Title: failure
Author: Ballet
Rating: PG, R later ;)
Pairing: Obi/Ani
Warnings: sadness ): and my crappy writing!
Word count: i dont know :O it's not huge..
Note: this is the first part, the sad part - the second will be the steamy hot sex.
Disclaimer: not mine, yanno, lucas and all.
Summary: Obi-wan realizes he's failed anakin..



Obi-wan settled himself into his chair in the council's circle, looking to each master who watched him with steady eyes. He returned their looks, allowing them a chance to speak before doing so himself.

"Why has a council meeting been summoned so late?"

One masters eyes wavered from Obi-wan to the large council transpairsteel windows with views that overlooked Coruscant, the city painting the nighttime as a skyline of blurring lights and speeders.

"Disturbing video, we have received.." Yoda said, shaking his head solemnly. Several other masters lowered their eyes in shared disdain.

Obi-wan simply crossed his legs and sat forward, peering at the holo-screen in the center of their chairs, expecting to see the screen flicker on for explanation. Nothing came, and the silence of his peers caused Kenobi to look to each face again - still watching him from the twelve chairs that circled the rotunda.

It was as if there was something everyone but he himself knew.

"Clouded, young skywalkers future is.." At those words Kenobi exhaled loudly, reclining in his chair, his frustration clearly showing.

"Master Yoda, I am not inclined to argue my former padawan's sovereignty with the council again, I've done so more than I care to and ther eis no reason for such distrust -"

"Enough.." Yoda breathed, commending silence at once as he shook his head again and closed his eyes, trying to focus on something. At this juncture, master Windu sat forward.

"As his former master you should be more attuned than we are to shifts in the force within him, have you noted anything, master Kenobi?" He was frank and to the point, his eyes catching Obi-wans and holding the gaze with, his voice solid in the large room.

Kenobi however, felt exhausted battling over his apprentice - he'd had enough to deal with in the last few months during Anakin's protests to be on the council and the stir his impatience and indeed, anger, was causing among the seniors. Obi-wan had heard enough. He'd admit that yes, Anakin was impatient - but a jedi grows better and more attuned with time, and he couldn't understand why the council scrutinized every action by Anakin to the extreme, when at best he thought more patience should be given to a jedi trained so late - he should be expected to act out more rashly than the standard knight because he had infact grown to have attachments, something most jedi never knew as they were sent to the temple at birth. Obi-wan always rationalized Anakin in his head this way, giving him leniency by his late recruiting.

He stood then, nodding to each member in a curt fashion.

"If you'll excuse me.."

Before he could turn to leave, however, master Windu hit a button on the console of his chairarm, the holo-net flickering to life in the center of the room. Obi-wan folded his arms into his brown robesleeves and paused to watch, casting a foreboding look to Windu, who returned it.

The images were fuzzy, no audio - but it was without a doubt Anakin, holding two lightsabers before count Dooku, who was on his knees.

During this fight obi-wan had been unconscious and he'd had only Anakin's version of the fight to go off of, which had been enough for him - Dooku's murder having been in self defense, which didn't seem that unreasonable to Kenobi, not at the time. He stepped closer to watch, his eyes narrowing at Dooku prostrated and without a weapon before Kenobi's former apprentice.

Obi-wan was shocked, physically flinching as Anakin suddenly pulled both blades to cross, severing the former jedi's head. The screen continued on, to Anakins face which showed no signs of remorse or sorrow for the one he'd just killed, and Obi-wan looked up to meet Yoda's gaze.

"Execution, that was. Mmhm..." Yoda nodded slowly, gripping his cain and hitting the end to the floor.

"Unarmed, Dooku was..."

All eyes were on Obi-wan again, and the video-feed died.

Obi-wan felt a pit grow in his stomach, his forehead wrinkled in inability to comprehend what Anakin's intentions had been in killing an unarmed and seemingly surrendering man.

There is no emotion. There is peace.

How he wished that were true as he stood under scrutinizing gaze - but even the burn from the accusation in their eyes didn't compare to the burn of the failure to the one he'd raised, flooding his heart. Hadn't he taught Anakin not to..Hadn't he..

He turned his face toward the scenic window to study the mirrored reflection of nighttime life, and the jedi masters looked down in unison from the sight of Kenobi's face, his eyes searching the lights as though for answer; no doubt what they had all done themselves before calling him.

"I'll speak with him..."

"No."

Kenobi swallowed his hurt down and turned his eyes to Yoda questioningly, but Mace Windu spoke next.

"The council has decided you will continue on to Utapu to search for Grievous, and you will not speak to Skywalker about this..we will monitor him in your absence and decide what is to be done with him."

