As from a darkening gloom

Title: As from a darkening gloom
Author: DarkTemplar
Archived: This story can also be found at Forcehaven.
Summary: On a far away forested planet at war, the loss of good fighters and friends leads to a new and more open understanding between the team of Skywalker and Kenobi. Set around the time of the Clone Wars before ROTS.
Rating: Adults only, some violence, though mainly talk and introspection in this particular piece.
Pairings: Anakin/Obi-Wan.
Feedback: Either way, board review or email, if you feel moved to do so.
Characters: Anakin/Obi-Wan mainly, though Lovra and Audra are my own creation.
Betas: Thanks to Jen, for all her encouragement, reviewing and making the necessary corrections and suggestions. *kisses*
Author Notes: This is my first ever SW fic.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters of Anakin and Obi-Wan or the Clone Wars they find themselves fighting in, and I make no money from this. It’s just purely recreational.

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They crawled toward each other slowly and painfully through the mud, both of them bloody and weak. The fear and desperation they both felt mounted with each second that they hung onto life; one breath, two, and hopefully another after that. One had lost a leg, and had sustained many wounds on the upper body; the other had a huge chunk of flesh torn out of her side. Both were bleeding badly, both were dying. They reached one another at last, grasping each others arms weakly as they quietly made their peace with one another. Softly spoken, despairing whispers floated away from them on the wind, the last breaths of two brave souls that found themselves, like many others, in a battle they did not want to be in. They collapsed together into the mud and there they lay in one another’s dead embrace. They were gone.

That is how they were found by Team Skywalker and Kenobi, amongst the rest of the slain, Shasans and clone troopers alike. It was a mess; bodies everywhere, blood and hacked corpses littered amid strewn and cut down vegetation.

Anakin went to them immediately. He turned them over gently, hoping that he was wrong, but realising with a heavy heart, that he was right, and that it was them after all. His two favourite Shasans were dead before him. The two were lovely sisters that had been so kind to him; with whom he had spent many a happy hour conversing with, philosophising with, and drinking with, while he and Obi-Wan were on this planet, trying to stave off the inevitable civil dispute between the people. Anakin and Obi Wan had been stationed on KandaShasa for months; on this verdant, wet planet, with its tumbling rivers, deep gorges and snow capped mountains that took ones breath away. There was much unrest on this beautiful world however; there were those that wanted to remain with the republic and those that wanted to secede and go the Separatist way, all leading to one more war in the galaxy to deal with.

Anakin took hold of each woman’s hand in both of his own. Lovra and Audra Kufre would now be at peace, he told himself. So why was he crying? He felt the hot tears course down his face silently, and they would not stop. His throat closed painfully each time he swallowed, and his chest felt tight. He tried to gather himself, then he felt Obi-Wan’s hand on his shoulder, and somehow he felt even more pain then before. Obi-Wan knelt down next to Anakin and looked mournfully at the two dead sisters, all the while never letting go of Anakin’s shoulder. Anakin broke down completely and began to sob audibly.

“Anakin…”

Obi-Wan turned Anakin slightly towards him when Anakin noticed that Obi-Wan’s eyes were red-rimmed and that he was shaking slightly. He had also grown fond of the fallen sisters. It was just too much for them both, seeing the sisters like this.

“Why does the Force allow this? This waste…” Anakin held his hands up in despair.

“And why did they have to die?” He ground out, his throat felt painful. It was hard to speak.

“They were good fighters.” Obi-Wan stammered out.

“They were more than that dammit!” Anakin spat out, and he turned and gave him a stare so cold and full of rage that it almost took Obi-Wan aback. But just as quickly, Anakin’s face morphed back into anguish and loss. Obi-Wan felt those emotions all too keenly, and he felt wretched for it.

“I know Anakin, I know, this is not easy for me either…I…” He pulled back from Anakin and made to stand up, but Anakin placed a hand on his arm to prevent him from doing so.

“I’m sorry Master, I…this is so hard.” He tried to steady his emotions by asking something mundane. “What do we do now? What are our orders?”

Obi-Wan gave him a small nod and gave his shoulder a squeeze to acknowledge Anakin’s apology, before turning away to check his communications. He thought to himself that it was just like Anakin to revert back to calling him Master at such a time. In every crisis in Anakin’s life he had dropped the Obi-Wan moniker, and even now that they were both Jedi knights, Anakin would go back to using the old title when things became tight. He wished Anakin would become more comfortable with calling him by his name. Only Anakin had a way of saying it, like it was somehow reverent, sacred. He wished to hear it more from his former Padawan’s lips.

