For No One
Summary: "And in her eyes you see nothing/No sign of love behind the tears/Cried for no one/A love that should have lasted years" SiriWan, post Secrets of the Jedi. Songfic, angsty.
Disclaimer: Recognizable characters belong to Watson and/or Lucas. The song "For No One" by the Beatles belongs to… the record label, I guess. But nothing belongs to me.
Warning: Spoilers for Secrets of the Jedi and Jedi Quest: The Path to Truth.
A/N: Yeah, songfic. Technically against the site's Terms of Use, I know. But I happen to think that particular rule is BS. I mean, I stated that nothing belongs to me, and what's the difference between using copyrighted characters and using a copyrighted song? Nothin', in my mind. So nobody's gonna rat me out, right? ;)
-
Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all her words of kindness linger on
When she no longer needs you
-
Obi-Wan wakes slowly. After a few moments he realizes that he's overslept. Checking the chrono on his bedside table, he sees that it's almost two hours later than he normally sleeps.
He frowns. He considers himself to be a morning person, and the early to bed, early to rise maxim is one of his personal mottos. Usually he awakens at half-past six exactly.
Obi-Wan sits up, trying to think of what could have made him oversleep. They'd returned from their mission last night… maybe that was all it was. He'd hardly slept for the last few days, he and Siri had-
In a sudden wave of grief, Obi-Wan remembers. He and Siri had ended it. They'd chosen the Order over their love.
And they'd agreed to forget it, he reminds himself. Forget it… forget her kind words and her teasing comments. Forget the feel of her skin and the smell of her hair.
Obi-Wan leaves the bed and sits down cross-legged on the floor. Forget her, he tells himself as he slips into some much-needed meditation. Forget our love.
-
She wakes up, she makes up
She takes her time and doesn't
feel she has to hurry
She no longer needs you
-
Siri wakes and checks the chrono, as she does every morning. She quickly sits up and leaps out of bed. She's slept a little later than she normally does (not an unusual occurrence the morning after she's returned from a mission), and she has to hurry or else she'll be late.
It's Saturday morning, which means that a large group of Padawans will be gathering for informal sparring practice. It's a tradition so old that only Master Yoda remembers when it began, but in the past few years it's grown from a small gathering into a much-anticipated event taking up several hours.
There is an unofficial rule in place that when a Padawan arrives, they have to spar with the first person who challenges them. After a match is in progress, a line forms, and each apprentice waiting faces the winner of the previous match.
This rule means that the more talented Padawans- of which Siri is one- have to work their way through a long line of opponents, which almost always takes up the remainder of the session. But if Siri can be the first one to arrive in the large practice room where the gathering is held, she'll have challenge rights over everyone who arrives- which in turn means that she can spar with the opponent of her choice. So if she hurries, she'll have a guaranteed chance of facing Obi-Wan.
And then she remembers. Siri takes a deep breath and lets the heartbreak well up in her chest, before releasing it to the Force, as she's been taught.
It doesn't work. The feeling refuses to let go. Siri knows she'll never stick to their pact to forget everything if she can't escape these feelings. Meditation will help her resolve them, but if she takes the time to meditate she'll lose her chance to be first.
But then, why shouldn't she? She doesn't have to spar with Obi-Wan, anyway. She can take her time getting ready, she tells herself. She's dueled him dozens of times- she doesn't need a rematch this morning. She doesn't need a rematch ever, for that matter.
She doesn't need Obi-Wan.
-
And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years!
-
When Obi-Wan arrives at the Padawan's weekly sparring practice, he looks for Siri in the crowd. He's surprised when he doesn't see her- rarely does Siri miss one of these events. Perhaps she will show up later, but it isn't likely- the get-together is more than half over.
"Obi-Wan!"
He turns to see Bant waving at him. Grateful for a distraction, he heads over.
They begin to spar, but the match doesn't last long. Obi-Wan easily defeats Bant as he always does. Still, she's his friend, and she is improving.
He tells her so. "You lasted much longer than you usually do."
She beams. "Thank you! Master Fisto's been drilling me quite thoroughly. One of these days I'll beat you!"
Obi-Wan would have loved to talk with her more, but a line of challengers has formed. So he makes arrangements to eat midday meal with his friend and proceeds to his next match.
He goes through a dozen challengers (for the more skilled apprentices such as himself, these gatherings are also an exercise in endurance) before the event ends. He heads to the showers- he has just enough time to rinse off quickly before he's due to meet Bant.
But all thoughts of showers and midday meal fly from his mind when he spies a figure leaving the practice room ahead of him.
He jogs to catch up. "Siri!" he calls.
She turns, a tried look on her face. "What do you want, Obi-Wan?"
He's taken aback by the look in her eyes. Exasperation, weariness- there are several emotions present, but not one of them was love.
"I've been thinking," Obi-Wan tells her. "And they can't make us stop loving each other. They can make us deny it, make us act like nothing ever happened- but they can't make us stop loving each other."
She squeezes her eyes shut. "Obi-Wan, please, don't-"
"Just listen, okay?" he asks. "We don't have to be together- attachment is forbidden, I understand that- but we can still keep loving each other. We don't have to give that up!"
Siri ducks her head and doesn't look at him for a long moment. When she raises her head, he realizes she is crying.
