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Chapter Text

7 BBY

“Spare me your petty excuses.”

This voice—a deep, crackling, dreaded voice—struck out like a whip. In the immediate vicinity of the holocall, several wise individuals—stormtroopers, bureaucrats, and officers alike—suddenly found the floor of Eizoz VII’s main starport deeply fascinating, worthy of their intense focus. A foolish few numbered among them, however, and they collectively bristled at this dismissal, sharpening the edges of a sense of pride that would only be used against them.

Several shipping crates away, on the other hand, a mixed group of sentients had paused as well, also hearing this voice. Two stormtroopers, blasters in hand, had been just moments ago marching a batch of seven sorry faced prisoners through the maze that the starport had become, thanks to the wealth of containers and boxes that the Empire had offloaded there to support their continued invasion of Eizoz VII.

The stormtrooper on the left convulsively flexed their fingers on their weapon, knees bending like the loss in height would obscure them from sight. The stormtrooper on the right, unable to help himself, leaned backwards just slightly from his duties, squinting past his opaque visor and through the weather-worn netting hanging from the handful of cargo containers between him and the active holocall—and that voice.

Unaware of these eavesdroppers, the participants in the call continued on unhindered.

“But my lord,” complained one high-ranking stormtrooper, “we have solid proof the Jedi is colluding with the rebel cells in this sector—”

“What need is there for proof?” retorted his master. Above the Imperial agents, a flickering blue image loomed—the head and torso of the man leading the assault on Eizoz VII, the Sith Lord Darth Vader. “Destroying Kenobi does not require evidence of his crimes and failings. That he still dares to breathe is reason enough.”

Fascinatingly—if only from a technological standpoint—contempt somehow was able to contort Vader’s wooden speech patterns, his words dripping with a special sort of venom that defied the restrictions of the tools he relied on to speak. Even further, as a matter of observation as well as the reality of his great distance from his audience, Vader’s voice was still somehow able to provoke a unique sense of doom and unease, a feature that some might have mistakenly attributed to individual anxiety when only the Force was the appropriate answer.

“It no longer matters. That coward is gone.”

Several crates away, unseen, the spying stormtrooper on the right twitched with an aborted gesture of offended pique. Coward?

Under Vader’s visage, however, Imperial agents shifted restlessly.

“Are you certain, my lord?” asked another stormtrooper, daringly. Doubtless one of the many fanatical followers of the Empire, they were poised as if to sprint off at one word from their lord.

“You would not capture that man through any other means but the element of surprise. He outsmarted you the moment our ships darkened the sky. Without question.”

The assembled stormtroopers seemed to accept this, easing away from the holoprojector. At the same time, however, the pale face of a Human Imperial officer turned purple. One might say that the main export of the Empire was an echo chamber of opinions. This was never as clear as it was when nurtured superiority suddenly felt the gentle tugs of the reigns from those with true power.

With an insincere laugh, the Imperial said, “My lord, you must be mistaken. The best and brightest of our forces are here, under your esteemed command! Where could he have gone?” Clearly used to politicking in a crowd, he made a sweeping gesture towards the rest of the group, as if inviting them to agree. “Look at all you have assembled here. Why, we are the very tip of your spear, my lord. With a little more time, I am certain our sweeps will pick something up. He’s just one person, after all. All alone. A weak old man, at this point, surely—”

If the Imperial officer had any other observations to share about a weak old Jedi he had never even met, they were not shared with his peers. Instead, he paused his speech, swallowing in vague surprise as the sensation around his throat registered. A moment later, the officer gagged, massaging his throat fitfully as his superior choked the life out of him from afar. A hand, almost claw-like in its desperation, reached out to his closest ally, who carefully stepped away.

The Imperial officer fell to his knees, surrounded by carefully neutral faces. If he looked for pity there, he would not find it. In truth, he would find more pity from the call’s unwitting eavesdroppers than his colleagues, as it was the unseen prisoners—and one stormtrooper—who recoiled in horror at this gesture of power.

Of the eavesdroppers, only one stormtrooper remained steady, his gaze never faltering away from the flickering blue image of Darth Vader.

Then Vader finally spoke. “That weak old man is a Master of the Force. A powerful warrior and a cunning tactician. And if you in your unearned arrogance continue to underestimate him, you will no longer have a function in the Empire, let alone air to breathe. Let this be a lesson to all.” 

Vader dropped the now dead officer to the ground before rattling off new orders. The Empire had an entire planet to subjugate, and it would not waste any more resources chasing after the echoes of an old fugitive. Explosions off in the distance seemed to underscore the importance of this issue as the ever-spirited Zozians let their true feelings about Imperials blast throughout the night sky.

The holocall quickly ended, and the group dispersed, all carefully walking around the cooling corpse of their once ally. Still out of sight, the mixed group of eavesdroppers paused and looked at each other. Then, with a sigh, the stormtrooper on the right gestured forward with his weapon.

They marched on, traveling deeper into the starport as sounds of shouting and warfare raged all around them.

Eizoz VII would not fall quietly under Imperial rule. That was for certain. Zozians, whether by birth or creed or mere temporary residency, were not what you would call a gentle people. Because of several periodic interstellar anomalies, the Outer Rim sector that Eizoz VII called home had always been notoriously difficult to navigate. Naturally, this attracted the attention of a wide range of parties who preferred to avoid being followed—certain criminal elements, malcontents and enemies of various governments, freedom fighters, sentient beings who preferred isolation, and, yes, even Jedi a time or two. The result of this random convergence of factors was a planet that violently resisted change and yet was simultaneously and constantly on the verge of a bloody revolution.

It was a hotbed of criminality and scum looking for the easiest ways to ruin another sentient’s life for the smallest chance at an easy credit. At the same time, it was a haven for resistance forces and those who fought against all forms of tyranny. It was one of the few places one could find some classes of effective medicine that used to be ubiquitous during the age of the Republic. At the same time, people vanished and died (sometimes at the same time) regularly in broad daylight.

A refuge and a prison. A risk and an opportunity. The duality of any setting where a more civilized order never properly seeded its roots—and to be clear, no order, civilized or not, had ever really truly conquered this place, not in a thousand years. Internal order was also limited, and it was never clear to any outside observer who was in charge at any moment, nor what “being in charge” looked like.

Even its infrastructure—barely adequate for some beings and not at all for many others—were all that remained of some unknown humanoid spacefaring culture that had ill-advisedly called Eizoz VII home several millennia in the past. Nothing of their history or language could be gleaned from their primitive technologies. Only the bones of their old buildings, waterways, and waste management systems spoke to their presence, and what worked today only worked because droids and sentient beings in current and past eras cared enough to fix and maintain what was still functional so that a few more people could survive.

Altruism and warm practicality hidden under apathy and bold cruelty. Such was the mystery of Eizoz VII.

However, on a galactic scale, Eizoz’s mystery had far less to do with their people and more to do with their resources—or, more correctly, how often forces had been repelled trying to seize said resources. What Eizoz had in abundance was unverifiable conjecture. All the galaxy knew for certain was that Eizoz VII responded the same way to every outsider seeking to bring order or control to their region of space: with disproportionate and chaotic violence.

But not all Zozians were adept at warfare, some might cry. And certainly, the prisoners who were being marched through the starport were a great example of the kinds of peoples that could be subjugated here. They bore all the typical markers of surrender—upraised hands, lowered heads, and empty holsters. And why wouldn’t they surrender? Really, it was far more embarrassing to have fought the Empire and lost. Putting up a fight with the Empire was like a Human arm-wrestling with a Wookie and expecting positive results.

In the midst of a planet violently rejecting the Empire, this group of head-bowing prisoners must have been very soothing to Imperial onlookers. Even though it was odd for a group of prisoners to be marched further into a starport, rather than away and into an Imperial prison camp, this subdued group attracted a few glances here and there, but little more.

The only blip in this comforting narrative came when the stormtrooper on the right roughly pushed the closest prisoner to the left. The Togruta prisoner obligingly tripped into his peers, carrying the motion across the suddenly stumbling group. This chain of errors proved itself to have nearly miraculous timing; the hard flooring ahead of them cracked explosively under a heavy set of Imperial branded containers. Mere moments before, it had been dropped from far above their heads by a passing ship without any care who might walk below.

Stunned by this quick save—and completely missing the sleight of hand that destroyed a hidden treasure under his lekku—the Togruta reflexively turned to thank his captor. However, he stopped before a single word was uttered, clearly thinking better of it.

All too aware of onlookers, the fallen prisoners stood back up again, and a tense moment passed. Then, with a stifled huff, the stormtrooper on the right jerked his head to the left, gesturing to the side of the new obstacle. The prisoners collected themselves and moved onward.

The stormtrooper to the left followed them closely, nearly toe to heel. The stormtrooper to the right let them gain some distance before opening his hand and letting the remnants of a crushed jewel float to the ground.

-

The prisoners marched. And marched. And marched, moving deeper and deeper into the starport without a single complaint, nor even a request for directions from their armed wardens. Onward they went, weaving through the maze of boxes and crates and armed Imperial personnel.

And then, when the coast was finally clear, the stormtrooper on the right heaved out a single word: “Run.”

At a distance, more explosions ripped through the air, obscuring the sounds of nine sentients suddenly sprinting to the very back of the starport where several small and still intact cruisers were set.

A few Imperial forces who had hung back to continue stripping the ships, so like the orderly thieves and plunderers they were, sought to stop them. Before either of the two false stormtroopers could lift their blasters, however, the middlemost prisoner, a burly Lasat, ripped the nominally closed cuffs off their thick wrists and flung themselves forward, knocking the group of Imperials to the ground like a set of pins in a child’s game.

The rest of the prisoners and their two escorts fled to a heavily modified, pre-Imperial star courier that had clearly seen better days. Though the gangplank was down, exposing part of the interior, this show of abandonment was quickly revealed to be a lie, as three armed sentients quickly emerged to confront them, blasters rising and then dropping as friend recognized friend.

A fourth crewmate, a Human male, ducked out from under the ship, limping. “We almost left you behind!” he spat before trudging up the gangplank himself. “Come on!”

Crowing in victory, the prisoners followed him up, jostling and practically carrying one of the “stormtroopers” up the ramp in their rush. The stormtrooper took his helmet off, revealing that he was a Zabrak male with many new complaints how the Empire’s one-size-fits-all approach to armor didn’t account for even a modest set of horns.

The other false stormtrooper remained at the foot of the ramp. After a beat, he too pulled off his helmet, running his fingers through his sweaty hair. Though he was not burdened with such attractive features as his fellow imposter, the helmets were really too confining—even for a Human male with longer-than-regulation head and facial hair.

“Ben!” At this joyful call, Obi-Wan Kenobi turned, automatically reaching out a forearm. The Lasat bounded past him while the last remaining prisoner, a Twi’lek female, grasped Obi-Wan’s arm tightly with both hands. Her voice was thick with both emotion and the accent of her home planet of Ryloth. “Thank you. Truly. I have no words. You did a great deed for our freedom fighters this day.”

“I was in the area,” Obi-Wan replied, both a deflection and a warning. Any further actions by the local resistance could not count on his presence. Also, he had a feeling that she would feel much less gratitude if she ever realized he—Ben, supposed friend of rebels and freedom fighters—was the reason why the Jedi artifact in their possession had mysteriously broken.

Obi-Wan wished them well, of course, but he cared very little for the tendency of certain rebel cells to convene around the idea that the Jedi would save them. He also found it both perplexing—and frightening—that random galactic citizens were stumbling into artifacts capable of tracking Force sensitives even now, twelve years into their so-called glorious Empire. Fortunately, Imperial Senator Bail Organa, father of one Leia Organa, intensely agreed, which was why Obi-Wan was on Eizoz VII in the first place.

Obi-Wan released the mutual grip, backing away from the freedom fighter. “You must go. The blockade is not fully in place. You must flee while you still have a chance.”

The Twi’lek looked concerned. “Will you not come with us?”

Obi-Wan’s mouth twitched at the corner. “I have my own exit strategy,” he said affably. And I’m afraid that spending too much time with anyone will attract the wrong sort of attention, he thought privately. Despite his control over himself, his hair was still standing on end from the memory of Vader’s voice.

This seemed to convince her. She nodded and jogged up the gangplank to join her crew. Halfway up, she paused, then turned back to him. Carefully, she inclined her head in a semi-familiar bow. “May the Force be with you,” she offered in a trembling voice.

Called out in this subtle way, Obi-Wan felt humbled. He could say nothing for a moment. “Be safe,” he settled on eventually, “and be well.”

Five minutes later, the battered star courier took to the air with all its passengers in tow. Far below it, Obi-Wan watched it disappear into a speck in the night sky. Moments later, a far larger Imperial starship occupied its space between Eizoz VII and the stars.

Mouth flattening into a grim line, Obi-Wan pulled the stormtrooper helmet back over his head and headed back the way he came, fully intending to disappear into the ranks of the invaders and commandeer a way off the planet, as he’d done dozens of times before.

And yet, as he walked, a growing discomfort gnawed at him, a nibble at first before it transformed into a full-on sting.

Obi-Wan stopped just short of a half-assembled AT-TE. He stared at it, firing off an absent Force suggestion when one mechanic took offense to this. As the mechanic pivoted away, no longer interested in picking a fight with a stormtrooper, Obi-Wan muttered, “Coward, huh?”

Darth Vader was nothing and no one to him, save the person who destroyed Anakin Skywalker. But the idea that the Sith Lord thought so little of him rankled Obi-Wan in a way it shouldn’t have. Obi-Wan was a Jedi Master. He was in control of his emotions, in control of himself. More importantly, Obi-Wan had nothing to prove to that creature. And yet…

Well. Obi-Wan’s exit strategy could be put on the back burner, just a bit. He had never been one to make life easy for the Sith. Why start now?

-

Two Months Later

Two months later, on the Outer Rim satellite planet of Vandor, Obi-Wan walked into a small convenience goods store. Keeping his hood low over his face, he nodded once at the proprietor. Making a show of scanning the range of lightly expired rations for sale, he tucked a battered datacard full of stolen intelligence under the display. Out of sight, light fingers quickly snatched the card away.

To his left, a fist slammed into the store’s holocaster. A bipedal being, more thoroughly bound in concealing cloth than even Obi-Wan himself, was the source of this practical violence. Under their dubious care, the display of the ancient holocaster wobbled and died out. The audio, however, revived itself energetically, obediently spitting out a HoloNews program, weeks old, about the now infamous invasion of Eizoz VII. 

Eizoz VII did not fall quietly under Imperial rule. But it did fall. Eventually. And that was the crux of the problem.

Obi-Wan abandoned his active perusal of the rations, his full focus on the holocaster, his mind committing the mealy-mouthed reporting to memory.

That Eizoz VII fell at all, of course, was completely unprecedented! A truly historical event, nearly on par with the Republic falling. But Eizoz VII didn’t have an organized military, a planet-wide communication systems, or anything approaching ground or orbital defenses. Once these facts were highlighted—and they were, gleefully—the poisonous mire that was Imperial politics churned in vicious delight, surging at the opportunity to eat one of their own alive.

“-and while the results were not quite what the Empire had envisioned when it trusted an untested military commander with the absolutely vital task of eliminating this haven of criminality,” the pundit oozed, voice crackling, “Order. Did. Prevail.”

“Ouch,” muttered a familiar voice in his ear.

Ignoring the commentator for a moment, Obi-Wan stewed in his indignation before reluctantly releasing it to the Force. He didn’t think he’d live to hear an Imperial pundit report so breathlessly on Darth Vader’s incompetence.

It was outrageous. Worthy of contempt. Sure, Obi-Wan was the very reason why it took Vader a month to subjugate a planet—a single Jedi couldn’t stop the flow of a nearly endless army, but one could disrupt some supply lines and splice just far enough into Imperial systems to mix up orders enough that Imperials were firing on Imperials—but still. Vader was a war hero! For a certain definition of war, and a certain definition of hero.

(Was this the Empire Anakin so dearly wanted? Was this worth all that he’d destroyed?)

That Sidious and Vader were both Sith was a secret lost on most. All anyone saw was the play of power, and whatever awe that the Imperial public had for Darth Vader had long faded, especially now that it was clear that Vader was neither as dear to the Emperor as initially portrayed nor was he likely to take up his role once the Emperor finally died.

“Politicians are not to be trusted,” Obi-Wan muttered to his companion.

“Glad to see you haven’t forgotten all of my teachings, my padawan.”

When the proprietor looked at him oddly, Obi-Wan pulled out his commlink, holding it near his shoulder as if he was speaking into it. Then he walked out of the store at a slow gait. Neither age nor infirmity touched the Force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn, but Obi-Wan’s old master had developed an infuriatingly sluggish approach to existence. Having always been a man who urged Obi-Wan to focus on the here and now, his master, in his death, seemed to take that attitude to the extreme, forgetting that the now is fleeting and the here quickly became there and elsewhere in the lives of the living.

As predicted, Qui-Gon followed him only after moments had passed. Even then, stepping beyond the threshold, he stopped, looking up thoughtfully at the planet’s low-hanging sun.

Well-practiced now at talking to empty spaces, Obi-Wan didn’t do anything so obvious as face or watch him. Instead, he walked across the empty and dusty paths between stores and sat down on a patch of low-wall, worn tan and smooth by the touch of other travelers like Obi-Wan.

Still idly resting his commlink on his shoulder, Obi-Wan said, “I was unaware I asked for supervision.”

“I was unaware you still needed it. And yet, here I am.” Qui-Gon eventually—painfully—pulled his gaze away from the yellow sky. He curled his hands behind his back and approached Obi-Wan. A crowd of merchants bustled past—and through—his old master, unaware of his presence. “You haven’t seen the boy in over three months.”

Obi-Wan huffed out a laugh. How deeply his master must have been concerned, even mustering up the effort to track time, a meaningless concept to him now. “Normal children do not need one such as myself uselessly hovering about.”

Qui-Gon looked at him steadily, a hands-width away now. “You assume your presence only has one use, and it is no longer required?”

Obi-Wan laughed again, the sound bitter now. To this day, he still failed to understand how the people he loved the very best were also the people who aggravated him the very most. He looked to the left and the right. Deeming them free from idle ears, Obi-Wan said, “You died in a different era, Qui-Gon. People would flock to a Jedi’s side for but a moment of their attention, for a scrap of their wisdom. Yes, I know”—Obi-Wan held up a hand here to halt his master’s words—“Jedi own nothing and are owed nothing by the galaxy. But you must understand how different it is now. These days, a Jedi brings nothing with them but a target.”

When Qui-Gon merely looked at him, silent, Obi-Wan gradually felt aggrieved as he finally registered the trap. How like his master to tangle him up like this. “But you cannot be ignorant of these conditions. What is your true concern, then?”

“Your predilection towards self-destruction.”

Obi-Wan gaped at him. “What? Because of— because of this?” He gestured vaguely at himself and then the store—or, more importantly, the datacard he’d left behind as payment for Bail’s information about Eizoz VII. “Are we not training together for what comes after my death?”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help this plea. He was not attached. He grieved his master’s death, and he had moved on, as any proper Jedi would. But he had been distinctly robbed of the lifelong friendship he’d intended to nurture with Qui-Gon after he had been knighted, the friendship that had all but been promised to him. That Obi-Wan might be able to recapture some of that in death was a rare balm after a long adulthood marked with misery, grief, and loss.

“Certainly. But that does not mean we are planning for your demise.”

Under the hateful serenity of his master’s regard, Obi-Wan deflated. With his free hand, he rubbed at his face. “All living things die, Master.”

“And that does not mean you should race towards that end.” With an unnecessary grunt, Qui-Gon sat next to Obi-Wan, fastidiously wiping away some dirt from the wall next to him. “I’m afraid I must inform you that you are young still.”

Obi-Wan scoffed. “Don’t start that.”

Qui-Gon hummed in response. “Force-sensitive Humans—or near enough to count—used to measure their lives in centuries.”

“Not that many centuries,” Obi-Wan muttered, thinking of Yoda and of how much he had, in his ignorant youth, envied the elderly Jedi for his many years. Now, he knew better. Such longevity wasn’t a boon. It was a curse. How could it be a blessing when everyone you had ever known was already one with the Force?

Qui-Gon leaned forward, bracing his unsubstantial elbows against his unsubstantial knees. “I am preoccupied with the thought that you might not understand your own.”

Obi-Wan watched him with a vague, half-smile. “What don’t I understand? My own preoccupations or my own thoughts?”

“Are they not the same?” After a pause, he looked back at Obi-Wan. This close, the blue shading of his Force ghost form looked less like a holoprojection and more like the undulating waves of a deep sea. “The mischief you aim at the Empire will not end well for you, and I fear your desire to continue it regardless is guided by a deeply rooted attachment—”

As he spoke, a response started assembling itself brick by brick in Obi-Wan’s head—did Qui-Gon not realize that Obi-Wan’s attempts at “mischief” were merely an effort to keep the Empire away from Tatooine for just a little longer—but at the mention of attachment, his calculated words scattered to the winds, leaving behind only emotion.

“I have no attachment to the thing that killed my best friend.”

Qui-Gon’s expression was unimpressed. “Who said I was referring to Anakin?”

Suspicious of this, Obi-Wan settled himself carefully. Who indeed? Attachments didn’t have to be just to people, after all. Calmer, he said, “I am not a freedom fighter, and I am not aligned with the anti-Imperial resistance groups. I am not seeking to be at the forefront of any battle—not anymore. I know my place. My responsibility. I assure you, I will not falter before it.”

Instead of reassuring Qui-Gon, however, this seemed to only sadden him. His gaze dropped between them. “I do not doubt your heart, Obi-Wan. Your heart was the first thing I ever trusted about you.” He looked up then, eyes crinkling with a smile. “That, and your temper.”

Obi-Wan crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have never lost my temper once in my entire life.”

“Such a liar you’ve become, my padawan.”

Across the path, a trio of Jawas chattered aggressively. They were wrestling over and yanking the reigns of a four-legged beast of an indeterminate origin, not unlike Obi-Wan’s eopie back at home. The gray beast plodded along under its own steam, seemingly unaware of the sentients attempting to control its movement, up to the point of nearly crushing one of the Jawas under its feet. When the shock of averted tragedy wore off, the two lucky Jawas jeered at their companion, who snarled, threw their share of the heavy reins at them, and stormed off.

“How much thought have you given to love, Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon asked, watching the spectacle.

Obi-Wan gave this curious question as much care as it deserved. “Enough to know I’m not going to marry a Jawa, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It was not, actually.”

“Truly? Think about the living accommodations alone.” Obi-Wan would have entertained this thought a little more but caught the look on Qui-Gon’s face and settled. “Ahem. I’ve given love no thought since my youth, other than what the Order teaches on it.”

This seemed to disappoint Qui-Gon. “What a political answer.”

“You deeply wound me, sir.”

Qui-Gon shook his head. “Jedi should lead with compassion, is that not what you were taught? Compassion is… a selfless love, yes? But love itself can be deeply ruinous, as it often demands possession. Possession of your family. Your friends. Your lovers.”

Any amusement Obi-Wan was feeling quickly dried up. “I know these things, Qui-Gon.”

“Yes. A dedicated student of the Order, you were. Always quick to straighten up and follow the rules. Always slow to know when to bend them. When to read between the lines.” Qui-Gon pulled his attention away from the struggling Jawas and back to Obi-Wan. “Selfish love can be ruinous, yes, but I, perhaps selfishly, think selfless love can also be ruinous, especially when it demands self-sacrifice.”

Obi-Wan squinted at him, trying to parse through his words. “But self-sacrifice is a key component of what it means to be a Jedi.”

“A tool, it should be. When needed, of course. When demanded by the will of the Force. A very last resort. Not the very first.” Qui-Gon lifted a finger between them, tapping the side of it against his own chin. “Tell me, Obi-Wan. When you meditate on all the ways you are ready to die for Anakin’s children, do you also consider the many ways you are willing to live for them?”

Ashamed, Obi-Wan didn’t answer.

Qui-Gon let him sit in his non-response for several long minutes. Then he stood, unnecessarily dusting off his robes. “Set aside your mischief for tonight. Spend some time amongst the people. There’s a lovely parlor down the street. You should visit it.”

Slowly, Obi-Wan rose. “What do you know that I don’t?” he asked suspiciously.

Qui-Gon laughed once. “Not every ally wields the same sword.” He pivoted, facing Obi-Wan and tossing him a sack—a real sack—in the same motion. “Oh look. Credits. Must be the will of the Force.”

Feeling a familiar sense of dread, Obi-Wan retorted, “Wonder who you liberated this from this time.”

-

There was indeed a parlor down the street, and it was indeed nice, by some definitions. Despite the relative and unified squalor of the planet, the inside of the parlor demonstrated an immediate division between the haves and have nots of society. Half of the space was literally elevated over the other, decorated with plush seating, nice carpets, and a large dedicated holocaster that, while currently muted, was playing the news. Wood fixtures and hard chairs dominated the other half of the space, and a scuffed-up floor was strategically hidden by bare wooden tables. Live but quiet music was being played from the elevated section, which guaranteed it was whisper soft and nearly inaudible down below.

A long bar with a droid connected the two spaces. Somewhat amusingly, it appeared the droid had been cheerfully programmed to ignore all things hierarchical, dismissively telling a clearly rich Human to ‘get in line, champ’ while also calling one of the politer but poorer patrons a ‘doll for waiting so patiently.’

Uncertain how violently the divide between the haves and have nots was reinforced, Obi-Wan headed to the wooden chairs, choosing one at the very corner of the room. The droid eventually rolled in his direction and, after insulting him twice, provided a modestly priced meal with a bread roll on the house.

“Looks like you need it, buddy,” chirped the droid before scooting off. Droids.

Still confused why Qui-Gon told him to come here, Obi-Wan tucked into his meal. About half-way in, he had to concede a point to the droid, feeling revitalized. Then an unpleasant thought took form: Would his master really misdirect him, manipulating him to enter a strange establishment just so his padawan could grab a quick bite? How pointless! Next time he saw Qui-Gon, he was really going to give him a piece of his mind. Peeved but newly migraine-free thanks to the food, Obi-Wan stood once his meal was completed, tossing the credits to the table.

It was then that he saw her. A courtesan—a Coruscanti courtesan, no less—was moving between the patrons of the elevated section. She was a Rodian female, faintly blue, and outfitted up in a white velvety dress. She displayed modest wealth about her waist—wealth as defined by this very location, of course. In Coruscant, they would have been deemed shiny bobbles at best, mere glass beads to the rich jewels so many in higher society threw around like dirt.

Frozen, feeling as if his stomach had fallen out around his knees, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but stare. As hard as the nostalgia hit him, the differences hit him worse. Since when did a Coruscanti courtesan search for patrons at all, let alone here in the Outer Rim? Even the least liked among them had waitlists for years. Had that anti-courtesan legislation finally passed? Obi-Wan had heard bits and pieces of it over the HoloNews, but he had ignored much of it, having no heart for lies. It had seemed impossible, so he’d dismissed it as fearmongering. But the purge too also seemed impossible. And here he was.

As if possessed, Obi-Wan closed the distance between him and the courtesan, walking upstairs to the elevated platform. No one stopped him, but it was unlikely they could. He only had eyes for her.

Within arm’s reach of her, he paused, then he murmured, “Gentle friend.”

The courtesan turned quickly, her luminous, starry eyes widening. “Gentle friend,” she echoed serenely. At her sides, her hands betrayed her with a twitch, as if wanting to wring themselves in her dress.

Remembering his manners, Obi-Wan crossed his arms over his chest in greeting. “I embrace you with closed arms and open hands.”

The courtesan eased at this ritualistic call—I come as ally and friend, not as patron. “Gentle friend,” she said again, much more warmly now. She closed the distance between them, offering a gloved hand with an upturned palm. He clasped it immediately. “My name is Onosara. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“My name is Ben,” Obi-Wan said, stressing the name. He did not know her personally, but she was from Coruscant, and the price of wartime propaganda was one that continued to sting. “Are you well? Do you need assistance?”

Onosara laughed quietly, then shook her head. “I am merely seeking enough funds to leave this place for more fruitful ventures.” Obi-Wan automatically reached for his pocket. She squeezed his hand in reproach. “Not your credits, my dear. I fear you need them more than I do.”

She definitely recognized him. There was joy in her face. Even if he hadn’t been famous at one time, the Jedi Order and the Courtesan Guild had always been friendly.

“Walk with me, Ben. I have missed those of a… friendlier disposition.” She crossed her arms briefly over her chest, referencing his introduction.

The Guild had seen better days, it seemed.

Onosara took him to a backroom in the parlor where it appeared temporary housing was offered by the establishment. Her room was modest by Coruscanti standards but quite lovely by all others. It opened to a small and enclosed courtyard surrounded by flowering trees. They walked together around the perimeter of this space, arm in arm, chatting idly.

Obi-Wan battled with a growing feeling in his chest. He wanted to go home—to his real home. The Temple. At the same time, he knew that place in his memory was gone and buried. Lost at best and defiled at worst. As always, swallowing these facts made him want to run back to the caves of Tatooine and hide for another decade. In that inhospitable place between sands and death, at least no one would see his composure finally break.

Onosara sounded exactly like every Jedi Obi-Wan had ever grown up with, every sibling in the Force who called Coruscant their true home.

Hurting just a little, Obi-Wan looked at her. This close, he could see the courtesan cord around her neck. The cord was a much-debated symbol and accessory of true courtesans. The uneducated might dismiss it as a mere necklace. Those who were more in the know might speculate needlessly on what it meant when there were two cords or three instead of one, or what it signaled when the cord dipped low on a courtesan’s chest or was restrained high and close to the throat. Those who were truly in the know knew that most of the cord styles meant nothing. They were merely personal preference.

The only meaning the cords had laid in the composition of their material and the nature of the knots in the line. Onosara’s cord, for example, had three different knots, signaling her mastery of the Art of Mediation, the Art of Intimacy, and the Art of Knowledge—but not the fourth and final pathway, the Art of Expression. The cord itself was made of a silvery material, indicating that she had not only mastered at least one profession in each of these arts, but was also considered knowledgeable enough to teach these arts to others.

Onosara would have been an extremely sought-after courtesan. If her work was not bound by an exclusivity contract, her waitlist should have been a decade long. At least.

“I suppose you’ve heard of the recent legislation,” Onosara said, finally breaking through the veil of small talk. Her head was lowered, her eyes fixed on the ground.

“The only surprising aspect of it was that it took him so long to pass it,” Obi-Wan replied dryly. When she looked up at him, surprised, he added, “Forgive my bluntness, my dear, but the Emperor has long seethed at the idea that his people would whisper their secrets in any ears but his own.”

“You do know him well,” Onosara murmured.

The Jedi Order had been violently and suddenly purged in a single day. Sidious could not eliminate the Courtesan Guild as completely or as swiftly. Unlike the Jedi, courtesans were broadly distributed throughout society, just as likely to be on the center stage of a music hall as they were in classrooms or courtrooms or even the bedrooms of prominent politicians. To pluck courtesans from the fabric of society was to yank entire threads out of it, risking unfixable damage to the whole product.

Their reputation had to be destroyed first. Unfortunately, that blow came early at the start of the Clone Wars. Courtesans followed the curriculum of the four arts: Mediation, Expression, Knowledge, and Intimacy. Because of the hyper fixation of this curriculum, courtesans produced some of the best artists, actors, escorts, therapists, scholars, and, yes, some of the best diplomats.

And those diplomats, masters of Mediation that they were, had listened to both sides of the conflict early in the struggle. As such, they had concluded that the Separatists’ reasoning was sound and that the evidence they had to back up their claims of Republic misconduct was valid. A good cause commandeered by bad actors, they concluded publicly.

While the Courtesan Guild ultimately worked with the Republic, the damage had already been done. Within the Republic, hate for the Separatists had risen to a fever pitch, and the courtesans were seen as dubious and lackluster allies. As a result, Palpatine barred them from participating in any negotiations, greatly diminishing their collective ability to end the war quickly.

But this did not seal their fate, for the galaxy did not abandon the courtesans as they had the Jedi. If the Jedi were peacekeepers of the galactic sphere, then courtesans were peacekeepers of the domestic one. They soothed the lonely and calmed the angry. They inspired with knowledge and tantalized the senses with the arts. They fended off boredom and cleared misunderstandings. What did the Jedi do for these creature comforts and creature hurts, in comparison?

But even an institution as old and as well established as the Guild could not stand against the Sith. A decade later, carefully curated information, rumormongering, and tall tales had finally soured the galaxy’s opinion on courtesans. And now, with recent legislation formally dissolving the Guild, thousands of sentients now had no protection against the galaxy, nor a place to call home.

It wasn’t as simple as people losing their jobs. After all, the death blow dealt to the Jedi did not signify an end to the threat against Force sensitives in the galaxy—rather, it was only the beginning. And the laws against courtesans being courtesans didn’t stop people from wanting courtesans. It only robbed them of the single organizational force actively protecting them, their rights, and their ability to advance their own self-determination—the Guild.

After all, courtesans in the Outer Rim were just pleasure slaves. Anakin had assured him of that.

“The Guild,” Obi-Wan said after some deliberation. “Has it made plans?”

“Nothing but plans,” she reassured. “Especially after what happened to your Order.” She sighed. “As you said, Ben. The legislation surprised no one. Though I suppose some of us let down our guards. It has been so long.”

Obi-Wan didn’t fault them for their complacency. The Order knew of the dangers of their ancient enemy more than most and yet still failed to meet the moment when the time finally came.

The two gradually came to a stop. Onosara loosened her grip on Obi-Wan’s arm.

He used this space to turn to her, looking down at her earnestly. “I have little to give, but I will offer you what I can.”

Onosara chuckled, hiding the curl of her snout with one of her gloved hands. “All I want from you is your time in this very moment. And… your indulgence in two matters, if you please.”

“Name them.”

“When it comes to weathering this challenge ahead of us, I have plans of my own. I am prepared.” The skin on her forehead wrinkled a little, as if in a frown. “However, not all of my siblings in craft are as prepared. Please, Ben. If you see another one of my wayward colleagues, especially if they are young or especially naïve… please show them the same courtesy you’ve shown me today.”

“Of course. You needn’t ask.” Obi-Wan tilted his head when Onosara didn’t say anything more. “And the other indulgence?”

The look she shot him was distinctly concerned. She seemed to squirm. Then, blurting it out, she said in a rush, “I am no Jedi! But I am not entirely… indifferent to the Force. Please, would you… could you…”

In the end, she couldn’t verbalize what she wanted. Instead, she took the glove off her hand and reached out to him beseechingly.

Obi-Wan couldn’t deny her. He took her fingers gently, closing his eyes and lowering his shields.

The Force flowed through all things. In Onosara, it manifested for him like it would for anyone else who wasn’t a Jedi—a dim ember where he was used to so much more. And yet, the ember bent to him very slightly, rippling with recognition.

At the same time, Onosara gasped. “Oh, you’re-” Obi-Wan opened his eyes. Onosara’s own starry gaze gleamed with tears. “After everything, you’re still… you’re still so kind.” Braver now, she clutched her bare hand in his own. “Just a moment more, please, gentle friend.” Her voice was hushed and grieving.

“It’s been so long since I’ve touched the Light.”

Chapter Text

Three Weeks Later…

In a cantina on the planet of the Outer Rim planet of Tonyani, Reva Sevander looked up from a mug of truly rank moonshine, registered his face, and swore at him viciously. Obi-Wan’d had worse greetings. In a good mood for once, he just laughed and settled on the stool next to her at the bar. When Obi-Wan failed to correct her on her use and abuse of the Galactic Basic language, she buried her face in her hands.

Reva looked better than the last time he’d seen her. After her pursuit—and eventual return—of Luke, he had hidden her away in his home to help her recover, a truly touch and go process. She’d been so exhausted, wounded, and emotionally defeated, Obi-Wan had been constantly haunted by the thought he’d return home one day only to find a corpse.

After two weeks of this—of him desperately trying to care for her and of her steadily slipping away—Bail suddenly called him and asked to speak to the woman who kidnapped his daughter. They spoke without Obi-Wan in the room, and, within a day, Reva left Tatooine for sights and purposes unknown, significantly revitalized in spirit and form.

Obi-Wan had let her go, of course—he was not her warden—but not without significant trepidation. She had seen what was left of his fragile heart, both Luke and Leia. She did not know their connection to Anakin, but, oh, she did know just how far he’d go for them both. He trusted Reva’s decision to turn her back on her revenge and on the Dark Side, but there were so very few he trusted with the truth of the twins outside of Bail and Breha Organa. But it was Bail who vouched for her in the end, so Obi-Wan released his unease into the Force and wished her well.

Reva’s post-Inquisitor lifestyle had been very good for her physical and mental health. According to Bail, she’d found her own purpose, working with several of the more organized resistance and rebellion cells in the galaxy, supporting them through several campaigns. She’d also cut her hair and ditched the black armor and cape ensemble that had made her look so formidable. At a glance, she looked like any normal traveler with her roughly hewn clothing and hooded cloak, a pre-Imperial blaster perched at her hip. That the neutral tones and style of her clothing were similar to what she would have worn as a Knight or Master was probably accidental. According to Bail, she rarely used a lightsaber, nor did she identify herself as someone who belonged to Obi-Wan’s doomed Order.

“Guess I’ve been made,” Reva said gloomily.

“Guess you have,” Obi-Wan replied serenely, though he truly didn’t know any specifics. Obi-Wan made a point of not knowing what Bail knew or even extrapolating why Bail knew it. As an Imperial Senator, any action that was favorable to an agent known to oppositional forces was tantamount to treason. Therefore, Obi-Wan cut off any thoughts of Bail doing something as risky as funding—or even leading—any rebel groups.

Bail leveraged his amble intelligence networks to aid Obi-Wan in his mission to protect the twins and to shield them from the focus of the Empire as long as he could. That was all Obi-Wan needed to know.

Obi-Wan slid over a piece of flimsi, face down. “Here are the coordinates to the safehouse. You’ll be extracted in two hours. They have an identity for you already.”

Reva propped her cheek on her left fist. Then she reached out with two fingers of her right hand, tapping the corner of the flimsi carefully. “Do they?” she drawled. “And who am I now?”

A corner of Obi-Wan’s mouth twitched. “A moisture farmer.”

Reva scoffed. “Prick,” she hissed, reluctantly scooping the flimsi into her hand.

As she did so, Obi-Wan slid off the stool, leaning against the bar. He cast a casual glance across the occupants of the cantina, as if bored. There were less than fifteen other customers, nearly all Human or close enough to be politely ignored.

Tonyani was a tiny Outer Rim planet with few resources worth the trouble of exporting. Though not originally a Republic planet, it was one of thousands of sparsely populated worlds that capitulated peacefully under Imperial rule. What Tonyani did have was a mild climate in its southern hemisphere, cheap empty land occupied only by gentle flora and fauna, and a relative proximity to a hyperlane. For these reasons, its population exploded in the age of the Empire. This influx of new citizens was largely Imperial bureaucrats, rich loyalists seeking summer homes, or aspiring merchants seeking to make their mark on the galaxy. This astronomical growth led Tonyani to be called the next Alderaan—which, frankly, was insulting to Alderaan.   

Tonyani wasn’t an interesting planet in the way of resources or culture or experiences, but rather in the way that it represented a microcosm of what it meant to live up to the ideals of the Empire—or, rather, the prejudices of it. For example, it said a lot about Tonyani—and the Empire at large—that a traveler’s cantina next to a merchant-heavy starport didn’t have a single non-Human in residence.

Obi-Wan looked over the cantina one more time, just to be sure. A couple of pairs of eyes watched him too, but the Force offered no warnings, so he turned back to Reva. She was staring down at the coordinates, her hands on either side of the flimsi.

“The best time to leave was five minutes ago,” he told her. “Go on.”

Reva failed to respond to this for several moments. Then she looked up at him, expression bleak. “I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

Her eyebrows crinkled into an impressive wrinkle in the middle, and her dark eyes shone in the warm glow of the cantina’s lighting system. “You know as well as I do that there are only so many places to hide these days,” she whispered guardedly. He leaned towards her, all the better to hear her under the bustle and noise of their surroundings. “The enemy has spread too far and too fast. I can’t compromise anyone on the Path, and I can’t live amongst refugees. I—” She cut herself off here, her jaw flexing. “The other inquisitors. They know I live, and they’re after me.”

“They won’t find you on the Path,” said Obi-Wan, wanting to believe it. Bail sure did.

Reva’s face twisted into a grimace. “But when they do, what happens? Civilians can’t handle inquisitors.” She cocked her head, a shadow of a sneer passing over her lips. “Ask me how I know, Ben.”

Obi-Wan stared back at her, at the determined set of her features. It was on the tip of his tongue to offer Tatooine again, to offer the many places on Anakin’s home planet where one could just disappear, but he couldn’t do it. He forgave her once for Luke. He wasn’t sure he’d forgive anyone ever again if it happened twice.

Reva seemed to grow uncomfortable with this extended eye contact. Her gaze dropped and her expression fell in something resembling melancholy. “I almost wonder if it’s the will of the Force.”

“The Force doesn’t will anyone’s death, Reva.” Her head shot up again, and she wrinkled her nose at him, visibly annoyed. Younglings.

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about being a target. About having an opportunity.” She drew a line in the condensation from her glass. “It’s such a large galaxy, Ben. And there are so few of us inquisitors. But now… they’re coming to me.” The glare she leveled on him was fiery and passionate.

“You want to draw them out?” Obi-Wan retorted, unable to suppress the disapproval in his voice.

“I want to talk,” she spat back. She spun on her stool suddenly, facing him. Her hands gripped her knees tightly. “There were no such things as friends between inquisitors. It wasn’t allowed. But… but their stories can’t be much different from mine. Not with the way we were trained. Not with the way we were kept.” She hauled in several deep breaths before saying in a shaky voice, “I made some horrible mistakes. But if even I can step back, if even I can turn around and do something different, something good and righteous and helpful… why can’t they?”

Obi-Wan’s heart hurt for her. He reached out, cupping a hand around her shoulder. “That’s not a risk you should take. What you’re doing now… it’s enough. I promise you. You don’t need to do more.”

Reva stared at him. “You don’t understand. I don’t care about redemption. All I care about is…” She stopped talking, as if gathering her words. Then, slowly, she whispered, “How are they supposed to find a path out of darkness if there’s no one left to light the way?”

Obi-Wan’s hand slipped off of her shoulder. All sorts of Jedi teachings rattled around in his head, ready for him to share them, ready for him to educate an ignorant youngling on the nature of the Dark Side. But he didn’t feel the eagerness of a teacher. Instead, he just felt a little sad and more than a little lost. His chest was tightening painfully, and, abruptly, his mind flitted to a box buried in desert sands.

At his expression, she surged forward, capturing the edge of his tunic between two fingers and a thumb, her eyes beseeching. “Obi-Wan, did you try to be that person for Anakin? When everything went wrong, did you ever try to be the right person at the right time with the right words to lead him out of the Dark?”

Obi-Wan swallowed, his throat sticking, aggrieved by this. Mustafar was the cumulation of so many of Obi-Wan’s failings over the years. But none of those failings stemmed from indifference or a lack of attention or even a lack of trying.

But no. Obi-Wan had not spent much time speaking that day. It was Padmé who had raced to Anakin’s side. It was Padmé who tried to save him. It was Padmé who tried to lead him to safety. And how did that end for her? If Anakin could not hear her—his great love, his wife, the expecting mother of his children—what was the point of Obi-Wan opening his mouth? Anakin was completely lost to the Dark by then. Vader said so himself.

“Any words that day from me would not have saved your friends.”

Reva recoiled at this. Then she dropped her head, teeth flashing in a cutting smile. She released him slowly, tapping his side once with the knuckles of her fist. When she looked up, though, her expression was serene. “You should have tried, Negotiator. A half-assed attempt would have been better than silence.” She slid off her stool, pushing the flimsi back on the surface of the bar—and back to Obi-Wan himself. “Send my apologies along to the Path. I’m walking this road alone.”

-

“It’s not your fault.”

The holocall projection of Bail Organa, flickering and blue, gazed at Obi-Wan kindly. “Reva has been an immense asset to many of our shared friends since she turned her back on the Empire. But she is strong-willed. As many of our friends are.”

While Bail chuckled, Obi-Wan shook his head. “Please,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to know more. Leave me not with information I could reveal, if tortured.”

“Like you’ve ever cracked under torture.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

Bail nodded eventually. “Very well. Do you think she was followed?”

“I’m not sure.” Obi-Wan pulled his attention away from the projection of his friend, peering down the abandoned alleyway he had taken over. Tonyani’s sun had long since set, and heavy mists were starting to gather in the air. “I’ve observed the spaces she’s occupied in the last few days to see if she has a tail, and I can certainly observe them a little longer. But sensing intention these days is not… well, it can be somewhat… oh, dear, it’s so hard to explain.”

“The Force doesn’t work the way that it used to?” Bail offered clumsily, brows knitting together.

“Something of that nature.” Obi-Wan rubbed at his beard thoughtfully. “I was never particularly gifted in the Force myself. Barely even a Jedi in some fields, really.”

“Now you’re fishing for compliments. Did you know Yoda and Mace Windu used to gush about you all the time? Most promising Jedi of your generation, they said.”

“That doesn’t say much about my generation, does it?”

They were both smiling, but, ah, such sweet pain. What was preferable? Diving face first into anonymity to dull his grief and strangling any thought of the past until a full ten years had passed unseen? Or treading on barely healed but beloved memories with an old friend while darkness and tragedy continued to loom over them?

Sensing Obi-Wan’s preoccupation, Bail cleared his throat. “Feel free to use the extraction point yourself once you are satisfied. So sorry to waste your time for something that amounted to nothing.”

“Like I’ve said before, Bail, if it’s for the twins, you can ask for anything.”

Bail’s expression warmed. “Ah, I have missed you deeply, Obi-Wan.” Despite these kind words, his growing smile soon collapsed into a frown. “If only I could hide you, Leia, and her brother behind the shield of Alderaan… I would do it in a heartbeat.”

“While appreciated, that would be very unwise.” Vader would burn the planet to the ground, he feared.

Bail grinned, then inclined his head. “As are most things the heart wants. Be safe, my friend.”

The call ended. Alone once more, Obi-Wan stood quietly in the alleyway, savoring and imprinting Bail’s words in his memory. He had so few good ones these days.

However, very soon, other words—a drunken song, even—replaced these thoughts, reminding him that an Imperial world was no place to let down his guard. As he flipped up his hood, hiding his face once more, the song grew louder and louder as a trio of off-duty guards marched by the mouth of the alley:

“His enemies tremble at the sound of his name, for he is a leader like none could claim. With wisdom and power, he rules with grace, bringing our order to every place! Praise Palpatine: a ruler unmatched in all history seen! Praise Palpatine-”

“Praise Palpatine,” Obi-Wan offered dryly as he exited the alley.

To this, the guard in the middle repeated this phrase at him, as if it was a good and proper greeting in a civilized society, clearly having more liquor and enthusiasm than actual blood in his system by now. His fellow singers, on the other hand, stumbled over lyrics, thrown off by this. Unable to remember what came next, they berated the one in the middle, completely missing Obi-Wan’s presence as he walked around them and out of sight.

No matter how quickly he walked, though, he couldn’t quite outrun the sound of the song starting up once more. Ultimately, Obi-Wan’s interruption was a small ripple on a very large pond—there for a moment, disturbing its glass finish before fading from existence entirely, as if it had never existed.

With these gloomy musings in hand, he headed back to the cantina to continue his observation. It was louder now, bustling with workers who had just ended their shifts at the starport. Obi-Wan went back to the bar, leaning against it. Fortunately, this establishment was run by a Human, not a droid. A quick Force suggestion told him that no one was asking about a young woman named Reva. Not yet, anyway.

He drummed his fingers against the surface of the bar, strangely agitated. Once he recognized the feeling, he closed his eyes, trying to dredge up the root cause of it. The feeling of eyes on him had returned, and the intent was…

Obi-Wan grimaced, dropping as deep into the Force as he dared in enemy territory. However, no matter how hard Obi-Wan tried to focus, to follow the intent to its source, Obi-Wan just couldn’t pin it down. This planet was too saturated with the Dark Side for the Light to have a hope of breaking through.

Just then, a large hand skimmed across his shoulders as another customer walked by. Having grown up on a planet with entirely too many sentients, Obi-Wan was well practiced in ignoring the odd accidental touch or two.

But this touch did not fade. It stopped at the nape of his neck, circling it, fingers blocked from flesh by only the fabric of his hood. Simultaneously, a warm body pressed into his side, nearly pinning him to the bar.

“Huh. I figured I knew everyone worth knowing around here. But you clearly slipped through the cracks,” said a low male voice in his left ear. “How about we spent some time getting to know each other?”

Despite his unease, Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. It had been an age since someone had tried to pick him up in a cantina, but the experience was still grating. For this to happen now, here on this planet, at his age, and with a hood on? Preposterous. “No thanks,” he said firmly. When the hand didn’t leave, he spared a glance at his admirer, if only to calculate how much force he’d need to exert to remove him from his person.

He looked only briefly, but then did a fearful double-take. At the same time, his heart tripped and abruptly accelerated, and his mouth went as dry as the sands of Tatooine.

Because Anakin Skywalker was staring right back at him.

Chapter Text

Anakin Skywalker was not staring back at him.

Anakin was dead, for one. For another, Obi-Wan knew what Vader looked like under his helmet. This man was not him. Even if the similarity was uncanny, these two simple facts would have resolved this matter entirely all on their own. And the similarity wasn’t uncanny at all. Now that Obi-Wan was looking at him more assiduously, the differences between his long-gone friend and this stranger were many and varied.

He was too tall, for starters, looming over Obi-Wan’s head even at a slouch. His hair was too long—curly, like Anakin’s had been towards the end, but a golden blond, as if it had never not known the touch of a sun. The skin of his face and neck were also wrong, lacking many of the features Obi-Wan had come to know in his padawan—a mark here, a pattern there, not to mention the livid scar over his left eye—and, most obviously, his arms were both fully intact.

“Did you change your mind?”

“Not so much, no,” Obi-Wan replied, his voice clipped. Nevertheless, he kept looking, and the stranger let him, staring in turn.

It was his eyes that were the most wrong, Obi-Wan decided after a moment. Anakin’s eyes had been blue too, but there was such a changeable nature about them that leant itself to more obvious kindness and emotionality than Anakin’s peers had been comfortable with. This stranger’s eyes, on the other hand, were icy, more gray than Anakin’s warm blue. He was smiling faintly, but the expression failed to reach them, giving onlookers the impression that the smile wasn’t genuine.

Belatedly, Obi-Wan finally registered the presence of a courtesan cord around the stranger’s neck. “Huh,” he muttered.

It was so strange. Although Obi-Wan had been around courtesans all his life, he hadn’t seen a single one in the last twelve years. Now he’d met two in a single month? And had the curriculum changed so much since his days of interdisciplinary study with the Guild? Without the cord, Obi-Wan would have never pegged the stranger as a courtesan whatsoever. Not with his manners, and not with his form of clothing either, which was made of fine material but ultimately not that much different in design as any other person’s attire in the cantina. He wore no jewelry either, other than the cord itself, which was made of a material closer to rope and had only one knot of mastery.  

Releasing the last shreds of unease from his mind, Obi-Wan pushed away from the bar and the stranger. He pivoted and faced him fully, crossing his arms over his chest. “I embrace you with closed arms and open hands.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” the stranger murmured darkly. Then he reached under Obi-Wan’s hood, tugging lightly on a lock of Obi-Wan’s hair once before releasing it.

Obi-Wan hesitated in place, arms still crossed. What an inappropriate response to standard courtesan etiquette! The material of the stranger’s cord showed he was a student in many ways, not ready to be a teacher, but the knot in the cord, two intertwined loops, indicated he had mastery in Mediation, of all things. Some part of Obi-Wan wanted to demand the name of his mentor to challenge the fitness of this particular knot with this particular man.

“Gentle friend,” Obi-Wan replied sternly, “I am not the companionship you are looking for.”

“Trust me,” the man said with gravity, “You are the only one I am looking for.”

Incredulously, Obi-Wan looked away briefly. In an instant, however, his eyes snapped back to his companion as a compressed feeling of both alarm and danger burst open in his head. His hair was standing on end—but for what?

“Not interested? You’re going to hurt my feelings. I was so certain I was your type.”

That would have been an easy bet. The stranger, likely somewhere in his forties, had the face of someone who had been a calamitous beauty in his youth. Age had taken that canvas and made it into a far more interesting work of art. The lines near and under his eyes and the easily provoked wrinkle between his brow gave him the look of a brooding hero or a wronged god from an ancient Human mythology, stripped of his divinity due to his hubris.

“I mean you no disrespect,” Obi-Wan said absently. Then, realizing his arms were still crossed, he dropped them. He felt flustered and wrongfooted. Remembering his promise to Onosara, he shook it off. “What is your name?”

The man didn’t respond for a few moments, making it clear that his answer was almost certainly a lie. “Gran Shado. You can call me Shado.”

Obi-Wan tilted his head, smothering his amusement with a vague, gentle smile. Did this man not know Huttese? Gran Shado was a more fitting name for a podracer, not a courtesan trying to pick up a stranger in a cantina.

“Hello there, Shado. My name is Ben.”

“Ben,” Shado echoed. There was an avid light in his eyes that Obi-Wan wasn’t sure he liked. “No family name?”

“Just Ben.”

Shado chuckled, ducking his head. Obi-Wan felt that almost animal sense of anxiety again, like an unseen predator had revealed itself, but only just partially. A broken branch. A growl in the distance. An indistinct but too large print in the middle of his path.

It wasn’t Shado. It couldn’t be. Shado’s voice stayed low, and his hands were always in view. He was unusually unarmed as well, lacking anything approaching a blaster or a baton or even a small knife. And now that Obi-Wan had put some distance between them, he was respecting the space, swaying forward as if he couldn’t help it. And maybe he couldn’t. Obi-Wan didn’t suffer the same challenges as extremely tall men.   

“Well, here we are, Ben. Aren’t we getting along so much already?” Shado smiled again, a practiced look that failed to soften his face. “You’re not from here, are you? Where are you hiding out? I’d love to show you some places.”

If Shado wanted Obi-Wan’s full attention, he wasn’t getting it. Instead, Obi-Wan was watching the rest of the cantina. Perhaps a Wookie might look at Shado and find nothing especially attractive, but Tonyani was a majority-Human world, and Shado was far too pleasant looking to other Humans. Normally, this would be completely irrelevant to Obi-Wan, but beauty attracted eyes, beauty inspired curiosity, and beauty made people wonder why a prized courtesan was spending so much time talking to a man no one recognized.

When a low level, off-duty Imperial officer, still in uniform, started squinting at Obi-Wan’s face, Obi-Wan’d had enough. He swung back to Shado fully, stepping into his space. “Would one of those places be your room?” he asked boldly.

Shado’s eyebrows jumped up. Then his smile grew teeth, and his eyes seemed even colder. “Sure thing.” He offered an arm. “I’ll show you.”

-

Tonyani’s out of control population growth in the last ten years had resulted in an almost equally wild growth in the housing market. In true Imperial fashion, this led to the development of sprawling, expansive villas for the Imperial elite. It also led to the explosion of high-density temporary housing that, in some areas, appeared to be attempting to rival the overdevelopment of Coruscant itself, digging units deeper and deeper in the ground even as their buildings rose to such a great height, they literally posed a danger to normal air traffic.

The housing complex Shado took him to was a quieter one, set on the ground level. It had the sort of housing conditions that the Republic would have banned immediately and had actually done so in Core worlds fifty or more years in the past. The problem didn’t exist in the size or makeup of the rooms, which were quite adequate, but in all the ways they were maintained.

For example, in establishments with a high turnover of residents, the practice was to employ droids for clean-up, not people, which wasn’t terribly unusual. But because the number of droids were limited, and the number of rooms and units were many, the droids simply did not have enough time in the day to visit every unit that required visiting. Time and time again, unethical owners eventually settled on a deep cleaning method that involved loading up a droid with harsh cleaning chemicals, having them sit in the middle of a room, and then programming them to spin in a circle really fast as they sprayed everything around them.

While the chemicals did decontaminate fairly well while also boasting a quick evaporation time, even from fabric, they were also notorious for making many sentients, including Humans, very sick, which was why Obi-Wan was trying to hold back an instant migraine as soon as they hit the street outside of the complex.

Shado, on the other hand, seemed impervious, marching forward like a man on a mission.

They made it to his room on the 1999^th floor without any fuss save for the one: when they entered the establishment on the ground floor, the proprietor paused mid-greeting, took one look at Shado’s face, and ran in the opposite direction.

This, and along with other sources of information, unfortunately confirmed Obi-Wan’s suspicion: he’d been mistaken in that cantina. Shado was the source of his unease all this time. Disappointing, really. He didn’t even have the room to be dismayed at himself.

Which Master had missed the Sith Lord grooming his very own, very first padawan? Not Mace Windu.

This didn’t particularly change Obi-Wan’s strategy one way or the other, but, oh, he would have to be careful.

Shado went in the room first. He paused for half a step, scowling instantly at the notifications that lit up his communicator, abandoned in the dark. “I’ll be a minute,” he said brusquely, sweeping it off the table with a rough gesture that did not bode well for the longevity of that device.

Obi-Wan said nothing in return, watching him step out of the room. Once the door closed behind him, Obi-Wan started hunting for the teeth of the trap he’d walked into.

The unit was modest. Windowless and nearly all gray, it had a low table, a big bed bracketed by twin side tables with drawers, a shallow closet with a misaligned hinge, and a separate fresher, sonic only. A holocaster had been provided, but it had fallen in the path of someone’s temper and was currently broken in two.

There was no food here, nor were there clothes in the closet. Wherever Shado lived, it wasn’t here.

Pacing, Obi-Wan wondered if he had wandered into a room or a prison cell. His hand flew to his chest and under the collar of his shirt. His fingers hooked on the rope of a rough pouch necklace. He breathed in deeply, clinging to it.

Normally, this would be enough for him. He was willing it to be enough now. But this was not to be, his anxiety resisting all attempts to release it to the Force.

Letting out a shuddering sigh, he pulled the pouch out from his neckline then, tugging it open. Then, one handed and carefully too, he used the bottom of his tunic as a net and dumped out the lone item from the pouch. It bounced once before obeying the call of gravity, sliding closer towards Obi-Wan’s stomach.

Letting the necklace drop, Obi-Wan gripped both sides of his makeshift hammock and just stared at the object for a moment. Then he extended one finger to the outstretched arm of the figurine, closing his eyes briefly.

Owen Lars and Beru Whitesun raised a boy who was preoccupied with the idea of reciprocity. If a person gave you a toy, for example, should you not provide them a toy in return? That Obi-Wan was an adult factored little in Luke’s decision-making. Having no credits of his own, he’d fashioned a small man for Obi-Wan to play with in his own time, painstakingly bending the creature into existence out of discarded metal over the course of several weeks. A jolly piece of faded yellow cloth was tied tightly around the figure, approximating the tunic Obi-Wan had worn when they first met, and a rubbery mesh complemented the look as his robes.

Oh, how Luke had agonized over every choice, wanting it to look just right, running to and from source materials and demand design opinions from all who would hear him, even if most of them were very certain that no adult would want a toy.

Obi-Wan learned all of these charming details only indirectly, for the real treat of the toy, the unintentional and irreplaceable gift Luke had layered deeply into each part of the figurine, was Luke’s leftover sense memories.

Obi-Wan had little skill in psychometry. But sometimes, when he focused really hard, he could feel…

Twin suns beating on the back of a small body, bent nearly in two, if only to look at his creation a little closer, if only he could make it so perfect, even an adult would like it-

The simple contentment of successful craftsmanship, a pride that led small fingers to glide over each part of the toy once or twice more, just because he could-

A shy, giddy hope, a rare trip into Anchorhead, a figurine gripped in sweaty fingers, even as a blond head swiveled back and forth, because surely this time he’d find Old Ben Kenobi, surely this time he’d finally be able to express his gratitude-

Delight and excitement as the craftsman met the intended recipient of his gift, the ear-to-ear ache of a grin as the toy left his hands one last time-

Obi-Wan withdrew his finger from the figurine, shutting off the flow of visions. Careful not to touch it overly much for fear of rewriting Luke’s precious memories, Obi-Wan carefully manipulated it through the cloth of his tunic, depositing it back into the pouch. Then he tucked the pouch away, hiding it behind his neckline.

Sighing, he pressed a hand on the lump it made. His heart was calmer now, his head clearer. He was not a useful creature, not anymore. Even his ability as a Jedi and a teacher were limited, as neither of the only two students he’d consider had any obvious talent with the Force. But while he had a life to live, it belonged to the twins.

Trap or not, prison cell or not, his way forward was clear.

Obi-Wan turned to the rest of the room, opening his mind up to the Force. He took one step deeper into the space, then another. Then he faced the bed. Contemplating the energy in the unit, he bypassed the mattress entirely, drifting to the right-side table. Then, expectantly, he wrenched the top drawer wide open.

Ah. That was the intent Obi-Wan had been sensing all along. Not just unease of the unknown but actual malice.

In a room completely devoid of possessions, this one drawer was the lucky owner of a nasty looking vibroknife. Suddenly, all the pieces of this situation collapsed together, creating a full picture.

Courtesans had recently been dealt a significant blow by the Empire. Without the Guild’s protections, many of them were likely moving to friendlier regions where they could be safer. But Onosara had said that many had grown complacent, meaning some of the younger ones, like Shado, didn’t have a complete exit plan.

And here Shado was, a relatively unarmed man with few visible resources and no obvious allies on an Imperial planet surrounded by agents of the Empire. A courtesan with a Mastery knot in only the Art of Mediation, nevertheless attempting to use techniques from the Art of Intimacy to lure strangers into an isolated location without ever discussing one’s boundaries or safe words or even the price of the courtesan’s very valuable time.

It was so clear all of a sudden: Shado was robbing his patrons for credits to escape the planet. At what time was a person the most vulnerable—the most agreeable—to personal theft and robbery but when their pants were literally on the ground?

It was so clever! And so very, very foolish. With the speed that Shado had picked him up from the cantina, he’d hardly have the time to vet Obi-Wan’s identity. What if Obi-Wan was a Moff? One did not merely steal in the Empire under Imperial noses. That was their specialty, and they resented anyone and anything that robbed a population of its resources faster or more efficiently than they did.

Overwhelmed by secondhand embarrassment, Obi-Wan covered his face. As a person living openly as a courtesan, his cord on full display, Shado and his freedom were already living on borrowed time. If Obi-Wan had been a Moff, why, Shado would have no place to run. Onosara warned him of the naivety of some of her peers, but, really, this was too much!

Considering what to do next, he dropped the vibroknife to the floor, kicking it under the bed. Then he closed the drawer and walked to the end of the mattress, sitting on the very last foot of it somewhat primly.

What to do, what to do. At least he no longer ran the risk of being stabbed while distracted by a very pretty man. Obi-Wan didn’t even have that many credits!

Even so, a plan started to quickly coalesce in his mind. He pulled out and tucked Luke’s gift away in a trouser pocket, then tugged open the vee of his tunic. He ran his hands through his hair self-consciously, wondering when was the last time he’d showered. Obi-Wan felt himself make a face as he continued to try and make himself look more inviting and alluring, a trap for the trapper.

Disgruntled was the word. This used to be easier. Obi-Wan had been far from celibate throughout his adulthood, especially once he understood that sex did not automatically lead to attachment, but so few things seemed worth doing in the age of the Empire.  Who was his last partner, again? That Pantoran male merchant whiling away in Mos Espa, or the Cerean female freedom fighter who’d crash landed in Beggar’s Canyon?

Just when he leaned back on his arms, the very vision of pre-coital nonchalance, Shado stormed back inside. His ears were red, and his jaw was tense. A vein pulsed in his forehead. He looked like a man who was doing a very poor job in reigning in his temper. Now that Obi-Wan knew everything, the simple animus in Shado’s expression was much easier to see.

When he saw Obi-Wan, however, Shado froze mid-step. He carelessly dropped the communicator, now no longer flashing, on the low table. At the same time, his eyes, burning with intensity, moved slowly about Obi-Wan’s face, as if memorizing it, before dropping to his neckline and down.

Had Obi-Wan not found the knife, he would have almost been flattered.

Instead, Obi-Wan just raised an eyebrow. “Well?” he said provocatively. Then he pulled his feet off the floor and scooted up the mattress, conveniently close to the more offending of the two side tables. Half-reclined, he settled against a pair of slightly astringent pillows, folding his hands over his stomach.

Shado sneered a little. “So sorry to keep you,” he said, not sounding very sorry at all.

Despite this contempt, a haunted sort of hunger, as longing as it was resentful, dominated his expression. Knee first, he followed Obi-Wan up the length of the bed. Obi-Wan watched his approach, registering just when Shado’s face twisted with an unsettling look of triumph, his bare fingertips creeping up and resting on the skin of Obi-Wan’s throat.

Obi-Wan seized his hand in an instant, flipping Shado onto his back, conveniently away from the knife that was no longer there. Shado went down hard. He fought, almost as if it was a kneejerk response, snarling up at Obi-Wan with a look of outrage and even a little fear.

Straddling Shado’s torso, Obi-Wan rode the motion of this opposition easily, an unmovable object. Ignoring Shado’s offended hissing, he lightly stroked his hair. “My deepest apologies, darling. It’s easier to look at you like this. Old age, you understand.”

Underneath him, Shado was visibly smothering his rage. The smile he finally mustered up spoke of death. “Eager, aren’t you?”

Pulling back, Obi-Wan let none of his feelings touch his face. Really? Having the tables turned and losing access to his weapon wasn’t enough for Shado to break his act? Though, Obi-Wan supposed if Shado didn’t have one hand pinned under Obi-Wan’s knee, he’d probably make an attempt to choke him.

Onosara’s gentle, starry eyes rose to the top of his mind. “I embrace you with closed arms and open hands,” Obi-Wan said one last time, spitting out the words between gritted teeth. I am your ally, you fool!

Shado smirked challengingly, his free hand sliding up Obi-Wan’s right thigh with a grip that was too hard to be arousing. “If you wanted to be on top, you only had to say so, Ben.”

This infuriating courtesan…!

Forcing a laugh, Obi-Wan bent over, gripping Shado’s chin. Close to his lips, he whispered, “I prefer to be the one fucked, actually.” Then he pulled that hateful mouth into a hard kiss.

And this was where Obi-Wan expected violence and for Shado’s true intentions to be exposed to the light. He was fully ready to be bitten, to be headbutted, or even to be thrown off the bed entirely. Shado was not a small man, he had an ulterior motive for bringing Obi-Wan here, and Obi-Wan had just rolled him away from his trump card in this scenario. Why wouldn’t he act aggressively?

But violence was not what happened.

Instead of beating him, instead of biting him, instead of throwing Obi-Wan off the bed, Shado merely let out a soft, furious noise against Obi-Wan’s mouth. His fingers, resting on Obi-Wan’s thigh still, became nearly needle-like with the force through which he was gripping Obi-Wan’s body.

Then his mouth opened, and Shado was kissing him back—wrathfully, heatedly, and ravenously.

Obi-Wan had miscalculated.

Kissing itself was just an act for a Jedi, barely more intimate than a handshake. But Shado kissed like he’d suffocate without touch, the length of his tongue immediately thrusting past Obi-Wan’s parted lips. Worse still, he abruptly sat up, pushing past Obi-Wan’s restraining hands and yanking free his trapped one in the same motion.

With this new freedom, he hauled Obi-Wan even closer, body pinned to body so tight, not even a single breath of air could separate them. One hand settled, heavy and large, like a brand against the hill of Obi-Wan’s ass while the other one tangled vengefully at the hair on the back of his head, controlling the devouring kiss.

Then teeth were introduced, the very weapon Obi-Wan had been prepared to endure, but they didn’t maul or ruin him. Instead, they nipped at the edges of his beard between swallowed gasps of air, captured and pinched his increasingly sensitive lips as their embrace deepened, and downright bullied the poor tip of his tongue when it lashed out against its assailant.

When Obi-Wan wrenched free finally, giving himself just enough room to breathe, Shado just laughed at him, clearly mocking, the lush sweetness of his mouth turning cruel. He nudged his face under Obi-Wan’s chin, setting his teeth into his neck now.

“Don’t fight me, Obi-Wan,” Shado mumbled against his throat. “Not when you’ve finally become interesting.”

“You’re so rude,” Obi-Wan complained, pulling at Shado’s hair. It took some tugging, but Shado eventually obeyed this action resentfully.

But, as it turns out, rudeness was an act that could be easily forgiven in this scenario. Shado’s pupils were huge in his icy eyes, and he was swaying towards Obi-Wan again. Though his expression was lost, almost as satiated as it was puzzled, everything else about him could only be described as glowing or angelic. Obi-Wan swallowed thickly, his mouth feeling dry all of a sudden.

Unlike his mentor in the Art of Mediation, Shado’s teacher in the Art of Intimacy deserved all positive marks. Well done, Master Courtesan, Obi-Wan thought.

Unable to help himself, Obi-Wan drew Shado into another kiss, gentler this time. Following his lead, Shado allowed him to exist as a separate being, pressing forward only minutely, as if to test the barriers of Obi-Wan’s patience before leaning against them heavily like a sulking pet seeking affection. Wanting to reward this, Obi-Wan tipped Shado on his back again, seizing his mouth in small, repetitive kisses.

Shado allowed this, releasing his grip on Obi-Wan’s head to pet ponderously down his back. They were both hard, wretchedly so, and Obi-Wan couldn’t help a couple of mutually satisfying undulations against Shado’s pelvis, cock rubbing against cock through several layers of unpleasant clothing.

Then, gathering his strength and fortitude, Obi-Wan sat up, pushing himself up on his knees, and separating them entirely by scant inches.

In his twenties—newly master-less, newly mastered, rebelling in his own way against the new layer of duties he truly wasn’t ready for in hindsight—Obi-Wan would have pulled off his clothing and chased this to its final conclusion, never mind the consequences. But he was older now, and debatably wiser, and he could not miss that there was a depth of emotion here in this liaison that he could not comprehend, one of fury, fear, and grief.

Shado would get his credits, but this could go no further.

“What.” Shado was glaring up at him. There was that fury again, that hurt.

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan replied, ignoring Shado’s ire. He inclined his head respectfully. “You are quite lovely. You remind me of brighter days.”

Shado’s expression sharpened. His hands were on Obi-Wan’s legs again, as if to keep him in place. They would bruise, but his suspicious reaction, entirely correct and on the nose it was, ultimately came too late.

Obi-Wan lifted his hand, pulling two extended fingers across Shado’s face: “You will go to sleep.”

Whether or not a Human was resistant to these compulsions was almost a matter of chance as much as it was a matter of willpower. And, oh, did Shado try to muster up the willpower.

His whole body seized up, his face immediately purpling. “You…!”

“You will go to sleep,” Obi-Wan said once more. When Shado thrashed once, defying this, Obi-Wan just hummed softly, sympathetically. “Just close your eyes, dear one.”

Shado put up an exceptional fight, but the conditions were not in his favor. A suggestion was even more powerful when the settings were well-aligned with the compulsion itself—and here was Shado, lying horizontally, his head on a pillow. It was a perfectly natural place to slumber, for a Human used to a civilized society.

Shado’s miserable and betrayed snarl gentled in hitches as he fell completely under the suggestion. The rigidity of his body gradually faded until he laid there limply, his left cheek falling to the pillow.

Disconcerted, Obi-Wan straightened up completely, still straddling Shado’s hips. He lifted a hand to his nose—still breathing—then two fingers to his neck—still beating. Still uneasy, he scooted and leaned over until his ear rested against Shado’s chest.

In and out went his lungs. Bump bump went his heart.

Obi-Wan slowly rose, brows knitted in a heavy frown. Shado’s presence, though normally minimal in the Force, seemed to completely disappear in repose. It was incredibly eerie.

Shaking it off, Obi-Wan got out of bed. He straightened his clothes quickly and threw Luke’s gift back around his neck, hiding it under his tunic. He patted his cheeks once, noticing the lingering heat of them, but there was little he could do about that. He then looked over his shoulder at the sleeping courtesan, pensive.

Ultimately, he dumped all of his credits on the side table. Grabbing a flimsi, he agonized over what to write, ultimately settling on a short, brusque message: Leave this planet at once.

Shado would not need to trap any more travelers, if he obeyed. Obi-Wan didn’t have many credits, but what he left behind was enough to secure a small spot on a ship, if one wasn’t too picky about its conditions. Distance from the Empire was all Shado needed.

Distance from the Empire was all anyone needed, unfortunately.

Mission completed, Obi-Wan marched to the door, pausing just shy of the door. Feeling regrets—for the way this had ended and for all the ways he couldn’t help more—Obi-Wan told the empty room, “Good luck with all of your endeavors.”

And he left.

Chapter Text

A Few Hours Later…

The first blush of sunrise slowly overtook Tonyani’s skyline. Hands tucked into his sleeves, Obi-Wan stood under an abandoned awning on top of a building that had not yet been burdened with the mad dash of development so common to this world.

His hood was pulled over his head, obscuring his features. Grimly and perhaps even sternly, he observed the sky above him as it gradually revealed what he had spied on in the darkness and had hoped was just a trick of the light, an illusion composed of natural mist and unchecked smog.

The planet was surrounded by Imperial ships.

As a loyalist world, Tonyani would not find this especially strange. Most ships here were, by design, stewardship, and ownership, Imperial ships. But they weren’t star destroyers or TIE fighters or war ships, and their presence didn’t shut down all civilian air traffic, layering an eerie malaise over the world as their unexplained hovering obscured an otherwise quite lovely sky.

It had been two years. Had Reva’s defection really been so unforgivable? She was just one small cog in the great Imperial machine, and she had been an exceptionally young one at that, distinguished in service only by her drive to rise in ranks and kill Darth Vader. That they’d assemble such a force for her over a friendly planet was a little frightening.

