NOTE:
This idea struck me after rewatching ROTS, and I've always wanted to do a mainly dialogue only thing. Fifteen short drabbles. Anakin reflects on his relationship with Obi-Wan. Nonslash. I like to think that this is original.

Through the Looking Glass
By Mathematica

I.

"What will happen to me now?"

"You will become a Jedi. I promise you."

It was a promise sealed with the blood of his father. He had lost so much that day –

"Train the boy – "

– including Qui-Gon's last words. I took those from him, too.

II.

"Do you think I'll ever see her again?"

"Do you want to see her again?"

"I guess so."

I didn't know how to say yes, back then. Neither of us did.

"Remember, Anakin. Attachment is forbidden by the Code. Let go of your attachment to the Queen. It will do you no good."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?"

I could never ask him questions. He always asked the answers.

III.

I wasn't a good apprentice, growing up.

"Why can't I?"

"Anakin – "

"What's wrong with it?"

"It is not something that a Jedi does."

(He never knew how to reason with me – he always drew the line too far.)

"Qui-Gon would have let me!"

"I am not Qui-Gon, Anakin." His voice broke, too. "No matter how much you may wish me to be."

It took him over a year before he could bring himself to call me Padawan.

"Listen, Anakin. A young man came across a beautiful woman one day. They soon fell in love, and wished to marry. But they realised that they both had their own commitments, their own lives. And so, they forgot each other, and moved away."

"But why didn't they get married?"

"Neither of them was willing to sacrifice their duty, just for the sake of a personal attachment."

"But what if they were?"

A sigh. "Bed now, Padawan."

He never could bring himself to truly talk to me. He loved me too much.

"You must understand, Anakin. Being a Jedi is the greatest gift that anyone can be offered."

"I know."

"Well, what is it, then?"

He never had much patience with me.

"I just … I just want to see my mother again. I miss her."

"The Code forbids attachments, Padawan."

"I didn't even get to say goodbye."

(I had expected this to have significance to him. It did not.)

"I warned you that it would be difficult."

"I know."

"So why didn't you listen?"

I only learned years later just how hard it is for a man to criticise his son.

"Obi-Wan?"

"Hm?"

"D'you think I'm dying?"

"Don't be silly. Of course you're not dying."

I'd never know that he had a sense of humour. Not until the years had well and truly passed us by.

He stayed with me. Didn't leave for the whole night.

He loved me, in his own way. I just never cared to see it.

"Qui-Gon once told me that I was meant to be the Chosen One."

I only saw it years later, that look in his eyes. "Yes."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Nobody does."

"Is that my destiny?"

"Yes."

(He never was very good at reassuring me.)

A pause. "What if I don't want it to be?"

It took him until Mustafar to give me an answer.

"Why don't you ever follow my command, Padawan? Is it truly so difficult?"

He was always sharper-tongued when he worried about me.

"But we had to help them!"

"What more could you have done, Anakin? What more?"

"I should have been able to do something! I must have!"

He never understood what I was trying to say, no matter how many times I asked him.

"You can't be all powerful, Padawan. Nobody can."

A petulant cry. "You're holding me back!"

I didn't realise until well over twenty years later that the only one holding me back was I.

"You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!"

"I hate you!" I did not deserve his love, his caring. Not after what I had done. Not after what he did.

And he flinched, as though I had stabbed him. And then, he walked away.

He did not love me enough, it seemed, to kill me. No. He loved me too much to let me go.

That image haunted me for twenty years. Until Mustafar, I had never seen him cry.

I hunted for him for twenty years.

"You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you!"

I never found him, though. Only his last words.

When I found him again, I did not feel much joy.

"When I left you, I was but the learner. Now, I am the master."

"Only a master of evil, Darth."

(He had always known how to belittle me. He just had not done so before.)

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

He had always warned me. I just never chose to listen.

The first time I ever bested him in a duel was the time that I killed him.

He let me win.

When he died, I did not mourn. Not because I did not love him, but because there was nothing to mourn.

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." And the faint echoes of a friendship long gone, trailing along what was left of my heart – "why don't you listen?"

But of course, I did not listen. I never had.

I struck him down. I couldn't forget him, after that.

That voice on the Death Star I heard, telling me to save my son?

It was his.

They told me that fading into the Force was glorious, but all that I feel is the guilt.

"Obi-Wan …"

His worn face is now radiant, his sad eyes now aglow. And he does not speak, nor does he chastise, nor does he walk away. He holds out his arms wide and welcomes me home.

And I am home.

And it is glorious, that sense of homecoming. It is. It is. It is.

END.