Title: I Had Been Blind, Unwilling.
Autor: Erin
Rating: G
Distribution: The Archive. Force Haven. Anyone else, just ask.
Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em, George Lucas does.
Warnings: None. Past movies and entirely made up in the Force’s glow zone.
Pairings: O/A. A/P.
Summary: Ben answers Luke’s questions to the best of his abilities, though he had to lock Anakin up to do it. And not quite the way you’re all thinking, the hotheaded Jedi wouldn’t let him answer.
Author’s Note: Ben’s rebuttal. Review's are welcomed, as is critique.

You ask me why and all I can say is, I don’t know.

I do not know why he fell in such a way that I could not stop him.

I do not truly know why I did not clearly see.

See how that thin line between genius and madness was crossed by my dearest friend.

Crossed and burned behind him in such a way that I could not, would not follow.

My whole life had been full of the certainties of what being a Jedi was.

And that did not include the kind of passion your father exuded from every pore.

It did not include the love of parent for child.

We believed that such love occluded one from total allegiance to the Force.

The way of the Jedi of old was different from the way of the Jedi now.

It did not include many things, Luke.

Many things were forbidden to us because of what they could lead to.

I was a Jedi in all ways, even though I am a deeply flawed man.

Flawed in ways that, while I see them as failures, you do not.

I loved your father too much.

Loved him to deeply to see his failings for what they were.

And these failings he had were dangerous in ways that I could not contemplate.

They were dangerous imperfections that I held in check.

I held him in check, a most unwise thing to do for another being, yet I could not help it.

He never learned that restraint for he had me to do it for him.

I was his balance.

I was his anchor.

I accepted this easily for he was my friend.

One that meant more to me than I could ever say-especially to him.

He was my emotional compass, my truism in that confused morass.

He was my guardian through the quagmire of humanity.

He was the one I counted on for protection from the world’s loud passions.

Anakin was so willing to deal with them for me that I let him.

I was not much of a judge of humanity and their reliance upon feelings.

Yes, I was a great negotiator, but that was purely logical.

I didn’t have to finagle with the messiness that is at the heart of all beings.

For me to lean on him so, was not right for our union was ill advised.

Ill-advised not unwanted for all the awkwardness of our first days together.

I tried to hard to be what I wasn’t.

He tried to hard to be what he thought I thought I wanted.

Our happy medium didn’t come for years and by then it was almost to late.

Years in which we lost precious time trying to find ourselves-and each other.

Instead of trying to learn who each of us really were, we hid ourselves from each other’s eyes.

I because I knew I was not what he needed.

And him because he didn’t want to let me down.

No, Luke, it was never about your mother.

At least, not directly for I knew what he never admitted to me about them.

I thought I meant nothing to him when I found out the truth.

How could we be friends when he could not say that he married her?

How could I have meant something when he said nothing about reality of their lives together?

Everything he worked for, he risked it all for her.

The Jedi Order meant nothing to him for she was all he wanted.

She was all he had ever wanted from the moment he saw her.

Padme Amidala Skywalker was a brave and courageous woman.

She was blinded by her love for him even as I.

But I believed that she would save him.

I thought that she was the one who had the strength to save him.

In believing this, I condemned your mother to death for he killed her.

He thought that we had betrayed him when she told him what I said of his deeds.

Luke, I had never intended to fight him that fateful day.

With the deepest, truest intent of my heart, I meant to talk to him.

If not for the fact that he attacked her, I would have.

But I knew Anakin more truly than he thought I did.

I knew that he would never lay a harsh hand on her.

Nor would he allow his temper to sway him into harming her.

When he harmed her, I knew what I must do.

I must detach from my heart and strike him down.

I would do it for he had become the vermin we fought so hard against.

I died that hellish day, Luke.

I died with Anakin Skywalker for he was a part of me.

For all that I denied it, he was my reason for being.

I failed him because I could not admit to this truth.

I could not admit that we, as the Jedi, were wrong to live the way we did.

I never realized that it was always me that he needed more than his own life.

Never recognized that the extent of his loyalty, of his commitment, was to me.

Or so you and everyone else seem to be telling me.

He says it to me in all he does.

Anakin was never one for half-measures.

Always throwing himself into things with the full weight of his passion.

It used to frighten me when he did this.

I feared that he would burn himself out, burn himself up.

There was always a fire within his heart that I could not tame.

It burned him constantly.

Punishing him, pushing him to achieve greater feats of insanity.

nakin Skywalker was a flaming fire that would not be quenched.

Your father danced within the flames of his own brilliance.

And lost himself to the madness blazing within his soul.

He dared to live on the cusp of the Force’s wave and begged me to follow.

Follow him along that new path and I could not for I was not like him.

He was the epitome of reckless courage and I was a mediator.

For all my words that I would be there with him, I never could stand beside him.

I could only trail along behind him and watch him do his own thing, making it every time.

I was not there with him because he did not ask me to stay.

If he had asked, just asked, I would have stayed with him.

It went unspoken but I thought he knew that he and not the Council had my total devotion.

He was my beloved Padawan.

And if he had asked me to stay, to turn away from my mission, I would have.

If he had shown any distress about what he was asked to do, I would not have left.

I could not have left him for any reason had I but known.

Known that I was needed by him.

My fault was that I accepted his words at face value.

I trusted him completely for all his never telling me of his marriage.

Of his fears for Padme and the future that awaited them for his dreams had twisted into darkness.

I failed him by trusting him too deeply to see what was really going on.

For loving him so much that I never believed he could fall to the dark, his light was so great.

Yet, how could I not for he was, always will be, my own, my Anakin?

The End.

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