He looked back up from his communications and back over to Anakin after a short time and said, “We’re to make our way back to base camp and await further instructions. A team is on its way to deal with all this.” He gesticulated toward the bloody sight before him and then looked away again.

“And what about Lovra and Audra? Do we just leave them here? I won’t allow that.” Anakin began to look for anything that could be used to wrap up the bodies so he could take them back to the camp himself.

Obi-Wan looked at him for a moment, before joining him and together they made do with some material that was once a heraldic flag used for the battle, now a shroud for their two fallen friends. They hoisted the two bodies, one on each of the beasts that were their transports back to the camp, and together Anakin and Obi-wan made their way slowly back to headquarters along with the rest of the surviving troopers. There were no republican Shasan survivors to come back from this battle however, and this weighed heavily on both men as they negotiated their way through the thick forest undergrowth.

As the beast lumbered along below him, Anakin’s thoughts wandered. He began to see scenarios in his mind's eye, where he imagined his own death. It was something he was doing more and more as the war went on and as the missions progressively became more intense and more dangerous. Would he die nobly? Would he have the grace to accept his death? Would he die alone? He thought about Lovra and Audra, and how they were together in their deaths. He was glad that they were together in the end and wondered if Obi-Wan would be at his side if he were to ever come to his death on one of these missions someday. He wanted this to be so, for Obi-Wan to be with him. He would want to be in the arms of his former master when he finally passes from his mortal life. Then he thought about Obi-Wan dying and his mind filled with despair and panic. He would never let this happen; with all his Jedi powers he would prevent that. It scared him to even think about it. He did not want to live in a universe that did not have Obi-Wan in it.

Suddenly, the beast made a rumbling sound and lifted its massive head to the sky. There had been a birdcall that had disturbed it. Anakin patted the side of the beast's head to calm it. The beast settled back into its lumbering gait, and Anakin was left once more to his thoughts.

He reflected back to a night he had spent drinking with Lovra and Audra, at a far-flung bar beyond the perimeter of their usual haunts. They had teased him mercilessly that evening about his feelings towards Obi-Wan. It was the only time that he had ever got angry with them. They questioned him incessantly that night. All of them had too many shots of some strangely coloured concoction that evening, shot after shot, and then the questions began. They pawed at him and he remembered feeling very vulnerable to their heated interrogations of his feelings. He had felt exposed and unsettled, and a little afraid; Jedi didn't speak about their emotions.

They kept at him, goading him until he had told them that he would gladly die for Obi-Wan and how much he respected Obi-Wan. He thought these admissions would have been enough to shut them up, but they had persisted. Lovra revealed to him that she and Audra watched the two of them together often, and that they saw them as very close, much closer than any other Jedi partners they’d ever encountered before.

Anakin wanted to leave them with their alcoholic delusions. He had gotten up, ready to make his apologies to them for retiring earlier than usual, when Lovra asked him why he sometimes stood watch outside Obi-Wan’s tent in the middle of the night staring at the sleeping silhouetted form of Obi-Wan. Anakin recalled that he all but sprayed her back with the last mouthful of his cocktail when he heard that. He never suspected any one had watched his movements, but more importantly, he was mortified and incredibly embarrassed to be caught out. Lovra had gone too far, by his reckoning, and he remembered how out of control he had started to feel. He had made to leave them right there and then until Audra pulled him back with a hard grab to his shoulder and looked him square in the face. Her eyes had been a little dilated and she had looked slightly dazed from all the alcohol, but she had still been in her right mind, Anakin had judged. Then she had asked him the question that still floored him to this day.

“Are you in love with him?”

Just like that. She let it out there and it seemed to hang in the air for an eternity, and that was the last thing he heard before he turned on his heel and left them to their drinks, and no doubt, their theories. It was never spoken of again, between the three of them, and Anakin made sure none of the three of them ever drank those garishly coloured drinks again.

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Now the two sisters were gone forever. He swallowed hard, and reminisced briefly upon other times he had spent with them, pleasant memories, for memories were all he would ever have of them now. But that question was still there, and it was still hanging. He looked across to Obi-Wan who looked tired and worn out. Obi-Wan was his Master, his former Master anyway, but a Jedi of the highest order and discipline. Anakin would always look up to him for guidance, on all matters, except those of the heart, for that was something Obi-Wan did not look to have any need for. In Anakin’s mind, Obi-Wan had no yearnings, he was calm when he had to be, and all business when duty was called upon him. He reminded himself that Obi-Wan could still display grief, that was demonstrated only a short time ago; but other emotions, Anakin wondered, like love and passion, what of those stirrings in Obi-Wan? Anakin sighed and thought to himself, “A Jedi through and through, and not like me at all."

