Contact
The Sand Person sits still, and Obi-wan can sense eyes following his movements about the main room of his own home. How the Person had been injured he does not know or care. Ben knows treating the Tusken could alienate him from his neighbors if the wrong men learned of it, but he can't allow a fellow sentient to live in pain. Anakin would argue otherwise...
He cuts off the thought before it can conclude.
Looking back on his Jedi training, he knows that he had no reason to look for signs of darkness; from outward appearances, and meeting only in times of war, everything could be reasoned away. Only afterward, looking back at the larger picture, has he noticed the inconsistencies.
Hindsight is clearer than foresight, and in the end, he is only Human.
Obi-wan wraps a bandage around the Tusken's wounded leg, registering that somehow this particular presence feels familiar and vowing to meditate on the matter once his patient has gone home. His instincts stay alert, knowing that even wounded, an enemy is an enemy. If he lost his focus it could mean his life, and Luke would be without his protector.
The Person grunts, and Obi-wan glances up, recognizing the sound as speech but unable to decipher it. He shrugs in the universal sign of puzzlement, and the Person sags slightly, radiating disappointment, longing, and... pain.
Obi-wan frowns. He hadn't noticed any further injury beyond the leg, which had stranded the Person nearly at his doorstep. A moment's study leads to the realization that the pain is inside, emotional.
Obi-wan looks upward, eyes becoming distant for a moment before deciding on his path.
He reaches out with the Force and touches the Tusken's mind. For a moment the Person's presence recoils before Obi-wan hurriedly reassures him that he means no harm. The shock fades to be replaced by acceptance, and suddenly he finds himself looking at a memory.
He is in a Tusken village, and it is silent. From the perspective he can see it is from the eyes of a child, looking up sleepily at the stars. He anticipates being called to bed at any moment.
There is a buzzing sound all too familiar, and Obi-wan feels his physical self stiffen in reflex. A lightsaber? Here?
A moment later he sees a leaping form, its anger so potent it is perceptible even to a non-sensitive. He leaps back in fright from the blue blade, but is not quick enough to avoid receiving a painful gash along his side, sending him tumbling backward into a deep gorge alongside the camp. For a split second he sees the face of his attacker, then his perception flares with pain before going black.
Obi-wan breaks away from the vision, tears welling in his eyes despite himself. How could he have missed this? How could he have... and without...
The presence of Vader is there in Anakin's face, and the only possible time it could have happened is shortly before his apprentice's premature knighthood.
The Person watches him cautiously, and Obi-wan abruptly recalls where he has met him before. His first night on Tatooine, taking Luke to the Lars home on foot. He had discovered and borrowed a stray mount not long after, but at the time he had been dangerously vulnerable. And this Tusken, when he had spied him, had not sounded the alarm.
Local legend speaks darkly of a massacre in a Tusken camp, horrific enough that it brings fear even to their enemies. According to the legend, no one survived.
Apparently this Person had survived to bear the tale. A lone survivor of Vader's rampage.
Much like Obi-wan himself.
He abruptly realizes he has lost far too much focus before an enemy and snaps to the present only to find the Tusken still sitting, unmoving before him. The Person feels puzzled, even worried, and Obi-wan newly reminds himself that not all of a tribe are cut from the same mold. Even in the darkest places goodness can be found.
Obi-wan feels a soft nudge through the Force and realizes to his shock what it would have him do. For a moment he resists, then he bows his head and relents.
He cannot share the entire memory as this Person has – it is far too graphic, too raw and new to fully reveal without drowning in despair. But the scenes he shares are enough.
Being shot by his own troops... falling and escaping back to his home only to find a former family member has slaughtered all the family he has ever known... facing him in mortal combat, only to leave him alive at the last.
He can feel the Person's horror at the scenes, his recognition of the enemy and then grim acknowledgement. In Tusken culture, to leave a conquered enemy alive is the most brutal punishment that can be meted out.
Before Obi-wan can once more retreat, the Force surges and he finds himself reliving a scene that was not meant for him. Padmé's back is to him, and he can feel her horror, her disbelief and fear, can sense the twins' unborn presences responding to her emotions. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. You've changed."
His mind leaps to Padmé trying to step between him and his former apprentice, Anakin threatening her, his own order to him to let go and her crumpling to the floor as they engage in combat...
Again he jerks away, this time too shellshocked to care that he is vulnerable in front of a potential enemy.
A moment later he feels a clothbound hand come down on his shoulder and in that instant he realizes that the Person knows. He knows Obi-wan was responsible for training the man who...
But all he feels from his erstwhile patient is compassion, empathy and a shared pain of those who have lost everything. Obi-wan feels a measure of peace come to his soul as he realizes that the Person does not hold Luke's paternity against him, and will not betray him to his fellow tribe members.
He also does not blame the man who raised their shared enemy.
In that moment, Obi-wan realizes that this man, who would in any other situation be his enemy, has given him a gift he has not yet been able to give himself... Forgiveness.
He sits back and meets the Tusken's gaze through the other's dark goggles as silence reigns.
Within and without.