"Not All Dreams Are Visions"
Rating: G
Obi-Wan has a bad dream.
Bail was standing now, moving toward the podium. The audience stood and applauded as Bail took his place. Obi-Wan started to smile, taking vicarious pride in the audience's respect and admiration for his lover. A flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned but saw nothing unusual, nothing but the crowd standing and cheering. Nothing there, but dread curdled thickly in his stomach. Something was not right.
He started to push his way forward through the crowd, but they were packed so tightly together he could scarcely move. The feeling of dread increased, and he tried to shout a warning, but he could not be heard over the noise of the crowd. He reached out for the Force, but inexplicably it eluded his grasp. The harder he reached for it, the more evasive it grew, teasing him. If he could just touch it, force a path through the crowd, push Bail away from the podium, shout a warning. He opened his mouth, but nothing emerged. His legs would not move. He was paralyzed.
He lifted his gaze and saw Bail at the podium. He saw the barrel of a laser rifle. He saw the flash of light, saw Bail's stricken look, saw him fall.
Instantly the paralysis lifted, and Obi-Wan was up on the dais, gathering Bail into his arms. Blood gushed from the prince's mouth, his eyes glassy and sightless. Too late. He was too late.
"No," Obi-Wan sobbed. "No, don't go. Please!" He held Bail close, an awful emptiness tearing open his chest, as he sobbed wildly, not caring who saw him. "Don't leave me, please!" he cried, rocking Bail in his arms. "I love you."
A hand rested on his shoulder, shaking him, but he paid it no mind, only clung the more tightly to Bail's limp body.
"Master?" Anakin stood next to him, eyes dark with disappointment. "You didn't love him enough. You couldn't protect him. What about me, Master?"
Obi-Wan reached out toward his padawan, but the boy faded back into the crowd. Obi-Wan couldn't follow him without letting go of Bail. "Anakin!" he called out. Would he lose both of them?
"Master?" came Anakin's voice, but Obi-Wan could no longer see him.
The hand on his shoulder shook harder, insistently, threatening to break his hold on Bail, but he would not let go of the prince. Curling tightly around Bail's body, he screamed, "No!"
Obi-Wan shot awake, lurching upright, eyes blinking furiously in the dark. He had no idea where he was. Even in the darkness he could still see Bail's lifeless face. He choked back a sob.
"Master?" a worried voice said. His padawan hovered near, face pale in the night.
Obi-Wan struggled to reorient himself to his surroundings. They were on a mission. They had been given separate rooms, so what was Anakin doing here with him?
Anakin answered his unasked question. "You were crying."
Obi-Wan raised a trembling hand to his cheek, felt the dampness there.
It had been a dream.
But the grief had been so real, so raw and crushing. So what if it had only been a dream? If anything ever happened to Bail, if he really were assassinated, if Obi-Wan weren't there to protect him, he didn't know how he would live with the result. The venom of his deepest fears poisoned him, and rather than fight it, he surrendered, giving into tears, letting them wash through him as he curled up on the bed.
"Master?" Anakin repeated, unsettled by the unusual sight of a crying Obi-Wan. "What's wrong?"
His breath hitching in his chest, Obi-Wan gasped, "I dreamed about Bail. There was an assassin. I couldn't get to him in time, and he died." Again that helplessness and desperate terror.
Anakin hovered uncertainly over him, as in the dream, and for a moment Obi-Wan fought the urge to shove the boy away. At last Obi-Wan managed to calm himself, and Anakin asked, "Was it a vision?"
Obi-Wan sat up, wiping at his eyes. "No, it was just an ordinary dream. A bad one, but just a dream."
"Are you sure?"
Obi-Wan nodded, struggling to calm his breathing and still his anxiety. His padawan didn't need to see him falling apart over a silly dream.
Several minutes of uneasy silence. Obi-Wan wished Anakin would go back to bed. Even though he knew the dream wasn't real, that despair still weighed heavily upon him, and he wasn't ready to give it up yet. But Anakin did not leave his side. Obi-Wan waited for the dream accusation to surface, but instead the boy suggested, "You could call him."
