Walking The Line
Author's Notes
This is a series of short moments from Obi-Wan's point of view set during my Obi-Wan/OFC story Anywhere But Here. Updates here will only ever cover the time up to the latest chapter of that story, so as not to give plot spoilers for future chapters, although please note Obi-Wan's thoughts reveal information that Chloe will only discover for herself in later chapters, so if you want to experience the story in Chloe's shoes, read no further!
This first part covers chapters 1-20.
1. Bad day
After three months with very little food and even less sleep, Team Skywalker-Kenobi return to Coruscant, burdened with new memories of lives shattered by the battle they had no choice but to fight. When the girl tries to intercept Obi-Wan at the Temple's side entrance, camera in hand, he is in no mood to do anything but snap at her and shut the door in her face. It's only afterwards, when he is haunted by pale brown eyes and a Force-echo of hurt, that he wonders if she was not a little too sensitive for a journalist.
2. Comedy of errors
"I'm afraid Obi-Wan Kenobi is both impolite and presumptuous." It's not fair to tease her, but she has just been incredibly rude to him in a way that no Padawan or military officer would dream of, even if he deserved it (which he does). It is such a novelty to be thought of as someone other than much-revered Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, General of the Grand Army of the Republic, that he rather enjoys the intensity of her distaste for him, and delays the inevitably of her embarrassment just a little longer.
3. First kiss
The circumstances are less than salubrious, but he hardly notices, because he entranced by the softness of her skin and the sweet, inviting curve of her lips. Obi-Wan is used to glamorous women, confident women, ambitious women, women who are certain of what they want and how they intend to get it. She is different, and she has disarmed him with her awkwardness, her honesty: not able for a second to say something she doesn't mean, even if her own pride is dented, or completely dismantled as a consequence, and the purity with which—when he can perceive it, because her fluctuating, untrained shields are often too impervious to reveal much—she feels. So he leans forward and kisses her, as gently as he can.
4. Nostalgia
Centuries of experience have discerned that chastity is not appropriate for every Jedi. Individuals are left to discover for themselves whether sexual liaisons—provided no attachments are formed—are a better way to scratch this powerful, if tiresome and inconvenient itch. So clear were the rules in young Knight Kenobi's mind, that attachment was never a concern; sex was simply a pleasurable pastime. His affair with Sabé Essara epitomised this, a friendship just that happened to involve physical intimacy, and when she told him it could not continue, he obediently let her go, grateful for the time they had shared.
5. Rules
He does not allow himself the luxury of thinking that as a youngling he never envisaged himself as this: a military commander, waging war instead of guarding peace, but he knows he's walking the line between the tolerated and the forbidden when he uses memories of her (in bed, her hair mussed, halo-like against the morning light, his fingers tracing patterns on her soft, honey-flushed skin, the way she looked at him, her lips reddened from his kisses, smiling sleepily, a little self-consciously, in awe of the pleasure they had shared) to help him get through yet another pitiful night surrounded by death, suffering and fear. In these darkest moments, she is the only light he has, and he would not be human if he could survive on the Force alone.
6. Words
"I've sometimes wondered, you know, what it would be like to be able to be together, like this, every night."
Chloe almost certainly does not realise what a huge admission this is for him, not only because she's sleepy and isn't really listening, but also because she is a stranger to the Jedi and does not understand how wrong it is to wish something for himself, even in private thought. But these words are as close as he can come to saying I need you, and he only realises, when she, without any intentional malice, throws the Code back in his face, that what he really wants her to say is I need you too.
7. Confusion
In the hangar at Terminus, the Force murmurs with uncertain danger, and he instantly regrets having suggested she accompany them. Worry and guilt for that worry combine with irritation at being forced to into a collaboration with Intel agents for the sake of politics rather than achievement of the mission objective, and when she stops him at the foot of his starfighter, unnecessarily anxious thanks to Drakes unhelpful comments, he wishes that for heaven's sake she would not worry about him, and in his ill-temper he forgets to remind her that under no circumstances should she leave the station.
8. Final
"We have the toxin, Professor. It's over. This is your final opportunity. We must leave now."
Karl O'Brian smirks at him from behind the glass. "Without me, you have nothing."
"And what about your daughter?"
"I have no daughter. I gave her up ten years ago."
Desperate, Obi-Wan plunges his lightsaber into the metal of the door. But, it's armoured, and there isn't time. The Force screams at him. Only seconds to go.
He straightens up. He can stay, and die, or…
Three, two, one…
The fabric of the building ripples around him as the remaining detonators activate. Obi-Wan leaps for the broken portion of skylight, riding the forward flank of the fireball up, away to safety, as the doomed laboratory implodes below.
9. Lie
She will take the news of her father's death badly. It is human to do so. He aches to protect her from that pain.
It will break her heart.
But Jedi do not lie.
He has to tell her, doesn't he?
"But there must be more than that… what did he say to you? Did you mention me?"
"Not much, and no I didn't."
The truth is he cannot bear to.
She asks if he's angry at her for going to Tatooine, and perhaps he is, but not nearly so much as he's angry at Anakin for misjudging the level of risk, and, in turn, at himself for putting her in the way of danger.
These feelings are dangerous. Jedi do not fall in love. And there, he's admitted it. He's on the brink of falling, and it is entirely his own fault. Unfair to her, if there is any chance she might feel the same, and unfair to those who rely on him to do his duty. How could he have allowed this to happen? He needs to be alone, to meditate, to let the Force restore balance to his mind, and he needs to get away now, before he takes her in his arms and kisses her in front of the entire squadron.
10. Agony
"Then tell me that you didn't torture my father in order to obtain the toxin sample. Tell me you didn't kill him."
She may as well have driven a dagger of ice through his chest. Does she truly believe he could do that? Later he will understand it was just a symptom of her uncertainty and lack of understanding, but for now, it's agony.
It would be so easy to tell her what really happened on Nelvaan, tell her what and who her father really was, but the reasons for his decision still stand, and in fact she has just made it clear that merely thinking Obi-Wan stubborn, arrogant and uncaring will hurt her far less than knowing the truth.
"Perhaps it would be better to end things between us now, than prolong the inevitable."
He wants to plead with her to stay, of course he does, but letting go, at least, is something he knows how to do. He senses her pain and confusion, but-because she would tell him, surely, if it were the case-he never considers that she does not really want to leave, either.