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laniew1As you can imagine we are getting very close to the end...
Ewan didn’t know how much more if this he could stand.
TITLE: Between Space & Time
RATING: R - because Ewan likes to cuss
PAIRING: nothing yet, will end up (eventually) Ewan/Anakin
Author: Melanie
DISCLAIMER: Heh, I own nothing. Ewan owns himself as does anybody else that is a real person in real life. George Lucas owns everyone that that is property of Star Wars. I make no money off of them. Don’t sue.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 /
Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20 / Part 21 /
Part 22 / Part 23 / Part 24 / Part 25 / Part 26
Between Space & Time – Part 27
Ewan didn’t know how much more if this he could stand.
All the noise and the talking and people wanting to know how he felt, mixed in with Anakin hovering all solicitous (which okay he really didn’t mind) and Yoda continually stopping by his room to pat him on the back and tell him it was okay that he’d just murdered someone.
It was so not okay that he’d murdered someone and besides the fact that if this world were even near normal he should be sitting in a cold, dank cell making special friends with his new cell mate while getting ready to hand in a murder by self-defense plea, he also should have been returned home.
Because he’d done the task that he’d obviously been sent to this place to do, he’d killed Count Dooku, he had blood on his hands now and he should have gone to sleep and woken at home.
He’d been all ready for that, he’d buried the grief and forced himself to sleep and instead of waking in his own bed, in his own universe, he’d woken in this whacked out one with Anakin’s worried face staring down at him.
He’d wanted to cry, but he was a man, a manly man and he could handle this.
So every time he went to sleep he begged the gods or fate or whoever was taking such a firm fucking hand on his destiny to send him back to his girls and Jude and Eve. Instead he woke in the same place every morning.
It was quite possible that he was never going to go home. That he was here for the long haul and Obi-Wan was in his world for the duration and Christ was he even going to have a life or a career to go back to when he returned?
Because Obi-Wan was going to return to his world, eventually, with an over protective Anakin that never let him out of his sight.
Anakin’s hovering was beginning to drive him insane.
Of course maybe he was already insane and all of this was a figment of his imagination. He’d wake up in a padded white room with Eve and Jude standing in the doorway chatting with a doctor and he wouldn’t be able to get to them because of the straight jacket and the drugs. They’d look at him with pity in their eyes as he drooled on himself and then they’d leave and the door would shut and lock behind them and that would be that.
“Master,” Anakin’s voice was soft, it seemed he never left but Ewan knew (he wasn’t sure how) that the minute he went to sleep that Anakin went to talk over his fears with Yoda and that he returned before he woke. Ewan wasn’t sure when the other man even slept and it was possible from the dark bags under his eyes that Anakin wasn’t sleeping at all.
He hoped that wasn’t because of him. Because if it was that was unacceptable.
Ewan opened his eyes and found Anakin staring at him, the same worried expression that never seemed to leave his face and he had to wonder what Anakin thought of his Master being so deeply traumatized by killing someone.
Obi-Wan hadn’t even been close to Count Dooku, Ewan’d had no relationship at all with him barring the captor/prisoner one. There should be no reason that Ewan felt like this.
And he couldn’t help but wonder, did the sight of his visible pain make Anakin think Obi-Wan weak now, did he think him not worthy of his love and devotion any longer?
Ewan couldn’t say he would blame him if Anakin chose to pull away.
“I’ll love you until we’re as old as Master Yoda, and you are most certainly not weak,” Anakin said firmly and Ewan closed his eyes.
Even the tiny shields that he managed to keep in place around Yoda and Mace Windu shattered around Anakin. Like they realized that Anakin couldn’t, shouldn’t be kept out of his mind for any reason.
“I’m tired,” Ewan said softly. There was something hard and painful buried in his throat. It hurt to breath and he could feel tears prickling behind his closed eyelids.
“I know,” Anakin pressed a kiss to each eye, another to the tip of his nose and then a soft, chaste one against his lips.
Ewan wasn’t sure how he could bear to touch him, the murderer.
Anakin didn’t say anything more, just wrapped his arms tightly around him and rolled onto his back. Ewan held himself stiffly for a second before relaxing into the warm body below his, burying his face in that space between Anakin’s shoulder and neck that seemed to fit him perfectly.
Anakin’s hand stroked across his back gently. Smooth, even strokes. They made him feel sleepy even though he must have slept for days on end already.
Having Anakin there, warm and touching him without distaste was like a balm to his tortured soul.
“Why do I care?” he asked.