Surprise temporarily silenced him. "There's no need," he said at last. "Besides, I have no idea what time it is on Coruscant. He could be asleep or in a meeting. There's no need to disturb him over something like this."
Anakin glanced over at the suite's computer. "You could check the holonet."
Obi-Wan opened his mouth, but no protest emerged. Instead, with more eagerness than he wanted to admit, he climbed out of bed and crossed the room to the computer, telling himself it was to reassure Anakin. He knew everything was fine, but it wouldn't hurt to see Bail's face right now.
More silence as he turned on the computer and searched the net. He soon found a story, only a day old: a photo-op of Bail at some function or other. If he had been assassinated, it would have been all over the net. Obi-Wan stared at the image of Bail, a lump rising in his throat, threatening tears again. He reached out to the beloved face, his fingers passing through the insubstantial holo.
"You're sure it's just a dream?" Anakin asked again. "It could be a vision of the future."
Obi-Wan looked sharply at him. Did the boy's insistence reflect some secret wish? He knew Anakin had cooled in his affection for Bail, but he could detect no overt hostility in him. Anakin was the very image of genuine concern. Obi-Wan chided himself for his suspicions.
"It was no vision, padawan," Obi-Wan assured him. "It was just a dream, reflecting ordinary enough fears, nothing more." He reached out to Anakin, ruffling the boy's hair as he forced himself to sound cheerful. "Don't you ever have anxiety dreams about appearing before the Council in only your underwear?"
Anakin grinned shyly. "Yeah. And I have another one, where we're arriving for a mission, only I forgot to do all the prep reading, and I'm trying to cram it all in just as the ship is docking planetside."
Obi-Wan echoed the boy's smile. "I sometimes dream I'm supposed to make a report to the Council, but my datapad keeps calling up the wrong file. I keep punching in the code, but I get the numbers all wrong, and I can't get it." He sighed in remembered frustration. "I really hate that dream."
Hesitantly, Anakin asked, "You dream about Bail because you worry about him?"
Obi-Wan nodded mutely.
"Do you ever dream about me?"
Obi-Wan didn't want to tell Anakin about those dreams, but he still felt vulnerable, opened up by his fear for Bail. Obi-Wan could be of no help to the prince at this distance, but he could offer Anakin the comfort and love he wanted to give to Bail. Yes, he feared for Anakin, too. And really the boy was far more likely to come to harm on a mission than Bail was back on Coruscant.
"I can't find you," Obi-Wan whispered, his hand reaching out to rest on Anakin's shoulder. "I look and look. I can hear you calling me, but I can't find you. Then the Sith Lord appears, the one I killed on Naboo, and he says, 'You'll never find him. He's gone.' I know he's taken you, and I'm so angry I...." he hesitated. He couldn't bear to tell his padawan this, about the anger that consumes him in that dream. How he attacks the Sith Lord with his bare hands, digging his fingers into the demon's neck and ripping the jugular vein out with his bare hands. He shuddered deeply, remembering that cloying darkness and insatiable anger. "I kill him," he said simply. "Then I wake up."
Anakin crouched next to his chair, perfectly still, his eyes impossibly huge in the dim light. "I dream about you, too," he confessed. "I dream that I've failed you. You look so disappointed, and you say, 'I'm sorry. You were never meant to be my padawan.' You take your saber, and you're going to kill me." He swallowed hard. "Then I wake up."
Without a word, Obi-Wan grabbed Anakin and pulled him up into his lap, hugging him fiercely. The boy was almost too big to fit into his lap anymore, but Anakin returned his embrace with equal intensity. Anakin had suffered from nightmares for as long as Obi-Wan had known him, and he knew the boy didn't tell him about them anymore. Obi-Wan had been finally unable to help him. He didn't know where those dreams came from, didn't know how to stop them, and Anakin had learned to cope with them on his own. Anakin had not failed him. He had failed Anakin.
It was a little too much to expose such deep inner fears to each other, but it felt good somehow, to share those anxieties and offer comfort. A proper master would no doubt say they should meditate on the dreams, but Obi-Wan didn't want to anymore than Anakin did.
At last Anakin's adolescent dignity reasserted itself, and he let go of Obi-Wan. "You could still call him, you know."