Obi-Wan stroked his beard thoughtfully. With any luck, she was already gone, leaving just him there to figure out his exit strategy.

Nodding once, Obi-Wan stepped from the awning to the edge of the roof, and then over it. Buoyed safely by the Force, he dropped in between buildings, landing nearly silently on his feet, startling some sort of local vermin currently digging through Tonyani’s garbage system—a series of tubes and chutes cleverly built into the very bones of their architecture.

Obi-Wan dusted himself off fastidiously and took off to the right. It was hardly the first time he’d escaped up into—and through—an Imperial blockade. He had no reason to sweat.

-

Obi-Wan was sweating, just a little.

The problem with the grand Imperial machine was that it was, well, like a machine. The regulations, codes, and culture of the Empire demanded perfection. Its size, on the other hand, demanded significant infrastructure and logistics. But the thoroughness of any set of rules required creativity and innovation, which the Empire frequently oppressed and squashed, and logistics could only cover so much groundwork when not permitted a break to invest in its own capacity, which the Empire never allowed in its continued objective to rule above all. Paired with the many and varied egos of Imperials as well as the rank corruption that still ruled the galaxy—despite the Empire’s attempts at claiming otherwise—this made for an administrative disaster.

In depth and breadth of disasters, it was less like two commercial star ships crashing into each other in orbit and more like a cluster of star ships crashing into each other in the same space over and over and over again, creating mountains and valleys of debris and broken bodies.

To put it simply, the Empire was a machine designed to fail, and Obi-Wan took care to take advantage of that as often as possible. With all of the rampant holes in security measures and plain common sense, Obi-Wan could often just leave a planet by hitching a ride with an Imperial war ship. Not much sleight of hand—or even the Force—was needed these days. All one had to say was the right phrase, drop the name of the right superior, or flash the right cloned credentials to enter an otherwise unauthorized zone.

Through these methods, Obi-Wan had broken into a Star Destroyer, snuck aboard a prototype battle station, and stolen onto an Imperial pleasure cruise. Through Tala, he’d even made it into Fortress Inquisitorius when poor Leia had been captured. Though that had been quite difficult, it had been entirely doable, contrary to the claims of many, indicating that the Empire’s manifest security issues were ubiquitous, no matter how deeply Sidious buried a base in the sea.

For goodness’ sake, he’d once infiltrated a ship full of Imperial Academy cadets merely by stealing some clothes, combing his hair in an approximation of the Empire’s current trending style, and keeping his head down. He’d been the target of a sky-high bounty at the time, and his picture was even on the news! Exasperating business.

So the fact that Obi-Wan had yet to find a path off Tonyani was alarming. Since his last bit of mischief, it appeared the Empire had re-coded some of their security and transportation systems, closing several gaping holes in their protocols. This robbed Obi-Wan of at least three of his favorite methods to leverage Imperial infrastructure to his advantage, including the exact route he’d taken once he finally left Eizoz VII. Why the heightened internal security all of a sudden?

A slow careful circuit of the closest cantinas and restaurants in the area revealed that Obi-Wan’s next favorite method of leveraging Imperial resources—the loose lips of the Empire’s own people—was also a path now closed to him. Hung over, sleep deprived, or otherwise apathetic Imperial officials mixed seamlessly with their zealous, bright-eyed counterparts at their respective stations, offices, or patrol routes. As if there was an ongoing performance review—or worse, a blaster at their back—all stood straight in their assigned areas or marched in time to a consistent beat from point aurek to point besh, and their clothes and armor were immaculate. One guard’s breastplate had been polished so harshly, it literally glowed.

Worst still, the place Obi-Wan had stayed the night before he met up with Reva was being tossed by stormtroopers. Spying from a distance, he watched them haul sentients—mostly Humans—out of each unit, floor by floor, lining them up against a wall as stormtroopers tore through their lodgings. The complex Reva was staying at was similarly dismantled, as were the five or so housing facilities in their immediate vicinity, and the stormtroopers marched off any obvious onlookers, who left either voluntarily or in cuffs, dragged across the floor.

This aggression, common on other planets but entirely alien on Tonyani, had the planet on high alert. While some stores were still open, gambling on the business of the increased Imperial presence on the planet, many civilians were staying indoors or fleeing closer to the center of the city, where stormtroopers had yet to appear.

News of this growing presence spread only by word of mouth. This was because the commander of this exercise had shut off the planet’s entire communications network in the middle of the night, a sly move. The mind behind this tactic had to be an unusual one, not just for the cunning nature of this act but rather for the sheer lack of political considerations behind it. How furious certain cogs of the Imperial machine must be now, seething in their expense villas while rattling their jewel-encrusted cups against the bars of their invisible cells.

Why, yes, Obi-Wan could find some amusement in this. He’d never claimed not once in his life that he was entirely free of a spat of pettiness here and there, especially when the victims of these small discomforts were so deserving of them.

But schadenfreude aside, this rapid change in Obi-Wan’s own meager fortunes was still deeply concerning. He’d missed the extraction window, assuming Bail’s friends had made it past Imperial ships in the first place, and he would not be able to request another, as the deep space transceiver that allowed him to make the occasional encrypted call appeared inoperable. He couldn’t even message a store down the street, nor send a few choice words to Reva, if she still happened to be on the planet.

Regardless of all of these factors—and barring only a daring starship theft from any of the prohibitively expensive villas from in and around the city—there was exactly one way off the planet. Despite feeling like he was heading into the eye of the storm, Obi-Wan discreetly made his way to the public starport across the city on foot.

Unlike many planets, Tonyani only had one port, and it was a huge, sprawling thing to make up for its singularity. On a normal day, intraplanet air traffic was nominally controlled by floating pylons and traffic signals. But all star travel off the planet required approval and coordination from the main starport, no matter how far away the ship’s home hanger was from its location. To avoid the hassle of submitting flight plans, arguing with port staff, and moving a starship across the city, many Tonyani citizens just stored their starships at the port for a small fee. The only ones who didn’t were the citizens with more money than sense or were individuals who had starships so antique or rare, they didn’t want to risk its theft.

By accident or design, this made the starport of Tonyani the very center of Tonyani’s infrastructure and society. Naturally, the Empire hit it first in the dead of the night, likely when Obi-Wan was allowing himself to be distracted by a courtesan.

By the time Obi-Wan made it to the port, air traffic was just starting up again, but only sluggishly so. A brief scan of the ships that flowed by revealed that they were largely automated vehicles without sentient passengers, moving goods from one sector to another. Already, this was a sign of favored treatment. Obi-Wan had been on planets where stormtroopers had denied civilians access to the very rivers and farmlands they needed for basic sustenance. Here, though, even luxury items were being distributed quickly with only a small hiccup impeding their initial delivery.

Seeing this traffic, port workers emerged from their housing en masse, walking or flying over to the port to try and salvage some of the day’s wages. And thus, as if the Force itself had willed it so, Obi-Wan’s gradual shuffle through the mess of port workers went completely unnoticed. So unnoticed, he was jostled by a merchant rushing past them all, clearly eager to get off the planet while she still could.

Sensing an opportunity, Obi-Wan started reaching down to his pocket, ready to negotiate passage onto her ship. “Excuse me, but—”

His fingers met only air. He’d given Shado all of his credits, a tactical error.

And one that was perhaps for the best: just then, the merchant stepped into a stormtrooper’s path. She bounced off the end of their shoulder plate and pushed them away, a natural response of any moving object colliding with a still one. Though truly quite accidental, this act was seen as aggressive, and she was surrounded by seven stormtroopers and three-armed probe droids immediately. Apologetic, she pled her case even as she slowly descended to her knees, her hands in the air.

While everyone was distracted by her arrest, Obi-Wan started to ease away from the crowd—and away from his former destination. There were too many Imperial forces here, enough to trip over. Given this density and the exceptionally high deployment of droids amongst these troopers, it was clearly not the time for Obi-Wan’s usual tricks. He’d have to wait and bide his time.

Obi-Wan continued to back up, keeping his eyes on the concentration of Imperials in front of him, aiming vaguely towards an alleyway between a closed-up fruit stand and a row of broken speeder bikes.

He hit a Human body instead, impossibly. Before he could wonder how he didn’t sense the presence in the Force, two large hands cupped each of his shoulders, restraining him. Then, close to his right ear, a cold voice could be heard.

“What a predicament you’ve put yourself in, Master Jedi.”

-

The courtyard was clearly meant for parties, not stand offs. 

But it wasn’t the worst of settings, Obi-Wan supposed. Set high above the street level, the courtyard loomed over Tonyani’s starport. It was some sort of open concept design. One of the four walls was completely missing, giving the impression that one could just step off the last foot of flooring and fall some hundreds and thousands of feet onto a random runway. In reality, however, a forcefield hummed quietly, very nearly invisible. A jumper wouldn’t attain much from their experience other than a rolled ankle and some embarrassment, which didn’t bode well for its suitability as an escape route.

The other three walls were less interesting, covered by handsome stone facades that had been delicately aged. Artful water and plant features loosely encircled the area, filling the air with their scents and giving the room the feeling of an ancient homestead on a hill rather than a very purposefully designed lie.

Obi-Wan wasn’t the one who chose this particular location for this confrontation, no. Even though the employees of this establishment, visibly confused by the sudden commandeering of the space, had been dismissed, such a setting was still too exposed for his liking. Like Vader might trip over him by pure accident, ending Obi-Wan’s life far before it was truly necessary to surrender it.

Obi-Wan knew his death was coming, but he didn’t want to die because it was convenient for someone. He wanted to be as inconvenient as possible in his very last moments. He suspected he was owed that much.

A foot scraped behind him. Obi-Wan didn’t take his eyes off the open wall. “You have an obscene habit of creeping up on people, Gran Shado.”

There was a pause. Then Shado snorted, lumbering past him. “You know, for a person fond of calling other people rude, there is a lot about manners you could still learn, old man.”

Keeping himself very still, Obi-Wan watched him walk to the open wall. Obi-Wan was a consummate Jedi. The Jedi, if one listened to rumors. And, as a Jedi, Obi-Wan was not stressed out by the presence of a single man, even if that man was someone he’d manipulated into unconsciousness after a bit of ill-advised baiting.

Instead, Obi-Wan made a show of crossing his arms over his chest, listing casually to one side. He looked Shado up and down twice. “It appears you don’t need the funds I provided. Might you give them back?”

The look Shado shot him was scathing. “And hand over the first kind gift you gave me? Not a chance.” He squatted then, fiddling with something on the wall out of sight.

Shado’s clothes had changed since Obi-Wan had seen him last—and the story they told of his fortunes had changed with them. Instead of a simple but well-made outfit, the kind that wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, Shado was now wearing a loose white tunic with a deep vee. It was so fine, it would have been at home in Count Dooku’s wardrobe. A black and gray cape ended at his hips, shimmering faintly in the light and clasped together only by an opulent yellow chain that nearly matched his loose golden braid. Slim fitting and attractive green-gray pants hugged his legs, flaring around oddly practical boots. The only truly uncouth thing about him was the blaster hanging off his waist, almost pointedly.

This was a man of means, his clothes seemed to shout. And, in the Empire, that meant that this was a man of power.

His courtesan cord, on the other hand, seemed somewhat hastily added to the ensemble, prominently displayed, as if to make a statement, but messily aligned with the rest of his clothes, as if an afterthought.

Before Obi-Wan could think too much on what that meant, the forcefield protecting them from the elements suddenly shut down. Wind—true wind, not the gentle breezes carefully simulated in the courtyard’s artificial environment—rushed in like a slap to the face, blasting apart delicate flowers and pinning small saplings to the ground. At the same time, the sounds of the city roared upwards, drowning out the curated serenity of the courtyard.

Obi-Wan’s caution grew but not as much as he would have thought. The wind was bracing, harsh enough to provoke tears in the unwary. But for Obi-Wan, it fell far short of the intimidation tactic it was likely intended to be. Instead, it felt like the best parts of being young, and the best parts of the war, like when he was—

Pushing and pushing and pushing a speeder bike to its very limit, leaning forward, all of his weight on the tips of his toes-

Fighting the clock with every ounce of his strength, and winning, just in time to save civilians or back up his troops or route a tenacious enemy-

Leaping into a horrifically unbalanced fight he couldn’t possibly win but also couldn’t possibly lose because Anakin was right there, right behind him, and there was nothing they couldn’t do together-

That thought ended when Shado rose from his crouch, his cape and hair tousled dramatically by the gusts. Cocksure and fearless, he smirked at Obi-Wan, then jerked his head to the starport. On the very edge of the flooring, he leaned against a small pillar, hovering just slightly over what now could very easily be his doom.

When Obi-Wan didn’t immediately follow, he rolled his eyes and pointed explicitly at something in the distance.

Wary of obeying orders—but truly disliking yelling himself—Obi-Wan made his way over, his arms still crossed. He stopped just next to Shado at what felt like the very edge of the world, his shoulder brushing up against that showy cape.

Ignoring him, Obi-Wan peeked at the fall. Eh, he could probably survive that. Force willing.

“Done navel-gazing, old man?”

Obi-Wan stirred from his thoughts and noticed Shado was leaning away from Obi-Wan just a little bit. Yes, perhaps he had stood a bit too close—they weren’t friends—but if Shado wanted a civilized conversation, he should have kept the forcefield up. Obi-Wan kept this to himself, though, choosing to look where Shado had originally pointed instead.

It appeared Shado hadn’t chosen the courtyard for its distant view of the starport, but rather for its closer view of a particular hanger.

Elevated nearly on the same level as the courtyard, albeit very far away, the hanger was accepting traffic. Several Imperial warships were unloading ground troops—stormtroopers, mostly, and specialized ones too. Large cargo containers were also being rolled out of multiple ramps, unloaded in tidy rows. The Imperials were digging themselves in for the long haul.

This in itself was not particularly interesting. That is, not until a single Pau’an male disembarked the largest warship. With a growing dread, Obi-Wan leaned forward, jostling Shado in the process, nearly dropping him into the void below.

Clad from head to toe in black, the Pau’an strolled down the gangplank at a sedate pace, his hands clasped behind him. His ashen head was turned away, his gaze focused on a stormtrooper walking behind him. If they spoke about anything, the words were stolen away by the wind and muted by the hanger’s own forcefield.

The Grand Inquisitor was now on Tonyani. For Reva? Why?

The wind whipped past him, screaming. Pulling his hood over his head, Obi-Wan dropped back a step, deeply cautious. No, he was not afraid of that being—a former Jedi Knight himself, or so he claimed. But he was afraid of what the Grand Inquisitor’s presence on this planet meant—or, more specifically, what that presence meant about Vader.

Oh, he so regretted not quizzing Reva more about her backstory. Were they close, Vader and this stranger? Did Vader answer to him, or was it the other way around? Were they colleagues, perhaps? Did the Dark Side permit Vader to have friends? Unlikely.

Vader’s life was usually of no interest to Obi-Wan, other than a fleeting thought of regret or two, but in this very moment, it burned him not to know more. He found himself glaring down at the Grand Inquisitor, peeved that such an unknown, unimportant figure would have more knowledge than him in this one critical area.

As if sensing Obi-Wan’s less than flattering thoughts, the Grand Inquisitor stopped just steps shy of the end of the ramp, then looked up, scanning the area around him.

Alarmed, Obi-Wan stepped back another few steps, automatically retreating. They really were too far away to be identified, he told himself rationally, fighting the wind for control of his cloak.

Shado leaned into him suddenly, prying the edges of his hood away from his cold-numbed fingers. A quick glance to the right put them nose to nose. Shado’s eyes were glittering malevolently. “I wonder how quickly they would swarm us if I screamed for help,” he gloated over the wind, maddeningly full of himself.

Unimpressed, Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. Then he lifted a few fingers as well, drawing on the Force.

Abruptly, the forcefield switched back on, and with a sudden violence that made Shado flinch, whipping around just in time to dodge the rising shield. It clipped his cape, nevertheless, singeing the edges. Open mouthed, Shado stared at him with a wild expression.

“Drawing the eyes of Imperial agents rarely works out for anyone involved,” Obi-Wan remarked casually, turning away. Looking over the needless carnage of wrecked greenery, Obi-Wan muttered obstinately, “I won’t pay for this.”

“I am but a loyal citizen of this great Empire. What do I have to fear?”

Obi-Wan rolled over a loose blue petal with his foot. “Your loyalty is irrelevant,” he said absently. Then, turning, he faced Shado. “Please get to the point. You’re the one who pulled me off the street. And did I not follow you when you asked?” He crossed his arms over his chest again. “Tell me. What do you know?”

At this question from Obi-Wan, Shado’s pleasant face pulled into a hateful, haunting smile. “I know enough, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

The cessation of all noise in the courtyard left a heaviness to the air that wasn’t easy to explain. Rather than inspiring tranquility, it felt as tense as a war room. Shado’s demeanor didn’t help either. Though well put together on the outside, seemingly in control, Shado had a nervous energy about him, like a desperate hunter laying a trap that was only half-built.

But this was not the trap Shado thought it was.

Obi-Wan waited a moment more, giving Shado a chance to add something. Then, apologetically, he said, “If that’s all you have, that’s incredibly embarrassing for you.” Freeing one hand from his elbow, he pointed up at himself. “My face was on billboards, you know.”

Shado rapidly purpled at this. He stalked towards Obi-Wan, threateningly. “I have much more than that!” he spat. He threw out a hand towards the forcefield—towards the starport—once again, his words recklessly fast, as Obi-Wan had predicted they would be. “Your days are numbered. They’re looking for traitors. People who don’t belong here, who don’t belong anywhere. People like you.”

Obi-Wan tilted his head, smiling vaguely. “If you think that’s new information, you haven’t been paying attention to your Empire’s own propaganda machine.”

This seemed to infuriate Shado further. “You-” Whatever he was going to say was lost. He bit down on his lip, letting out a low hissing sound. Then, in a more measured voice, he said, “The Imperial Army is conducting a sweep across the city, interrogating non-locals. They will find you, eventually.”

Obi-Wan considered this, rubbing his chin. “Huh. Is that why they’re focusing on the temporary housing units?”

This was good news. Much of Tonyani was temporary housing. Reva’s Imperial enemies knew she was on the planet at some point, but they had failed to pinpoint her exact flightpath, as it were. This had to mean their intel on Reva was too dated. They had to be scrambling to find her trail at that very moment, and they would waste so much precious time doing so. With these conditions laid bare, the Grand Inquisitor’s presence almost seemed laughable. Desperate, even. A last-ditch effort to justify sending a good chunk of the Imperial Army to a loyalist planet.

No, Reva would live and, with any luck, would get far enough away to fight another day. That much was clear. The Empire had its inefficiencies, but it was capable of razor-like precisions when it came to eliminating their enemies.

Obi-Wan made a pleased hum in the back of his throat. Excellent job, Reva.

Shado was watching him closely, his eyebrows needled together. He didn’t like to be ignored. “Temporary housing. Travelers’ lodgings. Inns, hotels, and the like. Cantinas. Any place notorious for harboring transients.”

“Or individuals simply unable to secure permanent housing because Imperials with connections and means are sucking up all the profits and land rights.”

Shado froze at this. Then, nastily, he said, “That isn’t any of my concern.”

Says the Imperial with connections and means, Obi-Wan thought. It was a pity. Shado seemed so much sweeter the night before. Even with the knife.

Sensing his wandering attention, Shado thumped his shoulder angrily. Then he held a finger in front of Obi-Wan’s nose. “My point is that the port is closed for travelers, and any place that would have you would turn you in immediately. You have nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. They will find you, and they will destroy you.”

His expression was hungry again, nearly vibrating with intensity. Then, with effort, it seemed, Shado reined it in. In a soft, nearly tempting voice, he whispered, “If you were to attract a benefactor, however—”

“Not interested,” Obi-Wan interrupted flatly. Shado stared down at him in disbelief. “Was that all?” The whites all around Shado’s pretty, cold eyes were exposed further, and his nostrils flared. “Ah. I see that it is. Good day to you, Gran Shado. I wish you well.”

Obi-Wan started to turn away, pausing when a hand clamped on his bicep. He looked at it musingly.

With gritted teeth, Shado tried making his case once more. “They will not search the home of more well-established locals,” he offered pointedly.

The corner of Obi-Wan’s mouth twitched upward. He schooled his expression, looking up at Shado once again. “And are you? Well-established, I mean.”

Shado’s eyes were intense. “Very.”

Obi-Wan thought that if Shado was “very” anything, he was very transparent. Unfortunately for Shado, though, Obi-Wan just didn’t find him very intimidating. So he took Shado’s thumb, bending it backward until the courtesan took a hint and removed his hand from Obi-Wan’s person. With that out of the way, Obi-Wan found himself fitfully flexing his own hand at his side in belated sympathy. Even though Shado hadn’t reacted noticeably with pain, Obi-Wan had bent it so very far.

Obi-Wan sighed. What a mess.

He should never have enabled this. He’d always harbored a soft spot for courtesans, but he’d mis-stepped badly here and was now paying for it. Instead of investigating the matter—or, better yet, ignoring it entirely—he’d projected Onosara’s mission onto her peer without much thought, assuming Shado’s modified methodology had more to do with inexperience and desperation than anything else.

But if today had taught him anything, it was that Shado was not a courtesan fleeing to kinder shores. No, Shado had found his shore, and he had planted both feet in it, regardless of the dangers to his life and ways of living.

“What do you want from me? Be truthful, now. Blackmail is so very ineffective if one does not have a goal in mind.”

Shado’s true motives were inscrutable, but his face, at the very least, was both entertaining and honest. Despite his many years of education and training, he seemed to have missed any lesson about the importance of hiding one’s own facial expressions. Even now, his eyebrows were contorted together, his lips moving as he mouthed the word blackmail to himself.

Then, visibly making a decision, Shado said, “You will be my bodyguard. Or I’ll turn you into the Empire immediately.”

“…You want my protection?” This seemed incredibly unlikely. “Why?”

There his face went again, sparking with too obvious anger. “You assume too much, Master,” Shado bit out. His expression twisted a moment later. Sourly, he retorted, “Spare me your trivial defenses. I refuse them. As if a failed Jedi could comprehend what it takes to protect and maintain the life of a single living being.”

Obi-Wan’s own temper flared, as if meeting its twin. “Then what is it? What petty want has you blustering your way so poorly through a blackmail attempt?”

Though they were strangers, it seemed they were equally skilled at hitting each other’s weak spots.

Nearly monotone, Shado said, “We are not equals. You are being hunted, and I am offering you a service. A brief shred of unearned legitimacy.” Ice had formed on Shado’s anger—and yes, on his fear too. It was like an entirely different person was speaking through him. “My motives are not—and will never be—for you to know or understand. The only thing you need to do is obey.”

Obi-Wan stared up into those cold, cold eyes. Then he smiled. “Good luck with that,” he said cheerfully. He stepped back, giving Shado a half-bow. Then he spun on his heel and walked off, heading towards the doors leading into the courtyard.

There was a shocked pause. Then Shado scrambled after him. “Wait!”

“I’m not wasting my time on people with hidden agendas. Good day, I said.”

Shado got between him and the door at the last moment, blocking his exit. “I could have you thrown in a cage in seconds!” he burst out, nearly bellowing. His teeth were bared, and his legs were braced wide, as if he was prepared to grapple Obi-Wan—an actual Jedi—with his bare hands.

Shado was clearly livid, but Obi-Wan laughed, just once. The audacity of this man. It was like watching a baby tooka cat trying to bristle and intimidate his way into the food pantry.

It inspired an indulgent pity in him.

There were maybe two steps between Shado’s back and the door. One shove closed that distance immediately, the door rattling with the collision. Again, Shado didn’t react with anything that resembled pain.

But he sure did react when Obi-Wan stepped into his personal space, straightening up to his full height and pressing himself tighter against the door. When Obi-Wan tugged on his courtesan cord, finger curling around the perhaps unearned knot of mastery, Shado’s pupils blew wide.

“You must do better to tempt me, darling,” Obi-Wan told him kindly. What a ridiculous person he’d run into. “No one is entitled to the full truth, of course. I’m not demanding it either. But you must realize that mediation”—Obi-Wan tugged especially hard on the knot here—“rarely succeeds for long if you only apply threats and force. More often, it requires both compromise and vulnerability. Try again.”

Normally, Obi-Wan would never consider de-escalating a conflict in such a matter. But it appeared that, under certain conditions, Shado’s fury could also be a thing of sudden sound and sudden silence, like a supernova. Or like a wave that swelled and threatened to crest, only to sink below the surface without a word.

In front of him, Shado’s lips were parting. Obi-Wan reached down absently, grasping one of Shado’s wrists. It twitched slightly, then turned in his grip, fingertips sliding up Obi-Wan’s sleeve.

It was an oddly trusting gesture. Someone with zero understanding of the Jedi wouldn’t think twice about it. But one with even minimal knowledge of the Force might wonder, with paranoia, if a Jedi such as himself was capable of reading thoughts with a touch. Of course, mind reading—true mind reading, and not the simple messages that could be conveyed through a mental bond—was a rare feat amongst Force sensitives, and Obi-Wan’s talents, as meager as they were, had never bent in that direction. He simply did not have the talent or power to do so.

Goodness, even Anakin couldn’t read minds, though Obi-Wan had long suspected that was a failing of focus and not necessarily of power.

No, Obi-Wan was just trying to track the speed of Shado’s heartbeat to try and gauge surges in guilt or anxiety. He’d like to do more, to dip deeper in what little foresight abilities he had to try and sense for Shado’s intention again, but the Dark Side was pressing especially hard on his shields today. With the galaxy as drenched in it as it was these days, it was less like trying to light a candle in a dark room and more like trying to breathe in the center of a black hole.

So he was attempting this crude method instead, a physical touch—and a useless one, perhaps. Shado had yet to say anything more, but his heart was racing, regardless.

Shado stared pensively at their hands. “I may also be seeking something similar to legitimacy,” he breathed. His neck was bending, enough that Obi-Wan felt his breath ruffle his hair. “Or maybe what I want is some measure of the truth. An understanding. Maybe even closure.”

“And I can help you with that?” Obi-Wan asked, dubious.

Shado’s eyes dragged slowly up his arm, across his chest, and to Obi-Wan’s face. They lingered on his mouth just briefly before jumping up to his eyes. “You’re vital to the process,” he said simply. He didn’t blink.

So this man does have a charming side after all. Obi-Wan considered him for several moments. Was there truth in this? Regardless, perhaps it would be wiser to leave Shado behind, especially given his Imperialist leanings.

But he had promised Onosara, in the end. He could spare Shado a little attention—at least until he had secured his exit strategy. In his life, he had loved and learned from and been raised by so many courtesans in one way or another. He would respect these contributions to his life by going along with Shado’s ruse.

“Very well. Then I thank you for your hospitality. That is, your temporary hospitality.”

“We’ll see,” Shado muttered under his breath. For a moment, his reverse grip on Obi-Wan tightened, nails digging into the soft underside of Obi-Wan’s arm.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan would receive Shado’s dubious hospitality for 47 days and 46 nights. The first of these days would crawl, dragging on and on as the Imperial presence swelled in the city and as tensions between the two of them mounted and grew. The very last of these would whip by in an almost pleasant blur before ending abruptly in a guilty flight.

Shado was not the best of hosts, but the accommodations were stupendous. Truly the experience of a lifetime. Shado’s real domicile was one of the prohibitively expensive villas that only high-ranking Imperials owned on this planet, which narrowed down Shado’s true patron to a troubling handful of the Empire’s worst offenders. The villa itself was a sprawling estate with brazenly large rooms, expansive gardens, winding hiking trails, and even a stable of Tonyani’s own homegrown beasts of burden. A hanger towards the edge of the property held the innards of a wide variety of small, single pilot starships, including a rather intimidating TIE fighter.

Like the temporary room Shado once took him to, however, there was a distinct lack of personal effects. The villa just did better at hiding it. Closets were full of clothes, knickknacks and trinkets were on full display, and an active security system kept the villa safe from ne’er-do-wells and other unwanted presences.

But there was no food in the kitchen, fresh or not. The dirt and rock path between the outer gates and the home didn’t give up a single ghost of an old footprint. Neither physical nor digital mail—or any other messages, for that matter—could be uncovered. Furthermore, days of careful snooping failed to turn up even a single holopic of a loved one, nor even a custom painting, as was the habit of the elite. It was as if the villa had never been touched by a sentient hand.

The hanger, as messy as it was, served as an unexpected source of relief. Evidence of a long-fingered hand had been left behind, betrayed by lingering smudges of oil along the bottom of a stool. The twisted remains of a liquid hospital-grade rations pack were found, likely kicked, under the engine of a starfighter. A practical fresher—barely more than a lightly rusting shower with running water—stood crammed in the furthest corner of the space. Under a gray standalone sink, someone had forgotten and left not one but six pairs of oily and dusty black boots behind. A thin cot bounced, hinges well-lubricated, from a receded hollow closest to the TIE fighter, serviceable sheets topped with a surprisingly soft blanket, worn nearly bald at the edges by self-soothing fingertips.

If the villa was a pristine showroom, intended to impress, then the hanger was the real home. Here, someone had stood. Here, someone had worked.

Here, someone had lived.

-

“Who was Anakin Skywalker to you?”

“Who? Sorry, can’t recall.”

Obi-Wan’s response was cavalier, but surely he could be forgiven a spat of pettiness here or there. After all, he was currently in the middle of dragging the unconscious forms of three more mercenaries out the front gate of Shado’s ridiculous home while Shado watched, arms crossed over his chest. And more was the key word here. In fact, the trio of Humans made up the tenth band of hired fighters who had managed to sneak through Shado’s supposedly impenetrable security system. Obi-Wan had been here only two days shy of a fortnight, meaning he was averaging nearly a fight a night. He might as well have pledged his services to one of those dreadful battle arenas where two beings wailed on each other to support the gambling habits of scores of other beings.

And this arrangement was no accident. A careful investigation had revealed that the system was being shut down from the inside, and by the only user authorized to do so. It didn’t take a lot of critical thinking to realize Shado was doing this on purpose—and hiring the mercenaries himself, to boot.

Assuming Shado was merely verifying Obi-Wan’s ability to step in as a bodyguard, if needed, Obi-Wan had weathered the first few break-ins and attacks with magnanimity. But his patience wore out three bands ago, and his genuine belief that Shado was just testing him had long since withered.

Now, Obi-Wan was convinced Shado was just being mean.

“Why not use your lightsaber?”

Obi-Wan’s grip on one of the unconscious fellows nearly slipped. To cover it, he groused, “Would you bring a thermal detonator to a fist fight?”

“If it ended the fight faster.”

Obi-Wan hummed noncommittally, shoving the body over the property line. Idly, he wondered how Shado might react if he knew Obi-Wan’s lightsaber wasn’t even on Tonyani. He had only planned to be off Tatooine for a few weeks, after all, and to arm himself with one lightsaber was to leave the other one alone in that hidden box deep in the sands. He just didn’t have the heart for it this time around. And look where that sentimentality got him.

Personifying a lightsaber. Such foolishness.

A small droid pushed forward a hover cart, intercepting Obi-Wan just as he booted the last mercenary over the property line. A moment later, the forcefield hummed back to life, protecting the villa once more.

Obi-Wan faced and then crouched in front of the droid, putting his back to his irritating charge. “Oh, what a lovely thought. A little late, though. Same time tomorrow?” The droid’s single eye rolled up to him. After a beat, the little thing stuck out a spindly, three fingered hand, shooting him an approximation of a thumbs up. Then, with a chirping whistle, it trundled off, taking the hover cart with it. “At least someone around here is helpful.”

“I missed the part where it was actually useful,” Shado quipped.

“Then you must have also missed the part where it actually tried.” Obi-Wan rose to his feet. “Not to worry, dear. I hear one’s powers of observation dwindle exponentially when one spends their life looking down on everyone else.”

“Hah.”

Shado’s disrespect aside, the villa was marvelously maintained by a small and industrious army of droids with a variety of functions and mobility. While none of them were equipped with the programming, resources, or sheer audacity of R2D2 or C-3PO—thank the Force for small mercies—they each fulfilled their assigned functions well.

Obi-Wan had sought to leverage their ubiquity immediately. However, his attempts to weaponize their presence to monitor his charge had only mixed success, as they only spoke Binary and were hyperfixated on their tasks. They also had a rudimentary fondness for Shado, despite Shado’s frequent destruction of their peers. Not a talented splicer himself, Obi-Wan could only attribute this misplaced affection to the droids’ near incomprehensible programming, which was admittedly messy, brilliant, and utterly unorthodox.

The only other thing Obi-Wan had learned about these droids in the last few days was the fact that they had a powerful and inexplicable hatred of birds. Naturally, ever the tactician, Obi-Wan used this to his advantage. Now, once triggered, droids would repeat a nonsensical Binary phrase to each other in passing until every droid in the villa had heard it and repeated it at least once to another—or to Obi-Wan himself.

It was a chirping little ditty easily mistaken for a bird song. Obi-Wan had convinced them the practice was combat training for when they would eventually Kill All Birds in The Galaxy—intense creatures, these droids. In reality, however, it was somewhat of a crude alarm for when Shado rose from his fitful slumber—the very trigger for that song. Unless Obi-Wan’s luck was very poor, he’d hear the phrase start up from the depths of the villa well before Shado slunk out of his room.

This phrase was his cue to hide. Not terribly brave of him, of course, but Obi-Wan liked Shado least in those few hours after waking. He knew of many beings who hated leaving the comfort of their beds, but Shado was the only person he’d ever met who woke up in a towering, inexplicable fury. His temper was nasty, his insults came quick, and he nearly always destroyed something, usually a droid or a fragile bit of expensive nonsense. One of these days, though, it was bound to be Obi-Wan’s head.

Normally, Obi-Wan liked his odds in such scenarios, but Shado was still nearly imperceptible in the Force, like a seed barely germinating, lacking the strength to push itself through a single piece of dirt. This meant Shado often snuck up on him when he least expected it, even when Obi-Wan tried to make himself scarce.

Obi-Wan’s inconsistent ability to track Shado throughout the property was, sadly, not reciprocated. Probably due to that damn security system.

“You didn’t answer my question, Obi-Wan.”

“I’ve answered plenty, thanks.” And he had, in those first few days. Shado was intensely inquisitive, when he wasn’t being an ass. Due to the nature of his questions, Obi-Wan had quickly surmised that Shado was one of many civilians who had heard—and latched on to—the Republic’s messaging and broadcasts during the war. Sadly saddled with the lesser half of the infamous Skywalker/Kenobi combo, Shado was clearly trying to assuage his disappointment by grilling Obi-Wan on all sorts of things related to his interest in the war—and, more specifically, Anakin Skywalker.

How did Obi-Wan survive the purge? Where had Obi-Wan been in the last ten or twelve years? Who was hiding him? Where were the other Jedi? Was he on a secret mission for the other Jedi? Did he plan to overthrow the Empire? If so, who was he working with? Who were his allies? How did Obi-Wan stay out of the spotlight for such a long time?

No matter how Obi-Wan responded, Shado seemed to hold on to a stubborn belief that Obi-Wan had emerged from the crisis unscathed and unruffled. Forget running and hiding. No. Obi-Wan had to be living it up in luxury in the hidden safe houses of the many friends and lovers Obi-Wan had apparently amassed over the course of his career.

Not for the first time, Obi-Wan despaired at the proliferation of wartime propaganda about himself, even when it had been mostly admiring. It was very hard to live up to a caricature. Not that his new infamy was any better, of course. Even poor Anakin, darling of the HoloNet, hadn’t been spared the broad self-serving paintbrush of the infant Empire’s marketing campaign. Officially, he’d died a traitor, a disappointing end for a promising soldier and general, whose one fatal flaw was that he didn’t see through the lies of the Jedi fast enough to choose the right side.

“What makes you so afraid to speak of Skywalker?”

At this taunt, Obi-Wan finally turned around to face Shado. Today, Shado was wearing a toned-down version of his princely attire. Shado only dressed up when they left the villa or when Shado was in a particularly condescending mood and wanted to flaunt his wealth in the face of a Jedi who cared very little about things like money or power.

“What purpose is there to speak of him?” Obi-Wan demanded, his voice clipped. “Would it help me better protect you? Would it make you less of a target to your enemies?”

“I told you. I don’t need your protection.”

Obi-Wan waved a hand at the unconscious bodies on the other side of the barrier. “Then what, if it pleases you, is this?”

Shado blinked slowly. “I cheat at sabacc.”

Why did this feel like dealing with Leia? “Everyone cheats at sabacc. You can’t have cheated so well and so profitably that they’ve sent this many people after you while the entire planet is on Imperial lockdown.” The Imperial ground forces needed no excuses to arrest someone, and Imperial prisons were notorious for dropping random bystanders into a cell and throwing away the key.   

At this, Shado said nothing, but he looked unrepentant. It looked like it would be another ten bands of mercenaries before Obi-Wan got a straight answer of him. How tedious.

Who was Anakin Skywalker to you?

Obi-Wan’s irritation bled out of him slowly, leaving behind a sense of melancholy. Shado’d had many questions for him over the few days of their acquaintance, even ones specifically pertaining to his own journey after the war. But it was transparent that they were covertly circling the topic Shado had wanted to broach all along: the final fate of Anakin.

And why wouldn’t he be curious? Anakin had been a heroic, nearly mythological figure to so many suffering under Separatist rule–and a source of prime-time entertainment for those who weren’t. So many people loved him. Obi-Wan had loved him.

Obi-Wan hated being the bearer of bad news.

Shado was watching him carefully now. His eyes were even more heavily lidded than normal, warmed by a mildly resentful camaraderie that only emerged when Shado was about to pass out. Obi-Wan liked him better like this, though he really shouldn’t. Shado’s abysmal sleeping schedule meant he usually stayed up for a full rotation of Tonyani’s sun—approximately three standard days—before snoozing for another two. Then he’d wake up, wrathful, hateful, and deeply unpleasant, and the cycle would start again.   

It was habits like these that made Obi-Wan suspect that a deeper well of unhappiness laid behind that pretty face and its icy eyes, and it was habits like these that made Obi-Wan gentle his voice and enable his charge and his invasive curiosity just a little bit more.

It was, as ever, an ill-advised instinct.

“I’m sorry, Shado,” Obi-Wan said, voice full of sympathy. “The Empire’s reporting was correct on that matter. He did die in those last hours of the Republic.” From a certain point of view.

Shado stared back at him, his face slack with incomprehension. “Are you mocking me?”

“I would not mock your feelings. Truly, I am sorry.”

Shado’s eyebrows scrunched together like tiny hills. “And what feelings do you think I have?” His shoulders were tight, nearly up to his ears.

Grimacing, Obi-Wan reached out to him, settling his fingers loosely on Shado’s elbow. “I’m only trying to say-”

His hand was knocked away. Abruptly, Shado put distance between them. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled.

Obi-Wan gaped at him for a moment before reassembling his composure. “Shado, I was just trying-” He stopped talking. Then, sharper, he said, “What’s going on here?”

Steps away from him, Shado was clutching his elbow like he’d been burned, his eyes narrowed with revulsion. His stance was wide too, defensive like he was anticipating a blow or the need to run. Flirting had been fine. Teasing, taunting, and a bit of a threat of violence had been similarly endured, but sympathy, a kind gesture—this is what made Shado flinch away?  

“Whatever did I do to you?” Obi-Wan murmured to himself. A number of things, equally likely, suddenly jumped to the forefront of his mind. Shaking his head with a grimace, Obi-Wan said, louder, “This is starting to feel like a personal dislike, dear one.”

“Can’t handle not being the galaxy’s favorite?” Shado barked back with a sneer. Slowly, he rose out of his protective hunch, feigning a look of disinterest. “Forget it. You’re imagining things, old man.”

“So you’re not putting innocent people on my path out of some petty need for revenge?”

“It’s not like you killed any of them.”

“This is not a game, Shado!” Obi-Wan countered, imploring him to understand. “I am a Jedi. When a threat is in front of me, the choice to use lethal force is not always my own.”

This seemed to hit a nerve. Any hint of their growing rapport vanished in an instant as Shado recoiled, face turning ashen white. Before Obi-Wan could glean anything further from this reaction, Shado whipped around and stalked off.

“Know your place!” he tossed over his shoulder. Then, as if something occurred to him, he froze, back stiffening. He whirled around again, pointing at Obi-Wan. He was visibly seething. “If you leave this property without me, you’ll have the entirety of the Imperial Army on you in an instant. Do not test my patience.”

Order thusly conveyed, Shado stormed off again, making his way for the hanger in the distance.

Left behind, Obi-Wan watched him leave. Purposefully, he tensed and then relaxed his muscles one by one before letting loose a prolonged sigh. He imagined his frustration leaving with it, using the wind from his lungs as a tiny parachute before the feeling dissipated in the Force. It didn’t work. Grimly, he angled his head to the left, looking towards the gates of the property, towards the city roads just outside of them, and towards the most direct pathway he’d mapped to the planet’s only starport.  

In the sky, two star destroyers—one more than yesterday—maintained orbit in the sky, like a harbinger of his own personal doom. Obi-Wan squinted at it for a moment longer before he too walked away.

-

Within a few hours of following Shado home, Obi-Wan had constructed a new backstory for him to help try and explain his motives. As he stumbled upon more information about his mercurial charge, these ideas—a comprehensive theory of Shado, as it were—grew and strengthened, or died back when more evidence failed to back up his initial assumptions.

Most of the courtesans Obi-Wan knew focused on city centers, moving freely between one patron to the next. This allowed them maximum flexibility in both choices and studies, as they were not beholden to the whims and interests of any one client. This also empowered some courtesans to gather and build no little political power and sway, which they would then use to bend the ear of any authority they needed to listen to them—though this would not save their Guild from being dissolved, in the end.

Some courtesans, however, decided to focus their arts on a particular patron or group of patrons to the exclusion of all others. As a child, Obi-Wan had been smitten with a courtesan who had chosen such a path, a Nautolan boy his own age. The courtesan had attained a rare double Mastery in the Art of Expression before he’d turned twelve, specializing in stringed musical instruments. Because of his age, the boy was never formally introduced to the public, and so Obi-Wan never learned the name of his very first crush.

However, if one timed a visit to the guild hall just right, they could wile away a lovely afternoon under one or more of the strategically placed vents in the entrance hall. Through these vents, a discerning listener could bask in the burgeoning talents of student courtesans pursuing music, theatre, or debate as a defining skill of their occupation.

When Obi-Wan heard the Nautolan boy play for the very first time, he’d immediately abandoned the errand he had been sent on and plastered himself as close as he could to the beautiful heart stirring music. Obi-Wan hadn’t been the only one, of course—the boy was shaping up to be a generation-defining talent and was somewhat of a local celebrity—but none had been quite as obvious in their attentions as the lone Jedi child, too young for a braid, sprawled in front of the vent on his stomach, kicking his feet in time with the melody.  

At the time, ignorant to and perhaps even avoidant of matters of the heart, Obi-Wan had been so certain that the boy had tapped into the Force while playing. Why else was his face so hot? Why else would his heart beat so fast? Why else would he feel both at rest and utterly energized at the same time? He penned at least a dozen essays in defense of this thesis, if only to prove to his peers and his teachers that he hadn’t fallen prey to something as embarrassing as young love.

One day, however, the talented boy accepted an offer to further his skills on Glee Anselm. According to some rumors, he had been enticed with access to rare antique instruments, carefully stewarded by generations of Nautolans over the centuries. Other rumors put the boy in the middle of the Nautolan/Anselmi conflict as a trial that would add another knot to the cord of that young genius, this time from the Art of Mediation. But whatever the reason, Obi-Wan never heard him play again.

Obi-Wan was currently theorizing that Shado must have been in a similar situation. Instead of being nurtured amongst other courtesans, building his own skills and destinies for years (if not decades), he’d been enticed away by a patron who wanted his attention all to themselves—and likely not for his mastery in the Art of Mediation, given what Obi-Wan had seen so far. No, he was lured to his patron’s side for a different reason—Shado’s beauty, perhaps?

With such a relatively sterile home, it was hard to guess if the exclusivity contract had been signed after the fall of the Republic or before it. Shado appeared at least two decades older than the Empire itself, so it was possible his arrangements were made before Sidious rose as the Emperor.

But Obi-Wan couldn’t help but feel that it had been after, and that Shado hadn’t had any other choice. He was too bossy, and he clearly didn’t like to be herded. Would any courtesan of his temperament choose one patron, and one patron alone? No, the more likely explanation was that the clever courtesan had fallen in dire straits after the calculated plunging of the Guild’s reputation, forcing him to settle for the attentions of a lone Imperial. That an Imperial would covet him in the first place was indisputable. How like an Imperial to see a pretty bauble and fail to see the fierce and opinionated creature behind it.

Obi-Wan, as influenced as ever by a tight grip of sympathy for all courtesans, couldn’t help but pity Shado’s situation. He was a dragon in a cage. In such conditions, why wouldn’t he wake up furious? Why wouldn’t he be spiteful? Why wouldn’t he storm about in a haze of negative emotions and misery? It wasn’t like Shado was a Jedi.

And as a non-Jedi, perhaps Shado had fallen under the sway of attachment. Did Shado, in his own way, come to care for whatever Imperial held his contract? If the cage wasn’t bad enough, the emptiness of the villa spoke volumes. Did Shado dream of his patron’s attention?  With the rich and especially powerful often came a coddling attitude towards lesser creatures, an instinct to swoop pretty things out of the muck and grime of daily life only to deposit them on a pristine shelf for leisurely viewing.

When Shado spoke of establishing his own shred of legitimacy, did he intend to drag his distracted patron’s attention back to this abandoned abode—and, as a bonus, to Shado himself? The villa and Shado’s otherwise careless attitude toward courtesans, including very recent legislative events, indicated that his patron had to be a powerful figure in the Imperial machine. But while a person of the right means, network, and reputation could weather a small controversy, like the presence of a prized courtesan in a forgotten Outer Rim estate, next to no power would protect them if it was known that an infamous Jedi was seen idling around on his property.

Vader wouldn’t stand for it.

Shado was playing with fire. But what was a treasure on a shelf to do but rain projectiles down on the head of their keeper?

So, yes, Obi-Wan did feel some sympathy for Shado. But not, shamefully, a great deal of understanding.

Perhaps a younger version of himself would have echoed Shado’s ire. But perhaps not, even then. Obi-Wan had struggled his entire life to prove he could be trusted to live a life autonomously and with valor and respect for all beings. But just as keenly, he’d also struggled to find a place where he fit. A place where he was wanted. A place where no one wanted to watch him leave.

Over the decades, so many hands had slipped from his own, by choice or by tragedy. What he wouldn’t give for the press of nails digging into his wrist, for a gentle grip to turn so hard and so tight, it threatened injury.

For someone to say, “No. You can’t take him. He’s mine.”

Obi-Wan buried that desire, and he buried it deep. Because if attachment was a grave weakness amongst the Jedi, then what was this?

Chapter Text

Three days after that uncomfortable exchange at the edge of Shado’s property, Obi-Wan heard a familiar little ditty, a melody one might mistake for birdsong. It came at the worst possible time. Obi-Wan was currently naked and covered in soap in the fresher closest to his temporary room. He tipped his head back, grimacing a little.

A moment later, the ditty started up again, faster and a bit annoyed. A metal appendage of indeterminate origin had the temerity to even knock on the fresher door.

“Alright, thank you!” Obi-Wan called out, aggrieved. He couldn’t hear anything else over the water, but the ditty did not come again, so the droid must have left.

Shado was awake once more. Wonderful.

Making a face, Obi-Wan shoved his head under the stream of water, letting it sluice over his hair, neck, and shoulders. He would not rush through this, not even if Vader himself stood outside his door.

Freshers with water were rare on water-poor Tatooine, but not on Tonyani, which had been blessed with large oceans and frequent rains. Obi-Wan had never hated deserts himself—they had a unique beauty—but over a decade of water rationing had made him a greedy creature when it came to the stuff.

So he finished washing up, taking time to comb soap from his hair with his fingers before stepping out from under the water. He patted himself dry with an annoyingly luxurious towel. Once he was no longer soaking but rather just pleasantly damp, he pulled on some clean trousers and a pair of soft soled shoes. Then, and only then, did he exit the fresher to face the reality of a recently awakened courtesan.

Vader wasn’t there, plotting his imminent demise, but Shado sure was. Adorned in his princely outfit—a sign that his charge was going to be extra annoying today—he was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were closed, as if in thought.

“Good evening,” Obi-Wan greeted mildly but moved on, walking to his room.  

“It took you long enough. Rumors about your narcissism are-” Whatever smug and condescending thing Shado was about to say died, literally choking. His next words shot out without any grace or decorum, audibly scandalized. “Hey. Do you often walk around in strange places, half-naked?”

It was interesting that he himself thought the villa—allegedly his home—was a strange place. “If expedient. Why? Are you jealous?”

Sensing that this conversation wasn’t going to end, even if he shut the door in Shado’s face, Obi-Wan held it open instead. It was one of those ones that swung on a hinge. It was very cute and very quaint, boasting high dramatic potential if this conversation were to end on a sour note.

As expected, Shado followed him into his room. “What happened to your sense of shame?”

“Shame is taught. It’s not innate.” Bodies were just crude matter, after all. “If someone covets what they see, then that is their failing, not mine.”

Shado’s expression twisted in a way Obi-Wan couldn’t quite read. For a moment, his eyes seemed to linger on the scarring still present on Obi-Wan’s shoulder from his fight with Vader on Mapuzo. As if registering his own fixation, Shado tore his gaze away, marching past him.

The room Shado had provided him with was far too large for one person, boasting enough floor space to double as a dedicated training area for at least three adult Jedi, even for a form as athletic as Ataru. Kings had smaller suites, Obi-Wan was sure, but the really aggravating reality of this was that the villa was home to many rooms far larger than this one, meant for important guests and the master of the house himself.

There was so much empty space here. It was such an alarming contrast to the population density of the rest of Tonyani. Economic inequality wasn’t invented with the Empire, of course, but being poor in the Republic was a different beast than being poor in the Empire.

In any case, the room was extravagant. Ornate tiles and beautifully woven rugs made up the floor. A ridiculous bed perched on top of an elevated platform, a treacherous mountain to descend from for the unwary—or the very sleepy. A large red wood desk ate up a good portion of the corner of the room, adorned with a personal computer, a holodisplay, a datapad, and even enough room for one to write on flimsi, if they must. A stone fireplace, as wide as six Wookies standing shoulder to shoulder, laid just across from the bed platform. To the left of the fireplace, there was a balcony three stories above ground level; to its right, there was a well-stocked vanity with a large mirror.

It was to the vanity that Obi-Wan wandered to first, shuffling through drawers for a particular set of equipment. This was not an often-used room. Some of the beauty and hygiene products had production dates from before the war. If not for the droids, Obi-Wan thought that this whole room would have been covered in inches of dust.

Interestingly, the master bedroom of the villa was similarly pristine and unused. It appeared Shado slept in the hanger when he wasn’t causing trouble for Obi-Wan.

What a waste of beds. Not that Obi-Wan could claim any better, but he had at least tried those first few nights before he discovered that the rug closest to the balcony was nearly identical in thickness to the mattress he used for sleeping on Tatooine.

“I’m busy, as you can see.”

“Too bad. I want to talk to you.”

How rude. Fishing out a pair of serviceable scissors from the third drawer, Obi-Wan didn’t immediately register Shado’s distracted tone. Instead, he opened and closed the tool a few times, pre-occupied by his task. Then he leaned towards the mirror, pulling a thick chunk of his wet hair taut in front of his ear. He watched the sharp implement successfully slice through the lock.

Then his eyes focused on the scene behind him, and he promptly forgot what he was trying to do.  

“Put that down,” Obi-Wan snapped.

In the mirror’s reflection, Shado pivoted to him. He had a hand around Luke’s gift. “What is it? A Jedi artifact?” He glared down at it. “It’s ugly.”

Aggravated, Obi-Wan dropped the scissors and closed the distance between them quickly. “To you, perhaps.”  He plucked the toy out of Shado’s hand brusquely. A moment of focusing on the Force rewarded him with a faint sense memory of Luke smiling absently at his own hands. Good, it hadn’t been overwritten. Relieved, he put it back in its carrying pouch, slinging it around his neck.

“Say what you want to say, then leave. Some of us have a more reasonable sleeping schedule. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

Shado looked distracted again. “Are you going to finish what you started, or what? You look lopsided.”

Obi-Wan squinted at him. “That cannot be why you are in my room,” he protested, already exhausted by him, but Shado ignored this, stepping past him to walk back to the vanity. He reached out with both hands, picking up the scissors as well as the abandoned hair.

“Hurry up. I’ll finish it for you.”

Obi-Wan was immediately suspicious. “…Why?”

“I can’t have you walking around in public, looking like an eyesore.”

“I wear a helmet,” Obi-Wan retorted. Nevertheless, he approached slowly, interested in how this might unfold.

When out in public, Obi-Wan typically wore armor like any other bodyguard might. It was a plastoid number, similar to what he had worn during the war. When Shado had demanded he wear it in public, he had wondered at the time if it was meant to be an offensive gesture. If that was the intention, it missed the mark. Obi-Wan wanted to be a peacekeeper all his life, but wearing the armor of a warrior felt a bit like coming home.

Shado’s gaze flicked up, his expression disinterested. “You won’t wear that armor anymore. I have matters to attend to in the city, and I need a companion, not a hired thug.”

Obi-Wan slowly sat in the chair in front of the vanity, facing the mirror. “One can only be a hired thug if credits are involved, my dear. You, of all people, should know this.”

In the reflection, Shado rolled his eyes, clearly not denying the allegation. “Do I not keep you in room and board?”

“Your droids keep me in room, and I keep all of us in board.”

Shado, who had started finger combing through Obi-Wan’s hair, stopped mid-motion. “…the kitchen was empty.” He said this with the air of realizing an epiphany.

“Nice of you to notice. If it helps, I’ve been wildly embezzling from your household accounts. I anticipate I will be able to drain you dry within another week.”

“Great,” Shado said flatly. He had reddened during the conversation, and, if he was striving for a perfectly feigned indifference, he missed it entirely when he started cursing under his breath.

Still, though, his hands returned to their task. Irritation and general negativity aside, Shado seemed calmer, almost as if the act of grooming another was a meditative hobby. Fascinating. Did Shado groom his patron too?

How one physically maintained themselves varied widely in the galaxy, of course. Households on Tatooine treated the activity as a communal one amongst trusted individuals, a way to show mutual affection, whereas it was a terrible breach of etiquette to even accidently graze another person’s hair or beard on Coruscant, especially given some of the more intricate hairstyles of the elite.

Though nominally citizens of Coruscant, Jedi themselves were more relaxed on the topic, though each Jedi was expected to manage their own hygiene. Typically, a Master would occasionally support a padawan in this, if only to make sure their student didn’t hurt themselves or commit themselves to a haircut that was bound to attract teasing. The standard padawan cut was bad enough amongst certain circles, though Obi-Wan had always thought the braid was quite charming.

Obi-Wan could count the times he cut Anakin’s hair on one hand. He’d offered many more times than that, genuinely enjoying his padawan’s company in ways he didn’t enjoy anyone else’s. But Anakin had strong feelings about his own personal upkeep and looks. As a result, Obi-Wan always ran the risk of mortally offending the boy, like that one time when he was fourteen and tried to cultivate a mustache during the week Obi-Wan had been absent from the Temple.

When Obi-Wan saw it, he hadn’t been remotely ready for it—he’d nearly laughed himself sick. Mortified, Anakin threw a plant at him and barricaded himself in his room for three days. After that, Anakin never grew more than a bit of stubble on his face, no matter how many times Obi-Wan had apologized and encouraged him to explore his own style.

And Anakin never let an insult lie without returning it tenfold, even years later. Once, after returning to his command after back-to-back sieges and an unplanned stint in a Separatist holding cell, Obi-Wan had been rather unkempt, and he knew it. Nevertheless, he showed up for the next strategy meeting with the High Council, hoping his fellow Jedi had the decency not to point out his dishevelment.

Those hopes were promptly dashed when Anakin, sectors away at that moment, had the gall to ask who invited the bantha. Obi-Wan had tartly replied that he didn’t want to hear that from someone clearly aspiring to look like an unrinsed mop. While this was all well and good—the two of them were more like brothers those days, and what brother passed on the opportunity to tease the other—the conversation rapidly deteriorated when it became known that the only reason Obi-Wan still looked like that was because he’d exited the holding cell with four broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, parting gifts from the Separatists. Since Obi-Wan wasn’t the kind of person who would stand for a sponge bath from a medic, personal upkeep wasn’t an option. Or a priority.  

Days later, Anakin would invite himself onto Obi-Wan’s ship. Enabled by a number of clones—lovely men, all of them, until they abruptly weren’t—he broke into Obi-Wan’s quarters and bullied his so-called Master into an impromptu grooming session. Obi-Wan had been so irritated and flustered at the time, feeling somehow defeated by all of this.

Anakin, gentle-hearted even when he was being a tyrant, tried to reassure him that all was well. That Obi-Wan would heal and be able to handle his own affairs again, like old times. That the war itself would end soon, and they would all know peace.

How simple things had seemed back then. Did Anakin already decide to turn his back on the Order when he smuggled himself onto Obi-Wan’s ship? Was Obi-Wan allowed to remember that time they spent together, bickering, with fondness?

“If I knew a knife at your throat would keep you quiet, I might have tried sooner.”

Obi-Wan’s wandering attention focused on the scissors snipping so close to his neck. “Yes, because that vibroknife you had worked out so well for you.”

Unexpectedly, Shado smirked. “Got what I wanted, didn’t I?” he murmured.

Obi-Wan let this float by without comment. Then, cautiously, he said, “You seem well.”

“Disappointed?”  Shado lifted his gaze from his work, staring Obi-Wan down in the mirror. “I was merely reminded that I am the one with the upper hand in this relationship. Your attempts to get under my skin are both futile and ineffective.”

Obi-Wan hummed agreeably, crossing his legs at the ankle. “So I am getting under your skin. Good to know.”

Shado’s confident stare hardened. “I’ll make you bald.” He fisted a hand in the side of Obi-Wan’s hair that was still overly long.

“I could make it work.” He hadn’t looked completely terrible as Rako Hardeen. Honestly, Obi-Wan was more worried about getting stabbed in the neck than losing hair.

For a moment, extreme anger tightened Shado’s face. “I hate you,” he hissed, sounding like he really meant it.

Silence fell between the two of them. Gradually, the fist in Obi-Wan’s hair loosened. Once fully released, a palm followed it quickly, smoothing the hair back down. Then Shado turned his attention back to his work.

Snip, snip. Cut, cut. Tiny hairs lightly fell to Obi-Wan’s bare shoulders, an itchy sensation. As Obi-Wan endeavored to hold his tongue, he observed Shado’s technique with interest and a growing sense that he was being ungracious to his host. Obi-Wan’s own attempts at hair cutting were rarely so fine. Shado’s diligence, while not expected, was indeed appreciated.

Who was Anakin Skywalker to you?

Obi-Wan quickly made a decision. “Your question. The one about Anakin.” Shado froze again, locking eyes with him in the mirror. “He was a powerful Jedi. An excellent mechanic. A brave soldier. A loyal friend. And the best pilot in the galaxy. That’s who he was to me.”

There was a long pause. Then Shado shook his head, turning his attention back to Obi-Wan’s hair. “None of that means anything,” he said bitterly.

Was that not the answer he was looking for? “How so?”

“…It’s an epitaph.”

“Well, he is dead,” Obi-Wan replied dryly.

Was Shado sulking? “You should know him better than that. Was he not your padawan?”

Obi-Wan, in the middle of formulating a defensive response, stopped when that unlikely term came out of that unlikely mouth. “How do you know that word?” he asked instead.

Shado paused, then said, unconvincingly, “I looked it up.”

Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose. Onosara, save me from your inept peers. “For someone who has just enough self-preservation to get a bodyguard, you’re not displaying much intelligence,” he muttered, despairing. Louder, he said, “The Empire is literally legislating your people out of existence. The very last thing you should do is draw their attention with such an inane search history.”

There was a tight fury in Shado’s voice. “My people.” There was a clatter, scissors hitting the top of the vanity. When Obi-Wan pulled his hand away from his face, he saw Shado was gripping the top of his chair, leaning forward.

Like this, one could not help but be reminded how very large of a man Shado was, and how intimidating that size would be to most people. Obi-Wan, not being most people, fixated on how white Shado’s knuckles had become—and, more narcissistically, how much nicer he looked in the mirror, thanks to Shado’s attentions.

Obi-Wan had been insensitive. Prickly, even. This was not his way of doing things. He used to be a more pleasant individual.

Repentant, Obi-Wan turned in his seat, looking up at Shado. “That was uncalled for,” he said, regretting the tactlessness. “I cannot and should not judge your actions, and I didn’t mean to speak so dismissively of your people at such a difficult time in your history. You all must be struggling. Though I’m certain your Guild did its best to prepare you for this eventuality. Far better than the Order did.”

“The Order was an agent of its own destruction,” Shado said caustically, dealing his own blow. His apology had not been accepted.

To say the Order destroyed itself was an easy thing to claim by an outsider. Someone who didn’t have to step over the bodies of children. Someone who didn’t have to watch—have to feel—one’s friends, one’s family, blink out of existence one after another throughout the galaxy, like stars being devoured by a ravenous black hole.

It was easy for Shado to say, yes. And, more painfully, it was right of him to do so. In hindsight, Obi-Wan could trace a long road of missteps and errors that led the galaxy and the Order to its current state. He could even summon up some anger at their shared arrogance, especially his own.

But recognizing their faults was a meaningless task. They were dead, and all that remained was grief, loneliness, and a profound sense of regret.

“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan said softly.

Shado stared at him a moment longer, unblinking. Then, slowly, he released his vice grip from the back of the chair, his shoulders relaxing even as his spine seemed to stiffen, as if he was drawing an impenetrable metal sheet between the two of them. “I’m done. Do something about your beard. Tomorrow, you’ll need to look more presentable. You will not embarrass me in public.”

With that, Shado stepped back from him and headed for the door.

“I could always wear that helmet,” Obi-Wan called out behind him, offering. The door slammed marvelously, just as Obi-Wan thought it would.

After a beat, Obi-Wan’s eyes dropped to the vanity again. The first lock of Obi-Wan’s snipped hair, the longest of the bunch, had disappeared.

-

Obi-Wan embarrassed Shado in public. It was inevitable.

Shado stormed out of Tonyani’s premier art museum, radiating white-hot outrage. Bemused, Obi-Wan followed three steps behind, tugging on the collar of his borrowed cape.

The vital matters Shado apparently had to attend to amounted to little more than a tour of the city and its major culture centers. Throughout all of these explorations, Shado was a hot commodity, a force that many of the Tonyani elite seemed only vaguely aware of but in the way that any citizen was aware of their emperor. This meant many of the local power players were very keen on talking to Shado, but the feeling clearly wasn’t mutual. Far from flexing that so called Art of Mediation, Shado quickly grew tired of these conversations and would swiftly pull Obi-Wan away to the next location.

In many ways, the only one Shado wanted to acknowledge in these spaces was Obi-Wan himself. This betrayed a stark contradiction in his charge’s behavior. Even as he tried to oppress Obi-Wan, his actions demonstrated a strong desire to impress him instead. It was very strange.

Over the course of a week, they visited art displays, attended concerts, and sat through numerous plays and operas. Resigned, Obi-Wan endured this parade of activities. Whenever he could, he used the Force to turn people’s gazes and memories away from him, turning his back on them entirely when he couldn’t.

It was only a matter of time before Shado would gain the attention he was seeking from his patron, Obi-Wan mused. Imperial ground forces grew every day on Tonyani, and there was no guarantee that the Grand Inquisitor—or someone worse than him—was safely following a false lead on the opposite side of the city. Worse still, reality seemed to bend around Shado when they were in public, always favoring and shining a spotlight on him. It was enough to provoke a feeling of dread in Obi-Wan every time they left the villa.

But the dread was preferable to the boredom. It was unfortunate, as otherwise these little field trips seemed designed specifically for Obi-Wan’s enjoyment.

In his lifetime, Obi-Wan was a well-known appreciator of the arts, having developed a quite sophisticated eye and ear for all forms of creative expression. He used to drag his poor padawan from one display to the next, aflush with excitement over the many ways sentients expressed their cultures, histories, values, and even fears. Art, in Obi-Wan’s opinion, was a more beautiful, more transcendent language than language itself.

And like many beautiful things in this galaxy in the age of the Empire, it had been plundered, torn apart, and reassembled into some ghastly, subservient specter whose only purpose was to further Palpatine’s chokehold over the galaxy.

Obi-Wan wanted no part of it, and thus he had zero interest in the cultural displays of loyalist Tonyani. Not when so many of them matched the motifs and branding of the Empire, not when they made monsters of fellow sentients whose only flaw was not appearing Human, and not when so many extolled the virtues and heroics of a vile Sith who had destroyed everything Obi-Wan had loved about living.

But Shado was trying so hard, for whatever reason, so Obi-Wan had remained neutral throughout their little trips, fixing a mild expression to his face. He would be an ideal companion, no matter his personal thoughts.

Although Obi-Wan wisely kept those personal thoughts to himself, it didn’t take Shado long to start staring at him in skepticism, prodding at him with leading questions about what he liked best. It reminded him of the old days, where he stood in Shado’s shoes, trying to build a love for art in an incredibly bored boy.

Oh, the fun he used to have at Anakin’s expense, tolerantly quizzing him on fictitious acts of a play he’d slept all the way through. At one point, Anakin had been the only person in the galaxy who thought the five-part epic romance saga, The Many Love Songs of Wild Space, had an entire act devoted to suitors displaying their devotion through an explosive space battle. That the saga was based on a pre-space flight society had been apparently lost on him.  

But unlike Anakin, Obi-Wan did not try to make up any answers to cover for his inattention. Instead, he kept his comments entirely innocuous. Such as:

“Those performers certainly worked very hard.”

“That is quite a bit of marble. Interesting!”

“Ah, how excellent it is that a percussion band can secure employment in this day and age.”

“Oh my, what a prodigious array of colors on a single piece of canvas.”

Innocent comments. Neutral thoughts. Sounds made of little substance.

Today, though, Shado had dug his heels in. Instead of accepting Obi-Wan’s words as the beginning, middle, and end of his consideration of these pieces, he poked and prodded and bullied for more until Obi-Wan, almost embarrassed for him, relented.

Gently, diplomatically, he pointed out that state-sponsored art might not represent the pinnacle of creativity and artistic innovation. Then, less diplomatically, he started citing sources and reeling in evidence, his voice growing louder as he warmed up to the subject.

“—and did you know there are 110 plays currently playing on the Coruscanti circuit about Sheev Palpatine? 110! He is one man, with one life. What purpose was there for 110 retellings? The cad’s not even dead yet—”

This was when Shado stormed out. A pity. Obi-Wan had so much more to say.

-

Sometime later, Obi-Wan found Shado in the museum’s courtyard, sitting on a bench. He meandered generally in Shado’s direction, his hands in his pockets. Shado never looked up at him, his head in his hands.

Obi-Wan settled to Shado’s left eventually, still standing. He waited, serene and quiet, even as Tonyani residents walked by, pulling a double take at them like they were a street drama about to perform.

“He’s everywhere, isn’t he.”

Curious, Obi-Wan followed Shado’s gaze. Sure enough, the courtyard was filled with different statues of their so-called Emperor, a monument to different stages of his life. There was the wise child, a book in each hand. Then there was the upright, well-dressed young master, staring boldly ahead with a single arm folded over his chest. Further still, there was a splendid and triumphant adult, gesturing as if directing a heroic forward march.

Shado slowly lurched to his feet, walking over to the closest statue. It was Palpatine as an old man, cloaked and yet still sophisticated. He stood with a strong back, his arms stretched out to either side of him, as if inviting the galaxy into his confidence. Bending his head, Shado stared, unblinkingly, right in the eyes of the sculpture.

At that moment, Shado didn’t seem very much like a loyalist.

Stirred by this, Obi-Wan said, “You must understand that art—true art—is a tool that serves the people.” Obi-Wan paused. Then, delicately, he said, “When one man decides art serves him, and him alone-”

“He’s saying his life is the only one that matters. I got it,” Shado said dismissively. He didn’t break his staring contest with the sculpture.

Obi-Wan joined him after a beat. He crossed his arms, leaning to the left. “Well. At the very least, they’re true to life?”

“They’re not.” Shado tipped his chin in the statue’s direction. “He’s shorter than this.”

“Oh?” Obi-Wan looked back and forth between Shado and the statue. He stroked his beard in thought. “I don’t recall, really.”  

“He wears lifts in his shoes.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said again, this time in an entirely different—entirely delighted—tone. “I can see why he was so keen to destroy the Guild. Clearly, you know too much.”

“Stop rubbing it in. So the Empire ruined art. Whatever.” In a fit of frustration, Shado rubbed his hands through his hair, messing up his braid. “If this is all banthashit for you, then what do you do in your free time?”

Obi-Wan considered this for a moment, then said, “I sit in a cave, and I stare at a wall.”

This declaration finally earned him Shado’s full attention—and his full disbelief. “You’re lying. No one would allow their beloved General Kenobi to do something so undignified.” Turning, he faced Obi-Wan, mirroring his stance—though not as politely. Must he loom so?

“You simply must let go of this notion that I’m being dined and feted in my exile.” Preposterous. “Who would I impose on in these dark times? Who even would risk it?”

“You can’t tell me your dearest friends would let you rot in obscurity.”

“My dearest friend,” Obi-Wan retorted sharply, “was Anakin Skywalker.”

Shado’s eyes flickered away from him, then back again.

Annoyed, Obi-Wan pivoted away from that hateful statue, putting a few steps between it and himself. He rested his hands on his hips, letting his head dangle. What a day.

Then, as if the Force itself had flicked his ear, Obi-Wan heard a familiar mechanical whine, almost imperceptible past the ambient sounds of the city. It echoed over a distance, as if ricocheting again and again between the hard walls of a long tunnel.

Distracted, Obi-Wan walked over to the edge of the courtyard where it abruptly dropped off, revealing densely developed infrastructure far below the museum. Even here, the city had dug itself deeply into the ground. Sticky humid air, tinged with the smell of exhaust and spilled oil, wafted across his face, briefly lifting his hair up from his forehead. A trickle of air traffic, lighter than normal but more prodigious than even a few days ago, moved to and fro at high speeds throughout the lower levels.

Obi-Wan heard the noise again, louder this time. A dual engine, perhaps, and not just from one vehicle either. It sounded too large for a speeder bike, too small for a cruiser, and too powerful for the narrow pathways of the city. Moments later, roars from a crowd rose up from the infrastructure below, clinching it.

“Well then. There’s one thing that the Empire can’t have destroyed.” Obi-Wan spun back to face Shado, tapping his own ear. “Sounds like Tonyani has a podracing track somewhere. Perhaps in the lower levels?” While his initial scan didn’t reveal the source of the sounds he was hearing—high powered and dangerous engines mixed with the jeering cheers of a blood-thirsty audience—this did not deter him. “Want to check it out?”

“Podracing is illegal,” Shado pointed out, like he thought Obi-Wan didn’t know.

“Shado, every time I breathe, I commit a crime. Watching a little race is the least of my sins.” Spying on a ramp that would take them lower into the city, he closed the distance between them quickly, grabbing Shado’s elbow. “Let’s go see what’s going on. Maybe it will be fun.”

“You can’t know anything about podracing,” Shado retorted, barely resisting. “You’re boring. You’re a Jedi.” Despite these words, something in him was visibly perking up, as if waking from a long unwanted slumber.

Was this the rare, shared interest that would finally sand off the jagged edges of Shado’s regard? Cheered by the thought, Obi-Wan clapped Shado’s shoulder companionably, then jogged past him and down the ramp at a quick pace.

“You could say you’re afraid to gamble with far fewer words, dearest.”

Chapter Text

Tonyani’s answer to podracing entertainment was a dangerously mobile thing, easily built up and easily broken down, depending on how strictly authorities sought to enforce the letter of the law. Today, it was set up in an almost liminal subterranean setting, a series of rather lovely quartz caverns that were being decimated and remade into something Obi-Wan could only guess was intended to be either a massive generator room or a secret hangar for one or more of the businesses perched above them.

In this way, modernity and interrupted manufacturing bled into raw and ancient nature, provoking a sense of missed opportunities, heaviness, and loss. And then there was a pop-up podracing track. The people of this galaxy were something else.

Obi-Wan and Shado arrived at the start of the final match of a tournament. By mutual agreement, they didn’t take to the stands—not after watching one collapse in on itself mere minutes after their arrival—but instead commandeered a set of displays set aside for gamblers at the edge of a deck framed by hip high railings. At a click of a button, the displays would cycle through different cameras set up along the track so that hopeful financial risk-takers could closely watch the contestants of their choosing and make changes to their bets on the fly. The deck was also far enough and high enough from the track that there was nearly no risk of taking a bit of molten debris to the head.

Seeing their clothes—Shado’s, fine and expensive, and Obi-Wan’s, borrowed and annoying—a bookie set up a mini-table nearby, practically rubbing his hands together in glee. By the end of the tournament, however, he would doubtlessly find that he had wasted his time, for Obi-Wan and Shado ended up bickering too much to ever set a formal bet.

The last match of the tournament started very quickly. There were sixteen participants in total. Unsurprisingly, the race was far more diverse in species than any event or setting above ground. Humans traditionally did not do so well at podracing. Without the Force, a Human’s natural range of instincts and reflexes could only go so far in such high-speed antics. Human contestants—if there were any at all—had likely washed out several rounds ago.

Obi-Wan favored a Kyuzo rider. Not only did they have their species’ natural reflexes as an advantage, the Kyuzo also conducted themselves in an entirely sensible manner, maintaining their position in the middle while avoiding the aggressive jockeying of their peers. Their podracer, sleek and small, also appeared to be well-loved by a mechanic and lacked certain characteristics that made Obi-Wan think “death trap.”

