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i. Obi-Wan
The first time Qui-Gon informs him they will be bringing the boy from Tatooine with them, Obi-Wan just rolls his eyes.
“The Council won’t like this,” he tells his Master. “They won’t like it at all.”
The look Qui-Gon shoots him over his shoulder, though short, says more than enough about what he thinks of the Council’s opinion on the matter. Obi-Wan sighs but doesn’t argue; there’s no point trying to talk Qui-Gon out of anything once he’s made up his mind.
When the boy enters the ship, Obi-Wan carefully reaches towards him in the Force, curious whether he’ll be able to pick up whatever it was that Qui-Gon sensed. He immediately notices that the boy has a power within him, but there’s… something else, too, an odd kind of familiarity that Obi-Wan doesn’t know what to make of.
He shrugs and withdraws back into himself. He’ll ask Qui-Gon about this. Later.
For now, he’s standing in the boy’s way, and introductions are in order. He leans against the wall and clears his throat. The boy’s eyes shoot up to fix him with a bold stare, and Obi-Wan smiles down at him.
“So, who are you?” he asks the boy.
“My name is Anakin Skywalker.”
Obi-Wan’s smile falls, and for a moment he’s afraid he’s going to fall, too; it’s as if the ground has slipped from under his feet. The kid’s voice rings out in his ears, again and again like an echo, mocking him. Anakin Skywalker. The name he’s seen so many times it’s almost too familiar, the name he’s been so curious about ever since he’s been a little boy, the name that’s always been a part of him, marking the inside of his left wrist with slender black letters.
He slowly kneels so that their eyes are level. He’s hoping that whatever it is that his face is doing at least resembles a friendly expression and not a slightly panicked grimace.
“It is very nice to meet you, Anakin Skywalker. I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he introduces himself and waits, waits but there’s no reaction, not even the tiniest spark of recognition in the boy’s eyes.
“That’s a funny name,” Anakin says with all the innocence of an oblivious child.
He doesn’t know me, Obi-Wan realises, something heavy settling deep into his bones. He feels absurdly old, suddenly, sand under his eyelids, the boy’s name on his skin itching.
Obi-Wan doesn’t look at Anakin’s wrists. He asks him about podracing, about life on Tatooine, about his mother, and tries his best to shove the disappointment to the back of his mind and lock it away.
ii. Obi-Wan
When Qui-Gon tells the Council he intends to take the boy as his Padawan, Obi-Wan doesn’t argue.
He steps forward and tells the Council he’s ready because that’s what’s expected of him, because that’s the right thing to do, but when Qui-Gon turns to him with gratitude in his eyes, Obi-Wan can’t keep the bitter betrayal from his own.
He knows they’re both Jedi. They’re not supposed to get emotional. To get attached. To hold grudges. He knows he can’t be a Padawan forever, too. It doesn’t change the fact that this hurts, sharp and simple.
There they stand.
His Master; a man who’s always been there for him, wise and supportive, if distant.
His soulmate, apparently; a child who’d never even heard his name before.
And him; his heart aching and his head confused, stuck in the middle yet by Qui-Gon’s decision suddenly cut off from the both of them, from a person he loves and a person he’ll come to love if the universe has its way.
When they leave the Council meeting he catches his Master’s arm, bows his head low in respect but his eyes are still flaming. Angry words leave his mouth before he manages to think them over, before he manages to stop himself.
“You’re foolish to disobey the Council like this.”
“Padawan.” There’s a clear warning in Qui-Gon’s tone, but Obi-Wan has already spoken his mind, and he can’t back down, not now, not like this, not with his head so full of question it feels like it’s going to burst.
He frantically rolls up the sleeves of his robe, points at the tattoos at his wrists.
“Why do we even have these if attachments are forbidden?” he asks, his voice almost breaking.
Whatever Qui-Gon sees in his eyes makes him sigh and look away, but when he faces Obi-Wan again, his expression is softer, somehow, filled with a strange melancholy Obi-Wan has rarely seen in all of their years spent together as Master and Padawan.
“Even the Jedi Code doesn’t have an answer for everything, my young apprentice,” Qui-Gon tells him with a smile. “And the Council isn’t always right.”
iii. Obi-Wan
Meditation always brings him peace. He sits cross legged on the floor, his back straight and his head held high, opens himself up to the Force and waits for it to wash over him.
