Fading

Chapter 1 - Into the Past

Author's Note: Ever since we started watching the OWK series, we've been thinking about this in some shape or form. Lol. I hope y'all enjoy this fic featuring lots of Vaderkin-Obi-Wan bonding, miscommunications, relationship troubles/drama, and all of the problems associated with time traveling after getting roasted by your brotherson. :D

This was also written for the Obikin 2023 bingo. ^-^

WARNING: Homicidal thoughts – not unlike everything in Star Wars.

~ Amina Gila

Anakin's lightsaber crystal hums with an aching familiarity in Obi-Wan's hands. It's the last of him he has now – the last he ever had.

The Tatooine suns beat down on him relentlessly as he stands, clipping the lightsaber to his belt beneath his robes alongside his own. This time, he's taking them both with him.

The all-consuming guilt that's been crushing him all these years is gone, at least for the moment, replaced by something else. Something he can't say is any better. He feels dead inside. (Something died in him, that moment he walked away for a second time, and he knows this time, it will never be filled.)

Obi-Wan doesn't know yet, where exactly he's going as he rides on his eopie across the never-ending stretches of sand, but he can't stay in that cave anymore. It's nothing but a reminder of everything that happened that day, of all the years that he thought of it ceaselessly. He doesn't need that reminder if he's ever going to let it go.

Anakin was gone long before he ever even knew. 'The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.' Master Yoda had been right, in the end.

(He still can't shake the memory of Anakin's anguished screams from mind, or of Vader calling him as he walked away.)

Something shifts suddenly in the Force, and all Obi-Wan can do is stare as Qui-Gon materializes a distance ahead of him, shimmering with an odd blue hue. He's – he's here?! All these years, and especially on his excursion to rescue Leia, he'd been reaching for him, hoping for guidance before he confronted An-Vader again, but here he is.

"Master Qui-Gon?" Obi-Wan asks in surprise, "You're here."

"I was always there, Obi-Wan," he replies in that painfully familiar voice. It's been so many years since he last heard his voice. He missed him too, but it was hardly anything compared to Anakin. He accepted Qui-Gon's death years ago. "You were just not ready to see it. The Force is giving you a third chance, Obi-Wan, if you are willing to take it."

"What?!"

"A chance to change things," he explains, in his usual unenlightening fashion, "You can go back to the past, to right before all of this started. With your knowledge of the future, you can make better choices."

Wait, what? A chance to go back to the past? Is he talking about time-travel? That doesn't make any sense! "What are you talking about?" he asks, desperately. "How is that possible?"

"Time-travel," Qui-Gon replies, distinctly amused, "If you want this, you leave now."

Seeing that this is Qui-Gon ghost who's always been involved in the most bizarre things known to the Jedi and beyond, Obi-Wan shouldn't even be surprised he found a way to time-travel or whatever happened. His mind is spinning from the very implications of what he's saying. A chance for all of this to be undone? It feels as ludicrous as it sounds.

But he's genuinely offering it, and can Obi-Wan really refuse that? Why would he not want a chance to make things better? (A chance to get Anakin back? Is that even possible? He's scared to hope it might be, after what just happened.)