thread: the logical conclusion

[outduelling]

[ Under most circumstances, being back on Tatooine would hardly count as a blessing - for all intents and purposes, it's quite a dreary planet, the heat stifling and the Empire's presence near Bestine even more so. It's a dry, unforgiving world, he thinks, as he stands with his back to the main buildings, looking across the sand dunes stretching for countless miles around them. Arms crossed, he watches the dust drift in the air.

Unforgiving, yes. That's a word for it.

For the past two years, he's kept busy. Busy enough to keep his mind occupied at nearly all hours, busy enough to pass out from exhaustion (sometimes, rarely, even fortunate enough to get a few hours of dreamless sleep). Too busy to meditate properly, too busy to touch upon his own, inner mental landscape. It's been... sustainable. He could have gone many years like this, possibly wearing himself out along the way until, well. All things must pass into the Force and he'd be in good company, then, wouldn't he.

But of course, there is Claude. Claude, wearing that kyber crystal around his neck, Claude who used to love... who used to, yes, so he says, but finding someone else hasn't taken him too long, has it? How long does one grieve, anyway, before it becomes a chronic condition? Before it becomes something that doesn't remember or recall but devours, feelings that a man should be too good for, that he should release?

It's good to move on. It's good.

It's good and just.

He folds his arms across his chest and straightens his posture. The sands, in turn, are quiet. ]

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[twodown]

[ It isn't that long ago, Claude knows. He doesn't think about it all that often anymore, necessary as it is to stay firmly in the present to make things glide smoothly, but he knows it isn't that long ago he stood before Anakin in his suit, asking him to remove his helmet and he did. For Claude's sake. For Claude's sake and for his own, too.

Looking at Kenobi now, watching the sheer horror and disbelief he's exuding, Claude thinks - this man could have made Anakin remove his helmet as well, long before it was even in place, he had every opportunity, but he didn't use it and so, he didn't. Anakin lost. And Anakin lost himself.

He was gone, Kenobi says.

Claude frowns. He could reprimand him for his short-comings, but people who lose their loved ones, Claude knows, he lost his parents once, also not that long ago, are too busy with reprimanding themselves, chastising themselves, metaphorical whips to the back to ever need anyone else doing it for them.

No, there's been enough hurt. ]

You know that lost things can come back, if given the right incentive, right? Sometimes -- [ He stops, breathes, in, out, then reaches up to run one hand through his curls. ] -- it's not even us who find them, sometimes they find us.

[ Anakin has explained it to him, Jedi doctrine and while Claude accepts it as part of Anakin's very foundation, whether he truly believed in it or not, whether he'd later go out and eradicate it or not, as part of Kenobi's foundation, too, he still thinks it's wrong. It's brainwashing and it's harmful, to everyone.

Look at what it caused of damage in the galaxy, when handled by the wrong hands. He licks his lips, lets his hand drop enough to step forward slightly, in no way threateningly and place a heavy hand on Kenobi's shoulder, because doctrine only supports you so much. ]

He's back.

[outduelling]

[ When Claude puts his hand on his shoulder, Obi-Wan visibly shudders, though he doesn't pull away. Instead, he remains, forcing himself to be still in the face of the absolute maelstrom of thoughts and emotions raging within him. Lost things can come back says Claude. It's been two years of nightmares, night after night of watching Anakin burn to death on that Force-forsaken bank, of wondering how things would have gone if he'd only - and each time, he's reminded himself that Anakin's choices were his own, that it's selfish of him to mourn one man when he caused the deaths of countless others. Each time, he's tried to find solace in the notion of what he's always been taught and thought himself even more of a failure because he couldn't manage it.

Sometimes, they find us.

His next intake of breath is ragged, stuck in his throat. He can feel his knees buckling and forces himself to remain upright, to simply listen and understand. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. Knowledge, then. Accept it. Accept it.

He's still alive. ]

I see.

[ He looks out across the desert. Lips parted on a breath that he can't quite seem to release, he reaches out impulsively, thinking Anakin, grasping desperately at what used to be there, so easily within reach. He holds his breath for all the seconds it takes before he feels it, the light, far away, duller than before, ragged and worn but there, regardless. There.

Within reach.

Lips trembling, he hangs his head and reaches up blindly, closing his fingers around Claude's palm and allowing himself just a moment to hold on. ]