This was a departure from many of the other vehicles in play today, including the podracer of Shado’s favored rider, a Trandoshan. The Trandoshan’s vehicle looked like discarded metal had fallen off the top of a trash heap in the vague suggestion of a podracer—and, miraculously, it ran. Less miraculously, it was piloted by a mean competitor who thought nothing of forcing his fellow riders into near collisions at every turn. While sabotage was nearly a given for this ruthless form of entertainment, the Trandoshan himself was short-sighted, tactically speaking, jumping at every chance to wreck his competition until he made himself an enemy of nearly every surviving rider.

In Obi-Wan’s experience, it was never a good idea to make enemies in a game where your opposition was fully expecting to walk away with blood on their hands.

In the end, five podracers crashed in a fiery way that did not bode well for their rider’s chances at survival. Another three pilots were disqualified in similarly explosive accidents but managed to get out in time, leaping from their machines or, in one clever case, forcefully ejected by some internal safety mechanism.

Obi-Wan’s Kyuzo was not one of them. Instead, they earned themselves a respectable fourth place with only minor dings on the outside of their vehicle. Shado’s Trandoshan, on the other hand, having pestered and assailed his competitors all throughout the race, had been the victim of a pincer maneuver mere moments from the finish line. This ultimately lost all three involved parties the race, including the Trandoshan about to take first place. But it had particularly devastating effects on Shado’s chosen contestant, launching him up from his seat and face first into several dense and low-hanging stalagmites with a crack that had all endo- or exoskeleton sentients within earshot simultaneously flinching.

“Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” Obi-Wan murmured in Shado’s ear, straining to be heard over the exuberant crowd.

Shado flapped an irritated hand in his direction. “Yeah, yeah.”

The brutal maneuver had provoked a wild applause in the stands, and an even wilder standing ovation when its burnt and bloodied orchestrators—a Mon Calamari and a Quarren, respectively—crawled out of their broken vehicles. After looking at each other briefly, the two racers pumped their fists at the crowd, a defiant gesture that had spectators howling.

Beyond them, there was no sign that Shado’s Trandoshan had survived. It was a pity. Bloodthirsty attitude aside, he had been an excellent pilot.

Before long, the last contestant limped over the finish line, leaking oil. An explosion in the distance marked the end of another machine, finally calling it quits. A pair of droids frantically chased down a growing wall of fire, trying to put it out before it hit anything especially dangerous. At the same time, fanfare, music and all, played out in front of them as the winners and the survivors were celebrated for risking their lives for mere sport.

It was a keen reminder that this was still the Outer Rim. In these regions, people lived their lives on the edge of a knife—and they liked it that way, no matter how many art museums and tributes to the Empire’s “order” existed on the surface.

Obi-Wan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. All that aside, however, the outcomes of the race left Obi-Wan in quite the conundrum. Both Obi-Wan and Shado had backed a single rider, and neither of them had picked the right winner. The only logical thing to do here was to argue who had been the least wrong in their original guesses.

“You must educate me about Tonyani customs,” Obi-Wan implored him. “I am under the impression that even fourth place is better than not placing at all.”

“We didn’t bet on placement. We bet on who was the better podracer.” Technically speaking, they didn’t bet at all. “It’s about skill,” Shado continued brusquely. They were both leaning on the railing casually now, elbow to elbow. Shado’s scowl was a fearsome thing. “Your rider is a terrible pilot. Did you even see how they took corners?” He shook a hand at Obi-Wan dismissively. “No, my guy would have won, if not for those two sleemos.”

Obi-Wan maintained his pitying expression, though his eyebrows did jump up. Sleemos! When was the last time he’d heard that gem? “Is there such a thing as cheating in podracing?” Obi-Wan opined loftily, just to be annoying. He rocked his shoulder against Shado’s companionably. “And would have is not the same as did, dearest.”

“No, this was rigged,” Shado decided, his frown achieving ever greater peaks and valleys. Dangling over the railing, his hands fisted. “Since when do those two species even cooperate? This was planned from the start, and I won’t stand for it-”

With a loud put upon sigh, the bookie, having failed to attract neither his marks nor any additional gamblers, folded up his desk and walked away. This interruption, as rude as it was, jolted something deep in Obi-Wan, something languorous and calm, a normally defensive creature abnormally exposing his belly.

What was he doing, leaning so companionably into the space of a loyal Imperial citizen? Why was he letting his guard down? Why was he smiling?

There was no easy explanation for it. Shado was not his friend. Shado was not his lover. Shado was barely even an ally. Then why…

Why did this feel so familiar?

Self-conscious now, Obi-Wan looked around at the rapidly clearing deck. Then he pushed himself up and away from the railing, clearing his throat and trying to reassemble some level of decorum and distance.

Shado watched him retreat with heavily hooded eyes before he sighed and turned, leaning against the railing again but now with his back to it, forearms braced all along the top. How daring. Did he not remember the collapsing stands? “You are more knowledgeable about these things than I thought.”

This was very nearly a compliment. Was it not? Obi-Wan felt flustered, nevertheless. “Anakin loved podracing,” he said, rushing to confess—or, rather, to deflect. And then, with a bit more spirit, he said, “Did you know he won the Boonta Eve Classic? He did so as a boy, knowing nothing of the Force. He saved an entire planet in the process—and with a vehicle he made all by himself.”

The Order had no shortage of brave and compassionate people. But somehow Anakin still stood head and shoulders above them all. It was a tragedy that Obi-Wan could never communicate this properly to the rest of the Order, let alone to the other Masters. They understood Anakin so poorly, seeing only his fear and his arrogance. Obi-Wan had seen something else.

“Anakin was extraordinary,” Obi-Wan said simply.

Shado’s arms flexed. One hand curled loosely around itself on top of the railing, fingers rubbing against themselves absently, and his head dipped in a brooding manner. Below them, droids cursed each other out viciously as their organic owners and employers sped away from the scene without cleaning up the mess.

Shado looked away. Under the hastily strewn industrial lights, his golden hair almost seemed brown, and the humidity teased the loose strands of his braid into curls. “If I had saved a planet, I would never shut up about it,” he said finally, his voice small.

This made Obi-Wan smile. “Alas, conceit is not the way of the Jedi,” he murmured. Obi-Wan paused, then said, “I used to scold him for bragging about it, actually. There were so many upcoming feats ahead of him. He didn’t need to try and prove himself by bringing up Naboo all the time.”

“Maybe he was afraid he peaked as a kid. That it was the best thing he ever did with his life.”

“I assure you he did not peak with Naboo,” Obi-Wan countered, chuckling at the absurdity of it all. “I cannot prove it to you now but do consider trusting me on this, Shado. Anakin and I had an extremely eventful partnership.”

Obi-Wan made no attempt to hide how entertained he was by this conversation. Gradually, however, his amusement faded into the background. Shado was watching him now, unblinkingly, the intensity of his regard closer to the scrutiny of a sniper on a rooftop than what it was—two fellows, making small conversation in a public venue. Unsettled, Obi-Wan dropped his eyes to his own hands—to his sand-roughened fingernails to the thick calluses he’d had to reintroduce to his palms after a decade of self-indulgent pity.

Slowly, he let them fall.

“Nothing I said ever convinced Anakin he was wanted or that he was where he was supposed to be,” Obi-Wan said musingly. He sighed. “And so, I suppose podracing became a safe haven for him. A refuge from being a Jedi.” After a beat, Obi-Wan crossed his arms over his chest, hiding his hands. He looked up then, smiling gently to invite Shado in on the memory. “Would you believe he used to scurry away in the middle of the night to watch these races? No matter the planet we were on, and no matter how seedy the underbelly. Without a word to his poor Master either. Absolutely maddening.”

“He must have been clever to sneak out under your nose.”

“Clever, yes. Subtle, no.”

Shado flinched at this, eyes sharpening, but Obi-Wan didn’t elaborate, merely smiling ambiguously.

They shared eye contact for several moments longer, then Shado bowed his head. Then, without a word, he pushed himself away from the railing. Sliding his hands in his pockets, he ambled towards the exiting crowd, immediately going against the current of spectators—and away from Obi-Wan.

“What are you—” Obi-Wan bit off the end of the question, hurrying after him through the thinning herd. “An explanation would be grand!”

Fortunately for Obi-Wan—and for his upper limit of how many Force suggestions he could perform in a single day—Shado found a ramp immediately and started heading down to the track. While everyone else fled the potential of Imperial lockup, Shado didn’t think twice about lingering, about examining the line of broken podracers painstakingly gathered by the droids employed by the race’s organizers. Not a speck of urgency in this one.

When Obi-Wan caught up to him, Shado was rolling a detached taillight under his foot with a thoughtful expression. Suddenly, it clicked, and Obi-Wan understood why they were here.

“Looking for another project for your hangar? You could buy some scraps here, if the owners are willing. Or perhaps a whole machine?” Obi-Wan jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “What about that one? The damage will surely buff out.”

The podracer in question didn’t resemble one in the slightest, even when one employed the loosest definitions possible. Instead, the alleged vehicle looked like a giant had mistaken it for a bellows and had bent it accordingly. Obi-Wan had singled it out, tongue in cheek, ready to tease.

But when Shado looked up and over to what Obi-Wan was referencing, Shado actually smiled, a subtle and secretive expression that reached his eyes. All of Obi-Wan’s jokes flew out of his head. Instead, his hands flexed, itching, and his heart seemed to pound in his ears. Abruptly, all Obi-Wan wanted to do was to abscond with this difficult complicated man off the face of Tonyani.

It was an impossible impulse. The Empire’s current blockade aside, Shado truly had no role in Obi-Wan’s future, and Obi-Wan had no role in his either. But the thought of it was as sweet as it was painful.

Meanwhile, ignorant of Obi-Wan’s thoughts, Shado was pointing at another podracer—or another half of one, perhaps, it was so hard to tell—and bragging a little about how easily he could put it back together. “Podracers don’t need much more than a sled and two engines, after all,” he said, walking away from Obi-Wan again to examine a different pile of metal and scrap.

Obi-Wan ambled after him, his hands in his pockets. “That is a terribly concerning thing to say,” he said, his voice thick with hopeless affection. “I need you to know this. For my sake.”

Shado looked over his shoulder, an eyebrow raising. “Typical Core Worlder. Suppose you’d need a seat cushion too?”

Obi-Wan clapped his hands together in front of his chest, bowing slightly. “Oh, could you install a little fridge for snacks too? Thanks ever so much.”

Shado made a face at this. Then he crossed his arms over his chest. The poor dear was actually considering it. “That would throw off the balance completely,” he groused mutinously, failing to say no.

A thruster rolled off a trash heap next to them, followed by a long sheet of metal. Then the heap itself shuddered apart, revealing a very dinged and banged up Trandoshan—Shado’s Trandoshan, specifically.

“Hello, there!” Obi-Wan greeted, surprised.

The Trandoshan ignored this. Instead, he plucked himself from the debris with a raspy groan. Then, as they watched, he pulled out a metal rod from the middle of his chest—a wound that would have killed any lesser creature—before hacking out something that looked distressingly like a mammal’s bloody lung. If that mammal had green blood, that is.

“Where’s my podracer?”

This question wasn’t so much asked as it was growled. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure how to respond. One of the Trandoshan’s eyes was sealed shut and crusted over, but he looked ready to fight off any and all takers—and Obi-Wan, for one, wasn’t about to start a fight with a being who had so easily shaken off being violently ejected from his vehicle.

Now that he was thinking about it, had he ever seen someone successfully kill a Trandoshan? Surely, he must have.

“Pick a direction,” was Shado’s response. “Any direction.”

The Trandoshan hissed intimidatingly, almost seeming to swell in size. But Shado merely stared back at him dispassionately, as was his way with most people.

In response, the Trandoshan seemed to hesitate. Obi-Wan couldn’t blame him. Shado had neither the Force nor an obvious array of weaponry. But in the rare moments where Shado’s gaze wasn’t glazing over and through other beings, there was something in his eyes that sometimes—most times—made one think their continued existence was just a solution at the end of a very long math problem that was undergoing constant re-calculations.

The Trandoshan, choosing caution over pride, walked off then. He stopped only once, mid-step, bending over to swipe the taillight Shado had been interested in. Shado truly hadn’t lied about the distribution of his podracer. Glowering at them both for a moment, like they had more pieces of his podracer stored in their back pockets, the being finally staggered off, muttering curses and other foul things under his breath.  

As a pair, Shado and Obi-Wan watched him go.

And then, out of nowhere and said so low as to be missed entirely, Shado mumbled, “I think your padawan would have enjoyed talking about podracing with you.”

Obi-Wan heard but didn’t understand. “What?”

“I won’t repeat myself,” Shado said, louder this time, his voice oddly relieved. Then, putting his back to Obi-Wan, he crouched to examine an intact thruster, detached from its original body.

-

After that fateful podracing adventure, Shado stopped dragging Obi-Wan to the Empire’s dull attempt at artistic expression. In fact, he stopped leaving the villa entirely, and there was not a single new incident of his security system going offline. It seemed, just for a little while, that Shado would allow Obi-Wan to be what he truly was—a fugitive hiding behind a local citizen until the presence of Imperial ground forces died down just enough to allow him to finally leave the planet.

Obi-Wan was relieved at this. Shado had never pretended to have altruistic feelings towards Obi-Wan, but Shado’s ulterior motives had always been somewhat irrelevant to the matter, at least in Obi-Wan’s eyes. Either way, Obi-Wan’s extended stay on Tonyani was both accidental and temporary, and the more Shado understood that, the better they both would be.

This did not mean Obi-Wan didn’t welcome the newfound understanding that had sprung up between him and Shado. No, it was both deeply appreciated and valued. It had also been a goal of his since the very beginning of their fraught relationship, back when Obi-Wan thought Shado was a desperate courtesan trying to get enough credits to leave the planet.

Now, many misunderstandings and arguments later, they had a nascent sort of rapport. And all it had taken was some shared, mutually enjoyed activities and a little baring of Obi-Wan’s bruised heart.

Oh, Anakin. It hurt to think of him. But it also hurt to not think of him, to render him into the oblivion of nothingness and obscurity. That the galaxy had all but forgotten him seemed almost a crime, though he supposed it was better in the end for the safety of innocents. Vader would not take kindly to those who celebrated and mourned the man he had destroyed.

In some ways, Obi-Wan was just as bad, jealously hoarding away his memories of Anakin. And so Shado’s interest in Anakin—Shado’s affection?—seemed deeply intrusive, an investigative reporter shoving a recorder in front of a weeping widow at the height of her husband’s funeral.

At the same time, though, Shado’s insensitive demands for information were very nearly healing. Who else would listen to Obi-Wan? Owen, who barely knew Anakin outside of the fact that knowing him was to invite a threat into his household? Bail, who couldn’t speak of Anakin’s attack on the Jedi Temple without shaking? Yoda, who seen the full scale of Anakin’s atrocities, knew the truth of Obi-Wan’s deep attachment to him, and had sent Obi-Wan to kill Anakin anyway? Ha. Even Qui-Gon, who acted so removed and distant from the world of the living these days, wasn’t an option. Obi-Wan did not need another excuse to share with his Master how deeply he’d failed him in his last request as a living being.

It had been such great luck that he’d fallen upon the mercy of a stranger who knew enough of Anakin and Obi-Wan to demand answers. About their fates. About their actions. About what happened after the war.

Given Shado’s apparently fraught relationship with his patron, Obi-Wan’s best theory at the moment was that Shado had entered an exclusivity contract fairly early in his career during the war. Contracts were closely monitored by the Guild and its army of lawyers. Shado would have been in his late teens or early twenties, and thus would have been a very new courtesan. As such, he should have been assigned a number of mentors and advocates to both continue his training and to supervise the execution of the contract.

But the war had taken many people’s lives without warning, and courtesans, for all their skills, had little defenses against a droid army. Shado must have lost his entire support system to Separatists, and perhaps even in one fell swoop. Many had been lost this way, including entire families and cities. If a whole planet could have been destroyed thusly, it would have been done. Dooku’s depravity knew no bounds.

As central as he was to the Republic’s efforts, Obi-Wan would have been an easy figure to blame for these losses. Shado would have been left at the mercy of an unbalanced contract with an apathetic patron, and without any of the resources that could have forced that patron to sit at a table for a contract renegotiation.

The recent dissolution of the Guild—what remained of it, anyway—and Obi-Wan’s own appearance on Shado’s planet must have dragged these terrible memories to the surface, forcing him to grapple with reignited feelings of fear and hopelessness. And, like Anakin before him, Shado reacted to feelings of fear and hopelessness by lashing out in anger. This, at least, was familiar to Obi-Wan.

But if Shado hated Obi-Wan for the war, then why was he so interested in Anakin, who was also an integral part of it? They were of a similar age group, of course, but shared ages did not translate into instant affection. While it was possible that Anakin was just idolized from afar, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but think something else must have happened.

Anakin was charismatic and had developed friendships with a number of individuals throughout the war who normally didn’t care for Jedi, so Obi-Wan didn’t think it would have taken much to shift Shado’s opinion. A single conversation, perhaps. Or a chance encounter. Had Anakin ever made it to this sector? Had he saved a ship with Shado on it? Had he stumbled upon Shado while undercover?

Not knowing was maddening. Once upon a time, it would have taken Obi-Wan mere seconds to look up Anakin’s flight path and assignment log to make his own conclusions. Or, better yet, he could have asked the man himself.

Regardless of the reasons, it was a good thing Shado was interested in Anakin. Obi-Wan believed this more and more every day. Not only did it help prop up a strained rapport between Obi-Wan and Shado, it gave Obi-Wan an excuse to remember the better days between them, when all of his hopes for the future were focused on ending the war, maintaining his relationship with his beloved friend, and seeing Anakin achieve lifelong happiness—either with the Order or without it.

He hoped the rapport between himself and his charge would last. But it wouldn’t.

-

The week after their podracing adventure passed pleasantly. They had come back to the villa together with minimal bickering and, as was their way after most outings, went their separate ways. Usually, “separate ways” meant Shado storming off in a huff towards the hanger while Obi-Wan, far more composed and typically amused, headed off in the opposite direction, finding purpose as he went.

That fateful day, though, their parting was not as contentious. The expression Shado shot him with was more reluctant than livid, and Obi-Wan too had felt a pang of disquiet, as if some part of him was afraid Shado would remember to hate him again in his absence. Obi-Wan missed having companions.

But parted they did, and they remained parted for a good chunk of the rest of that week too. This was not terribly unusual either, given Shado’s life ruining sleeping habits, his periodic obsession with the ships in his hanger, and Obi-Wan’s active attempts to avoid him just after waking.

In a break from routine, Obi-Wan did approach Shado of his own accord after two days, if only to soothe his growing discomfort. Shado had been passed out on the tiny cot in the hanger, one arm flung over his head and one hanging off the side, oil-stained knuckles dragging against the uneven ground. Obi-Wan had puttered around noisily, even kicking a calibration tool across the ground, but Shado slept on like a boy without a care in the world—or like a fabled princess under the lock and key of a cruel curse.

It was this thought that made Obi-Wan approach, hands in his sleeves and forehead creasing in concern. When Shado’d failed to stir under the scrutiny, Obi-Wan picked up a reflective metal piece—perhaps a bit of casing for some computer module—and held it delicately under Shado’s nose. It was silly of him, but…

A moment later, the thin face of the metal piece was fogging up with Shado’s exhaled breath. Relaxing, Obi-Wan pulled it away, carelessly and noisily tossing the metal in the general direction of its origin. In slumber, Shado’s already practically non-existent presence in the Force faded even further, as if whatever made Shado himself had been pulled very, very far away.

“You are a frustrating man,” Obi-Wan told him fondly. Shado slept on.

And so Obi-Wan left.

For the rest of the week, he kept himself busy. While Shado never assigned him one task or another, it had become rapidly clear that a number of things needed to be done regularly if either of them were to live comfortably in this little bubble away from the Empire.

Food was a necessity, of course. Bills needed to be paid, and visitors needed to be turned away. And although droids maintained most of the property all by themselves, the droids themselves were rarely serviced or examined for defaults. And he didn’t let go of his regular perimeters of the property either, even though Shado was no longer testing his patience with hired mercenaries. Obi-Wan would have even maintained the villa’s communications, if there were any.  

So that week, Obi-Wan ordered enough food for the next two weeks and monitored its delivery. He resolved a blockage in the villa’s water supply before it resulted in catastrophe. He mediated a turf war between two roller droids and scheduled some much-needed oil baths for the rest of them. He exercised and practiced his forms. He tidied the pantries and filled in some potholes that existed across various paths on the property. He burned some physical invitations to parties amongst the local Imperial elite. He took care of the few animals also living on the property. He meditated.

He grimly observed the occupied starport from afar.

One day, roughly five full days after the last time he talked to Shado, Obi-Wan was meditating in the central courtyard. Eschewing the moss-covered seating benches, he sat on a cobblestone floor instead, seeking serenity. If peace could not be found in the world, it could always be found inside the individual. He had lost sight of that fact several times throughout his life at various points of especially heightened external chaos, but he had a tight grasp on it now through meditation.

He sat there peacefully, in harmony with his inner self as well as the world around him.

Naturally, it was a fitting time for a droid to be thrown through a window.

Though his eyes were closed, Obi-Wan was aware of the event almost immediately. The sound of shattering glass was followed up by a string of offended Binary and then a sudden leafy thump. At the same time, the Force seemed to react, like a single string in a multi-strand instrument being plucked in the cavernous silence of a music hall.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes. Several meters away from him, a Human-like droid—too spindly to ever be mistaken for one—stared back at him, upside down in a bush. It belatedly whistled a bird-like song.

“The young master of the estate is awake, is he?” Obi-Wan shifted out of his seated position, wrapping an arm around his knee. “Why am I the last to hear of this? Do you or do you not want to exert your domination over all bird creatures?”

The droid kicked its limbs out in offense, warbling out a long list of complaints and excuses. Chuckling, Obi-Wan stood, raising his hands in defense. “Stick to simple phrases, please. I’m not that fluent.” Peeved, the droid chirped a couple more lines at him, each phrase insultingly slow. “No need to be rude about it, dear.”

Nevertheless, Obi-Wan fished the poor thing out of the bushes, helping it get back on its feet. As it stomped off, he looked up for and found the window the droid had been launched out of. It was only several floors above him, an easy leap with the Force, especially given that it was so close to a balcony.

In fact, it was so close, why not launch the droid from the balcony instead? Did Shado not care how difficult it was to replace a glass window these days?

Obi-Wan watched the broken window for a long time, his hands on his hips. Gradually, he could pick out additional sounds—more glass shattering, large furniture sliding across hard floors, and even an enraged scream. He winced, gauging again how much of a leap he’d have to make to engage—or interrupt?—the violence in that room.

Obi-Wan decided to take the long way instead. Heading inside, he made his way to the appropriate room, climbing up a set of winding steps.

After much snooping over the last weeks, he’d concluded that the room in question was the patron’s formal office—for if Shado had any office here, Obi-Wan knew in his heart that it was the hangar and not that grandiose space.

Despite having all the trappings of an office—a desk, a computer, and a wealth of books set aside in shelves—it was clearly intended to be a place where meetings were held. Or, more correctly, where one could have an audience with the master of the house, be it for business matters or mere favors. It was meant to be a place of intimidation, a display of superiority. Visitors were meant to be reminded of their place here—and to mind it.

The ceilings were high above them and edged in marble and gold, and multiple fine tapestries covered any walls that weren’t taken up by glass or shelves. Various statues and pieces of art were spaced across the room, inviting admirers, and a rare dark blue stone veined with silver made up the entirety of the office’s floor. The spines of each book were perfect and unbroken, and the fireplace could roast a large herd of bantha with room to spare.

The most off-putting part of the office was, in Obi-Wan’s opinion, that it was a space that seemed to attract light. Several chandeliers were installed in the ceiling, crystals hanging like clear, perfect tear drops. And while all of the glass windows of the villa were beautifully crafted things, the ceiling to floor windows in the office were especially so, with pieces of it replaced with colorful patterns of more glass in a display that was carefully neutral and utterly devoid of any symbolism that might be offensive to the Emperor. And then there was the balcony, which, while shallowly built, wrapped around a good chunk of the room that was not abutted against an interior wall. Fine glass doors divided the balcony from the room, and one or more always seemed to be open, bringing with it a pleasant breeze.

Pausing briefly at the front of the door to eye a dusty and grim caked boot print in its very center, Obi-Wan walked into the patron’s office. Upon observing the space, he quickly came to three conclusions:

One, Shado had finally received a response from his irresponsible patron.

Two, Shado did not care for the response his irresponsible patron had given him.

And three, Shado had utterly destroyed his irresponsible patron’s office in a deeply concerning fit of violence and rage.

Several chairs were shattered to pieces, and a larger couch had been flipped over. A low table had been snapped in half, and the main desk, heavy and ornate, had been shoved so hard to the side, it destroyed one of the glass balcony doors. Books were strewn everywhere, ripped tapestries fluttered in the wind, and several knickknacks and smaller art pieces had been flung like grenades around the room, breaking, denting, or shattering all they touched.

Obi-Wan’s instinct to take the long way had paid off, for now Shado was exhausted. He was panting heavily, his face a mottled red. Sprawled out on the floor next to the equally ornate desk chair, which was on its side, he hung off the back of it like a sailor lost at sea, gasping for air. More strangely, he was trembling, but not with emotion. Instead, he seemed to be twitching, nearly convulsing on a micro-level.

“You do the most interesting things.”

Shado tensed up, then glared up at Obi-Wan. “Get out.” His eyes were bloodshot.

“No, I don’t think I will.” Obi-Wan carefully made his way through the mess, loosely circling his angry charge. “You nearly dropped a droid on my head, you know.”

Shado’s eyes sparkled with a feverish malice. “You deserve worse,” he spat.

Obi-Wan hummed, disinterested in his vitriol. “We’re past all of that now, aren’t we?”

“Are we?” The corner of Shado’s mouth twitched, contempt bleeding into his expression. “Then what happened to Anakin Skywalker?”

Obi-Wan paused mid-step, then continued on. “We’ve already discussed Anakin. I’m more worried about you.”

“Worried? Ha. Don’t pretend to have familiarity with a topic you can’t possibly understand.”

One step forward, sixteen steps back. Obi-Wan’s humble appreciation of their progress together crumbled like ash in the wind.

He should leave, Obi-Wan thought. But Shado seemed so pitiful, splayed there. Obi-Wan’s instinct was to go to him and offer a hand up, but Shado had the look of a cornered feral creature. They would not get through this conversation intact if Obi-Wan showed him any obvious pity.

Still stepping around debris, glass crinkling under his soles, Obi-Wan paused by one of the open balcony doors. He bent over and picked up a small statue of the Emperor. It was a handheld thing, rather ghastly and impractical for anything other than a sneering flimsi weight. Stepping out of the office briefly, Obi-Wan set it on the balcony railing, observing it.

Weeks prior, Obi-Wan had considered—and discarded—the idea that Shado’s patron might be Sidious himself. It was a wretched thing to theorize. Sickening, even. But Palpatine was famously anti-courtesan, and neither a Chancellor nor an Emperor could rule the galaxy from an Outer Rim planet, not even one that acquitted itself as nicely as Tonyani. When would they have ever crossed paths? It was an impossibility—and a relief too. No, Shado’s patron had to be someone else.

Sidious hadn’t ruined Shado’s life, as he had ruined Anakin’s. Nevertheless, as if having an out-of-body experience, Obi-Wan found himself extending a finger, knocking the Emperor’s statue off the railing and into the yard below. Then, inexplicably mortified by himself, he promptly went back into the office.

“You cannot be so meek and timid to let your patron decide your life, future, and happiness like this.”

Shado lifted his head from where he had buried it in his arm. “My patron,” he echoed, visibly confused.

“Yes, of course!”

Shado sat up, rubbing a hand over his face. When he uncovered it again, his expression was resolute. “You know nothing of my patron.”

“Agreed,” Obi-Wan said easily. And not for a lack of effort, on his part. “I only know you, and I only know you’re suffering here.”

“…This is nothing. My pain and suffering only increases my power.” 

“Does it?”

“You lack imagination,” Shado murmured in a flat voice, “and thus you fail to see the full picture, even when it is right in front of you.” Grimacing, he braced his weight on the overturned chair and pushed himself off the floor. He spasmed again, seemingly at random. Gritting his teeth, he clamped his arms tight against his core, as if stiffening all of his muscles would keep him from doing it again.

Did he pull something in his rage? Shado didn’t seem likely to tell him the truth. But whatever was happening to him, he seemed livid that Obi-Wan was observing it.

Trying to turn attention away from Shado’s convulsions, Obi-Wan gestured vaguely at the room. “This doesn’t look much like power to me. This looks like misery. Why do you choose this over any other fate?”

Shado avoided his gaze. “What other choice do I have, Master?” This was delivered both bitterly and sullenly. How dramatic. Perhaps Shado had the potential for an Art of Expression mastery after all. Courtesans did always make for the best actors.

“That isn’t true,” Obi-Wan countered compassionately, closing the distance between the two of them. “You are a very capable person. I’ve seen it. You could walk any path you want at any time. You have amazing potential.”

What little Obi-Wan could see of Shado’s expression was both wounded and raw. “This path is the only path left open to me.” More quietly, he said, “It’s the only one I know.”

“That you believe such a statement is a failure of your own imagination, not to mention your allegedly superior powers of observation.” Despite his best efforts, Obi-Wan’s tone was turning stern. “You are a fantastic mechanic, are you not?”

This finally earned Obi-Wan eye contact. “I destroyed every ship on this property,” Shado burst out angrily.

Why did this sound more like a threat than a counterargument? And why did it feel like they were constantly having two different conversations?

“Yes. On purpose.” Obi-Wan grasped Shado’s left arm lightly, shaking it a little. “And in ways that would be very easy for you undo. That takes skill. Do you know how badly I’d mess up the navigation system alone, if I were you?”

Aggravated, Shado shook his grip off, silently tucking in on himself and turning his back on Obi-Wan. This was going nowhere fast. Shado simply refused to hear him. He did not have to live this way. He had so much going for him. Couldn’t he see that all Obi-Wan wanted was for him to be happy?

Obi-Wan sighed deeply, then decided to say the quiet part aloud. “I don’t know when you’ve last looked at a map, but this is an extremely large galaxy. It’s simply not that hard to disappear!”

Obi-Wan had meant this as a reminder that Shado’s exclusivity contract was not physically or magically binding. He could ignore it. He could leave. He could fake his death. If he wasn’t afraid of bounties, he could even rob his patron blind and live a life of luxury on any planet just outside of the Empire’s reach. He could live well. He could live happy, even.

And Obi-Wan didn’t intend for Shado to navigate this scenario alone either. Who else would know how to live in a galaxy—unwanted, unheralded, and outside the bounds of society—but a Jedi? Even in the height of his self-exile, Obi-Wan hadn’t lived idly. He had learned so much, and there was so much more that he could teach.

Obi-Wan had intended this to be a relief, an escape route. But all at once, it seemed to be the absolute wrong thing to say.

“Oh?” The question was soft—too soft. So was the laugh that left Shado’s lips. “Have tips to share, do you? Master Jedi?” Shado turned slowly, stiffly. His eyes met Obi-Wan’s then. They were full of fury and hatred.

Obi-Wan closed his mouth, a shiver of self-preservation fleeing down his spine.

Seeing his face, Shado laughed cruelly, stumbling over until they were practically toe to toe. He ran the tips of his fingers over the edge of Obi-Wan’s beard, his eyes on his task. “It must be so easy for you. You killed all of your emotions. You care so little about things.” The hand that was petting him fisted suddenly, inches from Obi-Wan’s throat. Seething, Shado hissed, “And I care too much.” His eyes jumped back to Obi-Wan’s face, and his expression was bleak and hopeless. “I would eat you whole if there was a shred of a chance that it would teach me how to be as apathetic as you.”

Obi-Wan said nothing, for his head was full of alarm bells and warnings from the Force. Instead of a plucked string in an empty music hall, a discordant orchestra clattered and clanged together out of tune with no sense of rhythm or purpose, other than to create a sense of dread.  

Shado leaned closer, as if being pulled. “What happened to Anakin Skywalker, Master? What really happened?” The fist near Obi-Wan’s throat gentled into an open hand, which gradually settled on the top of Obi-Wan’s shoulder. Shado leaned over the opposite arm, dropping his mouth to Obi-Wan’s ear. “Do you hate Darth Vader that much, Obi-Wan?”

Startled, Obi-Wan jerked back at this whisper, but he couldn’t get far. The soft grip on him had turned to stone. “That name. How do you know it?”

Shado wasn’t upset by his tone. If anything, he seemed delighted and annoyed in turn, as if he both expected and despised Obi-Wan’s question. “Do you hate him? If Vader—if your padawan—came to you, grasping and crawling and weak, would you forsake him again? Would you leave him behind once more, just like you did on Mustafar?” He paused, then said with a terrible anger, “Would you light his way, if he tried to find a path out of the darkness?”

Many competing thoughts—feelings, epiphanies, questions, and worries alike—filled Obi-Wan’s head. What emerged at the forefront, though, was the realization that Shado had overheard Obi-Wan talking to Reva—and neither Reva nor Obi-Wan had noticed the eavesdropper. How many others now knew of Reva’s ill-advised plan to turn her fellow inquisitors to the Light?

That worry, however, was quickly crushed by a different one, a deep fear that felt less like concern and more like a premonition from the Force.

Obi-Wan wrenched Shado’s grip off of his shoulder. Then, to Shado’s visible surprise, he captured Shado’s hand between both of his own, pressing it against the center of Shado’s chest. “Please, dearest.” He needed Shado to understand his sincerity. “You must purge all thoughts you have on Vader immediately. You don’t understand who you’re dealing with.”

Shado’s expression was rigid—and profoundly incredulous. After a beat, he said, in nearly a normal voice, “Obi-Wan. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m sorry, but this is for your own good. You are extremely charming. But Vader will not love you back. Not as he is. He isn’t capable of it.”

A hurt expression flitted across Shado’s face. “Is that what you think?” he asked softly. He swallowed once, blinking quickly. “But he’s your friend. Even now, your heart is so tender towards him—”

“Vader is not my friend,” Obi-Wan said, cutting him off. “They are not the same people. You cannot—should not—treat one like they are the other.”

And there was only one to treat. By Vader’s own admission, he had killed Anakin himself, and there was no evidence he wasn’t telling the truth. Anakin was truly lost to him, lost to them all, and pretending otherwise through the veil of nostalgia and regrets would only get people killed.

Shado did not respond immediately. Instead, he just stared deeply into Obi-Wan’s eyes, as if he was reading the book of his soul, and he didn’t like what was inside. Then, coldly, he said, “You move on so easily. Did the loss of your precious padawan mean so little to you?”

This stung. This would have stung from anyone, of course, but hearing it from Shado, the one person in the galaxy who seemed to remember Anakin favorably, was a thousand times worse. Obi-Wan slowly let go of Shado’s hand, backing up and away from him. He felt his practiced expression of concern collapse in on itself.

“You are operating under strange assumptions, despite my best attempts to correct you,” Obi-Wan observed. “You think I’m surrounded by friends. That I have it made. That I’m reading literature and admiring art. That I celebrated the loss of a man I dearly loved to a fate worse than death.”

Shado looked ill at ease now. He stepped towards Obi-Wan, reaching out. “You don’t-”

“You don’t understand me at all,” Obi-Wan interrupted, dodging his grasp. He kept walking backwards. “You’re right about one thing, though.” He smiled benignly. “I am apathetic, Shado. Deeply so, and about so many things. I want nothing. I feel nothing. I fear nothing. You asked me what I felt when I lost him, did you not?” Obi-Wan’s hands fisted at his side, and he felt his expression twist into ruefulness. “Losing Anakin burnt the very heart out of me.”  

His eyes were hot and itchy. Shado was staring at him in horror. How embarrassing.

Voice thick, Obi-Wan said, “Do you understand me now? Losing Anakin killed me in all the ways that matter. I’m just waiting for the rest of my body to catch up.”

Obi-Wan paused, looking around himself. The door was at his back. Shado was in the middle of the chaos he himself had caused, and any peace that could be found was shattered. Even Obi-Wan’s own hard won inner serenity. What a mess.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat, gesturing vaguely at the rest of the room. “Do consider cleaning up after yourself. Your droids are so very busy.”

With that said, Obi-Wan bowed and walked out—slowly at first, then faster and faster until he was taking the stairs at a slight jog. It was not wise to do so, not when his knees were so shaky and his stomach was churning.

Shado knew about Mustafar.

This had to be the worst thing that had happened to him in a long time.

Chapter Text

“You’ve made some interesting choices today, padawan.”

Startled by this unexpected opener, Obi-Wan avoided flinching, but only just. “Good morning, Qui-Gon.” His voice was groggy. “While it is lovely to see you once again, interesting is not the adjective I hoped to hear from you.”

Qui-Gon was standing at the edge of the rooftop, an obvious target for parties who didn’t have a hope of ever seeing him. His hands were tucked in his sleeves, and an incoming blast of humid air seemed to stir his faded outline, but only just barely. Not a strand of his hair moved.

“Oh? And what adjective were you hoping for?”

“Any adjective really,” Obi-Wan replied, adjusting his binoculars in the low morning light. “Just as long as it isn’t a polite stand in for the word ‘wrong.’”

“Ah,” Qui-Gon said cryptically. There was a pause, then he said, “What is right or wrong really, when you consider the full scope of galactic history?”

“That’s a concerning point of view.” Especially from a proponent of the Living Force.

“In death, I have found that time does have a fascinating tendency of healing all hurts.”

“Or burying evidence of the hurts in the first place,” Obi-Wan countered. After another beat, he put down his binoculars, squinting up at his Master. “Where have you been?”

Obi-Wan was belly down on top of a roof, nominally covered by a dark tarp he’d liberated from a stormtrooper several hours previous. He had been rattled by the conversation with Shado then, but he was calm now. Or calmer, rather. Purpose had that effect on people, he supposed. And currently, his purpose was to investigate a new Imperial communications tower.

As part of the planetary blockade, the Empire had imposed a full communications blackout on the citizens of Tonyani, blocking even the most rudimentary messaging systems. Over time, however, people’s right to talk to each other was gradually restored, with the exception of interplanetary messaging. The Empire characterized this as an unintended oversight, as they had apparently damaged the closest subspace satellites by mistake when they cracked down on all communications.

Apologizing for the inconvenience, the Empire announced that they were repairing the satellites and would soon have them all back online. In the meantime, they generously installed several new communications towers throughout the densest parts of the planet, including this very tower that was constructed mere blocks from Shado’s excessive Imperial villa.

In addition to a large number of cozy and soundproofed call rooms, the primary feature of those towers was a series of state-of-the-art, high-powered antennas rarely seen outside of Core Worlds. These antennas would allow callers the ability to send out a much stronger signal, strong enough to essentially borrow satellites from a sister system to send out belated holocalls to concerned families, bewildered friends, and, more importantly, procured politicians.  

With these towers, the flow of long-range communications to and from Tonyani would finally resume. But only at certain times and under surveillance. This was the Empire, after all.

“Where have I been, you said?” Qui-Gon hummed a bit. “Not… here, I suppose.”

Here, Obi-Wan assumed, was also a word with relative definitions when one was dead. Obi-Wan didn’t want to ask for clarification. He figured these were things that he shouldn’t have to learn until he was well and truly dead himself. Life was complicated enough without adding another axis to one’s limited understanding of reality and the Force.

“When are you heading back to the boy?”

Did Qui-Gon think so highly of him? Or was he just being obtuse? “In case you’ve forgotten what the Sith’s stormtroopers look like, they’re those friendly, highly approachable individuals in white.”

Obi-Wan gestured towards another rooftop, where a small squad of stormtroopers were marching back and forth, weapons in hand. There were many rooftops like it, including his own. He then indicated towards the base of the communications tower on the street level. Two stormtroopers were stationed at the entrance of the building, checking identification against information on their datapads. While it was early in the day, the line was already long, wrapping around the corner of the building. The order of that line was maintained by none other than more patrolling stormtroopers, ready and willing to throw their weight around at the slightest hint of an excuse.

“The whole planet is like this,” Obi-Wan continued, bringing his binoculars up to his eyes again. “So, as you can see, I’m not leaving Tonyani anytime soon. Not until I see a viable exit strategy.”

“That is wise, and I am gladdened to hear it. But the boy I’m speaking of is not Luke.”

Obi-Wan paused. Then he looked back up at his Master, trying to figure out who else he’d call a boy. Given the differences in their ages, could he be referring to Shado? Shado might have been a half century younger than Qui-Gon, but he was hardly a boy. “I’m not sure when I’ll return to the side of that courtesan,” he said, as if disinterested. “Or if I shall do so at all.”

“Is that so?”

Obi-Wan winced. In lieu of responding, he busied himself with his spying again, struggling to pull together an adequate explanation. When neither the galaxy nor the Empire nor even the Force itself saw fit to interrupt this very unwanted conversation, however, he caved, reaching for the truth. “He knows about Anakin.”

“Of course he knows about Anakin,” Qui-Gon said, dismissively. “That’s not important.”

“Not important,” Obi-Wan echoed, outraged. “Qui-Gon, please—”

“What is important is you,” Qui-Gon interrupted, his tone somewhat heated. “You’re not a child. You are a grown man. A possessor of some measure of wisdom. A creature relatively set in your own ways. Further, while you are currently confined in your enemy’s sphere of control, nothing about your current conditions—or your particular cohabitation arrangements—will put you in any real danger.” He gestured sharply at the tableau around him. “So why are you here? Why are you prodding at this nest of gundarks? How is this a reasonable course of action, given your predicament? Is your definition of acceptable risk built on a mountain of sand?”

At this tidy little tirade, Obi-Wan was rendered speechless. This was not the first time he’d been at odds with his Master. Qui-Gon was a stubborn man with deeply held convictions, and Obi-Wan had not always agreed with his conclusions or his unorthodox manner of approaching their shared duties. But this was possibly the first time that a swell of defensive words hadn’t spurred him to argue back.

Because Qui-Gon wasn’t wrong. Obi-Wan was indeed stirring the pot, and perhaps even recklessly so. He had known about the towers for weeks now but had deemed it too hazardous to investigate, especially without his lightsaber, and especially with the presence of the Grand Inquisitor on the planet.

But yesterday had been such a strain on his composure. He’d left the villa in a rush, and he had stayed out all day and all night. He’d been too nauseated at the idea that Shado knew the connection between Vader and Anakin. Too sickened at the thought that Shado might ask more questions about it to assuage his own curiosity. Too grief-stricken at the notion that Shado would weigh Anakin’s value by every dark deed he had done as a Sith rather than the countless good ones he had done as a Jedi.

He was letting his emotions rule him.

Ah, the irony. He’d just stormed away from a scene, claiming he was no longer capable of feelings while also nearly working himself into a panic attack over the idea that Shado might not fully understand the complexity of a man Obi-Wan dearly loved.

Anakin Skywalker was always—and forever would be—his biggest weakness.

“I must get back into contact with Bail. To check on Reva, if nothing else.” This was an entirely practical excuse to prod at this particular threat, he reasoned. And it had absolutely nothing to do with Shado. Surely, even Qui-Gon could see the logic.

And, to his credit, Qui-Gon did seem to be considering it. “Senator Organa,” he said quietly. He folded his arms over his chest and rubbed at his beard with his full palm—and, yes, Obi-Wan did very much dislike seeing his own mannerisms acted out by his Master. Qui-Gon seemed to stare at something in the distance, lost in thought.

“He’s an ally. Perhaps the most important one I have left. He’ll wonder where I am, and it’s been… it’s been terribly long since we last spoke.”

In the back of Obi-Wan’s mind was a ticking urgency he didn’t understand. The Force was so dark and inscrutable, these days.

“Your most important ally. Your friend, too, I presume.”

“Not just mine,” Obi-Wan said, scrutinizing his Master closely. “He’s an ally and friend of the Order too. Of Yoda. Of the Light, even.” When Qui-Gon said nothing, Obi-Wan pushed forward with what he thought was the most convincing piece of evidence. “Bail and Breha—his wife—are the only two people left in the galaxy that I’d trust with Luke. Other than the Lars family, of course.” This finally earned him Qui-Gon’s full attention. “In any case, if anything happens to me, I know he’ll make sure the boy and his family are taken care of.”

Qui-Gon’s gaze was heavy and sad. “And you will do the same for the girl.”

Obi-Wan paused. Feeling guilty at the surety in his Master’s voice, he said, “Of course.”

That hadn’t always been the case. He’d nearly let Leia disappear into the heart of the Empire with nary a peep. It was Bail who had reminded Obi-Wan of what he was—and, more importantly, who he was supposed to be to both of the twins, not just the one right in front of him.

Perturbed suddenly, Obi-Wan continued on. “Anyway, I know better than to use the tower as prescribed. They clearly haven’t restricted encrypted traffic, which means the call room is almost certainly bugged and recording every message.”

Qui-Gon made a considering noise. “And for any civilian smart enough to speak in code…?”

“There’s always interrogation.”

“Right.” Qui-Gon glanced back at the stormtroopers. “What a blatant and expensive attempt to gather intelligence.”

“Yes, but the tower is still functional,” Obi-Wan said, sliding up to his knees. “Messages and calls are being made. Otherwise, word would get around that this blasted tower doesn’t work at all. And if it does work, then that means there is an opportunity to leverage this installation for my own purposes, does it not?”

Not waiting for Qui-Gon’s response, Obi-Wan rose to a crouch, the tarp still loosely covering his head. He retreated from the edge of the roof, quickly making his way around some of the appliances and boxes stored on his chosen building. Pausing to let a pair of stormtroopers pass, he snuck in between a water tower and a generator until he was on the edge of the roof once more. Secondary vantage point achieved, he dropped to his knees again and pointed for the benefit of his dead companion.

“Do you see what I see?”

The region he was gesturing to was a minimally guarded area at the bottom of the tower, a gap in the outer wall of the building that exposed a technician’s access point. In their haste to install the building, they had built a single ladder for this purpose. Nearly flush with the wall, it started at the base of the building and stopped roughly halfway up the tower. There, the ladder met an opening through which a technician could crawl inside—the technician’s access point.

This type of access point wasn’t unusual in and of itself, especially for a culture that tended to avoid burdening the echelon of society with the presence of their inferiors. But a better engineer would have installed an environmental hatch here, recognizing the damage that Tonyani’s humidity could do to delicate electrical systems. The current architect wasn’t as thoughtful, so it was left gaping open, exposing the interior to the elements—and to traitorous Jedi like himself, Obi-Wan supposed.  

If Obi-Wan was able to access the right system, he might be able to pull off sending off a secret call without the Empire leering over his shoulder.

Qui-Gon observed the situation for several long moments before he nodded once, taking a step back. “You have a strategy then. Very well.” Instead of approving, he sounded resigned.

This grated in ways Obi-Wan couldn’t quite articulate. Obi-Wan stood up, pressing his fisted hand against the generator. Gritting his teeth, he told himself to let it go, to let him go, and yet: “That’s it, then?”

“Trying to dissuade someone who has made up their mind is rarely a productive—or entertaining—use of one’s time.”

Obi-Wan spun around so quickly, he nearly lost his tarp. Grabbing the edges of it irritably, he snapped, “You have nothing but time, Master! It is I who must continue fighting its flow.”

Qui-Gon looked puzzled—and a little feathery at the edges too. After a beat, he said gravely, “Existing in the world of the living is a privilege you no longer appreciate. Take care to ensure your grief does not make permanent decisions on your behalf.”

Obi-Wan’s anger flew out of him instantly. As always, it was a temporary passenger—and often an unwanted one. He hung his head. “Master…”

A moment later, two points of nearly non-existent contact pressed against his shoulders. He looked up then. Qui-Gon was standing toe to toe with him, smiling gently. “You will do as you must. As always.” His expression slowly became somber. “But do try to understand. A good Master will never enjoy seeing their padawan put themselves in harm’s way.”

Obi-Wan’s resolve shrank. Qui-Gon so often chided him to live in the moment, and to trust in his instincts and the Force, but what were his instincts in comparison to Qui-Gon’s knowledge? Was this truly such a terrible idea? What did Qui-Gon know? What perspective did death give Qui-Gon about the path Obi-Wan was about to take? And why wasn’t he sharing it with Obi-Wan?

Did Obi-Wan even have the right to ask? Would he even understand? Or was it one of those short-term harms that tended to work itself out with enough time and enough distance?

Obi-Wan looked at the tower again. The longer he stared, the more his resolve strengthened once more. While the Jedi were taught to be decisive in all things, they were also taught that every action had a consequence. If this path would put him in harm’s way, then so be it.

Qui-Gon was right. Obi-Wan would do what he must. He would endure.

“Good padawans tend to feel the same about their Masters,” Obi-Wan said finally, lightly, submitting these teasing words as a peace offering. “Lest you forget.”

Rather than responding to this obvious jab about Naboo, Qui-Gon just chuckled. “An interesting sentiment! You should consider carrying it with you. It may serve you well.”

Before Obi-Wan could ask what he meant, his Master was gone.

After a moment, Obi-Wan settled back into his hiding spot, miffed. “…must you always have the last word?” he muttered. He lifted the binoculars up to his eyes once more.

-

Obi-Wan spent the better part of the day observing the communications tower, watching patrol patterns and taking careful mental notes of any routines. Gradually, the shape of his next movement revealed itself.

Every two hours, a new superior officer would rotate into the schedule. No matter the rank or position, all stormtroopers paused in their work to greet and salute the officer. While the bureaucratized ingratiation was irritating, it was also painfully and inconveniently efficient, impacting the overall schedule and flow of supervision by only a handful of minutes.

Fortunately, a handful of minutes, as it turned out, was all Obi-Wan needed to scale the ladder.

Around the first hours of the evening, Obi-Wan slipped up the ladder and into the technician’s access point. While a poor substitute for a Jedi’s cloak, his tarp made the trip with him, rendering his presence nearly imperceptible at a distance, given that both the tarp and the building were a similar color and that the surrounding streets were not well lit at night.

Once inside, Obi-Wan noted that that there was a small metal tunnel in between the outer wall and the inner space. Forced to crawl on his hands and knees, he moved through it for several feet before the tunnel opened up onto a small platform, suspended above a hollow space. He stood slowly, staggering a little as his muscles protested the movement. Then he moved forward a few steps, not stopping until he hit a railing and could observe the entirety of his surroundings.

This part of the tower was not meant for outside eyes. While true of most maintenance areas or hidden engineering spaces, the lack of additional care in construction of this dim and dark place was almost immediately visible.

The space felt charged and heavy, like the air before a lightning strike, which Obi-Wan could only attribute to the many electrical systems wired up and down the tower. Concerningly, these systems let out large and dramatic sparks above him every few seconds, giving the space the feel of an embattled warship battered by an enemy as opposed to what it actually was—the interior of an extremely new building.

He should have heard the sparks too, but who could hear such a thing over the wind? Improperly installed air ducts vibrated all around him, clanging against the walls, the pipes, and anything else that had the sheer nerve to be installed so close to them. Occasional bursts of air—ice cold, then burning hot—lashed out in the space at random angles, tugging at the edges of Obi-Wan’s tarp.

The air ducts weren’t the only things shaking either. Outside of the platform Obi-Wan was standing on, a multitude of metal pathways fanned out to different control panels set alongside the walls of the interior space. They were held in place by thin rods—and not terribly well, as Obi-Wan found out. A single footstep, even one that quickly retreated, sent a terrible tremor throughout the rest of the pathways. It seemed its makers intended them to hold little more than the weight of a single droid, which did not bode well for either Obi-Wan’s activities nor the tower’s hope of long-term maintenance and use.

Obi-Wan sighed faintly, the noise stolen instantly by the wind. To protect himself against the worst of the temperature shifts—not to mention the sparks from above—he pulled the tarp over his head and stepped out again on the metal pathways, putting his full weight on them slowly and with care. They trembled in an anxiety-inducing way but ultimately held.

He continued onward, watching his feet. The mesh metal under his soles provided him with zero sense of security. If he fell, he’d fall at least two floors down. While he’d certainly survive—he’d fallen longer distances before—neither one of the better lit floors below boasted any features that would make his fall just a bit easier.

The floor right below him was hollowed out in the center. What floorspace remained was full of Imperial-branded shipping containers as well as heavy industrial equipment. The floor below that floor—the one exposed by that massive hollow—was also troublesome for a hypothetical fall. In addition to, yes, more boxes, it appeared to have been utilized as a storage area for a variety of furniture and other left-over pieces from the public-facing call rooms installed at the base of the tower. Worse still, a corner of the space on that second and furthest floor had been taken over as a makeshift breakroom—an unauthorized one, if he had to guess by the loose bottles of alcohol tucked surreptitiously behind a couch. Four de-helmeted stormtroopers were there, brooding over their respective sabacc hands and completely failing to look up.

Obi-Wan continued onward to the first control panel—the first of several of the night, unfortunately. They were a simple bunch, also designed with droids in mind. While this in itself could have been a problem, each panel was equipped with a datapad for any inferior creatures who, like Obi-Wan, still required the use of squishy ocular organs to intake and process information. They were easily spliced.

At this stage, however, Obi-Wan was stymied once again by the whims of the architect of this building. Instead of linking the systems together for efficiency, they had decided to silo access to each of the systems of the tower within a specific control panel. Instead of quietly splicing, sending his message, and fleeing the location with haste, Obi-Wan was forced to slowly creep from control panel to control panel until he found a system that would finally let him send out a message.

In pursuit of this goal, he lost track of time.

His eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. Tonyani’s ambient humidity ballooned and eventually faded. The merrymakers below him changed from a group of four to a group of five to an alarming group of twelve before finally settling down to just two. Somewhere above him, a spark successfully lit a clump of dust on fire. It fizzled out on the metal surface below it but not before filling the space with the reek of burnt Wookie hair.

Eventually, the electric load on the systems—as well as the forced air—died down by at least half as the Empire shut down public access to the call rooms for the night. As a result, the mind-numbing cacophony of the interior space dropped to a dull roar.

In the absence of this industrial sound, noise from a tinny music player filled the growing quiet of the inside of the communications tower—that is, until its Imperial listeners realized how transgressive—and anti-Imperial—the lyrics were. Then, the silence was filled with panicked stormtroopers slapping the music player off before they were caught engaging in thought crimes.

While this all occurred above and below him, Obi-Wan continued his search. Eventually, his diligence was rewarded, and the right panel was finally found.

Like an old man, he hobbled over to the side of it, leaning against the wall and sliding down to a seated position. Grunting a little, he dragged the datapad to him, scrutinizing its interface blurrily. How long had it been since he slept? He knuckled sweat and dust off his face before striking his cheek once with his palm.

Awakened once more, Obi-Wan balanced the pad on his knees and pulled out a holo-communicator out of his pocket. Once he had its bulk firmly grasped in his hand, he connected it to the pad through a couple of thick wires.

The pad booted up its programs quickly. The communicator would make the call, but the tower would amplify it, Force willing.

Obi-Wan turned on the communicator, watching as the standard encryption protocols lit up the tool with a flashing yellow glow. The yellow rapidly turned to white when the transmitted signal found—and bounced back from—a working satellite. This could work.

Holding his breath, Obi-Wan initiated the call, wincing. Immediately, the communicator flashed green. The holocall request was successfully sent. But would it be answered?

A moment passed. Then another. Those moments extended into several long excruciating minutes. The communicator continued to flash green, and Obi-Wan’s frown deepened. “Come on, come on, come on.”

Nothing happened. Slowly, Obi-Wan sagged back against the wall. He stared at the dratted device for several moments longer, as if willing it to behave. Then, recognizing the futility of it, he sighed, closing his eyes and releasing his anxiety into the Force. His finger hovered over the button that would end the call.

In his impatience, he hadn’t even thought to send a written message. How often did he chide others for expecting instantaneous results? Sending a written message would have required more coordination and at the very least one more trip into the tower itself, but now that he knew where everything was, it wasn’t such an impossible task.

He hadn’t even considered the time difference, let alone what he would do if Bail was preoccupied by his responsibilities to the Imperial Senate—or, worse, if he was meeting with Sidious himself.

“Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan jerked from his slouch. In his palm hovered the blue-shaded head and torso of his very good and very concerned friend. “Senator. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

“I would say the same to you, Master Jedi,” Bail countered, smiling faintly. The expression was strained—and flickering agitatedly. All the Empire’s boasts aside, the signal was still so poor. “Where - crackle - are you? You sound like you’re in the middle of a windstorm.”

“Close enough,” Obi-Wan whispered back, with humor. “I’m still on Tonyani. A blockade appeared almost immediately. Did you hear back from Reva?”

Bail seemed to have clocked that Obi-Wan was trying to stay quiet. He immediately did the same, though perhaps he shouldn’t have bothered. The audio issues with the holocall only seemed to worsen with his caution. “Reva is fine. She made it - bzzt - through. She will be displeased”—here, the call repeated displeased twice more before catching up to the rest of Bail’s response—”caught you instead.”

“Caught is such a strong word.”

Some of those audio glitches were getting a little too loud, even with the noisy air vents. Obi-Wan huddled as close as he could to the wall, trying to use his body to muffle the call. In his palm, Bail’s image was flickering and stuttering out. One couldn’t send a holocall so far away with so many layers of encryption without expecting some amount of corruption. The need to send messages to the next system over had exasperated an already strained method of long-distance communication.

The next string of words from Bail were especially garbled. “Alderaan - bzzt - cousins are - scree - taking advantage—” Here, entire sentences were lost, as was Bail’s image.

After a full ten seconds, Bail’s face appeared again. “—unrest here. The Empire—”

The visual of the call completely cut out. Ominously, the device repeated the last two garbled words three more times. The Empire, the Empire, the Empire. With each iteration, the audio warped further into something monstrous.

Bail appeared once more, his expression bothered. Obviously, it had not been lost on him that the signal was terrible. His normally composed friend was fitfully rubbing his hands over his arms as he waited for the technology issues to sort themselves out. Bail was a consummate politician. He was rarely so obvious about his feelings.

“Are you alright?” Obi-Wan asked gently.

It was hard to tell due to the poor quality of the picture, but Bail seemed surprised. His tense, rigid expression gentled into a smile. “Fear not. It’s nothing Breha and I can’t handle,” he said warmly. Then he crossed a hand over his chest, his eyebrows pulling together in concern. “But it’s you I worry about, Obi-Wan. I - bzzt - Tonyani - crackle - Vader - brrrrrr-”

Obi-Wan sat up abruptly, heart thumping. “Vader? What about him?”

“Tonyani - crackle - he is – screeEEEEE—”

Whatever Bail was trying to say was lost. Worse still, that last audio glitch had pierced the ambient noise of the tower, and, somewhere below him, the stormtroopers had been alerted to the sound. Wood scraped against wood as they rose from the sabacc table and started looking around. Obi-Wan could hear them talking, but they were not yet moving with any great deal of urgency. Obi-Wan still had time.  

While Obi-Wan monitored the movements of his enemy, the holocall signal eventually cleared up again. For a long moment, Bail and Obi-Wan just stared at each other in mutual frustration. Then Bail said, carefully, “I’ll send - bzzt - the report to you. Hold on.”

After a full minute, the device in Obi-Wan’s hand lit up as the file started to download, de-encrypting it at the same time.

While successful, this act was the final death knell of their conversation. The signal was too weak to support both a call and a file transfer. The image of Bail shook and tore apart over and over again. While his mouth moved, no audio transferred. Nevertheless, Bail leaned close to his own device on the other side of the galaxy, his mouth moving slowly and repetitively. Whatever he was saying was so important, he said it three times in a row—and then a fourth time, which was when Obi-Wan truly grasped it.  

I wish you well, my friend. I wish you well.

“May the Force be with—” The call cut out for the final time. “—you.”

Obi-Wan stared at the darkened device for a moment. Then he pulled up the file, swearing under his breath when he realized it too had been corrupted. Scanning through the nonsense characters littered throughout otherwise comprehensible Aurebesh sentences, Obi-Wan was able to conclude a few things from what was clearly a spy report.

First, he was able to confirm that Reva indeed had escaped the planet, having had made contact with one of Bail’s contacts merely three days ago. Obi-Wan was extremely relieved.

Obi-Wan was also able to conclude that, despite his general disinterest in Inquisitors outside of their performance, Darth Vader had a particular interest in her capture. This interest had been characterized as largely casual by Bail’s spy—that is, up until the day Vader abruptly ordered the blockade on Tonyani. The spy speculated that Reva had taken off with something of Vader’s, though this seemed unlikely to Obi-Wan.

Vader was a possessive and jealous creature. He would have raised Tonyani’s cities to the ground, if that was the case. Instead, the Sith Lord was merely monitoring the blockade from several sectors away. It was as if he was a pet owner peacefully observing a prized, hard-won fish swimming about in the clear walled prison of its new aquarium. Did the Empire not catch on to Reva’s escape?

The revelation that the blockade was ordered by Vader in the first place was less surprising. It was the sort of blunt, apolitical act he was so well known for, the sort of decision that made 90% of the Imperial elite hate him. And, allegedly, this act had also peeved Sidious, contributing to an increased level of tension between the Emperor and his most powerful follower. The tension was so fierce at the moment that the spy had sketched out a small cost versus benefit analysis of trying to flip Vader against the Emperor. Another deeply unlikely scenario.

The rest of the report detailed a series of decrypted messages between Vader and the Grand Inquisitor. Thanks to the corruption, however, the content was nearly unreadable. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan skimmed through the messages anyway, looking for any full or partial mention of his name. He found nothing of himself, but did notice a couple of areas of text that could have been referring to Reva.

Eventually, though, Obi-Wan found himself staring at the timestamps. Vader had demanded a report every three or so days. Frowning, Obi-Wan considered this carefully. Vader’s obsessive personality could not be so easily assuaged by the frequency of this reporting. Was Vader receiving intel from other sources as well?

Below Obi-Wan, a door was suddenly flung open, and a series of scraping and stumbling noises quickly followed. Still largely unconcerned, Obi-Wan peeked over the ledge at the floors below. What he observed had him rising to his feet.

The stormtroopers had given up on finding the screeching noise nearly as soon as they had heard it, shuffling back to their game. They were on their feet again now, however, saluting a group of higher ranked stormtroopers as they marched in. The alcohol was on full display, as was the game itself, and there was no way the initial two stormtroopers were dressed according to regulation. Nevertheless, the four superior stormtroopers said nothing about these deviances, merely marching in step for a moment before abruptly pivoting to face each other, creating a small aisle with their bodies. Once in this formation, they froze in place, as if waiting.

Seeing into the hallway better than Obi-Wan could from his vantage point, the initial two stormtroopers snapped into even sharper salutes, barking out a greeting.

Curious, Obi-Wan leaned further over the edge of the ledge, trying to see who the newcomer was.

He shouldn’t have bothered. The stranger sauntered into his line of sight immediately, hands clasped behind him. It was the Grand Inquisitor. Swearing under his breath, Obi-Wan flattened himself as close to the pathways as he dared, pulling his tarp around him tightly.

Meanwhile, the Grand Inquisitor was looking around, eyes lingering on the game and the alcohol. After a moment, he ran his fingers over the back of a discarded couch briefly, making a face at the dirt this gesture pulled up. He wiped his hands on his clothes and clasped them behind himself once more, the very picture of aloofness.

It was still loud inside the maintenance area, even with the reduced strain on the communication tower’s systems. Closing his eyes, Obi-Wan used the Force to enhance his hearing and focus it on the conversation below.

 “—we help you, sir?” one of the initial stormtroopers was asking, voice trembling a little.

“Yes, I suppose you could,” the Grand Inquisitor said ponderously. “You see, despite my best efforts to prove myself, I have been assigned to what I can only describe as a tedious duty.”

There was a pause. “Sir?”

“Rather embarrassing, is it not? But needs must, as they say, and I think the humiliation of this specific task is better shared amongst us all.” As he spoke, the Grand Inquisitor’s attention veered between the men—through the men—languorously. “Especially given your particular role in it.”

The lower ranked stormtroopers exchanged a look. Then, bravely, one said, “What task were you assigned, sir?”

The Grand Inquisitor’s focus sharpened, steady and no longer wandering. “Pest control,” said the former Jedi with a genteel smile.

“Pest?” the other stormtrooper sputtered. “What kind of pest?”

The Grand Inquisitor’s smile widened. “The kind you let in to access our systems.” Then his gaze flew upwards, instantly finding Obi-Wan’s form in the uneven darkness.

Obi-Wan promptly fled, bolting across the metal maintenance pathways.

Shouts rose up, louder than even the wind, and blaster fire started lighting up the place. Then, under his feet, the fragile metal pathways folded upward, like a blossoming flower in reverse. Before they could be manipulated into a razor-edged prison—or worse—Obi-Wan leapt from the pathways entirely, barely catching the solid platform just outside the exit with one hand.

Rattled, he hurled himself up and over the edge, throwing himself into the exit tunnel.

While he did that, there was a crack and another feeling of unwanted weightlessness. The platform held up better against a Dark Sider battering it with the Force, but only just. Furthermore, the Grand Inquisitor had leapt up a floor, closing the distance between them. At the same time, a pulling sensation yanked Obi-Wan’s tarp so hard that something popped in his fingers.

He let it go, speeding through the exit tunnel on his hands and knees before dropping over the side of the outside ladder and letting gravity take him.

Speed, not discretion, was key here.

Obi-Wan landed inelegantly on his hands and knees. The night outside was deep and dark—but not here. Instead, the base of the ladder was the center of a circle of industrial lights, all pointed towards him. He was surrounded by armed stormtroopers. It was a trap.

Feigning surrender, Obi-Wan rose to his feet, head bowed low and palms extended outwards. He swayed a little, staggering in place as if the fall had hurt.

At this show of feebleness, one stormtrooper approached, a pair of manacles in hand. Obi-Wan eyed this new development consideringly. Neither those manacles nor the formation around him were meant to engage a Force user. Not a serious one, anyway. They must have thought he was a rebel or a local malcontent.

A tedious duty, indeed.

Cheered by this thought, Obi-Wan dropped the look of submission entirely, shoving outward with the Force all around him.

Startled cries ripped through the air as bodies hit walls, floors, industrial lights, and, yes, other bodies.

Once the circle of enemies had been broken, Obi-Wan sprinted past them and into the night, yanking stormtroopers off of sniper points before they could successfully hit him.

This attempt to disengage wasn’t entirely successful. He wasn’t aiming to kill, after all, and his Force abilities were not especially powerful. As a result, two sprightly fellows were able to get right back on their feet to intercept him.

He barreled into the both of them with such speed that all three of them fell to the floor in a messy slump. Before Obi-Wan properly caught his own breath, he sat up, Force pulled a blaster from one of their hands, and shot them both in the throat where their armor was the weakest.

Then, trembling, Obi-Wan heaved himself back to his feet and stumbled into the surrounding darkness, slipping past hanging laundry, DIY marketing, and parked single-rider vehicles. All around him—behind him, in front of him, above him—Imperial voices rose and fell, barking out conflicting orders to regroup and follow him.  

Obi-Wan was not afraid of stormtroopers. He would lose them in the city. Tonyani was blessed with so very many alleys and so very few streetlights.

A swell of the Dark Side, however, gave him pause. The Grand Inquisitor was angry. His menial task wasn’t so menial after all, and he’d let Obi-Wan slip the net.

He would be harder to fool.

-

Obi-Wan was not a man who enjoyed retreating. It was always a deeply humbling experience, provoking a great deal of guilt. His hands ached for the remembered weight of his lightsaber, for the surety of solid ground under his feet. Instead of his weapon and setting of choice, he had a stolen blaster, a maze of very thin corridors between Tonyani’s sky breaking buildings, and a very broken finger.

He had also failed to shake his pursuers. Footsteps still echoed behind him, like a perpetual shadow. Stormtroopers, now those, he’d outmaneuvered, over and over and over again. But the owner of those particular footsteps never seemed to fall for his tricks or leave his earshot for very long, no matter how quietly Obi-Wan moved, how many diversions he made, or how tightly he pressed down on his own Force presence.

They continued to follow him, regardless, like the shadow he’d likened them to. Perhaps that was the power of the Dark.

Exhausted, Obi-Wan slowed to a stop between a group of tightly clustered buildings, so tightly clustered that the space between them had created a narrow four-way crossing of sorts, alley overlapping other alleys. Catching his breath, he kneeled by a power box just out of sight of the three other pathways.

Suspiciously, he pulled out his stolen blaster, scrutinizing it for a bit. With the way that the Empire littered its detritus across the galaxy, weapons and armor included, he strongly doubted there was a tracking device on it. Still, not one to carry an enemy’s weapon with any sort of pride, he arched up, purely on a whim, and tossed it into the alleyway perpendicular to his own. It skidded across the ground before it hit the wall.

Obi-Wan dropped back down on the ground, sighing heavily. Above him, in the thin cracks of sky exposed by tall and taller buildings, the night had started turning into a sly purple. How many hours had Obi-Wan wandered the alleys of Tonyani? He palmed his face, trying to pull the weariness out of his very skin, but unlike emotion, fatigue was not so easily discarded into the Force.

Gradually, his hand fell. His heavy eyes fell quite accidentally on another path joined to his own. It was a few feet away, half-blocked off by a broken fence and some abandoned boxes. He glanced up at the rooftops—so far away—then back at the path. He stretched out his palm reaching towards the path. Wind danced on the edge of his fingertips. It wasn’t cool, but it was fresh. The nearly blocked path was neither a dead-end nor another turn in the maze that would take him deeper and deeper into the urban jungle that was Tonyani.

Obi-Wan slowly pulled himself back up to his feet, using the power box as both shield and crutch. His most persistent pursuer was on the street level, like him. If Obi-Wan could just get under the broken fence, he might be able to regain his head start. He might even be able to outrun him too.

Exit plan duly secured, Obi-Wan started to lurch towards the broken fence. And then-

“Did you have a good conversation with your contact, stranger?”

Obi-Wan froze. A moment later, he flattened himself against the wall, hiding behind the power box once again. How exhausted was he? Those dreaded footsteps had grown closer, and he hadn’t even noticed them.

“Such an underrated privilege, conversation,” opined the Grand Inquisitor, walking out into the center of the four-way alley. He swung his gaze left, then right, then spun around entirely, searching. “Such lengths people will go to do it. And such lengths others will go to stop you.” He paused, then pivoted a little, head tilted to the side. “Would you perhaps like to talk to me, stranger? I’m sure we would have so much to discuss.”

This was not how Obi-Wan expected the Grand Inquisitor would react upon approaching a former member of the High Council of an Order he hated. Stranger indeed. Had the Grand Inquisitor not seen his face in the communications tower? What unprecedented luck.

The Grand Inquisitor continued to scan the area visually. Whatever mundane methods he had to track a fleeing person had brought him this far, but it appeared it wasn’t enough to pinpoint which alley Obi-Wan had taken. Obi-Wan pressed his Force presence down even more and said nothing, extending his fingers and closing his eyes.

After several long agonizing minutes of Obi-Wan continuing to say nothing, the Grand Inquisitor let out a dry laugh. “Perhaps you believe you’ve escaped my notice?” he murmured. After a beat, he took out his lightsaber, tossing the hilt once in his hand. “Dear stranger, do you know what is more suspicious than a Force signature in a restricted area?” His lightsaber ignited, lighting up the dim alley with a haunting red glow. “The total absence of one where it should be.”

The Grand Inquisitor finally turned towards the power box, his malice filling the air.

Then he was ducking under concentrated blaster fire, his lightsaber returning the bolts as fast as they came. At the same time, Obi-Wan released his hold on the Force, flinging himself at and through the blocked alleyway. As he darted away, he heard the sound of his discarded blaster hitting the ground once more. An enraged scream soon followed, coupled with the sound of a wall buckling inward, but that was hardly any of Obi-Wan’s business.

Obi-Wan’s business was finally exiting the alleyways and stumbling through a small artificial park. There weren’t a lot of options here to hide, not unless he wanted to crawl into the highly manicured landscaping or dive into the shallow lake. Perpetual stands awaited the return of farmers and artisans in the morning, but here at night, they stood silent like a series of solemn stone graves.

Letting the Force guide him, he hurried towards what appeared to be a shuttered bakery towards the end of the park. Behind him, the blocked alley was being violently unblocked by a series of metaphysical shoves, a vicious cacophony that was drawing the attention—and presence—of more stormtroopers.

Turning the corner, Obi-Wan looked back once at the noise. For a split second, he wasn’t focused on the path before him but rather the path behind him.

Naturally, this was when he collided into another body, stumbling.

Hands caught him and dug into his biceps, squeezing hard. “Ben?”

Startled, Obi-Wan looked up into Shado’s icy eyes. “You,” he said, breathlessly. What an unexpected surprise.

His charge looked like an utter mess, the very image of a man who had waited all night at a hospital in hopes of hearing good news about a sick loved one. His lips were raw and dry, the victim of anxious chewing, and his braid was nearly completely unraveled, barely holding on at the very end. His clothes too were rumpled, stained and smelling strongly of sweat, as if he had been outside through all of the worst ravages of the day’s humidity. His eyes were both bloodshot and bruised with exhaustion and torment.

Confirming Obi-Wan’s suspicions, Shado said, “I’ve been looking everywhere for—”

Obi-Wan interrupted him, pushing him until his back hit the closed shutters of the bakery. “Silence! I am being followed.”

Shado’s expression of sheer wretchedness increased at this, if anything. Then he looked over to the Grand Inquisitor, who had picked up several squads of supporting cast members.

“Okay.”

Without explaining himself, Shado reached for his own neck, unpinning his cloak. Obi-Wan then rapidly found their positions reversed, his feet between Shado’s feet, his shoulders covered by Shado’s clothing, his face hid by Shado’s hood. While it was a nice start, it was overall a preposterous strategy. How did Shado expect him to hide in place and in plain sight? From a Dark Sider, no less?

