I'm still waiting (mostly because I've got nothing else to do. Not that I'm complaining. I had enough action for two lives) but I don't think that he will come. It's too dangerous for him to come and he's still a soldier. It's his duty to fight the enemies of the empire, enemies like me. I don't know what I thought when I left a message for him where he could find me. All I know is that despite the order Palpatine gave him, he still spared my life. He let me go when he had the chance to fulfil his order and kill me.

I may be a Jedi (or an ex-Jedi, it really depends on how you look at it) but sometimes I want to believe in love. In life-changing, all-surviving, never-dying love. No matter how hard I try to suppress those thoughts, they turn up time and again. I sometimes want to believe that I found such a love, like Anakin and Padme did, but then my sense of reality kicks in and tells me to stop.

Days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months and months, well I think you get the idea. Nothing changes on Tatooine. Life in its simplest form: death and birth, marriage and divorce, sowing and harvest.

I continue the task Yoda has given me: watch over Luke and learn from Qui-Gon. Well, the first year here was mostly me telling him about the thirteen years I spent with Anakin (and as you can imagine that story needed its time to be told, especially when you have to do things like breathing, eating and sleeping).

It's the beginning of my fourth year now. Luke's growing. He's a good boy, but neither really force sensitive nor another kind of extraordinaire.

The are rumours, rumours that the Hutts made some kind of contract with the empire, that soon the empire will station troops on this planet. Mostly, I don't care. It's not like the Hutts will send soldiers into the farmland. This area is too important and too fragile to be disturbed and Tatooine needs all the food the farms are able to provide.

But sometimes, sometimes I want to believe that he'll come to me, now that he has the chance. For short, desperate moments when the loneliness is just too much to bear I silently pray that my solitude will end when the soldiers arrive.

I should be thankful. I live, I have food, a place to stay and more or less my peace, but sometimes I miss the touch of a living hand or the sound of a real voice, made by vocal cords and not by the will of the Force. I long for the presence of another human being and not a ghost (even if said ghost claims that he's not a ghost but a vision of the Force).

/

Six months later

The rumours about the Imperial Storm troopers were true. They arrived two and a half month ago and took their places rather quickly (at least that's what I heard. I haven't been to Mos Eisley in months). Qui-Gon and Yoda are concerned that they're maybe looking for Luke but I doubt that. Why wait so long and why take the legal way when Darth Vader could have just kidnapped the boy or invaded the planet (if he even somehow knows that Luke is his son).

Nothing extraordinary happened and everything will go on the usual way.

I rarely think about him anymore. The troops are here for so long now and he still hasn't come to see me. Maybe he can't, maybe he does not want to see me, maybe I'm just a fool who wants to believe in love because he's lonesome. It does not matter.

I don't feel fear when I open the door to group of storm troopers. I already knew they would come and ask for the hiding place of a rebel, who escaped from their custody three days ago and fled into the farmland. Everyone here knows this even though it officially didn't happen.

'Yes?' I ask.

'Ben Kenobi?' The leader of the group asks and I freeze. I would recognize that timbre of voice everywhere.

'We're looking for a deserter. He's with a local Tuskenclan in this area. It is said that you know this area very well, so could you give us the direction of the Tusken's camp?'

I can feel his eyes upon me through his visor.

'Through the northwest passage. You can't miss it.'

He gives his troops a few signs and they depart as if they were one person instead of four. When they're far enough he takes off his helmet and smiles at me.

And I, of course, have absolutely no idea what to say or to do, so I ask the thing that comes to my mind first.

'Isn't your commanding officer going to be suspicious when you don't come back?'

'None of them is going to come back. They're no clones but pressed humans and they all have better things to do than to serve the Empire.' His smile falters a bit and he cups my face with one hand when he says:

'I wasn't sure you would remember me after all this time.' I lean into the familiar touch and answer:

'I can assure you that you are absolutely unforgettable.' He looks at me and I now that my face only mirrors his expression.

'I don't know what to say.' I admit.

'Neither do I.' He rubs with his thumb over my cheek and I stretch my own hand out and let my fingertips run over his forehead, his nose and mouth. His other hand catches mine and presses it against his cheek. We stand like this for what seems an eternity and on one hand I never want to move again but on the other hand I want more. He takes the choice from me when his hand creeps around my neck and he kisses me.

And maybe my hopes weren't so unrealistic.