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He can see the Naboo starship all the way from the upper troposphere, a tiny shard of gleaming silver in the desert sand.
As he makes his rapid descent, he takes note of the moisture farm homestead. R4 chirps at him as the desert comes rushing up and the thrusters kick up a thick cloud of sand.
He can already feel something is badly wrong as he climbs down from the ship.
Padme comes hurrying out from the domed house to meet him.
"Oh, Obi-Wan." She shakes her head. "It's terrible. Anakin's mother is dead."
"Dead?" Obi-Wan echoes.
"She was taken captive by raiders. She died last night."
Beyond Padme's shoulder, Obi-Wan sees a young man and woman standing at the building's entrance.
The horrible feeling in the Force weighs down on him like a physical weight, a heavy blanket dropping onto him.
"Anakin was having nightmares about it while we were on Naboo," Padme says. "We had to come. We looked for his mother at the junk dealer's in the city. She'd been freed. She married the man who owns this farm, Cliegg Lars. She was stolen away a month ago. Anakin went and found her. But—she died."
Obi-Wan had been feeling in the Force for Anakin as the girl spoke.
"Take me to him."
Padme turns immediately. As they reach the house, she introduces the young man and woman quickly.
"This is Owen and Beru. Owen is Anakin's step-brother."
Obi-Wan masks his surprise. He inclines his head.
Down the stairs into the underground in which the homestead extends, they encounter an older man in a hoverchair.
"Mister Lars," Padme says. "This is Anakin's Master. Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Obi-Wan bows.
Lars nods, running his eye over Obi-Wan. He nods again as he looks aside, his jaw working slightly as if he were chewing.
"He's down in the workshop." He indicates the way with a quick jerk of his head.
Obi-Wan descends the steps.
Anakin has his back to him. He stands at the workbench, tinkering with some piece of equipment.
"I suppose you're angry with me for leaving Naboo," he says.
"Anakin..." Obi-Wan reaches for him through the Force, calling to him through their bond, for Anakin to come to him with the fullness of his pain.
"A real Jedi would have stayed there and done their duty," Anakin says in a constrained tone. In the Force, he does not come to Obi-Wan. "But I'm always doing exactly what you don't want me to do. I know you hate it. You can admit it, it's alright."
Obi-Wan feels the tremors in the boy's energy.
Anakin turns at last. His flashing eyes land on Obi-Wan.
"I already know what you're going to say. It was the—the will of the Force. And it's not for us to question. If I say it was evil...that I was prevented from saving her. That's a flaw in me."
"No," Obi-Wan breathes. "You're mistaken."
"The only reason I couldn't save her is because I wasn't taught to!" Anakin's voice rises suddenly. "I could have saved her if you'd let me! This is your fault." He smiles a sudden bitter laughing smile, his eyes bright with tears. "You don't even see it. You'll never admit it, but you always held me back! You allowed the council to stunt me—you were all trying to diminish my power!"
Obi-Wan eyes widen in amazement.
"You never wanted me to grow stronger. You're jealous—that's why! You wanted to keep me weak!"
"Anakin—Anakin -" Obi-Wan moves towards him.
"No!" Anakin backs into the workbench. "You said they were just dreams! You told me! If I'd been with you instead of Padme, you probably wouldn't even have allowed me to come here—I wouldn't have even been able to say goodbye."
The boy is so enraged and upset, he is shaking.
"Tell me what happened," Obi-Wan says.
"My mother...was stolen from this place." Anakin lifts his eyes to the domed ceiling. His lashes are clumped in wet spikes with tears. "By Tuskens. Sand people. It happened a month ago. Right when...right when I started having my dreams about her. And I tried to tell you. And I tried and I tried, and you just..." He clenches his hand in a fist, breathes seething through his teeth. "On Naboo. I had a dream, and I knew. I could feel—she was going to die. I had to find her. So I came here. I found those people who had taken her—out in the desert. I found their encampment. She was—tied up. Do you know what they did to her?"
The image comes pushing at Obi-Wan through the Force. Anakin's mind thrusts it like a spear tip at him, a dim, ugly scene, Anakin's horror beating through it. The mother, whose bound hands and feet Anakin unties. Her slumping form he supports, and he kneels with her as she is fainting away in his arms. Her soul is trembling and slipping away. The place is dark and stinking.
"Do you know what they did?" Anakin shouts hoarsely. "They killed her that way. And I did nothing. I was too late."
Anakin's eyes are glistening wet, great round tears rolling down his cheeks. He makes his announcement, standing very straight and tall, as if it is a declaration proudly-made, his bolt-upright stance seeking to provoke, he shouts the words into the workshop:
"I killed them! I killed them all. They're dead. Every single one of them. And not just the men. But the women. And the children, too. They're like animals. And I slaughtered them like animals!" Anakin clenches his teeth. He tries to send images at Obi-Wan, chaotic running forms in the darkness. The black emotion beats from him in waves.