He doesn’t stop the thoughts as they roll through his head, merely an observer allowing them to pass.
He thinks about Anakin; remembers smiling at the boy as he took him as his Padawan, remembers their very first meeting, too, and how much has changed since then, and yet so little.
He thinks about Qui-Gon; remembers watching his Master collapse, struck down by a lightsaber, remembers how it was then that he understood the meaning of the word “enemy” perhaps for the first time in his life.
He thinks about Darth Maul; remembers being so sure that it must’ve been the mysterious Darth Vader that he fought and defeated, remembers how empty he’d felt when he found out that wasn’t the case.
It all seems like it was a long time ago and yet just now, and he breathes and breathes, calm, detached from his emotions yet embracing them, slowly making sense of the world and of himself.
He senses somebody else through the Force, the familiar spark he would recognise anywhere. His lips curl into a smile as he feels Anakin approach, listens to his steps, quiet but not inaudible, though he’s learning quickly.
The boy flops down beside him and starts tugging at his sleeve.
“Master.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep, Anakin?”
“I have a question.” He tugs at Obi-Wan’s sleeve again, more forceful this time.
Obi-Wan opens his eyes and turns to Anakin. “Well, let’s hear it then.”
“Is it true that people have… tattoos, on their wrists, with names on them? I overheard someone talking about them in the Temple today, and… I thought this was just a Tatooine legend.” He looks up at Obi-Wan, a soft, scared kind of confusion in his eyes.
Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows, feels as if the marks on his own wrists are itching again. “What do you mean, is it true? Do you… do you not have them?”
Anakin’s expression brightens with curiosity. “You do?”
“Of course I have them, everyone… Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, and he feels Anakin’s nervousness through the Force, his instinct to escape, to hide, to never have to talk about this again. “Show me,” he says, looking into Anakin’s eyes and wordlessly asking his permission.
Anakin looks away, but obediently extends both of his hands, palms open, wrists up, and he looks so sad Obi-Wan doesn’t know what to do. He takes Anakin’s hands into his own as delicately as he can, not sure what to expect.
They look… burned, for lack of a better word; dark, jagged scars where the names should be.
“On Tatooine,” Anakin says before Obi-Wan has a chance to ask, and inexplicably he sounds much older than he is, “those are the slave markings. Every slave gets branded as a child, a chip hidden somewhere on the inside and burn scars on both wrists on the outside. We thought it was just…” he shrugs and trails off.
Obi-Wan hasn’t allowed himself to feel anger in a long time but it swells in his very being, a cold kind of fury, and the Force swirls and buzzes around him, crackling with barely contained rage. Anakin must sense at least some of it, because his eyes dart back to Obi-Wan’s face, anxiety written all over him.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, and the small, attentive nod Anakin gives him is enough to calm the storm raging in his mind. “I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You’ve never mentioned this before.”
Anakin just shrugs again. He doesn’t like talking about his life as a slave. Then again, who would.
“Do you have them, then?” Anakin asks after a moment of quiet, his voice shy but still so very curious.
“Yes.”
“Can I see?”
Obi-Wan hesitates, his left wrist burning with an odd kind of pain that he knows isn’t real. He can’t imagine what Anakin’s reaction might be.
“Please?”
He doesn’t have the heart to keep it a secret, to refuse the curiosity of his young Padawan. Obi-Wan smiles at him and places his hands in Anakin’s.
iv. Anakin
Anakin knows what the tattoos on Obi Wan’s wrists say.
Anakin Skywalker on the left one in clear, black lettering, Obi-Wan’s own elegant handwriting.
Darth Vader on the right one, mangled and nearly illegible, the letters sharp and unfamiliar, surrounded by what looks like burn marks.
He wonders what his own would’ve looked like.
Slaves aren’t allowed the comfort, the luxury of having a soulmate; now he knows this. He doesn’t remember his tattoos being removed. It must’ve been a long time ago, back when he was a small child. A reminder that his life didn’t belong to him.
He’s not a child any more, nor a slave. His life still doesn’t quite seem to be his own, though.
He argues with Obi-Wan sometimes, threatens to leave the order, seeks comfort in Padmé’s loving arms. Padmé always listens, Padmé understands, Padmé talks him out of reckless ideas and helps him make good decisions; when he’s with her, everything seems to make sense.