Obi-Wan received his answer a moment later. He’d observed Shado’s white-knuckled grip on either side of his hood and thought nothing of it. Now, that grip was yanking him forward and nearly off his feet into a brutal kiss that resembled nothing of the sort. His top lip, crushed between two pairs of teeth, split open, filling his mouth with blood, and his nose was harshly compressed by Shado’s own.

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan’s hood was pulled so tightly and tautly, the skin of his ears felt nearly peeled. His viewpoint of the world was reduced to a rectangular window, which was full of Shado, and Shado alone. And when Obi-Wan stiffened at the sound of approaching footsteps he still hadn’t escaped, Shado stole his full range of movement too, pressing Obi-Wan’s back against the wall with the full force of his much taller body.

In these wretched circumstances, it seemed rather cruel that his hearing would be so heightened now.

Imperial boots crunching against gravel. The crush of fine material under shaking fists. Comms chatter through a small speaker. The slick sounds of a tongue parting an unresisting mouth. A humming—bleeding—kyber crystal. The cadence of Shado’s panicked breathing.

Over it all, Obi-Wan heard the steady thump of a heart. It was likely just his own, but he thought it was Shado’s too.

The sound of crunching gravel stopped.

“Good evening, citizen,” said the Grand Inquisitor, his voice stiff. “Mind releasing your companion and answering a few questions?”

At this greeting, Obi-Wan’s hopes perished. Whatever cover Shado had hoped to create with this ruse had surely sunk. It was a nice try. If a suspicious person was hiding their presence in the Force, would it not be smart for that being to hide amongst other beings with little to no presence themselves?

The critical weakness of this plan was that the Empire was vast and vengeful, and they were only two people. This trick never had a chance to work.

Shado pulled away from him, his sneering mouth tinged with Obi-Wan’s blood. If Obi-Wan had hoped to exchange a look with him—one last shared expression between comrades—it was dashed. Shado pulled Obi-Wan’s hood almost completely closed, as if he was a collector hiding his prized possessions from view. Worse still, he took his palm and pressed it against Obi-Wan’s mouth, compressing it once, as if as a warning.

“I do mind, actually,” Shado retorted. “Go away.”

Obi-Wan’s stomach dropped to his knees. Alarm bells went off in his head. He reached up, grabbing the wrist of the hand that silenced him. He tugged on it twice, but he was ignored.

“Citizen,” the Grand Inquisitor said softly, “If you have any loyalty to the Empire, you will comply.”

“Will I?”

It was two words. Just two small words, some of the smallest in their entire language. But with those two words, brutality had turned Shado’s familiar voice into a haunting specter of a sound. His voice deepened, and his enunciation flowed with a rhythmic viciousness. For reasons he couldn’t articulate, Obi-Wan felt a chill run through him, like his fated murderer had just run the very tips of his fingers over Obi-Wan’s cheek.

“Remind me, Grand Inquisitor, of how well your people survive without a head.”

Somewhere to the left of him, a stormtrooper made an outraged noise under his helmet. Gravel crunched loudly under rapidly approaching feet. “How dare you!”

“Stop.” The Grand Inquisitor’s order was sharp. The gravel stopped crunching, and all was quiet, save for some comm chatter.

When the Grand Inquisitor spoke again, his voice was more subservient. “My apologies, citizen,” he said quickly. Was that a little fear? “Carry on.”

A moment later, footsteps—many of them, some familiar and some not—grew louder and then much quieter as the Grand Inquisitor and his stormtroopers walked past them and out of earshot.

Obi-Wan couldn’t believe it. Since when had the Inquisitorius become so docile to members of the Imperial elite—even to their rude courtesans?

Just who was Shado’s patron?

Fuming and having had enough of this charade, Obi-Wan pinched the inside of Shado’s elbow until the hand on his mouth disappeared. In the same moment, he yanked the hood free of Shado’s other hand, baring his face once more.

They were alone now, and Shado wasn’t looking at him. Instead, his gaze was off to the left and down. His eyes were heavily hooded, and his hands hung limply at his sides where Obi-Wan had dropped them.

Obi-Wan’s annoyance fled instantly, and compassion raced in to fill the void. It couldn’t have been easy to defy the Empire. Such a thing did not come naturally to loyalists. And yet, Shado had done it anyway. For Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan stepped into Shado’s space a little, skimming his fingers over his side. “Are you alright?”

Shado shot him a pained, shuttered look at this question, his expression bleak. Bleaker still it became when his eyes fell to Obi-Wan’s sore mouth. Slowly, he shook his head.

Obi-Wan had nothing to say to this, uncertain what to do with such blatant honesty.

They stared at each other for a moment, then Shado’s mouth curved in an uncertain smirk. “Come on,” he said thickly, grabbing Obi-Wan’s arm and pulling him along.

After the time he’d had, Obi-Wan followed easily—in body, anyway. Obi-Wan grumbled under his breath continuously. In his mind, he sketched a handful of snarky retorts to potentially lob at his annoying and bossy charge, most of which involved him protesting this uncalled-for manhandling. If he wanted to be hauled off like a bounty, he would have tried his chances with the stormtroopers.

Just then, however, Shado’s grip on his wrist adjusted naturally, shifting until it was Obi-Wan’s hand that he held. Surely a mistake. But then, his grip shifted even further until palm was touching palm. Then he threaded his fingers through Obi-Wan’s, squeezing his hand once, almost reassuringly. But who was he intending to reassure? Obi-Wan or himself?

Either way, this was not the gesture of a man dragging his prisoner back to his cell.

At this thought, Obi-Wan said no more.

Chapter Text

The second Obi-Wan was bullied back onto Shado’s property, he heard the click of Shado’s security systems humming back to life. He sighed but let himself be further bullied up to and through the front door. Only then did he free himself from Shado’s grip, tucking his hands—including the aching one with a broken bone—under his elbows.

Walking back into Shado’s villa felt like Obi-Wan was wading back into the waters of several looming crises intersecting all at once. He was at a loss to decide with any sort of competency which minefield should be defused first.

In the end, and at the base of a massive set of stairs, Shado chose for him.

Obi-Wan suddenly found himself embraced—grabbed at, really. Enfolded in arms so tightly, his toes briefly left the floor. “Shado!” he exclaimed, smacking at his shoulder, but Shado did not respond. Instead, he shoved his face into Obi-Wan’s neck, pressing tiny hard kisses against it, clearly upset and emotional.

Together, they stumbled over—and on top of—the bottom few stairs, and Shado fell onto him immediately, boxing Obi-Wan against a step with his body. His breath was heavy and harsh, and he was trembling minutely. Obi-Wan was torn between alarm and pity, between wanting to escape and wanting to soothe.

He lifted his hand instead, about to use a Force suggestion to force his unstable charge into slumber once more.

Before he could say the words, however, Shado captured his hand, pressing Obi-Wan’s knuckles against his cheek. “Please,” Shado begged, eyes wet. “Please don’t push me away.” He swallowed thickly. “It- what happened. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for all of it too. I’m sorry I keep pushing.” He took Obi-Wan’s hand and pressed it against his chest. “I just- It hurt, Obi-Wan. It hurt so much. And it burnt the heart out of me too. I lost- I had so much- I made so many mistakes. Please, forgive me. Forgive me, Master.”

Shado straightened up, knees still on either side of Obi-Wan. But his head was bowed, and both hands were clasped around Obi-Wan’s now. He was the very picture of contrition and sorrow.

“Shado,” Obi-Wan whispered, stunned.

Shado’s eyes rose from where they were fixed on their joined hands. He brought them—all three of them—to his chin. “Don’t push me away. Don’t leave me. Be with me instead. Comfort me.” Without breaking eye contact with Obi-Wan, he pressed a slow kiss to Obi-Wan’s fingers. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll be whatever—or whoever—you need me to be.” Shado paused. Then, his expression breaking, he said, “Just don’t leave me behind in the dark.”

-

Obi-Wan took Shado back to his room. He’d hoped the trip from the entryway would cool Shado’s desires a little bit, but it only seemed to ignite them even further. He could barely take a step without being leaned into or squeezed, without feeling the rush of warm breath stirring his hair or the press of a slick mouth against his cheek.

Shado wanted to be comforted. And Obi-Wan wasn’t averse to this. It was just…

“Sex is a terrible way to process grief, dear one,” Obi-Wan muttered, climbing up on his little-used bed. There was a grunt of exertion behind him. “Careful, lest you break an ankle.”

Sure enough, Shado had tripped over the elevated platform, not expecting the stairs.

“It’s fine. This body is expendable.”

“That is the last thing your bodyguard wants to hear,” Obi-Wan said with faux snootiness. He watched Shado crawl into bed next to him. For a moment, they just looked at each other, laying there side by side, waiting for the other to do something. For all his daytime rudeness, Shado was awfully polite in bed.

After a beat, Obi-Wan just laughed. He sat up, pulling his shirt off. “You’ll have to forgive me. I haven’t done this as much as you think.” He gave himself a discrete sniff.

“Like you haven’t jumped from courtesan to courtesan your entire adult life.”

“Have not,” Obi-Wan countered, wondering where he got that impression. His hands went to the waist of his pants.

Behind him, Shado was sitting up too. “Liar,” he muttered before gently biting Obi-Wan’s bared shoulder. The fingers of one hand skimmed over old burn scars carefully, as if seeking the secrets of the universe in their pits and valleys. The other hand looped around Obi-Wan’s torso, hugging him again.

Pausing in his task, Obi-Wan leaned back into this indulgently. Then he turned, touching Shado’s jaw with the tips of his fingers. Soon, they were trading kisses instead over Obi-Wan’s shoulder—slow indulgent kisses, teasing kisses, friendly kisses, and more. They traded them for so long, Obi-Wan wondered if this would be enough for Shado in the end. If this was all the comfort he truly needed.

But no. Shado’s grip on him grew more exacting, not less. The air between them heated up more and more, and now Obi-Wan was the one who was wondering if this would truly be enough, even for himself. How long had it been since someone treated him so gently?

They parted briefly. Against Shado’s lips, Obi-Wan murmured, “Perhaps I should take a shower. I’m covered in sweat and city grime.”

“No, don’t,” Shado whispered, rubbing his nose against Obi-Wan’s. In contrast, the arms around Obi-Wan’s waist tightened, as if Obi-Wan would disappear at a moment’s notice. “You’re so beautiful. Only you can make sweat and grime look tempting.”

“Really? I thought I was an eyesore.”

Shado’s mouth twisted. He looked away for a moment, almost bashful. “I was being hateful. You’ve always been beautiful, in everything and every way. Gorgeous, and out of reach.” He hooked his chin over Obi-Wan’s shoulder, his left hand playing idly at Obi-Wan’s waistband. “I was always so jealous, you know. I used to rip your war posters off the wall.”

And Anakin once ran an entire speeder-bike into a billboard. Such was the hate Obi-Wan’s face inspired. “You weren’t the only one.”

Shado grumbled. “I know. I hated it. All those eyes on you.” Clearly peeved at the memory, Shado gnawed on his shoulder with more vengeance than ardor.

Obi-Wan allowed it for a bit—it wasn’t unpleasant—then tugged on his hair lightly until he could see the curves of his face. “This is lovely, and I wouldn’t mind continuing it until we’re sick to death of it.” Obi-Wan traced a finger over his cheek. “But if you wanted to fuck me, I’ll need you to let go. I need to prepare myself.” At Shado’s silence, Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. “Naturally, if you’d prefer to be on the bottom, I’ll happily indulge you, dear one. But after the day I’ve had…”

Obi-Wan trailed off. He was incredibly exhausted. Was it selfish to demand the position that would most likely put him on his back?

Oh no. What if he fell asleep? How mortifying. Not to mention demotivational—and rude too. It was Shado who had asked for comfort, after all. Oh well, if he insisted Obi-Wan topped, he would.

Obi-Wan shared a rough sketch of his thoughts apologetically, only to be interrupted by Shado’s vigorous headshaking. “It’s fine!” he shouted, his voice strained. “It’s just— I’m not— I’ve never—” The poor dear was deeply, deeply embarrassed.

Obi-Wan contemplated this puzzling situation and what it meant about Shado’s career so far. Had he been pulled from the teaching halls of the Guild and into an exclusivity contract that early into his debut?

“It’s alright. I’ll show you,” he said absently, still chewing over this. He slipped out of his pants and under things, tossing them to the side until he was fully naked.

Then he looked over at Shado and abruptly changed courses at the look on his face. “If you want to, that is. There are so many other things we could do instead—”

Shado was extremely red. “No, I want to, I want to. Don’t hold my inexperience against me. I’ve slept with other people before. Just never a man.”

“Ah. That explains it.”

It didn’t. Certainly, the Art of Intimacy was deeply age gated, with knowledge and practical training kept back from students until they had reached their species’ respective age of maturity. But any properly trained courtesan knew at least the very basics of biology and anatomy, be it for recreation, reproduction, or mere stress-relief. Human bodies weren’t even the most complicated in the galaxy to memorize. Plus, Humans were relatively easy to de-stress, get off, or procreate with. It was one of their very few charms.

But just because one had training for satisfactory sexual intercourse didn’t mean they had the expertise. After all, even Obi-Wan himself had learned at the knee of courtesans the sixteen or so necessary steps to successfully help a Kel Dorian female through labor, but that didn’t mean he would ever stand-in for a real doctor or a true healer. His training only meant he was slightly more helpful than a rock in an actual emergency.

So Obi-Wan banished these troubling thoughts from his mind. Instead, he reached out idly with the Force, thinking of one of many options he’d spied upon in days past.

Across the room, the vanity rattled and a drawer slid open. A bottle flew across the room, slapping against Obi-Wan’s palm.

Shado raised his eyebrows. It was a frivolous use of the Force. But Obi-Wan just scoffed. “Like you wouldn’t do the same, were you me.”

Obi-Wan laid back down on the bed. He opened the bottle, testing the viscosity of the liquid before deeming it appropriate to use. He coated his fingers with it thickly, focused on the task ahead of him. He bent his knee accordingly—and only then did he notice how intently Shado was watching him.

Obi-Wan was completely bare, and Shado was not. He didn’t feel any humiliation over this. A naked body wasn’t an object of shame. It was a vessel of one’s being, and Obi-Wan’s vessel had always been perfectly serviceable. Attractive, even. A convenient tool.

But Shado sitting there and watching him prepare himself was akin to him watching Obi-Wan brush his teeth, try and fail at a new skill, or even attack a vengeful itch with his nails. It was the intimacy of mundanity.

And that was unexpectedly embarrassing. Soon, Obi-Wan was blushing harder than Shado.

“Kiss me,” he ordered.

Slow amusement pierced through Shado’s intense focus. “I have much to learn,” he said lightheartedly but obeyed, laying down with Obi-Wan and curling into his side.

Obi-Wan huffed his assent. Yes, Shado was a terrible courtesan. But in the moment, Obi-Wan didn’t offer any teachings. Couldn’t, rather, because Shado had cradled his face in his hands, pressing sharp kisses to his mouth. Obi-Wan could barely breathe past them. Could barely hear past the racing of his own heart. Could barely speak past the sparking sensation lighting up his spine as he reached further into himself and softened his body for what was to come.

For his part, Shado still blushed a pleasant red hue, alternating between demanding Obi-Wan’s mouth and pressing his hard cheekbone against Obi-Wan’s forehead, looking away as if the sight of Obi-Wan debasing himself was too much to bear. If not for the blazing arousal and hunger in his expression, Obi-Wan might have assumed he wasn’t that interested.

Obi-Wan wasn’t uninterested himself, though his neutrality was tested when Shado lifted one hand away from Obi-Wan’s face to palm Obi-Wan’s cock instead. There was no finesse to it; Shado was merely pressing it against Obi-Wan’s belly. Nevertheless, it was hard not to rock up and into his large and rough hand. Sparks of interest burnt a path up and down his spine when Shado spit into his palm and tried again. It took everything in Obi-Wan not to squirm, not to demand things, not to beg.

“Hey, I know how this part works,” Shado murmured in his ear, his damnable smile obvious in his voice.

Obi-Wan wanted to bite him. “Good for you,” he gritted out. He was not easily aroused by anything these days, but there his cock was, making a liar of him, red and rising and slick at the tip, demanding attention.

When Shado’s hand slid down further, curiously testing his heated entrance, Obi-Wan swore softly. Then he forced another finger inside of himself. It immediately touched something all too sensitive, a part of himself he’d done well to avoid so far, if only out of sheer practicality. Hissing, Obi-Wan made an aborted thrust up. He then pulled out of himself and flung his hand off to the side.

“I’m ready. Come on.”

“Are you sure? We can wait a little longer if you—”

“Now, now, now, you infuriating creature—”

In his heightened state of distress, Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he had wisely ceased insulting his now lover or if Shado’s cackling had cut him off first. The result was the same. Shado hopped off the bed entirely, finally kicking off his shoes and divesting himself from his trousers. His cock too was red and weeping, despite any direct attention, which did much to soothe Obi-Wan’s wounded pride.

A pride that took a minor hit when Shado clamped a hand around Obi-Wan’s calf and pulled. To his shock, Obi-Wan slipped easily, frictionless against the fine sheets, until his rear end was lined up against the edge of the bed—and Shado himself.

The wretched man grinned, cocky and pleased with himself. Letting go of Obi-Wan, he reached back over his head with both hands, pulling his fine shirt over his head and off his body until he was as naked as Obi-Wan himself. Inwardly pleased with the direction of all this, Obi-Wan sat up partially, bracing his weight on his hands.

But then Obi-Wan’s smile slowly faded.

The hour was some undefined time early in the morning, but neither artificial light nor sunlight had made itself known in that room. All Obi-Wan had to aid his sight was a faint orange glow from the furthest window, mostly hidden by a thick curtain. As a result, the room was terribly dark.

And, bathed in that darkness, Shado hardly looked like Shado at all.

Instead, the golden hue of his hair had darkened into a deep dark honey, and the icy sheen of his eyes had warmed into a softer blue. A thin lock of his hair had escaped his loose braid, falling in front of his left eye. At a quick glance, one might be forgiven for thinking it was a scar.

It wasn’t real, of course. The resemblance was coincidental. Moreover, if anything, it was the wishful thinking of a disturbed mind, some sort of self-deception given teeth by the Force, or… something else.

“Alright there, Obi-Wan?” asked Anakin tenderly, head tilted. While Obi-Wan was trapped in his own thoughts, his playful lover had paused and leaned over him. One elbow propped up his weight. A gentle hand was skimming over Obi-Wan’s chest.

It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. But seeing that beloved face was a ruinous experience for his sense of calm. As if possessed, Obi-Wan reached up to Anakin’s face—Shado’s face. But at the last minute, his fingertips skittered away from the fake scar, as if afraid to confirm.

Instead, he flopped back down on the bed, sending his lover a rueful smile. “Sorry. And yes,” he breathed. “I’m more than alright.” He stretched his arms up and looped them lazily over Anakin’s shoulders, half-hoping it would dispel the illusion. Half-fearful that it would.

Anakin stared at him for a moment longer, expression probing. Then his mouth twisted in a sweet smile. “You better be.”

He dropped his head into the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck, pressing a small kiss there. His other hand moved between them. There was a growing sense of pressure against his hole. He knew this much about making love to a man, it seemed.

Mind stuttering, Obi-Wan dug his nails briefly into Anakin’s shoulders. He wanted this. Oh, how he wanted this. And oh, how he shouldn’t.

“You should know, Obi-Wan. I’m never letting you go again.”

-

Hours later…

Obi-Wan stood in his fresher, alone. Mid-afternoon light pierced through the window. His arms were crossed over his chest, and one hand was lightly skimming over his cheek where Shado had pressed a parting kiss just an hour prior. Sounding regretful, he’d murmured something about an engagement. Nonsense, of course. Unless he was being facetious. Obi-Wan hadn’t been awake enough to ask. The bed he’d been granted was still too soft to fall asleep on. However, Obi-Wan now knew it was also nearly impossible to leave.

Obi-Wan did so eventually, of course, making his way to the fresher. But this was hardly by choice. He truly did want to sleep. But fatigue battered against a strange sort of energetic nervousness, a drive to do… something.

And so here he was, hardly soothed, standing in front of his fresher mirror and staring at himself.

He tugged at the collar of his shirt briefly, eyeing a reddened patch below. Then he turned the faucet on, if only to have something to do.

He had no reason to do so. He was clean. Shado was a considerate lover. While Obi-Wan was still recovering from their tryst, his charge had retrieved some wet cloths for their use—for his use, rather. Shado had wiped himself down speedily before turning careful attention to Obi-Wan, taking the time to even wipe between each of Obi-Wan’s fingers. It was enough to make Obi-Wan feel especially prized, a rare sensation that was as humbling and sweet as it was uncomfortable and ill-fitting.

The light was brighter in the room then, and Shado no longer resembled Anakin. Obi-Wan had both been bitterly relieved and deeply disappointed.

Steam from the water floated vaguely upward, adding to the humidity of the air. Obi-Wan braced both hands on either side of the sink, watching the water swirl and exit the drain, unused. He hovered there somewhat absently, aware of a hundred small and lovely hurts all over his body.

Periodically, he flicked his gaze upwards once more to the mirror. The sight of himself occasionally forced him to reorientate himself and categorize the nature of his current reality—but mostly, he just ignored it, eyes dropping down again, deep in his own thoughts.

Perhaps a smarter person would ruminate over the many consequences of tangling himself intimately with someone who knew so many of his secrets. Perhaps a better Jedi would concern themselves over the implications of being a person who had so easily jumped in the bed with someone who reminded him of a Sith Lord. And perhaps a better lover would fret at the idea of confusing his current partner with another, especially one who had never been a partner in the first place.  

Instead of those things, though, Obi-Wan ruminated over the existence of alternate realities. Different universes and different destinies teased out by the presence of different pivotal variables and different life-changing choices.

Maybe there was a universe where Anakin never Fell. Maybe there was a universe where all of Palpatine’s plans fell into pieces around him. Maybe there was a universe where, after the war, Obi-Wan and Anakin were allowed to live out the rest of their lifelong friendship with no extraordinary drama to speak of.

And maybe there was a universe where Anakin had fallen in love with Obi-Wan instead of Padmé .

Obi-Wan’s hands tightened into fists. He pressed his weight a little harder against them until his knuckles started to ache against the hard countertop. Then he sighed deeply, leaning back, being kinder to himself.

It was not important for anyone to know when, how, or why his brotherly affection for Anakin had become romantic in nature. In the backdrop of the war—and Anakin’s obvious infatuation with Padmé —the increasing tenderness of Obi-Wan’s feelings seemed irrelevant. After he got over the pain of knowing it was not to be—a peace that had come after he tried to warn Padmé  off his padawan, more’s the shame—he had been almost amused with his predictability.

How like Obi-Wan to fall in love with such a difficult person. And how like him to fall in love with a person who would never choose him first. All the great loves of his life had been like this, and so a well-practiced Obi-Wan just affectionately pushed his feelings into a box, closed the lid, and wished them all the very best.

And it did seem they were on the pathway towards happiness, those two. Anakin loved Padmé , and Padmé  loved Anakin—and Obi-Wan loved them both for loving each other.

For the simple magical ways they brightened up in each other’s presence. For the energy Padmé  sparked in Anakin’s war weary and increasingly stressed face. For the conviction Anakin inspired in Padmé  in her never-ending fight against the greed and fear that inundated the Senate. For the two beautiful lives their love had brought into existence.

Obi-Wan had been prepared for the grief of losing Anakin to Padmé  and a life free from the Order. He had not been prepared for the both of them to lose Anakin to the Sith, and for Obi-Wan to lose Padmé  to death so shortly after. One by one, the steady pillars that defined his existence had been pulled out from under him in those terrible first days of the Empire.

But today, Obi-Wan wasn’t thinking of alternate universes of what-ifs, of small changes in choices that could have led to slightly better outcomes. He’d spent an entire decade under two unforgiving suns doing that. Instead, he thought of fantastical realities where core premises of his adult life were turned on their heads.

What if Palpatine died before the end of the war? What if Qui-Gon had survived his fight with Maul? What if Anakin was never tempted by the Dark Side? What if the clones never turned on the Jedi?

What if Anakin had it in his heart to love Obi-Wan a little too?

Obi-Wan’s face twisted. What a mortifying thought—and the more receptive Obi-Wan imagined Anakin, the more mortifying it became. Oh, goodness. Obi-Wan wouldn’t have made it easy on either of them. And nor would Anakin. His padawan had such strong feelings about, well, feelings. Love, loyalty, and commitment were all things threaded deeply in Anakin’s very being before he ever became a Jedi, and he would not tolerate Obi-Wan’s prevarications.  

And Obi-Wan wouldn’t be able to hide behind the Order for very long either. Once padawans were Knights, the Jedi did not explicitly restrict relationships between padawans and their former Masters. Many of their kind lived so long, it hardly mattered who trained who in what area and for how long.

They did, however, scrutinize such relationships carefully for undue attachment—and the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin would not pass cleanly without comment. Even in this very universe, where they only knew of each other as teacher and student, friend and confidant, colleague and ally, they would have failed such an assessment.

They were too close, very nearly one soul fractured into two bodies. What a disaster that would have been. Anakin cared so deeply and strongly about the people he thought of as his own, and Obi-Wan, despite his attempts to live a different sort of life, was terribly susceptible to attachment and the regard of other beings. Had there not been a war…

Obi-Wan’s mouth pulled into a rueful smirk. Ah, but such musings were indulgent, were they not? What if, what abouts, and speculative universes were not a productive use of his time, as he only had one life to live, and that one life was planted deeply into this particular reality and its sets of variables.

One of those variables was that Anakin was dead and out of reach.

Another related variable was, of course, how deeply Vader loathed Obi-Wan.

And just that morning, Obi-Wan had deeply—and convincingly—imagined Anakin’s face in bed.

Grimacing, Obi-Wan rocked back on his heels, crossing his arms so tightly over his stomach, he might as well have been giving himself a hug.

What if Vader saw it too?

Disturbed by this thought, Obi-Wan closed his eyes, scrutinizing what remained of his bond with Anakin. The shields blocking off that neglected place were as strong as ever. But what if they had slipped this morning? What if he had reached out to Vader unconsciously, just like that time two years ago? What if the reason his pathetic imaginings were so strong was because he dragged Vader in as an unwanted participant?

The consequences would be catastrophic. The revulsion Vader would feel. The hatred. The sheer disgust and rage.

How many people would die because of Obi-Wan’s feelings for a dead man?

Externally, Obi-Wan chewed on his lip, agonizing over it. Internally, he circled the shields, searching for any crack or hole that would have betrayed him to Vader. Despite sensing nothing of the sort, he got closer and closer, orbiting until—

There was an abrupt yank under his navel. Obi-Wan’s eyes flew open, and his hands shot out, grabbing the edge of the counter. The faucet in front of him continued to pump out hot water, and the mirror in front of him was fogged almost half-way up the surface. He was still in his borrowed fresher on Tonyani.

But the mirror told a different story. The wooden walls and the antique fresher door had disappeared entirely, opening up into a metal upon metal chamber. Bone yellow and harsh white lights merged into each other, and the chill of forced dry air from that other space had the hairs on Obi-Wan’s arms standing up instantly.

In the center of the chamber behind him was an elevated seat, half-obscured by panels. A large form sat in that chair, slumped over and brooding, a mechanical hand hiding most of a bared and pale face.

Obi-Wan swallowed heavily. Fingers shaking, he reached out and shut off the faucet in front of him. The absence of that small noise changed nothing; he hadn’t been noticed. But nor could he shake himself out of this vision. No matter how tightly he closed his eyes or how quickly he retreated from that terrible bond, the vision remained in the mirror, nearly a static image for all that it refused to bend to his will.

A strange calm possessed him. He was not content to keep holding his breath so he could remain an unseen specter in the corner. He would spring the trap, if there was one, and keep his enemy on his toes, if there wasn’t.

“You’re wasting a great deal of resources these days, Darth,” Obi-Wan commented, breaking the silence. His tone was casual, but his eyes remained fixed on the mirror, unblinking. “And Tonyani is a rather unimportant planet too.” Obi-Wan thought of Shado suddenly. With faint humor, he said, “No matter what the locals think.”

Behind him, the figure on the chair had stirred at his first sentence, as if just now registering his presence in the meditation chamber. Gold-red eyes seeped through spread fingers, landing with some weight on Obi-Wan’s back—and the rather odd tableau he had brought with him, fresher and all.

Obi-Wan was petrified. Nevertheless, he continued. “Your fixation on the planet seems somewhat… unwise. Especially after the rather public disaster of Eizoz VII, don’t you think?”

There was a pause. Then Vader slowly rose from his seat, still half hidden from view by the surrounding panels. With measured heavy steps, he descended from the elevated chair, facing Obi-Wan in his entirety at the last moment.

Still watching through the mirror, Obi-Wan didn’t dare breathe, didn’t dare move.

Vader wasn’t wearing his suit. Obi-Wan didn’t think that was possible, but here he was. His head was bare, as was his torso. His death-pale body was a portrait of disaster and suffering, wide burn scars marking up the tapestry of his skin. Black and gray life system ports stood out starkly against his body, a sharp-edged reminder of how badly Obi-Wan had destroyed his best friend on the lava banks of Mustafar—and how much stronger he’d become to make up for it.

Slowly, Vader made his way over, his head cocked to the side. He too seemed not to understand this vision—and that was a confirmation Obi-Wan hadn’t screwed up after all, hadn’t dragged Vader into bed with Shado and himself that morning. Because if he had, would Vader be so surprised to see him? Surely not.

Abruptly, Obi-Wan could breathe a little better, and, with that clarity, Obi-Wan realized the innocent life he’d worried most over was Shado’s all along. Vader would kill anyone over a slight—but Shado, he feared, would not be allowed to die so quickly.

Shaking his head, Obi-Wan turned on the faucet again, drenching his hands. They were clammy all of a sudden, and washing up did a decent job of hiding the way he kept shaking. Head down, Obi-Wan said mildly, “The flight of a single youngling Inquisitor shouldn’t consume you so, Darth.”  

Wood creaked. Obi-Wan looked up, blinking at the mirror. Vader was on his side of the vision now, boots planted on the fresher floor. He stood behind Obi-Wan now, taller than expected. As tall as Shado, even. He was not armed, but he didn’t need to be; Obi-Wan’s hackles were fully raised.

They were so close, feverish heat lit up Obi-Wan’s back now. Obi-Wan had been described a number of times in his life as a somewhat arrogant fellow, and he understood that opinion in times like these more than any other. But still, he did not move, eyes on the predator behind him.

Vader continued to advance. Unlike Obi-Wan, his eyes were not fixed to the mirror but to Obi-Wan himself. He never looked away, even when they were heel to toe, even when all he could see of Obi-Wan was the top of his head and shoulders. Only then did he stop advancing. Instead, he lifted both durasteel hands. From the base of Obi-Wan’s neck to his elbows, Vader then traced an outline of Obi-Wan’s shoulders and arms without ever touching him. His left hand paused only once, lingering where Shado had left a bite.    

Outline finished, Vader’s hands fell to the counter on either side of Obi-Wan. Vader then dropped his head next to Obi-Wan’s cheek, searching for—and capturing—Obi-Wan’s gaze in the mirror. A thick ring of red circled Vader’s gold irises, reminding Obi-Wan of warm blue gazes, forever lost.  

For a moment, Vader did nothing. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan’s heart thudded rapidly in his chest, like a caged bird attempting flight. He could hear the counter creak, impossibly, under that double metal handed grip. Over his right ear, his hair moved under the pressure of a labored exhale of air.

Then Vader quietly spoke, but not with the commanding baritone he was known for. Instead, he spoke with the scratchy, strained, terrifying voice Obi-Wan knew better than his own—Anakin’s voice.

“Why would I chase the youngling,” Vader murmured in his ear, “when I could have the Master instead?”

Obi-Wan’s nerves fled him; instantly, he spun, an elbow at the ready. But the second he turned, the vision collapsed in on itself. Vader completely disappeared, as did the image of his meditation chamber, leaving Obi-Wan alone in the humid sticky air of Tonyani.

Deeply rattled, Obi-Wan sank to the floor, sliding down against the cabinet storage.

Damn it. Damn it.

-

Several days later, the sound of bird song broke through the afternoon air.

Down a seldom used hallway, a single droid in a pack of four turned at the chirping call from its distant brethren, interested. The large burden in its hands—a wooden door—started to lower to the ground.

On the third rung of a stepstool, Obi-Wan removed the screwdriver from his mouth, tsking at the droid. “Patience, patience. Coruscant wasn’t built in a day.” As if to emphasize this point, he promptly rapped the droid’s head with the tool, creating a hollow ringing noise.

The droid snapped back at attention, lifting the door back up to the correct height. Rebelliously, it chattered on about how stupid he was—what was a Coruscant anyways?

Regrettably, Obi-Wan was becoming extremely fluent in Binary.

Apparently, one of the villa’s charming antique doors had needed fixing that day. One of the hinges had bent in such a way that the door was no longer closing, and no one was confessing to the damages. Truthfully, Obi-Wan might have never known there were damages in the first place; the droids were a self-sufficient bunch, as eager to fulfill their own programming as they were to hide evidence of what happened when they weren’t.

However, the droids in charge of maintenance and repair had been stumped by the door. The simple mechanism it operated on was apparently baffling, and these particular droids did not do so well with uncertainty. A very serious row ensued in the corridor. Obi-Wan would eventually stumble upon them in this state, beating each other over their domes with their favored door schematics.

After wrestling these unconventional weapons away from the droids, Obi-Wan had demanded they show him exactly where the hydraulic system was located in the solid wooden door, in which knot hid the retina scanner, and in which grain existed the motion detector. All standard things that should exist in all doors, alleged the droids.

When none of them could answer, he ordered them to stop arguing and to start assisting him instead. He would fix this door himself.

The doubt they’d projected at him after this announcement was deeply insulting. As was the awe they expressed when the hinge was fixed, as promised. Now, the door could finally close, an outcome they tested vigorously and with glee.

Open-closed, open-closed, open-closed.

Climbing off the stepstool, Obi-Wan sighed, folding up the tool. What annoying creatures. He couldn’t even enjoy the fruits of his labor. Jolting, he stepped back when one of the droids promptly and cheerfully took the stepstool from his arm. Followed by the other droids, it trundled off with it, chirping on about the cleverness of its new ally. A helpful organic being, who would have thought?

“And I suppose those oil baths you all enjoy appear out of nowhere, then?” Obi-Wan said to no one in particular. He might as well have been speaking to a wall.

Shaking his head—still a bit demoralized himself—he walked off to the kitchen, vague plans of a late lunch dancing in his head.

He stopped in the doorway of the room, staring. He’d been warned by birdsong but somehow, he’d still been caught off guard.

Shado was there, standing at a counter. More than standing, he was chugging an entire jar of fresh juice as if he had just walked out of a desert. In front of him, three cupboard doors were open, clearly mid-excavation, and a small pile of snacks and local fruit were stacked on a lovely serving plate Obi-Wan had assumed was reserved for extremely important guests.

At a click in Obi-Wan’s throat, Shado turned, icy eyes sweeping over—and finding—Obi-Wan half a room away. The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled, as if he was smiling, though it was hard to tell through the jar. Shado didn’t stop drinking until every bit of the fluid was gone, finally parting with a satisfied sigh.

“It’s you,” Shado said quietly, voice rasping.

Obi-Wan took this as his cue to step inside. “Who else would it be?”

Considering and cycling through several safe conversation topics—including his recent adventure with the door—Obi-Wan closed the distance between them in several careful movements. Hard won experience told him he should make himself scarce. But now that he was caught in Shado’s orbit, he wasn’t inclined to retreat. He’d weathered worst storms than the sour attitude of a newly awakened charge.

But if there was thunder on the horizon, it wasn’t yet visible. At Obi-Wan’s response, Shado had just hummed noncommittally. Then, as Obi-Wan continued to watch him cautiously, like he was a bomb about to blow, Shado spun around, leaning against the counter in a casual sprawl that invited closeness. Still humming faintly, Shado looked at the inside of the jar thoughtfully, head bowed.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Shado said, apropos of nothing. “Thinking about nothing other than you, really.” He set aside the jar with a careless gesture. “For example, I was just thinking how strange it is that I keep forgetting how much you loved Anakin Skywalker.”

His icy gaze flicked upward then, hitting Obi-Wan with all of the suddenness of a knife in the dark.

Obi-Wan blinked at him slowly. Oh no. It was bad enough that he had imagined Anakin in bed. Had he done something as horrific as saying his name too in mid-coitus? Mortified, Obi-Wan shook his head, reaching past Shado for the jar, examining it for cracks.

“Please, don’t pick a fight,” he murmured, carrying it over to the sink.

Shado followed him, shuffling. “I’m not,” he said defensively, sharply. Then softer, he said, “Not this time, anyway.” He fidgeted in place as Obi-Wan washed out the jar. “It’s just… strange. Isn’t it? That I keep forgetting?”

Obi-Wan eyed him at a slight angle, a small curiosity winning out over his own brand of defensiveness. Shado’s repetition of his observation didn’t reveal malice, but rather a deep-rooted anxiety. This wasn’t an accusation.

“It’s not so strange,” Obi-Wan said softly, trying to offer him a way out. Trying to be kind. “It’s just… convenient.” After all, it was easier to hate people you didn’t empathize with.

Shado caught Obi-Wan’s hand before it could reach for the sponge. “Convenient, yes. But for who.” They caught each other’s gazes for a moment. Then Shado let go of him, a thumb swiping over the back of his wrist apologetically. “Sorry. I’m… guessing that’s not a question for you.”

Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed, his curiosity fully piqued. But Shado was swaying away from him, humming one more. This line of inquiry was closed—for the moment, anyway. So Obi-Wan went back to cleaning the jar, and Shado went back to digging through the kitchen.

Being asleep for two days had left his charge with quite the appetite. The pile turned into a mountain. Obi-Wan made a couple of suggestions, and the mountain grew, Obi-Wan made some tea. Shado asked for a cup, and Obi-Wan provided it. They moved around each other with practiced ease.

It was comfortable. It was domestic.

It was wrong.

“Shado,” Obi-Wan said abruptly. “We need to talk.”

Shado turned then. He was on the verge of walking out the door with his bounty. Looking at Obi-Wan’s face for a moment, he nodded and walked back to the counter, depositing his meal. Then he crossed his arms over his chest, a strange smile working its way across his face.

“What?” Obi-Wan snapped defensively.

Shado’s smile grew. “I know what this is,” he murmured, eyes dancing.

“Do you?”

“Hm.” Shado ducked his head, nodding again. And then, just as carefully as Obi-Wan had entered the room, he sidled up to Obi-Wan, leaving his meal behind. “You’re about to tell me we can’t sleep together again.” Visibly amused, he looked at and then fiddled with the end of Obi-Wan’s shirt. “It’s wrong or immoral or unprofessional. Take your pick.” His eyes jumped up. “And I’m about to tell you all the reasons why we’re going to sleep together again anyway.”

His voice was low and deep and oh-so-annoyingly confident. Worse still, there was an irresistible and dancing mirth in his eyes.

Obi-Wan cocked his head. “I’m listening.”

Shado stepped in a little closer. “We’re surrounded by soldiers. There’s nothing to do. You’re bored. You can’t contact your friends. Every time you leave the villa, you inevitably pick a petty fight with the Empire. You hate Tonyani’s arts and entertainment scene.” The corner of his mouth ticked up higher. He leaned in, whispering, “And lastly—and most importantly—you find me incredibly attractive.”

There was nothing particularly incorrect about Shado’s statements. Damn him. “Is that last thing really something you should be so smug about?” Obi-Wan asked instead. “Thank your genetic donors before you applaud yourself.”

Shado laughed. “In some ways, I am my own creator. So I think I will applaud myself first.”

Obi-Wan frowned at him. In the growing vault of questions and hypotheses he had about Shado, he tossed a scribbled note with the word orphan?? on it before moving on. “It’s not unprofessional, wrong, or immoral to engage in consensual intercourse,” he said. “It just makes things complicated.” He couldn’t believe he had to have this conversation with a courtesan. “And you. You so heedlessly refer to such relations as an alternative to other pursuits—or as a distraction.” Obi-Wan searched his face. “Does it not bother you? Being used as a diversion?”

Shado stared at him for a long moment. Obi-Wan’s charge had a habit of doing so, and in ways that made one feel like a subject at the end of a scalpel—or like an animal about to end up as the prey of a much larger predator who liked to play with its food. After a beat, however, his face softened, and his hand, unseen, found its way to one of Obi-Wan’s, pulling it a little.

“There’s nothing I’d like more than for you to use me,” Shado whispered, nearly shy. “Nothing I’d like more than to wake up with you beside me.”

“That’s not likely to happen.” Hurt flickered over Shado’s face. Obi-Wan hurried to clarify. “You have a terrible sleeping schedule. And you wake up horrifically angry.”

Rather than reassuring him, these words seemed to have the opposite effect. A twisted expression crossed Shado’s face. “What. I can’t feel things now?”

His tone was sullen and combative, and his hand flexed once on Obi-Wan’s own. Regretting the shift in tone, Obi-Wan grabbed it with his other, pinning the hand still.

“Feeling things is not an issue. It’s what you do with those emotions that’s the problem. And I have no patience for that nasty temper of yours.”

Shado was rigid and still. He was reddening all over, and Obi-Wan was suddenly reminded of their fight in his patron’s office, of the venomous words that were flung. Shado had somehow known exactly what to say to beat past Obi-Wan’s serenity, and he had done it so severely, Obi-Wan had left the house for nearly two days and ran afoul of the Grand Inquisitor.

If Obi-Wan opened himself up to the room now—to the Force itself—what would Obi-Wan feel? As much malice as the day Shado lured him away from the cantina? A putrid hatred of all and everything Obi-Wan was and will be? A burning desire to inflict untold hurt and violence?

What would Shado say this time?

“I’m sorry. I’ll work on it.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help reeling back, incredulous. Shado still looked furious. His jaw was tight enough to break teeth, surely. But his eyes were closed, and he was breathing in and out in a recognizable sort of way, like he himself had a passing familiarity with meditation. He tugged on Obi-Wan’s hands, lip tucked between his teeth.

Shado’s eyes slowly opened, mere slits at first. He was staring at the ground. “I don’t—it’s just—I don’t wake up angry.” Again with this confounding man, taking what should have been an accusation and instead turning it into an anxious plea for understanding. “I wake up remembering anger. But the longer I stay awake, the less I remember. And the less I feel it. The less… I act on it.”

There was a long pause. Then—

“I see. That seems difficult,” Obi-Wan said gravely. Shado’s eyes moved back to his, and he looked so painfully relieved.

Obi-Wan still didn’t fully understand. His master teased Obi-Wan over his adolescent temper, but Obi-Wan had never felt particularly controlled by it. Buoyed by it, perhaps, or carried along, but never controlled. Grief, on the other hand, had firmly leashed him for a time. Hopelessness and desperation and aching loneliness. These were all emotions he’d been at the mercy of in the last decade or so, his unwanted navigators for a life seemingly destined for unhappiness.  

At some point, Obi-Wan had stopped pinning Shado’s hand between his own, soothing and massaging it instead. “Have you figured out what helps you work through those memories?” Despite his best intentions, his voice was very gentle.

“Time. And you,” Shado replied slowly, his tone raw. “You’re not the only one seeking distractions, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan ducked his head, chastised. Then he nodded once. “Then you must work on it. Anger is a dangerous emotion.”

“I’ll do better,” Shado promised again, earnestly.

Obi-Wan smiled encouragingly at him. He hoped that wasn’t a lie.

Chapter Text

A week passed. The Imperial presence on Tonyani swelled and swelled. Short-lived returns of certain freedoms and rights were squashed. The communication tower Obi-Wan risked his life to escape was dismantled and tore down, just like all of the others across the planet. In the city, one couldn’t throw a stone without accidentally hitting a stormtrooper patrol, and few citizens had been spared their scrutiny. Even those with credits and rank were having their feathers ruffled these days, not that this stopped Shado from promising, smugly, that an Imperial agent would never darken their door.

This constant slow crush of authority had the oddest effect on Tonyani’s populace. Instead of inspiring rebellion or more resentment, those who had complained the most about the imposition of the Empire were now its strongest advocates, chattering on merrily about the peace and order that the Empire had newly introduced. The Emperor was invoked often as a fatherly figure who knew best for them all. All they needed to do was trust in the process and welcome the resources that the Empire had so lovingly granted them.

It was a revolting point of view, and Obi-Wan did not envy those hapless mouthpieces, for he dreaded to know what horrors had occurred for them to so swiftly change their point of view.

Though armed with less influence and smaller spheres of power, other Tonyani citizens aligned themselves eventually with the loudest of their neighbors, quietly adopting a wretched sort of apathy that Obi-Wan thought was the most honest reaction of them all.

What is a single person to do under the oppression of an Empire that everyone else seemed to embrace? You thought of the people you needed to stay alive for, you bowed your head, and you endured. That was that. Even Obi-Wan did it. After all, he couldn’t die here. Not when the twins might better use the dregs of his existence in the near or far future.

So Obi-Wan continued as he had days and weeks before. He maintained the house. He monitored and cared for the droids. He watched over his charge. He kept an eye on the starport for exploitable changes.

And in between those activities, he allowed himself to be… distracted. On numerous occasions. He really only needed to have sex with Shado a second time to confirm, for the final time, that he hadn’t somehow dragged Vader into his bed. Shado had remained Shado that time, which settled it for him—and should have really ended their sexual relations there too. But then Shado would smile at him through a window. He would kiss him behind a curtain. He would drop to his knees in front of him with a fetching flush, and, well— 

Obi-Wan did find him attractive. Physically. But worse than that, he found Shado appealing, and in a multitude of the most awful ways. He had an understated charisma nearly hidden by his aggression and excessive sense of pride. He was intelligent, viciously so. His competitiveness was equally jarring, popping up in the weirdest of places, and he was unsettling in way that Obi-Wan associated with challenge and adventure. His fixated attention on Obi-Wan was fascinating in its own way too, if only for its novelty. He was used to inspiring such intensity in enemies only.  

In short, Shado wasn’t the kind of person that Obi-Wan would just enjoy experiencing, for good or ill. He was the kind of person Obi-Wan would actively indulge and spoil, a fact that didn’t bode well for either of them. This was a weakness Obi-Wan was doing his best to shed himself of. But Shado’s mere presence—coupled with his genuine attempts to make himself more palatable for Obi-Wan’s nerves—was making that endeavor incredibly difficult.

Obi-Wan was growing very fond of him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy before.”

They were outside, the both of them. The courtyard was in full bloom. Petals from several tall flowering bushes occasionally shook free of their constraints, floating gently downwards under the influence of a uncharacteristically cool breeze. Obi-Wan was stripped down to his pants, practicing his forms with a short pole. Shado, on the other hand, having emerged from another tumultuous dream of rage just hours prior had ambled outside in silence. After watching Obi-Wan a bit, he descended into the grass, sprawling out there like a youth idling away time under the sun and in between stretches of coursework.

Shado was watching him contently. Half of his face was obscured by his hand, and his eyes didn’t leave Obi-Wan’s body. It was peaceful.

“Why wouldn’t I be happy?” Shado replied after several long minutes. His voice sounded drowsy. “I have what I want, and what I have is more than I thought.” There was a pause as Obi-Wan twisted under the strike of an imaginary opponent. “You may see me as a rude creature, but I do understand gratitude.”

Obi-Wan retreated to the starting form, breathing in slowly. “What about your patron?”

There was a longer pause. “Fuck my patron.” This made Obi-Wan stop. For such a venomous statement, it was said so calmly. He turned to Shado then, frowning.

Face no longer obscured, Shado was staring at him directly. “He can die. Slowly and painfully. In darkness and forever forgotten. And trust me, I will hasten that ending for him in as many ways as I can.”

These words were so cold.

Abruptly, Shado sat up, hugging his knee. Lightly, and almost like he was trying to reassure Obi-Wan, he said, “But in the meantime, we’re stuck here, and I intend to enjoy myself while I can.”

That didn’t seem wise. Shado’s current way and quality of life relied so much on his patron. “If you’re truly planning on opposing your patron, then you cannot be here. I do not put it past Imperial courts to reinterpret your existing contract in his favor, excising any language that would provide you with protections or options to leave.”

For a moment, Shado’s expression was blank. Then, he had the faintest smile on his face. “Are you trying to save me, Obi-Wan?” There was such affection in his voice.

Obi-Wan’s frown deepened. “It is not safe to stay in a place where you are known to be. If you need to leave—”

“No one is leaving Tonyani,” Shado interrupted suddenly, just as Obi-Wan was about to offer his help. His tone was cold again, as was his expression. After a moment, he relented, throwing himself back into the grass. “Tonyani, for all intents and purposes, is a planet-wide prison. You need to accept that.” His hands came up, rubbing at his cheeks. “It won’t be that way forever, I’m sure of it. And when that day comes…” Shado paused. He paused so long, Obi-Wan was sure he was done speaking.

And then, very quietly, he said, “I’ll take you anywhere you want.”

Obi-Wan let that promise hang in the air a while longer, unmatched. Then he cleared his throat, pulling an unused rod from the grasses with the Force. It slapped into his palm loudly, enough to draw Shado’s attention again. Obi-Wan twirled it idly, walking a few steps away.

As he measured out an appropriate arena with his eyes, Obi-Wan said, “I don’t know how long you’ve been on this planet, but the galaxy is a dangerous place. You should know how to defend yourself.”

“I know how to defend myself,” Shado drawled. Nevertheless, he sounded interested, even a little eager. When Obi-Wan turned, he was already sitting up straight, watching him. He caught the rod Obi-Wan tossed him easily and, without complaints, hauled himself to his feet. He retreated from his place of leisure to join Obi-Wan in the middle of the courtyard, seeming to instinctively understand where they would clash and how he should hold his weapon for optimum defense.

Obi-Wan smiled serenely—then promptly attacked with Anakin’s preferred form.

Shado swore loudly, immediately on the defensive. Every strike had him staggering backwards, losing ground. Obi-Wan was initially careful to aim only for the rod, else he’d break the courtesan’s fingers, but he found such diligence wasn’t entirely required. Shado did, in fact, know how to defend himself, and his timing was impeccable.

But his shoulders were stiff, and his face was furrowed in his deepest look of concentration yet. Obi-Wan expected he was thinking far too much about what to do and how to do it, instead of letting the weapon speak for him. Nevertheless, this was far more enjoyable than fighting a droid. No matter how many times he explained the practice, most of them complained bitterly about hostile work environments and the innate and illogical aggression of organic beings the entire time.

So Obi-Wan didn’t push Shado, meeting him on his level instead.

They spent several long moments battling like this, rod clacking against rod in the empty courtyard, a pleasant draft kissing overheated skin. The tension on Shado’s face eased just a little bit, as if he had been reminded somehow that this was just for fun. He chuckled at the way a clump of mud flew and splattered across Obi-Wan’s stomach, and Obi-Wan teased him for slipping on some wet leaves. At some points, Shado’s moves almost looked like Obi-Wan’s own preferred forms, which didn’t surprise Obi-Wan. Shado did seem like the sort of rare genius who could pick things up just by watching once or twice. And when Shado’s movements started to look more like Anakin’s, well, wasn’t that Obi-Wan’s fault for showing off?

Despite everything and the horrors of it all, Obi-Wan was in a good mood.

Without any warning, he promptly ended the fight, going for Shado’s knees. Clever Shado blocked the blow of the rod easily but could do nothing about the Force push Obi-Wan exerted at the same moment. He hit the ground—grasses again, Obi-Wan made sure of it—on his back. He sat up almost immediately, snarling.

But before Shado could give into the worst of his combative impulses, Obi-Wan dropped down on his hips.

Obi-Wan’s weapon fell, rolling away on the grass. “You lost,” he whispered. In the corner of his eyes, he saw movement. The silly man was still trying to fight. He pinned the other weapon to the ground with the Force.

“You cheated!” Shado exclaimed. His face was pink and sweating, and he strained against the Force hold, as if he was operating under the assumption that this hold was a thing that could be overpowered.

However, he finally stilled when Obi-Wan’s fingers skated over his throat.

“At what point did I promise not to use the Force?” Obi-Wan’s fingers slid lower, unlooping the first button of his fine shirt to expose more of his chest. “You may hate losing, but in life, sometimes losing is the best thing you can do. Sometimes, you may find unexpected rewards when you let. Go. Of. Your. Weapon.” Never breaking eye contact, Obi-Wan rolled their hips together meaningfully.

They were both hard.

Shado stared at him incredulously. Then, finally catching up, he dropped his weapon, both hands flying up to grasp Obi-Wan’s waist. “Are you trying to seduce me?” Bless him, he sounded scandalized.

Fucking in the hangar amongst the debris of half-assembled starships was apparently uncontroversial, but coming on to him in a fight? That was outrageous. Oh, how he would have hated Ventress.

“Is it working?” Obi-Wan asked curiously before leaning over, sucking a vivid mark on Shado’s neck. Ah. Lovely.

Shado relaxed in increments, and his hands started to explore up Obi-Wan’s back. “I don’t think you understand how addictive your full attention is,” he breathed. He laid down under his own steam, taking them both back down into the grasses.

“And I don’t think you should have told me that,” Obi-Wan said, shifting. It took a bit of maneuvering, but they were groin to groin again like this, horizontal now. “I could play you like an instrument. Lead you along by the leash of your affections.”

“You say that like you don’t already.”

Obi-Wan frowned at that. With Shado’s help, they shrugged off his shirt too. “Does that upset you, dearest?”

Shado’s pupils were huge in those icy, icy eyes. He swallowed once. Then he took one of Obi-Wan’s hands between his own, pressing his palm against the center of his bared chest. “I place my leash in your hands, Master,” he said slowly, terribly grave. “And I hope I never regret doing it.”

Shado’s heart was battering against Obi-Wan’s palm. It was hard to tell if it was beating so out of excitement or fear.

Obi-Wan considered—and not for the first time—correcting him. Pedantically. The correct mode of address for a civilian conversing with a Jedi—respectfully—was Master Jedi, not Master alone. But he didn’t correct him then, and he probably never would at this point.

Instead, he kissed him—lightly at first, then harder as Shado opened up to him eagerly, as Shado allowed him to push him deeper into the grasses. He braced both elbows on either side of Shado’s head, carelessly tangling his fingers his hair as he continued to kiss him nonchalantly, as lovers would.

-

A Few Days Later…

Obi-Wan woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of his door opening. Slow footsteps made their way from the door to where Obi-Wan was laying on the floor. As they got closer and closer, Obi-Wan wondered how he should react this time, or if he should feign unconsciousness.

Shado had been asleep only 26 hours this time, and Obi-Wan hadn’t been warned of his waking, likely because all of the droids were currently experiencing their own rare sleep cycles. Shado’s memories of rage were likely very strong at the moment, a fact Obi-Wan couldn’t help but dread.

The floor creaked. Then weight was distributed by his head as Shado slowly descended and sat on the floor by Obi-Wan’s makeshift nest.

Making a decision, Obi-Wan slowly turned to him, squinting up at him in the dark.

Shado was dressed in an unfamiliar tunic and pants. They were light in color, but Obi-Wan couldn’t tell any more. His courtesan cord stood out starkly, if only because of the contrast in color. Shado’s hair was pulled, as usual, in a loose braid—looser than usual, likely due to his sleep. Shado was staring right back at him, his mouth a thin line and his eyes hooded.

“Can I help you?” Obi-Wan rasped, still sleepy.

Eerily, Shado’s expression didn’t change. “I dreamt you left me,” he said flatly.

Obi-Wan grunted and sat up, palming his face briefly as if to wipe away his own exhaustion. Then he turned, pivoting in his nest. Somewhat humorously, he said, “I too have been burdened with the gift of prophecy myself, once or twice. Though I suppose the word gift is ill-suiting here.”

“I am not joking around,” Shado replied, again in that strangely wooden voice.

Wary now, Obi-Wan sat up a little straighter. “Nor am I.” They stared at each other for several minutes in the darkness. Then, softly, Obi-Wan said, “Beyond assuring you that you are awake now, I do not know how to soothe your nightmares, dear one.”

Shado’s expression became even more severe, his eyebrows bending together with force. But he accepted that—or seemed to—looking down briefly at his hands. Then he said, “Tell me about the Jedi and their visions of the future.”

Obi-Wan very much did not want to. “It’s not a topic I’d consider appropriate for bedtime.”

“Humor me.”

Obi-Wan stared at him for a moment, then looked off in the general direction of the windows. With a thought, his curtains moved out of the way, lighting up his room with the sight of a very bright, very white moon. While the sight was heartening to Obi-Wan, the new glow did nothing to soften Shado’s visage nor improve his mood. So Obi-Wan acquiesced, watching the moon.  

“Seeing the future is an exceptional talent,” Obi-Wan started slowly. “But it’s one that is rarely ever wanted. Especially in recent eras, it has never been clear to the Jedi whether you are expected to be a watcher, a herald, or an intervenor. Foresight is a distressing thing, and certain actors and agents of more malicious intents have been known to manipulate and plant visions to trick people.” Obi-Wan paused. Then, delicately, he said, “But even if the Sith didn’t do such a thing, there have been many tales of Jedi rushing to stop a vision… only to usher it into reality themselves through their own actions.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shado’s hand spasm. But when Obi-Wan looked over, Shado’s face was still cold.  

“Futures are fixed,” Obi-Wan said after a beat. “It’s a theory of mine. If only out of sheer practicality, anyway.”

Shado’s expression intensified. “So futures might not be fixed.”

Obi-Wan sighed, leaning back on his arms. His attention veered back to the windows. “Perhaps. But what’s the point of trying to redirect destiny, anyway?”

“You’ve never promised you wouldn’t leave me.”

How strange was it that Shado could pitch a non-sequitur as if it was a direct response to his question? Obi-Wan didn’t answer right away, considering and discarding several responses. “We’re talking about your dream again, are we?”

The deflection route was immediately rejected. Obi-Wan’s arm was tugged away from him, and his attention with it.

“You’ve never promised,” Shado emphasized, eyes huge in the moonlight. “Haven’t I made you comfortable here? Haven’t I made sure you were safe?” He paused, then said, quieter, “I know you’re a Jedi, and Jedi don’t seek comfort or safety. But after the war, after the lives we’ve lived, isn’t it just a little tempting?”

At this point in their relationship, Obi-Wan felt very well equipped to deal with Shado’s arrogance and competitiveness as well as his anger and condescension. He was not so well resourced to deal with his earnestness and despair.

Obi-Wan covered Shado’s hand with his. “A place by your side is very tempting,” he said warmly. “But I still cannot promise you anything. I’m sorry.”

Shado’s expression broke. He pulled his hand out from under Obi-Wan’s, fisting it and its twin against his own thighs. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in and out. Then his eyes flew open again, and his expression was… strange. Not so much hopeless anymore as it was focused. Sharpened. Knowing.

“What I’m offering you is a near perfect future,” he said bluntly. “If you aren’t motivated by what I’m offering you, then you are driven by a greater purpose. A task.”

Not this again. “Good night, Shado,” Obi-Wan said, laying down in his nest again. He was on his back, his hands folded over his stomach. Shado was just out of sight.

Nevertheless, Obi-Wan could feel the vibrating tension of his charge. He kept one eye open just in case, but that caution didn’t prepare him for the way that Shado flopped down next to him—but, ah, not truly next to him, no. Instead, he laid down with Obi-Wan, practically ear-to-ear with him, but in opposing directions. The resulting—and bizarre—effect was the feeling that Shado was as close as he could get to Obi-Wan without laying directly on top of him. Curling up next to him was apparently not an option—because Shado was still angry. And still thinking. And a thinking Shado was as worrying as an angry one.

After a few moments of pretending to sleep, Obi-Wan reached up, stroking along the top of Shado’s ear. Shado let out a shuddering, nearly sobbing breath, and then, as if that touch had released a seal, he propped himself up, looking straight down on Obi-Wan’s face.

“What is your purpose, Obi-Wan?” he demanded, nearly begging. “Neither the Order nor the Republic exist. You are free. What leads you on your journey away from me?”

It was a heartfelt request, and Obi-Wan was not unmoved. And yet— “Dearest, and I do mean this kindly, but worry about figuring out your own motivations before you start dissecting mine.”

Shado hated this response. Abruptly, he leaned in, but he didn’t kiss Obi-Wan. Instead, he bit him, very lightly, a pinch and a scrape of teeth against his cheek, an unexpected and peeved action that nevertheless expressed his extreme irritation. And then, if Obi-Wan didn’t pick up on that, Shado flung himself back down, pointedly turning away.

“You’re not cute.”

Shado repeated his words mockingly, his shoulders bunched up his ears. Chuckling sympathetically, Obi-Wan pressed a kiss against the back of his head, against that messy braid, before settling down and going back to sleep.

-

A Few Days Later…

“Sometimes, I think I could forgive you for anything if I had your heartbeat engraved in my bone marrow. Other times, I think I could just settle for you not leaving me behind.”

Obi-Wan, in the middle of his near daily worship of a functioning water system with near infinite supplies, pulled his head out from under the shower. Annoyed, he stepped out of the unit, stalking over to the fresher door before flinging it open, naked and dripping.

Shado looked up from where he was leaning outside of the door, expression nearly guilty.

“Are you so easily discouraged?” Obi-Wan barked, having enough of this nonsense. “Just follow me into the shower! I’m not shy.”

Whatever contrition Shado felt had clearly disappeared; he was looking his fill instead, eyes dragging up and down slowly. Then, at Obi-Wan’s invitation, he pushed himself off the wall, bullying Obi-Wan back into the fresher with his bulk. “You could be shyer. There are droids around here.”

“You weren’t saying that before,” Obi-Wan taunted, allowing himself to be backed up. “Besides, all the droids talk about is how inefficient human copulation is when it comes to making new droids.”

“They still shouldn’t look at you.” Shado grabbed his chin and pressed a hard kiss to his lips.

“Petty, petty,” Obi-Wan sang, pushing Shado’s clothes off his body.

They entered the fresher together under that glorious deluge of warm, endless water. Everything was as it should be, Obi-Wan thought, feeling a bit amorous. He was in the process of wondering why he hadn’t suggested this before when he was turned away from Shado—and, more importantly, the stream of water. Instead, soapy hands sunk deeply into his hair, massaging his scalp so thoroughly, Obi-Wan’s toes curled.

Hm. This was not the way he thought this was going to go. His spine was tingling, nevertheless.

“I need to cut your hair again,” Shado muttered.

“You’re so fixated on my appearance,” Obi-Wan teased.

“You like looking a certain way. And if you don’t look that way, I…” Shado hesitated—in words as well as actions. After a moment, his hands resumed.

The words took a little longer. “I suppose I worry about you. Just a little bit.”

Obi-Wan leaned back into Shado’s strong hands. “As long as it’s only a little bit—ouch! That was not an invitation to bite!”

Obi-Wan was still rubbing his ear when Shado turned him around. Switching soaps—were there multiple soaps in here the whole time?—he rubbed his fingers through Obi-Wan’s beard too, giving it the same treatment. The soap smelled different. Nice. Nearly floral. Nearly familiar.

“I should cut this too. You left it too long last time.”

Feeling somewhat on the spot, Obi-Wan quipped, “You’re only saying that because you hate the beard burn.”

“Jokes on you. I love the beard burn.” Shado leaned in. Ignoring the soap bubbles, he kissed Obi-Wan thoroughly. “I suppose you’d hate for me to have a knife at your throat, though.”

Sly, Obi-Wan ran his palms over Shado’s ribs thoughtfully. “I could be convinced.”

His hands started sliding down. They were immediately caught. “Don’t try anything,” Shado said sternly. He swapped soaps—was there really a third here too? Goodness, his powers of observation were slipping. “A shower’s the worst place for that sort of thing.”

“I have never tried a thing in my life,” Obi-Wan lied. Nevertheless, he obeyed, dropping his hands by his sides, tilting his head up as Shado ran the third type of soap over his chest and shoulders. Curiously, he said, “Speaking from personal experience?”

Shado slammed the soap bottle back on its shelf, switching over to a bar. “She fell! She hit her head on the tile!” he confessed with hushed outrage, as if sharing a long-held secret that could no longer be contained.

His distress was infectious. “Oh no. Was she alright?”

“She was fine. She thought it was funny.” There was old aggravation there, an argument that had never seen a proper resolution. Shado’s soapy hand tightened so quickly, the bar flew out of his fingers. He bent over abruptly, swiping it off the floor. He continued his story without a hitch. “The tile, though, it had to be completely replaced. That’s how hard she hit it, and she never seemed to understand why I was so...”

Suddenly, he trailed off, expression wavering. His hands stilled on Obi-Wan’s body.

“Upset?” Obi-Wan offered after a beat.

Coming back to himself, Shado eventually nodded. “Yeah.” He seemed to fold in on himself. Nevertheless, his hands did not stop moving. No one could claim he wasn’t committed. Obi-Wan didn’t say anything, nor did he draw attention to the fact that his actions had taken on a measure of self-soothing repetition than practical application.

“I didn’t think I could talk about her anymore,” Shado admitted finally, his voice very small.

By now, Obi-Wan was nearly certain Shado’s good-natured female lover was dead.

“You can talk about her. Or anyone else, for that matter,” Obi-Wan offered, pulling the soap out of Shado’s hands. He spread it over Shado’s chest, belatedly returning the favor of care. “I’ll listen too, if you’d like.”

Shado nodded again but said no more. It was enough that he let Obi-Wan continue, leaning his forehead against Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

Eventually, they rinsed off and left the fresher. Armed with some towels and freshly robed, they headed back to Obi-Wan’s room. Shado promptly sat Obi-Wan down at his vanity and ran the towel over his hair.

“You know,” Shado said slowly, “When I said I would settle for you not leaving me behind. I wasn’t talking about your trip to the fresher.”

Under the towel, Obi-Wan’s lips pursued. “I know.” He pulled the cloth off his head.

Shado’s expression wasn’t surprised. It was just sad. “I fear your mind,” he admitted thickly. Shaking his head, he said, “It’s so much safer here for you. It’s better for you in every way.” His eyes flickered away, and his mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “But the safety of Tonyani isn’t a feature for you—it’s a puzzle. And I doubt you’ve ever met a puzzle your mind hasn’t broken.”

Obi-Wan just looked up at him. In between more lighthearted and friendly interactions, it felt like they had so many conversations like this. Perhaps not like this in topic or tone, but certainly like this in nature.

The two of them facing off with one another, with an impenetrable chasm in between.

Shado blew out a low breath between his lips, shaking his head. “You provoke such a horrific tenderness in me, even now. It’s frightening.”

This surprised Obi-Wan. “Why?”

“Because eventually,” Shado said, with all the certainty of gravity, “you’re going to break my heart.”

-

A Few Days Later…

One day, Obi-Wan left the safety of the villa to do business with local vendors, as he did on a regular basis. Later, it wouldn’t matter why he left or what he sought to pursue. The only thing that would matter was that he was near the starport at the right time and place.

Because one day, after many days like it, filled with ever increasing scrutiny and criminalization by the Empire, a group of dissatisfied citizens decided to bring their grievances to the ground forces occupying the starport and trapping them all on this relatively small planet. Their petition, though well-articulated, could only be communicated through extended violence. The stormtroopers’ response was equally cordial, spelled out in blaster shots and quickly answered.

This would lead to a massive firefight in the middle of the starport, killing and wounding many.

And in the form of an unmanned ship, newly unguarded, it would also result in the smallest opening in the grand Imperial bars Vader had erected around the planet.

Ultimately, Obi-Wan did what Obi-Wan did best. He slipped through those bars and disappeared into the wide anonymous galaxy, leaving his cart behind.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan jerked awake from a deep sleep, his nerves on high alert. He’d thought he’d heard—

But no. There was a pipe next to him, leaking air. It wasn’t the sound of a certain someone breathing, in and out, more machine than man.

The Human woman sitting across from him was staring. “Calm down, guy,” she said, her tone stinging and rude. “It’s just the air con.”

He couldn’t blame her for being angry. They were two people waiting in a cramped sitting area in an equally cramped space station, and her entire life was around her in the form of two meager suitcases and a nearly bald Tooka. She looked skinny, her hair was oily, and she’d already caught someone else trying to walk off with her belongings. She hardly needed the extra stress of a stranger jumping at noises every few minutes.

He was not being a good fellow traveler.

“Sorry,” Obi-Wan replied. Pulling his hood further down, he settled back into the chair, reflexively reaching for the small pouch that contained Luke’s gift to him. He looked at his ticket and then up at the announcement banner. His ship was still 90 minutes out, the same as it was nearly 90 minutes prior. He sighed, sinking deeper into his seat.

When the Order taught its students about the importance of being able to let go of attachments, they didn’t talk about how guilt gnaws at your gut. Instead, they talked about the surety of following your purpose and the power of your resolve.

Obi-Wan had been away from Tonyani for three days, and he was still waiting for his resolve to kick in, to smooth off the edges of that churning, poisonous guilt. And the longer it took, the more Obi-Wan feared he no longer had the strength to detach from other beings. That he could no longer call himself a true Jedi.

The moment he’d seen his way off the planet, he’d been paralyzed with the desire to run back to the villa—to Shado himself. In his shame, he still wasn’t sure why. Maybe he feared change. Maybe some part of him had accepted his prison sentence. Or maybe it was just simple attachment he felt, a desire not to leave his lover behind.

But in that moment, just as he’d turned to head for the villa, he looked at himself and thought, this is not the Jedi way. And so he turned back to the starport, and he left.

Now, days away, he kept lingering on that decision. Because perhaps it wasn’t the Jedi way to run back to save a lover. But perhaps it was his way, and now he’d missed his opportunity to change Shado’s circumstances for good. And so the guilt remained, building on itself like a hateful pile of sand.

It was an unreasonable feeling. Shado wouldn’t have followed him off the planet—if Obi-Wan was certain of anything, it was this. Shado was a happy Imperial citizen who saw nothing wrong with the freedoms the Empire trampled every which way in its wake. It was only reasonable that they would part. Obi-Wan had always known it was an eventuality—and ultimately so did Shado. Why else was his charge so fixated on having him stay?

But that logic did not soothe the sting. Because Obi-Wan was here and Shado was somewhere else, and his usual resolve to let go and move on was still missing. Absent. Strangely out of reach.

“Qui-Gon,” he muttered under his breath. “What am I supposed to do?”

But his master did not respond.

Obi-Wan continued to sit there, feeling wretched, waiting and watching as his ship’s arrival time jumped from 90 minutes to 105. Groups of travelers came into the station, and more groups of travelers left. The girl, her two suitcases, and her pet finally left, and her seat was promptly filled by a grizzly ginger Bothan, who pointedly pulled his wide brimmed hat over his face and went to sleep. Obi-Wan’s arms crossed tightly over his chest.

Then a Nautolan male arrived, surrounded by a mixed species party of eight. Like the Nautolan, the party consisted of mostly aquatic beings, though a Human or two seemed to round out the mix.

As if tightly choregraphed, the whole group collected and dropped off their belongings off to the side, claiming their own little island of space. Once this task was completed, the Nautolan’s companions abruptly left in all directions. A few frowned down at chronometers, clearly worried about the time. The Mon Calamari amongst them even started sprinting.  

The only being left behind was the Nautolan himself, the sole monitor of the party’s little island. Popping his hip out, the Nautolan pulled out a datapad and started going through it, as casual as one could be in a crowded space station full of beings with sticky fingers and low morals.

But Obi-Wan wasn’t watching his things. Instead, he was watching the Nautolan’s hip. That small thoughtless lean, hardly noticeable, had drawn Obi-Wan’s attention to a improbable event—a thick rope accessory swinging free from the jacket that hid it from view.

Obi-Wan stared blankly for several long minutes. When it finally registered, he jumped up and headed over, his heart thudding hopefully.

For all of his practiced nonchalance, the Nautolan was already turning to face him by the time Obi-Wan made it over. This motion exposed the accessory again, revealing what Obi-Wan swore he’d seen just a moment earlier: a vertical eternity knot—or, more specifically, an Art of Intimacy mastery.

“Can I help you?” asked the Nautolan cheerfully. His large glossy eyes were tinged gray, indicating his age. His skin was a vibrant blue green, freckled with star-shaped marks over the crown of his head.

Looking left and right—few beings were paying attention—Obi-Wan bowed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I embrace you with closed arms and open hands,” he murmured quietly.

The Nautolan’s expression registered surprise. Then glee. “My friend!” he said boisterously. “Long time no see.” He pulled Obi-Wan into a tight, one-armed hug, balancing his datapad carefully in the other. Quieter, closer to Obi-Wan’s ear. “A Human with a beautiful voice, a gentle face, and the most proper etiquette. You wouldn’t happen to be Onosara’s polite friend from Coruscant, would you?”

Not all courtesans wore their cords around their necks, especially if their species’ particular anatomy or their career of choice made a necklace inconvenient to wear. Like many courtesans before him, this one wore it dangling from his waist.

“You know Onosara?”

“The galaxy is not as large as you think, gentle friend. And Onosara is a beloved teacher of many.” The Nautolan gestured at someone beyond them with his datapad. One of his party members—a Human female—had returned, apparently to take over watching their belongings. The two traded some items between them, including a large squirming wrap that the Nautolan ate in two bites. Then, still swallowing, the Nautolan cleared his throat and steered Obi-Wan away without introductions.

“Some privacy, I think,” he explained genially, leading Obi-Wan away from the influx of travelers.

“Our shared friend. She’s doing well?”

The Nautolan chuckled warmly. “Of course. That lady is much tougher than she looks.” They stopped in a relatively quiet corner behind a pillar. The Nautolan slapped a small machine against a wall. “No extra ears today.” Further away, Obi-Wan saw the Bothan jolt, yanking an earpiece out of his ear like it had suddenly turned molten.