Obi-Wan lifts his hand to his eyes. He holds his brow in his hand, taking a step back.
Anakin waits, tears rolling still from his blazing eyes, his jaw set fiercely, his chest rising and falling as he waits, everything fixed on Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan lowers his hand slowly. He moves still further back, standing side-on to Anakin. He stares at the boy in amazement.
"But it's not true," he says quietly.
Anakin swallows, his throat working as he struggles to swallow with his throat so closed up tight.
"It can't be," Obi-Wan murmurs. "Tell me it's not true."
"It is." Anakin's voice wobbles. "It's true! I did it and I'm glad! I hate them!"
Obi-Wan backs away, almost in confusion. He stops in the doorway, putting his hand up on the doorframe, holding onto the frame, leaning into his hand. He is motionless. Then he turns away from Anakin slowly. His booted foot drags slowly against the floor as he turns, and then he lets go the door and walks out of the workshop.
Anakin stares at the empty doorway.
With a raw shout, Anakin turns, flinging his arm out, sweeping everything off the workbench behind him, sending parts crashing noisily to the floor. He collapses to sit on the floor, fury and horror sweeping over him. Obi-Wan's look of amazement, his stunned disbelief and withdrawal—the scene repeats on him, crashing over him.
He beats his fist against his thigh. He hits himself twice, hard on the leg, and then rubs his hand quickly over his face, gasping, gulping for breath.
Obi-Wan walks back through the homestead. In the eating area, Padme stands with Meru, plating food. Owen and Lars are seated at the table, their heads bent close as they talk. Silence falls as Obi-Wan enters. They look at him.
Obi-Wan does not pause. He passes through to the entryway, and climbs the steps, and is through the door and out of the house in moments.
He walks to the sandbank outside, the punishing flat landscape stretching ahead of him, and there he stands and stares to the empty horizon, the wind whipping his cloak.
The workshop seems to be empty at first glance.
Padme pauses, the tray of food in her hands.
"Ani?"
She sees him then, sitting on the floor. She sets the tray on the worktop and kneels.
"Ani, what is it?"
He keeps his face turned away from her. He stares into the shadowy recess behind the workshop console station.
"I'd like to be left alone," he says in a carefully controlled voice, that nonetheless sounds clogged from weeping.
"Are you sure?" She touches his shoulder.
He nods. She can see a tendon standing out in his neck, he is holding himself so tense. His hands grip his elbows tightly.
She straightens, and when he is still silent and does not turn, she goes.
She wraps herself in her cloak before climbing the stairs.
The Jedi is standing with his back to the house, staring towards the horizon.
"Obi-Wan?" she calls. "Master Kenobi?"
He turns. She walks to him, more hesitant now than she had been when she first stepped out.
"Is everything alright?" she says.
Obi-Wan narrows his eyes, looking aside, almost a wincing look, but then his expression reveals little as he turns to her. "Senator." He tucks his hands into his sleeves. "I must apologize. You've been placed at risk, coming here."
"It couldn't be helped. Anakin knew his mother was in danger. We had to come."
"I will...arrange for another Jedi Master to come, they will accompany you back to Naboo, and guard you while you remain in hiding. Anakin and I must return to Coruscant." His eyebrow lifts in inquiry, even as his expression remains severe. "You received my communication about the meeting of the Separatist Alliance on Geonosis?"
"Yes. I can't say I'm surprised that Nute Gunray and the Trade Federation are the ones behind the attempts made on my life."
"I have evidence. A recording of their meeting. I have the Viceroy calling for your head. That will see him convicted, and there's more evidence besides. The Separatists have conspired against the Republic. I think it will not be long before you can safely return to the Senate."
He looks past her shoulder, his eyes far-away.
"Master Kenobi." Padme lifts her face to him, her eyes seeking his. His look, when he looks down at her, is frowning, remote. "Anakin's so distressed about his mother."
She had wanted her words to draw the man out to her, but they send him away entirely. He withdraws inward. His eyes, often so warm and lively, are remote, and he looks again to the horizon.
"He didn't say what happened," she says quickly, trying to remedy the situation. "He's barely said a word."
What has he said to you? It is what she really wants to ask, but she can't find the nerve. She had heard Anakin shouting, all the way from the living quarters. They'd all heard it. What had been said that had set this cold look on his master's face? Surely Anakin's grief excused it?
