Notes: Hello! This is my very first Star Wars fanfic, so please, please, please be kind to me. Please. You all have no idea how much I depend on kind reviews to boost my self-confidence. Please. I know that this is utterly shameless groveling, but PLEASE.

Also, this is AU because of the fact that Padme Amidala does not show up. At all. Ever. I don't like her.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, or any of the characters. I wish I had an Obi-Wan plushie. Do they even make those? They should.

Hurting Him

I'm not entirely sure when or why I began loving Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Maybe it was when I was nine, after I first met him. I had been separated from my mom, and Qui-Gon Jinn, one of the only people who had ever been kind to me, had died, killed by Darth Maul.

Who else was there to turn to?

No one else accepted me. So I turned to him, to my too-young master who tried and tried to be everything that people wanted him to be and hardly ever thought about himself.

When I hugged him, throwing my short arms around his waist and burying my face in his robe, he stroked my hair and reassured me.

I didn't notice that he was crying until I looked up and felt the drops on my face.

I was amazed, frankly. My master, who was the perfect, emotionless Jedi, was crying. My overwhelmed nine-year-old mind managed to have one coherent thought:

Obi-Wan was beautiful.

His sea-green eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and his nose was all red, but the rest of his face was pale and wet with the salty liquid flowing from his eyes. His mouth was closed, his full lips pressed together tightly so that he wouldn't sob. Tears trickled down his face and onto mine.

And yeah, I really thought he was beautiful.

You think I'm weird, don't you? I thought that a crying guy, sixteen years older than me, was pretty.

But he was. He looked sad and vulnerable and amazing and...Gorgeous.

He reminded me of a little kitten I found once, back on Tatooine. It was ginger-colored, like his hair, and its eyes were greenish, like his. It had obviously been wandering alone, because its soft fur was caked with sand, and when I found it, it had curled up in a tiny little ball of fur and cried.

Have you ever seen a crying cat? I hope you never do. They make the most heart-wrenching sounds.

I wanted to help the kitty. I really did. But I couldn't. Slaves aren't allowed to have pets, you know.

The kitten died.

As soon as I decided that Obi-Wan was like that kitten, I made a promise to myself. I would never let anything hurt my master ever again. I would protect him from everything, even if I was young and impulsive and had almost no training.

I've tried to keep my promise, over the years. But I didn't succeed.

No, I hurt Obi-Wan. Because I'm selfish.

Yep, I had to fall in love with my master, of course. I was nineteen, a legal adult. I could not stay silent anymore. I had done that for ten years, ten long years during which I cursed the fact that Jedi aren't allowed to love, hating and loving the fact that we lived together, and that I could be around his beauty all the time: during lessons, during meals, while meditating, while sparring using lightsabres.

So I told him. He looked so adorable with his brow wrinkled in confusion and his mouth agape. I reached out to him, touching his face, stroking his beard.

He pulled away. He told me the truth: He didn't love me, not like that. He loved me, but he wasn't IN love with me. There is a difference between the two, you know.

I was silent. I could see that it was hurting him to hurt me. I saw it in his clear sea-green eyes.

I had broken my promise. I had promised to let nothing hurt him, but I did. I hurt the only person I really cared about.