And then he whispered all to himself, “But I would die for him. I’m here with him and for him, and glad to be so.”

He looked up into the treetops and then around him, before setting his eyes forward once more. He sighed deeply. In his mind he affirmed what he’d already known for some time, that he did indeed love Obi-Wan, the Master Jedi; Obi-Wan, who represented the very model of a Jedi, by which Anakin was supposed to take his lead from. And yet there it was, Obi-Wan should have been his peace and serenity, but instead he stirred Anakin's blood and enlivened him in a way no one else could.

The slow progress of the beasts made it tough not to lose oneself to contemplation, and Obi-Wan didn’t look like he wanted to talk either. Looking across once again to Obi-Wan, Anakin saw that he was silent and sullen with his shoulders drooped and his face drawn down. Anakin regretted his earlier outburst. Too often Anakin thought on Obi-Wan as a rock, a paragon of controlled emotions that he had to shake up from time to time, draw some intensity out of. He was sorry that he had lashed out at Obi-Wan earlier. "Why do I snap at him so? Why do I always do that to him?" He thought to himself.

“I just want to know what’s going on in that heart of yours Obi”.

Anakin, broke out of his reverie and looked up to see that the sky had darkened considerably and the moon was on the rise above the misty horizon. The camp was now discernable ahead, and there was still much to do before he could retire for the night and hopefully lose himself to blessed sleep, and where he could forget about this awful day for a few precious hours.

"Lovra and Audra may you rest in peace." He uttered to the four winds and with that wish he tugged on the reins of the beast and dug his heels into its sides to spur it on a little more. Now that he could catch a glimpse of the campsite, he felt the urgency to get there faster. He wanted to dismount and see to his friends, and perhaps talk to Obi-wan before this night was over. Maybe sleep could wait a little while longer.

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Obi-Wan went in search of his former student. He had retired to his tent not long after returning to headquarters earlier that evening, after he and Anakin had carried out the grim task of delivering the two Shasans to their elders. All Obi-Wan wanted to do after that was crash onto his sleeping pallet and escape the intense sadness he was feeling. He felt that if sleep could come to him quickly enough he would be mercifully spared such intense sorrow. He didn’t want to talk, he just wanted to forget, and so he made a brief apology to his fellow knight then made his way to his tent. The guilt at leaving Anakin hanging, however, prevented him from sleep and so here he was, wandering through the forest in the general direction of the water. He knew Anakin would be somewhere around water. The strong presence of his former Padawan through the Force finally made itself known to Obi-Wan, and brushing aside the frond of an exotic palm, he spied his quarry just a few metres in front of him.

There he sat on a fallen log right by the water. He looked like some character from a mythical enchanted tale. His dark hooded cloak was wrapped around him, and the mist rolling in from the lake gathered around his feet, as if it was drawn to him. The moon, now high in the night sky, made his face shimmer with the reflection of the water upon it, and his hair shone with a soft pearly silver glow, like the lake itself. Anakin looked beautiful and unreal to him. Obi-Wan noticed he’d taken off his leather gauntlet, so that his mechanical arm gleamed in the moonlight. It made Anakin appear even more unreal to him, like a changeling frozen in mid transition, flesh and mechanics joined as one. He stood there unmoved as he watched Anakin flex and rotate the mechanical arm in a considered and deliberate manner. “What was he doing?” Obi-Wan wondered. Anakin then stopped this movement to attend to something on the arm, before going through the motions once again. Obi-Wan stood immobile, fascinated.

Obi-Wan never got the sense that Anakin was hampered by his cyborg limb. Indeed it was almost like his former Padawan embraced his inherent uniqueness in having it. He’d always liked technology and he saw his arm as an extension of that interest, tinkering with it from time to time, just as he was doing so now. He seemed to enjoy wielding it, taking amusement from strangers who would look at it and wonder about it, perhaps even recoil from it.

Obi-Wan knew well enough the capabilities of Anakin’s mechanical arm. He recalled now, the strength and power of duro-steel with slight discomfort. He thought back to that time when he found out exactly how devastating that arm could be as a weapon. He and Anakin had been training together one afternoon, and the session had gone on and on, with no quarter given by either of them. As the tussle went on, things became more heated and intense, especially as they had both begun to tire. However, the sparring continued until Anakin lost his patience and finally his concentration, and dropped his training weapon. What followed from that was most alarming, because without warning, things escalated, culminating with Anakin’s vice-like grip on Obi-Wan’s neck and a cruel empty look on the face of his Padawan, that Obi-Wan had never seen before.