He loves Padmé; nothing has ever been clearer to him. She is radiant and beautiful, she is every warm, shining star in the galaxy, every flower on every sunlit meadow, every last good thing that the world has to offer. He would do anything for her, to keep her safe. He can’t imagine his life without her in it, without her smile, her laugh, her soft hands caressing his face like he’s the most precious thing in all existence.
But he loves Obi-Wan, too.
Obi-Wan, who kisses the old scars on his wrists, sad blue-gray eyes looking up at him with love so pure, so gentle, so absolute, sometimes Anakin has to look away. Obi-Wan, who’s always there for him, no matter how much they argue and disagree, how angry they get at each other. Anakin keeps coming back to him at the end of the day, apologises, catches a glimpse of Obi-Wan’s wrist and feels humbled.
What an honour, to be loved by a being so bright and celestial, so good it almost hurts to look at him.
Anakin clenches his fists as day after day he catches himself looking for names that aren’t there, looking for certainty; anything would be better than this ignorance, than having the knowledge which should belong to him taken away. But the universe takes and takes, it seems, and it never gives anything back.
“It matters not, Anakin,” Obi-Wan’s soft voice whispers right into his ear, “and it’s all right. You know you do not owe me anything.”
And Anakin buries his face in Obi-Wan’s shoulder, cries, cries until his eyes are dry and his heart feels all but empty. Obi-Wan kisses the top of his head.
“It is a gift, Anakin. It is the universe allowing you to choose.”
v. Obi-Wan
War doesn’t permit them much rest.
The galaxy needs them, needs their protection and their advice, and some weeks Obi-Wan feels like he doesn’t get to sleep at all, his time divided between fighting, negotiating, discussing war strategies, and worrying about the future.
He always feels Anakin’s presence, though, no matter how far apart they are, no matter what happens. Through the Force, through their connection, even when they’re not together he knows that Anakin is out there, alive, and sometimes it’s the only thought that carries him through the exhausting days.
But there are moments of calm, too. Well, calm.
In the late hours of the evening they forget about how ruthless the world can be. They lie together, legs tangled, hands in each other’s hair and roaming each other’s backs, holding on like their lives depend on it, and maybe they do.
Anakin breathes into his ear and arches his back, moves against his body in the darkness, and if there’s an edge of desperation in their actions, they don’t talk about it.
Sometimes, Anakin brings Obi-Wan’s wrists to his mouth and kisses them, kisses his own name while holding Obi-Wan’s gentle gaze, kisses his other wrist with ferocity, teeth grazing skin.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” he promises Obi-Wan, and if they both know how naively childish it sounds, they don’t talk about that, either.
Obi-Wan smiles a sad smile, hugs Anakin sleeping with his head on his chest closer to him. He stares at his right wrist and wonders. He has known peace, now he knows war, he’s seen things he’d never thought he’d have to witness but of one thing he is certain: the only person he could truly call an enemy would be someone who’d hurt Anakin. So if the name is there, there will come a time, a person who… He pushes the thought to the back of his mind.
Who is he to try and question the future? When he holds Anakin sleeping in his arms, his steady breaths the rhythm of Obi-Wan’s own heart?
The only thing he wants for Anakin is to be happy. He’d do anything, anything without hesitation, and he would demand nothing in return. That Anakin looks at him with soft affection and whispers his feelings into Obi-Wan’s ear is an honour, beautiful beyond compare.
Obi-Wan would ask for nothing else.
vi. Anakin
Falling to his knees in front of Palpatine feels like a defeat.
Wind is blowing through the broken window, and Anakin tells himself that it’s the chill in the air that’s causing him to shiver. His fists are clenched so tight it hurts and he’s crying, tears silently falling from his eyes and drying on his cheeks.
He’s doing this for Padmé, he reminds himself. He’s doing it for her, for the only person he’s ever loved like this.
What about Obi-Wan? he asks himself and nearly falls to the floor at the thought, barely catching his balance again.
He knows he’s strong, he knows he can pull through and emerge victorious, and he knows he’ll do whatever he has to just to save her. They’ll be together, safe, and if he has to turn the universe inside out he’ll do so, there’s no question about it.
And Obi-Wan… Obi-Wan will understand. He’ll be angry, but he’ll understand; it takes him time but in the end, he always does. Anakin will explain it all to him and it will be all right.
“You shall be known as Darth Vader,” Palpatine tells him, and Anakin discovers another emotion he was never supposed to have; despair.