The Nautolan turned to him then, his friendly attitude shifting into serious concern. “My name is Rorq Bow. What can I do for you, gentle friend? Credits, perhaps?” Two cool fingers briefly touched his cheek. “You look pale, even for your kind.”

“Thank you, Rorq. My name is Ben. But I’m not the one who needs help.” Obi-Wan clasped his hands tightly in front of his stomach. “There’s a courtesan a few sectors away on an Imperial planet—Tonyani, if you’ve heard of it? I was wondering if it was possible if someone from the Guild could help him.”

Rorq scrutinized him. “The Guild that definitely doesn’t exist anymore and that I am very much not a part of?”

“Yes, that one,” Obi-Wan said with a touch of impatience. He knew his request sounded suspicious. But this wasn’t a trap. “If someone from the Guild-That-Isn’t could perhaps check on him, offer him help out of his situation, I would be most grateful.”

Rorq scrutinized him a little longer. Then he smiled merrily. “As it so happens, gentle friend, I am an expert in such extractions these days.” He waved his datapad meaningfully, then flipped it to face him, tapping away at the screen.

That didn’t sound right. “There is wide-spread need for that these days?” Rorq paused, then gazed at him with newly suspicious eyes. Obi-Wan lifted his hands defensively. “Please excuse my ignorance. Until very recently, I’ve been on a planet with a near total communications blackout. The last thing I’ve heard about courtesans in the news was the dissolution of your Guild.”

“I see,” Rorq said slowly. Then, with a tinge of sarcasm, he said, “Last week, the Imperial High Court decided, in their infinite wisdom, that the entire courtesan sector has knowingly, maliciously, and fraudulently overcharged the galactic public for the last few centuries. Not only are certain contracts and agreements inherently predatory and need to be amended by the courts, repayment will also be immediately extracted to right these incredible wrongs. Starting with the seizure of all bank accounts and properties associated with every active or recently retired courtesan. It will go further, of course.”

Obi-Wan’s stomach sank. “That’s ridiculous,” he breathed.  

“Those who cannot pay will serve,” Rorq replied in a sing-songy voice. “Whether they like it or not.”

“Indentured servitude?” Obi-Wan spat, infuriated.

Rorq smiled faintly in a way that called attention to his more predatory ancestors. “You can call it slavery. The Empire won’t.” His datapad beeped. He looked down at it. “You are certain your friend is on Tonyani? We don’t have records of a courtesan in that entire sector.” He showed Obi-Wan the screen.

“Absolutely. I just saw him.” Obi-Wan paused, thinking of all the questions he’d had about Shado’s training and origins. Then, reluctantly, he said, “He may not be in your database at all. His circumstances—well. There was the war, and I’m not sure how deeply engaged the Guild was in his professional development.”

Thinking Shado was a terrible courtesan was one thing. Saying it out loud was another, and Obi-Wan found himself very much disliking the idea of anyone having a negative first impression on his admittedly strange and complicated lover.  

So, instead, Obi-Wan said, “I am no insider to your curriculum, but it appears his training was rather unorthodox. And incomplete.”

Rorq cocked his head in confusion, his tentacles shuffling. “What makes you say that?”

“His alleged Mastery of the Art of Mediation makes me want to strangle his teacher,” Obi-Wan said flatly.

This startled a laugh out of Rorq, though he quickly and politely tried to turn it into a cough. “Hm. So. Unorthodox training, huh? Spotty records, an improper Mastery, and, let me guess, an Imperial patron?” At Obi-Wan’s surprised agreement, Rorq nodded sagely. “Bureaucrats these days want all the prestige and resources associated with a courtesan without any of the hassle of dealing with us as actual people with opposing opinions and inconvenient talents.” He started tapping at his pad again. “What was his name?”

“Gran Shado.” An announcement, like many before it, pierced through the din of the station. This time, Obi-Wan recognized the name of the incoming starship. “My transport is here.”

“Go, gentle friend,” Rorq urged reassuringly. “We won’t let him fall through the cracks.”

Obi-Wan took one step away, then another. Then he stopped, turning back to face him. “You have a second courtesan cord,” he observed stiffly.

There were many reasons to have multiple cords—many good ones too. But for the smallest moment, all Obi-Wan could think of was Grievous and his morbid collection of padawan braids.

Rorq, who couldn’t possibly know the dark places Obi-Wan’s mind went, beamed with delight. “Good eye! Most people only notice the first.” He lifted the other flap of his jacket, revealing a much longer cord.

It had not just one but three separate and identical knots—all to indicate a Mastery in the Art of Expression. And Obi-Wan only knew of one Nautolan courtesan his age with so many masteries in one field.

It was improbable. Nearly impossible. And yet, his voice straining, Obi-Wan asked, “This sounds strange, but… did you study at the Coruscant Guild Hall in your early years? And did you leave for Glee Anselm before your official debut?”

Rorq looked extremely pleased. “So you do recognize me. That’s good. I recognized you too.” He laughed, crossing his hand over his chest. “Many a student in my day plotted endlessly on how to lure a certain all too serious Jedi youngling away from his duties. You can’t know how pleased I was to hear that I was the only one who ever succeeded.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes suddenly heated up, but he just laughed, amiable even in his heartbreak. “An honor greater than your first Mastery, I assume.” Sobering, he confessed, “All my life, I’ve dearly missed hearing you play.”

But as he said it, he knew it wasn’t just Rorq’s music that he missed. It was the certainty of his youth. The peace of his upbringing. The support of his friends. It was the knowledge of knowing the path ahead of him. And it was the ignorance of what was truly to come.

“Someday, my dear Jedi, there will be a time and place for music again,” Rorq promised. “I hope you will be there to hear it with me.” Rorq crossed his arms over his chest, bowing in the courtesan way. Somberly, he murmured, “Now go. Be well. Be free. And may the Force always be with you.”

-

A Few Days Later…

Obi-Wan stepped out of an exotic food freighter into the port of Mos Espa. The nose withering curling reek of week-old rotten meat and spoiled fruits followed him and his fellow travelers out the door.

One of them, a Gungan male, dramatically flung himself over a railing, vomiting noisily.

“No refunds,” the Sullustan captain barked as his exiting passengers fell the ground, one after another. Eyeing Obi-Wan, the lone man standing, he said, “Want a job?”

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows, incredulous. After a beat, he said, “No thanks.”  

The captain nodded once, as if understanding his trepidation. Another passenger—a Human this time—stumbled out behind him before collapsing on the gangplank with a whimper. “No refunds!”

Shaking his head, Obi-Wan walked away.

Coming home to Tatooine was not a pleasant experience. If the failure of the freighter’s refrigeration units wasn’t bad enough, the return was also psychologically jarring. It was as if he’d spent a good chunk of his time within a great bubble, whimsical and strange. Now, under the unforgiving glare of Tatooine’s twin suns, that bubble had finally popped.

Obi-Wan visited his normal haunts in Mos Espa—a cantina here, a vendor there. At an old drop-off point, he skimmed through some intel, weeks old. There was next to no information on Darth Vader, other than commentary on his growing tensions with the Emperor. There was next to no information on Reva here either, which was nearly as good as confirmation that she’d remained free.

A couple of bare bones “most wanted” lists buried in the intel revealed that Bail’s friends were increasingly focused on a number of especially bad actors in the great Imperial machine. While not an assassin himself, any one of those actors would have been a great target for Obi-Wan’s particular brand of restrained mischief.

But today, none of them jumped out at him. Today, Obi-Wan battled instead with ennui, his most dangerous foe.

Obi-Wan headed home, still thinking about that intel. Those lists now provoked a wistfulness and a melancholy about the way things used to be, about the way the Jedi used to plunge into the barely restrained chaos of the galaxy to eke out small pockets of order and peace. It was their duty and their calling to do so, and not acting on that calling now was still strange to Obi-Wan. Even 12 years later.

Obi-Wan gradually left civilization behind, heading for the wild, rarely populated area he called home. Loosening his shields and opening his mind up to the Force, he took a meandering path towards his domicile. Doing so allowed him to avoid one enterprising thief, who followed him out to the wastes, as well as the activities of an abnormally large dustweaver spider as it dragged not one but three dying sandtuskers back to its lair for a hearty meal.

But it also meant Obi-Wan didn’t get back to his cave until a full hour into the evening. He stopped just outside of the small hike up to his home’s most accessible opening, eyeing the mangled remains of his perimeter alarm.

He bent down, pulling on the cords until he found the missing post, bent nearly in half and covered with green ooze. He cut it free and rewired the system just like that, crouching on the ground with his back defenseless on a world determined to kill him and everyone around him.

The system flickered back on. Obi-Wan headed up to the entrance, stepping over long-set traps before ducking inside.

For a moment, Obi-Wan stood in the center of the largest “rooms” of his makeshift home. He looked around, eyes dragging through the empty spaces and exposed walls. The few pieces of creature comforts he owned—a compact moisture vaporer, a power generator, a full sized table, and an oddly shaped pillow—were interrupted by rocks, sand, stubborn brush, and more sand.

Something was just slightly off, as if someone had moved all of his things two inches to the left.

Obi-Wan grinded his teeth, knocking his knuckles against his table twice. If he caught his Jawa contact snooping one more time in his belongings, they would have words. Strong ones.

-

Exhausted, Obi-Wan slept on the pillow that night. His dreams were fitful and not entirely his own. True rest escaped him, as did most of the content of his nighttime wanderings.

But for the first time in years, he was assaulted by a set of visions.

One vision had a lightsaber burning through the center of his chest.

A second had him placing Anakin’s lightsaber in the upturned hands of Anakin’s still too young son.

A third had Obi-Wan greeting an unfamiliar ISB officer, who smiled insincerely. Nice to finally meet you, Master Kenobi, he oozed before he too spiraled away.

The last one, the one that stood with him the longest, was seen as if from below. A large star destroyer was hanging in the morning sky. While not particularly an unusual sight—not to Obi-Wan and certainly not to the galaxy at large—the twin suns that rose slowly behind it were.

The dunes. The canyons. The settlements. He knew those places well.

The Empire was finally coming to Tatooine.

-

Obi-Wan spent the entire rest of his day deeply rattled—and it showed. Never before had he dropped so many things, and never before had so many things gone wrong all at once.

His better mattress, which he had stored for safekeeping, had had its innards devoured by a womp rat while Obi-Wan was away. He was going to have another period of time where his bedding would consist of merely that weird pillow and his spare clothing once again—quite the step down from the monstrosity of a bed Shado saddled him with.

Later that morning, he discovered that several poisonous critters had made their home in where he’d stored long-term food, and his water evaporator was puffing out ominous gray smoke. A full two feet of sand had blown into another room, burying several small machines he was repairing for spare credits, and the usual tool he used to remove sand from his home was mysteriously missing.

To top it off, another one of his perimeter alarms had been swallowed and spat out overnight, this time much further away. Obi-Wan stalked after it for a bit, eventually finding it some ten minutes away, crammed between two rocks where it had apparently been spit out with some force. This time, he accidentally touched the ooze, which instantly burned his skin, forcing him to rip off a piece of his shirt to use as a temporary bandage.

On his walk back, perimeter alarm post pinned under his elbow, he looked at his fingers again, concerned about permanent damage. But the skin only appeared pink and raw. It would heal. He flexed open his other hand, where an old splint held on to his finger by the very skin of its teeth. He needed to be more careful about these things. He was not young anymore, quick to heal, nor was he in the proximity of talented individuals who knew all the ways healing could be accelerated by the Light Side of the Force.

With that grim thought in mind, Obi-Wan reinstalled the perimeter alarm around his home, activating the full system again. As it hummed and whined back to life, he looked at his cave and wondered, not for the first time, if he should look into something a bit more permanent.

He had a negative reputation around here. Perhaps a better home would help him bridge the gap between himself and the locals. There was a place by the edge of the Western Dune Sea that he’d seen advertised—at an exorbitant rate, at first, then lower and lower as the public became aware it was on the edge of a krayt dragon’s hunting ground. Obi-Wan could probably save up enough money in a few months to cover its initial purchase price—and if he couldn’t, well, he didn’t have anything against stealing credits from a few Imperials.

But the idea of settling more firmly in this place, instead of drifting like a ghost between caves, made his teeth itch, and it made the image of a star destroyer loom ever clearer in his mind. On this planet, permanency invited attention, which in turn invited contempt and loose lips. Obi-Wan was afraid of being the reason why a star destroyer darkened the sky of the only place Luke had ever called home.  

Visions were, as ever, an unreliable thing. Causation was rarely clear, and, even in the case of multiple visions at once, there was no guarantee any vision in a series would occur at all, let alone in order.

While the idea of a star destroyer over Tatooine felt inevitable, it was the vision of Obi-Wan handing off Anakin’s lightsaber that seemed the most unlikely. The boy took after his mother and hadn’t a shred of Force sensitivity to him. A lightsaber would be dangerous for him, and Luke seemed destined for a normal life. Why would Obi-Wan threaten that by putting the weapon of the Empire’s enemy in his hands?

Shaking his head, Obi-Wan clomped back up to his cave. He paused by the entrance, shaking off the excess sand from his shoes. Then he stepped inside, massaging the back of his tense neck with his palm.

Then he froze. His senses kicked in high gear, and the Force floated him a faint and belated warning.

Someone was inside his home. A bipedal Human someone. Their arms were crossed and their back was to Obi-Wan, a thickly woven cloak and hood preventing immediate identification.

This, however, soon didn’t matter. Hearing him enter, the trespasser soon turned around to face him, flipping their hood off their golden hair.

“So you weren’t lying about sitting in a cave and staring at a wall,” said Gran Shado. “That’s something. I guess.”

-

They stood there in Obi-Wan’s cave, just staring at each other. Shado’s expression was haunted, and his eyes were red rimmed. A person unfamiliar with him might confuse his face with someone grieving, but Obi-Wan knew better. He could see the grim smirk starting to curl Shado’s lips as well as the feverish light in his eyes.

Shado was angry, and deeply so.

“You really do live in a cave,” Shado said eventually. He looked around, his jaw flexing. “And on this planet. Of all the places you could be.”

Shado did often spout nonsense about Obi-Wan living it up with friends, cosseted in the lap of luxury. Seeing the reality of his existence must have been jarring. The once-decent wooden table, edges worn white. His single, thread-bare rug, strategically placed to smother the growth of a weed that provoked itching when in full bloom. His few belongings, scattered about in natural recesses and holes worn in the walls by centuries of sand-blasting wind. The see-through bits of curtain he’d hung between each “room” of his home, fluttering and weak and very nearly disintegrating to the touch.

In different circumstances, Obi-Wan would have been embarrassed. Not by his lack of means, but rather by the obvious and visible display in their social stations. Once outside the Temple, the Jedi were accustomed to a certain level of poverty. But Obi-Wan had rarely seen a negotiation go well when his adversary was reminded of the certain levels of social, political, and economic capital they had immediate access to—and that the Jedi did not. In short, such a display of his current living conditions should have made him feel wrong-footed, like he’d lost some ground in the perpetual dialogue he had with his well-resourced charge. Former charge.

In truth, however, Obi-Wan felt none of that. Though clearly of importance to Shado, their setting was meaningless. They could have been standing in the center of a white void, for all it mattered to Obi-Wan. Instead, Obi-Wan felt weightless, buoyant, robbed of the thousand bodily hurts he’d been made aware of upon waking.

He didn’t have words either. All he had was the strange inclination to just look at Shado. To take in the way his presence seemed to fill Obi-Wan’s empty and lonely home. To observe the way the natural light of Tatooine crossed his face at a sharp angle, gilding his already golden features. To memorize the shape of his soft mouth, even in its downturned and bitter state.

Shado noticed Obi-Wan’s distraction. “Say something,” he demanded.

Blinking, Obi-Wan shook himself out of his stupor. His eyebrows needled together. “You need to leave.”

This was true. Yes. This was a reasonable thing to say. Good job, Obi-Wan.

“Make me,” Shado retorted. Head tilted, Obi-Wan stepped forward. Shado immediately jumped back a few steps, as if he knew how close Obi-Wan had to be for his Force suggestions to work.

“This is not your place, Shado,” Obi-Wan murmured softly.

Shado was a tense, seething creature. “It’s not yours either,” he countered savagely. And then, as if the outrage was hitting him once more, he stomped his feet, and his next words rose in pitch. “A cave, Obi-Wan? You gave me up over a fucking cave?”

Of all the things to focus on. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan felt weirdly wronged by this accusation—or, more specifically, this senseless attack on a perfectly serviceable location. He waved an arm around, about to defend its many features. “This cave—”

“—isn’t the point,” Shado interrupted harshly. And then, as if he’d forgotten all about Obi-Wan’s Force suggestions, he closed in swiftly until they were toe to toe. “You are the most frustrating person I have ever met.” He pounded his fist against his own chest in a way that had to hurt. “I’m offering you everything you could ever want. I’d handle everything for you. Pay for everything. Do everything. You’d never have to lift a finger again!”

Obi-Wan stared into his furious face. “Shado,” he whispered.

Shado continued onward, completely ignoring him. “You can read and meditate and debate and interfere as much as you’d like. I’d give you everything you want!” He spread both arms, leaving himself vulnerable. “My attention. Do you want it? It’s yours. My forgiveness? My mercy? All you need to do is ask.”

“I never needed any of those things from you,” Obi-Wan reminded him softly.

“That’s not a reason to reject them!” Shado shouted.

There was silence. Shado stood there stiffly, his hands falling to his sides. He was trembling, his eyes flicking all over Obi-Wan’s face.

Then, his voice cracking, he said, “I am furious with you. I came here to fight with you. To punish you.” His hand reached out, fingers fisting over the bottom of Obi-Wan’s torn shirt so tight, Obi-Wan could feel his gloved knuckles against his stomach. “So why are you smiling?”

Was he? Obi-Wan touched his own mouth. Then he dropped his hand, sighing. “Believe it or not, dearest, I did miss you.”

A great sense of peace infused him once this was said. Yes, a little honesty here and there was good for one’s clarity of mind.

Shado was blinking rapidly. Then, in a much quieter voice, he said, “It’s only been a week.”

“It’s been a long week,” Obi-Wan corrected. His voice was equally quiet. He was smiling again.

“Obi-Wan…” Shado complained but said no more, his head dropping.

In contrast, Obi-Wan’s heart soared. Yes, he did miss him. Goodness, he’d run into one of the very first loves of his life this week, and all he could think about was Shado. Was Shado doing well? Was Shado receiving support? Was Shado finally escaping the prison of his own circumstances? Obi-Wan’s own situation seemed less interesting in comparison.

As if speaking into his chest, Shado mumbled, “I don’t care what your purpose is. I don’t care if it’s a mission handed down to you from Yoda himself.” He inhaled a sharp breath. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Assassinate the Emperor. I’ll help. Start a rebel cell. I’ll fund it. Take over a pirate crew. I’ll fly for you.” He lifted his head finally, his icy eyes glassy and bright and fierce. “Just stop leaving me behind.”

They stared at each other for a long time, sharing air. Outside, a strong wind picked up, and the peculiar features of the cave turned the gust into a low song. The shifting light of the dying day finally hit a small glass jar Obi-Wan had put out on his table, shooting its reflections across the cave ceiling. And, this close, he could smell familiar soap on Shado’s skin, strong and pleasant and warm, just like that time they’d stepped out of the fresher together.

Shado cocked his head. “…You’re not saying no this time,” he said slowly, staring into Obi-Wan’s eyes.

“Well, I’m hardly leaping to say yes,” Obi-Wan said, just to be contrary.  

“But you’re not saying no,” Shado repeated. He looked confused. “It would be so easy for you to do. For you to detach from me. For you to crush my feelings under your heel. It might even be the right thing to do. From a certain point of view.”

“I…” Dropping his eyes to Shado’s chin, Obi-Wan drew out the word. Then he let it go, stalling. Then he tried again. “I don’t want to do that. Any of that.” His eyes jumped back up to Shado’s. “If you don’t mind.”

Shado stared back at him, incredulous. Then, with a suddenness that made Obi-Wan jump, he surged forward, pinning Obi-Wan’s head still between his gloved hands.

That kiss was not gentle. It was a battle of tongue and teeth, of passion and punishment.

The table behind him rattled as he was pushed into it—and then on top of it—hauled close to the pillar of Shado’s body. The glass jar fell, shattering, its bright reflections vanishing in an instant. Under him, the table wobbled dangerously, as precarious as the day he’d found it and hauled it in from the wastes, making Obi-Wan reflexively cling where he’d normally pull away. At the same time, Shado’s demanding hands pulled up the bottom of his shirt, yanking it from his pants. Gloved palms scraped deliciously downwards, bracing first against Obi-Wan’s shoulder blades before following the line of his spine to—and then under—his waistband.

Obi-Wan found it in him the power to break the kiss that threatened to press him flat on the table, a feat he only managed by sliding his hand between their chins and pushing. This only parted them so far. Shado responded by taking the flat of his interrupting hand between his white teeth, gnawing at Obi-Wan’s makeshift bandage and the skin and bone beneath. His eyes gleamed in the low light, like a predator’s eyeshine in the dark.

“There was ichor on that hand, you know,” Obi-Wan commented mildly.

Shado released his hand slowly. He kissed where he had bitten down and said, “All I taste is you.”

With that, he pushed forward, as if to capture Obi-Wan’s mouth again. He was stymied by Obi-Wan’s hand once more, however, which hadn’t moved from his chin.

“I’m not fucking you without lube,” Obi-Wan said bluntly. He wriggled his hips pointedly, where two hands were still clamped hard, then he raised his eyebrows. “There are a thousand and one substitutes for lube on Tatooine, and I want precisely none of them near my body.”

As always, Shado was momentarily stumped—and awed—by Obi-Wan’s brief use of crude but highly practical language. He rallied quickly, shooting him a surprisingly sweet smile. “There’s the fussy Jedi Master I know.” He surged forward again, higher this time and faster than Obi-Wan anticipated.

By the time Obi-Wan registered that his forehead had just been kissed, Shado was already pulling back, nearly fully parted from Obi-Wan now. He bit the fingers of one glove to pull it off, even as he rifled through his pockets with the other. Once found, he displayed his prize—a small row of familiar single-use wrappers, each filled with a modified liquid praised across the galaxy.

Obi-Wan propped himself up on his elbows, admiring. “You planned to have a bitter row with me, but yet you still came armed with bacta lube?”

Both of the now emptied gloves landed on the table next to Obi-Wan, and their owner was unbuttoning his pants, smiling faintly.

“You know how it is, Master,” Shado murmured, bending over him, visibly pleased. “Hope springs eternal.” Shado swallowed Obi-Wan’s startled laugh with his mouth—and Obi-Wan did taste the ichor, thank you very much.

They swapped kisses like insults, hands running over each other in equal displays of aggression, like blows in a sparring match. Shado pinched Obi-Wan’s sides mercilessly when they couldn’t get his leggings off fast enough, and Obi-Wan bit Shado’s bottom lip, pulling it a little, until Shado was moaning and grabbing at him, desperate and wanting.

Obi-Wan was spread bare with no gentleness, leggings still hanging off one ankle, when Shado suddenly was hauling Obi-Wan into a position of flexibility that he was not prepared for, bracing one of Obi-Wan’s legs as high as his own shoulder.

But the sound that came out of Obi-Wan’s mouth wasn’t a complaint; it was a strangled gasp.

Shado’s laugh vibrated down Obi-Wan’s cock, his mouth wet, tight, and greedy around it. Worse still, there was the sharp reek of bacta and the pressure of clever slick fingers inching inside of him. Over the course of their various dalliances, Shado had taken an act that, to Obi-Wan, was as dull as stretching one’s limbs before a duel, and he had turned it into a pleasurable form of torment and teasing. Sucking his cock at the same time was just cruel.

Shado had once said he was a quick learner. Obi-Wan knew now that wasn’t a promise. It was a warning.

Thusly occupied, Shado set a merciless pace, bullying Obi-Wan’s body open, focusing his brutal attention on a spot deep inside him. Crying out, Obi-Wan arched his back, quickly overwhelmed and approaching his release. And yet just when Obi-Wan was about to be flung right over that precipice, Shado suddenly pulled off of him, triumphant, his lips swollen and red, his fingers smearing slickly across Obi-Wan’s thigh.

“No, not yet,” Shado whispered, eyes glittering. “Be good.”

Good? Him!? Obi-Wan made a high note of offense against this insult.

But he expressed little more than this, as now Shado was finally relenting, pushing his own trousers down to his thighs. He was reaching between them too, gripping his cock before slowly pushing it against Obi-Wan’s hole. As was his way, he did so gently at first and then more insistently until it too made its way inside.

As close and as sensitive as Obi-Wan felt, it was all he could do not to thrash. Gritting his teeth, he gripped his own cock as he became full and fuller, as Shado’s hips eventually tapped his own.

It was a nearly smooth venture, a feat beyond even the wonders of both lube and bacta, and it was done without their usual fuss and need for breaks.

As usual, Shado’s thoughts mirrored his own but only as a ghastly reflection. Proving it with his next words, Shado murmured, “Your body hasn’t forgotten me. That’s good.”

What a horrific and crude thing to say in such a warm and deep voice. Obi-Wan’s scalp was tingling. He thumped Shado’s back, aggrieved by his arrogance. “It’s only been a week, you absolute brat.”

Shado laughed breathlessly, nudging his nose against Obi-Wan’s beard until he found his mouth and could once again steal Obi-Wan’s noises. He slowly started rocking them together in a dance they’d all but perfected in the last few weeks.  

After that, it was hard to tell where one kiss ended and the other began. Or when it had gotten so messy between them. Or when Shado had pushed Obi-Wan’s shirt up to his collarbone just so he could run his avaricious palm through Obi-Wan’s graying chest hair. Or when Obi-Wan’s own scrabbling hands finally drew blood from Shado’s sweat slick shoulders.

The increase in tempo of Shado’s thrusts seemed an unmistakable milestone, however. Out of nowhere, Shado picked up the strength of his movements too, so much so that Obi-Wan worried about the integrity of the table again. Then Shado rolled his hips just right, and Obi-Wan stiffened, throwing his head back and crying out as he was thrown right over the edge.

And no one seemed more pleased about this than Shado, not that this stopped him. For another minute, his pistoning hips continued to slap against Obi-Wan’s own, pounding sensation against Obi-Wan’s increasingly overstimulated body. Then he too seized up, spilling inside of Obi-Wan with a soft sigh.

He collapsed on top of Obi-Wan, still inside of him. With a shaking arm, he tried to keep his weight on his elbow until Obi-Wan pulled him down the rest of the way, wanting the weight of him and willing to crush himself to get it.

Obi-Wan wrapped his forearm around Shado’s shoulder blades, and Shado did the same under the small of Obi-Wan’s back. For a moment, they panted, closer than two people ever ought to be, just looking at each other. Shado’s eyes were not as icy like this, more of a faint gray or a very soft green, made softer still by the tenderness on his face and that lingering redness around his eyelashes. His hair curled in a fetching way along the sweat line of his forehead and cheeks.  

Shado broke eye contact for a moment to mouth at Obi-Wan’s shoulder and pectoral. Then he lifted his body up, bracing his arms on either side of Obi-Wan’s body. “…again?”

When he shyly pressed his hips into Obi-Wan, as if to clarify his question, Obi-Wan nearly choked on his tongue. What a way to be reminded that he was dealing with a younger man.

“Did I say you could stop?” Obi-Wan asked hypothetically, knowing that, once again, his mouth would be the death of him.

When Shado smiled, pleased, Obi-Wan acquiesced instantly, spreading his legs a little more while Shado pulled out and braced a knee on the table. As he watched Shado spill more bacta over himself for round two, Obi-Wan idly imagined a scenario where Shado might roll him over on his belly and get back to what he started. Minimal movement needed on Obi-Wan’s part. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

No, he wasn’t lazy in bed. Just economical.

It was then, clearly angered by all of this revived shifting, that the table underneath them decided it had had enough of their shenanigans for the day. Two of its legs suddenly snapped, and on their side as well. Instantly, the tabletop dropped, sending them both sliding off the surface to hit the ground with some force. The rest of the table collapsed too, no longer supported and now little better than firewood.

Surrounded by the mess they made, they laid on the ground together, arrested in a stunned sort of silence.

As Obi-Wan re-wound the clock in his head, trying to understand how he’d gotten here, he suddenly let out an embarrassed little chortle. Then, as the full absurdity hit him, his chortle turned into a full-on guffaw. Then he doubled up, nearly crying with the hilarity of the situation.

His poor table. The horrors it had endured.

Obi-Wan tried to explain this line of thought but couldn’t get it out past his own immature tittering.

But Shado somehow understood him, like he always did. And soon Shado, habitually dour and humorless, joined him, hiding his face with both hands as he snickered and gasped. They were soon giggling like a pair of boys who’d just barely avoided capture after a successful series of naughty pranks.   

It was probably the first time his home had heard so much laughter in such a short amount of time.

-

Shado leaned against him afterwards, head pillowed on Obi-Wan’s chest. They’d skipped round 2, opting to clean up the mess and lick their wounds. Now, Obi-Wan was idly curling his fingers through Shado’s hair, deep in thought. He’d felt like a terrible host when he realized all he could offer Shado to sleep on was the heap of old clothes and a single pillow that made up his bed. When he’d tried to find Shado something better, Shado merely dropped on his bed face first, rubbing it contently.

“Smells like you,” he’d said, utterly shameless. Obi-Wan had huffed, playing up his annoyance to hide the small way his heart jumped with glee—and the way it jumped higher when Shado turned his face just far enough to smile at him in the growing darkness.

Now, though, there were no such distraction. Now, all he had was his thoughts and his worries about his next steps.

Was there truly a version of a future with Shado? The path ahead was hard to predict, but he thought it could work. If not for the twins.

But was he really wanted there? Was he needed? Was he a source of support or a major liability? In his head, the image of the star destroyer over Tatooine lingered.

He’d stayed to protect the boy from afar, and to train him when the time came. But that time never came, and Owen and Beru had proven themselves to be just as capable as Breha and Bail, even against a hostile force determined to destroy their child. Obi-Wan’s support was never needed, nor was it wanted.

And yet, Obi-Wan had committed himself to the twins—to Luke in particular—and he wouldn’t easily turn from that duty. But was Obi-Wan’s stubbornness in this area an asset? Or was it a threat?

With Shado’s open ended promise in mind, Obi-Wan was starting to consider a new way forward, a way to ensure his presence never put a target on young Luke’s back the way it had with Leia two years prior. His mind was already tripping ahead towards fail-safes and protective measures. How he could protect the twins—both of them—from afar, and yet remain far enough that no one harmed those children for an actual or spurious connection to an irrelevant old man.

Shado had promised him so many things. Unlikely, the bulk of them. Starting a rebel cell—ha! But maybe with Shado’s support, Obi-Wan could stay in reach of a commlink. Maybe he could never be without a starship with a working hyperdrive. Shado was a talented mechanic in that regard. And maybe Obi-Wan could stop by every year—then every three—incognito, with Shado as his pilot. He’d make contact just long enough to make sure Anakin’s children were still healthy and happy.

And maybe Bail could even give him some pointers on how to virtually disappear. Perhaps he should fake his own death again? It’d have to be extremely convincing, especially given Vader’s hatred for him. But this would not be the first time Obi-Wan had tricked Anakin with such a tactic. It could be done.

Stepping away from the boy seemed almost a reasonable act at this point. Very nearly strategic, given his visions. And yet Obi-Wan couldn’t shake the feeling that he was indulging in the worst kind of selfishness instead. If his motivation to leave the boy was purely about avoiding harm, he wouldn’t feel nearly as conflicted. But his reasoning was muddled with personal wants and desires.

He yearned for the future Shado had offered him. Peace. Affection. Understanding. Forgiveness. But was it right to pursue that? Was he even allowed? Desperate for some sort of sign, Obi-Wan closed his eyes, reaching into the Force for any indication he was making the right decision.

The Force was hard to interpret these days, and tonight was no different. It was heavy and humming, like warm honey pouring over an active starship engine. Obi-Wan could glean nothing from this, and his Master was refusing all calls.

“What are you thinking about?” Shado asked suddenly. His eyes were open.

Obi-Wan pulled his mind out of the Force. “Assassinating the Emperor, of course. It’s a lovely fantasy of mine.”

Shado rolled his eyes. Obi-Wan chuckled, idly stroking his shoulder. Qui-Gon would like him, probably. With his mercurial ways, Shado forced Obi-Wan into the here and now more than anything his Master had tried over their long partnership.

“Will you sleep?” Obi-Wan asked.

“No,” Shado admitted, resting his head on Obi-Wan’s chest again. “I won’t. But I want to hear you breathe.”

Obi-Wan was charmed. “Very well. If you must.”

Shado settled again, stilling. His flickering eyelashes brushed against Obi-Wan’s skin once or twice, but he otherwise seemed barely there.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, reaching for the Force again. Pressing all of his intent into his words, he asked, Is this allowed? Can I do this?

Then he waited for the Force to respond. And he waited. And he waited some more.

Slowly, the soupy-honey-over-live-engine feeling shifted into something much more familiar. It was as if he was at the center of a musical hall—or a battlefield. A thrumming tension filled the Force. A tense vigil for an approaching enemy. The rising of a crescendo in a pivotal scene of a play. The bated breath of a soldier as a bomb-carrying starship flew overhead.

But the enemy didn’t arrive, the pivotal scene had yet to come, and no bomb was dropped.

The Force was just… waiting. As unsure as he was.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan slept on this ambiguous message from the Force, and he slept quite deeply for most of the night. For a man who lived a mostly solitary life, there was something unspeakably soothing about feeling another heartbeat against his own body. About negotiating a narrow sleeping space between the wall and the lanky limbs of his bedmate. About registering the slow regular breathing of another person in brief periods of wakefulness before he sank back into sleep.

But this peace would not last. Obi-Wan woke up sometime in the late morning. Behind him, Shado had fallen asleep after all, his presence in the Force having faded into nothingness once more. His deep, steady breaths drew shapes across Obi-Wan’s nape, and one of his hands was tucked deeply under Obi-Wan’s ribcage, nearly smashed between Obi-Wan himself and the floor.

Obi-Wan sat up slowly, dislodging Shado’s grip—not that the sleeping man noticed, dear thing. He’d get to a normal sleeping schedule eventually, if Obi-Wan had any say in it. Content, Obi-Wan stretched his arms, letting a yawn crack his jaw. Then he looked down at Shado. He watched him for a while, pleased.

Then he reached out and poked Shado’s nose. Shado didn’t even twitch. Not even when Obi-Wan poked him again, and certainly not when Obi-Wan pinched his cheek—lightly at first and then hard enough to turn that tan skin pink.

In slumber, Shado was like a dead thing, motionless and limp.

What an unpleasant thought. Obi-Wan tried to scrub it from his head immediately, focusing on the steady ins and outs of his lover’s breathing instead as well as the pleasantness of not having to wake up alone.

And Shado was a pleasant sight. Always had been to Obi-Wan, even at his worst. Even at his most incorrigible. One of Shado’s arms still hung low over Obi-Wan’s waist while the other one curled lightly by his own head. A blinking commlink sat in the cradle of his palm.

Shado slept. And so, Obi-Wan moved on, rising from their shared resting place to shuffle about his home and do his little morning routine. His stretches. His morning meal. His checks of various communicators hidden about his home.  

In a bit of a prideful moment, Obi-Wan found himself dressing not in his discrete traveler’s clothes but instead the clothes that most resembled what he wore as a Jedi. He combed back his hair. He trimmed his beard. He even considered popping out for a bit to grab his lightsaber, just to complete the look, just to show Shado a hint of who he truly was.

Not a sad old man. Not a fugitive from the law. Not a traitor.

Just him. Just Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Obi-Wan ultimately decided against fetching his weapon, still feeling a twinge of unease about taking it from its companion. Resolute in this, he sat down on a shallow rock face he used as a chair, somewhat cleaned up and presentable for once.

His empty home. His empty life. Shado had so quickly filled those voids, it was as if those desolate spaces had been shaped around him all along. Hm. Obi-Wan could accept this. He could be at peace with this feeling, with this understanding that something off-kilter had finally righted itself.

For a little over a standard hour, he meditated over this serenely, pondering his change in fortunes with a rare cup of tea, too diluted to be called such in shared company.

Then a loud bang rang out in his sleeping area, just out of sight. Curses rose and fell as fabric shuffled loudly—and as someone snarled something viciously about a meeting. Then bare feet slapped against rock as Shado charged out of the alcove, still half wrapped in an old robe.

This towering, inexplicable rage was nothing new. What was new was what happened next. A split second later, their eyes met. Hand still fisted around that commlink, Shado froze mid-step. His twisted visage seemed to sway, like an ill-balanced painting before it fell from the single nail that held it up.

What was left was guilt. Obi-Wan could work with guilt.

Obi-Wan crooked a finger at him. “Come here. Now.” His tone allowed for no arguments.  

In a pleasant change, his disobedient former charge opted to submit instantly. He closed the space between them, sitting where Obi-Wan gestured, right next to Obi-Wan himself. He hovered there stiffly, a horrid sort of awkwardness apparent in his very posture.

Still partially meditating, Obi-Wan leaned against Shado’s arm. Slowly, the tension in Shado’s body bled out. Eventually, he leaned against Obi-Wan too, mirroring him.

Some time passed like this in silence, the edges of that morning outburst wearing away like rocks under a century’s worth of ocean waves.

Nevertheless, the time eventually came for speaking, and they both seemed to cotton on to its timing at the exact moment.

“I’m sorry,” Shado said, shamefaced.  

At the same time, Obi-Wan said, “I was thinking about retiring.”

These two very different thoughts hung in the air. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the rare apology that received its time in the limelight.

Shado’s head whipped around, his eyes as large as a Wookie’s dinner plate. The naked shock on his face had a chilling effect on Obi-Wan’s morning-long serenity. Suddenly, he felt he’d shared a premature idea too quickly—and with the wrong person.

Obi-Wan started to push away, to stand, to run away from this conversation. “Forget it. I don’t know what I was thinking—”

Shado trapped his arm immediately, dragging him back to the rock shelf. “Don’t do this.” While his words were brusque, his eyes were pleading. “Don’t use my confusion as an excuse to push me away.”

Obi-Wan paused in his flight. “That’s… fair.” He slowly sat back down to face the consequences of his announcement.

Was this how emotional vulnerability felt? What a wretched condition.

“The Jedi do not retire.” Far from judgmental, Shado’s tone was uncommonly kind.

“We do not,” Obi-Wan agreed, relaxing. “It’s not an occupation. It’s a calling. When you’re reaching the age where active engagement with the galaxy isn’t encouraged, you don’t just retire. There’s always something else to do. Knowledge to capture, students to teach, Knights to advise… it’s a very busy role, living with the Order in your twilight years.”

Shado’s expression was hard to read.

But the Order doesn’t exist anymore. And now, there’s nothing left to do.” Obi-Wan smiled a little, correcting himself. “Perhaps if I was a Jedi from a different era, this regime change would be meaningless to me. I would further my own connection to the Force. I would advance my own education. I would find my own students.”

There was a long pause. Then Obi-Wan tilted his chin up slightly. Defiantly. “But I was born in an era of war and conflict. If the Order isn’t there to directly support in my seniority, then all I can do is continue to oppose the evil that has inundated this galaxy. In one way or another.” Obi-Wan let that hang in the air unchallenged. Then he shrugged, saying in an ironic and dry tone, “Unfortunately for me, those ways tend to be direct and involve lightsabers or blasters.”

“You say that like this isn’t the way of the galaxy.”

Was Shado trying to crack a joke? What a sweetheart.

“It may be the way of the galaxy, but it isn’t the way of the Jedi.” Much quieter, Obi-Wan said, “But, unfortunately, it might be my way of existence. And in the pursuit of those more violent ways of being, I fear my actions may cause… unwanted attention. Which is fine for me, but less fine for others. Specific individuals I care for. Innocents at large. And I’m finding the threat that I pose to others less and less tolerable these days.”

Obi-Wan considered saying more but held his tongue. In the end, that was all he’d say about the twins, about his vision of a star destroyer over Tatooine, and about a future he feared he may have already created.

“So you’re retiring,” Shado said slowly.

Obi-Wan saluted him with his tea. “And so I’m retiring. Taking a step back. Indulging in some discreet travel too, I think.” Obi-Wan no longer trusted that proximity to one or more of the twins would lead to greater safety. Rather impolitely, he chugged the rest of the liquid, setting it down on the rock shelf next to him with a loud click. “What do you think about that? Is it silly? Have I ruined what little respect you have for me?”

While he said this in a light and airy way, he carefully looked anywhere but at Shado. He didn’t have the heart for it. Shado had little love for the Jedi Order as an institution, but he’d certainly entered their charged relationship with a mountain of expectations and assumptions about who Obi-Wan was and what it meant for him to be a Jedi.

And who knew how Shado’s affection for Anakin would shape his reaction to Obi-Wan’s decisions. Would Shado resent Obi-Wan walking away from the Order of the man whose career he’d followed most ardently? Shado clearly knew the circumstances around Vader, so he had to know Anakin walked away first. But logic meant little in the realm of feelings, especially about people one put on pedestals.

Of course, Obi-Wan was assuming quite a bit here, but it wasn’t like Shado had raced to share his thoughts.

What if Shado thought Obi-Wan’s retirement was disrespectful to Anakin’s memory? Of his sacrifice prior to his Fall?

“Let’s do it.”

It was Obi-Wan’s turn to whip around in disbelief. “Let’s?” he echoed, confused.

Shado was smiling—and for once, it wasn’t tainted by a bitter emotion. It reached his eyes, even, creating the illusion that he was a much more agreeable individual. He pushed off of the rock shelf, turning to capture Obi-Wan’s hands. Then he knelt in front of him.

“Let’s retire,” Shado said tenderly, squeezing his hands.

“I— you— oh dear.” Obi-Wan was at a loss for words. Shado’s smile widened, his thumbs rubbing against the top of Obi-Wan’s knuckles. At Obi-Wan’s prolonged sputtering, he tilted his head, a thoughtless gesture that made Obi-Wan’s eyes drop to his chest. To his courtesan cord.

Suddenly, the words Obi-Wan needed most sprang easily to his tongue. “You’re a courtesan, dear one,” he said kindly, “in a galaxy determined to put you in chains. I’m afraid your path towards retirement will not be as easy as mine.”

Shado followed his gaze, seemingly surprised to see his own cord on display. Then he shook his head, looking up again. “Don’t worry,” he said confidently. “It’ll be handled.”

Remembering Rorq Bow and his retelling of current events, Obi-Wan had his doubts. “You know your circumstances better than I do,” he allowed slowly, trying to read Shado’s face. “But if your plans don’t work out, tell me. Just be honest, dear one.” Trying to joke, he said, “If there’s an expert between us on the topic of hiding from the Empire, it has to be me.”

Shado’s smile turned brittle. “How could I forget?” he drawled, expression darkening.

At this souring, Obi-Wan remembered Shado’s morning outburst and the way he’d torn out of Obi-Wan’s bedding. He reversed the grip on his hands, circling his own fingers around Shado’s wrists, stroking them gently. Shado looked down, mesmerized.

Obi-Wan was getting incredibly good at manipulating this particular person into hearing what he had to say. Hopefully, Shado would do more than just hear. Anakin had been this way too—contrite and compliant in one moment, the perfect student. Then disobedient and reckless in the next, rejecting all advice and wisdom. He never seemed to heed anything Obi-Wan had to say.

“I understand you’re working on your temper,” Obi-Wan said, letting his voice warm. It was easier than expected, for the feeling was genuine. “I see your progress, and I am very proud of all you’ve done so far.”

Shado looked up from his wrists, visibly bashful at the praise. A sense of déjà vu plucked at the edges of Obi-Wan’s thoughts, unheeded.

Obi-Wan let him sit with those warm feelings for a moment before moving in for the kill. “But if we are to embark on this journey together, you must promise me to do even better.”

As expected, Shado started to pull away. Obi-Wan tightened his grip once—and only once, loosening right away. If Shado wanted to retreat, he could. Ultimately, Shado did not, merely staring up at Obi-Wan with an expression that was starting to look resentful.

This too felt familiar.

Trying to express his thoughts to someone who had never trained as a Jedi, Obi-Wan said, “I am not asking you to never feel things, Shado. To never be afraid or angry or hateful. These are normal feelings. Valid ones. Reasonable ones, in the right context.” After all, Shado did not have to hold himself to any code. “But you must never make a decision on our shared behalf based solely on any one of these things.”

How did one explain this without invoking the Dark Side? Without explaining the heavy weight and responsibility of the Force? Without expanding on how easily the Force could be turned against people under the sway of the Dark Side’s most favored feelings?

Obi-Wan tried anyway. “Fear turns potential allies into perpetual enemies. Anger erroneously flattens complex situations into simple things, stealing them of their nuance and possibilities. And hatred robs beings of their dignity and personhood. These emotions will come, yes. But they are not feelings we should rely on for guidance, for they will only steer us towards unhappiness and despair.”

Shado’s expression was still so hard to read. Obi-Wan freed a hand, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. Closing his eyes, Shado leaned against his palm. “You can trust me,” he murmured, his face hidden.

“Good.” Obi-Wan smiled at him gently, hoping this wasn’t a lie.

-

Obi-Wan staggered, then sat down, staring at his third gnawed upon perimeter alarm in despair. This time, a jagged yellow tooth was embedded in the central wiring, severing most of them in half and rendering the item not just damaged but utterly unfixable.

A hand entered his vision, plucking the wrecked item from his grip. “It’s just a Morgum,” said Shado casually. “You’ll be safe as long as you don’t go out at night on the dunes.” He wiggled a loose piece of metal off of the edge of the crushed post until it snapped.

“I’m not worried about being eaten,” Obi-Wan protested. Driven to defensiveness, he said, “Do you- do you know how much each one of these cost out here?”

“Too much, I’m guessing.” Shado held up the broken piece of metal to the late afternoon light. “The fact that the Morgum didn’t devour this whole means the material’s bad.” He squinted. “Is this… flimsi in the center? Obi-Wan, really.”

Having heard quite enough, Obi-Wan stood up, snatching the destroyed perimeter alarm from him–and the little piece he broke off too. Swearing quietly, he switched hands when his fingers dipped in mildly acidic ichor yet again.

It was messy business, living in the wilds.

With the twin suns lighting their way, they walked back to Obi-Wan’s home with minimal but companionable chattering. Obi-Wan spent the bulk of it trying to salvage at least the wires from his alarm while Shado kept his head on a swivel, but in a casual way, like he was used to watching out for danger.

A Morgum, he’d said. This was not something Obi-Wan was familiar with. But Shado was, and that was… interesting. Especially since Shado didn’t seem to have continued his courtesan studies far beyond his age of maturity.

Before it was outlawed and disbanded, any person of any age could join the Courtesan Guild and learn the trade. A young person under their species’ age of maturity might join the Guild with the mistaken thought that their age would allow them more time to gain a Mastery or two. In practice, however, only the Art of Mediation or the Art of Expression allowed for minors to gain Masteries—and even then, a Mastery was still not an easy achievement.

The Art of Intimacy and the Art of Knowledge, however, made such a feat next to impossible. All four Arts had pathways and specialties locked by age and maturity, yes, but of the four, Intimacy and Knowledge had the most restrictions. A courtesan student under a certain age could pursue both of those Arts, of course, but the age-appropriate lesson plans and curriculum, though robust in their own ways, were often limited to basic facts and theories. This led to many courtesan students developing the mistaken conviction that the hidden and forbidden lessons were full of taboo and illicit knowledge. This was simply not the case.

Well, except for perhaps the Art of Knowledge. This pathway used to be just as open as the Arts of Mediation and Expression to minors until a certain generation of students were caught brewing moonshine and building bombs in their Guild Hall dorm rooms. The hazards of promoting self-study, Obi-Wan supposed.

Unlike bomb making and brewing, galactic zoology was unlikely to be a field of Knowledge restricted by age by the Courtesan Guild. Shado certainly could have learned these things before he was scooped up in an exclusivity contract not long after his debut. Still, it felt strange that Shado would know the exact name and habits of a specific Outer Rim beast. It felt stranger still that he would know such a beast that hailed from Tatooine, one of the least documented places in this part of the galaxy. Even Obi-Wan hadn’t known of it, and he’d been on the planet for far too many years.

Hands in his pockets, Shado wandered back up the slope to Obi-Wan’s home while Obi-Wan headed off in a different direction to rewire his perimeter system back together.

It took a bit of fiddling—nearly ten minutes passed—but Obi-Wan got it hooked up again, minus the destroyed post. Once he figured out why it wasn’t switching back on, it should work. Theoretically.

Pleased with himself, Obi-Wan stood, brushing sand off his pants.

“So it’s like this, is it?”

Obi-Wan flinched, pivoting in place.

Qui-Gon stood behind him. He leaned forward, looking down at Obi-Wan’s handiwork. “Oh, nicely done, padawan.”

This praise did little to soothe Obi-Wan’s rattled heart. “What do you mean, like this?” he demanded. Then, far more bashful as he remembered the activities of the last few days, he said, “At the very least, I’m trying to be less self-destructive. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Qui-Gon hummed a little. Then he stepped back, his expression conflicted as he gazed back at Obi-Wan. Though his master wasn’t commenting on the most heinous of Obi-Wan’s recent crimes—turning his back on his identity as a Jedi—Obi-Wan was still deeply unnerved by that fathomless stare.

Once upon a time, having a far more knowledgeable master was comforting, even inspiring at times. Now, knowing the depths of the Force his dead master must have explored, that same knowledge was disconcerting, no longer wrapped in the same layers of comfort he’d had as a boy.

These days, he couldn’t even be sure Qui-Gon would warn him of a landmine before he stepped on it, especially if Obi-Wan stepping on it—and being obliterated—was somehow the better route in the grand scheme of things.

“At this place and time,” Qui-Gon said, “your future is not a single path but rather a branching system of potential realities. And so many of those realities will be incredibly difficult for you to travel alone.” Qui-Gon paused for a moment, looking him over. His voice shifted into a musing tone. “But all of your choices have led you here, to this exact place and time—and no, Obi-Wan, don’t make that face. That wasn’t a condemnation. It was a statement of fact. Please understand that, were I to actually judge you, you would score quite highly. You have done well. But the path ahead of you will be challenging. I implore you to be careful.”

Qui-Gon continued to stare at him with a grave expression. Then he relented, face softening. “Just keep your mind open, my padawan,” he said, and he said this in the exact same gentle tone he’d use to breakdown complex issues that Obi-Wan failed to understand as a child.

Obi-Wan’s eyes burned.

“Be ready for what comes. Be careful not to assume. And remember, the Force is always with you.”

With that, his Master vanished. A moment later, the perimeter alarm kicked back to life under Obi-Wan’s feet, as if an incorporeal hand had given it just one more push.

Obi-Wan stood there, alone. Gradually, the feelings of nostalgia and loss that his master triggered in him subsided, leaving him with a sense of… pique? Yes.

Increasingly peeved, Obi-Wan stared out into the desert, his hands on his hips as he tried to scrabble for some sense in his Master’s words. You’ve made choices. Beware of the consequences. What kind of advice was that? Obi-Wan hoped that if he ever had the opportunity to act as someone’s ghostly mentor, he would at least opt for something other than cryptic behavior: The device you’re looking for can be found at these exact coordinates. No, don’t go to that meeting; it’s a trap. That man is not your enemy; he’s your father.

Helpful things. Actionable things. Not vague portents of doom.  

Muttering under his breath, Obi-Wan bent over and picked up the broken piece of his perimeter alarm. Then, tucking it under his armpit, he walked back up the slope to his home, still mumbling to himself as he rubbed his stinging hands clean on his shirt.

Then he stepped into his home, finally free of the heat of the suns.

He promptly froze.

Two trespassers stood before him. One trespasser was the one he’d invited in as a guest. The other, clad in brighter clothes, was much, much smaller. One stared at the other with the bewildered interest of a person running across a Neti in the desert. The other stared back like a satiated krayt dragon might observe his next meal.

They turned in unison at his entry, one dour and the other curious.

At the sight of him, Luke brightened like the sun. “Ben! Welcome back!”

-

This could not be happening. Two halves of his life were abruptly colliding, and Obi-Wan had no defenses to raise against this onslaught.

“Where’ve you been?” the child raised plaintively. He hopped up on the recesses of the wall, sitting on it without so much as a by-your-leave. He kicked his feet back and forth idly, bouncing the heels of his shoes off the rock.

At the same time, Shado walked past Luke and mouthed Ben at Obi-Wan mockingly, his eyebrows arched. Obi-Wan could kick him.

“Here and there,” Obi-Wan said vaguely, approaching Luke. Then he said, “Shado, this is Luke. Luke, this is Shado.” At the look he shot them both, his two guests exchanged a flat, nearly synchronized greeting at each other. Then Obi-Wan turned his attention back to Luke. “More importantly, why are you here?” He crossed his arms. “And why are you trying to get in touch with me? Is something wrong? Beru still has my commlink code, does she not?”

Darling Luke, sweet as he was, suddenly had a cagey look on his face. He popped up from his seat, moving past Obi-Wan. “Wow, you still have this? I made this, like, forever ago.”

The “this” in question was the toy Luke had given him, still half-hidden in its pouch. Luke picked it up from the recess that Obi-Wan had stored it in for the day. Cradling it in both hands, Luke faced Obi-Wan, his expression a mixture of anxiety, embarrassment, and hope. Since its creation, someone had clearly made him second-guess the wisdom of giving a toy to an adult. A stranger, no less.

“Have it?” Shado drawled. He was going through Obi-Wan’s rations. “It’s only his most prized possession, kid.”

Obi-Wan knew Shado well enough to know that this was meant to be a jab at him and his anti-materialistic lifestyle up until now. But that nuance was lost on Luke. Instead, Luke had the look of a shiny eyed youngling who had just discovered the ultimate secret to Making Adults Like Him.

Smiling, Obi-Wan leaned against the wall. “I suppose you aren’t the little beastie eating up my perimeter alarms.” His voice was warm and tender. At the confusion on Luke’s face, he pulled the alarm post out from under his arm.

Instantly dropping his creation, Luke tumbled over to look at it. “Gross,” he said, admiring. “No, I just disarm them, promise.” He poked at the protruding bit of bone. “That’s a Morgum tooth. You won’t have this happen again if you anchor your alarm in the rocks instead of the dunes. And don’t go outside on the dunes at night. The Morgum prefers metal, but it’ll eat you too.”

This was all helpful—rare knowledge from an insider local. But something in what he said caught Obi-Wan’s full attention.

“You disarm them?” Obi-Wan echoed, pulling the post away a little to remove the distraction. Luke looked up at him with wide eyes. “How often have you been here?”

“Oh, loads of times.” Luke caught the retreating post quickly, pulling it close again while avoiding the last bit of ichor. “Is this flimsi in the center? That’s not good. Did you get swindled in the markets? I thought only kids got swindled these days.”

Deep in Obi-Wan’s stores, Shado poorly hid his laugh. Obi-Wan really was going to kick him.

“Dear one,” Obi-Wan said, exasperated. “That isn’t the point. I’m trying to understand why you keep visiting, as I’m sure it is without your family’s consent or knowledge.”

Owen wasn’t Obi-Wan’s biggest fan. Even Luke had to know that.

“Don’t worry,” Luke said, worryingly. “I’ve been super quick every time! In and out, really. And I know all the places to avoid around here.” He shrugged. “Besides, my aunt and uncle never notice what I’m doing as long as the chores get done.” This was delivered with a hint of sullenness. Was Luke finally at that age?

“I sincerely doubt that.”

Luke’s expression turned pleading. “Can’t I just wanna talk to you?”

Luke wouldn’t be a Skywalker if he didn’t know how to break Obi-Wan instantaneously. “Of course,” Obi-Wan said soothingly, getting on his level. “It’s just— it’s not safe around here, even for me, and I’m used to it. I worry about you.”

Luke looked unimpressed. “I’m twelve, Ben. I’m practically an adult.”

In his periphery, Obi-Wan noticed Shado’s head cocking at that piece of information. Not wanting his former charge to apply his brutal intelligence to the mystery of Luke’s upbringing—he’d already figured out Vader, for goodness’s sake—Obi-Wan stood up and cleared his throat until Shado turned to face him. “Shado, could you leave us for a moment? I suspect we’ll need some privacy.”

Initially, Obi-Wan was worried Shado would say no. But then he smiled, thin lipped, bowing his head. “Sure. I’ll head over to my ship for a bit.” He walked over to Obi-Wan and took out a marker from his clothes, sketching out his comm code over the veins of Obi-Wan’s wrist, maintaining eye contact most of the time. It would have been more efficient to enter it in the device himself, but that wasn’t the point.

Despite his general state of annoyance at Shado, Obi-Wan’s mouth nevertheless went dry at the proximity and attention. At the steady grip on his arm. At the focus in Shado’s eyes. At the warm pleasant smell of him just faintly detectable.  

Thank goodness they’d disposed of the table and cleaned up the mess before Luke arrived.

“You have a ship?” Luke was asking at their elbows, perking up.

“I have a ship,” Shado confirmed, pulling away from Obi-Wan, his fingers sliding away last. When Luke took a step or two his way, eyes starry, Shado lifted a hand, stopping him. “And you have a conversation. Have fun.”

He saluted them with two fingers and walked out of Obi-Wan’s cave, leaving Obi-Wan and Luke behind.

“Not fair,” Luke breathed, watching him go. He was visibly disappointed. “Is he your brother? You don’t really look alike, but you have the same eyes.”

Did they? “We are not related.” Somewhat self-consciously, Obi-Wan palmed his beard. He’d never thought of his eyes as particularly icy or cold. Were they? If only he had a mirror. Shaking free of this thought, he said, “You wanted to talk to me, didn’t you?”

“Right, right. I’m— right.”

Luke faced him then, hands clasping anxiously in front of his stomach, and Obi-Wan was reminded suddenly that being a pilot was an especially strong interest of Luke’s. For him not to whine or wheedle or follow after Shado spoke to the importance and severity of the cause that drove him to seek out a stranger on a regular basis—even when that stranger wasn’t there.

“I do wanna talk to you about something. Something important. And I think—” Luke paused, tilting his head as if he was listening to something. “I think I need your help?” After a beat, his face relaxed and he nodded. “Yes, I need your help.”

Some time passed as Luke failed to follow this up with any particulars.

Slowly, Obi-Wan said, confused, “I will do what I can, of course, but not without more information.”

“Right! Of course. She said—never mind. Forget I said that. It’s just like—you know how you’re strange? I mean, you might not think you’re odd, but everyone else knows you are and kind of avoids you because of it. Not that you’re dangerous! I mean, I think you can be, but the danger everyone is reacting to is the danger of not knowing and not understanding, right? Because you’re strange.”

After rattling all of this off in one breathless burst, Luke gazed up at him expectantly, his expression demanding a shared vision and dialogue. Which was preposterous, given what he just said. Obi-Wan wouldn’t even know where to start.

“I am familiar with the concept of not knowing and not understanding,” Obi-Wan quipped, meandering over to the cave entrance. He looked out briefly, somewhat curious himself where Shado was hiding his ship. Shado knew of the Morgum. But did he know of the Jawas?

At the sight of something in the distance, however, Obi-Wan immediately detoured, grabbing his binoculars.

In the meantime, Luke had missed the joke. “Right? So you get it. And these days, I think— I think I get it too, you know. The weirdness.” He extended his hands widely, as if referencing something much bigger than himself. “And so, I’m a little weird too, I think. At least, I didn’t initially think so. But then I overheard my uncle talking about it to my aunt, and— I had a dream? Before, I mean, and they were worried. And a dream is just a dream, and dreams mean nothing, but it doesn’t feel like nothing, you know?”

There was a pause. And then, with strong conviction, Luke said, “And if it’s not nothing, then it’s something, and if it’s something, I gotta do things, you know?”

As if just starting to hear what he was saying, Luke sighed, his shoulders slumping. He rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, I haven’t slept in days,” he said with blunt self-awareness, surprising Obi-Wan. “The dreams are getting really bad. I think I need to try explaining again, if that’s okay.”

“Sure, Luke, but I think you’ll want to explain it with your aunt and uncle in mind.” Obi-Wan tipped his head to the entrance. When Luke joined him, Obi-Wan handed over his binoculars.

Luke put them to his own eyes. Then he swore, the kinds of swears good children don’t pick up unless they hang out too long next to starports or cantinas or have too many friends who also thought twelve-year-olds were adults.

The dust cloud Obi-Wan had spied in the distance was Owen and Beru Lars on a speeder bike, heading their way.

-

Once the bike stopped, Luke charged out to meet his family on the slope, clearly gearing up for a fight. Like a lot of children his age, Luke seemed to be of the mindset that the person with the louder argument always won. Unfortunately, it was a mindset Owen himself shared.

“You’re the one who said he could help!” Luke was yelling, his voice echoing shrilly.

“That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to ask!” Owen roared back.

“Hi Ben,” Beru said, approaching Obi-Wan’s home. Her face had been tight and drained on the approach, but now she was a woman of perfect composure. This composure withered when Obi-Wan, trying to insert some civility into this situation, offered her something to drink. “You can’t offer a married woman a full cup of water, Ben. This is Tatooine, not Coruscant.”

At the look on his face, though, she relented, extending three fingers before pushing him back into his home, following him inside.

Outside, the yelling continued.

“Three more cups, if you can spare the supplies. If not, you better drink it down yourself or hide it from sight. One for yourself, two for them. Hurry now before Owen gets the impression you’re trying to steal his wife.”

Obi-Wan scrambled to fix his mistake. He only hoped he had enough cups.

While Obi-Wan gathered more water, Luke and Owen came inside, red and fuming. Owen’s eyes immediately fell to the misshaped cup Beru was cradling in her hands, his brow furrowing. His brow furrowed deeper when Obi-Wan pushed two more cups to his guests—one for Owen and one for Luke. This gesture seemed to trigger something in Owen. Rather than glaring and turning his ire towards Obi-Wan, as was his habit, Owen merely accepted the cup. He seemed to have a hard time keeping Obi-Wan’s gaze too, something like strained embarrassment peeking past his anger.

“Appreciated,” Owen muttered under his breath, palming his cup with both hands like he’d been given a fragile vase. Only half as embarrassed, Luke echoed this sentiment. And then, without prompting, the two of them joined Beru and sat on the floor in a semi-circle. Beru tilted her head, subtly gesturing for Obi-Wan to settle down between her and her husband.

The set up had the feeling of a ceremony, not unlike one conducted ahead of complex negotiation, so he followed suit, joining them.  

The four of them drank water together in relative silence, the tensions in the air gradually depleting. While it was clear that nothing had been resolved by the shouting, Luke and Owen were no longer arguing. In fact, Owen seemed to put his anger aside entirely for the more important task of feeding his nephew little bits of dried food from a pouch in his pocket, a gesture Luke accepted without comment.

The newfound silence left Obi-Wan alone in his contemplation about recent events. The temper displayed at the foot of Obi-Wan’s home hadn’t broken a thing. Not one object, nor even a heart. Easy come, easy go, it seemed. A healthier temper than the tempers of Luke’s birth parents, who had both been passionate people in their own ways. Neither Anakin nor Padmé  were ever the type of beings to let bygones be bygones without significant incentive.

In comparison, Luke now leaned into Owen’s side, visibly exhausted. Then he extended his foot out at Beru’s chiding, submitting to her efforts to remove burrs from his shoe. There was an unshakeable sort of trust here. Disagreements could be had. Things could be shouted. People could be bitterly angry at one another. But at the end of it all, there was still care and concern here, a love without conditions.

Obi-Wan wondered how different things would have been if Anakin had been allowed such things. If he himself hadn’t played his own role in snatching this lifestyle away from him.

Knuckles rapped softly against rock. Shado was at the doorway, frowning. He stepped inside once Obi-Wan made eye contact. “Heard the speeder. And the yelling.”

Luke blushed at this while Owen gazed up at him with narrow, confused eyes. Obi-Wan got up quickly. “Want to join us for some… water?” Obi-Wan still didn’t understand the parameters of this ritual. Was Obi-Wan allowed to add guests?

But Shado just looked amused. “I’m not here to make friends,” he said bluntly.

Ah. Shado and Owen could not be allowed in the same room together, Obi-Wan decided. Bowing slightly to his guests, Obi-Wan said, “Excuse us.” Then he pushed Shado backwards and out the door, following him outside.

Once outside, Obi-Wan headed over to a small cliff on the same level as his cave, looking out across the desert of Tatooine. Dying afternoon light lit the planet on fire, painting its vast features with a merciless orange and red pigment. In the distance, a low wind toppled over and reshaped several dunes of sand. Much closer, an incessant and shrill predator screamed out its intimidation cries until a much deeper roar snuffed it out.

Hearing rocks crunch behind him, Obi-Wan said over his shoulder, “Look, I know this doesn’t make any sense. But thank you for your patience.”

Obi-Wan was joined at the cliff. “I get the gist of it,” Shado said easily. Then, proving he absolutely did not get the gist of anything, he said, “That boy’s your love child.”

Obi-Wan was startled so badly by this, he almost rolled his ankle on a rock. Once stable, he faced Shado immediately. “He’s my what?” he demanded waspishly.

Shado gazed back at him steadily. He was a wretchedly possessive creature on the best of days. So why was he not approaching this with his usual anger and jealousy? A wistful sort of compassion. A sympathetic sort of sadness. These things were not expected of him. And yet, here they were.  

It was sweet. But that didn’t stop him from being incredibly wrong.

“You fell in love during the war, didn’t you?” Shado said, not waiting for a response. “He’s the right age for it.” Then, with something like grief on his face, he closed the space between them. “Please tell me that you at least got the chance to marry his other parent. That you had some sort of comfort back then, like I did with—”

Whatever Shado was about to say, it was lost, buried under the hand Obi-Wan pressed to his mouth. “No, no, no. Luke is not my child. Whatever would have led you to such an absurd conclusion—”

Shado yanked his hand away. “He looks just like you.”

That compassion was gone, finally. Shado did so hate being wrong.

“He looks nothing like me. He looks like his parents.” Obi-Wan crossed both arms over his chest, rejecting this. “He’s not my love child. And please excise that phrase from your vocabulary, I’m begging you.”

Such an unfortunate phrasing belonged only in the seediest tabloids who let algorithms do all their writing for them. Why, Obi-Wan’d had scores of so-called “love children” across the galaxy, if you believed that trite. To this day, he still didn’t understand how people thought he had time for war at all in the midst of all that alleged fornication.

Nope. Obi-Wan refused to contribute to this. Banish the word. Banish the very thought.

It looked like his former charge was starting to believe him. “…a nephew?” Shado tried, squinting.

“There’s no blood there,” Obi-Wan assured him.

Shado’s eyes moved over Obi-Wan’s face, reading him. “But there is love. Protectiveness, even.” He stared a little longer, then turned his face away. “You, of all people, harboring an attachment.”

Ah. There was the expected reaction. Smiling a little, Obi-Wan cupped his face. “Jealous?”

“Extremely,” Shado said flatly.

Obi-Wan snorted, tracing his thumbs over Shado’s cheekbones. Jealousy was not a healthy emotion. But the draw of Shado was that he felt things so strongly, and in ways that made him incredibly predictable. Obi-Wan missed knowing people this deeply. He missed becoming this familiar with someone. He missed the feeling of being so in sync with another that they might as well have been one person.

“You shouldn’t be,” Obi-Wan said affectionately. His hands dropped slowly, dipping into the collar of Shado’s shirt. “I just want him to grow up well and grow up safe. That’s all.”

Fingertips settled lightly on the bones of his wrist. “So he’s Force sensitive.”

Obi-Wan chuckled at this misunderstanding. “Oh, not at all,” he said confidently. “He would have been throwing things around with his mind by the time he was four. Hard to miss.”

“Kids are good at hiding things,” Shado said cryptically. “Especially in this place.” Then, as if a switch had been flicked, he shook his head, intensity falling away from his demeanor. He lifted the wrists in his hands high enough to press soft, lingering kisses against Obi-Wan’s knuckles. “I don’t need to know anything else. Okay? That’s the way things work now. You do your own thing, and I don’t ask too many questions.”

Obi-Wan very much didn’t want him to ask questions. But… “That seems rather unbalanced.”

Shado chuckled. “Yeah,” he breathed. He let their arms fall between them, his grip shifting until his fingers were sliding through Obi-Wan’s own. His eyes were incredibly kind. “But I don’t think you understand how much I’m willing to surrender to keep you.”

Shado looked at him a little longer. Then his eyes darted over Obi-Wan’s head, looking past him.

At the entrance of Obi-Wan’s home stood Owen. He said nothing but his expression said everything. It was a subtle look of distrust. Narrow eyes. A flat mouth. A careful watchfulness. A certain backwards lean paired with a wide stance, hands on hips.

Obi-Wan had seen this look often around town. He’d dubbed it the Tatooine Squint. Twelve years had taught him that most of the people of Tatooine—at least, those who weren’t rampant murderers or traffickers—had a deep vein of altruism inherent to them. The kind of goodness that had a childless couple taking in a strange infant, no questions asked.

But it was a compassion that was deeply buried, hidden away from anyone outside their circle of trust. For those folks, they didn’t get a handout. They got the Squint instead.

Obi-Wan turned back to him, mouth opening to explain. But Shado was aiming the Tatooine Squint right back at Owen, beat by beat, with full force.

Slowly, Shado pulled his gaze away from Owen, bringing it back to Obi-Wan. When he smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll give you some more time to deal with the kid. Come to me when you can.”

“Alright, alright. Where is your ship?” Obi-Wan asked, feeling as if his feathers had been ruffled. Shado told him, providing his coordinates precisely. It was an area that was within walking distance.

It was also not an area known for landing-friendly terrain.

When Obi-Wan expressed his doubts, Shado chuckled again, pinching his side meanly. “You’ll see when you get there,” he promised. Then, with one lingering glance back at Owen, he walked off, disappearing into the brush.

Sighing, Obi-Wan rejoined Owen, offering a faint smile. Owen shot him a dubious expression, eyes moving from Obi-Wan’s face to where Shado had disappeared. When they were within arm’s reach of each other, Owen finally said, “Is it just me, or does he look an awful lot like…” At the expression on Obi-Wan’s face, he trailed off. Then he shook his head. “Never mind. Just… seeing ghosts.”

“Oh, me too,” Obi-Wan said, thinking of Qui-Gon.

Owen had the expression of someone who very much didn’t want to ask. An awkward moment passed. Then, stiffly, he settled in place, arms dropping to his sides. “We’ve decided you and Luke can talk about his dream. He thinks it’s real. You should convince him that it’s not.”

“All dreams are real, Owen.”

“Don’t you start. I mean he thinks it’s about to happen. He may look energetic and unaffected now, but you’re not the one who has to deal with a crying—you know what, never mind.” Owen looked away. “Just… whatever you do. Don’t start anything you can’t undo.”

This whole time, Luke just wanted to talk to him about a dream? Well then. Obi-Wan shrugged and gestured back to his home. He and Owen headed back inside.

“So,” Obi-Wan announced, his tone jovial. “You think your dream is a vision of the future.”

Seated on the floor still, Luke slowly nodded, belatedly bashful and tracing a spiral through the sand on the ground. It was so nice to finally know the shape of things. Obi-Wan was no expert in the psychology of a sleeping mind, but he could provide some comfort, he supposed.

It wasn’t like Luke was Force sensitive. What could possibly go wrong?

Chapter Text

“Better out than in.”

Obi-Wan’s answer was garbled, lost in a wheeze. Owen was forcing Obi-Wan’s head between his knees, his work roughened hand gripping Obi-Wan’s nape. It was always nice to have such a decisive being around, Obi-Wan supposed.

A bucket sat under his face, filled with nothing but Tatooine’s hard-won water, freshly revisited. He heaved, shoving his fist against his teeth. His stomach was churning.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Luke said for the fifth time, in despair. His aunt stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders, a deep line between her eyebrows.

Obi-Wan shook his head, rubbing his beard against his forearm. “It’s quite alright,” he said thickly, trying to stand. Owen’s grip moved from his neck to his elbow as he rose and swayed. “You just… took me by surprise.”

A few minutes ago, Obi-Wan had sat down with Luke in what should have been a calm and utterly mundane meditative session, the kind that even a being without sensitivity to the Force could have led or participated in. The Force, in this instance, had been used as an extra pair of eyes rather than the bridge it would have been if Luke had any sensitivity whatsoever.

But sight, as it were, had eluded Obi-Wan. Luke responded obediently and expediently to all voice prompts, but his Force presence was non-reactive, a low haze on the horizon that never changed. Obi-Wan had might as well been giving the poor boy a pallid form of talk therapy, for what use was his abilities through the Force?

And so, bothered by this, Obi-Wan stretched out his own Force presence, easing the thinnest of training bonds into Luke’s nebulous Force presence. He had hoped that this small connection would help him find and share a greater truth behind Luke’s sleepless nights. That it would bring Anakin’s child some peace.

But that was not what happened. Instead of providing him with some surface level understanding of Luke Skywalker, that small tendril of a training bond was snared, and Obi-Wan was yanked full force into the disorganized chaos of a child’s mind.

It was illuminating. And nauseating. In more ways than one.

Obi-Wan was a rock in the Force. Steady and small, taking up exactly as much space as he needed. Luke, on the other hand, had been a massive, endless sandstorm. They were not the same. Luke was truly his father’s son.

And like Anakin, Luke had no context for what was normal or allowed; once connected, Luke had dragged Obi-Wan to the innermost reaches of his brilliant and clever mind, bombarding him with all of the thoughts and feelings and information he was struggling to share through mundane and spoken word. They had been connected for mere seconds—not even a full minute—and Obi-Wan was still struggling to process all he’d seen.

Part of the challenge was, to Luke, everything was equally important. An observation about a change in the weather had been thrust at him with as much speed as the contents of Luke’s actual vision—and it was a vision, not a simple nightmare.

