan's hands slide down her arms. 'I can sense your worry,' he says, pointedly not repeating himself. 'Is it anything I said?'

'Ah, no, I—'

'Honesty has to work both ways,' he interrupts her.

Ahsoka grimaces. Malicos and Obi-Wan are the damn same man in a different colour scheme!

'Was Anakin unhappy when I was sent to him?' she asks, giving in just a little to the plea for honesty. 'I mean, beyond his first reaction? Did he regret it?'

'Unhappy?' Obi-Wan exclaims. 'Ahsoka, he was terrified! He thought you'd break in two and it'd be his fault. And then you turned out to be a proper challenge and he would rant at me while you were off to your classes... He'd ask me for advice on ways to make you follow his instructions better... All things that never really worked on him mind you.'

'Really?'

'Why do you think I keep my pot of kaf in this apartment?'

'Oh... Wow, that bad?'

Obi-Wan smiles, and it's warm and tender this time. 'Of course not. You did so well. You aren't like Anakin in many ways, and yet so much like him in others... But you've made him proud, and me too.' He clasps her hands again, and it feels formal. 'Ahsoka, I've told you all this because I want you to know this is different.'

Her breath catches. She feels a shift in the Force—some cosmic wheel turning and clicking into a new groove. 'What’s different?' she asks, all agog.

'No one is asking me to do this. I'm asking you myself.'

'Asking me what, Master?'

She needs to hear the words to believe this is happening. She holds her breath and the skin of her lekku goes cold and clammy as her heart pumps loud in her montrals.

'I may not have been able to choose Anakin, and we did our best despite that but... You, I chose myself. I'd like to take over your apprenticeship—not because I owe Anakin, or even to pursue our lineage. You've just always been... Almost half my student, at times, and it's been a joy to see you grow, Ahsoka. I'm proud of who you've become. When I think about the future, I hope to be in the Council to see you knighted. I would be your Master, if you'll have me.'

The words echo in Ahsoka's mind. You, I chose myself. Choose. The word that cuts through her doubts and fears, to the quick of her soul.

It's like the asteroid under her feet disintegrated and she stumbled into space, only for Obi-Wan to snatch her, to bring her back down to a world with gravity, with oxygen. A place where the sun beats on her skin and the Light pulses through the Force.

'If I'll have you?' she asks, choking up. What sort of question is that?

But she doesn't have quips for him, or any other words. She just lurches forward to embrace him.

'Master,' she says, and it means more than respect.

'Padawan,' Obi-Wan whispers back.

Notes:

Thanks for reading everyone! Hope you enjoyed this fic! Kudos and comments are deeply appreciated!
Let me know what you thought!