It feels like his whole body caves in on itself, empty and cold, helplessness and disbelief pulling his heart apart.
He looks at Palpatine, his eyes asking why and no and never.
Darth Vader. The other name on Obi-Wan’s wrist, the one he’s kissed a thousand times, the one he’d promised to guard Obi-Wan from.
And in that moment he realises that Obi-Wan won’t understand, won’t forgive him for what he’s about to do, won’t ever let him explain himself, and even if he will, none of it will matter. The universe set them up perfectly, and he would laugh at it if it didn’t feel as if a hole was ripped in his chest, right where his heart was supposed to be.
At least he can still save Padmé.
“You will go to the Jedi Temple,” Palpatine begins. Anakin bites his tongue so hard he draws blood and listens.
vii. Obi-Wan
As he walks through the Jedi Temple, he thinks this must be what dying feels like.
He kneels among the slaughtered Jedi, Masters and Knights and Padawans alike. Even the Younglings weren’t spared. He steadies himself, leans against one of the pillars because he’s not sure his legs can support him any longer. Killed, all of them, mindlessly, mercilessly and without reason, an evil so unfathomable he would not believe his eyes if he didn’t feel it in his heart, in his soul, the Force quietly humming a song of immeasurable loss.
“Who could have done such a thing?” he hears himself ask, barely above a whisper, but he doesn’t want to know the answer. “Why?”
It’s terrifyingly quiet, Yoda’s slow footsteps the only sound echoing through the empty halls. Obi-Wan closes his eyes, a single choked sob escaping him as he puts his hand over his mouth.
Moving seems like the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. What’s the point? How do you keep going when you couldn’t stop everyone you love from dying?
Not everyone, he tells himself. If Anakin was dead, he’d know of it. Anakin is still out there and Obi-Wan reaches out to him, opens himself up, frantically searches for his soulmate just to know he’s all right. Anakin’s presence is clouded and oddly distant but there, and Obi-Wan gathers from him the strength to pull himself together and follow Yoda deeper into the Temple.
Anakin is still alive, somewhere out there. There is yet hope.
When he turns on the holoprojector, he’s sure he’ll see the elusive Sith Lord, the cruel mastermind behind the war and all of their suffering. He doesn’t understand Yoda’s warning; he already knows what happened at the Temple. There’s no way it can get any more painful.
The recording begins, shows Anakin’s face, and Obi-Wan’s heart stops beating.
It feels like what he sees is burning him from the inside out; Anakin’s face in tears but emotionless as he cuts down Jedi he trained with, talked with, laughed with. As he kills them all, without mercy, without hesitation.
It feels like Obi-Wan is watching his own life ending.
He’d thought seeing his Master die all those years ago was the worst thing that could happen to him. As Anakin kneels in front of the Sith Lord, shaking and crying calls him a Master, Obi-Wan realises he’d never known true pain before this moment.
You shall be known as Darth Vader, the recording says, and Obi-Wan stumbles backwards. His right wrist feels like it’s on fire and the thought occurs to him to burn the name off, cut the whole hand away so that he won’t have to look at it, remember it, think about it and face the facts. His back hits the wall as tears of disbelief fall from his eyes and he whispers, his voice catching and breaking, “No, no, please, no, anything, anyone but him, please—“
But there’s nobody to listen to his pleas, and with hands so shaky he can barely control them he turns the recording off.
“Please,” he begs Yoda, his heart aching so much he’d never thought it possible. “Send me after that Master, that Sith Lord. Please, not Anakin, not him, never him. I can’t—I couldn’t—please.”
Yoda shakes his head. “Killed, you would be. Too strong with the Force, the Master is.”
I don’t care, Obi-Wan realises. I don’t care. I’d rather die than kill Anakin.
“The boy you trained, gone, he is. Stopped, the Sith must be.”
Obi-Wan knows this isn’t true. He can still feel Anakin’s presence, distant and terrified but so uniquely his. But he also knows Yoda is right.
He’s a Jedi. His first responsibility is always to the Order.
He’ll talk with Anakin, he tries to tell himself. He’ll convince him to stand down. How he will ever forgive him for this crime, he doesn’t yet know. But he will try.
As he catches sight of his wrists, he almost wants to laugh, bitter and angry.
The stories always said that the names on people’s wrists were just that, soulmate and enemy.