Obi-Wan would never forget the feel of that gloved hand around his throat. It was over just as quickly as it began, when Anakin came out of his intense fugue and released Obi-Wan, withdrawing from him with a look of utter shock and shame for what he had done. Obi-Wan recollected how Anakin apologised profusely. He had looked upon Obi-Wan with absolute horror and anguish etched on his face. As he kept backing away from Obi-Wan, all he could stammer out was a plea to be left alone. Obi-Wan had obliged him, even as he was still rubbing his neck gingerly. He remembered how he had nodded his assent, and walked out of the room, leaving Anakin alone as he had requested. He tried to speak to Anakin about it a few times after it had happened, but Anakin, apart from going into another apology, did not venture any insight into the incident, and like most other things between them, it was forgotten finally, and never broached again.

He looked over to see that Anakin had bent down to pick up his glove, and was just about to slide it back onto his arm when he stopped and stared into the water and sighed.

“I can sense you there you know…” Anakin said quietly without turning to look at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan smiled and walked over to where Anakin was sitting and looked down at him making a final tweak to something on his arm before putting the leather gauntlet back on. Anakin fastened the clamps using the Force, by running the fingers of his other hand over them, like a pianist sweeping over the keys of a piano.

“What is it?” Obi-Wan asked with a little concern in his voice, pointing to Anakin’s arm.

“One of the interface modules on the prosthesis was loose.” Anakin replied. “Nothing to really worry about, it’ll hold for a while longer before I need any more maintenance.” He smiled up at Obi-Wan and gave a little chuckle.

This made Obi-Wan wince slightly, and Anakin’s smile turned to a frown as he looked down at his feet. He didn’t say anything for a full minute and then he broke the silence between them. “I gave you that look.” Anakin whispered. “That face you make now.”

Obi-Wan knelt down to face Anakin, “What look, I don’t…” But Anakin interjected him. “I haven’t forgotten, though I would very much like to. I still feel guilty about what I did that day.” He looked down at his gloved hand and clenched and unclenched his fist slowly.

Obi-Wan sighed audibly, “I feel that there is something in you Anakin, something that I fear may get out of control if you do not learn to handle yourself better.” He winced again, this time because the last thing he wanted to do was lecture Anakin, and he was doing just that all over again. It was an all too familiar pattern with him. “No. That’s not what I really wanted to say, I didn’t come here for that…but…if I worry about you, I would like to know that I can ask that you be more open with me perhaps? I can be of help somehow. I want to help you.”

Anakin looked into Obi-Wan’s face. “I know.” Obi-Wan sat down next to Anakin, he didn’t want to push that subject any more tonight and so he let it pass, and they both turned to look back out at the lake.

“When I saw your tent was empty, I had a feeling you’d be here.” Obi-wan ventured after some silence had passed between them.

Anakin nodded, “I love the water. There was always so little of it on Tatooine. Here, it’s in such abundance, I love the sound of it especially…”

“It’s so beautiful here, yes, sometimes I almost forget we are at war. “Obi-Wan sighed wistfully. Anakin turned and looked at Obi-Wan with a soft expression.

“It was brutal today. When you lose people, those you’ve come to value as friends, as well as allies…It doesn’t ever get easier, well not for me.”

Anakin had needed to debrief after the day’s events, but Obi-Wan did not want to know. They had confronted such grief and sorrow from the Shasan troops after they had given over the bodies of their friends to the Elders back at the camp, that it was almost unbearable. Word had already reached them that none of the Shasans involved in battle that day had survived, and a steady lament, as was the tradition, began with shrieks and wails that drowned out the forest noises and overtook all other activity in the camp. Anakin realised that he would not be able to sleep at all with all of that going on. He was upset that Obi-Wan had taken his leave and retired to his tent, when all Anakin wanted to do was sit up tonight and talk, and perhaps forget for a little while. Obi-Wan’s heavy sigh brought him back to the present.

“Earlier, Anakin, I didn’t mean to be dismissive of you. I was very tired, I still am, but it seems that sleep tonight is not in my destiny. I felt that you were up and about somewhere, so here I am.”

Obi-Wan could hear the fluster and anxiety in his voice, but he went on. “I imagine that sometimes you hate me. I’ve sworn my life to the Jedi, and as such, I’m sworn to protect the republic, and sometimes that means saying and doing what other people can’t. And they shouldn’t have to.”

