Obi-wan had dealt with many things in life that were a struggle. He was not the first choice for Master Jinn and almost didn't get a master at all. There were comments about him all the time, that he was unskilled and would never amount to more than someone who served in the Agricorps. Obi-wan had resigned himself to that fact and was waiting for transport when Master Jinn had found him and requested him for training.

Struggle was an everyday thing for him. He never shied from it and refused to let all those people be right.

He had spent all the years after that becoming a good jedi, a jedi that others respected and aspired to be. That was the thing he set out to do when he finally got a master. He didn't want to be "poor Kenobi" any longer.

Now as a member of the council and respected master, Obi-wan found himself in a place where he would give everything away to feel just once more. It wasn't that he didn't have all the emotions that every humanoid had, it was just that he was able to control them to the point of looking like he was emotionless. It wasn't true.

There were many nights that he spent just letting those emotions flow through him. He would cry, be angry or frightened in his own time, and all alone. That was how he dealt with the things he couldn't control and he felt that he was a better jedi for it.

Unfortunately, now, Satine had come storming back into his life. A distant memory, she had been for many years, that seemed to haunt him now. She made him on edge as though every nerve in his body waited to respond to whatever she wanted of him. She had power over him that no other person had ever had the chance to have.

It was shameful the way he had acted all those years ago, but he had been a young man in love. He thought that he had everything under control now, but with Satine near him again, it was clear to Obi-wan that those emotions were merely buried deep inside of him, somewhere. Now they bloomed to life as her eyes peered at him again.

"You're being ridiculous," Satine had said when he said he would leave the order. She, more than anyone, knew what duty meant to Obi-wan. Yet, there was a twinge inside of him when he turned away from her that day and headed back to his duty. Something that he knew he would never be able to take back, but at the time it was what had called him more than her arms did.

"Where are you?" Satine asked gently, waking Obi-wan from his thoughts. She always had a way of finding him, somewhere deep in his thoughts.

"Just thinking," Obi-wan said and smiled gently at her, taking up his fork and pushing the food around on his plate. He wasn't hungry. His mind was somewhere else thinking of all the things he should say to the Duchess before she arrived on Coruscant and he was swept away to his duty again.

Did he dare speak these things to her? What would it do to them both? Did he care?

"Satine," Obi-wan said looking up from his plate, his eyes meeting hers. Although he was an accomplished jedi knight, he found himself losing his nerve. Really? Why did she do that to him?

"Obi-wan?" she asked gently and smiled at him.

"Nevermind," he said and quickly went back to his plate, trying to get an appetite to at least put some of the food in his mouth.

"Something is troubling you Obi-wan," she said. "I don't need your understanding of the force to be able to tell there is something on your mind."

He grimaced as though he had been reprimanded by Master Yoda, but turned up his eyes to meet her eyes again. There was no fooling her. She had always been able to tell when he was struggling with something in his thoughts. Obi-wan was sure that she sometimes struggled with the same kind of thoughts.

"It's just all this," Obi-wan said trying to explain.

"All what? The war?" Satine asked and put her fork down to pay exclusive attention to him. Her eyes bored through his soul and he felt his cheeks flush. Damn the effect she continued to have on the young adult Obi-wan who was buried inside the exterior of an accomplished jedi knight.

"I wish it was just the war," he said gently and smiled at her. "It's you. It's me. It's being in the same room with you again when I thought that I had put all of this behind me."

"Slow down," Satine said looking at him. "I'm not asking you to remember the old days. Just get me to Coruscant."

"You don't have to ask. The feelings are there, no matter how many times I tried to let you go, you were still there, buried in my heart," he said standing from the table and pacing back and forth. "It's nothing that either of us has to do, it just will always just be."

Satine folded her hands neatly on the table and looked at him calmly. Damn her for the looks she was able to give when he knew that what he was saying was getting to her as well. He hated that she was such a politician and lacked the ability to show emotion on her face. Although he was also that way, he wanted her to show just one ounce of what she was feeling.

"Are you okay?" Satine asked in a low voice. "I haven't seen you act like this since you decided to leave me."

Obi-wan sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. She would just leisurely bring up the one moment in time that he wished he could change. He didn't feel leisurely about it at all. It was maddening.

"Maybe I should've let Anakin have dinner with you this evening," Obi-wan said regarding her. Those soft features. He wished his lips could caress her lips again. He hated himself for thinking such things, but there it was, tucked away in his mind and awakened by her presence again.

"I wouldn't have it," she said.

He shook his head, trying to free himself for those feelings deep inside of him, but in her presence, it was useless. His resolve diminished as quickly as it arose.

"Obi-wan don't beat yourself up for a decision you made years ago," Satine said turning to look at him. "It was the right thing. It was the only thing you could do."

"But it wasn't," Obi-wan said again and returned to his chair. "I could've made the decision to stay and to leave the order."