Windu held kenobi's gaze sternly. It was an insult - it was openly saying that Kenobi could not handle his own student. It was splitting them. It was breaking their team apart. For what? To decide what is to be done with him..

It was all wrong, but Kenobi felt the fight drained from him.

He did not answer Windu, simply turned from him and left, the doors opening in a mechanical swoosh and swallowing him up, leaving the rest of the council to exchange glances.


....

There is no emotion, there is peace
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge
There is no passion, there is serenity
There is no death, there is the force

The jedi code was one of the first things Anakin skywalker had learned from his master in the jedi temple. As a child, he would sit cross-legged on the cold floor for hours at a time, repeating the words over and over, meditating on their meaning.

There is no emotion, there is peace.
Master Kenobi had taught him that this did not mean one should suppress their emotions. "One thing that all intelligent species in the galaxy share is the ability to have feelings, Anakin. We are creatures of emotion, and to deny those feelings is profoundly unhealthy. But one can feel angry without being controlled by it. One can grieve without being crippled with grief. The peace of the force is the foundation upon which the structures of our feelings are built."

There is no passion; there is serenity.
At first he had thought this was mearly restating the first codes precept. But master Kenobi had been right there to explain the difference. Passion, in this context, meant obsession, compulsion, an overwhelming fixation on someone or something. And serenity was not merely a synonym for peace; rather, it was the state of tranquility that could be reached when one was able to let go.

Anakin could never let go though, deep down he knew that was his flaw, and it ate away at him that everything he loved he wanted to possess completely, and somehow all those things burned away to nothing, burned away right in his hand as he tried holding them.

He found no serenity, only tried to come up with ways to better hold on.

He was in a state of half-awareness now. He was jolted out of his haze by a building vibration and roar that seemed to be zeroing toward him. He opened his eyes in time to see a transport hurtling by, only a meter or so away from where he lay sprawled despondently on the jedi-temple's large open ceiling top floor, nothing but cold concrete and the stars and speeders overhead.

He should be spending this valuable time with Padme, but as much as he loved her he had realized all too soon she didn't understand him - she didn't see him for what he was. Master kenobi saw him, partially. But what Kenobi saw he tried to change - repeating that decrepit jedi code.

Anakin's hands twisted into his disheveled hair and clenched it. How hard he was trying to be the best jedi knight he could - but he found it impossible to live up to the expectations of being the chosen one for an entire age of jedi. No matter how good he was, he assumed everyone thought he should be better, when he was better, better than any of them..

The roar from the transport dropped away to silence after it had passed, or rather, relative silence. There was an omnipresent background drone of ventilating building in the distance and speeders testing their agility. He sat up, wondering how long he had lay there, reciting the jedicode to himself - trying to make himself understand it, grasp it, as he had done everynight since becoming Obi-wan's padawan. Perhaps if he could let go he would be the jedi everyone expected him to be..

Dim illumination on the roof was offset with photonic wall scones set at wide intervals. A sudden whoosh of the temple's lift startled Anakin, and he glanced in time to see the doors opening, revealing his master who stepped out, Anakin's surprise mirrored on his own face.

"Anakin - what are you doing here...?"

The voice was not pleased and Anakin sat up, startled someone else came to the rooftops when most went to the gardens for quiet thought - which Anakin found annoying in that the gardens always had someone else in them, thus depriving him of his solitude.

"Guess I'm not the only one who likes it up here, huh?" He'd meant it as a light remark, bringing one knee up to rest his chin atop as he glanced back to Obi-wan, expecting him to have already taken a place near his former padawan for some light banter, but Obi-wan stood frozen by the lift, staring with what could only be described as a painful expression.

Anakin laughed and tilted his head slightly.

"Are you okay, Obi-wan? you look as though you've seen a ghost.."


"Master, I think it's hurt...." Anakin crouched down next to a jubo-swoop, it's small body covered in fluffy white feathers, leaning precariously to one side, it's left wing cocked up at an odd angle. It looked with small glassy eyes at the two men who watched it, and let out a sound of distress, flopping a few feet to put distance between them, but exhausting itself in the process.

Anakin looked up to obi-wan, who stood with his hands in his robesleeves. The boys eyes were shining under the full Anison moon, looking pleadingly.

"Can you help him?"

Obi-wan crouched down with the boy, who then leaned his weight against obi-wans body and watched the bird flounder with the quivering expression of a naive ten year old.

"Death is a part of life, Anakin - you can't stop it. It would be better if we helped it meet the force, it is clearly suffering.."

The boys small hand shot out and clasped Obi-wans, which was already on the hilt of his lightsaber.

"No..." He begged sadly, burying his face into obi-wan's arm.

"Master, you can't decide it will die..it could get better.. it could..."