"Anakin needs to return to the Temple. As soon as another Jedi can come to relieve us, we will depart. You will be safe under their protection." Obi-Wan bows his head. "Excuse me, Senator."
She gazes after him as he walks to his ship.
"In the morning, we'll lay her to rest." Lars gestures to Owen. "My boy will dig the grave. It's cooler at night. Can't dig in the day. I'd do it myself..."
"C'mon, Pop." Owen puts his hand on his father's shoulder.
Obi-Wan is looking towards the kitchen doorway. He had sensed Anakin, and now the boy comes, ducking his head slightly under the low doorway.
"I'll help," Anakin says. "The two of us can do it together."
"Alright," Owen says.
Anakin shoots a look at Obi-Wan as he and Owen go to fetch shovels from outside.
"Come, Master...Kenobi?" Lars turns his chair. "You'll stay here tonight."
The room he takes Obi-Wan to has a bedroll already laid out on the floor. Fading daylight comes through one small circular window set high in the wall. A small table stands in an alcove dug out of the mud wall, and there is a bench to sit on, a tight-woven mat underfoot.
He leaves Obi-Wan then. From outside comes the noise of shovels digging in the dry sandy earth.
"Are you going to tell the council?"
Obi-Wan looks over his shoulder. Anakin stands silhouetted in the doorway. The room had grown dark. What light there was came from the hallway.
Obi-Wan turns slowly away. "You know that I must."
"Why?"
Obi-Wan stands from where he had been kneeling. He finds to his surprise he is still wearing his cloak. He goes to the table where he had placed his saber, his communicator and the small data chip in its case. He tucks the chip back into his belt.
"I know I'm a Jedi," Anakin says into the silence. "I'm meant to be a Jedi. I know what I said before was wrong."
He has come into the room. Obi-Wan can smell the earth and cold desert night on him.
"I know it was wrong. I gave into my emotions. I gave into hatred." Anakin speaks in a flat, repressed tone. "Well I'm a human being, aren't I? I suppose you wouldn't have felt anything improper for a Jedi to feel. It wouldn't have affected you at all. But then again, you didn't have those dreams. I did. You've never had a mother. But somehow it's fair for you to judge me? You're just going to—drag me in front of the council, so they can judge me as well."
His voice does waver now.
"They'll expel me from the Jedi Order. You know they will."
Obi-Wan clips his saber to his belt. Returns the comlink to its pouch. He stares down at his own hands performing this work in the dimness, like they are someone else's hands.
Obi-Wan can feel the boy standing behind him.
"What's the matter, Master?" Anakin says, in a voice that tries to wear the clothing of smooth composure. "It's not like you to hold back from lecturing me. Why won't you say anything?" He is speaking through a tight jaw then, "Why won't you look at me?"
Obi-Wan turns. He meets Anakin's eyes finally.
"You were right. The mistake was mine. I have failed in my training of you." Obi-Wan nods once. "I have failed you."
"No, you haven't." Anakin steps closer. His face is a tight mask, even as tears spill down his cheeks. "I didn't mean it."
"I did not heed Master Yoda—"
"No, no, you are my Master—" Anakin's hand reaches out and grips the front of Obi-Wan's cloak. "No one else would take me, and you took me." His hands fist in Obi-Wan's cloak. "Master. We belong together."
Obi-Wan stands motionless. He finds he cannot move.
"I didn't mean it, Obi-Wan—I didn't mean it." Anakin stares at Obi-Wan. "You weren't holding me back, I know you weren't—I didn't mean what I said, Master. I don't know why I said those things."
Obi-Wan returns his gaze, silent. Anakin's face twists in a grimace, almost a smile.
"Why did she have to die?"
In the Force, through their training bond, Anakin is pressing himself to him, in a kind of terror, clinging desperately as he has not done since he was a child.
"I was too weak." Anakin shakes his head, his lips twisting, trembling, as he stares into Obi-Wan's eyes. "I have to be a Jedi. I have to become stronger. They'll cut me away. You know they will. You can't tell them. Please. I'll do anything—please."
Anakin sinks down, down, until he is kneeling, his hands clutching at Obi-Wan.
"I'm better than this." He grasps for Obi-Wan's hand. "You know why I did it—you know why I killed them." His voice hitches into a higher pitch on the last words, almost a questioning tone.
Obi-Wan sinks to the bench. He cannot keep his feet. Anakin shifts forward at once, bending, pressing his cheek to Obi-Wan's knee.
"I won't make a mistake, ever again. Please, Master." His tears leak down the side of his face, and wet the material on Obi-Wan's knee. "Please don't tell them."
Obi-Wan lays his hand gently on top of the boy's head.
Obi-Wan leans slowly back into the wall. He lets his head rest back. He shuts his eyes.