Fading

Chapter 9 - Missing Pieces

Author's Note: Warnings are at the end. :)

~ Amina Gila

Everything with Anakin has changed so quickly, and Obi-Wan is still trying to process it all. That he's here, and he knows he'll do anything to make sure it stays that way. And... he finally has the answer as to how he escaped Palpatine's office alive in the first place. He doesn't know why he never considered it before.

Of course, Anakin would have tried to save him, as he had so many times in the past.

But at this point in Anakin's Fall... Vader was once the same.

Did he also Fall to save you? A traitorous voice in the back of his mind whispers. He tries to squash it just as quickly.

It doesn't work as easily as he might have liked. Not when he remembers Vader calling for him as he walked away, when he remembers that look on Vader's face back on Mustafar right before he caught fire – not when he knows Anakin was still there longer than he thought. A guilt he hasn't let himself feel since after the confrontation with Vader twists uneasily inside of him, and he reaches out, touching Anakin's presence instead, to ground himself. There's little he can do about what happened in the once future. He can only try to help Anakin now, so he won't lose him again.

Their relationship had so many more problems than he ever imagined, and... he doesn't know how he was blind to how much Anakin was hurting.

Obi-Wan doesn't remember when they fell asleep side-by-side again, but Anakin is already sitting up, eyeing the opening of the cave, now mostly buried in sand. That happened in the future too, and it was beyond aggravating to dig himself out alone.

"This is why you shouldn't live in a cave in a desert," Anakin says smugly.

"Your opinion was noted last night," Obi-Wan grouses, moving to the opening as they get to work clearing it out.

They're just finishing when he suddenly senses something, a presence he hasn't felt since coming back here. Qui-Gon?

They step outside the cave into the already much too hot sun, to see the Force ghost watching them. Anakin stills beside him, eyes going wide.

"You couldn't even have explained what I was supposed to do, could you?" Obi-Wan demands, irked.

"That was your call to make, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon replies, "You had the choice to make things better. I could not tell you how you needed to do it."

"You couldn't even tell me that Anakin was..." It's weird to talk about this in front of him.

"If I could see it, I thought you could as well," he says, "Just as it was not my place to intervene before. Those were your choices to make."

Well, some guidance would have been much appreciated before all of Mustafar had happened in the first place, but he knows that's not something Qui-Gon was able to give, or he would have. (What if Vader did Fall to save you? His mind whispers again, and he ignores it. It doesn't change anything – He was still lost. Right?)

"Anakin," Qui-Gon greets, turning to him.

"Master," he replies faintly.

"It has been a long time,"

"... yes." He seems at a complete loss for words, unsurprisingly.

"I have been watching over you, even if I never appeared," he continues.

"I – I sensed you. Often," Anakin blurts out.

"I know," Qui-Gon replies, "And I would have appeared to Obi-Wan too, had he not spent his whole life convinced it was impossible."