"Where would the order be without you?" Satine asked. She always had been the voice of reason when he was unable to make these kinds of decisions.

"They would be fine."

"Anakin would be without a master," she said calmly. "'The Chosen one' would have been placed in the care of another who maybe would've not been able to handle him. Your master would still be gone and Darth Maul would've lived."

Obi-wan gritted his teeth at her logic. Logic. It was all that she seemed to care about and she was always beating him over the head with it. Maybe just once, she could let her heart speak to him. He wanted to hear what she was really feeling.

"Tell me what you really feel for me," Obi-wan said.

"What?"

"Tell me what you really feel for me. What does your heart say?"

Satine smoothed her skirt under the table and placed her hands on the table again, folded just as they had been before. Neatly. Too neat for Obi-ran's liking at the moment.

"It would do us no good," Satine said.

"It would do me some good," Obi-wan said slapping his hand on the table with a loud crack. He watched as she jumped at the sudden outburst. "I need to know that I am not suffering from this alone. Do you care? Do you still feel the same about me as you did all those years ago?"

Satine sighed. Obi-wan could tell it was the sigh that a mother would give a child when they were badgering for an answer. She didn't want to answer him, but Obi-wan felt he deserved an had dragged this through his entire life. he wanted to know that he wasn't alone.

"Are you really searching for an answer Obi-wan? An answer that will make you feel better about what you decided?" Satine asked her voice very quiet.

"I don't want you to make me feel better. I want to know that you feel for me what I feel for you," Obi-wan said, his voice sounding somewhat desperate. When had he become a teenager chasing after his long lost love?

"You want me to tell you that you made the wrong decision, that you should have stayed with me and that things would be different," Satine said. "I will not do that, Obi-wan. I care for you far too much to let you doubt what you have done in your life. Who am I to tell you that your decision to follow the tenets of the jedi order was the wrong thing to do? The only person who could make that decision is you."

There it was, laid out on the table before him. She would not take responsibility for the decision he made as a young adult. She was able to keep her feelings out of the decision. Satine would've made quite the jedi.

"I don't want you to tell me I was right or wrong," Obi-wan finally said after a long silence. "I want you to tell me what you feel, not what I feel. Believe me, I know what I feel for you."

"Then why are you asking me what I feel?" Satine asked pointedly. "Does what I feel mean that much to you?"

Obi-wan nodded. It meant something to him. If she had been carrying a torch for him all these years, then maybe the decision to leave being a jedi behind would be easier the second time around. Validation was all that he was asking for, but he wasn't sure that he would get it from her.

"I never knew Obi-wan that me withholding my feelings made your existence so difficult," Satine said, her eyes never leaving her hands on the table. "I have always loved you. From the time you came into my life, clean shaven, hair cut short and that long braid, I had feelings for you.

"You were the light in a life that had been so very dull before you came into it. I cherish every moment that we spent together. Every touch of your hand and every kiss of your lips."

Obi-wan felt a hand clench his heart as she spoke. What he had waited all these years to hear, now floated in the air between them. She said all those things that his heart had wished to hear when he was making his decision. If she would've said it then, he would have changed his own history just to be with her, but she had been reserved, as she had always been, and let him make a decision based on his own feelings. She had stepped aside and let him follow the path laid out before him, not stood in his way for her own gain.

"Is that what you wanted Obi-wan?" Satine said, turning her eyes to look at him directly. "Does that make it easier for you?"

"It doesn't," Obi-wan said. "When we were young, I would have traded everything that made me a jedi to be with you. My mind was so wrapped up in what it meant to be with you, that I wasn't sure I could continue."

He inhaled deeply, trying to chose what he would say next. Things were delicate between them now. Something that had been unspoken was now spoken and he had to be careful with what he was saying to her. He didn't want to break her heart and he didn't want his heart to fall to pieces as well.

"I don't know what it means," Obi-wan said. "But all these feelings are back. With the first glance in your eyes, I was that Obi-wan again. I was in that place trying to make the same decision I made before. It hurts."

Satine moved her hand to cover his on the table and smiled warmly at him. That smile, it melted all resolve that he ever had, but it was far too late for those kind of regrets. Those were regrets that were for a younger Obi-wan. An Obi-wan that felt there was still so much in the galaxy to save. The Obi-wan he was now, knew that there really wasn't as much out there that was good. War, had changed his mind completely on that subject.

"It wouldn't have been an important decision if it didn't hurt, Obi-wan," Satine said. "It still changes nothing."

"Why doesn't it change anything?"

"Because you are a master jedi and me, well there are so many things that I need to accomplish for Mandalore," Satine said sadly. "There isn't a chance."

"Then I made the wrong decision," Obi-wan said. "I should've stayed with you all those years ago."

"It wasn't wrong," Satine said. "It was right for the time. It was right for us."

He hated when she was right, but Obi-wan knew she was this time. There was no going back to the time he was a young man and there was no changing the decision he made on that fateful day.

There was just regret.