"There's no need," Obi-Wan replied.
But Anakin had heard his hesitation. The boy had always been perceptive in discerning the feelings Obi-Wan preferred to conceal. "He'd like to hear that you got so upset over him. You should call."
The truth was it would be very good to hear Bail's voice. Obi-Wan was still unsettled by the dream. "All right," he relented, getting up and rummaging for his commlink. "But you need to go to bed."
Anakin grinned. "Call him first."
Obi-Wan obliged, patching through to Bail's private line. He was supposed to use it only for emergencies, but it was the best way to ensure he would actually get the prince. The comm beeped, waiting to connect. The seconds dragged on far too long, and Obi-Wan's breath quickened as the fear from his dream returned.
At last the connection was made. "Organa," said the welcome voice, so soft, so beautiful.
Obi-Wan knew he was going to cry again. He felt completely helpless once more, but this time in a strangely good way. "Hi," he breathed, before emotion could completely overtake him. He glanced at Anakin to assure his padawan everything was all right. Anakin nodded and backed through the doorway, fading into the darkness, and for a moment Obi-Wan was reminded again of his dream. He wanted to reach out toward Anakin, but the boy's expression was not accusatory. He had been reassured of his place in Obi-Wan's heart, and he was willing to leave Obi-Wan to Bail. Obi-Wan smiled at the boy, just before the door closed behind him.
"Ben!" Bail exclaimed happily. "Are you back already?"
Obi-Wan's attention returned to Bail. Oh, that voice sounded so good! He hadn't had to let go of Bail after all. His hands shook, and tears spilled over his lashes. "No, I'm still on my mission."
Despite the brevity of his answers, Bail could hear his distress. "What's wrong? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I just needed to hear your voice."
But Obi-Wan's assurances only worried Bail more. "What happened?"
"Nothing. I just had a bad dream. It upset me."
Bail considered this for a moment. "A dream about me?" he queried. "What was it about?"
Obi-Wan shook his head. "I'm not going to tell you. You'll just think it was a vision, but it wasn't. It was only a dream. But I was upset, and Anakin made me call you."
"Anakin?" Bail sounded pleased. "So you had a bad dream about me, and it made you cry? My poor, dear Bendu."
"I know. Pathetic, isn't it?"
"I think it's very sweet."
Force, how he wished he was with Bail right now. He ached with the need to hold him. "I miss you."
A long silence on the other end, and when Bail spoke again, his voice was not exactly steady. "I miss you, too, dearest."
Obi-Wan clutched the commlink, tears flowing freely, letting himself indulge in a good emotional wallow. "Did I disturb you? What were you doing?"
"I was in a committee meeting."
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't be, sweetheart. It's quite all right."
Obi-Wan smiled again. "I like it when you call me sweetheart."
Bail laughed. "You always told me you hated it."
"Normally I do, but it doesn't sound so bad right now."
"Whatever you say, precious."
That was Obi-Wan's cue to put on a show of irritation, but not only did he feel inclined to tolerate Bail's affections for once, he was grateful for the sappy terms of endearment. "That sounds nice, too." He admitted, then sighed in frustration. The commlink was too small to cuddle, and he had indulged himself long enough. "Well, I shouldn't keep you from your meeting, and I need to go back to bed. It's the middle of the night here."
Bail drawled, "Maybe you'd sleep better if I sang you a lullaby?"
Fresh tears threatened. What a pathetic sap he'd become in his old age! He ought to at least cling to his dignity enough to make a sarcastic comment, but instead he said, "Actually, I would love it."
A pause, then, "All right." Obi-Wan could almost hear Bail's satisfied smile. "Get into bed and pull the covers up nice and snug around you."
Obi-Wan did as he was told, and after a moment, Bail asked, "Are you ready?"
"Yes."
And Bail began to sing, a sweet lullaby. Obi-Wan lay in his bed and let Bail's soft voice flow over him, washing away all those fears and wrapping warm tendrils of security and comfort around him. He had felt the need to protect Bail, but in the end it was Bail who kept him safe.
When the song ended, Obi-Wan simply said, "I love you."
"I love you, too, Bendu," Bail intoned. "Sleep well."
And he did.
~ fin ~