For Obi-Wan

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It takes Anakin longer that it should to take Padmé's advice. In fact, there's a part of him that believes that simply telling her about it will ease his mind and his nightmares will stop.

He's wrong about that, of course. He still spends his nights tossing and turning, waking each morning with visions of Padmé in pain. And meditation won't help. He should know by now that it won't but still, Anakin continues to try.

It's after he's exhausted these options that he seeks out Obi-Wan's counsel again, asking him to meet him at a café not far from their building. It seems as though he's been seeking out his former Master's counsel a lot lately, and he's not sure how he feels about it. But perhaps he can figure out why he keeps having these visions, and how to keep them from coming to pass.

Comments

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Although Obi-Wan doesn't know whether this is entirely a social call or more to do with Anakin needing to ask his advice, he's quite happy to go meet his Padawan at the cafe he had suggested. There are still days when he considers the fact that he might need to get a job sooner rather than later and he doesn't have a routine that he's entirely comfortable with yet, so having something to fill his time such as having tea with Anakin pleases Obi-Wan.

When he arrives at the cafe, he finds Anakin is already present, and Obi-Wan smiles as he opens the door and heads inside.

"Hello," he says when he approaches the table Anakin has selected for them. "Have you already ordered?"

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Anakin nods, and though outwardly he may seem calmly composed, he can't help but be anxious about how this conversation is going to go.

"They should be bringing it over shortly," he says, and gestures for Obi-Wan to sit in the seat across from him, "I think I found something close to your usual order."

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"I'm sure I'll like whatever it is," Obi-Wan replies as he sweeps his robe off his shoulders and settles it upon the back of his chair, then takes a seat.

"You seem a little anxious," he comments as he settles in, looking at Anakin from across the table. Perhaps he wouldn't seem so to an outsider, but Obi-Wan and Anakin have known each other for too long, their connection through the Force too deep. They know each other perhaps better than anyone else, despite the lies they've told one another, the half-truths. Obi-Wan wants to be better about that from now on and he hopes that Anakin will, too.

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"I confess," Anakin says, and he's not surprised that Obi-Wan picks up on his unease at the moment, "I didn't ask you here for just tea."

More than almost anything, Anakin wishes that he didn't have to come to his former Master with things like this, but he's been at a loss for what to do ever since they'd come back from the Outer Rim sieges. He's spoken to several people in Darrow, hoping to find a solution there, and so far has come out of it all empty-handed.

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It's not entirely a surprise and Obi-Wan offers Anakin a gentle smile from across the table as he nods. They're both adjusting to this place, to a new way of life, and it isn't always easy. Obi-Wan knows Anakin doesn't always have the control of his emotions that he ought to and while it still matters, while it's still very important he doesn't let his negative emotions control his choices, Obi-Wan thinks there is an easier route to be taken here without the order.

It no longer matters whether or not they're Jedi. That knowledge is difficult to accept at times, but it remains the truth.

"You asked me here for my wisdom and compassion, yes?" he asks, giving Anakin a teasing grin, trying to lighten the mood at least a little.

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When Anakin answers Obi-Wan's joke with a smile, its smaller than it might usually be, and the emotion doesn't quite reach his eyes. It's rare for him to entirely disregard a joke from his former Master, but he doesn't feel much like joking at the moment.

"I've asked you here for your guidance," he replies, "And because I've found no answers in the Force."

He's lost track of how long he's meditated over this, but it's been regularly since arriving in Darrow and since the nightmares started in Padmé's apartment on Coruscant.

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He's glad to hear Anakin has been meditating on whatever it is that's troubling him, even if he's found no answers. Obi-Wan is in much the same boat, he's found, meditating daily on where he's meant to go from here, what it means to be without the Jedi order, the set of rules that has so defined him for most of his life. How to make sense of Cody's betrayal, even when he understands the mechanics of why it happened.

Even now, he has no answers of his own, but he hasn't stopped looking. Perhaps, like Anakin, he needs to look elsewhere.

"Well, then," he says. "Let's have it and see what I might be able to do."

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Anakin isn't sure if there will be anything Obi-Wan can actually do, but he may have an answer. And Anakin promised Padmé he'd do this as well.

"Do you remember the nightmares I used to have about my mother?" he asks, "Before she died?"

They'd started long before he'd been assigned to protect Padmé on Naboo. He'd lost countless nights of sleep, and the advice he'd gotten from the Council had been... lacking.

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"Yes," Obi-Wan answers. "Of course I do."

The Council had never believed much in Anakin's visions, which Obi-Wan understood. It was difficult to properly interpret any sort of vision, as they often represented only one possibility of a future, one that was usually coloured by the emotions of the person experiencing it. And yet he believes better teaching could be done around the subject, rather than outright dismissal.