“Because you’re a good person,” Anakin said softly. Ewan felt his throat convulse, and he wanted to scream that he wasn’t, he’d killed someone. Even as badly as Dooku had wanted to kill him, had he deserved to die? Hadn’t there been something else that he could have done?
And he knew that there wasn’t. If he’d shown mercy at the end, Dooku would have laughed in his face and slit his throat while Anakin watched.
“Its okay,” Anakin whispered into his hair and Ewan felt the first tear escape his closed eyes. He blinked furiously trying to quell them.
He didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to sob and scream and rage against the unfairness of this.
He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone; he’d only wanted to survive.
“It’s okay,” Anakin soothed, hands rubbing his back as Ewan cried quietly into his skin.
He didn’t know how to tell him that it wasn’t okay, that it seemed that Anakin was stuck with this fragmented version of his Obi-Wan and that they should probably figure out what the fuck they were going to do.
Instead he said nothing and sobbed into his shoulder, the tears coming freely now, seemingly out of Ewan’s control. He was soaking Anakin’s shirt in the process and he sniffled and hiccupped.
He called himself a prissy bitch to get it over with.
It was what Jude would have done if he’d been there after all.
***************************************************************
Anakin was at a loss as to how to handle Obi-Wan falling into tiny pieces against him.
Yoda had advised him to be patient, Mace Windu had advised him to get Obi-Wan to open up to him, Qui-Gon had told him that maybe Anakin wasn’t the right person to handle Obi-Wan in the state he was in and maybe Qui-Gon himself should do it.
Anakin had snarled at him to mind his own business and offered to put him out of his misery. If Qui-Gon took that as a murder threat that wasn’t his fault was it? It wasn’t like he’d actually said the words.
Obi-Wan had killed people before with just the slightest bit of remorse (they were after all Jedi and even the death of an enemy was a loss felt keenly) he didn’t understand why Obi-Wan was acting as if he’d killed his best friend.
Yoda had been the one to remind him that without his memories Obi-Wan wouldn’t remember a life lived during wartime, that Obi-Wan would likely have to learn how to deal with the loss of life (even an enemy’s loss of life) all over again.
And as such that was the only reason that he’d gone to see Qui-Gon in the first place.
Qui-Gon had been Obi-Wan’s Master; as such he would have been by Obi-Wan’s side the first time he was forced to take a life. Anakin had only wanted to know how Obi-Wan had reacted to that first instance.
So he could compare it to how he was reacting now.
Qui-Gon had been silent for a long time and Anakin had been forced to consider the possibility that Obi-Wan might have not taken a life as Qui-Gon’s Padawan.
“He cried,” Qui-Gon had said softly. “Not in front of me, not on the field. But after, when we were in our quarters readying for sleep… we’d been given two sleeping rooms, he’d excused himself to go to sleep and shut the door. I heard him, crying, the walls were thin. I didn’t go to him because learning to deal with death is something that all Jedi need to learn how to handle in their own way. When he came out the next morning he was fine.”
Anakin didn’t believe that, he thought that Obi-Wan had conditioned himself to not show that emotion in front of others, even in front of the Master that he should have trusted.
But now he was showing that emotion again, and Anakin wondered if it was because he didn’t know how to hide it.
Anakin didn’t want him to learn how to bury his emotions again, he just wanted Obi-Wan to not act like he was evil personified.
Every being on the ship knew that Obi-Wan had done only what he needed to do in order to survive. Even those that had been loyal to Dooku himself did not consider Obi-Wan in the wrong.
Count Dooku and Obi-Wan had fought, Obi-Wan had won. It had been a fair battle, if you didn’t consider the fact that Obi-Wan had more holes in his memory than actual memories, and Obi-Wan had still won even though he hadn’t remembered how to use the lightsaber or the Force or any of the tricks of the trade that he’d taught Anakin since he was nine.
When they returned to the Temple Anakin was going to go through every lesson that Obi-Wan had ever given him and he was going to return them to his Master.
Obi-Wan stilled against him finally and Anakin knew he was asleep. Maybe this had been the end of Obi-Wan’s grief.
Maybe now things would start getting better. His Obi-Wan would begin healing and they would return to Coruscant together and be all the stronger for it.
He pressed a kiss to the side of Obi-Wan’s head, eyes closing as he cradled the smaller man against him.
It never ceased to amaze him that Obi-Wan carried such power within such a small stature. He physically was the stronger of the two and most of the time he thought his own access to the Force was the stronger as well, but every so often Obi-Wan would sneak up and blindside him.
Leading him to wonder just how much power Obi-Wan chose not to use.
He’d defeated two Sith now, an Apprentice and now a Master. How strong would he be if he chose to use that strength instead of hiding it?