Anakin was watching him curiously as he blinked away the memory - one of hundreds he had that had endeared him to the boy. His feet felt cemented to the ground and all he could do was stare into Anakin's eyes - when had they changed? Why hadn't he noticed that bright light slowly draining from them. He stared now into a darkness he found himself at fault for missing. Breeding. Creating?

Anakin's mental connection with Obi-wan was astounding, because he somehow realized what the older man was thinking, turning his face away with a burning red hinting on his cheeks.

"Have I changed so much to you?..I've only ever spent my entire life trying to become what you wanted me to be..If I'm different it should be good news to you, it should be what you've made me into.."

The words were like knives, the vision of Anakin's face twisting as he severed count Dooku's head. What Obi-wan had made him into, indeed.

Obi-wan closed his eyes, putting a wall around his thoughts so Anakin wouldn't know the heart of his newfound concern.

Anakin snorted. "I'll take that as a yes. I'll take that as I've not turned out how you wanted me to be, master.." His tone was indignant, angry. Each word becoming more agitated.

"Anakin, stop."

"Why should I stop??"

He stood, brushing the dirt of his tunic and turning to look out over the city, then turning back to Obi-wan, his fists clenching at his side, enraged at Obi-wans thoughts of dissapointment and then blocking him alltogether.

"Why should I stop? I'm not good enough to be on the council?? Am I not good enough to fight alongside now, too??"

Obi-wan looked down, feeling weak and dizzy suddenly. "It was not my choice to go to Utapeu alone, Anakin.."

"Wasn't it?? Haven't we always fought together? Haven't we always?"

Obi-wan was taken back by the sudden rage Anakin had flown into in the course of several seconds, feeling more lightheaded in his grief and failure.

He placed a hand to his temple and tried to steady the ground under him, it felt like everything was falling apart. Not just the republic, but himself - the ones he loved, his life. He was but one man trying to keep everything together.

"Anakin, enough.."

"It is enough when I say it is enough!" Anakin yelled, his voice lost in the air and the nighttime hum of lifts and cargo drops. He was crossing the distance between them in a determined fashion. Obi-wan faltered, his back hitting the closed lift door, his hand bracing against the cool steel as he struggled to keep his eyes open, black rimming his vision.

How had he let this happen to the only person he could ever call brother?

Anakin's fist knotted into obi-wan's tunic, and his eyes were hazed over. "I have tried everything to become the jedi you wanted to me to be, and you deny me master, you deny me at every turn when I am nothing more than what you have made!"

A hand hit the door by Obi-wans face in anger.

"If you are disappointed in anyone, be disappointed in yourself!"

Obi-wan felt his body slump, and it was only Anakin's fist in his tunic that kept him standing. This was metaphor for most of their life - from early on, Anakin had been keeping Obi-wan standing, going, living, protecting him. Obi-wan had always felt he'd done the same, but no - he had gone wrong somewhere.

"What are you doing, Anakin?" Obi-wan's voice was barely a whisper, and he didn't just mean this angry outburst. Anakin, what are you doing to the life we've made together? Anakin, what are you doing to everything we've worked to accomplish.

To his surprise, Obi-wan felt tears welling that he couldn't control. Anakin had let him slide to his knees, and he was looking up at the admonished youth he'd raised, backdropped in nighttime sky - lighted domes and skycar traffic. The glittering facade of bright vibrant life where everything felt like it was secretly dying, the angry scowl that represented everything Anakin was turning into staring down at Obi-wan.

Obi-wan's hands reached up and clasped Anakin's, still holding tightly to Obi-wans tunic.

"Please don't.."

Please don't let my shortcomings as a teacher deter you from being the man I know you are capable of being...

Anakin released his hold on Obi-wan's tunic front and stepped past him, calling the elevator with an annoyed sequence of buttonmashing, a wash of shame in his spur of the moment actions taking hold of him. He acted without thinking, sometimes.

Obi-wan remained kneeling, staring off into the capital city as wet trails stained his cheeks. The sound of the lift opening and closing behind him, and then he was alone.


"Master?"

"Yes, Anakin?"

Obi-wan stood on the side of his padawan's bed, having been ready to leave for the evening as the boy was under covers and finally settled.

The boy pushed the blankets down a bit and folded his arms on top of them, peering up at Obi-wan in a way that made his master settle down to a sitting position beside the boy's body, waiting on him to speak.

"Am I a good student?"

Obi-wan chuckled and raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I'd hate for anything to go to your head, Anakin.."

The boys face faltered in thought and then he sighed, rephrasing.

"I mean, do I make you happy?"

It was an odd question, so Obi-wan turned his head slightly, and Anakin continued.

"I mean... one day I want to be the best jedi knight ever and make you proud, master.."