Qui-Gon had taught him that and while Obi-Wan had scoffed at it at the time, he now understands much better what his Master meant.

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Anakin places his hands on the table, interlocking his fingers, and he looks down at them for a long moment before he speaks again.

"I started having nightmares again before I ended up here in Darrow," Anakin admits, but he doesn't meet Obi-Wan's eyes yet, "About Padmé. She dies in childbirth."

The words feel like a dagger to his heart the moment he says them. It can't happen. He won't let it happen.

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For a time, Obi-Wan is silent, digesting the information. He knows of the nightmares, knows how this ends, but he cannot dwell on that. It hasn't happened, not for Anakin and not for Padmé, which means there is no sense treating it as if it has.

What he can do is learn from it. Take better care this time.

"And have these nightmares continued in Darrow?" he asks. He wouldn't put it past Palpatine to have used the Force to influence Anakin's dreams, making it easier to take advantage of him through his fear of losing Padmé.

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"Yes," Anakin answers, trying in that moment not to think of them, but he can remember every detail. The terror on his wife's face, the pain...

Anakin, help me!

"They haven't stopped, not even here. And I know how it sounds, but... but I can't shake them."

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So not Palpatine's influence then. At least not exclusively, not in Darrow. Once, Obi-Wan might have brushed off Anakin's concern, but he'd seen his mother's death and he likes to think he's learned, at least a little, that to be more open to other explanations is to be a better man and a better Jedi.

More importantly, a better friend.

"They sound awful," he says, looking at Anakin. "It must be very stressful. And I... Qui-Gon had great faith in Force visions. In the prophecies kept in the library. I believed in them less, at least at the time, but I'm much less certain now. You can tell me about them, Anakin. I will listen."

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"There's pain, suffering... and Padmé dies on a birthing table, calling me for help," Anakin says, and it's difficult for him to say the words. He's seen it over and over again, heard her cries for help that amounted to nothing.

Anakin has seen many of his friends and loved ones in danger. During the Clone Wars, time and time again, he was tasked with saving someone. And he always managed it.

Except for once.

He looks up at Obi-Wan, his gaze determined and white hot. "I won't let this happen, Obi-Wan. It doesn't matter what it takes. I'll do anything."

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"I want you to consider my question seriously and not take it as a dismissal of what you've been dreaming or your feelings," Obi-Wan says. "Do you think they could be induced by stress? By the fear you might lose her that then plays into your subconscious, then heightening the fear while you're awake and perpetuating the cycle?"

The intensity of Anakin's gaze might be frightening to some. It certainly reminds Obi-Wan of things he would much rather forget, but he looks back, calm and full of affection for his friend. He wants Anakin to understand he is here for him, willing to tackle this problem with him, but also that they need to approach it with reason.

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"Stress?" Anakin parrots, taken aback by Obi-Wan's suggestion. He's not sure how to take it, and not sure how Obi-Wan could have come to that conclusion in the first place.

"And you think this is somehow more stressful than every battle we saw, every time we nearly died?" he asks, his frown deepening. Though, in his heart he knows that he would face a thousand battles and take on the entire droid army single-handed if it meant Padmé never saw a moment of pain.

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"Are you asking me if I think it's more stressful for you to imagine your wife in pain and dying?" Obi-Wan asks in return, his brows drawn together. Sometimes he simply can't help himself, Anakin brings out his more sarcastic nature.

"No, not at all, I can't possibly imagine why battle, the act of which you've been trained in since you were a child and are naturally better at than most people due to your connection with the Force would be less stressful than the thought of losing someone you love after having never really been encouraged in that love and therefore not entirely understanding how to reconcile it with your life. Can you?"

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Under most circumstances, Anakin might find himself relaxing at Obi-Wan's light teasing. After years as Master and Padawan, there's a familiar banter between the two of them. It had gotten them through battle after battle during the war, after all.

But today, speaking of this particular subject and with his wife's life potentially in the balance, Anakin can't relax. At least not now.

"I had hoped you'd take this seriously," Anakin responds, and he wonders now if this was a waste of time, after all.

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"Anakin," he says. "I am taking this seriously. What I just said is entirely serious. Do I think these thoughts are more stressful than battle? Yes, I absolutely do. I know they are, Anakin. I've lived it myself."

Perhaps he and Satine had never married, perhaps their relationship had been short-lived, but he has loved her for nearly twenty years. Not being her husband didn't make her death any less painful and he would rather go into a thousand battles than ever have to live through such a thing again.

"Even if they are visions of the future, which we cannot be sure of, you must remember Force visions are only one possibility. In these dreams, can you tell where Padmé is? Does it look like Darrow or Coruscant?"