Choices

Chapter 11.

Obi-Wan's POV

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I watched Anakin closely, monitoring the slightest change or his smallest movement. This silence was driving him crazy, I could see that. So, almost fearing what it might do to him, I reached out my hand tentatively and brushed his shoulder with my fingers. He didn't flinch – didn't even notice – so I held my breath and placed my hand fully on his shoulder. I let my breath out when he crumbled under my touch, crumpling into a sobbing ball.

Gently gathering him into my arms, I pulled him into my lap, curling him up like we used to when he was younger. The similarity and familiarity of this position sent memories flooding back, and I fought the lump in my throat as my mind looped back over my argument with Anakin. I had trained this incredible young man, practically raised him, and I had abandoned him without even an explanation. Now here he lay, crying into my arms, pouring out the grief and stress that only he knew and carried. It felt like he was my padawan again.

"Anakin, what is it?" I was astonished to find the twelve-year-old, already two years into his apprenticeship as a Jedi, soaking his pillow with tears and sending sobs into the bundle of blankets he was buried under.

A red-eyed, tear-streaked face appeared over the pile of covers, and blue eyes, glistening with moisture, gazed sorrowfully at me. Then he disappeared again, getting swallowed up into the depths of his bed.

"Anakin," I tried again, keeping my voice low and gentle as I sat on the bed next to him, "what's wrong?"

Muffled sniffles were my only reply, so I hesitantly placed my hand on the area that I guessed to be his shoulder. As a Jedi, this type of physical comfort wasn't exactly appropriate – some considered it to be too close to forming attachments, something forbidden for Jedi. But Anakin was different from the rest. Taken in for training much later than most, he had missed the years of instruction and tuition in regards to refraining from attachments. He had grown up with a loving mother and therefore expected me to provide the care and love he was deprived of.

Rubbing my hand along his arm seemed to soothe his pain, which was flooding our bond through the Force, so I continued until he was calm enough to talk. 

When he emerged from his cocoon for air, I asked gently, "What's upsetting you, padawan?"

He blinked at me, then spoke very softly. "I-I miss my ... mother." Then he buried his face in his arms and started crying again.

I slid myself onto his bed, pressing my back against the headboard and scooping my sobbing padawan into my arms. And I let him cry into my chest. I couldn't be his mother for him; I didn't know if I could be for him what he needed. But maybe I could let him cry, maybe I could offer him this comfort ... maybe just this once ....

"Anakin!" I scolded through the locked door to our shared bedroom. "I told you to come out for dinner ten minutes ago!"

Silence met me, and I sighed. It wasn't easy training a headstrong, recently-turned sixteen-year-old, but even the simplest requests – for example, coming for dinner when I called – seemed to need to go through court before it would be approved.

I knocked on the door, scraping together every speck of patience that hadn't been sapped on my two-week mission to Ansion. "Anakin, come on!"

The eerie silence that continued to slip through the cracks in the door started to concern me. Maybe he wasn't in there at all. Maybe he had escaped through the window ... again. Then my worries were sent packing as the softest sound squeezed under the door. My heart jolted to hear it.