Strangely enough, it was the vision itself that Luke had been the most circumspect about. Like it was tied to something he wanted to keep secret. Or something he knew he’d get in trouble over, if it ever came to light.

But he’d pushed it all of Obi-Wan nevertheless, leaving in Obi-Wan’s mental possession a chaotic mess of thoughts and feelings and dreams to shift through—and a vision, no less.

Oh, if Obi-Wan only had the space to think! He needed to mediate on this.

“…You knew me as a baby?”

Luke’s quiet question might as well have been a blade; it pierced the general feeling of ease in the air. Silence and tension rose hand-in-hand, and Luke’s family had gone utterly still, leaving Obi-Wan with few clues on how to proceed.  

So Obi-Wan went with the truth. “Yes. I was present at your birth.” Present but powerless. In attendance but impotent. He’d been a helpless, useless witness to the slow, unexplainable death of one of the best people he’d ever known.

Had Luke seen that in him? While they were connected, it was quite possible that, as Luke was giving, he was also taking. Obi-Wan doubted the poor boy had the entirety of Obi-Wan’s recent thoughts and memories imprinted into his head—Obi-Wan’s mind was too organized and too well trained for that—but there would always be a part of him that looked into Luke’s blue eyes and imagined, instead, a much younger version of him.

A warm bundle being placed in his unworthy arms. A tiny hand, fisting reflexively in the air before retreating, as if anticipating that the being it was reaching for was no longer present. And the somber silence of a voice that was entitled to a great deal of screaming and yelling.

Luke’s eyes flickered between Obi-Wan and his guardians. “You gave me to them?” Luke asked, his voice wavering. “Why didn’t you keep me?”

“I wanted to,” Obi-Wan said honestly, closing the distance between the two of them. After a beat, he dropped down on a knee. “You were a delight. It just wasn’t safe, is all.” Obi-Wan patted both of his arms soothingly. “I knew you could have a better childhood with Owen and Beru. And you have.”

Luke was chewing on his lip. “But you knew my parents?” His voice rose in pitch. His next words were quick, nearly tripping over each other. “What was my mother like? Was my dad really a navigator on a spice freighter? Was he—”

“Damn it, Luke!” Owen snapped. Luke flinched, head bowing. Noticing this—and visibly regretting it—Owen rounded on Obi-Wan instead. “Look at what you did. I told you not to do what can’t be undone.”

Obi-Wan rose to his feet, anger crawling up his throat. In his most clipped tone, he said, “And I told you to tell me if he ever manifested an ability. Looks like we both broke our deal with each other, didn’t we?” Owen’s eyes skittered away. “I just don’t understand how you thought you could hide it forever.”

“You said it might go away if he didn’t know,” Beru countered.   

“I said it was a possibility,” Obi-Wan corrected fiercely, rounding on her. He had never lied. Unless trained, raw Force sensitivity did wane with age.

“So it was always a possibility you were going to steal him from us?” Beru retorted, mimicking his tone.

“I—” Obi-Wan’s retort froze in his throat. Not for the want of peace between them, but for the way Luke’s knuckles had turned bone white with the force of his grip on his aunt. For the way Luke’s expression had very briefly turned towards fear.

How unfair. There were centuries of galactic precedent here, of the Jedi taking on Force-sensitive children to teach them their ways. Obi-Wan had never known this to happen without their parents or guardians’ full consent. It was considered a great honor—and if not that, then at least a most helpful boon for a parent who didn’t know how to handle the earliest manifestations of a child’s Force abilities.

But child theft on Tatooine was a sensitive and traumatic topic, for many Tatooine parents had learned the hard way the fate of unattended children. The Hutts were not the only danger in the region. Criminal syndicates, unscrupulous business ventures, and individual criminals valued moldable biddable minds, and the lesson most children were taught from crawling towards ambulatory ages was how to obey.

Trying to defend the precedent—the honor—of becoming a Jedi youngling in the context of generational grief seemed tone deaf at best and cruel at worst.

So he went with blunt honesty instead. “Where would I steal him to, Beru? Every planet and place that is sacred to the Jedi has been mined, stripped, and destroyed. My childhood home is where the architect of our destruction now sleeps, content in our misery. Where would we go? And why would I rob Luke of the best chance he has to pretend he’s normal?”

“He is normal,” Owen snapped.

“He is not. He is extraordinary. I wish I could tell you otherwise.” After a beat, Obi-Wan’s eyes dropped from the adults back down to the child. He was gradually piecing together what Luke had been trying to tell him from the beginning, in his own awkward way. “But his connection to the Force is far beyond my own. Even if he never trains, that connection will never completely wither and fade. Do you understand? Even if he never trains, even if he never thinks of it again, it will manifest in his life, one way or another. An uncommon mastery of a skill. A miraculous amount of luck. An ability to bridge nearly impossible gaps between disparate peoples.”

Any one of these talents would have been a boon. But all of these gifts, he spat them out like curses, for there was only one truth these days:

“Do you understand what that means in this Empire?”

There was a long pause. Then, slowly, gravely, Owen said, “I don’t want to hear that. Not from you.” He had turned very pale but likely not from a new epiphany. He had known from the day Obi-Wan handed Luke over what it meant to accept a child of a Jedi. The Outer Rim was already so unkind to Force sensitives. The Empire had merely taken that exploitation and hate and turned it into law.

Owen looked back at his wife and nephew. Mouth twisting, he shook his head once and turned around, abruptly marching outside.

Obi-Wan watched him go, still fuming. Then—   

“You knew his mother?”

Obi-Wan turned to Beru. Over the last few minutes, she had dropped her arms over the front of Luke’s chest, hugging him to her. It was not a protective gesture so much as it was a casual one. Her expression was calm, despite everything.

“We never knew,” Beru continued, sighing. “So we couldn’t tell him.” Hanging onto his aunt’s hands, Luke turned huge, pleading eyes on Obi-Wan. “We thought maybe… it was that girl who came back with him that one time? Right before Shmi was killed.” She shook her head, a rueful grimace to her lips. “I don’t remember her name. Only that she was kind.”

Obi-Wan’s heart was still racing madly. Setting his feelings aside, though, he considered her question.

Padmé  Amidala was a woman known for many things. Her intelligence. Her passion. Her commitment to justice. On a planet full of exceptional people, she was incomparable. A hero queen. A fierce negotiator. A compassionate warrior. All these things, she had been before her age of maturity, but adulthood had not been kind, thrusting upon her even greater responsibility and even greater dangers. Under fire, she’d become a skilled politician. A riveting orator who stirred the hearts of millions. A keen convener of diverse minds and opinions.

Padmé  Amidala was a linchpin of the Republic. Had she lived, the Empire would have faltered. Had she lived, the Rebellion would have rose up with greater might and greater speed. Had she lived, Anakin might not have—

Anyway.

That she would be remembered here only as a kind woman was nearly obscene. Horrific. Downright insulting.

She would have been so thrilled.

And so Obi-Wan smiled—first at Beru, who had asked, then down at Luke. “Her name was Padmé  Amidala.” His smile broadened. “And your aunt is right. She was incredibly kind.” He tilted his head to the side, something sliding into place in his mind as one more knot of Luke’s psychic push unraveled. “You didn’t just have a vision, did you.”

It wasn’t a question. Obi-Wan knew the answer, and so did Luke. And young Luke grimaced, shooting Obi-Wan a betrayed look under furrowed eyebrows. “That was private.”

Obi-Wan’s smile turned knowing—and just a hair mean. “No, I don’t think so,” he said grandly. He put his hands on his hips. “Do you want to tell your aunt, or should I?”

Luke slumped over. Then, with great reluctance and defeat, he said, “I… was talking to a girl.”

Beru had taken confirmation of Luke’s Force sensitivity with enviable calm. At this news, however, she gasped audibly. “A girl?” She dropped down to her knee next to him. “How? Who? Where? How?”

“You asked how twice,” Luke pointed out, the little shit. Scowling, Beru abruptly turned him around, and he yelped. “What? I’m not apologizing! You said she was an imaginary friend. I’m twelve years old. I don’t get those anymore.”

She paused. Obi-Wan wondered if Beru was now considering the terrifying possibility none of Luke’s imaginary friends were truly imaginary. She rallied quickly, however, cupping his face with her palms. “You can’t be conversating with strangers,” she lectured, incredulous. “Haven’t we had this talk? Not everyone you meet is a future friend.”

So Luke was that kind of child. Oh dear.

“She reached out first!”

Oh, did she?

“Who is she? How old is she? Who are her parents?” Beru fussed, tipping his head left and right. “Huh? You don’t know these things? You should! For all you know, she could be a Hutt.”

“What the heck,” Luke blurted out. Under her hands, he somehow engaged in a full body eye roll. “She is not a Hutt.”

“That, I can confirm,” Obi-Wan offered. They both looked up at him, Beru with a furrowed brow and Luke with a pout. He stepped away, grabbing his commlink from where he’d shoved it in a wall recess earlier that day. “She is another child, and believe you me, she will also be getting a lecture about conversating with strangers via the Force.” Already punching in the code, he walked over to the entrance. “Feel free to stay as long as you wish. What’s mine is yours.”

Luke was complaining now, twisting in her grip in a very strange game of slow roughhousing. Beru tolerated it some, letting him nearly free himself from her before she grabbed another limb or piece of clothing, hauling him back to her again. “Tell Owen to come back inside.”

Saluting her with the commlink, he stepped outside. “Certainly.”

“You’re so clingy, what the heck!” Obi-Wan heard Luke shouting. Then a moment later, offenses clearly forgotten, Luke asked, “So what’s a Jedi?”

Just outside of his home, overlooking a ridge, Owen stood alone, back to Obi-Wan. Observing him warily for a moment, Obi-Wan joined him, mirroring his stance after a while.

Owen said nothing for a while, his gaze cast grimly over the features of his home planet. His eyes were narrow slits in the dying sunlight, and his arms were crossed loosely over his torso. His stance was wide but not terribly defensive, and he seemed lost in thought.

One of the worst mistakes one can make on Tatooine was to assume that its settings were static—or empty. The sand shifted constantly, carried by wind and limb. Many hardy creatures trampled in and out of it, often without warning, using the surroundings as both bed and breakfast table. Creature song and bark made a harmony of sorts, and Obi-Wan had never met a living, breathing thing here that he hadn’t found fascinating, in one way or another. Even the rocks and the plants were not without their charms, occasional migrations or predation aside; Obi-Wan himself had nearly been eaten by a vine in his first year here. And Obi-Wan still didn’t know the ins and outs of this place. He hadn’t even heard of the Morgum.

Nevertheless, there was a certain peace one felt upon looking at such a vista, even if it was an acquired taste. He imagined it was the same peace that most felt upon looking at the ocean for a time—though that too, it seemed, was an acquired taste. Dear Rex had admitted once, almost bashfully, an intense hatred of the sea. No matter how kindly populated it was, he was reminded only of Kamino.

Rex reminded him of Owen in a way—not in attitude or demeanor, but in conviction. Obi-Wan had always admired people who stuck to their values, even when their values did not align with his own. Granted, at the same, such stubbornness inspired a rancid thread of pettiness in him, especially when they weren’t of the same mind. Obi-Wan had spent more time arguing with Satine than anything else—and he’d loved her quite dearly.  

“You can hate me all you want,” Owen said after a while, as if reading his thoughts. “But the decisions I made were to protect this family.”

“I am a Jedi. I do not hate.” Owen glanced over at him. Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. “I do, however, judge. It’s different.”

The corner of Owen’s mouth ticked up, very slightly. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

At this distance, Obi-Wan could see that his eyes were bloodshot. In the unforgiving light of day, he didn’t look thunderous and angry. Instead, he looked very weary and very sad.

Owen looked out towards the scenery again. After a beat, Obi-Wan did too. “All I’ve ever wanted for him is to have a normal life,” he rasped.

At this, Obi-Wan reached out to the Force instinctively and felt—

Grief. A sadness that seeped out of the broken bodies of lost opportunities and vanishing options.

Fear. The sort of breathless tremble that spiked only in between waves of the enemy, and never when an enemy was actively advancing.

Resolution. A strengthening commitment to pull one’s face out of the mud. To stand up. To push on.

Love. A gentle sort of fondness wrapped up in well wishes and hope and anticipation of self-sacrifice.

All things Obi-Wan felt too, desperately.

He reached out again, physically this time. He clapped his hand on Owen’s shoulder, squeezing it.

“So did I,” he whispered. “So did I.”

-

Owen went back inside his home, but the privacy this afforded Obi-Wan for his holocall wasn’t worth it. Bail wasn’t picking up.

This lack of immediate response left Obi-Wan floundering, just a little, for Bail too was another guardian who had failed to warn Obi-Wan that his child was Force sensitive. Perhaps Bail had expected it, and perhaps he too had hoped her sensitivity would wither like a plant without sunlight. But it hadn’t, and it had left Obi-Wan dealing with the consequences remotely.

And, honestly, Obi-Wan expected better of Leia. She liked testing her limits, but communicating telepathically with a twin she’d never met, reaching impossibly across the vastness of too many stars… wasn’t this all too much? Even for her brand of chin-up audaciousness? She of all people knew the dangers of burning too brightly in this Empire.

Peeved, Obi-Wan smacked his communicator against the heel of his palm twice. Perhaps sand had snuck into its innards.

He tried calling again. No response.

Planetary time zone conversions weren’t his specialty, but the calculations were easier on Tatooine. It was an ideal time of day for a holocall on both Alderaan and Coruscant. A man like Bail worked at all hours, but Alderaan had strong feelings about nightly meals, and Coruscant politics held sacred large blocks of time, meant for recreation, networking, consumption, and other sorts of hedonism. A Senate meeting at this time was so unlikely, and Breha would forgive his rudeness, if he was interrupting a meal. 

Bail had gifted Obi-Wan with one of the most powerful, most encrypted communication devices in the galaxy, practically a magical device in every way it could be, and he still wasn’t picking up.

Bail had never not picked up before. Even when Obi-Wan was on Tonyani. He’d always prioritized Obi-Wan’s messages, never wanting him to wait after a decade of mutual silence. But now…

He had a bad feeling about this.

Distracted by this, Obi-Wan headed inside his home. Instantly, he had three pairs of eyes on him.

Obi-Wan dropped his communicator off in its recess. “Strange. I thought you’d all be gone by now.” It was nearly night, though the suns had yet to fully set. While Tatooine was hardly friendly during the day, nocturnal travels were especially frowned upon by anyone with a lick of sense.

Owen’s arms were crossed. “He won’t leave.”

At the same time, Luke bounded up to him. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Saw what?” Obi-Wan asked.

“The vision!” Making a face at Obi-Wan’s non-response, Luke grabbed his wrist, pointedly dragging him back outside. Obi-Wan was pulled out the entrance and then down the slope at a clip that threatened injury. Thankfully, the boy came to a stop nearly the end, charging to the left on his own and pointing off into the distance to the features of their surroundings.

Sighing, Obi-Wan looked up, half of a lecture formed his throat about his need to sit quietly sift through the mountain of information Luke had shoved at him. Then, as if overlaying his own sight, Obi-Wan saw— 

A brilliant black and green night sky, clear as a jewel. Against the sky were black silhouettes of a broad single mesa followed up by two smaller buttes. Above them, a ship blazed a too-bright path, an orange and yellow fireball in the sky.

Obi-Wan blinked, and it was twilight again. There were no ships in the sky, nor were the skies clear. Instead, covered by the faintly yellowish and sick looking cloud cover that had partially shaded them for days. But the mesa and the buttes remained in place.

“It happens here, Ben,” Luke said eagerly. “My vision! And it’s going to happen very soon. I just know it.”

-

Night had well and fully settled by the time Obi-Wan left the dubious comforts of his own home.

Over a begrudgingly shared meal, Obi-Wan had tried to explain the unreliable nature of visions further earlier that afternoon. Unless there was a chronometer in sight of the vision, one simply could not know for certain if a vision of a near future or an extremely distant one. Luke could be getting excited over something not fated to happen for another hundred years.

This led to some speculation about how one might pinpoint a time for a vision in the desert. While a clear feature of the vision was pristine skies, weather was dismissed as an indicator, as it was difficult to predict weather in the desert. So too were the stars themselves dismissed, as neither of Luke’s two guardians were stargazers nor were they observers of the seasons, and why would they be? Seasons on Tatooine were not so significantly different that they needed to change up their practices on their farm. Even Obi-Wan too was ignorant in his own way, coddled as he was by Core World narcissism and all too easy access to three-dimensional star maps. While he was certain he could at least name some stars, that meant nothing within the cultural context of Tatooine—and none of the people here were pilots, aspirations aside.

So what hope did they have? How could they ever pin Luke’s vision down to a time—or even a century?

Owen thoughtfully chewed through a tough bit of meat jerky, then suggested knocking down one of the buttes. This was, of course, a joke.

It very rapidly became less and less of a joke the more Luke had doubted Owen’s abilities in such an endeavor. And, somehow, Obi-Wan had been looped into the chore.

“That settles it,” Owen had said to his nephew, satisfied. “In three days, I’ll destroy that rock. That way, when you dream about it again tonight, you’ll know if the vision happens as soon as you think or sometime in the future. Between me and this one, it’ll be easy.” Owen jerked a thumb at Obi-Wan, then made a wavy gesture at his temple. “People with Force sensitivity can move stuff with their mind. I’m sure he could help. But maybe only with a rock this big.” The size Owen guessed at with his hands was insultingly small. He scrutinized Obi-Wan for a moment, then made it even smaller. “Wait, maybe this size.”

“Ben!” Luke hissed, eyes wide in delight. “What a waste! Why even bother? You might as well carry it at that point.”

Obi-Wan flattened his palm over his chest, affecting an offended air. “Me? Do manual labor? Dear one, I prefer not to get my hands dirty, you understand—”

Beru let out a laugh, the sound airy and joyful.

And there, it was, as Owen proclaimed, truly settled. The novelty of the experience seemed to have numbed Luke from the sting of the deal he’d inadvertently made with his aunt and uncle; if the vision did not happen in the next few days, he was expected to go back home with them. No fuss. No arguments. In the meantime, the Lars family would stay in Obi-Wan’s home. While not the most hospitable place, it had adequate accommodations—and Owen and Beru already had plans to visit the closest settlement for supplies the next morning.

And, in three days, Owen and Obi-Wan would have to travel to the butte for their demolition meeting. It was an act likely to attract the ire of the Tusken Raiders, if not local murderous fauna, but Owen himself seemed accepting of that, likely due to his stung pride over his nephew’s doubt in his abilities.

Perhaps they could get away with destroying it only a little, just enough to be seen from the distance.

“That’s so far away,” Owen complained—softly, so Luke wouldn’t hear. After the meal, Owen and Obi-Wan had stepped outside to examine their target, Owen spying on it through Obi-Wan’s binoculars.

“It was your idea. I’ll help you. But only with the pebbles, you see. Can’t strain myself.”

Without looking, Owen thumped Obi-Wan’s shoulder in silent protest. Unable to help himself, Obi-Wan had laughed.

But Obi-Wan eventually left his cave, just as it was starting to feel like a home, wandering out into the night alone. The warm feeling of camaraderie with the Lars family faded with his solitude, as most things did. He picked his path carefully across rocks and brush, taking care not to disturb any of the creatures around him. Tatooine had multiple moons, but the yellow cloud cover had not budged with the setting of the suns. It was still fairly dark.

Not worth the trip, Beru had said, visibly concerned when he made his way out. But worth was such a subjective term. Obi-Wan thought it to be rather vital, in fact.

Over time, Obi-Wan gradually relaxed, a lessening of tensions inversely related with his increasing proximity to a certain set of shared coordinates to a certain man’s ship.

He hadn’t believed Shado when Shado told him where it was—in area full of long plateaus and extremely tight and deep canyons. The only places worth landing were on top of the plateaus, in full sight of Jawas and other enterprising individuals who broke down starships for a living, often without the owner’s consent.

But Shado’s ship, a sleek cruiser that could easily house a family of three for years, wasn’t on top of the plateaus. Instead, it was deep in the largest canyon, well out of sight. Miraculously, both the wings and the walls of the canyon were pristine, a sight more awe-inspiring than the ship itself.

Obi-Wan always did appreciate a safe landing—and he did appreciate it under a flickering handheld light. From several angles, and for a long enough time to irritate its pilot.

When he could finally stand it no longer, Shado strode down the gangplank, his commlink still in hand. “What took you so long?” he demanded. Then, catching sight of Obi-Wan’s face, he said far more kindly, “Are you alright?”

Obi-Wan laughed, startled. “Yes, dear. I’m just…” Obi-Wan stepped up to him, one foot on the gangplank. His eyes lingered on Shado’s chin before meeting his lover’s intense gaze.

It would be so easy to deflect. To utter a small white lie. But what was easy was not always the right thing to do, was it?

So he shrugged instead. “Honestly, I’m feeling stupid, vulnerable, and confused. And rather like a villain too, which is not my preferred state of things.”

For the briefest moment, Luke had recoiled from him, clinging to his aunt. And Obi-Wan had not seen it as fear. Instead, he’d seen it as dangerous attachment. Everything in Obi-Wan’s upbringing and training said he ought to separate them. He ought to do exactly as Beru feared, for stomping out those relationships and those connections would be better in the long run. For Luke. For his family. For the Jedi Luke could be.

But what was a Jedi without an Order? And how could he even fathom wrenching Luke from his loved ones? Did he not learn from his mistakes with Anakin?

Thinking of it now sickened him.

Obi-Wan summoned up a smile. “Mind if I stay with you for the night? My home’s been overtaken by the Lars family for a bit.”

Shado immediately grabbed his wrist, pulling him up the gangplank. “Of course,” he assured Obi-Wan, boyishly eager. Then, in a strange voice— “Lars?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan confirmed. “Do you know them? Owen seemed to recognize you.”

“Don’t recall.”

Obi-Wan was ushered inside immediately. The temperature and humidity differential between the inside of the ship and the outside was staggering, especially after the ramp pulled up, closing off the ship from the outside elements.

It was a nice ship. The interior confirmed Obi-Wan’s thoughts that the ship was made for more domestic purposes than utilitarianism. At the entrance was a holomap console, with Tatooine a dusty tan at its center. Several semi-circular couches surrounding it, pointing towards the fact that it might serve dual purposes of both entertainment and navigation. An open door to the right revealed a lavish fresher, still steaming from a recent shower. Sharing the same wall was an extremely minimal kitchen area with just two feet of counters, three cupboards (strapped shut), and a dented refrigeration unit. Past that, a hallway led to a door, firmly closed, likely sleeping quarters.

On the other side of the ship, of course, were the pilot seats, and that was where Obi-Wan went, hands sliding over the top. “Ah, look. Room for two.” Obi-Wan sat down on the copilot’s chair. “Suppose the presence of this chair means you wouldn’t mind terribly if you had a backseat pilot.” Shado was too handy with his tools to suffer the existence of an unnecessary seat.

Amusing himself, Obi-Wan rocked it back and forth, testing how far it would twist left, then how far it would twist right.

A hand shot out, catching the arm of the chair and arresting its movement entirely. Obi-Wan glanced up and over his shoulder, but Shado’s expression was inscrutable. Focused, as ever, of course, and hardly neutral, but still deceptively calm on the surface.

Shado fiddled with something on the back of the seat. Something loosened, and then Shado spun the chair around completely. Then, with a pleased smirk, he braced his hands on each arm of the seat until Obi-Wan was fully caged in the prison of his body.

“I don’t mind a copilot. Not if it’s you.”

A knee pressed in against his hip. “Wide seats,” Obi-Wan blurted out, very nearly blushing. Goodness, was he being pounced on? When was the last time that ever happened.  

Above him, Shado visibly amused. He pushed suddenly, and the chair rocked backwards so far and so fast, Obi-Wan’s stomach jumped a little. “They lean back too.”

Obi-Wan didn’t have much of a chance to do more than chuckle self-consciously, his feet dangling in the air, before Shado swooped down on him, biting on his lip. A second knee bullied itself into the chair on Obi-Wan’s other side, and, under the weight of two fully grown men, the chair leaned back further, clacking against the console. Any thought of accidentally triggered controls or depressed keys disappeared in the heat of Shado’s body, the machine-roughened touch of his hands, and that damn mouth.

Wide or not, a co-pilot chair was an uncomfortable place for intimacy—and an unstable one to boot. And yet that’s what made it so wonderful and so appealing. That Shado was so hungry for him, he’d risk bruising Obi-Wan’s very kidneys just to get his hand on him.

And get his hand on him he did, pulling Obi-Wan’s cock out of his trousers without so much of a by-your-leave. Shuddering under his grip, Obi-Wan arched up, breaking off their searing kiss to gasp for air. His arms flew around Shado’s shoulders, holding on tight.

The angle was so bad and so horrible, and Obi-Wan was going to orgasm immediately. Peeved, Obi-Wan slapped Shado’s hands away, trying to sit up. An easily offended and prideful creature, Shado immediately reared up, lifting himself away just slightly, his expression stormy.

And yet that questioning tone, more whimper than word, instantly died in Shado’s throat when Obi-Wan eeled into his trousers and pulled out Shado’s cock, grasping at it before rocking his own against it. Shado dropped back over him immediately, bracing his own weight against the back of the chair again.

They let out simultaneous hisses when the angle went from awkward to just right.

Ah, yes. Obi-Wan still had it.

“I see I have more to learn,” Shado muttered through pants. Understanding now, he rolled his hips into their shared clutch beautifully.

It didn’t take much than that to finish. A few more strokes and few more feverish kisses later, Obi-Wan’s release arced through him. Gasping, he collapsed against the seat, breathlessly watching as Shado grabbed Obi-Wan’s hands, closing them around his cock for a few more feverish strokes before he orgasmed too, groaning. He dropped down against Obi-Wan, shaking, mouth open.

For a moment, they stayed there together, idly stroking each other’s skin wherever they could reach. Then, humming softly, Obi-Wan rubbed his beard against Shado’s cheek, liking how it made him pinken. “Does your ship have a bed, perhaps?”

Shado picked Obi-Wan’s hand up and pressed a kiss against his knuckles. “Yeah. Just for you.”

-

Three days went faster than perhaps anyone anticipated. The Lars family and Obi-Wan orbited around each other carefully, trying to give each other space, and, at nights, Obi-Wan retreated to Shado’s ship, spending time with him there instead and taking shameless advantage of his hospitality.

And his fresher. And his bed.  

Ironically, Obi-Wan’s relationship with Anakin’s family had never been better, bolstered by this common cause and the stubborn nature of one boy. Together, the four of them monitored the weather and skies. They shared meals. They made plans to destroy the butte. They offered advice to each other, ranging from the best place to try and make a call to Alderaan to how to manage a willful Skywalker boy.

They even swapped limited information about the Force.

The Lars did not want Luke to be trained as a Jedi. But nor could they ignore his abilities. As a compromise—and to avoid putting materials in their hands that might get them hanged—Obi-Wan spent many hours with Beru instead, talking through different techniques and philosophies of the Force, especially ones that would support Luke’s wellbeing and promote his (already incredible) ability to hide.

Obi-Wan made a mental note of every old lesson plan shared, anticipating that he might need to repeat this conversation with Leia’s parents. They were raising her as a queen, not a martyr.

Obi-Wan was increasingly at peace with this.

In the meantime, Beru did not take to instruction like any Core World student—her Aurebesh was illegible—but her mind was like a durasteel trap. She was also incredibly sharp, able to connect one teaching or concept to the next without any of the coaching Obi-Wan was used to for younger beings.

And sometimes, what she extrapolated was a surprise, even to Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan had just finished explaining, again, the way that youth with Force sensitivity tended to take that sensitivity out on their surrounding environments—half the reason why said children were often surrendered to the Order—when she said suddenly, “Do you think something happened to Luke as a baby?”

Beru had the most thoughtful look on her face. “What you described—the flying toys, the psychics screams, the random disappearances—none of that ever happened with Luke. He was the sweetest baby. But quiet, very quiet. Quiet for the longest time.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek worryingly. “But kids are smart. They pick up on threats. When the Hutts collectors are in town, not even the youngest baby makes a peep. They don’t need to be told. They just know. Be quiet. Be still. That’s how you survive.”

Slowly, Obi-Wan sat down next to her. She turned to him. Her hands were a mess of chalk and dirt from where she’d been idly writing on a rock.

“His mother was exposed to the Dark Side immediately prior to labor. Immediately prior to her death. She was— It was—” Obi-Wan bowed his head. “Perhaps that’s why his powers never really manifested the way they should have.” Perhaps that was why both twins had appeared to lack their father’s Force sensitivity.

One of their very first memories wasn’t of their parents’ love. It was of the Dark Side instead.

-

The third night rose without much time passing at all. Despite his best intentions, Luke fell asleep, draped over his aunt’s lap. She stifled a yawn too, blinking slowly and passing Obi-Wan a small smile when he rose, patting her shoulder.

Obi-Wan left his home, looking up at the starless sky.

“Your speeder fueled up for the trip tomorrow?” he called out.

“Yeah,” Owen replied. He was kneeling at the foot of the machine, testing the give of a loose propulsor with his thumb. His back was to Obi-Wan. “It’ll take us about three hours to get there. Sure your friend with the ship won’t let us borrow his weapons systems?”

“He’s not terribly altruistic,” Obi-Wan said with a tone of regret.

Owen scoffed, then banged his fist against the propulsor. Miraculously, it seemed to stick in place. “Doesn’t seem to mind you in his face.”

“I don’t take up that much room.”

“And I do?” Owen shook his head. Then he stood up, hands on his hips. “I’m taking him home tomorrow afternoon. Force or not, this chapter of his life will stay closed. You know that, right?”

Goodness. Since when had Owen sounded so reluctant to draw a line in the sand? Perhaps Obi-Wan didn’t top his list of least liked people after all. Perhaps a Hutt or two beat him out of the competition.

“Certainly. Does he?”

Owen rubbed the back of his neck, still avoiding his gaze. “He’ll learn.”

“You’ll find Skywalkers learn precisely when they want to, and not a moment sooner,” Obi-Wan said, but not without warmth. He bowed. “Good night, Owen.”

Owen grunted waving him off. As Obi-Wan walked away into that cloudy, lightless night, he heard the sounds of banging returning anew, as if Luke’s uncle had fully committed to taking out his anxiety on that poor machine.

-

“We could really use a droid.” Obi-Wan had just bent over to pick up his clothes from the day from their heap on the floor of Shado’s ship. In doing so, he’d spied a small hoard of socks hiding out under Shado’s bed like tiny rodents avoiding the sight of a large predatory animal. “Any chance we could pick up one up from Tonyani without alerting half the Empire?”

Shado paused. Then he finished pulling his sleep shirt over his head. “We don’t need a droid.”

“We need a droid,” Obi-Wan drawled, “or you need to pick up after yourself better.”  

Shado sighed. Then, relenting, he said, “We’ll get a droid.” He threw a pair of borrowed sleep clothes at Obi-Wan’s head. They were a pale white to his own dark black. It was almost as if they’d been purchased with him in mind. Not only were they smaller but Obi-Wan had yet to see Shado wear so much white. “But you better not pay more attention to it than me.”

Obi-Wan sketched a sarcastic smile at him. Then, more serious, he hummed, crossing the bedroom to join Shado on the bed. “Look at that,” he murmured. Shado’s attention snapped to him immediately. “Our first fight as a retired couple. Lovely.”

Laying back down on the bed, Shado said nothing to this, as if dismissing it entirely. Then, giving up, he flattened his palms, hiding his face. His ears were red.

Chuckling, Obi-Wan shifted under the covers until he too was horizontal. He pulled Shado’s sheeting primly up to his ribcage, clasping his hands over the top. “If I may ask you a question. A droid-related question.” When Shado didn’t say no, he immediately rolled over, facing his lover. “Why do they hate birds so?”

Shado gradually pulled his hands away from his face, shooting Obi-Wan a resentful glance. “How would you like to wake up with a living creature in your chassis?”

Obi-Wan scooted up, propping his head on the heel of his palm. “I don’t follow.”

Sighing heavily, Shado said reluctantly, “It’s the recharge cycles. It’s like our sleep, but worse. Droids lose almost all awareness during them. And depending on the make—and the owner—a recharge cycle can last anywhere from hours to months to years.” He tapped the center of his own chest. “But in many droids are warm and hollow places. Ideal places to set up nests and lay eggs.”

“A proclivity not limited to birds.”

“Sure,” Shado allowed. “Truth is, most droids wouldn’t mind sharing their body with a little organic buddy. But birds don’t just share. They rearrange things. Pull on wires. Knock out processors. Jam their insides with all matters of twigs and hair.”

“It’s their nature,” Obi-Wan said, observing him. “And it doesn’t seem like it would permanently damage the droid, would it?”

Shado didn’t deny this. “It’s inconvenient, and droids hate inconvenience. It seems to me that if they wanted to live with the droids so badly, they should be more respectful of their surroundings.”

“The birds?”

“The birds.” Shado’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you chuckling.”

Obi-Wan was chuckling, though he’d truthfully tried very hard to smother it with his knuckles. Caught out, he said, “I have half of a thought towards allegory and metaphor. Don’t mind me.” With that, he dropped flat once more, let out one more laugh before falling into silence, musing over the metaphor in question.

The conflict of droid vs bird was almost too relevant, sketching obvious parallels with Shado’s own approach to intimacy. One should only be with another if they’re inconvenient. Said like a man who lived in perpetual isolation. Living with others didn’t just mean tolerating inconveniences but rather accepting them. Embracing them.

Though Obi-Wan supposed he should be flattered. Their time on Tonyani was a wasted exercise of Shado trying—and failing—to shove Obi-Wan in an ill-fitting box. In following him to Tatooine, Shado was now attempting to shove himself into a different box, one that would mean the least amount of inconvenience to Obi-Wan himself. How grateful Shado must have felt when he realized that Obi-Wan’s desires were more along the lines of retirement and discreet travel rather than, say, moisture farming.

Arms pulled at him gently, pushing him to turn. Obi-Wan allowed it. “You’re too funny,” he slurred, tucking into Shado.

“You’re the only one who thinks so.” After a pause, a light kiss ghosted over his eyebrow.

Obi-Wan gradually slipped into sleep. Soon, however, he stirred, rising from unconsciousness to find his head pillowed by Shado’s arm. “What is it?” Shado murmured. His sleeping schedule hadn’t improved any, but his willingness to lay down and try rose exponentially when Obi-Wan started to haunt his bed. Obi-Wan would grow used to the glow of a datapad over his head, at some point.

Still half-asleep, Obi-Wan mumbled a non-response before kicking his feet free of the sheets. He stood, stumbling a bit through the bedroom door. He walked to the front of the ship, flipping off the shutters that provided them additional privacy and darkness when they wanted them most.

It was mostly dark. But where the canyon gave way to the stairs, the sky was clear, nearly pristine.

“What’s going on? Obi-Wan!”

Obi-Wan had spent so much time without an intact training bond in his head, he’d forgotten how it felt to have it tugged desperately from the other side.

Obi-Wan sprang into action. Obi-Wan’s bare feet slapped against the floor as he sprinted back to the sleeping quarters, and his increasingly irate lover. He dressed quickly in his day clothes, shoving his feet in his shoes.

Obi-Wan ran out of the ship, sprinting and disappearing into the Tatooine wilderness and towards his home.

He was nearly there in only five or so minutes, but Luke met him at the bottom of the slope. His face was dusty, streaked with tears. Behind him, Owen and Beru were rushing down the slope, each of them shouldering a weapon.

Wordless, Luke pointed at the sky.

A ship bearing down on the planet in a hellish fireball, just like it had in Luke’s vision. Unlike his vision, the sight was clear, and many details could be made out as the predicted events played out in real time.

The ship was small. Nearly too small, barely larger than a cockpit and a small cargo space. It was also peculiarly designed in a way that made it instantly recognized as a Core World design—or, more specifically, Alderaan starship.

At its horrific descent, Obi-Wan was reminded once more that Bail had never called him back.

-

Nothing could stop the crash.

The ship hit the dunes like a meteor hitting the ocean. Sand displaced in all directions, hardening into fragments of glass and sharp things. The collusion tore a long scar through the landscape.

But the ship had landed at a generously sloped angle, so it did not so much impact the surface as it slid against it. Large pieces of it had been sheared off in the process, but the cockpit had been protected, as designed. Even as Obi-Wan hurried closer, trudging through deep sand up to his calves, he could see through the pilot window a small hand, pushing away protective foam, clearly irritated.

Obi-Wan heard his name, at a distance. Shado was far above him, standing on the shortest plateau. Ironically, the crash had landed not too far from his own ship. Obi-Wan cast him a small wave, still approaching the starship as fast as he could in the sands.

He came to an exhausted stop next to it, clapping the hood with his hand—an instinct he instantly regretted because, ouch, that was still hot. But it did what it intended, catching the attention of the ship’s lone pilot.

Leia Organa looked up from where she was fighting with her seatbelt. She slapped a hand against the other side of the cockpit window, squinting at him. Then, recognition lit up her face, and she smiled, the expression only slightly bloody.

“Obi-Wan!” she chirped, voice muffled. “Where have you been?! And why are you here?”

“Dear one,” he said thickly, pitching his voice loud enough to penetrate the window. “Darling. My heart. I live here.” Heat be damned, he pushed his palm against the other side of the window again until his covered hers. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you on Alderaan?”

Leia’s smile faded slowly. She didn’t answer immediately. Something was terribly wrong.

Obi-Wan heard his name again—or one of them, rather. “Ben!” Owen bellowed, alarmed. Obi-Wan looked over his shoulder, only having a moment to wonder why the Lars family was walking only on rocks.

Then something large breeched the surface of the dunes, pushing aside tons and tons of sand as if they were merely air. It was a creature. It had a heavy hard carapace over its back and six similarly armored legs, ending in points. If it had eyes, Obi-Wan couldn’t seem them. But he did see a full mouth of familiarly shaped teeth.

The Morgum. His nemesis, repeated eater of his perimeter alarms. A massive predatory creature that very much liked to chew on metal.

And all of its focus was on the ship that had just landed on its dinner plate.

Seeing the creature approaching, an alarmed Leia redoubled her efforts to free herself from her chair, struggling and thrashing in place. At the same time, Obi-Wan leapt for the cockpit door, trying to free her that way, but the door kept catching on a mangled locking mechanism. Reaching out with the Force, Obi-Wan struggled to move the mechanism and free her before she too was eaten.

It didn’t work. Behind him, the Lars family were shouting more and more, but the creature only had eyes for the starship, and Obi-Wan was rapidly running out of time to save this child.

Obi-Wan spun around, trying to use the Force to commune with the creature. But all Obi-Wan could feel from it was an aching hunger and a deep resentment of all the beings, both big and small, that kept it from filling its belly. It was an enemy. Not a friend. And Obi-Wan did not have the kinds of weapons needed to fully meet it as its enemy.

When the Morgum got within ten feet of Obi-Wan, several things happened in quick succession. First, in his periphery, Obi-Wan saw Shado fall, hitting the ground on top of his plateau. Second, Obi-Wan’s mind was wrenched open from the outside, his shields shattering. Third, feeling a disconnected sort of rage, Obi-Wan lifted his hand, realizing belatedly that he had two training bonds in his mind—and both of them were wide open.

But it was not the Dark Side surging through him. Obi-Wan only felt the Light.

The massive Morgum was thrown back, tipped back on its shell with an impact that shook the ground. As it fought the pressure that held it down, its many legs scrabbling in the air, Obi-Wan tore the rest of the cockpit door open, bending and twisting the metal in the process.

Clever Leia, armed with the knife she used to cut herself free, quickly hopped out of her seat. Fisting her hand in his shirt, she dragged him to the edge of the dunes where sand met rocky ground. The Lars family met him there. While Beru kept her weapon trained on the beast, Owen caught him as soon as that bizarre strength fled him, leaving him feeling hollow on the inside.

Obi-Wan’s shields slowly shuffled back into place, and his bonds gradually closed. By his side, Luke looked as if he was hit by a benign thunder bolt, rattled and excited and static-y all at the same time. The boy’s hair was literally standing on end.

“Wow,” he kept repeating. “Wow!”

No longer suppressed, the Morgum flipped itself over. It returned immediately to its target, that broken ship. Nightmarish crunching noises soon filled the canyon as the creature ate and ate and ate before wrapping the rest of its body around its prize and dragging it below the sand, leaving nothing of the ship’s presence behind.

Just as quickly as it appeared, the Morgum disappeared, hiding one more time.

“Wow,” Luke said one more time, still inexplicably jazzed. Then— “Betcha never seen anything like that before, huh?”

Leia looked up at him, annoyed. Then, reaching into her vest with a bloodied hand, she pulled a fistful of credits out and shoved it in his direction. “I didn’t know poor sportsmanship was a trait held by Outer Rim farm boys,” she said snippily, though with far less heat than she could have.

It was as if this experience had interrupted a conversation none of them had been privy to.

“So this is the girl you’ve been talking to,” Beru said musingly, crossing her arms over her chest. “And you are?”

On shaking legs, Leia stood, delivering a proper curtsey. “My name is Leia Organa of Alderaan. I am pleased to meet you.”

Even a crash and nearly being eaten didn’t phase her. Obi-Wan had forgotten that about her. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here, Leia,” he reminded her.

Leia slipped out of her curtsey. Then she turned to him with huge, mournful eyes.

Chapter Text

Bail and Breha were dead. They had been dead for days.

Obi-Wan hadn’t even known. The Force did ripple with the loss of a great quantity of lives, but not, it seemed, for the quality of a few very good ones.   

Some part of him wanted to retreat, to stay alone with his thoughts, to process this incredible loss. But he had a child to attend. Leia was hurt, having just gotten out of a crash. Her injuries were fortunately relatively minor, but one of her knees was swollen in a way that made Owen cluck his tongue meaningfully and frown.

“You won’t be running on this for a while,” he warned. Beru reached over his shoulder, passing Leia a cup of water—passing them all a cup of water.

“Unfortunately, I may not have a choice,” Leia said, cupping it between her palms. She glanced at Luke, who was sitting politely next to her in the rock shelf that made up one of Obi-Wan’s seats. He looked back at her, then looked away. She too did the same, though with a hint of offended pride. It was an oddly shy reunion for a pair that had shared both a womb and the privacy of each other’s thoughts.

Pinning his grief for another time, Obi-Wan knelt by them. “How did you find each other?”

Both of the twins looked at him. Leia’s expression soured. “I was looking for you, Obi-Wan,” she said, cranky. Luke mouthed his real name silently, confused. “I found him instead.” She kicked her feet a little, fidgeting. Then, quietly, she said, “I thought, maybe, if I thought really hard about you, you might be able to tell I needed you.”

What she was talking about was nearly impossible. Still— “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you, Leia.”

“It’s okay,” she said quietly, morose. He reached out, squeezing her hand.

Noise at the entrance of the cave drew attention away from young Leia; Shado walked in. The side of his face was scrapped up from his ear to his jaw, and his cheekbone was swelling a bit. There was a ring of blood around one nostril.

Obi-Wan shot to his feet. “What happened to you?”

Shado made a face. “I fell,” he said, his voice clipped. His eyes dropped from Obi-Wan to Leia. “Why is Bail Organa’s kid here?” He looked around. “Is he here too? No wonder your home is running out of room.”

For a beat, no one answered him. Then Beru detached from them, approaching Shado cautiously. “Her parents are dead,” she said in a quiet voice.

At this, Leia’s face spasmed. Luke took her hand. She gripped it back so hard, her knuckles turned white.

“That’s impossible,” Shado said flatly. Of all people, he looked at Obi-Wan, like Obi-Wan would back him up. “Her mother is a queen, and her father is an Imperial Senator. No one would do these things. The economic disruption alone—”

“Did the Empire do this, Leia?” Obi-Wan interrupted. A child did not need to hear their parents’ passing reduced to economics. Sometimes, Shado was just too cruel.

“I’m not sure. Probably? My mother was hosting some of my father’s colleagues for an event. And the event wasn’t cordial.”

Of course it wasn’t. Few elected officials took the Senate seriously these days, recognizing that all important decisions were made by the Emperor alone. The only people who remained were those with revolutionary mindsets or with empty pockets to be filled via bribes and other forms of flattery. 

“They tried to keep me away from them. They thought I could be a target,” Leia said, somewhat distantly. “But they were the target instead.” Her eyes flicked back to Obi-Wan. “It was a coup.”

“A coup?” Owen stood, crossing his arms over his chest. “Was it that one freak? The intense one?” At their blank looks, he rolled his eyes. “The one who toppled Eizoz VII.”

Obi-Wan’s stomach dropped. “Was Vader on your planet, Leia?” he asked urgently, hand settling lightly on her elbow.

While she didn’t respond, clearly trying to remember if this was the case, Shado said, “You shut your mouth.” He was glowering at Owen.

Obi-Wan stood, his fingers resting briefly on top of Leia’s head and her lopsided braid. “Shado, please,” he hissed, getting between the two men.

He was ignored. “Vader wouldn’t kill an Imperial senator,” Shado retorted, “nor the queen of an Imperial world! Do you have any idea how those acts would destabilize the Empire?” He pushed against Obi-Wan’s hands. “Vader–”

Obi-Wan pushed back. “Darth Vader is not a free man,” he retorted harshly. Shado tore his eyes away from Owen, looking down at Obi-Wan instead. “Do not let your affections close your eyes to the truth. If his master ordered it, it would be done.”

Shado visibly cycled through anger, vengeance, and frustration, swirling together in a violent maelstrom. Then, when Shado removed Obi-Wan’s hands from his chest, an almost hurt expression flitted across his face, somehow more vulnerable and raw than the rest. His jaw tightened. Then, without a word, Shado left, storming out the of cave.

Obi-Wan started to follow him. Then, thinking better of it, he doubled back. “Owen. Beru. May I speak to you outside?”

-

It was too late to be awake. The first flares of sunrise lit up the horizon outside, though it would be hours yet before it was fully day. A rare biting chill nipped at exposed skin, cold enough that the skin of Obi-Wan’s cheek was simultaneously numb and stinging.

Though he supposed that could have been because he’d just been slapped.

The revelation about Leia and Luke’s shared parentage was no going well.

“How dare you,” Owen whispered. “How dare you.” Next to him, Beru was covering her mouth.

Obi-Wan bowed his head, expecting this. “Owen—”

“I know we don’t have much here,” Owen interrupted, as pleading as he was distraught. “But we could have taken her too. She’s family. We would have made room. But you—”

“You made that decision without us,” Beru said, “and then you didn’t tell us. For years. Ben, that is so cruel.” There were tears in her eyes. “We would have loved her too.”

“I know you would have,” Obi-Wan said quickly, needing her to understand. “I don’t doubt that at all. And I’m sorry. But you could not have taken both.” He gestured back up the slope. “If these children could manipulate the Force from thousands of lightyears away, just to feel each other again, what do you think they would have done growing up together? The Empire would have destroyed your family! Or worse.”

A low wind rustled the weeds around them. At a distance, a predator growled menacingly at its prey.

“It was cruel, yes. But splitting them up was the kindest thing I can do.” Obi-Wan sighed. “And now, I must split them up again. Leia’s displayed a once-in-a-millennia talent, and with none of the training that would have kept it discreet. It is extremely unlikely it went unnoticed. I have to leave the planet with her. Immediately.”

In the distance, two rocks tumbled down various embankments, drawing their attention. One rock seemed to fall from the path one would take to find Shado’s ship. But the other tumbled down from the slope right next to them—and its culprit was clearly visible.

Luke froze, one foot in the air as he was caught red-handed trying to sneak down the slope. Leia, no less guilty, was on his back, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Luke’s cheeks swelled. Then, defiantly, he walked the rest of the way down the slope, still carrying his sister.

They’d heard the entire thing. Unlike their family, they seemed to have easily accepted this revelation of blood ties, but perhaps in their shared mind space, their true feelings were being displayed—for good or for ill. All Obi-Wan knew, from the outside looking in, that both children seemed calm.

Luke reached the end of the slope. Then, at a tap on his shoulder, he lowered himself just enough for Leia to get her feet on the ground. After some shuffling, she stood next to Luke, shoulder to shoulder, carefully keeping her injured leg from touching the ground. She scanned her aunt and uncle, appearing aloof. The only hint of her anxiety was the way she swallowed hard, her throat clicking.

Then, her arm braced against Luke’s back for leverage, she bowed shallowly at her aunt and uncle. “I’m sorry. I caused a lot of commotion.” Her tone was so formal. “I’ve dropped problems on your doorstep you never asked for.”

Luke shook his head. “It’s gonna be okay, Leia,” he reassured her. “Ben and my aunt and uncle, they’ll fix everything.”

The blind trust of youth could be so cutting sometimes.

“No, this is my fault.” Leia’s mouth was trembling. “I was able to resist that girl’s attempt to read my mind. I thought maybe I was a bit of a Jedi too. So, I tried reaching out, through the F-Force.” She looked at Obi-Wan, eyes wet. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have tried.” She sucked in a huge breath before saying in a rush, “There was just so much unrest at home, I thought maybe, if we had a Jedi, a real Jedi—”

“Shh,” Owen said kindly, crossing over to them. After a beat, Beru followed. “It’s alright, kid. You don’t gotta worry about anything.”

“But I do!” she said, in despair. Her eyes found Obi-Wan’s. “What are the chances it wasn’t noticed?”

Next to none.

-

They all headed back to the cave. Obi-Wan started packing his things, not that there was much to pack. Luke’s toy for one, a stash of credits for another. Obi-Wan wondered if they would have to ditch Shado’s starship somewhere. The degrees of separation between Shado and Leia had to be massive, given where they typically resided, but Shado had recognized Leia on sight.

Obi-Wan wondered if Shado would still want to retire and run away with him if he knew the levels of poverty they were about to dive into. He still didn’t know who Shado’s patron was, but any credit from those accounts would threaten their ability to disappear into the Path.

Oh dear. They were going to have to pretend they were her parents. Obi-Wan didn’t know who was about to hate the journey ahead of them more—Leia or Shado.

“So this Path is supposed to help people?” Owen was asking, trying to understand.

“That’s what it’s for. But it’s hard to find,” Obi-Wan said absently. “Fortunately, I have some information on how to reach some key coordinates that will put us on their radar for pick-up.” He had gathered so few assets in reward for his mischief, but this was one of them.

“I had a vision of a star destroyer over Tatooine.” Obi-Wan bent over to pull a robe out from lower hole in the wall. A senior womprat, frail and snarling, yanked it back, hissing between its teeth. “An inevitable experience, I’m sure. But now I fear Leia’s presence might be the reason why.”

Obi-Wan straightened up, letting the womprat keep its prize.

Owen’s expression brightened. “But you don’t know if your vision is happening today,” he said, pleased with himself.

“You’ve learned,” Obi-Wan said, admiring. “I don’t. But the risks of ignoring it outweigh the rewards of assuming it will happen imminently.”

Owen shuffled his feet. Then he blurted out, “Is there a reason why you have to be the one who takes her? I know she can’t stay. But nothing about her circumstances seems to suggest that the person she needs to leave with is you.”

Obi-Wan paused. Then he turned to Owen, searching his face. “You don’t want to split up again,” he surmised steadily. Behind him, trying to pretend they weren’t eavesdropping, was the rest of Owen’s family.

Owen worked his jaw a little, then said, “Family doesn’t run away when things get complicated.” He gestured at his wife. “You were teaching Beru how Luke can hide his powers better. Can’t we do the same for Leia?”

Luke looked hopeful at this, wordlessly flapping his aunt’s arm at the possibility. Next to him, Leia’s expression was nearly stony. Somehow, that hurt worse.

Not without compassion, Obi-Wan said, “You forget there isn’t one target on Leia’s back. There’s two. She’s Force sensitive, and she’s a princess who survived a coup.”

“I’m inconvenient,” Leia opined wryly, a strange smile on her face. She was twisting her clothing in her fists.

Owen swung his gaze to her, looking lost. Whatever he saw in her face, however, seemed to strengthen his resolve. “So what if we all go instead?” Oblivious to the stares this provoked, he said, “Can’t find what isn’t there, huh? No Force sensitive boys, and no Force sensitive girls.” Leia opened her mouth. “No princesses either.”

Leia closed her mouth with a click. Then, she shook her head, her expression a mixture of wistful, pleased, and sad. “You can’t do that,” she said firmly, her little chin pointed up. “Even I know the homestead is your pride and joy.”

The girl had been on the planet for only a handful of hours, and she’d spent none of it near the Lars family’s meticulously managed property. Her opinion could have only come from one person, and one person only—a preemptively defensive Luke, whose ears were already bright red.

Owen looked devastated. Then he ducked his head, a rueful smile passing over his head. After a moment, he crouched so he was eye to eye with his long lost relative. Blinking rapidly, Owen pressed his own palm to his chest. Slowly, he said, “My family is my pride and joy, Leia.” He looked past her to his nephew instead. “And I’m sorry for saying or doing anything that made you feel otherwise.”

Luke’s face twisted. A light feeling filled the air, just slightly, then a much heavier feeling replaced it, as if someone was unconsciously trying to compensate. Then Luke flung himself forward, hitting Owen like a missile. He wrapped his arms tightly around Owen’s torso, his hands fisting over his back. Owen turned the gesture, hugging Luke—then Leia too, more gently, both in consideration of her injuries as well as her feelings.

She leaned against him, eyes closed as Luke made a wounded noise deep in Owen’s chest. Owen kissed the crown of his head, smiling knowingly at Leia when she looked up, checking on her twin. 

“We’re leaving together,” Beru said with a tone of finality, smiling at Obi-Wan. “Surely this Path of yours can handle a few more.”

If they thought so, then he was not going to argue. He was unwilling to part this family again.

“Very well,” Obi-Wan said faintly. Turning to Beru, he said, “Perhaps this is for the best. I will share with you coordinates that were last shared with me. Once you memorize them, burn them.”

-

Their plans pivoted dramatically within minutes. Owen started packing up their own things, the bits and pieces of their life that had trickled into Obi-Wan’s home over the last few days.

“You aren’t coming with us?” Luke asked, knuckling his eyes. The first fingers of dawn were still fighting for their grip on the sky. Many a reasonable person considered this time of the morning to still be the dead of night.

“Not today, dear,” Obi-Wan said kindly. To Beru, he said, “Do you have a way off this planet?”

“I can think of at least four,” she said slowly. She was burning the piece of flimsy with his hard-won coordinate. “Each more expensive than the last.”

“Take my credits, then.” He tossed her his stash. “It will take you between 20 and 30 hours to reach the first coordinates, then perhaps another 20 to reach the next one, depending on the speed of your vehicle. If the Empire immediately turns around to follow you, you’ll never make it in time. You’ll be overtaken.” He turned back to Luke, who was still standing at his elbow. “And that, my dear, is why I’m not coming. I shall be a diversion.”

“No,” Luke said, rejecting this immediately. He grabbed the ends of Obi-Wan’s shirt, tugging them. “No, you should come with us.”

“I’m sorry, Luke,” Obi-Wan said. Luke looked like he was about to cry.

“He’ll be alright,” Leia soothed. She had a new makeshift brace over her swollen knee. “He’s done this before.” With excessive pride, she said, “He’s a great diversion. It doesn’t matter who is following. He fought Darth Vader to a standstill and escaped.”

Luke looked back up at him with renewed awe, as if opinion of Obi-Wan had jumped up on Leia’s word along. Was this insulting? It could be insulting. Obi-Wan supposed “lives alone in the desert” really didn’t help his reputation much.

Obi-Wan patted Luke’s head reassuringly before gently untangling his grip from Obi-Wan’s clothes. “I’ll find you all again. I promise.” In life or perhaps in death. “But if we are to do this, we must do it now.” Even as he said, he suddenly contradicted himself. “Wait! Wait. Be right back.”

Obi-Wan hurried outside. Owen looked up from where he was packing the speeder bike, a question on his face, but Obi-Wan jogged past him and out of sight.

Carrying a box, Obi-Wan came back just as Beru was lowering Leia onto the vehicle. Owen was back in the cave again, gathering the last of their stuff, and Luke was trying to adjust the cargo to give his sister more room.

Luke looked up first, brightening at his approach. Obi-Wan smiled faintly. He brushed the box free of the last grains of sand and then opened it up. Two lightsaber hilts laid next to each other, quiet and still, as if waiting.

Obi-Wan clipped his to his belt. The other, he placed in Luke’s upturned hands.

“This is your father’s lightsaber.”

Luke stared down at it. Then he looked up at Obi-Wan. “Not a spice trader?” he asked in a small voice.

“Not a spice trader,” Obi-Wan agreed warmly. “He was a Jedi Knight. A very good one. Better than us all, really. A true hero of the Republic.”

Luke chewed over that carefully. Then he blurted out the one thing on the minds of most children living on Tatooine: “If he was such a hero, why didn’t he come back to defeat the Hutts?”

“Because he had a very stupid and hardheaded Master.”

Luke accepted that with a nod, attention turning back to the hilt. He started rolling it over in his hands. “How does it—”

Work, he was about to say. Probably. But his aunt snatched the hilt out of his hand. Then she pointed it at Obi-Wan. “Did you really just give a twelve-year-old boy a laser sword, Master Jedi?”

Ah. Well then. Hm. There were no right answers here. “In my defense, the Order had us training with, uh, laser swords at a very young age.” And then, withering under Beru’s unimpressed gaze, he said, “You will find people on the Path who can help with more techniques to hide Luke’s abilities. Leia’s too. Including how to use that lightsaber. Ask for a Quinlan Vos. Tell him he owes Obi-Wan Kenobi his life.”

“Right,” Beru said slowly, tone dubious. When Luke tried to reach for the lightsaber, she pulled it out of range, shooting him a telling look. Rolling his eyes, Luke gave up, sighing dramatically and walking away.

Only then did Beru lean a little closer to Obi-Wan. Quietly, she said, “How do I activate this?” There was a thin thread of excitement in her voice. “Just in case.”

As usual, Beru was a delightful student, despite her lack of a connection to the Force. She worked it out on the first try—and Owen, having finally caught up with them, took the vision of his wife with a lightsaber with only a slow blink and a small head tilt.

“Let’s go already,” he said, tone brusque once more.

There were hugs. Obi-Wan didn’t initiate them, but Leia demanded one and Luke soon did too. He hugged each of them as tightly as he could, recognizing that this might be the very last time he’d see them. Luke’s embrace was both affectionate and cheerful, despite the difficulties of the last few days. He seemed a resilient child.

Leia, on the other hand, very nearly didn’t let go. When the gesture didn’t promptly end, Obi-Wan merely picked her up, buying her time as the rest of her family prepared to leave—and as she hid her tears in his collar.

“I’m okay,” Leia said thickly, sounding congested. She was not. She was made an orphan for a second time in her short life, and she would not know peace. Not as an effectively exiled princess of Alderaan. Not as a child who inherited her father’s extreme talents with the Force.

“No. But you will be,” Obi-Wan promised. She gave him a crooked smile at this, her expression distant. Then she kicked him in the hip to be left down, and they had a good-natured argument about using her words. He settled her into the vehicle.

Then Luke bounded up to him, sneaking in his own brief hug before Obi-Wan faced their aunt and uncle. As his upbringing demanded, he bowed to Beru, then accepted a forearm from Owen, gripping it.

When Obi-Wan tried to slide away, Owen gripped it harder pointedly. “Don’t forget your promise to the children, Ben,” he said in an undertone, gruff.

“I will do my best.”  

And then, without fanfare, the four of them resettled on the now very cramped vehicle and sped off in the distance.

His breath caught up in his chest, Obi-Wan watched them until the last dust cloud faded, until dawn had fully arrived, bringing the mercilessly dry heat of two suns down on his head. Then, patting Luke’s toy and his own lightsaber thoughtlessly, he turned to follow the path up the slope to his home. He stopped. It didn’t feel right. It wasn’t home anymore.

He turned to the path back to Shado’s ship. His unease ramped up to 100, stopping him in his tracks.

Wait, the Force seemed to say.

Wait. It had rarely been so clear.

Wait. Danger here.

Obi-Wan settled back on his heels, conflicted. He had a bad feeling about this. His plan to leave this planet with Leia and Shado had gone up in smoke, not surviving first contact with the Lars family. His new plan to divert Imperial attention seemed so much less concrete. What should he do? More importantly, what should Shado do?

Should he leave the planet without Obi-Wan, even just for a little while? Should he try to blend in with the locals? Obi-Wan couldn’t ask him to fight alongside him, no. Shado was still a loyalist, and letting him know Obi-Wan’s intentions to disrupt an Imperial investigation seemed unwise.

And yet…

Obi-Wan took a step towards the canyon where his lover had camped out.

Don’t, whispered the Force, very softly. Disturbed, Obi-Wan dropped to a seated position in the dirt to meditate.

Surely, he’d understand more then.

-

After a less than fruitful attempt at meditation, Obi-Wan finally stood and headed back up the slope, deep in thought. He cleaned up his cave one final time. He ate a small meal, dangling choice bits of meat from the elderly womprat living in his robes. He practiced his forms, occasionally scrutinizing the sky. When his comm chirped with the information that an early morning freighter had left with a certain family in tow, he broke the device and buried it. He examined his chronometer, chewing on his mouth a little.

The countdown had officially started. 50 hours to wait. 50 hours to stall. 50 hours to dread a star destroyer in the sky.

Around the early afternoon, Obi-Wan exited his home, carrying the last of his most functional belongings. He headed over to where Shado had parked his ship, frequently looking up at the sky.

Shado’s ship was quiet and still from the outside. Shaking his head, he hurried down the embankment, sliding on the sand. Almost the moment he stepped up to the ship, the gangplank lowered itself. This seemed ominous, but he took the invitation nevertheless, marching up the gangplank.

The ramp closed behind him. Obi-Wan turned towards the noise—Imperial chatter over open comms, originating from the pilot seat. He approached it, walking slow and then slower as he noted the change in environment. Everything that could have been broken was broken. Boxes had been thrown. A pillow had been shredded. Monitors flickered around starbursts of broken surfaces.

“Get in a fight with a rancor?”

Shado was slumped over the console of the ship, staring at a radar screen, clearly tracking something. But when Obi-Wan moved, so did the dot.

Obi-Wan had not asked how Shado had followed him from Tonyani to Tatooine. It seemed irrelevant. An abundance of credits made many impossible things possible for the lucky few, and Shado’s bank accounts were prodigious. But now, it occurred to him that the answer to the question he never asked was far more straightforward. His hand flew over his chest, over one of the few things on his person that had traveled with him between those two planets.

He took off the pouch with Luke’s toy. Then he dumped out all of the contents in his hand. Sure enough, there was a small disc of a tracker, still blinking red, clicking against the ankle of the small toy.

“I see we still have some trust issues to work out,” Obi-Wan said dryly. After a long moment of consideration, he slid the toy—and the tracker—back into the pouch, slinging it over his head again. “I thought we were starting from scratch.” Secrets such as these did not bode well for that fresh start.

“That’s what I thought too,” Shado said distantly, still staring at that console. “Until you started making plans to leave with the girl.”

Shado was rarely so cold. “Do we need to talk?”

“What’s the point?” Shado countered. He swiveled in his seat then, brow knotted into a furious frown. “You never listen. You never understand. And you can’t be trusted to keep a promise.”

Shado sat there, breathing heavily for a moment. Then he leaned back, crossing his leg over his knee. For a moment, he didn’t seem like a pilot or a rogue courtesan. He looked like royalty instead, his chair transforming into a throne.

“Stronger methods of control must be applied,” he murmured.

Almost on cue, there was the sound of knocking on the gangplank. Shado and Obi-Wan stared at each other. Then, expression blank, Shado reached for a button on the console, pressing it. The gangplank was lowered.

A moment later, five men walked into the space around the central navigation module.

“Good afternoon, Master Jedi,” said a man in a white Imperial uniform. Behind him, four stormtroopers leveled their blasters at his head. “Might we have a word?

Chapter Text

A star destroyer was looming over Tatooine.

Obi-Wan was prodded forward by a blaster out of the canyons. Lifting his cuffed hands—Force suppressors, damn it—followed this command, marching to a small cruiser. His lightsaber had been seized. He should have left it in the sands with its brother.

“My name is Commander Maximiliam Seerdon of the ISB,” said the agent. He was a tall man—a boy, really. Just a few years over his age of maturity, if Obi-Wan had to guess. The fact that one so young had the role of commander on such an impressive starship meant that the Empire hadn’t so much stomped out the corrupt practice of nepotism as they had perfected it.

The young man proved his thoughts correct a moment later. “Perhaps you know my father? Kohl Seerdon?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been living in the dessert, you see.”

Seerdon did not seem pleased by this. But whatever he was about to say was interrupted by Shado’s approach up the ramp. Obi-Wan glanced over once, helpless, then glanced again when the imagery finally registered.

Shado was wearing a sleek Imperial uniform, nearly identical to the ISB’s agent except all in black and missing any sort of obvious signa of rank of importance. Not that this seemed to matter. Whatever credentials he flashed in front of the computers had technicians practically leaping to serve him, fueled by a strange terror.

He looked lovely, oddly enough. Part of that loveliness was the calm that had smoothed over his face. Shado was finally in his comfort zone. And now Obi-Wan knew why.

Shado stopped next to him, expression mild. Obi-Wan didn’t bother hiding his boredom with this. What an anticlimactic ending. Years of being chased, only to be done in by a false lover. It was trite worthy of plays and gossip holos. And yet instead of hurrying him to his tragic end, here they were. Processing him. The great mundanity of evil was worse than any overt act, Obi-Wan thought. It tended to turn the work of evil into a palatable affair even for those who would oppose it, normalizing it through forms and check-boxes and accursed processes.

Finally, they were fully processed, and Obi-Wan was pushed to sit in a seat. Shado made to sit next to him, only to be stopped by Seerdon.

“Sir, we have the prisoner well in hand,” said the boy. “You may return to your assignment.”

Raising an eyebrow, Shado sat down anyway. “He is my assignment.”

Seerdon had a thin-lipped smile. “Even so—”

Shado pushed past him, sitting next to Obi-Wan. “Who gave you leave to speak?” he asked dismissively.

“You are on an ISB vessel!” one of the stormtroopers hissed, clearly offended.

“And this vessel, and every vessel associated with it, will be under my control by your next shift change. Watch. Your. Tone.”

The inside of the cruiser was tense. Shado stared straight ahead, his arms crossed comfortably over his chest. Oddly, some amongst the Imperials didn’t seem to doubt Shado’s claim.

Who exactly was this man? There was nothing in Obi-Wan’s ever growing pile of theories and thoughts to explain this. He might as well have been a stranger.

In the end, the gangplank rose, sealing the hold, and the other Imperials found their seats. Everyone strapped in themselves or each other quickly as the ship’s systems turned on in a noisy rise of sound. Shado crossed his left leg over his right casually, his long limbs invading Obi-Wan’s space.

“You have the most interesting friends,” Obi-Wan murmured as the cruiser finally gained some altitude.

Shado snorted, smirking. “You’re mocking me again. Clearly you don’t appreciate the circumstances you’re in.”

“And what exactly are my circumstances?”

Shado’s expression was satisfied. “The kind even you can’t escape.”

-

After nearly twelve years of running, Obi-Wan ultimately entered custody quietly and with an obedience that seemed to disappoint every stormtrooper present. The key to his submission was, perhaps, not unexpected. After all, the ISB agent, one Maximiliam Seerdon, had sincerely promised that they would bomb every settlement and rock structure with the smallest hint of sentient habitation if Obi-Wan did not comply.

Obi-Wan half-expected them to do it anyway. Most Imperials these days seemed committed to a doctrine of absolute force. They would because they could, and so they did.

The ISB, however, seemed to operate under a subtler discipline and were not known to engage in wholesale destruction.

“That can, of course, change at any time,” said Seerdon, nearly gleeful as the elevator took them deeper into the innards of the star destroyer.

The boy was not a gracious winner. He was too young for his power, and it already seemed like it had gone to his head. Once his boot was on the neck of his prey, he couldn’t help but want to press down, just because he could.

“Pay him no mind,” Shado said, not bothering to lower his voice. “He’s just an archivist. He doesn’t have a say here.”

Obi-Wan maintained a dim smile, inwardly buckling under the absurdity of this scenario. Obi-Wan was on the star destroyer of his nightmares, high above Tatooine. Now, he was trapped on an elevator with his disloyal lover, an ISB agent, and two stormtroopers—and his hands were bound in Force suppressor cuffs. He very much did not want to engage in conversation. He very much did not want to be in the middle of a battle between egos.

And Seerdon’s smile was congealing.

“I am the commander here, my friend,” Seerdon said with a warmth that brought to mind not comfort but rather the lingering heat of a brutal whipping. “And this is my ship.”

“Not for long,” Shado said dismissively. “Do not allow your ambition to cloud you from your only purpose. Captain.”

Seerdon bristled. Then the door opened. Obi-Wan took an automatic step forward but no more, his momentum barred by Shado’s arm.

Shado side-eyed Seerdon. “This is your stop.” This was not an observation as much as it was an order.

And Seerdon seemed hesitant to resist. The Empire taught absolute obedience, and the boy didn’t seem to know where Shado was in the command hierarchy. In the end, he acquiesced.

“Very well,” Seerdon said. Like a wooden toy given sentience, he shuffled out of the elevator. Then he pivoted suddenly, a finger lifting. “Another thing—”

Shado closed the elevator door on his face.

The ascent resumed. Obi-Wan continued to feel lightheaded and small, even as Shado settled himself next to Obi-Wan once more, shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

Several floors past. Then— “I’m looking forward to an era of unprecedented honesty between us.”

This stirred Obi-Wan from his thoughts. Something clicked. Then, with a suddenness that had the stormtroopers grasping for their blasters, he stepped in front of Shado, facing him. Shado continued to look satisfied, like a predator who had outsmarted his prey.

Narrowing his eyes, Obi-Wan leaned forward, squinting up at him. Then he said, “Tell me you’ve always intended to do this. Tell me our plans together were a lie you spun to keep me complacent. Tell me you’ve been leading me to my death since we first met.” Only now did Shado look ill-at-ease. “Because if you tell me I’m in the custody of the ISB over a misunderstanding in our extremely private relationship, you and I are going to have a lot of very terse words. Starting with the utter stupidity of escalating a domestic issue to the damned Emperor.”

“I didn’t escalate this to the Emperor,” Shado retorted, focusing on the wrong thing.

Obi-Wan’s temper flared like a plume of lava. “The ISB are his eyes and ears. Who else do you think will hear about this?”

Shado looked uncomfortable now, no longer the haughty prince. The fool. “They were the closest ship—look, it doesn’t matter. The ISB are irrelevant.”

Obi-Wan was aghast. “Are you entirely without sense? The Empire doesn’t serve you, Shado. It serves itself.”

“You don’t have the full story—”  

“And I don’t need it to understand what’s about to happen. Why can’t you?” Obi-Wan lifted his bound hands, prodding him once in the chest. “I’ll enlighten you: by putting me in their custody, you have not secured my place by your side. You have severed it.”

“You’ll forgive me.”

“That’s not the point.” Obi-Wan leaned back on his heels, searching his expression. Then he offered a small sarcastic smile. “Congratulations. Perhaps it will please you to know that this is one similarity you and Anakin share. Racing to fend off an unfavorable future, only to usher it into being with your own selfish and foolish actions.”

This infuriated his lying lover. Instantly, Shado was on him, his fist curled in his collar. “You stupid old man,” he snarled. “Must you always be so oblivious? I am Ana—”

He cut off what he was about to say, in mid-shout. For a moment, his eyes were wide and disbelieving, vulnerable in a way Obi-Wan couldn’t understand.

Then he cast a small glance to their audience, glowering at the stormtroopers as their helmets tilted to look at anything but him.

Calmer now, Shado said, “Look, we tried it your way. But you’re the one who keeps leaving. Now, we’re doing it my way.” He stood straighter, smoothing the lines of his uniform. “The truth this time. Mutual honesty, for once in your miserable life. And when you finally grasp the gravity of your situation, you, like many before you, will beg for my forgiveness.” His eyes drifted over Obi-Wan’s face, then dropped down to his wrists. Then they jumped up again.

“But unlike anyone else, Master,” he promised tenderly, “you’ll be granted it. As long as you obey.” For a long moment, that strange contentment suffused his expression. Then he paused, his head cocking to the side. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “This situation is no longer in your control. I warned you about that temper of yours.” Then, defeated, Obi-Wan said, “I’m just… trying to memorize your face. For what little time we have left together.”

There were many horrible things he could have said to Shado then. As petty revenge or as a desperate attempt to force Shado to have an epiphany about his actions.

Shado’s expression made this seem like these words were the cruelest words he could have chosen.

The elevator opened once more. “You’ll see soon, Master. You’re wrong.” Shado stormed off. The door closed behind him.

There was a long pause. Then—

“I dated a narcissist once,” said one of the stormtroopers, sympathetic.

Their ascent continued.

-

As they continued their way to the ship’s cells, Obi-Wan felt the star destroyer’s hyper drive engage. Tatooine would survive another day, it seemed, by the skin of its teeth.

Then, just as Obi-Wan had taken his first step into his new stomping ground—a rather tight cell that clearly was intended to be a mundane closet—his stormtrooper escort got a message and marched him back out again.

He was led a few floors away to a white room. He was immediately guided to a long metal table. As he sat in the chair facing the door, one stormtrooper held onto his cuffs from across the tabletop. Then the other stormtrooper tapped something on a side wall, and Obi-Wan’s hands immediately slammed against its surface. The table had been magnetized. He could slide his cuffs across its surface and even stand if needed, but he wasn’t leaving the room.

“I see,” he said to himself, eyeing the rest of the space. ISB were the ISB. He was going to be interrogated after all. At least he’d been offered a normal chair for now. But a tilted apparatus was squatting in the corner like a threat, bringing to mind all manner of rumors and intel from ISB’s victims.

Bail had always had faith in Obi-Wan’s ability to stand up to torture.

Prisoner thusly secured, the stormtroopers left.