Anakin looked at him with some confusion, “But, what does this have to do with us…with me?”

Obi-Wan placed a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “Because Anakin, you are different, there isn’t another Jedi like you. You feel too much, you don’t let it all get stripped away till the choices are stark and clear to be made. And maybe, just maybe that makes you more human. You know sometimes I do envy you for that…And I guess what I’m trying to say, is that I’m sorry that sometimes I seem to just hurt you and forget that you and I are very different…”

Anakin swallowed carefully and gazed at his former master with new wonder. Was this a compliment that Obi-Wan had just bestowed upon him, and an apology of sorts? He was touched deeply by this openness. The evening had suddenly turned into something magical to Anakin. He was communing with Obi-Wan in a way that felt so different from before. It made him feel bold and a little wild. This was the feeling that he wanted earlier with him.

“Obi-Wan, do you trust me?” Anakin looked deadly serious now and somewhat nervous but intense to Obi-Wan’s reckoning.

“Of course, I trust you Anakin. I trust you with my life.” He placed an emphasis on each word so that Anakin was in no doubt that he meant what he said. Anakin cast his eyes down and smiled faintly, almost sheepishly, before looking back up at his former Master.

“And do you trust me with your heart Obi-Wan?” Obi-Wan’s mouth fell open upon hearing Anakin’s question. He could feel himself suddenly getting very warm, though the evening air had been cool around him, just a moment ago.

“Anakin…” Obi-Wan closed his eyes, and then he felt the feather light touch of Anakin’s hand upon his cheek, and his eyes fluttered open.

“Obi-Wan, you are everything to me. Death is all we see now these days. It’s all we have, the fighting and the dying…And I want you to know…That I love you… I love you Obi-Wan. And if you or I die tomorrow or some time after that, then…” He didn’t go on, couldn’t, as he was on the edge, he felt as if he was burning, not knowing what the consequences of his heartfelt admission would be. He needn’t have worried because Obi-Wan smiled back at him gently, and laid his own hand over Anakin’s, before bending his head forward slightly, and whispering to him.

“I feel it also. I do love you too, my own Anakin.” Anakin’s eyes opened up a little wider and he was about to say something but Obi-Wan stopped him by placing a finger to his lips. He continued.

“…But having declared myself like this, with this forest as my witness, I’m going to take my time with you, with us. I will not rush this, I will not be carried away and you will not make me rush it.” And with that he withdrew his hand and bowed his head forward and touched his forehead to Anakin’s forehead, before placing a soft kiss on his brow.

Anakin felt like he was in a dream, it had to be something about this place, the water, the moonlight, or being on a strange planet far from home and the temple. He felt tears in his eyes as Obi-Wan bent his head a little further now and touched his lips to his own for the first time. It was but a brief touch before they both withdrew and looked into each others eyes more deeply than they’d ever done before. What each of them saw in the eyes of the other, made them happy and smile with understanding. They descended upon one another, kissing now with a hunger and a tender ferocity that belied their usually calm Jedi demeanour. Anakin wrapped his arms around his Obi-Wan as Obi-Wan buried himself in Anakin’s robe.

Obi-Wan too, was moved to tears, as Anakin had been. Anakin had called him by his own name several times tonight, with that reverent manner of his, like his name was a prayer, an oath, or a pledge. This night air was doing strange and wonderful things to him and to his fellow Jedi knight beside him. Anakin was in love with him, and he was smitten in return. It both thrilled and frightened him, knowing this wild, beautiful creature was his for the taking, but he had been deadly serious, he would not rush. And with that fleeting thought in his head threatening to be dispensed with by the intensity of Anakin, the warmth of Anakin, he withdrew himself from Anakin’s arms and bade him a goodnight.

Anakin was confused. One moment he had Obi-Wan in his sweet embrace and the next, achingly empty space. His eyes locked onto the retreating form of Obi-Wan, making his way, no doubt, to the campsite, and to his tent. Obi-Wan was a determined one, and he always followed through on his plans in the end. Anakin was a little disappointed, but then he reminded himself of something very important. Obi-Wan loved him and told him so. This new knowledge warmed his heart considerably, and it was consolation for the fact that he was now quite alone here, again. He smiled to himself though, and recalled the kisses they had exchanged earlier. Obi-Wan had sighed so sweetly between their kisses and had clung to his robes, as if he’d never let go. Truth be told, Anakin didn’t want it any other way, but his former Master would have his way, and for now, Anakin would relent to it, if reluctantly. He breathed in deeply, the cool forest air, took one last look upon the beautiful lake and slowly made his way back to his own tent for the night.

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