Two Halfs of One Warrior • Obikin/Vaderwan One-Shots

Keep On Loving You (Cause It's The Only Thing I Wanna Do)

• Summary: Obi-Wan has a frustrating and intense encounter with a fifteen year old Anakin Skywalker from another dimension.

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He has been here for an hour already, and they won't let Obi-Wan see him.

"Frightened enough, young Skywalker is," Master Yoda explains gently. "To see you now, he does not need."

Obi-Wan very much disagrees. Anakin is in there, confused and frightened, indeed. Obi-Wan is exactly who he should be seeing. He breathes in slowly through his nose, drags a hand over his beard, lets out a sigh. "And he's-you say he's-"

"Fifteen," Mace Windu says grimly. "Says he touched some Sith artifact in his own timeline, and suddenly he was here."

A frown twists Obi-Wan's mouth. "That never happened to my-" he coughs. "To our Anakin, when he was that age."

If Mace catches his slip, he does not react. He simply checks the data-pad in his hand, squinting at the blue numbers on the screen. "No," he agrees, "I suppose we should count ourselves lucky." He looks up. "Someone will need to inform Skywalker. This Skywalker. He cannot come back to Coruscant until this has been dealt with. We don't know what would happen were the two of them to enter the same vicinity-"

"But we have no idea how long this might take to sort out!" Obi-Wan blurts. Anakin has been sent on a quick mission-an easy thing, a milk-run. He should have been back in a matter of days. He has only been gone for two, and already Obi-Wan's chest is aching with his absence. To have him gone even longer-indefinitely-

"For his own safety, this is," says Yoda. "Do this, we must."

Obi-Wan lets out a shaky breath. "May I-may I at least see him?"

"Give him another hour, Kenobi," Mace says, already turning away again, his eyes back on his data-pad. "Let the healers finish with him."

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Obi-Wan gives the healers an hour precisely; when the doors slide open to the room they are keeping Anakin in, he is waiting.

Healer Che steps out to face Obi-Wan, her face serene. "He seems to be all right," she says without preamble. "Nervous and confused, but unharmed."

A breath of relief slips from Obi-Wan's chest. And then-

"He has been asking for you."

Obi-Wan goes still. "For me? Does he-does he understand what's happened? That I am not..."

"Yes," says Che. "He knows that you are not 'his' Obi-Wan. He wishes to see you nonetheless."

A mix of emotions whirls in Obi-Wan's chest as he steps through the sliding doors into the healing room: nervousness, anticipation-some strange guilt, at being so keen to see this different version of Anakin, this other, inter-dimensional Anakin. But-he is still Anakin, across a thousand light years, a thousand worlds, a thousand breaths. That much is immutable. Unchangeable.

Still, he is in no way prepared to be met with the sight of fifteen-year-old Anakin Skywalker, seated on the edge of a white-garbed healing bed, his booted feet swinging in the air.

Anakin is still Anakin, yes, just as he is-or just as he was, ten years ago. He is dressed in a set of dark Jedi robes, the belt slightly askew the way it always ends up, even now. His hair is short and messy but for the Padawan braid still hanging loose over his shoulder. Obi-Wan has not seen that braid since he cut it himself, years ago, at Anakin's Knighting ceremony... but Force, he has thought about it. Something hot and terrible twists in his gut.