***
Cliegg greeted him at the stone doorway that had once been his mother's home. Anakin looked at this stranger that had held a part of his mother's love and a part of him involuntarily shied away. He knew it to be unreasonable of him but, like a little boy, he was selfish of his mother's affections and to think that she would have found comfort with this man when she should have been missing him, when she should have been loving him-
Cliegg was inviting him to dinner and the words didn't register with him at first. He was looking at his stepfather's injury, the one that left him crippled. He was thinking that if his mother deserved better. He was thinking that his mother deserved perfection because she herself was so.
He tried to see Cliegg as a father and he failed. He had spent so long in his youth romanticizing his birth. In the planets he had visited, in the cultures he had observed, he had heard tales of women lying with spirits and with gods. He had imagined himself the son of a god that came to his mother one cold evening, sometimes in the form of a giant sleek sandtiger, other times as a man who looked a little too much like Master Qui Gon.
He had wanted a father but he didn't want Cliegg. This reality, this father, he could not tolerate and he preferred his dreams.
Realizing that Cliegg was still looking at him for an answer, Anakin simply nodded and moved to sit at the table.
His stepbrother's girlfriend, Beru, tearfully hugged him. Anakin moved out of her grasp, a little annoyed, and sat down all the more quickly.
Anakin could never abide weakness in those around him. He understood that everyone was flawed, but he never liked seeing it. He didn't like showing it either. Slaves weren't supposed to cry and neither were Jedi. Except for Padme, he had cried in front of no one.
There were so many things he never said, Anakin thought as he ate. He had once told Padme that he regarded Obi Wan as a father, but that had been a lie. He hadn't known how to put it into words at the time, but he knew now. Anakin's dark eyes flickered up from his meal and around the table. He saw Owen smiling at him a little unsurely, the honest moisture farmer's face crinkling into lines that would be etched farther with age.
It was brother, he realized, looking at Owen. It was not father, but brother.
Master Qui Gon could have been a father to him, but not Obi Wan. Master Qui Gon, he remembered washed with the golden nostalgia of childhood. The epitome of a warrior, proud and strong. He had idolized the Jedi Master with all the earnestness that only a child could muster. He had loved the Jedi Master for believing in him, for championing him when no one else would. Master Qui Gon had been protection and warmth, the same way that his mother was.
He had thought all Jedi would be so strong. So he was unprepared that night after he had become Obi Wan's padawan. He had left his bed, awakened by a nightmare about his mother, and wandered until he had found Obi Wan's room instead. Obi Wan was turning uneasily in slumber but woke as soon as Anakin touched his shoulder.
"Oh," Obi Wan had said. "You can't sleep either, can you? Come here. I suppose we'll both rest easier together."
So Anakin had climbed into Obi Wan's bed and closed his eyes. He pretended to fall asleep, his chest rising up and down convincingly. It seemed like an hour later that Obi Wan's breathing grew shallow and Obi Wan's arm was heavy around his waist. But Obi Wan was making soft distressed sounds and his body was shuddering. Anakin recognized that his Master was having a bad dream.
He wriggled out of Obi Wan's arms and looked at the sleeping face. He placed a small hand at the Jedi Master's temple and reached out with the Force. Examining Obi Wan's feelings, he felt distress, a fleeting satisfaction, and then an all-consuming grief. Anakin saw a series of images: Master Qui Gon locked in a battle with a red and black man, the bad man striking Master Qui Gon a severe blow, Obi Wan killing the bad man, Master Qui Gon with a sad look on his face, Obi Wan crying and crying.
Anakin watched and the dream replayed. The images meant little to him, for he was young enough not to feel death keenly and Master Qui Gon had looked so peaceful on the pyre. But, apparently, they meant much to his Master and Anakin wanted to help. So, by some hidden instinct, Anakin took the images in Obi Wan's mind and reordered them. The Force was surprisingly compliant and bent easily to Anakin's desires. He erased Master Qui Gon's death from Obi Wan's dream. Then he looped the image of Obi Wan killing the black man over and over. Finally, he carefully inserted his own memory, the only memory he had of Master Qui Gon's brilliant smile, into the carefully constructed montage.
Obi Wan's sleep became untroubled and Anakin felt a shy satisfaction creep over him. But, even then, Anakin thought petulantly that this wasn't the way things were supposed to be. Anakin missed his mother and he could not understand why he had to comfort a man who should have been his father. It should have been the other way around.
The next day, Obi Wan had started Anakin's first lesson with a lecture.
"Anger. You should not let your anger overtake you. You should not feel pleasure for actions committed in a rage."
And Anakin knew that he was talking about the dark man but Anakin wondered why his Master would say such a thing. Anger had made Obi Wan all the more dazzling to watch; anger had helped Obi Wan kill the bad man. Master Qui Gon had not said anything about it. And Anakin would have been angry if someone were to kill Obi Wan. Anger seemed all right by him. It was so human.
Anakin thought that maybe Obi Wan wasn't too bright but he said nothing. He only nodded solemnly and liked it when Obi Wan shot him a bright grin and ruffled his hair.
Owen was saying something and mentioned the word "Jedi," and Anakin looked up. He asked sharply whether Owen was talking about him or not and his stepbrother said "a little." But Owen didn't mean any offense by it and since Anakin hadn't heard the statement at all, he had to let the apology stand. What Anakin didn't realize was that Owen had seen a strange smile on the face of Shimi's son. Owen hadn't liked it, that sly smirk that seemed so knowing and cosmopolitan, so alien to the frank bluntness that Owen was accustomed to.
Then Cliegg made a remark about the food and how salty it was. "Shimi would have used more water. Ah, these vegetables look so brown. Dear Shimi always knows how to make our meals taste the most delicious. Do you remember her Zhulian stew?" And there must have been something funny about Zhulian stew because the rest of the family burst out into raucous laughter, but Anakin couldn't even smile. He didn't know what Zhulian stew was, and no one bothered to tell him. All he knew was that he couldn't believe that the Lars family could laugh so when his mother was dead.
He remembered that early on in his apprenticeship, Obi Wan had talked about Master Qui Gon but Obi Wan hadn't laughed. When they had been assigned missions and something went wrong, Obi Wan would bite his lip. Sometimes, he would hit something. But he would never yell, only go very quiet and say, "Qui Gon would have double-checked the coordinates" or "Qui Gon wouldn't have underestimated the point- precision accuracy of the photons" but mostly "Qui Gon wouldn't have done this. He wouldn't have done this."
Perhaps the others at the table had noticed Anakin's lack of mirth, for the laughter became awkward and strained before finally dying out. Owen, Beru, and Cliegg must think the Jedi humorless and emotionless. That was a common assumption. But Obi Wan had once been one of the most expressive people he had known.
Their master-apprentice pairing was ill matched in terms of personality. The young master with the clear eyes and throaty laugh trailed by his solemn apprentice that so hard to hide emotions and body from every pair of staring eyes intent on seeking out the Chosen One.
Young Anakin had admired the carefree way in which his Master seemed to flaunt the Jedi Code. He believed that his Master could love just as easily as laugh, so he took it upon himself to ask Obi Wan about families.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you miss your mother? You love your mother a lot, don't you, Master?"
"I don't know my mother. But I can't love her as much as I love you, Anakin."
Horrified, Anakin had screamed "Liar!" at his Master and refused to leave his room for two days. He convinced himself that Obi Wan was heartless, for no one could ever not love a mother.
Only when he was older, did he realize that he should have asked about Qui Gon instead.