Several minutes later, Maximiliam Seerdon ushered himself into the interrogation room, followed closely by a probe droid. “Nice to finally meet you, Master Kenobi. Properly, this time.” He sat across from Obi-Wan, an insincere smile on his face.

Obi-Wan mimicked the expression. Without thinking, he looked over at the interrogation chair in the corner.

“I’ve learned much about you at the Imperial Academy.”

Obi-Wan pulled his eyes away from the chair. “Is that so?”

A datapad hit the table. “Yes. All Jedis are traitors to the Empire, but that doesn’t mean we can’t admire an enemy’s tactical genius when it rears its head.” He slid his hands over the service of the pad, turning it back on. “General Kenobi. You were quite renown for your diplomatic skills. I was hoping this could remain… cordial.”

After a moment, Obi-Wan dragged his eyes from Seerdon and to the black droid hovering in the corner. “Is that why you brought in an IT-O interrogation probe?”

Seerdon chuckled. “Please forgive this intrusion into our conversation. It’s protocol. Merely a… reminder to mind our manners.” Then, in a much colder voice, he said, “Record.”

A red light flickered on in the droid. After nearly a season of working with droids, Obi-Wan easily picked up on an internal hum kicking into gear. A shiver of unease went up Obi-Wan’s spine.

“Capturing content for new curriculum on how to interrogate a Jedi?” he asked loftily, his voice not betraying his emotions.

“Not at all. It would be a waste of its memory banks.” Seerdon shifting in place, tucking his hands under his elbows. “You’re the last of a nearly dead people, General Kenobi. We prefer our curriculum focus on more… pertinent topics.” He looked at the droid himself. “No, this is just a light bit of information gathering. A personal theory I’ve been working on for, hm, the last five years or so. I was hoping you could help me confirm it.”

“I see,” Obi-Wan said slowly. With effort, he pulled his attention away from the droid. “And what, exactly, is it that you seek to enlighten yourself about?”

“The final days of the corrupt Republic, of course,” Seerdon said easily. “Especially, the final days of your fallen Jedi Order.”

Obi-Wan gazed at him. Then he shot him a faint smile. “I’m sure it was well documented.”

“Oh, it was.” Seerdon pointed vaguely to his head. “Hundreds of thousands of perspectives, thanks to those clones. Millions of hours of footage to comb through, and only so few available to the public.” He wrinkled his nose. “Only so few available to the ISB itself. Very inconvenient, really, when your whole job depends on intelligence as currency.”

“That sounds troubling.”

“It is.” Seerdon tapped the surface of the table. “Imagine knowing all that data living somewhere, and yet somehow, someone is always telling you to mind your own business. To leave the past in the past.”

“Not much reason to look into a nearly dead people, is there?” Obi-Wan said tersely.

“Not unless those nearly dead people are hiding something,” Seerdon corrected, his eyes twinkling. He tipped his head back, laughing. “I have conducted so much research on just those ten minutes after Order 66. I have exhausted so many favors. I’ve had to kneel at the feet of our own beloved Emperor to explain myself. And yet, I cannot stop thinking about it. It haunts me.” He paused. Then, carelessly, he said, “Oh, not for the reasons you might think. Every one of the people who died that day deserved it for their treason. But it’s how they died that bothers me. Do you want to know why?”

Obi-Wan couldn’t think of anything he wanted less. “I do not.”

“You should. It’s mind boggling,” Seerdon said, as if letting him in on a secret. He folded his hands, resting his chin on them. “If they survived the first five minutes of Order 66, nearly every Jedi Master, down the very last, practically flew to the side of their own apprentice. Odd, isn’t it?”

“How so?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Seerdon laughed again, incredulous. Nevertheless, he hurried to explain himself, “By the end of the war, every surviving Jedi wasn’t a doddering mystical peacekeeper, but instead a hardened warrior of no little power. In protecting their apprentices, however, they left themselves open to attack. So many of them died in doing so, just to give their apprentice a moment longer to run.” When Obi-Wan didn’t respond, he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s strange!”

“I fail to understand you,” Obi-Wan said slowly. “The… apprentices, at that time, were nearly all very young.”

“Exactly,” Seerdon said eagerly. “Young. And useless.” He laughed. “Why would a being of power such as yourself sacrifice themselves to someone so weak and inconsequential?”

Seerdon was visibly bewildered. This cruel boy truly believed what he was saying. He could not stretch his imagination far enough to understand. Was this the bright future of the Empire?

“Imagine how much time you masters could have bought, if you’d merely thought to use your younglings as shields. Imagine how many more of you would be alive if you just ran and left everyone behind.” Seerdon frowned, introspective. “This thought haunted me throughout the Academy. You would not believe how many of my older colleagues I questioned about this! I became known for it. Infamous, really. Bit of a dent to my reputation, you see. A fixation on relics isn’t an attractive trait of an Imperial officer.” Seerdon leaned forward, his seat squeaking. “But then I thought, no, there has to be a logical reason for this. A reason why so many powerful Jedi died to protect their apprentices. At first, I thought you Jedi shared a mindset with some of the more superior bloodlines in this galaxy. You weren’t protecting a weak and useless creature! You were protecting your legacy. You intended to live on through your apprentice, through whatever techniques or magics you taught them. And that’s alright, I can respect that.”

Seerdon paused. Then he shook his head, tilting his chin up. “Then I learned more about our glorious Emperor, and his vast array of interests and powers. About his particular concern about all those extraordinary children that the Jedi once hoarded.” His voice became hushed with awe. “Everything in this galaxy, from the smallest being to the very Force itself… it belongs to him. Life and death and order itself starts and ends with him. Even in the death throes of your Order, your people knew that.” His lip curled, exposing his teeth. His voice darkened. “And when you attempted to hide away your children, you weren’t protecting them. You were taking them from our Emperor. You were stealing them, yet again. Thieves until your very last breath, it seems.”

Obi-Wan said nothing.

After a beat, Seerdon perked up. “So where does that leave you?” Seerdon said brightly. “For so long, I puzzled over this. Where is General Kenobi? What does it mean when the consummate Jedi has never once been declared dead? Has merely faded in obscurity? You had no child apprentice to watch over. Your adult apprentice was killed at your Temple, and his own apprentice had long been exiled from all civilized life. So where did you go? What legacy were you attempting to steal from the Emperor?”

Where was he going from this? Was this boy yet another person poking too deeply into the mystery of Vader? From a certain perspective, Obi-Wan had stolen Anakin at the height of his power.

Was this what Seerdon wanted to learn? Was this man so excited to learn the origins of Vader? Did he not understand that it was Vader who would like this known the least?

Watching him for a moment, Seerdon nodded once to himself. Then he turned his attention to his datapad. Considering the contents of the screen, he scooted forward, nudging the device across the surface of the table—and towards Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan didn’t touch it. “What is this?”

“The key evidence that props up my entire theory,” Seerdon said, smug. He gestured at the datapad, clearly wanting Obi-Wan to look. Despite himself, Obi-Wan did. “Senator Amidala was a secretive woman but not an especially creative one. Her senatorial communications were pristine. Her personal ones, however… it wasn’t that hard to decrypt them.”

Obi-Wan had a bad feeling about this. Nevertheless, maintaining neutrality, he picked up the datapad and started to scan its contents.

On the device was a very large collection of messages, sent via holonet. The first message Obi-Wan saw was a curt dialogue from one of Padmé ’s hand maidens, referencing a squashed news story. There was a picture attached, mostly blurred. Padmé  was the most recognizable thing on it, warmly smiling at another being—a Human. She was partially facing him, her hand resting delicately on the curve of the man’s forearm.

The man was less identifiable, most of his face was obscured by a passing speeder, but he had tellingly short hair, like a Knight starting to grow their hair out of padawan cut.

Other messages were more ambiguous. Out of context, they could have been anything. He spied upon a long series of back-and-forth conversations between Padmé ’s account and another generic user, spanning the length of the war. While Padmé ’s wartime pen pal changed their address periodically, he always signed his messages with his initials. AS.

Other messages were even more ambiguous to the outside observer, but less so to Obi-Wan himself. Sending longer and more apologetic missives, doctors and other medical staff collectively wrung their hands over Padmé ’s medical status. Some were discrete and didn’t name her condition, but it was obvious they were trying to provide services to a woman whose mere presence caused critical machines to malfunction and break.

A common condition for fetuses with extreme Force sensitivity, one nurse spelled out helpfully, offering a list of alternative clinics, including the one overseen by one Vokara Che.

Padmé  had followed through with at least one recommendation, it seemed, as there was also a medical report confirming Padmé  had a high-risk pregnancy and should expect twins. It was well intentioned. But it was late, dated on the very day Padmé  died.

And after it all—there was a flurry of messages from her handmaidens, her staff, and her family. Where was she? Was she okay? Was the baby alright? And, in her panic, one of Padmé ’s siblings namedropped the name of the late senator’s secret husband.

Is it true Anakin was dead?   

Obi-Wan stared at the last message for several long moments before slowly letting the pad rest back on the table.

“Padmé  Amidala did not die a pregnant woman. I checked.” Obi-Wan’s stomach dropped at this announcement, at this casual cruelty to a corpse.

But it was Seerdon’s next words that made his blood run cold.

“So how long have you been watching over your apprentice’s children, Master Jedi?”

-

As the ISB agent left the room, leaving Obi-Wan with nothing by an interrogation droid as a sentry and his own muddled thoughts, he couldn’t help but wonder when was the last time the ISB interrogated a Jedi—any Jedi at all, let alone a Jedi Master. Obi-Wan did not make a study on how to break his fellow Jedi, but he’d been on the wrong end of many attempts at interrogation or torture throughout his life, and he knew that the most successful of these did not simply pause for breaks.

Breaks were more effective on the untrained minds. These individuals, left alone with their thoughts, couldn’t help but anticipate what was to come. Dread what was to come. Fear what was to come. In the end, they ultimately became the architect of their own torture, continuing the psychological torture all on their lonesome while the enemy was on a deathstick break.  

This was not the case with Jedi. Cessation of torture or questioning was merely a chance for a Jedi to refortify themselves and rebuild the walls between themselves and the mundane world—and any true Jedi was a brick layer at heart. Even a poor one like Obi-Wan.

He just needed time to think. He closed his eyes, mind racing.

Then the door suddenly burst open, scattering Obi-Wan’s scarcely gathered thoughts. The interrogation droid hit the floor, a smoking hole through its center. Obi-Wan’s head tipped up—then up higher still when Shado fisted the collar of his shirt, wrenching him to his feet. Obi-Wan’s wrists scraped against the table surface, still magnetized.

“Is it true?”

Obi-Wan didn’t answer. Shame suffused him. He’d nearly confirmed it was earlier with Seerdon, by virtue of his stunned silence.

Shado’s expression turned ugly. “So you had a final mission from the Order after all,” he said with an oily smirk. He had a dead look in his eyes. “You were going to destroy Vader with his own children. How devious of you.”

Obi-Wan tipped his head back further. If Shado gripped his shirt any tighter, his knuckles were going to leave an imprint on his trachea. “That’s not what’s going on here,” Obi-Wan said mildly.

Shado laughed at this, strained. “Enlighten me, Master.”

Obi-Wan didn’t. His eyes dropped to the destroyed interrogation droid instead, conflicted.

Obi-Was was jerked forward until his chin hit Shado’s hard shoulder. Then he was rocked back until they were nose to nose, huddled in the same space over the table. A camera might have mistaken this as an intimate embrace instead of what it was—an intimidation practice. Both of Shado’s fists were closed in Obi-Wan’s clothing now.

Eyes wide and unblinking, Shado whispered, “How could you keep this from him. How could you keep this from them.” Obi-Wan was shaken once—and shaken hard. “The boy lived in poverty, and the girl saw her guardians murdered. They could have been spared that. With Vader at their side, they would have been elevated to absolute royalty. The heirs to a galactic empire.” Shado leaned in further, his breath passing over Obi-Wan’s mouth—an untended kiss. “They would want for nothing. They would never have to scrabble in the dirt or flee from their lessers or—”

“Do you hear yourself?” Obi-Wan interrupted, disgusted. He jerked back until Shado’s grip on his shirt tore, until he was back on his heels again—better than being suspended on his toes. “How cosseted were you? What galaxy have you been living in?” Obi-Wan sat back down. “Under the Empire—under Sidious—those children would have been utterly destroyed.”

“Liar!” Shado slammed his fist against the table, rattling Obi-Wan’s cuffs. “You know nothing!”

“Don’t I?” A sardonic smirk floated over Obi-Wan’s face—there and gone again. “What guarantee do you have that they wouldn’t have been tools? Tools to be bent, tools to be sacrificed, tools to be broken. Just like their father.”

Despite the violence in Shado’s eyes, his voice was very soft. “So it’s better if they’re bent and sacrificed and broken in service to the Light, is it?”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth. Then he hesitated, closing his mouth again. Under all of that rage, there was such a wretched, wounded expression on Shado’s face. He couldn’t bear digging his fingers into it, widening its gaping surface, just to win a point in an argument.  

In those final hours of the dying Republic, he’d had so little understanding of the gravity of all that was lost. Obi-Wan had fled with Luke in his arms, mind flitting from grief to disbelief to resolve. His mind so attuned to war churned with thoughts—battle plans, strategy, targets. The remaining Jedi were not retreating from the galaxy because they lost. No. They just needed time. Time to mount an offense. Time to heal. Time to figure out a way to defeat the Sith.

Time to raise a dear child. A child who might grow up to be the new hope of their doomed Order.

But the longer he stayed on Tatooine, what he was so sure was a temporary setback soon revealed itself in the pitiless light of the planet’s two suns. The defeat was truly permanent. There were no Jedi left. Only himself and those unlucky few who avoided the purge.

Hands clapped over Obi-Wan’s wrists—beseeching this time instead of threatening. “Tell me I’m wrong,” Shado begged him. There were tears in his eyes. “Tell me you aren’t raising his children to destroy him.” The grip tightened. “Tell me something.”

Obi-Wan could not.

He had imagined training Luke many times, of course. He had wanted another padawan, didn’t he? Just one last one. And what else did Obi-Wan have to teach, but the Light? And perhaps he could have envisioned not just training Anakin’s child to use the Force, but how to use the Force in a fight. How to use the Force in a fight against Vader in particular.

He could have. With time. He knew well that necessity could breed monsters in even the best of people. And necessity may have forced him to come to terms with setting Luke on the destructive path Anakin had created.

But time and necessity had yet to force Obi-Wan’s hand. And thinking of gentle eyed Luke, who still tugged at his aunt’s limbs when he was feeling playful, who still leaned into Owen’s side when he felt tired, who still was delighted at all the new experiences that the galaxy had to offer him. Thinking of that particular child, going up against Vader, up against his own father...

It left him feeling nauseated to his core.

“Aren’t they lovely?” Obi-Wan said instead. “You’ve met them. Don’t you think… if there’s anything left in Vader capable of such a thing...” He felt dizzy and conflicted. But he carried on, saying, “Don’t you think he would have loved them? Don’t you think they might be the ones who finally guide him out of the Dark?”

Finally hearing his truest, most secret wish out loud filled him with the greatest shame. But ten years had not shaken his attachment to Anakin. Ten years and horrors beyond reckoning. Anakin had rooted himself deep into Obi-Wan’s soul, and nothing would remove his grip.

Whatever persona Anakin was wielding now, Obi-Wan could not be the agent of his destruction.

Whatever the cost, the twins had to survive.

Obi-Wan scrabbled now, wrist scraping across the surface as he reached for and found Shado’s wrist, gripping it tightly in both hands. “Think of Anakin, Shado,” he begged. “If no one else. Of what would happen if this ISB boy brings those children to the attention of Vader’s master.” Shado was trembling too. He was bowed in on himself, face hidden. “I cannot be here. I will gladly take their flight path to my death, but I cannot risk being broken by interrogation. Help me. Please.”

Shado raised his head, mouth flattened. For the longest time, he stared back at Obi-Wan, eyes wide and blue, his expression both inscrutable and raw. He seemed overwhelmed—and panicking for it—but there was little Obi-Wan could do about that.

Then Shado tipped his head, close enough for Obi-Wan to count his eyelashes. “If I let you go, will you come with me?” he asked, whisper soft. “No matter what. No matter who I am. No matter what I’ve done. Could you stomach that?”

Obi-Wan frowned at him. “You’re still offering me what you offered on Tatooine?”

Shado gave him a tiny nod. “The best and fastest starship so you can go where you need to. The best and fastest communication systems so you can monitor what matters most.”

He seemed incredibly upset still. Almost mindlessly, he reached out, smoothing some of Obi-Wan’s hair behind his ear. Obi-Wan would have protested the petting, if it hadn’t been so obvious Shado was using it to try and soothe himself.

“I will take care of you,” Shado promised, his voice shaking. “Good care of you. The Empire will never bother us again. You will never be left behind to rot in a cave, and no one will dare leave you in chains.” He nudged his nose along the length of Obi-Wan’s slowly, his eyes heavy. “And I will have you. Will you just… let me have you? Please?”

Obi-Wan stared back at him incredulously. Then slowly, he nodded.

He had such a bad feeling in the pit of his gut, he almost expected Shado to pull back. To retract his words. To twist Obi-Wan’s feeling in a knot he would never recover from. To pull back with a hideous smirk, only to tweak his beard and walk off, never to follow through.

But he did none of these things. All Shado did was bend his head, his fingers shooting to Obi-Wan’s nearest wrist. Obi-Wan sat up abruptly, watching him go, a small hope swelling his chest. They were finally on the same page.

After a few clever movements, the locking mechanism loosened, and Obi-Wan felt the Force surging back to him. Shado’s hands went to the second cuff.

Then the door opened behind Shado.

Three blaster bolts hit Shado square in the back, forcing the air out of him. Crying out in alarm, Obi-Wan caught him before he could hit the table.

But Shado didn’t want comfort. He wasn’t even dead. Instead, he pushed himself up on his elbows. He had one hand on Obi-Wan, and he was seething, purpling like bruise. He was gripping Obi-Wan by the arm so tightly, his nails were shredding the thinner skin of Obi-Wan’s forearm.

“I will have your head delivered to your father’s desk,” Shado snarled, the very picture of wrath.

“Clever,” Seerdon said blandly, bored of him. He made a small gesture, and the two stormtroopers around him lifted their blasters again.

Shado’s head snapped back to Obi-Wan. For a second, there was nothing on his face except a sudden fear.

Then three more bolts hit his back. Shado slumped over, his eyes glazing over. Horrified, Obi-Wan grabbed him but was unable to keep him from sliding off and hitting the floor. Shado was…

Shado was…

Obi-Wan was immediately shoved back down on the table, his freed wrist freed no more. He thrashed violently, a pinned prey animal with nowhere to go. He was truly trapped.

And Shado was truly dead.

Seerdon walked to him with a considering hum. He looked down at Shado’s body. “Courtesans are just terrible at intelligence work, don’t you agree, Master Jedi?” He bent over, prodding Obi-Wan’s head. “That look on your face. Where is your serenity? You look rather furious, my friend.” Seerdon stood back up, shrugging. “My my, I had hoped we could be more cordial and talk this out. Guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.” He made another gesture, and three more stormtroopers entered the room. “Bring him to the chair. And take out the trash.”

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan was tortured.

Calling it an interrogation was a bit of a misnomer. As Shado had observed, Seerdon was merely an archivist. His primary source of intelligence was the written word. Documents and conversations and documented conversations. His expertise wasn’t interrogation. Therefore, his brand of interrogation was more like torture in the same way that fire could only be tragedy in small and inexperienced hands.

There was no much more to say about the torture, other than torture during war or the Empire didn’t vary much in style or purpose—though he was more upset than he would expected, learning from Seerdon’s own mouth that the torture the Jedi and the clones endured during the war were not seen as the heartbreaking crimes they were but instead as mere learning opportunities for the regime to come.

“But don’t worry, Master Kenobi. We’ve innovated since,” Seerdon said brightly, right before a new IT-O droid injected a fiery poison in his veins.

It wasn’t truly a poison, of course. It was something of a hallucinogenic, and it didn’t take much more than a few pointed sentences for Obi-Wan’s muscles to react accordingly. For his mind to be convinced that he was writhing under a Zygerrian whip once more. It was such a pity his mission records were public knowledge.

This is what Obi-Wan learned: the ISB mostly preferred their guests to walk away from their sessions. Interrogation was meant to wreck the mind, not the body. So few of their methods were designed to kill.

But they sure did get close.

-

This is what Seerdon learned: A Jedi Master wasn’t a master in name only. A body was merely a vessel. Pain was an optional experience.

So the ISB didn’t get what they wanted from him, even when the droid was ordered to inject with twice—and then three times—the dose.

Obi-Wan sweated profusely. He gritted his teeth and writhed. He rattled his bonds in a vain attempt to crawl away from the pain in his mind.

Lava was in his veins. Anakin was melting. Leia never escaped Fortress Inquisitorius. Breha and Bail and Qui-Gon and Padmé  and Satine were all dead, dead, and dying. Over and over and over again.

Obi-Wan meditated where he could. Dissociated where he couldn’t.

Seerdon threw his datapad across the room when he figured out Obi-Wan was reciting half-forgotten lines from the five-part epic romance saga, The Many Love Songs of Wild Space. He’d had so many notes written from Obi-Wan’s monologues. And he wouldn’t have known otherwise, if not for the droid.

How did you know so many ways to break a man, and yet not know one of the most formative play of the High Republic era?

Uncivilized.

-

The poisons and the chemicals eventually wore off. As Obi-Wan hung there, limp and worn out, Seerdon and some of his colleagues left in a small huddle, debating what to do. Two of them left the room abruptly, leaving Seerdon behind. Seerdon seemed at a loss, like he’d spent ten thousand credits on an item only to find it forever locked behind an impenetrable wall. It seemed he put a lot of faith in the Empire’s “innovations”.

“My apologies… for disappointing you,” Obi-Wan said slowly, and through a throat raw from screaming. This caused Seerdon to stir. “An old man in chains is hardly promotion material.”

“I’m certain your current misery will be of interest to someone,” Seerdon retorted, smiling faintly.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan agreed gently. “But not the Emperor.”

Seerdon’s expression contorted. Then, just as quickly, it smoothed out into that hatefully cordial expression, like even the torture of another sentient being didn’t warrant an outward expression of… well, anything, really. Obi-Wan would have preferred sadistic pleasure over this polite apathy.  

Trying to leverage that clearly emotional reaction, Obi-Wan said, “You know the Emperor doesn’t tolerate failure.”

“I’m not the sort of fool that rests on his laurels before the job is done,” Seerdon retorted swiftly. This was clearly something he felt sensitive about. “I will inform the Emperor of all that I’ve learned here once I have the children secure, and not a moment sooner.”

Obi-Wan wondered if this was a point of contention between Seerdon and his colleagues. After all, they were archivists, not interrogators. There was a hierarchy of command here that wasn’t being obeyed, and it was only a matter of time before Seerdon faced the consequences of their ambitions.

If he thought about it that way, then it was clear to him that Seerdon’s only form of protection now was whatever he could extract from Obi-Wan. Intelligence was a currency more valued in the Empire than credits themselves.

This interrogation wasn’t complete.

On cue, the door alarm pinged. Seerdon smiled again, his lips stretched thin. “What that means, dear Jedi,” he said, walking over to the door, “is that you and I have all the time in the world together.”

He opened the door. In walked his colleagues. One had a massive chain wrapped around his fist. The other had a mallet better used to bang dents out of the side of a starship. Both men were clearly pleased by their findings.

“So much for that vaunted Imperial innovation,” Obi-Wan drawled.

The door closed behind them.

-

Obi-Wan’s body was a concentrated mass of agony. He didn’t know how much time had passed. Likely less than fifty hours the children needed, though, so he endured.

The mallet had been used on his shins, leaving one decidedly… misaligned. The chain had been used as a whip until his tormenter grew tired. Hands had been used too, mostly as fists and body blows, though one cretin tried his hands at strangulation until the droid interfered.

The subject is too close to asphyxiation. Clever thing.

Stamina and brainstorming sessions gave Obi-Wan snatches of a reprieve. He gathered himself. He mediated. He drifted in and out of consciousness—apparently, drawing blood wasn’t as advantageous during interrogation as his hosts thought. He woke up twice to the smell of green things and the feeling of feather-light fingers stroking through his hair, though no one was ever present.

While conscious, he mused on how the final trial of his life was seeing the twins grow to adulthood. Did twelve count as adult? Luke had thought so. He’d tried his best. But it looked like that final trial was ending here. The Empire would torture him until he died.

Footsteps behind him. Chirping Binary. Murmured Basic, rising and falling. Calm yourself, my padawan.

“I’ll have him hanged.” Seerdon was seething.

Now that seemed counter-productive. How was Obi-Wan supposed to spill his secrets in a noose? Imperial agents these days were so wasteful.

A hand slapping against a cheek. Obi-Wan’s cheek. He blinked awake.

Seerdon’s face was pale and too close. “Listen, Master Kenobi. I’m about to grace you with an incredible favor.”

Ah. This was fear Obi-Wan was hearing in his voice. Pebbled sweat made a mustache of Seerdon’s upper lip. Was that regulation?

“There was a leak. Lord Vader is on the way. He will take over this interrogation, and you will lose any chance to die in some manner of peace.”

This much was true. Anakin hated him. He closed his eyes.

Obi-Wan’s face was pinched harshly and shook. “Do you understand? Lord Vader is coming.”

Must Obi-Wan be awake for this conversation? Licking his dry mouth, he tried to sum up an appropriate response. “Understood.”

“Whatever information you are protecting, he will rip it from your mind. You cannot begin to understand the dark forces he can marshal to his cause.”

Obi-Wan bit down on a smile. “On the contrary, I am quite familiar.”

Seerdon looked furious. He was a much more tolerable man without his irritating little mask. He thumped a fist against the interrogation chair, then leaned even closer, whispering, “Dead men don’t get interrogated. You understand?” He searched Obi-Wan’s face rapidly, his eyes wide. “Give me the information I seek, and I will ensure you die immediately. Painlessly. And well before Lord Vader boards our ship. What do you say?”

Some favor this was. Obi-Wan closed his eyes again, bowing his head, only to be shaken awake once more.

“If you provide me with what I want,” Seerdon promised fervently, “Vader will never touch you. You’ll have your beloved peace, Master Jedi.” The peace of a blaster bolt to the back of the head, perhaps. “What do you say? Allow me to deliver you to your comrades.”

With effort, Obi-Wan marshalled all of the strength he had left in him to turn his head. To gather his thoughts. To moisten his mouth just long enough to say what he wanted to say to his unpleasant host.

“Who is begging who now?”

Seerdon recoiled.

Then the door opened. Three of his colleagues came in, followed by two more interrogation droids. The look the Imperials shot Seerdon was interesting. He backed away from Obi-Wan, still visibly nervous, his negotiation clearly not a shared plan.

Seerdon looked back at Obi-Wan. His expression was bitterly disappointed. But soon, it smoothed over once more into that placid state. “Maximum doses of each compound.” The droids sailed past him, exposing a variety of needles and sharp things.

“Welcome to the worst hours of your life, Master Jedi.”

What a dull boy.

-

Time stretched strangely after that.

Obi-Wan was sure he was a wretched sight. Drenched in sweat. Copper coating his mouth. Head hanging low. But who was more wretched—the tortured man or the interrogator who had failed to earn his keep?

Seerdon was visibly seething, though he tried under a veneer of civility, still too young to stomach being humiliated in front of his colleagues. A tight fist yanked at Obi-Wan’s lolling head at one point, and he must have he said something to Obi-Wan. Sounds were made. Words too, strung along in a sentence like a necklace made of garbage. Whatever it was, it was lost to Obi-Wan—and not even out of obstinance this time. Truly, Seerdon’s words had blurred into a messy smear of constants and syllables in Obi-Wan’s ears, interspersed with buzzing static.

Perhaps these fellows should not have punched him in the head. Obi-Wan would be sure to leave that bit of feedback in a suggestion form. Best not unnecessarily concuss your intelligence target before you received any actual intelligence, eh?

Time continued to shift, curling in and out of itself in a hazy spiral—and suddenly, Seerdon and his colleagues left. Those wretched droids too, taking a station outside of the door before it snapped shut, leaving Obi-Wan behind.

Leaving Obi-Wan alone.  

Obi-Wan gazed at the door, empty of emotion or any thought. Then, slowly, he pulled himself out of his slump. He tested the bonds that kept him in place, flexing his hands. Then he rocked his head against the back of interrogation chair, grinding it back so far, he could almost feel the individual strands of his hair. He then took in a deep breath—in and out. In and out. In and… out.

By the time he’d let out his third deep breath, most of the fuzziness had faded from his mind, and the static sound in his ears had lowered to a low buzz once more.

Only then did he dare to look down at his right wrist directly, at the place the Force suppressor cuffs had slammed shut over the very edge of his sleeve. It shouldn’t have garnered his attention so, but it did, the same way how a pinprick of light became all the brighter in absolute darkness.

The cuff was closed. But in that small sliver of space, he could feel the Force. Barely. Like a whisper a corridor away.

Frowning, Obi-Wan flexed his hand, reaching and reaching and reaching until… there was a small click. He smiled, though, in his case, it might have been more of a baring of bloody teeth. Nevertheless, the improperly closed cuff fell to the floor, freeing one side of him. It took only the fumbling of a minute to free his other side. Then he bent over, sucking in a pained noise as be bent over and unlocked his feet.

By the time he was fully free of the chair, he was already on the floor, shaking, seeing double and triple as his entire being seemed to slide back and forth like improperly secured boxes in a cargo hold during a firefight between pirates and an enthusiastic transportation company.  

Now what? His hands were bloody. His shin was better off ignored, for all he could do about it. He felt weak and faint, and any attempt to stand saw him sliding back to the floor. Inelegantly. Inefficiently. Painfully.

There was a very soft singing noise. Woozy and not thinking about it too hard, Obi-Wan reached out, calling for the singer. On the other side of the room, a rolling mobile cart moved, rattling internally. A second later, the drawer was forced open, and a cylinder flew across towards Obi-Wan, slapping into his hand.

His lightsaber. Seerdon thought so little of the relic of a man that he’d captured that he hadn’t bothered to hide away that relic’s weapon. Funny. Obi-Wan stared down at the familiar ridges and bumps and valleys of one of his oldest friends. One of his most loyal too. And he felt nothing.

Because this changed nothing. Seerdon had not lied. Vader was coming. Obi-Wan could feel it. The Sith’s growing presence had felt like a slap of cold water during the last bit of Obi-Wan’s failed interrogation, and his head hurt under the battering his mental shields were taking from that broken bond.

Was Obi-Wan supposed to fight a Sith Lord in this state? Ludicrous. Even so, his eyes darted around the room, already looking for options. There was little he could do about the blood loss, but the Force may sustain him long enough to act as a proper diversion. And perhaps, if disassembled enough, he could repurpose the electrostaff Seerdon left behind to act as a split. Thank goodness his style was not a style that involved a great deal of jumping.

Oddly cheered at this, even though he was effectively planning his own death, Obi-Wan found it in him to stand, shuffling over to a small computer terminal in the corner. If he knew how much time he needed to act as a diversion, he was certain he could endure long enough to be helpful to the twins. He could resist as long as it took. He could—

Obi-Wan’s cheer evaporated at the sight of the chronometer. His sense of time had been ruined by the drugs. But had it really been so few hours?

He did the math again, converting from Tatooine’s competing time zones to Coruscant’s clock to the standard time scale upheld in all starships that did not base their sense of time on movements of a sun. Then, when that math did not soothe him, he did it again, backwards this time, his stomach rolling with dread.

With the Force, all things were said to be possible. But Obi-Wan was not the Force, nor was he its favored child.

He could not fight off Vader for twenty more hours. A physical fight was not in his favor, nor was a metaphysical one. Seerdon was right. Vader would rip the information he sought from Obi-Wan’s mind. Obi-Wan might have held out—barely—against the Empire’s nightmare suite of chemicals, the psychological needling, and the blunt and inelegant use of physical violence. But he’d break under Vader’s mental touch, easily. He’d almost welcome it, he suspected, mistaking a lava flow for a cooling balm after the experience he’d had.

And then after Vader got what he wanted, likely killing Obi-Wan in the process, he would marshal all of his ships to the very coordinates Obi-Wan had warned the Lars family not to share. And Vader would not suffer the insult of the interference of his mother’s family—and Vader was not a young, wounded, delirious child to be outmaneuvered and fought off. Owen and Beru would not stand a chance. Vader would destroy them and any opportunity the twins could have a normal life away from the shadow of the Dark Side.

The twins would have a fate worse than death. They would have Anakin’s fate. And it would all be Obi-Wan’s fault.

All his energy abandoned him. Obi-Wan slumped to the ground again, leaning against the wall. Then he jerked, head shooting up.

Vader had arrived. Had likely just boarded this very ship. Obi-Wan felt ingulfed by his presence, like he’d been left behind in a pit filling with sticky tar. Perhaps this was the reason Seerdon left. They had a Lord to greet.

Now what, Obi-Wan thought for the third time. He stared at his lightsaber, willing for the Force to light his way.

Ah, but he wasn’t any option, was he? The longer he sat there—the longer he bled—the sharper his sense of what he needed to do became. It was so clear to him now. He’d seen it in a dream.

Even so, he shied away from it. Instead, he closed his eyes, reaching out with the Force to cast his mind out, feeling along the interior of the starship for any other option.

There were so many beings on this ship. But they were nothing in comparison to the sweeping, furious darkness that was currently boarding. Its presence—Vader’s presence—was not so much burning as it was devouring, like a sentient black hole that hated everything around it.

Obi-Wan gravitated towards it, nevertheless, catching bits and pieces of conversation and intent, mostly mundane. Then he’d merged with a powerwalking group, hurrying without hurrying, to the hanger, practicing with each other how they would greet their Lord—even has they lashed out in private at what they thought was an overreach in authority. More than one whisper of who would hear this—the Emperor or well-placed family members in the great Imperial machine—floated to Obi-Wan’s attention, annoying him so much that he actually opened his eyes to roll them.

Spare him the petty politicking of career bureaucrats, please. Let him die in peace.

But when Obi-Wan opened his eyes, he was not met with the sight of that horrible chair, nor did he see the table Shado had died on.

Instead, he was in the hanger. Standing, even, pain no longer an issue. Transparent, like Qui-Gon, though oddly not blue.

Had he become one with the Force? Teleportation wasn’t a logical explanation—that was a man that just walked through him now. He was incorporeal.

But Vader was not. He was real, marching down the gangplank of a cruiser, the metal echoes of heavy footfalls interrupted only by the sharp hissing breath of his respirator and the quieter steps of soldiers on either side of him.

Seerdon and his team met Vader halfway through the hanger. With an uneasy smile, Seerdon nodded at him. “Good day to you, Lord Vader!” he called out grandly, arms extended. “Welcome to my humble operation. How may I assist you?”

Seerdon was a monstrous creature. Good looks, a decent pedigree, and a modicum of manners did not make up for this simple fact. He was a detestable boy, consumed by his own interests and ambitions.

And yet, Obi-Wan felt a shred of compassion for him still when Vader met his cordial greeting with an attack he never had a chance to counter.

In front of all of his friends and underlings, the people he was supposed to command, Maximilian Seerdon was slammed face first on the ground. The initial crack broke his nose, provoking a spray of blood, but it was the sustained pressure that had him panicking. He flailed, arms and legs kicking out uselessly as something he couldn’t see slowly flattened him against an unforgiving surface.

Vader never paused in his march, not until he was standing over Seerdon, staring him down as air was pushed out of lungs. As bones started to creak and bend in ways they weren’t meant to.

“I warned you, boy, not to test my patience,” Vader rumbled. “You will pay the price for your insolence.”

At those words, the invisible press of the Dark Side seemed to double—then triple.

Desperate, and with the last bit of air in his lungs, Seerdon croaked. “I am so sorry, my lord! I will make it up to you!”

At this offer, Vader seemed to pause. The pressure lessened. After a beat, Seerdon pushed himself up, not daring to fully stand. He had tears, snot, and blood running down his face. “I will make it up to you,” he promised again fervently. “Any way you wish, my lord. Just name it.”

The hanger was silent. The sounds Vader made—his ever-present breathing, the creak of his suit as he lowered himself to his knee—seemed extra loud in this context. Seerdon stayed as still as possible, clear dread on his face as his feared superior lifted a hand against his temple, no doubt looking in his mind.  

Vader seemed to be weighing his options. Then he nodded, rising. “Good.” Abruptly, Seerdon’s neck snapped to the left. He fell dead to the floor. “You have made up for it with your death.” Vader cast his attention to the rest of the crowd next. “Who else commands this ship? Attend to me.”

A small group of people formed a line in front of him, some more eagerly than others, likely sensing a promotion. Soon, however, all of them were lifted in the air, scratching at their throats in desperation. They hit the ground with a decisive thud soon enough, no longer living. Then Vader calmly ordered the next rung of command to present themselves. They faced the same fate, and Seerdon’s people soon found that Vader’s own stormtroopers had blocked off all the exits.

It was too much to bear. Obi-Wan tried to leave, trying to find the chain that would lead him back to his battered body—to no avail. He tried blinking. He tried slapping himself. He tried walking past the stormtroopers who blocked the exits. But no matter what he did, he found himself back in the center of the hanger, watching Vader systemically decimate the entire command of that ISB vessel with all the passion of a gardener following through with their everyday weeding.

Obi-Wan was unable to release himself from the grip the Force had on him. Until his flailing impacted the physical world, that is.

A cleaning bucket fell off of a box, knocked over by his elbow. And suddenly Darth Vader was looking away from his execution. Suddenly, Vader was staring right at him.

Under that reddish gaze, Obi-Wan was stabbed by a feeling of fright so intense, he found himself instantly thrown back into his useless body, broken and bloody on the floor. But armed, he recognized, his hand tightening on his lightsaber.

That horrific presence was moving again—moving towards Obi-Wan, and at a rapid rate.

Obi-Wan was out of time—and he was back to square one. Nothing had changed other than the urgency of his decision.

Gritting his teeth, Obi-Wan shuffled onto his knees in somewhat of a ritualistic position, listing to the right to keep pressure off his shin.

“Tell me this is a bad idea, Qui-Gon,” he demanded. “You owe me at least that!”

No one answered.

Darth Vader was coming. And his master was not. That was as much of an answer as anything, wasn’t it?

“Dead men don’t get interrogated, huh?” Obi-Wan pointed the emitter of his lightsaber against his chest.

What a terrible time to realize he didn’t want to die. He’d wanted—

He’d wanted—

It didn’t matter what he wanted. Shado was dead.

Obi-Wan’s hands flexed over his lightsaber. His heart fluttered rapidly in his chest—and fluttered harder still when that strange but familiar Force presence seemed to swell in his head, like siege engines breaking themselves upon the walls of a castle that refused to given in. His shields held.

Ah well. Once more thing he could do for Anakin. One last final thing.

“Goodbye, Darth,” Obi-Wan whispered to the empty room. He thumbed the ignition switch of his weapon, closing his eyes.

Several things happened in quick succession:

One, the door to Obi-Wan’s interrogation room burst apart, not so much opened as it was ripped right out of the surrounding walls.

Two, Obi-Wan’s name was said—screamed, rather, physically and through the Force, and at least one of those voices didn’t come from a machine.  

And third, Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber for the last time. It instantly burnt his heart out.

Chapter Text

Some Time Later…

Death was a curious thing. Hard to pin down. Undefinable. Even the Order resisted naming it and giving it form.

To die was to return to the Force. And there was no death, only the Force.

As most children did, Obi-Wan would eventually develop a morbid fascination with the topic. For obvious reasons. As a youngling, he spent much of his time in the archives for this purpose, scouring through holobooks, recordings, and journals for any sort of hint of what happened after one died.

It was a frustratingly futile task. With the knowledge of the Order, Obi-Wan could build a starship or resolve an ancient mystery or cultivate entirely new species of plant.

But all the knowledge of the Order could not properly tell him what happened after one died. Modern literature and the direct appeals to his teachers led him nowhere, and even Qui-Gon, blast him, kept his knowledge to himself, even he himself was dead and was in the best position to know.

To die was to return to the Force, and there was no death, only the Force.

Utter nonsense.

The Order of Obi-Wan’s youth was rich with the presence and talents of numerous sentient beings from all sorts of different planets around the galaxy, and not all of these beings were from cultures that separated so easily from their Force sensitive youth. So while Obi-Wan believed in few cultural myths himself, being a child of Coruscant, he used to hear all sorts of tales from different planets and their respective legends. Even their stories of life and of death.

What a waste of a meeting of minds. The Order had an incredible opportunity—or so he thought—to weigh in on each and every story, legend, and myth of creation. With all of their knowledge and perspective, the Order could tell the galaxy, once and for all, if any tale of life and death was correct. If there was something after death. If there wasn’t. If gods, both large and small, relatable and horrifying, guided the process as theorized.

But the Order did not do these things.

To die was to return to the Force. And there was no death, only the Force.

And, to the Order, every myth of life and death and creation was simultaneously wrong and simultaneously true, because every story and every tale was essentially a story about the Force. From a certain point of view.

Obi Wan had found this deeply maddening. As an intense child who strove for correctness above all things, such ambiguity was unwelcome. As he grew older, however, he recognized the political sensibility of such a stance. If one accepted all myths were true, then one accepted all peoples. And the Jedi had always strove for absolute inclusivity.

However, if one dug deep enough into the archive, one would find that this attitude was a relatively modern one. The Order’s archives and libraries were home to many thoughts on many things, philosophical musings of ancient Jedi mixed in with empirical firsthand accounts of the many explanation-defying mysteries of their shared galaxy.

Death and life were topics that were not off the table for Obi-Wan’s predecessors, and it wasn’t strange to stumble across the words of a brazenly confident Jedi (or two) who wanted to be the final word on what it meant to live and what it meant to die.

No one stopped him from reading these things as a child. Perhaps they should have, as what he read had a lasting impact on his thought processes. He dug through treatises and scientific reports as readily as he tore through the stories and songs.

Some Jedi thought that to die was to be utterly destroyed. Unmade. Crushed. Set on fire. Stretched apart by a black hole. Not exactly the kinds of visions of death children were eager to read. Other Jedi had gentler ideas. Obi-Wan’s favorite theory, however, positioned death as merely slipping into a stream. Air ceased to be a concern but so did walking. Instead, one was carried by a current into a much larger river that anyone—even those quite familiar with water—would struggle to fully grasp, and those who were dead were tugged smoothly along. Around and around the galaxy, the river flowed, weaving in and out of each planet, connecting them all.

It was lovely imagery. Almost peaceful. Obi-Wan did enjoy his water. And he’d always found something so blissful about this theory of death, so relaxing. To let the current take you. To not have to fight anymore.

And now Obi-Wan was dead, and he was pleased to know that those thinkers who thought of water instead of destruction were very close to explaining what death was actually like.

But they were also wrong. For death was not like sinking into a river or being pulled along by an ocean’s current. Instead, it was unpleasantly like sitting in the middle of a bacta tank, feeling water rush to and fro against your cheeks under the force of some mechanism out of sight. The liquid moved, yes, but you couldn’t move with it. Instead, you were left hanging there, like a doll, wires and tubes embedded in your skin, a bland tasting mask forcing a tube down your throat, forcing you to breathe.

Instead of experiencing oneness with the Force, death felt like being drugged and pickled, sightless and spinny most days, with the only variation being the light-through-bacta gleam you could pick out only when you finally opened your trembling eyes.

And death was not being carried throughout the universe, witness to all and nothing. Instead, death was staring blearily at an increasingly agitated medical droid on the other side of a transparent window.

And it was agitated. Leaning in, it scrutinized him closely. The lens of its eyes tightened and widened in rapid succession. Then, in a visible panic, it dropped its datapad and hurried off at top speeds, which was about as fast as a certain protocol droid feeling avoiding censure. Straining, Obi-Wan reached out, finally managing to stretch his arm out enough to slap a palm against the transparent surface keeping him from following.

Ah. He wasn’t dead after all, was he?

This realization sparked some level of sleepy awkwardness. On its heels, however, was a keen desire to leave. So with numb limbs that resisted his will, Obi-Wan started to struggle with his binding, pulling wires and tubes out of him with more haste than was safe. Once he was no longer strapped in as tightly, he reached up, alarmed when his hands didn’t meet air. Was he trapped?

Belatedly remembering that not all bacta tanks opened at the top, he sank lower in his current cell, feeling along the edges of the container with numb, unresponsive fingers, seeking out any buttons or catches.

Eventually, he found one, and bacta started dutifully draining from the tank. Relaxing, Obi-Wan yanked the breather out of his mouth, then kicked his feet until he found his footing on the ground, no longer floating. Mopping bacta from his eyes, he squinted, finding and smacking the heel of his palm against another promising button. It lit up responsively, and, when the last bit of bacta had fully drained away, it seemed to trigger an opening he could just walk through, paired with a helpful ramp on the outside.

Was he really navel gazing this whole time, thinking he was dead? How mortifying.

Determined to make up for this grand show of idiocy, Obi-Wan rolled his shoulders, pulling free of the last strap holding him in place.

He stepped out of the tank.

Perhaps it was for the best that the droid—his attending physician?—had fled, as Obi-Wan had no chance to make a good first impression. Not only was he naked, covered only by the ubiquitous medical briefs all bacta tank technicians seemed to have in droves, he immediately slipped and fell down the ramp.

With a shocked gasp—cold!—Obi-Wan bent in half, surging into a tight seated position. It wasn’t just the slickness of the bacta; his feet seemed entirely unprepared to carry his weight. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan rose, hobbling like an old man—a naked old man. He cast a look around the room, noting the three bacta tanks—the other two unused—and stumbled over to desk with a terminal and a chair with wheel. He fell upon that chair, flexing his feet with a pained grunt. Then, still looking around, he rolled over to a low locker. After considering it for a moment, he flung open the door with a careless show of the Force, which practically leapt to be used.

In the locker, he found a garish looking, bright yellow one-piece suit, like something one might wear if they were painting the interior of their home. Grimacing, he fisted it in one hand and stood, sluicing bacta off his skin with the other.

His kingdom for the want of a single small towel. Anyone?

-

Once dressed, Obi-Wan circled the bacta tank room a few more times, using the chair as a crutch. He rummaged through the space industriously but found nothing of true value. No commlinks, though he knew not who to call. No food, though he didn’t feel any true hunger. No lightsaber, though he had no enemy to fight. Not yet.

And perhaps not anytime soon. Abandoning stealth, Obi-Wan walked to the doors of the bacta room, then walked out into the empty hallway. To his left, there was chirruping of droids. Turning to the sound, he barely caught the sight of them fleeing. Bizarre behavior, even for a droid. Frowning grimly, Obi-Wan went back into the room to grab the chair. Once armed with this piece of furniture, Obi-Wan started slowly following after them.

At no point was Obi-Wan ever stopped or interrogated or threatened with violence. The halls were empty—or emptied once a droid, no matter how big or small, spied on his approach in the distance.

Worse still, the feeling of the starship was slightly off, like those few times during the war where he’d had to enter an abandoned ship without any life on board—organic or otherwise. It always left him with an eerie feeling, a tangible absence where there should have been a presence, leaving behind only the hum of electronics as well as the ominous creaking of metal in the distance.

This was very nearly a ghost ship, and Obi-Wan didn’t know why.

In his achingly slow pursuit of those droids, Obi-Wan rolled through another two intersections of hallways before the hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood straight up. He paused. Then he looked down the hallway he had almost passed, peering for what had disturbed him in the Force.

Further down the ship, a puddle of black and red broke up the monotony of white-on-white walls. The shapes didn’t make sense at a distance, nor did they move. Slowly, Obi-Wan pivoted and headed over cautiously, one nudge of his chair at a time.

Finally, he reached it, stopping about an arm’s length of the curiosity, and he stared down. It took a long time for Obi-Wan to fully understand what he was seeing.

In the four-way intersection of those two specific hallways, there lied Darth Sidious and two of his red armored guards, slumped over and dead.

-

Squeak, squeak, squeak.

With a final push, Obi-Wan rolled his makeshift wheelchair over to the crumbled corpse of his worst enemy. He leaned over, scrutinizing the sight.

It was nearly impossible to tell how long ago he had perished, only that the two others had died with him. A functional starship had a dry environment, with all moisture in the air diverted to more important functions. The side effect of this was a mummification effect on the dead, unless one moved them to more suitable rooms, like a morgue.

No one had moved Sidious or his unnamed attendants to such a place, so there they stayed, like an unsightly boulder in the middle of an otherwise functional road.

“I’d move you myself, you see, but my feet hurt.” Obi-Wan gazed down at him dispassionately. “Perhaps you should consider the whole ship your tomb. Less disrespectful that way, is it not?”

Sidious did not respond. Obi-Wan did not know what he would have done if he had.

He had to have died some time ago, as there was a precise outline of dust all around him. If Obi-Wan was to venture a theory, this dust, the presence of the corpses, and the panicked flight of any droids who saw him must mean that the droids of this starship were ordered to avoid organics of a certain size.

Leaving a corpse in the middle of a hallway was likely not the intent of such orders, but one couldn’t win them all.

When eerie silence continued to rule over the space, Obi-Wan rolled the chair around a little more, just for the sake of noise. Then, finally, he sighed, bowing from his stiff huddle. “May you find some manner of inner peace and satiation in death. For you never knew seemed to have them in life.”

With that said, Obi-Wan shifted his grip on the chair and squeaked away.

-

An hour later found him back in the bacta room. Sidious’s corpse, even in its agreeable state, brought to mind endless thoughts of traps and sabotage. And so he endeavored—and succeeded—in splicing into the medical records present in that room.

This act revealed several core facts, each more disturbing than the last:

As he’d begun to suspect, the starship was entirely without people. Years of medical logs revealed a pattern of dwindling organic beings until there was nothing but an excessive surplus of droids.

He had been in the bacta tank for just under five years. Everything from his fluid and caloric intake to his heartbeat and his sleep cycles were very monitored closely.

He hadn’t just almost killed himself that day with the lightsaber. He’d nearly severed his spine before Vader turned it off.

A good forty percent of his organs he had now were not the ones he was born with. Rather, they had been replaced artificially grown replacements or synthetic organs. Obi-Wan wouldn’t have known it. He didn’t have a single scar.

The first medical team that treated Obi-Wan had intensively documented the miraculous nature of his survival, describing in detail how Vader had used his “outdated religion” to maintain his blood pressure and circulation in the nearly complete absence of his heart. Nearly all of them wanted to recreate this agony in more controlled settings for the sake of science, which was horrifying.

There were many, many videos of his surgeries on this computer.

He had never left the star destroyer he nearly died in. Somewhere in this horrible place was the last known location of Gran Shado’s body.

Agitated, Obi-Wan pushed himself away from the table, his reliable stool carrying him away. After a moment, he looked at his hands. Then, grimacing, he reached under the collar of his borrowed clothes and groped at his arm. When he felt nothing, his hand slipped out of his shirt, and he brooded.

Decades of calluses were now gone. Even his burn scars from Mapuzo had disappeared. Truly time—and bacta—were unforgivable.

-

Curiosity was never Obi-Wan’s friend. Nevertheless, it dragged him, hand in hand, to the interrogation room where he prepared to die. Besides, who was going to stop him? A droid?

Obi-Wan slowed the shuffle of his stool cautiously, eyes falling on appropriate door. It would have looked like any other door in that hallway, if not for the way it had been mangled utterly out of shape, yanked and twisted open by the Force.

Abandoning his stool, Obi-Wan stood up and walked inside.

He looked left and right, and even up and down at some point, half expecting an emotional blow out of nowhere. Even Jedi Masters were not immune from trauma, and Obi-Wan had more than his fair share of nightmares and day terrors to know how deeply his mind was wounded from events of the past.

And yet, he felt nothing. There wasn’t even blood here, and all the dust has been whipped away. A lightsaber had indeed taken chunks out of the floor, but those chunks had been filled in by a shiny metallic substance for now, likely with the intent for it to be repaired fully the next time the ship stopped at a repair station.

Obi-Wan looked at the interrogation chair—and then, disinterested, he looked away. He found himself at the table where he’d initially sat before his torture began. The place where that arrogant ISB officer exposed his greatest weakness like an open wound.

The place Gran Shado had died.

Obi-Wan found himself palming the surface fitfully, searching for some hint of Shado still on its surface. He battled away impressions of himself, of his tormentor, of other unfortunate guests of the ISB, and when he still couldn’t find Shado, he banged his fist against the table in a sudden explosion of wrath that threatened to choke him.

Was he truly left with nothing here? How cruel.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, breathing in deep, ragged breaths. Then, aware of a small bit of movement in his periphery, he opened them again, tilting his head to the side. On a cart next to the interrogation chair—still untouched by all but cleaning droids—there was a small stasis field. Captured in the center of it, something spun lazily within.

It was Luke’s toy and the pouch it lived in, bobbing along lazily at the push of forced air.

Clicking his tongue—had the Empire no shame, going through a dead man’s things?—Obi-Wan pushed off of the table, heading back to the interrogation chair. Not thinking much of it, he reached for the middle of the toy, eager to rescue the poor thing—and, perhaps, if he was lucky, see a glimpse of a kind boy he’d left behind.

His fingertip grazed the center of the toy’s torso—and Obi-Wan instantly hit the ground.

He did not feel the simple joy of a boy creating a gift he hoped would be well received. Instead, those memories of Luke had been overwritten by a sense of horror, grief, and loneliness so powerful, so deep, and so encompassing, Obi-Wan could only fall to his knees and weep.

Whose feelings were these? They weren’t his own.

-

Subdued—and with a toy wrapped twice in cloth—Obi-Wan squeaked his way back to the bacta room. It was even slower going than usual, and, although frequent shots had apparently kept his body from atrophy, his muscles had clearly not been used beyond some routine physical therapy. He was extremely tired.

He found himself fitfully rubbing his fingers together, idly wondering how long it would take this time until he was in fighting shape once more. As he self-soothed, the pad of his thumb caught on his fingernail, neatly trimmed. He looked down then, opening up his fist to examine the other four nails. When they all revealed themselves to be equally taken care of, he lifted his hands to his hair for the first time since he woke up, sliding his fingers over his temples and back above his ears. His hair was shorter than it had been in years.

He dropped his palms to his beard, carefully trimmed to the length he preferred most—not too short as to be prickly but not too long to be unmanageable either.

Ignited suddenly, Obi-Wan wheeled himself back to the computer, fingers flying over the keys—but no.

There was no record in the endlessly meticulous files to explain how he was so well groomed. There were no droids identified for any task that resembled it either. If anything, there were slight voids in the data. As if someone had quietly intervened, turned off all recording tools, and took care of all of these small and inconsequential tasks that were, nevertheless, of vital importance to Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan leaned back, rubbing a hand over his beard. He supposed he shouldn’t find this comforting. Not in the middle of an Imperial ship. Instead, he found himself oddly mourning whoever sought to care for him so well. Judging by the frequency of those missing stretches of data, they had clearly hoped he was about to wake any day now.

But he was awake now. And it was about time he left this tomb.

-

Several Days Later…

Starport security on the planet of Sinsang had not been updated in the last five years. A man with the right timing and just the correct amount of audacity could waltz in and out without pinging a single warning system, which wasn’t how modern starports should operate whatsoever, even if it was convenient for Obi-Wan.

What had changed was its Imperial presence—or lack thereof, to be precise. There wasn’t a single stormtrooper in sight and, while the one on-shift port attendant wore an Imperial attire, it was a far cry from the slick appearance required by the Empire. His collar was turned up, several buttons were missing, and an unmistakable grease stain spread about across his chest like a star. He looked up not even once as Obi-Wan wandered past, identification unknown. He merely blinked sleepily, eyes fixed to his game.

The people of Sinsang did not fear the roving eye of the Empire. Not here.

But industriousness was not necessarily a feature unique to the Empire. Obi-Wan did have to shake off one bright-eyed youth in pressed clothes who did notice, to her credit, that he was entirely without credentials, but it only took a twitch of the Force to send apparently vital pieces of flimsi flying. While she cursed the wind, he slipped away, glancing at his hand.

The Force leapt so easily to his control these days, like all he needed to fully recover from his ten years of self-indulgent pity was an equally indulgent five-year nap.

Obi-Wan was so deep in thought, he nearly bumped into a man nearly ten years his senior. He sidestepped the equally distracted individual, who startled.

“Ah! Nice reflexes,” said the stranger warmly. They turned to semi-face each other, as people do when they’re mildly friendly and not in a rush.

Obi-Wan should have been ruder. The stranger did a double take, paling like he’d seen a ghost.

Obi-Wan pulled his hood lower over his face. “Good day to you,” he murmured, bowing slightly before walking off.

With better luck, that would have been the end of it. But to his consternation, the stranger started following him for a moment, muttering something into a commlink. Calling for reinforcements, perhaps? Obi-Wan hadn’t checked the bounty boards. Perhaps he was wanted. Wouldn’t that be interesting.

Without speeding up, Obi-Wan turned and headed deeper into the starport, weaving in and around containers. His stalkers—plural now, the reinforcements were here—sped up behind him, their footsteps echoing.

After a good minute of weaving in and out of the maze of boxes like any good civilian who was just a wee bit lost, Obi-Wan vaulted over a pair of Imperial containers. As he jumped over, he noticed that the foreboding cog symbol of the Empire had been painted over by a red symbol he didn’t recognize, one that, at a glance, looked like a bird about to take flight.

He landed on the other side of the containers and attempted to lose himself amongst a long line of grounded starships. They ranged from single pilot machines to larger civilian cruisers that had seen better days. Engines had been removed as well as entire plates, as they had apparently been deemed as little better than scrap. Droids and the occasional Humanoid moved noisily between the ships, slowly dismantling them and scattering their pieces into categories that were lost to Obi-Wan.

At a distance, he heard his pursuers break out in series of frustrated shouts as they realized he was no longer traversing the cargo containers.

“Damn it! You shouldn’t have taken your eyes off him.”

“He’s not leaving,” said another, their voice confident. “Skywalker’s on the case. He’ll be found.”

Anakin was looking for him? It was impossible, of course. Vader had killed him. But for a moment, it made so much sense. Of course, Anakin would look for him. Of course, Anakin wouldn’t let him just disappear.

“Haven’t seen Skywalker fail at anything,” the person continued, voice awed. Was that hero worship Obi-Wan was hearing?

“You say that every time,” said another—the stranger. There was a thud, like a box being struck. “I could have sworn that guy was General Kenobi—”

Before Obi-Wan could connect these pieces of information to come to what was the only possible conclusion, he heard a scrap behind him. Ducking low, Obi-Wan rushed under a skeletal ship, putting bars and sheets of metal and dented glass between him and his new pursuer. He ran under several ships like this, actually, eeling through the ribs of pre-Imperial shuttles and over the remains of dilapidated starfighters at a pace that would be nearly impossible for any person to follow.

And to his credit, his shadow didn’t even try. Instead, he leapt upwards to the top of the ships, buoyed by the Force, and followed him that way instead.

Instead of disturbing Obi-Wan, this show of talent instantly delighted him.

They continued this way for several more minutes, one the hunter and the other the prey. Obi-Wan’s pursuer was maddeningly inscrutable in the Force—not like Shado, who was barely present, but like a Master who had long learned how to hide their presence. But this was no Master. This was not even a Knight.

The method of his shadow’s pursuit betrayed him and his youth, as each footfall was louder than the last, echoing through the empty chambers of the ships below him. He was too eager for the destination to consider if the journey itself should changed.

This wasn’t Anakin. But this was another Skywalker.

Suddenly, his foot-heavy friend above was no longer making a sound. Obi-Wan paused. Then he turned back, scrutinizing the last ship he’d heard him on. Did he fall? Concerned, he backtracked to the last ship, grasping for any possible sense of his pursuer.

There was none. Not even that inscrutable presence. It was as if he had died instantly in the mere seconds Obi-Wan’s back had turned.

Before Obi-Wan could call out, two boots hit the floor behind him from far above. Their owner and wearer, a young man in an orange jumpsuit, rose out of his crouch, a little unsteady after the hard landing. Obi-Wan whirled on him instantly.

“Luke,” he hissed. “That is not funny—”

The rest of his air was forced out of him. Luke lunged forward, hitting him in an enthusiastic hug. “I knew it was you!” he chirped with a growing grin.

A padawan would have been lectured. A teen of, what, sixteen years now? They should be lectured too. If Obi-Wan was any sort of responsible teacher or mentor, that was what he would do. Instead, he hugged him back, sighing heavily.

“Where have you been, Obi-Wan?” They separated. “Were you looking for us?”

Luke was even tanner than Obi-Wan remembered, and his eyes were so blue.

“Not especially,” Obi-Wan admitted apologetically. “Not that I’m not happy to see you. Just that this wasn’t planned. Will of the Force, I suppose.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” Luke said, equally apologetic. “I don’t think you taught my aunt that, and Yoda said I don’t have the head for nuance or philosophy.”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows shot up. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, that’s rude. He’s still around, then?” Had Yoda already turned into a Force ghost?

“Oh definitely,” Luke said. “Leia and him send hate mail to each other on the daily. It’s great. She said it’s the only keeping him alive these days.” His smile finally fell. “Are you sure you weren’t looking for us?”

“I’ve been… indisposed,” Obi-Wan said. Cautious now, he looked around. “I’m truly sorry, but I’ve only been awake for the last three weeks. I’ve yet to get my bearings straight. Too busy trying to find someplace safe.”

Luke brightened up again. “Well, you’re in luck. You landed on a stop on my supply route. I’m on my way to the Rebellion’s base in this sector.”

“The Rebellion?” Obi-Wan echoed.

“Oh yeah!” Luke said enthusiastically. “We’re gonna take back the Republic!”

Chapter Text

Luke took him to Dantooine. While allegedly the home planet of what was now called the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Luke didn’t seem to think it was all that important to present Obi-Wan to the leaders of his rebellion. Instead, he took Obi-Wan to the one person whose opinion mattered most to him.

Surrounded by armed rebels, Leia was waiting for them at the outskirts of the base, where a small village of farmers lived. She was trying hard to look regal and composed, like the princess she was, her attempts to suppress her smile only emphasize how much she was beaming like the sun. While the rebels eyed him suspiciously, Leia took both of Obi-Wan’s hands in hers, so pleased that her face was pinking with it.

“Hello there,” Obi-Wan said, teasingly.

“I knew you’d make it. I had faith in you.” Then, happiness bubbling out of her, she abandoned her grip on his hands, wrapping her whole arms around him instead. Obi-Wan hugged her back, squeezing hard just once. Goodness, she was still so young, and still so small. How had he ever let go of her and Luke as babies? Where had he found the strength to do so?

“And I had faith in you,” Obi-Wan replied. He released her slightly, looking down at her from arm’s length. “Found the Path alright?”

Blinking rapidly, Leia nodded. She took his arm in hers, leading him away. They walked together like that, traversing the crowd. “Yes. And the rebels and even some other Jedi. They found us a place to hide. We were okay. For a while.”

Obi-Wan’s winced at that wording, fearing the worst. “Owen and Beru?”

“Fear not, Obi-Wan. I have not lost yet another pair of parents.” Ah, she had been with the Rebellion too long, it seems. That was gallows humor. “They’re still with the Path, helping out refugees wherever they can.”

“And they let you run with the rebels?”

“There wasn’t much of a choice,” Leia replied, her tone darkening. “The Empire’s march is everlasting, or so they would have us think.”

They paused briefly to let a group of kids trample by obliviously. One child, a very small Wookie, noticed Leia and bashfully waved. Leia waved back, and the lot of them charged off, giggling excitedly. Above them, a single pilot ship flew low over the encampment. In front of them, a trio of Jawas unrolled a banner with that odd symbol on it—a red bird about to take flight.

Leia and Obi-Wan were being followed.

“Leia, I would appreciate it very much if you tell me what’s going on here.”  

Leia shot him an impish look. “Luke didn’t inform you?”

“Ah, dear Luke had much to say. The adventures you’ve all had. The things you have seen, and the friends you have made along the way.” Obi-Wan tossed her a teasing, conspiratorial smile. “Guess how much of it covered anything of galactic importance that in the last five years.”

Leia laughed, ducking her head. “He doesn’t appreciate the big picture, does he?” With that said, she jumped into a synopsis of everything Obi-Wan had missed, her re-telling as clean and straight forward as a history book.

In the last five years, the Empire had fractured into two major factions. Obi-Wan expected it; he had almost tripped over the dead body of an emperor, after all. That sort of event did not occur without ripples. The factions were the Imperial faction, led by the current Emperor, Darth Vader, and the Imperium faction, led by former Imperial bureaucrats or other power players who took exception with the way Vader had risen to power.

Namely by murder. It was well-known to all that Vader had assassinated Sidious—and, in fact, kept assassinating Sidious, whenever Sidious popped up again.

Obi-Wan was not upset by this. Except for all the ways it meant Luke and Leia were going up against their father. For all the ways they might have already been hurt by him.

Obi-Wan fumbled through this line of questioning. “How about it? Was Vader the one— did he hurt your—” Thinking of Bail and Breha was still so painful.

“It wasn’t Vader,” Leia assured him. “My parents were assassinated, as I thought, but the murderers were closer to home than I thought. It was some of my cousins. They disagreed with the way my father was serving the Empire and how my mother was ruling the planet. They thought they could do better.” Her jaw flexed. “I still blame the Empire—and the Imperium too. They were in my family’s ears. They made sure familial resentments had no choice but to fester. My parents’ killers will be dealt with, once the Empire is gone. I will make it so.”

They stopped under a bowing tree. In its shadows, a cool wind took off some of the heat of the sun. Somewhere in the distance, someone was playing music. The smell of perfectly scorched meat filled the air. To their left, a handful of people circled what looked like a very serious game of sabacc.

They were still being followed.

“What about you?” Leia asked, scrutinizing him. “Where have you been?”

“I was, uh, a bit injured. I’ve been in a coma, a bacta tank for nearly five years.” Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “On an Imperial star ship, no less.”

She looked bewildered. “Why?

“I’m not sure,” Obi-Wan admitted. “Vader didn’t get all he wanted from me, I suppose. One would have thought he’d gotten what he wanted the most. My death.”

“I’m not sure your death is what he wanted most,” Leia said, her tone almost dreamy. He looked at her face. Her expression was blank, staring beyond the tree line. The very air around them seemed to buzz slightly with the Force. Then the feeling disappeared, and she patted his hand absently. “Don’t worry, Obi-Wan. We’ll have you shacked up on a comfy rebel bed in no time.”

Her head abruptly turned, her eyes narrowing into slits. “In the meantime, I have a nosy smuggler to deal with.”

She left him then, her hand slipping away. He watched her go, then looked past her to her destination. A young man and a Wookie were watching them obviously from behind a series of crates. The Wookie’s expression was friendly—for a Wookie—but the young man was not. In fact, the young man was scowling so deeply and so suspiciously at Obi-Wan, he hardly noticed the approach of Leia until she was right on his toes—which, to be fair, while the girl was mighty, she was still very tiny, easily missed in the crowd.

Once he noticed, the young man recoiled immediately, backing up a step with both hands raised. He shot her a crooked smile and said a few things very rapidly, pointing behind her. Then, when she turned, he immediately bolted off, escaping into the crowd—and leaving his Wookie companion behind. The poor being was visibly apologetic, bobbing his head slightly to Leia, who was very clearly displeased at her target’s flight.

The twins clearly inherited Anakin’s friend making skills, and not their mother’s. All’s the pity for everyone involved.

-

Sometime later, Obi-Wan found himself mediating a fight between the twins—and over himself, no less.

“I can’t believe this.” Leia was seething. “They have no right!”

The comfy rebel bed was nowhere in sight. In fact, all they had been able to secure for him was a temporary tent in the popup housing on the outskirts of the base. It was a point of no little embarrassment for them both, even when Obi-Wan reminded them he was not a man of luxury. Even a well-oiled cloth over his head was an amazing gift.

The twins were not so easily appeased. When Luke had finally sent word to Alliance leadership about his arrival, they sent back to Obi-Wan a politely worded introduction as well as an equally polite request for him to leave.

The Alliance, it seemed, wanted nothing of Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was fortunate that the Dantooine base was public knowledge, or else Obi-Wan might have found himself in a cell instead.

“They have every right, actually,” Luke said, countering her. Despite defending the Alliance’s decision, he seemed incredibly unhappy. “They’re the ones in charge of the blast doors.”

Leia whirled on him, all fire and brimstone. “So you agree with them?”

“Well—”

“Please,” Obi-Wan interrupted. “Don’t fight over a decision neither of you had a hand in.” At their grim faces, he chuckled and flatted a hand over his chest. “I’m not upset.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s disrespectful,” Leia said, beseechingly. “Turning you, of all people, away from the base. Is the Alliance not open to us all? Since when do we turn people away? I’ve eaten breakfast next to former Imperial agents, and you don’t see me kicking them out of the base!”

“That’s not it,” Luke said, exasperated. “He’s a liability, as far as they know. Just because we know and trust him doesn’t mean they have to.” He reached out, taking Leia’s hand. “You know as well as I do that the Force sensitive thing only goes so far with those guys.”

Leia’s expression shuttered. Then she closed her eyes. She breathed in and out, her shoulders slowly lowering. Someone had taught this girl some form of meditation in the last five years. Obi-Wan was sad to have missed it.

Slowly, her eyes opened. She seemed calmer, but oh those eyes. Those were Padmé ’s eyes—specifically, Padmé  right before she pulled out a blaster and decided to solve a crisis by herself.

“I am going to have words with Mon Mothma,” she vowed ominously.

Luke dropped her hand, groaning and turning away from her, his hands on his hips.

“Leia, please. Mon Mothma is a Senator. She’s not afraid of words.”

Leia tipped her tiny chin upward, brazen as ever. “She will learn.”

She swept out of the tent like a queen, leaving Luke and Obi-Wan behind. After a beat, Luke looked over to Obi-Wan. He fidgeted anxiously, visibly shy all of a sudden.

Obi-Wan chuckled, sitting down on a foldable chair. “I do appreciate your attempts here. It’s not your fault they’re turning me away.”

“They’re idiots. Well, no. They’re just scared. But they would be less scared if they let the best Jedi in the galaxy join the fight.”

Obi-Wan wasn’t here to join any fights. “Best Jedi in the galaxy? That’s an incredibly generous thing to say.”

“Generous, meaning… you don’t believe me,” Luke observed keenly. “I’ve learned a bit more about double speak. Leia was being trained to fill her parents’ shoes. Either pair, or both, if she wanted. She taught me a lot.”

“Enough to become a politician?”

“Enough to know that I never want to be one.”

Obi-Wan laughed. “That is the correct answer. Very good.” He gestured for Luke to take a seat. With as cramped as the space was, he could only offer Luke his bed. “How are you, Luke?”

Luke’s fitful fidgeting stopped. He sat down on Obi-Wan’s cot, as Obi-Wan had suggested. He slumped over, like many children do before straightening up as if remembering belatedly some lectures about posture.

“Fine. Except…” Luke paused, looking away. Then he scooted to the very edge of the cot until they were practically knee-to-knee. “How do people fall to the Dark Side?” he asked in a whisper.

“Why do you ask?”

Luke hesitated, swallowing. Then with a pained shrug, he said, “It’s been quite the year. Leia and I joined the Rebellion when we turned sixteen. Well, we were still fifteen, but don’t tell the Alliance that.”

“Owen and Beru were fine with that?”

“Oh no. They were livid. Scared, mostly. Owen always wants us to mind our own business and keep our heads down. But how can we?” His face twisted. “And they’re such hypocrites anyway. Years on the Path, and they were always so unfriendly to others. But I turned my back for seconds, and suddenly they’ve adopted a whole orphanage. I have seven new relatives now, all under the age of ten. Wild stuff!”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Honestly?” Luke thought about it for a moment. “Excited. Terrified. Determined. I can’t have them grow up under the Empire. They’ve lost so much already, and I—” He cut off what he was about to say, pausing thoughtfully. “Nothing will ever be as it was. And there’s a grief in that, I think. I want them to have the kind of upbringing where they can be complacent. Where they can be lazy. Where they can take peace for granted. And they can’t do that. Not until we’ve re-established democracy in the galaxy.”

Luke hadn’t been an adult at 12, no matter what he claimed. But at 17, Obi-Wan could now hear the kind of man Luke would become very shortly. If only Padmé  could see him now.

As if he could hear the Alliance propaganda machine in his own voice, Luke chuckled self-consciously. “Democracy. Whatever that is. It’s not like the Outer Rim knew much of it anyway. But even Outer Rim rats like me prefer that unknown promise of equality over what we’ve had for the last seventeen years, so that’s something.” Luke tilted his head slightly. “Not that Owen and Beru will ever return to Tatooine. One of the babies is a Nautolan. When Owen heard she might dry out and die, he cried. Literally cried. I’ve seen that man drop an entire engine on his foot without making a— am I rambling? Why am I rambling? Obi-Wan, you should have said something.”

“Why would I say anything that might deter you?” Obi-Wan asked warmly. “You’re clearly anxious, and you want to tell me something. Something you don’t think you can tell anyone else.”

Luke had, after all, kicked off with conversation while referencing the Dark Side.

“Wow,” Luke said, awed. “How did you know? Is that a Jedi thing?

Obi-Wan smiled ironically. “Call it old man intuition.”

“It’s powerful,” Luke said, taking him at face value, the sweet child. “It’s almost like when I—” Luke saw the look on Obi-Wan’s face. “Right. I. Right.” He clapped his hands together. “First, I wanted to reassure that the liability excuse that the Rebellion is using is not personal. And I’ve run into other Force sensitive folks. Other rebels and people who know you. It’s only a matter of time before one of them makes it back the base to vouch for you.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Luke said plainly. “People are scared. The last year has been very eye opening for the Rebellion. I’m not sure how many people knew that the old Emperor was a Sith too. But it’s public knowledge now, and that’s partially because of the Alliance. Because we keep finding things. Records. Artifacts. Bases. Prisons. The Empire. Its atrocities under Sidious. Oh, Ben, it’s so hard to explain.”