None of those stories mentioned it would be someone he gave his whole heart to and someone who’d shatter his heart into a million pieces, cutting deep wounds into him that he knows will never heal.
None of them mentioned his soulmate and his worst enemy would be the same person.
viii. Obi-Wan
When he arrives on Mustafar, a part of him knows, with heartbreaking certainty, that he won’t be leaving the planet alive. He knows this, just as he knows that he’ll have to face Anakin there.
Darth Vader, he reminds himself.
Except he knows this forced distinction isn’t true. He knows he’ll be facing Anakin; he’ll have to look him in the eye and ask him why.
He cries out the question, and when Anakin turns to look at him, cold and desperate and so, so angry, Obi-Wan realises he doesn’t know him. “What happened to you?” he asks, the softness of his voice strange even to him.
He doesn’t ask the other questions crowding his mind. Why didn’t you tell me, talk to me? I would’ve helped you, Anakin. I would’ve done anything for you, if only you’d let me. You didn’t have to do this. There must’ve been another way.
Anakin tells him the Jedi are wrong, and Obi-Wan remembers how all those years ago Qui-Gon told him the same thing. Anakin tells him it was for Padmé, and Obi-Wan almost understands. But he can’t forget the faces of Jedi slaughtered in the Temple; it feels like they’re all looking at him now, calling for justice. The Sith must be stopped. Obi-Wan knows this.
He knows this is who Anakin has become, he can see it in his eyes. But there’s something else he sees in them, too, fear and uncertainty, and he doesn’t want to hope but he does, hopes against hope that he can still save Anakin, talk him out of it.
The moment their lightsabers crash against each other, sparkling and lethal, he knows he’d failed.
You have a choice, Obi-Wan had told Anakin. It’s just that he’d never thought his soulmate, his best friend, his Anakin, would choose a path that would destroy them both.
Their fight is a cruel reflection of all their years together, their training, meditation, discussions, the presence they’ve always maintained around each other because it was the most natural thing in the world. Nobody knows Obi-Wan better than Anakin. Obi-Wan wishes the reverse would be true as well, but as he barely deflects another swing, he thinks that he must’ve been wrong, and the universe must’ve been wrong, too. Was this always how it was meant to happen? He’d never loved anyone else half as much as he loved Anakin.
It feels like a lifetime ago that Anakin promised he’d never let Darth Vader hurt him.
Anakin attacks and Obi-Wan gives ground, parries, dodges, blocks, jumps away, twirls to the side and delays the inevitable; he holds Anakin at bay but cannot bring himself to raise his lighsaber in anything but defence.
But he has to, in the end, and as his lightsaber cuts into Anakin he wonders how it is possible that his right wrist doesn’t bear his own name, with how much disgust he feels for himself for what he had to do.
This, then, is what his whole life had been leading up to, and all of his love for Anakin doesn’t matter in the end.
“I hate you!” Anakin screams at him, angry and hurting and betrayed and Obi-Wan wants only to fall to his knees, cradle Anakin close to him and cry, cry and apologise that he didn’t know how to stop this.
“I loved you” he tells him, pure and simple, the way it’s always been. There’s no anger in his words, no blame, only sorrow as he faces Anakin’s hate and still cannot respond with anything but love. “I loved you, but I couldn’t save you.”
Anakin looks at him, desperately grasping at nothing, trying to stop himself from rolling into the lava, and his expression doesn’t change.
“Forgive me,” Obi-Wan whispers as he turns away. He can’t bear to watch what happens next.
He’s strong, but this he cannot do.
Yoda’s voice echoes in his head. Destroyed, the Sith must be.
I will not kill Anakin.
He thinks back to when he used to ask the Force what he was meant for. Infinite sadness, it would answer him softly. He’d never truly understood the meaning of those words.
He does now.
ix. Obi-Wan
He doesn’t remember what peace felt like.
When he looks at Luke, he smiles, even though joy never quite reaches his eyes any more. He thinks if Padmé was alive, she’d be so very proud of her children, as kind and brave as she’d always been.
Anakin would be proud, too, but Obi-Wan doesn’t want to think about Anakin.
He knows he has to, though. He knows exactly what he has to do.