***************************************************************
Ewan didn’t know how much more if this he could stand.
TITLE: Between Space & Time
RATING: R - because Ewan likes to cuss
PAIRING: nothing yet, will end up (eventually) Ewan/Anakin
Author: Melanie
DISCLAIMER: Heh, I own nothing. Ewan owns himself as does anybody else that is a real person in real life. George Lucas owns everyone that that is property of Star Wars. I make no money off of them. Don’t sue.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 /
Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20 / Part 21 /
Part 22 / Part 23 / Part 24 / Part 25 / Part 26
Between Space & Time – Part 27
Ewan didn’t know how much more if this he could stand.
All the noise and the talking and people wanting to know how he felt, mixed in with Anakin hovering all solicitous (which okay he really didn’t mind) and Yoda continually stopping by his room to pat him on the back and tell him it was okay that he’d just murdered someone.
It was so not okay that he’d murdered someone and besides the fact that if this world were even near normal he should be sitting in a cold, dank cell making special friends with his new cell mate while getting ready to hand in a murder by self-defense plea, he also should have been returned home.
Because he’d done the task that he’d obviously been sent to this place to do, he’d killed Count Dooku, he had blood on his hands now and he should have gone to sleep and woken at home.
He’d been all ready for that, he’d buried the grief and forced himself to sleep and instead of waking in his own bed, in his own universe, he’d woken in this whacked out one with Anakin’s worried face staring down at him.
He’d wanted to cry, but he was a man, a manly man and he could handle this.
So every time he went to sleep he begged the gods or fate or whoever was taking such a firm fucking hand on his destiny to send him back to his girls and Jude and Eve. Instead he woke in the same place every morning.
It was quite possible that he was never going to go home. That he was here for the long haul and Obi-Wan was in his world for the duration and Christ was he even going to have a life or a career to go back to when he returned?
Because Obi-Wan was going to return to his world, eventually, with an over protective Anakin that never let him out of his sight.
Anakin’s hovering was beginning to drive him insane.
Of course maybe he was already insane and all of this was a figment of his imagination. He’d wake up in a padded white room with Eve and Jude standing in the doorway chatting with a doctor and he wouldn’t be able to get to them because of the straight jacket and the drugs. They’d look at him with pity in their eyes as he drooled on himself and then they’d leave and the door would shut and lock behind them and that would be that.
“Master,” Anakin’s voice was soft, it seemed he never left but Ewan knew (he wasn’t sure how) that the minute he went to sleep that Anakin went to talk over his fears with Yoda and that he returned before he woke. Ewan wasn’t sure when the other man even slept and it was possible from the dark bags under his eyes that Anakin wasn’t sleeping at all.
He hoped that wasn’t because of him. Because if it was that was unacceptable.
Ewan opened his eyes and found Anakin staring at him, the same worried expression that never seemed to leave his face and he had to wonder what Anakin thought of his Master being so deeply traumatized by killing someone.
Obi-Wan hadn’t even been close to Count Dooku, Ewan’d had no relationship at all with him barring the captor/prisoner one. There should be no reason that Ewan felt like this.
And he couldn’t help but wonder, did the sight of his visible pain make Anakin think Obi-Wan weak now, did he think him not worthy of his love and devotion any longer?
Ewan couldn’t say he would blame him if Anakin chose to pull away.
“I’ll love you until we’re as old as Master Yoda, and you are most certainly not weak,” Anakin said firmly and Ewan closed his eyes.
Even the tiny shields that he managed to keep in place around Yoda and Mace Windu shattered around Anakin. Like they realized that Anakin couldn’t, shouldn’t be kept out of his mind for any reason.
“I’m tired,” Ewan said softly. There was something hard and painful buried in his throat. It hurt to breath and he could feel tears prickling behind his closed eyelids.
“I know,” Anakin pressed a kiss to each eye, another to the tip of his nose and then a soft, chaste one against his lips.
Ewan wasn’t sure how he could bear to touch him, the murderer.
Anakin didn’t say anything more, just wrapped his arms tightly around him and rolled onto his back. Ewan held himself stiffly for a second before relaxing into the warm body below his, burying his face in that space between Anakin’s shoulder and neck that seemed to fit him perfectly.
Anakin’s hand stroked across his back gently. Smooth, even strokes. They made him feel sleepy even though he must have slept for days on end already.
Having Anakin there, warm and touching him without distaste was like a balm to his tortured soul.
“Why do I care?” he asked.
“Because you’re a good person,” Anakin said softly. Ewan felt his throat convulse, and he wanted to scream that he wasn’t, he’d killed someone. Even as badly as Dooku had wanted to kill him, had he deserved to die? Hadn’t there been something else that he could have done?