Obi-Wan thought of the war. “I’ve run into a Sith or two in my day. I can fill in the blanks.”

“Then do you know about essence transfer?” Luke continued on quickly without waiting for his response. “It’s a Sith technique that allows the user to transfer their consciousness into another body or object. It’s how the Sith cheated death. It’s stupid, really. Sidious could have possessed anyone at any time. But the only bodies he wanted were his own. He wanted to be truly eternal, the deathless Emperor at the height of his power. So he cloned himself, and possessed only himself. But there was something wrong with the process. It didn’t work well. And Emperor Vader seems to take a particular sort of enjoyment in stomping him out whenever he reappears.”

Essence transfer. That was a lot to hear. As stunning as it was demotivating. Even if the Council had worked out Sidious’ identity, they never had a chance to truly capture—or eliminate—him.

Mace. Kit. Agen. Saesee. Obi-Wan’s friends had died for nothing.

“But Sidious wasn’t the only one experimenting with essence transfer,” Luke revealed. “We found out that Vader was too! It seemed like Sidious and Vader had come to the use of the technique separately, and without consulting each other. Because Vader’s use of the technique was different. He wasn’t aiming for immortality. He was aiming for anonymity, I think. Stealth, maybe? Though that’s not exactly the way he operates, is it? Other people in the Alliance are convinced he was looking for someone or something, and he didn’t want the old Emperor to know about it.”

Vader was dabbling with essence transfer? That seemed so unlike him. Like declaring defeat.

“The clones are not strange to me, not anymore. Even dead bodies are… well, I’m getting used to it. But Vader’s version of essence transfer is…” Luke paused, rubbing at his cheek with his knuckles. “The Alliance calls them dolls? I think it’s more of that doublespeak, because they don’t look like dolls. They just look like metal and clay and flesh. That is, until they’re animated. Then they can look like anyone even.” Luke paused, then said, delicately, “They can even look like your friend.”

A loaded silence fell between the two of them. Luke gazed at him anxiously.

“I see,” Obi-Wan said finally. “Malicious innovation is frequently quite frightening. I sympathize with your leadership even more. Thank you for telling me.”

“No problem,” Luke said automatically, easing back. Then, carefully, as if testing the waters, he said, “Sometimes, I feel I know more about the Dark Side than I do the Light Side, these days.”

“And that concerns you.”

Luke’s expression lit up. “Wow, you are so good.”

Obi-Wan laughed kindly. “Knowledge of the Dark Side will not lead you to the Dark Side. Only choices will take you on that path. Remember, fear leads to anger, anger leads to—”

“Hate, yes. I’ve, uh, received this lecture before.”

Obi-Wan wondered which living Jedi had the task of trying to teach Anakin Skywalker’s child, of all people, about the basic principles of their Order, the same principles his own father struggled to contort himself around.

Remembering Anakin’s struggles, Obi-Wan’s smile faded. “I cannot ask you to live by the Code, Luke, for the Order that maintains it is no longer. But I ask you, for your sake, to live your life in a way that preserves and protects life as much as possible. And be careful. Sometimes choices can be placed in front of you that are wrong, no matter how right they appear on their face. Be wary of what excuses you use to justify your actions.” Obi-Wan smiled. “Or inaction, as it were.”

Luke paused, as if taking that in. Then he bowed. “Thank you, Master Kenobi.”

Smiling wider now, Obi-Wan leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Ah, I preferred it when you called me Ben. You were very cute, you know.”

“So Leia keeps reminding me,” Luke grumbled. “You’d think we weren’t the same age.”

Obi-Wan nodded along. Then, gently, he said, “What else?”

This time, Luke did not hesitate to offload his thoughts. “When Sidious died—or one of the times, rather—the Alliance lost a lot of its forward momentum. A lot of people thought—still think—that the death of the old emperor solved a lot of the issues that the Alliance was formed to handle. Our people have almost decades of grievances with the old Emperor. More than two decades, even. There’s history there. But more than that, he was a monster.”

There was unexpected heat there. Luke looked incredibly unhappy.  

“And— and I know I shouldn’t say that about a person, but I can’t shake that thought. The few times I have run into him or his places or bases, it’s like… if there was ever such a thing as true evil, he embodied it in every way.” Luke paused. He shook his head. “But Ben, I don’t feel same way around Emperor Vader. In Sidious, the darkness was all consuming. Greedy. Hateful. With Vader, I feel like… he’s different, somehow. More fearful. More in pain. More wounded, and in ways that make me want to help him, not harm him.” Luke’s eyes were huge. “Am I a traitor to the Alliance?”

Oh Luke. Oh Anakin. His heart hurt.

Obi-Wan leaned forward, grasping this child’s hands. He squeezed them gently. “If questioning your leadership is betrayal, then the ideals your Alliance is built on are made of sand.” This, he said in the driest of tones. It was enough to make Luke snort. “You cannot have equality and freedom without opposing viewpoints, especially when those viewpoints oppose powerful influences. As far as Sidious and Vader go…” Obi-Wan paused. “Sidious’s story is a story of greed. Of a person born into power who never stopped thirsting for more and more of it, no matter who was in his way. Vader’s story is a story of…”

Obi-Wan trailed off. There’s good in him still, Padmé  once said. Obi-Wan couldn’t see it, even if Luke could.

How he wished he could see what they did.

Luke watched him carefully, his expression creased in sympathy. “You can’t share Vader’s story either. You’re not the only one who struggles. Ahsoka wouldn’t tell me either.”

Obi-Wan was jolted from his somber thoughts by that unexpected name. “Ahsoka?” he repeated sharply.

Luke flinched, clapping both of his hands over his mouth. “Shoot. I wasn’t supposed to say.”

That wasn’t Obi-Wan problem. Ahsoka! What lovely news. “Anyway, Vader’s story is a story of tragedy. And you’re right, I can’t share it. Not now. But please know that Sidious was inevitable. Vader was not.”

And neither are you, he thought, watching Luke’s head dip slightly as he sunk into his own thoughts.

(Ahsoka!)

-

Obi-Wan heard Reva before he saw her.

He wasn’t certain how a reunion with her would go. Their history was so fraught, and even though she had moved on from her vengeful past, some part of her must still look at him with disappointment and disapproval. At best, he had actively but unknowingly made decisions that had irrevocably sent her down a dark path. At worst, he’d neglected the duty of every Jedi to protect every Force sensitive child left in their care. The Temple should have never been breached by the war, let alone a Sith.

No, Obi-Wan was quite certain that Reva would never fully forgive him.

Which is why Obi-Wan was quite reasonably startled when, upon their reunion, Reva not only smiled but also swooped Obi-Wan up in a hug so tight, she’d lifted him clear off his toes.

Obi-Wan bleated out a protest, scandalized. All around them, witnesses to this indignity chuckled and pointed. At his outburst, Reva hadn’t stopped laughing either, but she did kindly let him back on his feet, releasing him only to clap him once on the shoulders. “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” she said, eyes sparkling. “You look alive.”

“As do you,” he said peevishly. Then, warmer, he said, “Life as a rebel has treated you well, has it?”

Reva’s smile took on a gentle, mischievous tilt. “Something like that.”

Reva did truly shine. Her health had clearly improved in the last few years. Her cheeks were fuller, and she no longer looked like she lived on too little sleep. She’d taken on braids again, little ones threaded with bits of copper, silver, and gold wire. She wore a long, nondescript tunic with similarly colored leggings with an embroidered leather cuirass. She was armed too, like everyone else, but with a pair of blasters—and no lightsaber.

As Obi-Wan marveled over the changes in her, Reva looked around at the surrounding rebels with a rueful smirk. “Maybe this reunion needs a bit of privacy. Come on. I’ll take you to a special place.”

Waving off the groans of her companions, she did just that, leading Obi-Wan out of the settlement and into the countryside.

They walked together down an old village road, hugging a small cliff face until they came upon a massive white post ringed with chains of flowers etched in white metal. Several phrases had been scribbled down the center of the post, but their true meaning was lost, the text fading under the ravages of time. Stubbornly hardy blue bushes clung to the foot of the post, poking out from between the flattened rocks that made up its perimeter.

Obi-Wan stopped just before he entered the perimeter. “The sense memories are powerful here,” he observed.

Reva nodded, unsurprised. “Here, yeah. But other places too. I know a guy whose whole thing is psychometry. He said the strength of some sense memories has gone through the roof, now that Sidious is gone. He said it’s like not knowing what the sun looks like after living your whole life under clouds.”

Reva walked past the perimeter, crouching at the foot of the post. After some hesitation, Obi-Wan joined her. She looked at peace.

“The Force is very bright these days.”

“Yeah. Despite everything.” Reva looked up at the post. “I’ve never seen so much of the Light. Not in my entire life.”

Obi-Wan looked at the post too. This place seemed to radiate with the Light Side naturally. Consciously or not, the people of this planet had been drawn to this place and had erected a shrine. Then they had used this shrine to celebrate the good things in life—weddings, successes, health, pregnancies, and more. Reaching out with the Force, Obi-Wan could hear the echoes of shared meals and happy praises, of gratitude and promises. It was a place where people felt anything was possible, so anything was possible.

Because Light reflected Light.

Obi-Wan slowly pulled away. It was nearly blinding. But he could see why Reva took him here. It was hard not to sit here with these particular impressions of the past and not remember what hope felt like.

“It used to be like this. When I was younger, I mean.”

“So in the High Republic era?”

Obi-Wan clicked his tongue. “Making a joke about a man’s age,” he murmured chidingly, looking at her. “So dull. Be more creative.”

Reva was unrepentant, hugging her knees. “Your age is not irrelevant, you know. It’s half the reason why people think you’re a fake.” She squinted at him. “They were expecting you to look a lot older, but you just look… the same.”

Did he? When was the last time he looked in a mirror? “I did spend five years in a bacta tank.”

Reva pinched his wrist. He swatted at her. “And you were well fed too, it seems.”

So it seemed. “Did you pull me aside to test if I am one of Vader’s dolls?”

“You’re not a doll,” Reva said immediately, as if disinterested in this line of conversation. “Vader’s obsessive. His doll’s got only one face. His face, specifically. He’s not gonna swap it with someone else, not even yours.” She stood up from her squat, standing and stretching. “But leadership isn’t so much concerned that it won’t happen as much as they are with the fact that it could happen.”

Obi-Wan stood too, brushing off his clothes. “Preventing tragedy is a key responsibility of the leadership of any organization.”

Reva shot him a scathing glare. “They’re kicking a war general to the curb just because there is a small shred of a possibility he could be someone else. And you’re sympathizing with them?”

“I don’t know if they’re still around anymore, but there was a type of droid during the war. A, um, BX-series Commando Droid.” At her blank look, he remembered she was too young. He waved his hand dismissively. “Not important. Look, it was an expensive unit, but highly skilled. Especially in stealth. It could mimic voices, copy body language, and wear the armor of a clone trooper, gaining access to any sort of setting.” Obi-Wan rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “It’s a ruse not especially effective against any Force sensitive, let alone the clones after a while. But it’s frightening. Knowing you exposed any sort of vulnerability to an enemy just because you felt like you were safe at home.”

“You’re not a doll,” Reva repeated, clearly unimpressed by his hard-won experience.

“Ah, but I could be.”

Reva groaned, turning away. “Anyway, that’s not why I pulled you aside.”

“Oh?”

Reva turned back immediately, her expression gleeful. “I pulled you aside because I wanted to taunt you.”

Were they close enough for her to tease him? “About what?”

“About how wrong you were wrong,” Reva said with relish, eyes dancing. “About the inquisitors.” She lifted up her hand, exposing her fingers. “Five of ‘em, I’ve run into. Nearly one a year, at this point. Guess how many turned their back on the Empire and the Dark Side.”

She was nearly vibrating in place. Like this, it was easier to see how young she truly was. She was only a handful of years older than the twins, and she’d had been through such monstrous experiences.

“Reva, I’m not sure I—”

She shoved three fingers in his face. “Three, Obi-Wan. Three of them. That’s three more Force users for the Rebellion than the last time we talked.”

“Fine! Fine. I congratulate you,” Obi-Wan said dubiously. “I just… I don’t understand.”

Reva’s smile started to slip. “What’s there not to understand?”

Obi-Wan paused. Then he shook his head. It was not his place to infect her with his hurt and his doubt. “What about the other two?”

Reva’s expression dimmed. “Well… one of them… she could have turned. Eventually. I think. But it’s hard to face up to the fact that turning away from the Dark Side means you have to confront your sins in the Light.”

“And the other?”

Reva made a face at him. “The other was the Grand Inquisitor. Fuck that guy.” She shook her head, her braids catching the light. “Anyway, you were wrong, and I was right. Praise me. For real this time.”

Obi-Wan laughed at this—at her upturned face and at the hands she had her own hips. Then, warmly, he said, “Very well done, Reva. What you have done is incredible, and I wish you and your friends the very best on your journey forward.”

While Obi-Wan shared his thoughts, her stubborn little stance faded, her shoulders dropping and her fists sliding slowly to her thighs. By the time he was done, she was staring at him unblinkingly, a look of melancholy on her features. After a beat, she rolled her eyes, as if it would better hide the moisture in them.

“Ugh, you’re such a killer of joy. You don’t have to be so sincere about everything.” But she rocked her shoulder into his gently, her face hidden shyly.

Above them, a bird called out to another, and it was met by singing.

-

It was a day like any other when the Empire attacked the Alliance base on Dantooine.

Radar being what it was, by the time the first Imperial ships breeched the clouds, the base was already on high alert—and evacuating. They were prepared to fight against an incursion by the Imperium. They were not prepared to fight Emperor Vader’s nearly inexhaustible force of droids and starship fleets.

As the first claxons rang out, awakening the Alliance and surrounding communities in the early morning hours of the invasion, all of these things were rapidly laid out for fighter and civilian both over commlinks, base loudspeaker systems, and word of mouth by extremely determined communications officers on foot and speeder.

The Imperium did not have the ground forces or the ships to overpower the Alliance. If they tried, well, the rebels were ready to crush them, were they not? At this point of the three-way war, the Alliance had enough munitions, enough starships, and enough people to wipe out the Imperium entirely. The only reason they hadn’t yet is because it was not advantageous to destroy a front of a war prematurely, and if the Imperium did anything well, it was that they had made it a point of pride to annoy and pester the Empire so much that the Empire was hardly paying any attention at all to the Alliance these days. In the Empire’s apathy, the Alliance had grown quite strong indeed.

The Empire, on the other hand, would require greater tactics and precision to be fully destroyed. Shattered supply lines. Destroyed droid manufacturing facilities. Annihilated key political figures. Simultaneous actions on simultaneous fronts.

There was no point in fighting the headless droid army, so there was no harm in retreating. It made as much sense as trying to fistfight an ocean wave. It was better to get out of the way entirely. Besides, once their target was secured, Imperial droids often became rather docile and passive, milling about until called for their next assignment. They were hardly a threat to the locals—until ordered to be—and so they were quite unlike the droid armies of yesteryear.

One merely needed to get out of the way of their initial charge and then avoid provoking them afterwards. It was like dealing with a sleepy rancor—deadly and dangerous but not terribly difficult, if one knew the way.

And so by word and by message, the Alliance assured everyone that it was unlikely the advancing droids—being droids—would have any interest in following them, once the base was secured. All one had to do was leave and let the base be secured. A blow, to be sure, but not a permanent one. They would all live this day, if orders were followed precisely.  

And that was all well and good. That is, until Obi-Wan Kenobi stopped in the middle of camp. He looked up at the early morning sky, still streaked with darkness, and said, “He’s here.”

It was then that the orderly, practiced evacuation turned into a frenzy.

Because when the Rebellion said they were not prepared to fight the Empire, what they really meant is that they were not ready to battle Emperor Vader.

Chapter Text

As the camp around them descended into chaos, Obi-Wan hurried to the strongest and closest Force presence in the area.

He caught her by the arm, urgent. “Whatever you do, keep evacuating. I can try to engage with him and buy you more time.”

Reva was in the middle of a heated conversation with a fellow in a large helmet—a rebel agent. While she turned to him, immediately listening, the man reared back in offense. “Excuse me, who are you?”

“Possibly the only person in the galaxy he wants to kill more than Sidious.”

Reva caught his eyes. They looked at each other for a moment. Then Reva nodded. “You heard him,” she said tersely, all hints of that youngling by the village post now gone. “Pass it on. If anyone complains—anyone with seniority who remembers the Old Republic—tell them General Kenobi is engaging the enemy.”

The agent—who was truly young—scrunched up his face. “We don’t have a General Kenobi—”

“Pass. It. On,” Reva repeated, looking unamused. The agent ran off. Reva looked at him. “You sure about this?” She reversed their grips, dragging him along now. Somewhere in the distance, something exploded as a scouting starship hit the ground. People were screaming.

“Since when has he given up an opportunity to kill me himself?” Obi-Wan muttered sarcastically.

“That’s not really what I meant.” Reva brought him into a tent. She shoved a pile of datapads off the top of a large chest, flinging it open. She started shuffling through it, throwing random items over her shoulder.

“He’s here for me. If he was here to destroy the Alliance, bombs would certainly be more efficient, and he could do that from sectors away. Wholesale planet destruction would secure the victory he’s looking for.”

“Don’t joke about that. There were plans for these planet destroyers—never mind, it’s not important.” She found a slim box, bring it over to him. “You woke up on a ship?” she asked, her tone clipped. “Where?”

She opened the box, revealed four different lightsaber hilts. Feeling impatient, Obi-Wan rapidly rattled off of the sector and its conditions, assuming she was trying to gather information from him before he perished. “It was a star destroyer, formerly of the ISB. It surrounded by a fleet and manned by droids.”

He ran his hand over the lightsabers before grabbing two.

“We’re familiar with that area,” Reva said. Obi-Wan activated the first one lightsaber. It was blue, but it flickered dangerously, seriously damaged. “We’ve been trying to break into the center of that fleet for ages, just to see what he was hiding. Never managed to.” The second lightsaber was a steady yellow, but it had an odd feeling of fatigue about it. “And yet you flew out of there without a single droid making a peep.”

Obi-Wan scrutinized her closely. All around them, alarms kept blaring on and on. “I’m not a doll.”

Reva’s eyebrows hiked up as he pushed the nearly broken lightsaber back into her hands. “I don’t think you’re a doll. I think you were the prized center of the fleet. Which complicates things. Sure you don’t want to test the other two?”

He paused, clipping his chosen weapon to his hip. Trying to keep judgement out of his voice, he said, “Those other two crystals have been bled.”

“It’s not like lightsabers grow on trees. Especially not after what the Empire did to Ilum.” She palmed one of the red lightsabers, igniting it. To be fair, the crystal in that weapon seemed far more stable than its blue or yellow sibling. “Can’t afford to be picky, and not all of us know how to purify the corruption. Go have fun, and don’t make too many assumptions, Obi-Wan.” With that, she turned around and jogged out of the tent.

He followed her out, but she didn’t stop. “About what?” He called at her back.

Reva laughed. “About people’s destinies and their true affinity for the Dark.” She saluted him over her shoulder with the very lightsaber he’d rejected. “Best of luck, Obi-Wan Kenobi!”

Before he could grill her on what she meant, he was intercepted by a small hand in his elbow.

“So it’s true.” Leia was standing right next to him. The skin around her mouth was tight from her attempt to hide her emotions.

“You should be evacuating,” he chided her.

“And we just got you back,” she said mournfully. Her eyes were luminous.

Obi-Wan forced a small smile, cupping her elbows. It was hard to remember she was nearly seventeen. “Protect yourself and protect your brother.” He frowned, thinking of their last talk. “His heart is so kind. I fear the galaxy will break it.”

There was a rising whine from constant aerial bombardment. Above them, smaller aircraft were peeling off from the base to face off with the ships emerging from the destroyer. In this chaos, Leia was calm, a center of gravity. The only evidence of the impact of these events was the way forced wind tugged at and tangled her crown of braids.

No child of Anakin Skywalker or Padmé  Amidala should be so serene in the midst of war. This was not the galaxy either one of them had fought for.

They hugged each other tightly, and Obi-Wan pressed a kiss against her hairline. Then he stepped back, lingering.

He found himself fortifying his memories of the twins. Of her, just standing there. Of Luke, cheerfully ambushing him in the starport. Of Leia, chatting with him casually while glaring daggers at her smuggler friend. Of Luke, confessing his fears about the Dark Side.

Through no great effort of his own, he had seen the adults nearly to adulthood. He was content with this. He could die like this.

With a flick of his wrist, Obi-Wan ignited the lightsaber. It was not his own, but the old dear was reliable and strong, a gleaming yellow pillar of light.

-

Obi-Wan left the encampment around the base. While others fled the bombardment, he headed in its direction. In the sky loomed a series of ships, with a star destroyer at the center like a predatory dragon.

Obi-Wan made no great attempts to be seen from the ground. He merely dropped his shields and reached out, his Force fingers curling on a bond-that-should-not be and tugging very gently.  

Seconds later, the trajectory of more oncoming ships changed. Instead of engaging with and fighting the rebels, they circled Obi-Wan’s general area, forming a perimeter. At some point, the Rebellion must have heard Reva’s orders, for the rebels soon stopped engaging the enemy’s ships in favor of supporting the efforts to evacuate.

Obi-Wan paused and waited. Yes, this would be a good location for his final stand. The place, prior to bombing, had been a pristine beach on the shores of a small lake. Now, it was littered with debris and crystalized sand.

A moment later, a large TIE fighter landed with a thump on the sands. Still looking off at the waters, Obi-Wan suppressed a sigh. Vader’s hatred for Obi-Wan was so predictable. It was enough to give a man a bit of a superiority complex. His eyes flicked to the sky where larger rebel ships were escaping orbit without hassle.

A hiss and another thump later saw Vader exiting the TIE fighter. For the longest time, the only sounds Obi-Wan could hear were the humming of his lightsaber, the rasping of Vader’s breathing apparatus, and the far-off screeches of starship engines pushed to their very max.

After a moment, Obi-Wan tilted his head, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Are you here to destroy me, Darth?” He turned slowly, facing the galaxy’s new Emperor.

Five years might have passed with Obi-Wan in the bacta tank, but none of those years seemed to have impacted Vader in the slightest. He certainly hadn’t livened up his outfit any, and his helmet remained as inscrutable as ever. His presence was still knee-shakingly powerful, though it seemed he was a little less heavy handed with the Dark Side these days. It was hard to tell, given that his Force signature was so tightly contained.

He did, however, have two lightsabers at his hip. One of them was Obi-Wan’s.

The sight of that familiar hilt stung, and Obi-Wan swallowed heavily at what that could mean. Still, he gave his borrowed weapon a little bit of a twirl before dropping into a stance. He hadn’t practiced Soresu in five years, and he could feel its lack instantly in his center of gravity. Still, though, he maintained a serene expression, not letting on his own trepidation.

Vader, however, failed to draw either—or both—of his weapons. Instead, he stood there quietly, waiting. Was Vader bored? Obi-Wan shifted his grip on the hilt fitfully, all too aware of his responsibility to everyone still fleeing.

Uneasy, Obi-Wan said, “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your appetite for battle. Or is your lust for violence only satiated against the weak?”

This seemed to stir something in Vader, but it wasn’t rage. “Submit to me now, Obi-Wan,” he said, finally speaking.

“Not a chance,” Obi-Wan snapped, leaping forward.

It was immediately a one-sided battle. In any other circumstance, Obi-Wan would have put his credits on the one with the weapon. Sadly, this was not the case. When he wasn’t languorously stepping out of the way of Obi-Wan’s swings, Vader was fully stopping them in their tracks, using nothing but the Force.

What an incredible show to control, Obi-Wan thought, even as his bones rattled in the process. He had always known Anakin would outrun him one day, both in the Force and in battle. But he hadn’t thought it would end like this.

Nevertheless, he tried and tried again. His biggest advantage in a fight with Anakin was his padawan’s extreme obsession with winning—and his equally extreme emotional fluctuations when his pathway towards victory was in any way obscured. Vader labored under the same weaknesses in the past, but not today. It seemed like Vader’s only interest was defending himself with the least amount of effort possible.

If Obi-Wan didn’t provoke him into a rage, he was going to lose this battle very quickly.

So Obi-Wan targeted his suit. It was in vain, earning him nothing but a swift punch to the stomach when he was the closest to success. And not a particularly hard one either. This made Obi-Wan deeply anxious. If Vader wasn’t even aiming for his solar plexus, could he be said to be taking this seriously?

Obi-Wan skidded back, putting some distance between the two of them. Vader watched passively, helmet tilted. When Obi-Wan’s gaze strayed to a possible exit route—a small path between two extremely large boulders, one of them cracked down the middle, sliding down to cover the path. Obi-Wan grimaced. Asked and answered.

So he sucked in a deep breath, lifted his saber up again, and charged forward. Again, swings missed or hit a Force wall. Taunts were ignored. Debris, rocks, and driftwood flew between them, breaking against each other and their bodies, if not vaporized by Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. Obi-Wan abandoned Soresu entirely, for what was he defending against?

No ground was won. Vader was calm, and Obi-Wan was in trouble. He kept swinging, but he was not the diversion he thought he was. Not anymore.

Then, horrifically, Vader’s trap sprung. Vader busted past Obi-Wan’s own meager Force protections, gaining a powerful grip on Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. Despite Obi-Wan’s best attempts, it flew out of his hand and any attempts to regain it crumbled against the wall of Vader’s will.

All it took was a few seconds of distracted attention, an instinctive tug-of-war between two men where one clearly outclassed other.

A few seconds, and then suddenly Vader was in his personal space, his Force presence sliding up and through the final few layers of Obi-Wan’s shields.

“Go to sleep, Obi-Wan.”

The Force suggestion was whisper-soft—and devastatingly powerful.

Obi-Wan thrashed in place, trying to resist it. This was no place for sleep. But his body had slept for so long recently. It bent easily towards picking up the activity once more. His legs crumpled, numbing as muscles relaxed.

Vader caught him before he could hit the floor, cradling him against the front of his suit. “Ssh. Sleep, Obi-Wan,” Vader murmured.

There was no escaping that metal embrace—nor, it seemed, the press of that powerful Force suggestion. Obi-Wan dug his fingernails so tightly into his own arms, the skin broke. And yet, the pain still wasn’t enough.

He’d lost, and horribly so. Panicking, he jerked his attention to the sky. Did he buy enough time? Did the rebels get away? Were the twins safe? The sky seemed clear of everything but Imperial ships. Had his paltry efforts finally been enough this time?

Obi-Wan’s attention slipped out of his grasp. He was no longer under control. Instead, he was falling deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, so much so that he was leaning on the body in front of him gratefully. Anything other than the sand. Where was he again? It was so bright. But he was so tired. Surely, someone would be kind enough to turn off the light.

Oh, would you look at that? Asked and answered, yet again.

“Everything will make sense soon,” said a voice near his ear.

Obi-Wan opened his heavy eyes. Vader was cradling him, holding his cape over Obi-Wan’s face like a canopy, a small shade from the blazing sun. “…Liar.”

There was a steady intake of air, louder now here than it ever had been before. “Yes. Liar. Cheat. Traitor.” Vader’s hand covered Obi-Wan’s face. “We will talk. Later.”

Obi-Wan finally succumbed.

-

A dead body laid stretched out on a bed inside of a medical bay of a starship. Stomach quivering, Obi-Wan stood over it, his hand plastered over his beard so tightly, he risked breaking a tooth.

But the tableau in front of him remained.  

He’d woken up on yet another ship, seemingly abandoned. He’d slipped out the room as soon as his feet hit the floor, and he’d taken a left instead of a right, which led him… here. In this place. This bastardized medbay.

Each of the surrounding beds were occupied by a being—and Obi-Wan used the word “being” loosely. The ones closest to him appeared to be little more than machinery, clay, and flesh, arranged loosely in the shape of a humanoid. Pulsing Sith lettering circled each of the beds, dormant for now save for the one he stood over, the one he’d raced to once he recognized that profile in repose.

Obi-Wan’s hair was standing on end. Even the Light, as blisteringly bright as it was these days, seemed muted here, though Obi-Wan was hardly thinking of the Force.

Each of the beds had a ghastly contraption squatting over it, function unknown, but it was this bed that hinted at its usage. Over the last bed, the four-legged contraption held a jagged ruby and black crystal at its core. From the pointed end oozed continuous Sith lettering. The letters floated down slowly, sinking into and disappearing into the final being’s belly.

For it was a belly—recognizably so. And the belly was covered by tan skin and connected to lithe hips and long legs and a strong torso—not to mention a head with a full head of long darkly blond hair. A man. A Human.

Obi-Wan swallowed harshly, his eyes jumping from feature to feature. From the eyes that were so sweetly closed. To the broad hands that were curled so loosely at his sides. To the surgically opened chest wound that revealed, yes, organs, but also another grotesque crystal surrounded by Sith lettering that skittered from his direct gaze like bugs fleeing the light.

The Alliance had called them dolls. All Obi-Wan saw, though, was Gran Shado.

In a fit of fear, Obi-Wan dislodged the crystal from the contraption with a sharp sweep of his hand. It shattered against the wall. At the same time, all the lettering, save for the words etched on the floor, disappeared. The extremely convincing Human body abruptly collapsed into itself, revealing itself to be nothing more than the machinery, clay, and flesh that littered each of the other beds.

This wasn’t a medbay. This was a Sith workshop.

How many times did Obi-Wan note—and bury—the extreme likeness between Shado and his old padawan? The shared hobbies? The common peeves and flaws and brilliance?

Obi-Wan was going to be sick. How much sensitive information had Obi-Wan brainlessly spilled to his greatest enemy? How many times had he’d been bullied into vulnerability? How many times he succumbed to intimacy?  

Had Vader been watching the whole time? Had Vader been present?

Had Vader…

Had Vader really promised to retire with him? Had he really begged Obi-Wan not to leave him behind? Had he really contorted himself, even briefly, to fit inside of Obi-Wan’s world?

Why. Why. What benefit did he stand to gain from toying with Obi-Wan’s tender feelings? What victory had he secured through such an elaborate lie?

The medbay opened. Jolting in place, Obi-Wan whipped around instantly, defenseless.

In the doorway stood Vader.

For a moment, there was no response other than Vader’s labored breathing. Then, slowly, there was a creaking sound as Vader looked beyond Obi-Wan to the bed—and then to the shattered crystal, and then back to Obi-Wan again and his clenched fists and his tight face as he trembled in anxiety, confusion, and, yes, heartbreak. 

-

“Not here.”

With this single clipped statement, Vader was sweeping out of the room, cape flaring behind him.

After a beat, Obi-Wan followed. What other choice did he have?

They walked away from that terrible room together, Obi-Wan four steps behind Vader. Perhaps his mind should have been whirling with thoughts or hypotheses—or even plans for the fight ahead of him—but instead his mind was nearly numb in its silence, ringing with the absence of all that should have been there.

The walk was short, and it confirmed his suspicions of the class of ship he was on—this was no star destroyer. Instead, it was a cozy thing, not meant for more than ten passengers, judging by the sleeping arrangements and the kitchen area. There were hints of civilian luxury here and there—well-padded seats, large side tables, and a consistently generous ceiling that did not call for stooping—but the simultaneous military use of the ship was apparent.

A holomap of the sector was flickering in the background, whole swatches of stars painted in a haunting red. A display wall, more functional than aesthetic, was home to a wide array of well-oiled and ready weapons, ranging from pre-Imperial blasters to very thin cortosis blades. Two mannequins stood like silent sentries on either side of the display, dressed in a sleekier armor than Obi-Wan had ever seen in this age of the Empire. To the left of it, an embarrassing wealth of new medical supplies all but spilled out of one room, and, beyond all that, the ozone reek of new ship munitions was unmistakable.

And then, of course, there was Vader, which had to mean this ship was as much of a weapon of war as he was.

Vader took him down the center spine of the ship that connected all of its disparate parts. Just shy of the pilot seats—there were two—he veered off to the right, opening a door before walking through.

It was a near empty room that boasted a wide window to the stars. Obi-Wan paused for a moment, just staring. It was beautiful. But Vader made a harsh silhouette against the backdrop of the stars, reminding him of his place.

But Vader didn’t seem inclined to break the silence. But the silence would be broken, Obi-Wan decided in a fit of pique. He would have his answers, one way or another.

“What is the meaning of all of this?”

“It means whatever you wish,” Vader replied. “Was it not your master who said your focus determines your reality?

“That’s not what that saying means,” Obi-Wan bit out, tense.

“I see. My apologies, Master,” Vader murmured. “Then allow me to elucidate.”

The Sith Lord drew both of his lightsabers. Obi-Wan staggered a half-step back, his empty hands flexing. Would Vader really fight him unarmed? No, he realized quickly, as Vader chucked one of his lightsabers to the side. In the same motion—and far more gently—Vader floated the other lightsaber—Obi-Wan’s lightsaber—to Obi-Wan’s outstretched hand. It landed there without harm, solid and familiar and dependable, as always. Vader hadn’t bled the crystal.

And now it was Vader who was unarmed. Vader, who turned his back on Obi-Wan then, cape sweeping against the floor as he turned his hidden gaze to the stars.

It wasn’t a Jedi’s way to strike an unarmed man. If Obi-Wan was a weaker person, one who chased after easy solutions, perhaps he would have buried his lightsaber in the back of his padawan’s back anyway, finally and decisively ending this nightmare.

But Obi-Wan was not that man, and Vader had elucidated, as promised. And while it could always be a trap, his actions seemed interesting. Perhaps Vader could be encouraged to elucidate a bit more. To answer a few questions. To explain Gran Shado.

“…Alright,” Obi-Wan said finally, clipping his long-lost weapon to his hip. Then he joined Vader at the window, arms crossing over his chest.

They stood there together for the longest time, silence interrupted by only the steady ins and outs of Vader’s respirator. The galaxy gleamed in front of them, bright and beautiful and unknowable. A white streak between pinpoints of light appeared. It could have been anything. A meteor. A satellite. A ship.

Life, in all its wonder.

“What do you think of my new Empire?” Vader asked eventually.

“It’s quite the regime change.” Obi-Wan’s eyes flickered in Vader’s direction. “It’s almost like you’re trying to destroy it. Why?”

“Power was always a consolation prize to me, Obi-Wan.” There was a pause. “I wanted to save her. I wanted the war to end. I wanted to raise my children. I wanted to keep you in my life always.” His glove creaked as he clenched in a fist. “In the end, I had none of those things. What choice did I have but to grasp at what was left?”

Obi-Wan said nothing. Eventually, that fist released. Then Vader said, musingly, “After Mustafar, I assumed you had driven me to the very depths of despair, and that I could go no lower.” His helmet tilted. “Then I found you just as you destroyed yourself, and I discovered there was an entire depth of misery I had yet to explore.”

Stabbing himself seemed like a net win for Vader. Then why did he say this like it was an accusation of wrongdoing? “The situation called for it.”

“It should not have,” Vader retorted, swinging towards him. There was a pause. “And that was my fault.” He sounded subdued.

Dubious, Obi-Wan observed him for a long moment, then faced him as well so they were standing toe to toe. “Who’s fault was it?” he asked, very softly. “Vader’s? Or Shado’s?”

There was a pause. Then— “You say that like they are mutually exclusive.”

It was the revelation Obi-Wan had expected after seeing that body. His feelings were mixed. There was a rush of satisfaction, vindication even, at the notion those hints of Anakin weren’t merely wishful thinking. At the same time, Obi-Wan felt very stupid and very vulnerable, like he’d offered in one hand his heart on a platter and in the other the scalpel with which to ruin it.

He tried to blast a hole through this claim. “Shado wasn’t so invested in killing me as you are.”

“Not at the end, no.” Vader’s words were calm and certain. “His affection—my affection—was not faked. His promises—my promises—to you were not lies.”

Obi-Wan flinched. He didn’t back down from the confrontation but he felt himself curling inward, just slightly, his arms tightening tighter around his torso, as if preparing for a blow.

All while he did this, Vader continued to watch him steadily. “Your distrust is not misplaced.” What an odd reassurance. “My feelings for you did not stop me from wanting to torment you. Wanting to punish you.”

His hand raised then, clearing the small space between them instantly. Obi-Wan stood still as metal fingers found and tweaked the length of Obi-Wan’s hair. Under Obi-Wan’s gaze, silvering reddish-gold strands shined through dull black metal. It had grown long again in the weeks after his coma.

“I hungered for your fear. Your dread. Your unease. I wanted it seared in your bones, that relentless anxiety, so that when I finally revealed my true identity, you would know how close you came to utter annihilation, and you would fully appreciate my mercy.”

Obi-Wan’s attention moved back to Vader’s mask. “And your power.”

There was a considering pause. Then, with gravity, Vader said, “And my power.” There was a pause. Then his hand dropped. “But in my quest to watch you squirm, and in my arrogance, I lost control of the situation. Shado was eliminated, and you were suddenly out of my reach. In danger. In real danger, not my petty torments. I raced for you. And you…”

Vader trailed. He didn’t need to continue, for the sense memory on Luke’s toy had been overwritten with horror and grief.

Vader had known about the twins the moment Shado put two and two together—because Shado was Vader. And it was Vader who called the ISB, yes, but it was Vader who attempted to free him, and who died doing it. It was Vader who expressed excitement at the prospect of them both retiring. It was Vader who so tenderly cared for him while Obi-Wan was in the bacta tank, just because he knew Obi-Wan hated to look messy.

In front of him, Vader was suddenly taking his helmet off. In the same motion, he kneeled, his bared scarred skull bowed. After a moment, he looked up, expression beseeching. His eyes were blue.

Hope had never before felt so choking. Vader had said Anakin was gone. Had he merely lied? “…Anakin?”

Vader tipped his head to the side, acknowledging this. “My master,” he rasped, his voice a mixture of Vader’s own and Anakin’s. “What do you think of my new Empire?”

Obi-Wan was reaching out before he could even think, fingers skimming lightly over the worst of the scarring on one cheek. A beat later, Vader was burying his face into Obi-Wan’s palm. He was trembling.

Obi-Wan let out a shaky breath, murmuring, “Asking my opinion of something you intend to destroy. Anakin, really…”

“As one Sith used war to destroy the Republic, another uses war to bring it back. I thought you would appreciate the parallels.” Vader captured Obi-Wan’s hand loosely with two of his own. While he was pressing Obi-Wan’s hand rather hard against his own face, the grip of those metal fingers on Obi-Wan were loose. “They must remember what it was like to lose everything. To feel the boot of the Empire on their neck. How else will they avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? Otherwise, the monument they build on the Empire’s ruins will merely be a repeat of the errors made in the past.”

For a brief moment, Obi-Wan felt his temper swelling defensively, and he wanted to retort that the Republic only fell because of the Sith. But Vader wasn’t wrong. The Republic had failed to serve its citizens, and the Order with it. The rot that had eaten the Republic was home brewed and nurtured by them all until it had swallowed them whole.  

“And the Imperium?”

“Desperately clinging onto a dead leader,” said Vader, dismissive. “They will fall, as Sidious did.”

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. “Sidious has returned. Repeatedly.”

“Yes. He has tried, anyway. But no longer.” That beloved face twisted into a cruel smirk. “His last clone was destroyed four weeks ago.”

Obi-Wan said nothing. For Vader’s eyes had turned yellow again.

“Do you not approve?” Vader asked gently, searching his face. “You feared for my children, of what the galaxy would do to them. I will not hand them a poison chalice. They will have freedom. A future with potential. A new galaxy that will not soon forget Leia and Luke Skywalker.”

Obi-Wan scrutinized him carefully. After a moment, he knelt too, observing him from this level. “But Anakin, you must understand it too. Your task is not complete.” The surety of this statement sat like a rock in the pit of his stomach. “If your children are to have a future, Darth Vader must die.”

Vader stared at him for a long moment, just blinking. Then he nodded. “Yes. It will be done.” He took the hand Obi-Wan still had against his cheek and pressed it against his mouth instead, his eyes glowing malevolently.

They stayed together quietly in that room under the stars for a very long time.

Chapter Text

For the twins to have a future, Darth Vader had to die. So Darth Vader died.

In this epic tale of good versus evil, it was granted an explosive finale. Just as the last Moff of the Imperium was killed, the Rebellion stormed the heart of the Empire. Months of the galaxy grappling with the evils of the Empire culminated into this one moment, into the last gasping breath of the great Imperial machine. It had to be cathartic, so of course the ship exploded, showering space with millions of molten hot particles and things that used to be.

And Darth Vader was famously in the middle of that explosion, having crossed lightsabers with the Rebellion’s darling, Luke Skywalker.

All was well. Or so they reported over rebel communication channels.

The truth was a little more complicated.

An hour after Vader gasped his last breath, Obi-Wan completed his sixth circuit of the main hallway in the middle of the Imperial light cruiser he was inhabiting. He had the Alliance’s communication channels on 50% volume. As rebel agents reported in on Alliance-approved news, cheers exploded periodically from the speaker. Obi-Wan finished his seventh circuit very quickly, fighting the impulse to break things.

He was far less rattled at the revelation that his long lost padawan was secretly his dead lover. Goodness!

On the start of his eighth circuit, a ghastly pale man in a particular life support suit stumbled out of one of the rooms, gasping. Behind him, a glowing Sith artifact shattered into pieces. Obi-Wan practically flew to his side, catching him before he could hit the floor. But his prosthetics were heavy. The best he could do was prop him up on his shoulder until the other man got his feet under him.

“What happened?”

Anakin Skywalker—though no one would recognize him as such—couldn’t answer, still struggling for breath. The half-mask that had replaced his full helm did not work quite as well, which was demonstrated most keenly in moments like this. Instead, he flapped his hand towards the end of the hallway, and, together, they marched him over to the sterile chamber that housed his customized bacta tank.

Obi-Wan stopped outside the door, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He’d been banned from the room. He too could be made sterile and safe there, and they had spent a lot of time together thusly, no longer parted in this way. But a few months ago, he’d developed a terrible itch in his throat after they spent time in that room together, likely due to the chemical that was sprayed at him to ensure he was safe enough for Anakin’s compromised immune system.

The itch was minor at first. Then it turned into a persistent cough, raspy and low. Then that cough had turned into shortness of breath, and that shortness of breath had landed him a week in a private medical clinic where one machine breathed for him while another drained fluid from his chest cavity.

As a result of these events, Obi-Wan hadn’t been in that sterile room since, and it didn’t appear that was about to change. Anakin was already pushing away from him, pressing his weight against the doorway as he triggered the door’s opening. Agonized as he was, Anakin reached back for a moment, his gloved fingers curled lightly against Obi-Wan’s jaw, slipping through his beard. Then the door shut between them again, and Obi-Wan was alone.

Obi-Wan staggered back a step. His knees felt weak, and his heart was rapidly tripping in his chest. Every time a rebel crowed that Emperor Vader was dead, he’d jumped slightly, wondering if this was the time it was true, if this was the time it wasn’t just a ruse.

The relief of it all—knowing it had worked and knowing it was over—was nearly worse than the fear of waiting. The relief made him want to collapse on the ground for a few hours and cry.

As a compromise, he dipped his head once and sighed, stepping back and back again until his shoulders hit a wall. Then he sank into a kneeling position to meditate.

Slipping into meditation these days was as easy as breathing. The Force too was no longer as grating and foreboding as it had been most of his life. It felt as it had when he was young and didn’t know any better about all the horrible things that were about to take place. He could just… be. It was nice.

Time passed this way. Peacefully. Then he rose slowly out of that warm and familiar place. He smirked. “Hello there.” Slowly, he opened his eyes.

Anakin was sitting across from him. His posture was not the dutiful padawan or even the more commanding Knight and General he’d become. It was something else entirely. One leg was bent, propping up an arm. The other was stretched out—and around Obi-Wan—essentially walling him off.

“Obi-Wan.” Anakin didn’t have a vocoder in this mask. As a result, his voice was very soft, almost a whisper, easily strained into nothingness.

Shado had once taunted him about his efforts to ensure they could finally enter an era of unprecedented honesty. He’d tried to do so by force and had failed. In reality, it had taken Obi-Wan and Anakin many weeks to get to a point where seeing each other did not provoke a shared sense of defensiveness or distrust. Of remembered anger or fear. It had required hard work, gentle understanding, and the shedding of many personas, and none of it had been easy. But it had been worth it, in the end.

Obi-Wan reached out to that half-mask, pressing his fingertips to where his lips would be. “What happened?”

“…Complications.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s not the first time you’ve died in a doll.”

Anakin touched his fingers carefully. It had taken time for him to work out how to modify Vader’s prosthetics enough to touch Obi-Wan without pain. They had not been designed with gentle purpose in mind. “The Force nearly took me.” For a moment, he just breathed in and out. In and out. “The Dark Side is… bold. Disobedient, these days.”

Obi-Wan wondered. “Have you ever given much thought about death?” At Anakin’s dry expression, he amended this. “Philosophically, I mean. What happens after.”

Anakin didn’t say anything for a long time. Looped gently around Obi-Wan’s own, he slowly lowered his hand, pressing against his chest. For a moment, his voice came out a little stronger. “Why would any worry about what happens after? What’s happening now seems far more pertinent.”

Obi-Wan tried to explain. “Some believe that there is a different a place where Sith lords live in torment, unable to become one with the Force in death.”

“…Propaganda.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps the Force recognized that you are no longer meant for that dark place. Maybe the Force recognized that you have fulfilled your purpose.” Anakin continued to look grave. “You brought balance to the Force, did you not?”

Anakin didn’t answer. Not for a long time. Then, very softly, he whispered, “Emperor of the entire galaxy, and yet always a tool in someone else’s hands.”

Obi-Wan wanted to quip that he was never the emperor of the entire galaxy, or that there was joy in surrendering to another’s use, at times. But he held his tongue. There was an old hurt here—a hurt he’d perpetuated in the past.

Anakin has always grappled with his role in that prophecy, at times resenting its existence while simultaneously resenting that there were others who doubted his role in it. For Obi-Wan, who had been young and single-minded at the time, there was no such confusion. He understood Qui-Gon’s last words, and he understood what Qui-Gon had believed. For him, those were the only two truths he needed to work off of when it came to training Anakin.

He could have been better with that. He could have been easier on him. He could have recognized Anakin’s entire personhood from the start rather than fixating on what Qui-Gon thought. By the time he understood, appreciated, and even celebrated who Anakin truly was, their patterns had been set. Their roads had been built, and they had no choice but to follow them.

“We’ll have to hide now,” Obi-Wan reminded his gloomy lover instead.

Anakin reacted as well as could be expected—that is, not well at all. “I hide from no one.” His eyes were glinting yellow, as it often did these days when Anakin was gripped by an intense emotion.

Obi-Wan indulgently rubbed the frown out from between his eyebrows. “That’s the risk you took when you showed your children all of those Sith laboratories. You left room for doubt.”

Anakin pressed his face harder against Obi-Wan’s fingers. “Their ignorance had to be corrected.”

“But you—”

Just then, the Alliance communication channel changed from idle chatter to clear comms. A familiar voice floated out of the speaker. Mon Mothma announced in a prepared speech that the Empire had fallen. She thanked all who lived and who died for this moment. She warned all who listened that the new sunrise of the Republic was around the corner and that, while she was eager to share it with them, enemies remained, and the Alliance should remain vigilant in these final crucial days before they realized their ultimate purpose.

To the uninitiated, enemies of the Republic were likely the scattered forces of the Imperium or whatever few beings Vader had allowed to maintain their role in his largely automatous Empire. To Obi-Wan, however, the message was clear. The Alliance had been spooked by the existence of dolls, clones, and essence transfer. They were not sure Vader was truly dead. The ship had exploded too soon, and they had not had the chance to cart out the body while they themselves evacuated. Luke himself had registered his complaints about this over the channel, though not for the same reasons.

Whatever confrontation Luke had with Vader, it left him resistant to the idea of leaving him behind to die alone.

“Well,” Obi-Wan said slowly. “It seemed your resignation was accepted by management.” Anakin snorted. “Shall we start our retirement, dear one?”

Anakin said nothing. While Mon Mothma continued to speak, he grasped both of Obi-Wan’s hands, knuckling his own pale and scarred forehead with Obi-Wan’s. Slowly, he nodded, saying nothing. Obi-Wan pressed an indulgent kiss to the crown of his head. When gold-tinged eyes slowly rose, meeting his gaze, Obi-Wan just smiled, content.

-

Sometime Later

The walls of the rented room rattled with the force of someone’s back hitting it without warning. The door closed a moment later. At the same time, a flimsi program floated to the floor, joined a moment later by a streamlined respirator as a certain former Sith Lord was devoured by a certain former Jedi.

They parted, lips stinging, and Anakin rumbled out a rasping laugh. He pulled at the buttons keeping his hardweave suit open, parting it open to reveal his deathly pale skin. Anakin didn’t look like Vader anymore, but he wasn’t beating the hired mercenary allegations.

“Patience, Master,” he purred. A slew of surgeries had repaired most of his voicebox, but his lungs were a different story. As a result, he spoke only sparsely and quietly these days. It was fine. Obi-Wan spoke enough for the both of them.

“Don’t patience, Master me, padawan,” Obi-Wan chided. “You were the one who dared to touch me. Deal with the consequences.” He pulled Anakin away from the wall, pushing him to their bed for the night.

It had been quite the night. Quite the month, really. They’d landed on this small, Mid-Rim planet just to refuel their ship as they continued their never-ending retirement tour. Instead of doing that and leaving, they somehow were roped in a riot, two assassination attempts, and a dramatic hostage situation staged by an Imperially influenced party who decided to take over the local elected government while the infant Republic’s eyes were turned towards more galactic concerns.  

When the dust settled and the lawfully elected leadership took stock of the situation, they quickly came to the realization that the continued existence of their local flavor of democracy had hinged on the timely intervention of a disguised former Jedi Master and his equally disguised lover.

They were showered with gifts. Obi-Wan hadn’t minded the free fuel—with the seizure of so many Imperial assets, their finances were a bit strained—but a good bulk of the reward was frankly ridiculous. What was he supposed to do with so many children’s toys? But somewhere in the stack of gifts, Anakin had fished out tickets to the local theatre circuit—or, more specifically, a ticket to a certain sold-out epic Obi-Wan had assumed forever destroyed.

They went that night, and Obi-Wan had enjoyed himself immensely. Anakin had too, in his own way. He’d watched the whole thing with his usual grim intensity, his jaw propped up on his fist like he was expecting to be quizzed on the matter afterwards.

But in the last few scenes, he’d dropped his hand to Obi-Wan’s lap, palming his thigh. Back and forth, his fingers lightly traced the inseam of Obi-Wan’s pants while blue-gold eyes watched his reactions carefully, crinkling at the edges.

One could not just treat a man to a fantastic play, tease him, and not expect to be jumped the moment they went back to their hotel room! Ludicrous.

“Watch your knee, you bony man.”

“You watch your knee, you insufferable creature.”

Anakin didn’t laugh, but the noise that exited from him seemed on the cusp of it, smothered as it was between their mouths. He was half undressed, his pants around his thighs, while Obi-Wan was still fighting with the unfamiliar ties of local formal wear. Anakin’s hands, which diving in the back of Obi-Wan’s pants, paused briefly at the feeling of a plug.

“Presumptuous, are we?” He toyed with it, tugging lightly.

Obi-Wan let out a shaky breath, riding the feeling. “I do occasionally plan ahead.”

Anakin’s mouth twisted into a half-smirk, then he dragged Obi-Wan harder on to his own hips, where scars and burns usually transitioned into a flat metal plate over his pelvis. Today, however, there was a hard length, suggestive of its nature in both size and shape. “Looks like we had the same idea,” he murmured, eyes glinting.

Anakin was no longer a man who shied away from using helpful prosthetics, and Obi-Wan was no longer a man who shied away from pulling his padawan as deeply into his mind as he could so they could share in pleasure together.

Once it was over, they panted in each other’s faces, entangled in more ways than one. The process of disentanglement was a careful one, but it resulted in them laying down together, satiated and side-by-side.

This didn’t last for long. Despite undergoing surgeries to remove some of the more temperamental ports and systems that tied him to his Vader persona, Anakin still didn’t like to lay down on his back. Even now, he was making little micro-shifts of his hips, like he was about to turn over but wasn’t sure of the timing just yet. After months and years of misunderstanding each other, Anakin was oddly anxious when it came to making sure Obi-Wan understood his intentions.

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan was still beaming, exhilarated beyond measure by the events of the day.

The Many Love Songs of Wild Space! What a lovely production Anakin had found for him—and a pre-Imperial version, no less. Over 1,000 lines lost to the Imperial censorship police had been restored—Obi-Wan had counted. Oh, Anakin was a genius. Obi-Wan was so thrilled. He was nearly certain he would have jumped on Anakin regardless.

He said as much out loud, chuckling to himself.

“You love the arts more than you love me.”

“Don’t pout,” Obi-Wan said. “You enjoyed yourself.”

“It was incomplete without the ships,” Anakin said critically. “Not sure why they decided to change the setting to a pre-flight society.”

“Dearest, there was never a prolonged space battle. I promise you this.” Quick as a flash, Obi-Wan sat up to kiss his furrowed brow before flopping on his back again.

Anakin grunted, confused. Obi-Wan swore he’d tell Anakin the truth of it later—that he’d been a padawan with a penchant for sleeping during the galaxy’s greatest epic, and that he’d had a master with a tendency to make up entire acts to see how far his padawan would go to cover up this fact.

He’d tell him. But not today.

Obi-Wan looked over at Anakin, laughing a little, his eyes crossing over his face. Then he tipped over to his side, facing him and smiling provocatively, a thought crossing his mind. “Once upon a time, you wanted to run away with me. Remember that?”

“Ugh.” Anakin turned his face away. He lifted his hand, and his respirator slapped into his palm. He hooked it over his ears, the growing tension on his face easing as it forced him to breathe. He did so hate talking about his time as Shado.

Not willing to let him deflect from this, Obi-Wan leaned over a bit, poking Anakin’s scarred pectoral. Grumbling, Anakin turned away, putting his back to Obi-Wan. “You weren’t lying. I know that now, dearest. But, goodness, how were you expecting to keep up the ruse?”

The play had stirred his creative blood, provoking a string of fanciful what-ifs. What if his ruse was never exposed? Would Obi-Wan have ever caught on? Would Shado have even aged? And at what point would Shado have “slept” through a crisis?

“Permanent essence transfer.”

Other than the wispy whirling of the respirator, there was silence. Then, feeling alarmed, Obi-Wan surged forward, bracing his arms on either side of his lover. “Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, urgently. “Shado didn’t have a single shred of talent with the Force. You would have lost everything.”

Anakin didn’t answer for a bit, avoiding his gaze. Then— “But I would have had you.”

Obi-Wan pulled back at this, sitting up. Anakin remained on his side, facing away from him. Obi-Wan pressed a hand against his chest. At his age, rarely did he feel like he’d had the rug snatched from under him.

Swallowing harshly, Obi-Wan laid back down, looking at his lover. Then he pressed forward, embracing Anakin as tightly as he could, burying his face into Anakin’s nape.

“Sentimental old man,” Anakin muttered, leaning back into the touch.

Deeply moved, Obi-Wan thought of intentions. Of gestures of affection. Of the difficulty of finding plays in this era of recovery. Of the willingness to forgive and ask for forgiveness after so much heartache. Of the Chosen One choosing to give up his birth right for a single old man.

“I love you too, Anakin Skywalker.”

Anakin stilled. Then, suddenly, he was turning over, wrapping his arms around Obi-Wan so tightly, Obi-Wan could barely breath. Through their bond too, Anakin’s mind flooded open, beckoning to him, and then they intertwined once more into one being—physically, mentally, spiritually.

And Obi-Wan felt safe for the first time in a long while, embracing and embraced.

-

Sometime Later, On Naboo

Obi-Wan woke up to the sound of crunching metal. He sat up, stretching idly, head tilted at the sound of a medical droid chastising Anakin in another room. A moment later, stomping feet rushed by his door, passing it. Something else crashed deeper in the house.

“Oh dear.” Obi-Wan listened a little while longer but heard no more. Nodding to himself once, he stood up, got dressed, and dealt with the pacing medical droid in their rented home.

Anakin was really getting better and better at emotional regulation. Something about being steeped in the Dark Side for so long had rendered his already lax emotional control into dust, but he truly was trying. It was hard trying to explain that to a droid, who took Anakin’s crushing of a cup as a threat against its very life. Obi-Wan could hardly tell it that the first medical droid that had visited them on their temporary stay on Naboo had not nearly been so lucky, having to flee with one less limb.

Droid dismissed, Obi-Wan lingered at the front door of the house before turning around and leaning against it with a sigh. He was still so unused to this place, even after staying here for a full two months.

They’d been formally “retired” for nearly two years at this point. Such domesticity wasn’t routine for them. This time last year, they were routing a Hutt trafficking corridor between the Mid-Rim and Hutt Space. A month before that, Anakin was grimly training a resistance movement on a planet on the edge of Wild Space, and a month before that, Obi-Wan was flexing his rarely used, very rusty skills with animal speak to facilitate a difficult and nearly catastrophic Purrgil birth.

But two months ago—nearly three now—Obi-Wan had found Anakin face down over the wing of his newest speeder bike. His already pale skin had taken on a ghastly gray sheen, and when Obi-Wan woke him, frantic, Anakin didn’t seem to know where he was—or when.

What a magnificent row that caused. Anakin was a terrible patient at the best of times, and this seemed to be, well, one of the very worst. He would capitulate to Obi-Wan eventually, seeking medical help. But he put his foot down for their destination.

He would only go home, he said. Home to Naboo.

So to Naboo they went. It was lovely, truly. And it would nearly feel like a hard-earned vacation, if Obi-Wan could just let go of the feeling that he was constantly holding his breath.

Their rented house was modest, as far as Nubian households went. It possessed only four rooms—an entryway that doubled as an entertainment area, a dining section that bled into a kitchen area, the master bedroom he’d just left, and a well-equipped fresher. Despite these rather functional uses, the house had the feel of a much larger place, like a place of worship or a mausoleum.

Much of Naboo felt like a mausoleum these days. Though it escaped any real blame, the entirety of the planet had not fared well in the court of public opinion in these post-Empire times. Naboo had the dubious honor of being both the birthplace of a tyrant—a Sith, no less—and the home of a people who had all but crowned him Emperor. Normally, this would inspire a bit of defensiveness or finger pointing. However, post-Empire revelations of Palpatine’s evil had shaken the planet’s citizens, especially when they found out how many times Sidious had tried to kill their hero former queen, their staunch supporter and even fiercer representative, Padmé  Amidala.

In Padmé , many Nubians felt they had sent the very best of their planet to the Senate to the great benefit of the entire galaxy. To hear that she was thrown into a metaphoric gundarks’ nest by one of their own was a travesty beyond measure.

As a result, the planet seemed to descend into a state of mourning—for the loss of their former queen, for the deterioration between of the warm relationship between the planet’s different sentient species, and for the final death of their trust in any galactic government.

It was not at this time a destination for tourists. They themselves had nearly been turned away until Anakin had revealed he was a citizen himself and had been since he was nine.

They were left alone after that. Neither of their names sparked any particular recognition, thank goodness, so they were able to live with some anonymity. Anakin approached this with a hermit’s mindset, hardly ever setting foot outside until forced to by a medical visit.

Obi-Wan, on the other hand, took many, many walks. Mausoleum-like or not, the actual square footage of that rented place was rather small, which left Obi-Wan and Anakin in an awkward spot. At least in the ship, they had the excuse of the sealed meditation center. Here, they couldn’t help but step on each other’s toes. Oh, neither truly wanted to be apart from the other, but Anakin’s improving emotional control necessitated isolation. And Obi-Wan had a tendency of hovering and fretting. One of the medical droids they had consulted with in the past had mentioned something like negative feedback loops and codependency, neither of which sounded like a beneficial feature of their relationship.

So Obi-Wan walked often, leaving the house through the front door—just as he was doing now—without much announcement other than a casual stroke of the now powerful Force bond between him and his partner. He traversed all throughout Theed like an introverted tourist, staring up at architectural features and landmarks Nubians were generally numb to, nodding to himself and occasionally blurting out nonsensical things like, “I see! Lovely.”

Many Nubians, be them curious, bored, or malicious, found themselves walking away from him, remembering nothing but a smile and a few murmured words for them to carry on.

That day, Obi-Wan decided to visit the grave of their hero queen. He tried to visit at least once a week, once he knew where it was. Still uncertain of how death worked, precisely, Obi-Wan had gradually decided there was no harm in speaking to the dead—as long as they didn’t respond, of course. Careful of listening ears, he murmured a greeting and shared some updates.

Of how a certain Princess was dragging her parents’ murderers through her planet’s court system, successfully exposing the plot that had driven her from her home.

Of how the people of Kashyyk had finally drove out the last of the Imperial forces that tried to take it over.  

Of how a certain Chandrilan leader was handling the assimilation of pro-Imperial individuals into the new reality of the Republic.

Of how a certain playwright had fallen in love with a farm boy from Tatooine and was penning wildly inaccurate plays about his exploits during the Rebellion.  

A mother would know which updates were about her family and which updates were merely filler.

After an hour, Obi-Wan regrettably ran out of updates. He stood up from the bench so helpfully provided by Padmé ’s family. He hesitated, as he did at the end of every visit. This time, however, he worked up the nerve to say what he’d always wanted to say.

“You were right about him, in the end,” he murmured, looking at a carving of her visage. It blurred slightly the longer he looked at it. Then he hastily whispered, “But I fear he’s slipping through my fingers, and I am not sure what to do.”

Somewhat hurt by his own revelation, Obi-Wan sucked in huge breath. Putting words to feelings was not always a pleasant exercise. He looked away, crossing his arms against his stomach as hard he could. Then he became aware, ever so slowly, of a soft pressure on top of his head, of a feather-like feeling against his cheek, like a ringlet of hair had just grazed his cheek. Believer or not, it felt like such sincere, gentle comfort, it put tears in his eyes.

The feeling gradually faded, until there was a pointed tap to his shoulder. A warning. Obi-Wan turned in time to watch a blue faded figure disappear around the corner.

“What, now? Obi-Wan blinked away his tears, rubbing at his face with his hands. “Ugh. He’s so annoying, even in death. I hope he didn’t pester you too much, my dear.”

There was a response. A small one. Now the touch and the pressure could have been attributed to something else. Wishful thinking, maybe.

But that soft laugh in his ears? That was harder to explain.

One of these days, Qui-Gon Jinn was going to explain to him exactly what happened after death.

-

Obi-Wan walked through Theed once more, traveling down paths gilded by late afternoon light. To any outside observer, his usual casual meanderings had taken a pointed destination, a certain speed that rose and fell based on something unseen in the distance. For those who recognized him as a Jedi, they too peered off in the distance, as if trying and failing to see what he saw.

And what he saw was the back of Qui-Gon Jinn’s head, damn it, bobbing and weaving just out of range. Every time Obi-Wan stopped and thought he’d lost him, he’d see the whish of a cloak or he’d hear a deep, rumbling laugh.

And yet, every time Obi-Wan got somewhat close, Qui-Gon Jinn kept walking away.

Eventually, they made it outside the city. Obi-Wan’s rented house was not far away, but Qui-Gon was not headed in that direction. Instead, he veered off from it just as they reached the house’s main road, heading straight into one of the green rolling hills so ubiquitous around the area. Obi-Wan climbed up the slope of the tallest one, trying to use it as a vantage point, but Qui-Gon was nowhere to be seen.

Where had he been taking Obi-Wan?

Just as Obi-Wan thought that, a cool breeze from the lake washed over him, pressing long stalks of grass against his body. He ran his hand through them idly, taking in a deep breath of green, growing things, flowers, and, in the distance, a slight sting of salt.

Knowing Qui-Gon, the destination wasn’t the point. It was the journey he’d wanted Obi-Wan to experience. Laughing faintly, Obi-Wan laid down in the grass and looked up at the tapestry of sunlight, clouds, and sky all above him. “Living in the moment? Alright.”

Obi-Wan drowsed for a time in those grasses, slipping between full and partial consciousness. In his sleeping moments, he ruminated over Qui-Gon’s continued teachings, running the lessons over and over in his mind. In his waking moments, he thought of how lucky they were to have made it back to Naboo.

He thought of those last hours of the Empire, and their flight from the birth of the New Republic. Flight was really the only way to describe it. They’d gone to Wild Space, initially, armed with only provisions. Figuring out what he wanted to take with him was easy; Obi-Wan had nearly nothing.

Figuring out what to tell Luke and Leia harder. It took him several months, but he finally sent a message out, informing them that the rumors of his death were much exaggerated and that he had to go into hiding once more.

He told them about the pride he had in them, that they were the best parts of all their parents combined—both their birth parents and their adoptive ones. He thanked them for everything they had done for him. Leia, for jolting life back into him. Luke, for always keeping his eyes open to the hope on the horizon.

More importantly, he did what he should have done years ago: He told them both about their parents. Their names, their wants, their desires. He told the twins about their flaws, yes, but also the many reasons they were both so dearly loved. He also promised to keep in touch, which he had yet to break. He also anticipated that one or both of them would finally work out his location, based on these messages, and, when they did, Obi-Wan was looking forward to telling Luke the same thing he’d told his mother:

That he was right about Darth Vader.

“Obi-Wan!”

Jolting awake, Obi-Wan sat up, the grasses rustling all around him. He turned to the sound to see a slightly aggrieved Anakin looked up at him from the trail below. Shaking his head, Anakin jogged up the slope to him. As usual, he was wearing a black hardweave suit and a half-mask over the bottom of his face. To the outside observer, he looked fierce and intimidating.

To Obi-Wan, he just looked frantic.

“You almost disappeared into the Force,” Anakin said, his voice somewhat blunt with his shock.

“Ah, apologies. I’m still learning.” Obi-Wan patted the grasses next to him.  

Anakin sat down. “Still learning? There are things an old man like you doesn’t know?”

Obi-Wan smiled vaguely, letting that slide by. “How do you feel?”

“I’m feeling something,” Anakin said suggestively, leaning into his space. When Obi-Wan leaned back, maintaining the distance between them, he said meanly, “You know, Padmé  and I fell in love in a place like this.”

“Three different diversions in a single moment? Goodness, you must truly not want to talk to me.”

Anakin looked stunned—then abruptly ashamed. “I’m sorry. I should have— Padmé  is not a cudgel to use against you.”

“So the crack about my advanced age and your poor attempts at flirtation are not worth your guilt, hm?” If anything, Anakin looked more ashamed—and rather like he’d found himself trapped between a rock and hard place. Amused, Obi-Wan rapped his knuckles against his chest. “Calm yourself, Anakin. I am only teasing. If you’d like to avoid my critiques, be more subtle in your manipulations.” He looked up at the sky. “I’m glad you two fell in love in such a beautiful place. And I am grateful that you each had each other in such a difficult time.”

Obi-Wan remembered all too well him nearly falling apart after sharing one small memory of the woman he loved. Obi-Wan had promised to hear Shado out, should he want to share more, and he was intended to abide by that promise, now that Anakin was no longer hiding behind a Sith-made face.

Gradually, Anakin’s almost comical panic eased into thoughtful nostalgia. He eventually laid down next to Obi-Wan, mirroring his position. “She always said you’d understand our relationship,” he offered carefully.

“Well, that’s news to me. I was always warning her off you.” Obi-Wan feigned writing in the air. “She’d even pencil me in for our confrontations. ‘Tedious Lectures from Master Kenobi.’ I’ve seen her calendar.” Those periodic Council-mandated lectures were the closest thing he had to vacation during the war. She was such a gracious host, even her smiles warned him to mind his own fucking business.

He missed her dearly.

Anakin snorted. “She always did say you were a bit of an ass,” he said, his tone turning secretive.

Obi-Wan barked out a laugh.

Anakin traced the top of his hand. “But you and I were not made for such gentle beginnings,” he said with regret. “That time we reunited was incredibly confusing for me. I hated you, and yet I could not hurt you. Your fear and attempts to evade me on Mapuzo infuriated me, and yet I could not watch you burn. But it was that fight on the moon that changed things. Your reaction to it, especially.”

“The hypocrisy must have been galling. Attachment had always been one of my biggest failings.”

Anakin shook his head, rejecting this. “Ten years,” he said tenderly. “Ten years, and you still wept for me. In the decade we had been apart, your only failing was your inability to repudiate me, villainize me.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “Why is that so strange?”

“Do you think it took Yoda more than ten minutes to repudiate Dooku?”

Yoda did not repudiate Dooku maliciously or even quickly. The loss of his padawan had cut him deep. But there was no way Anakin was ready to hear that.

Obi-Wan sat up. “I loved you, Anakin.”

Anakin rose to join him. “I have ended and ruined many lives, my Master, and yet I feel my biggest mistake was never believing that.” Anakin’s face twisted, and his head bowed. “You would have helped us. Helped her. Even she knew it, but I—”

“The Republic would have still fallen that day.”

“Yes,” Anakin breathed, “but I would have still had you both, and the children too. For years and years and—”

Anakin was spiraling. “What did the medical droid tell you?” Obi-Wan asked. Anakin froze, visible dread on his features. Gentling, Obi-Wan said, “I can feign disinterest, if that helps.”

Anakin shook his head. “I feel your worry. It’s like someone planted a tiny bird in my chest.”

Slowly, Anakin started to explain the nature of his appointments with the medical droids. Of the reason why he had collapsed that day while working. He spoke slowly, then faster and faster, as if ripping off a scab.

Anakin was dying. The Dark Side had sustained him all these years. Though he hadn’t completely repudiated it, he was no longer drowning in it. He, like other unorthodox Jedi before him, had mastered a balance between both sides of the Force, and that balance was killing him.

For a moment, Obi-Wan spared a moment of hate for the Dark Side. All the power it provided—the strength, the alchemy, the bending of rules between life and death—and yet it still couldn’t heal Anakin. Feeling any small pleasure at the retreat of pain forced wounds to reopen instantly—because it was more important to be miserable and angry and easy to control.

The Light Side wasn’t a solution either. Obi-Wan often found himself scratching at the cage of his memory for what little he knew of Force healing, but he found nothing, and not a single trained healer—that he knew of—remained. The cruel irony was that Anakin’s health would have been greatly improved by the Light Side, had Anakin not burnt down the very libraries of knowledge that could have saved him.

“The droids keep saying I have ten years, max.”

Ten years? Ten whole years? What an incredible gift. “I see,” Obi-Wan said thickly. “I shall be very cross if you don’t give me at least twelve, dearest. One for every year we were parted.”

“If that’s your math, then I should give you seventeen.”

“Seventeen?” Obi-Wan echoed. Then, peeved, he said, “No, those five years don’t count. I was with you, was I not?”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t very interesting.”

“I was asleep!” Obi-Wan protested. “Like you’d do any better. Go on. Try it. You be the heart of the party while in a coma.” Anakin said nothing. He elbowed him. “Admit it, you must have enjoyed it a little.”

Anakin was quiet a little longer. Then slower, in an almost dream-like state, he said, “I had you under my complete control, down to the very air you breathed. I controlled your calorie intake. Your exercises. Even the length of your hair. You could never disobey me. You could never leave me.” Anakin sucked in a breath, eyes heavy with tears. “And yet in those moments, you had never been further away from me.”

“Anakin.”

Anakin stared at him, unblinkingly, gold eyes bright in the fading light. “If you hadn’t woken up, I may have flown my ship into a sun.”

Obi-Wan found them ripping each other’s hands with force. It was an act of emotionality Obi-Wan was destined to lose. Even now, his bones ached. He endured.

What a day.

“There are procedures I can do,” Anakin said eventually, releasing him. “Procedures I should have done years ago. But the doctors say they don’t think it’ll take now. And they might make me sicker.” He pounded a slow fist into the ground, grinding his knuckles slowly into the dirt. “How am I supposed to right my wrongs with only ten years?”

“Twelve years, dearest,” Obi-Wan corrected. “And death is not the end.”

Anakin made a bitter face, the snarl of his teeth only faintly visible through the mesh of his mask. He looked away. “Never really understood that doctrine anyway. There is no death, only the Force.”

“I didn’t either,” Obi-Wan admitted, trying to soothe him. “But I’ve learned a few things in my exile. If further redemption is so important to you, then there is a way we can provide some support to the living, after we pass. There is a certain technique of the Jedi.”

Anakin dragged his attention back to Obi-Wan, his scarred forehead wrinkling with his disbelief. “Do you think any living or dead Jedi would ever condone you teaching a Sith such a thing?”

“I can’t promise you that any would. But you brought balance to the Force. You did that. No one else.” No one else could. “You ended what could have been an eternity of Sith tyranny over the galaxy.” Palpatine never intended to die. “That should mean something to them. Even if it doesn’t, it does to me. And I could teach you!” Something blue flickered over Anakin’s shoulder. “Or perhaps he could instead.”

Anakin frowned at him, then followed his gaze. Almost instantly, he leaped to his feet, sounding ten years younger. “Master Jinn?!”

Qui-Gon stood several feet away, admiring a bush—or perhaps trying to afford them some privacy. At this greeting, he turned to Anakin with all the bland affability of a neighbor greeting a neighbor at a market. The absolute prick.

“Hello, Ani,” he said warmly. “Seems I’ll have the opportunity to teach you one last thing, my almost-padawan.” He smiled. “Perhaps you can give Obi-Wan a bit of healthy competition. It took him ten years before he was willing to hear a word I had to say.”

“He doesn’t listen well, does he?”

Obi-Wan scoffed at that, playing up his irritation as both his beloved master and his beloved padawan, both lost to him in some way, shared a laugh at his expense.

“Force ghosts, huh? Sounds fake.”

It was Obi-Wan’s turn to laugh. The Force was balanced. The twins were well. Sidious and the Empire were gone.

Everything was finally going to be alright.