When they enter the Death Star, he opens himself up, reaches out into the bond that still isn’t severed, somehow, and calls out to Anakin, quiet, but just enough for him to hear, and waits. As he brushes against Anakin in the Force he shudders; Darth Vader feels cold and unfamiliar, but Obi-Wan knows he needs to face him again. For Luke to escape. And for himself to find peace.
When Anakin approaches him, his lighsaber—so red, so wrong—already ignited, the dull pain in Obi-Wan’s chest returns, the wound from all those years ago opens, and he’s not quite sure he has the strength to do this. But he has to. Guilt floods his mind, settles inside him, the heaviest burden he’d ever had to bear.
Anakin’s attacks are as fierce and stubborn as they were on Mustafar and Obi-Wan’s defense is just as strong, but they both already know how it will end. Seems like it was always going to end like this.
He will let Anakin kill him.
Except Anakin will not kill Obi-Wan; Obi-Wan died back on Mustafar. And Anakin died there, too.
“You have become old and weak,” Darth Vader says; his voice is as harsh and mangled as the name written on Obi-Wan’s wrist.
It’s nothing compared to what you’ve become, Obi-Wan thinks, but doesn’t say it out loud. Instead he brings his lightsaber to his face, an old sign of respect, closes his eyes and smiles a tired, sad smile.
Vader strikes at him.
By the time Vader lowers his lightsaber at his side, Obi-Wan isn’t there any more.
x. Anakin
Luke helps him take off the mask, the hateful thing that was keeping him alive when there was nothing to live for left.
Anakin’s somewhat surprised to realise that he doesn’t think of what could’ve been. He doesn’t think of his past mistakes, either. He can’t turn back time.
Nothing is forgiven, nothing is forgotten, but there was good in him, in the end, and he smiles at Luke. He saved his son’s life, and in turn his son saved him. A beautiful ending, if he thinks about it.
He tells Luke to leave him, feels the spark of his own life fading away and he’s fine with it.
All things must end.
When he senses a familiar presence, one he thought he’d never be allowed to feel again, he thinks he must be dreaming. There’s a phantom touch of lips on his forehead, and he knows, however impossible it seems, that he’s not.
“You did it,” Obi-Wan’s Force ghost whispers at him, and Anakin feels his heart open and sing, like the only thing he’d ever needed was to hear his voice again, to see his warm smile. “I’m so proud of you.”
I’m sorry, Anakin thinks, tears rolling down his cheeks. I’m so sorry, my friend, my oldest, dearest friend. Forgive me.
Obi-Wan extends an arm to him and smiles, luminous and proud.
“Let me show you the way.”
Anakin takes his hand, and the world swirls around him.
It doesn’t feel like he’d expected it would. He’s everywhere and nowhere at once, feels like he’s disappearing. His limbs become planets and his heart turns into a star, but something’s pulling him back. It’s hard to make sense of himself but he knows that is what he has to do, and so he lets himself listen to the Force but doesn’t lose himself in it, and the Force embraces him and greets him like an old friend.
He’s suspended somewhere outside time and space, he’s planets and stars and galaxies, but he’s Anakin Skywalker, too, and the Force cleanses him until he knows himself again.
He senses other beings, somewhere in the distance, but the figure that slowly materialises from light and stardust just in front of him wears a bright smile and he knows it, knows him, would recognise him anywhere, in any life, in any universe.
He blinks, and there they are: Obi-Wan and Anakin, standing together, looking at each other.
“It’s so good to see you again,” Obi-Wan tells him, his expression soft and loving, and of all the things Anakin has ever done, he regrets hurting Obi-Wan the most.
Obi-Wan was too good to be suffering.
But he’s here now, smiling, warm and welcoming, and Anakin throws himself into his arms, hugs him close, and they’re not quite flesh and blood but the Force knows them and lets them have this moment.
Anakin leans away, takes Obi-Wan’s face into his hands, eyes finding eyes and heart finding heart, and he wants to tell him so many things he doesn’t know where to start.
Obi-Wan is still smiling. “I know, Anakin. I know. It’s okay.”
They’re one with the Force and they’re one with each other, and it finally feels right.
Anakin remembers something. His eyes fall to his wrists and he peeks at them, curious; the Force restored him, and finally he’ll know—but there are no names on them, just the burn marks he still remembers so vividly. Obi-Wan takes his hands into his own, and when Anakin looks up at him, puzzled, he smiles.
And in this smile, at the end of all things, Anakin finds the truth he’s been looking for.