And he knew that there wasn’t. If he’d shown mercy at the end, Dooku would have laughed in his face and slit his throat while Anakin watched.
“Its okay,” Anakin whispered into his hair and Ewan felt the first tear escape his closed eyes. He blinked furiously trying to quell them.
He didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to sob and scream and rage against the unfairness of this.
He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone; he’d only wanted to survive.
“It’s okay,” Anakin soothed, hands rubbing his back as Ewan cried quietly into his skin.
He didn’t know how to tell him that it wasn’t okay, that it seemed that Anakin was stuck with this fragmented version of his Obi-Wan and that they should probably figure out what the fuck they were going to do.
Instead he said nothing and sobbed into his shoulder, the tears coming freely now, seemingly out of Ewan’s control. He was soaking Anakin’s shirt in the process and he sniffled and hiccupped.
He called himself a prissy bitch to get it over with.
It was what Jude would have done if he’d been there after all.
Anakin was at a loss as to how to handle Obi-Wan falling into tiny pieces against him.
Yoda had advised him to be patient, Mace Windu had advised him to get Obi-Wan to open up to him, Qui-Gon had told him that maybe Anakin wasn’t the right person to handle Obi-Wan in the state he was in and maybe Qui-Gon himself should do it.
Anakin had snarled at him to mind his own business and offered to put him out of his misery. If Qui-Gon took that as a murder threat that wasn’t his fault was it? It wasn’t like he’d actually said the words.
Obi-Wan had killed people before with just the slightest bit of remorse (they were after all Jedi and even the death of an enemy was a loss felt keenly) he didn’t understand why Obi-Wan was acting as if he’d killed his best friend.
Yoda had been the one to remind him that without his memories Obi-Wan wouldn’t remember a life lived during wartime, that Obi-Wan would likely have to learn how to deal with the loss of life (even an enemy’s loss of life) all over again.
And as such that was the only reason that he’d gone to see Qui-Gon in the first place.
Qui-Gon had been Obi-Wan’s Master; as such he would have been by Obi-Wan’s side the first time he was forced to take a life. Anakin had only wanted to know how Obi-Wan had reacted to that first instance.
So he could compare it to how he was reacting now.
Qui-Gon had been silent for a long time and Anakin had been forced to consider the possibility that Obi-Wan might have not taken a life as Qui-Gon’s Padawan.
“He cried,” Qui-Gon had said softly. “Not in front of me, not on the field. But after, when we were in our quarters readying for sleep… we’d been given two sleeping rooms, he’d excused himself to go to sleep and shut the door. I heard him, crying, the walls were thin. I didn’t go to him because learning to deal with death is something that all Jedi need to learn how to handle in their own way. When he came out the next morning he was fine.”
Anakin didn’t believe that, he thought that Obi-Wan had conditioned himself to not show that emotion in front of others, even in front of the Master that he should have trusted.
But now he was showing that emotion again, and Anakin wondered if it was because he didn’t know how to hide it.
Anakin didn’t want him to learn how to bury his emotions again, he just wanted Obi-Wan to not act like he was evil personified.
Every being on the ship knew that Obi-Wan had done only what he needed to do in order to survive. Even those that had been loyal to Dooku himself did not consider Obi-Wan in the wrong.
Count Dooku and Obi-Wan had fought, Obi-Wan had won. It had been a fair battle, if you didn’t consider the fact that Obi-Wan had more holes in his memory than actual memories, and Obi-Wan had still won even though he hadn’t remembered how to use the lightsaber or the Force or any of the tricks of the trade that he’d taught Anakin since he was nine.
When they returned to the Temple Anakin was going to go through every lesson that Obi-Wan had ever given him and he was going to return them to his Master.
Obi-Wan stilled against him finally and Anakin knew he was asleep. Maybe this had been the end of Obi-Wan’s grief.
Maybe now things would start getting better. His Obi-Wan would begin healing and they would return to Coruscant together and be all the stronger for it.
He pressed a kiss to the side of Obi-Wan’s head, eyes closing as he cradled the smaller man against him.
It never ceased to amaze him that Obi-Wan carried such power within such a small stature. He physically was the stronger of the two and most of the time he thought his own access to the Force was the stronger as well, but every so often Obi-Wan would sneak up and blindside him.
Leading him to wonder just how much power Obi-Wan chose not to use.
He’d defeated two Sith now, an Apprentice and now a Master. How strong would he be if he chose to use that strength instead of hiding it?
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Date: 2005-09-14 05:19 pm (UTC)