-
You want her, you need her
And yet you don't believe her when
she says her love is dead
You think she needs you
-
"Yes, we do," she says, wiping away tears with the sleeve of her tunic. "If you love me, that's attachment. And it's a weakness."
"But no one has to know!" Obi-Wan says desperately.
"Of course they do!" she cries. "Obi-Wan, anyone walking by could see the lovesick way you're looking at me. It has to stop. We had a deal."
"But, Siri… I can't let go of this."
"Well, I'm sorry," she says, but there's a hard look on her face and he has trouble believing that she means it. "But you have to. I have."
"But-"
"Obi-Wan, stop!" she yells. "I don't love you anymore, can't you see that?"
And the worst part about it is that he can.
And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years
He finds her in the gardens a week later, hidden away behind some dense shrubs. She's crying her eyes out.
He moves to take her in his arms, but she leaps up and backs away.
"Don't touch me," she says, voice shaking.
She's like a wounded animal, he thinks, which will perish without aid but is too skittish to accept it.
"This doesn't have anything to do with you," she tells him, and he can almost tell that she is lying.
"I don't love you," she says for the second time.
And once again he sees no evidence to prove it false.
-
You stay home, she goes out
She says that long ago she knew
someone but now he's gone
She doesn't need him
-
A year goes by. Siri and her master are sent on a mission to Avfdek 7. The planet is a constitutional monarchy, where a hereditary monarch shares power with a democratically elected government.
Their king is old, dying. Their princess is older than Siri in years, but roughly the same age in maturity, as her species develops differently from humans. By the time the Jedi are called in, there have been three attempts on her life.
The princess, Alilana, is frightened, but not unreasonably so. Adi assigns Siri to be the girl's bodyguard, while she herself seeks out the assassins.
Siri is less cross than she normally would be about being given the 'safe' duty, because she honestly enjoys the princess' company.
The Avfdevians are basically humanoid. They are taller and more slender than humans, and their females possess delicate, almost insectoid wings. The appendages are almost, but not entirely, vestigial- they can lift themselves off the ground for short periods of time, and can fly for short distances if the winds are right. Their males are flightless.
One morning Siri and Alilana sit on the princess' bed, eating breakfast. They've become friends, despite their differences.
They've become close enough that Siri is comfortable asking her new friend a slightly personal question.
"I read up on the social customs of your planet before we came here," Siri says. "And I was under the impression that it's traditional for girls to marry at around your age. Are you already thinking about marriage?"
Alilana waves her wings pensively. "Some. It's become more fashionable in recent years for women to put off marriage until they are a bit older. I've decided that I shall marry when I have found a man that I can spend the rest of my life with, and not a moment sooner. But I've never even been in love." Here she cocks her head curiously. "Have you ever been in love, Siri?"
And image of Obi-Wan appears unlooked for and unwanted in her mind's eye, and Siri feels as though she is picking at the scab of an old wound.
"A long time ago," she admits. "But it never would have worked. And besides, I'm a Jedi. For me, falling in love would be a weakness."
Alilana raised an eyebrow. "You haven't said you don't still love him," she says with a grin.
"Oh," Siri waves a hand dismissively. "Please. I got over him ages ago."
The lie comes so easily that she almost convinces herself it is truth.
-
Your day breaks, your mind aches
There will be times when all
the things she says will fill
your head
You won't forget her
-
Obi-Wan has moved on, on schedule. When he sees Siri, he doesn't look at her differently than he looks at anyone else. When he talks with her, or talks about her to another, he acts as though she is a companion only.
And the regret he feels when he sees her, the pain it causes him when she regularly turns down his requests to spend more time together… they fade as the years pass.
He's only truly happy at night, when in his dreams they are together, but he tells this to no one.
-
And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years!
-
Though neither of them has marked the day, the ten-year anniversary of their pact to forget finds them together again, in the spice mines of Nar Shadda.
"I owe you an apology."
Siri looks at him in confusion. She's back in Jedi robes now, and he's glad of it. It had been extremely disorienting to see her in the garb of a space pirate.
"I should have known you'd never leave the Order," he says. "But when I heard you'd joined up with Krayn… what was I supposed to think? Still, though… I never should have doubted you."
"Obi-Wan, I was on an undercover mission," she says practically. "You were supposed to believe I had left."
"I know," he replied softly. "But when I searched my heart, I knew it wasn't true."
She looks away. "I though we had put that behind us," she says, voice durasteel-hard.
He looks once more for any sign of love in her eyes, and once again finds nothing. He keeps hoping that one day he'll stop searching, but it seems to be the habit he just can't kick.
Obi-Wan can't let her know he's still hopeful. "Then I'm doubly sorry," he says.
She walks away, and his heart aches as it always does. He wants her to stay, wants them to be together always, but he knows it can never happen. Still, sometimes it's an almost physical pain when he thinks of what might have been. Their love should have been epic, they should have traveled the stars together like characters in a cheap Holonet show, righting wrongs and fighting evil.
What Siri can never know is that he has only half kept to their bargain. He does his best to treat her as he'd treat Bant, or Garen- but he cannot forget the past. The memories of those precious few days they had together have kept him going on long, hard missions when he thought he was spent.
Despite the pain it causes him to remember, Obi-Wan wouldn't forget if he could.
-
The end… please review!