When the Lars homestead comes in sight, Owen and Beru are outside. They're standing on a little ridge, hand in hand, watching the suns sink in the sky. They're also waiting for us—for him. I urge the eopie along, knowing that for expectant parents this will be the longest wait of their lives.
Beru hears me coming and hurries over to meet me as I carefully dismount. I hand Luke over to her. It seems as though I should say something, to give this moment some sort of ceremony, but there are no words.
Beru looks at Luke, at her nephew and adoptive son, and she has fallen in love already. She smiles at me, and then turns away to bring Luke to his uncle.
As I watch, Owen smiles at the baby and wraps an arm around his wife. The trio makes a perfect tableau: mother, father, son. Part of me says, I've done my duty, I've brought Luke to his family, and I'm relieved that I have made this moment happen.
When I make my way to the Anchorhead guesthouse and engage a room for the night, when I lock the door behind me and sit on the bed, that's when I burst into tears.
Days ago I was General Kenobi. I had friends, Anakin, Ahsoka, Cody. I followed orders and I made battle plans and I did what I thought was right. Now I am no one, I have no one, and I lack any plans at all. All is lost. All because I was blind.
I sit there for hours and weep like a child, until I'm gasping for air and as thirsty as the sands. At first I'm crying for the Temple and the army and the life I've lost. Then I realize that the whole war was all a ruse, a plot to cement Palpatine's power. I realize that every system I thought I was rescuing from the Separatists is now in the hands of the Empire. For a time I'm crying over that. Eventually I remember Anakin Skywalker—not the Sith Lord I dismembered and left behind to die, but the human being he once was. The little boy who was so out of his element on Coruscant, at the temple, yet so determined not to show it. The desert-born child who was so terrified of rain that I seriously considered sending for a healer to sedate him during his first thunderstorm. The prodigy pilot who could fly a battleship better by accident than most men could on purpose. The general who teased "Snips" in every battle to keep her calm and never left a man (or astromech droid) behind. I think, if he hadn't been a Jedi, he might actually have been a good father. I think of him, and I sob until my lungs ache.
The Force alone knows how long I remain there, paralyzed by despair. I don't know whether I last ate yesterday, or the day before. I don't want to eat, I don't want to drink water. Everything smells like scorched flesh and everything tastes like ashes. I don't even want to sleep because I know Anakin will scream at me when I do. He'll be legless and in flames and still he'll have the strength to scream "I HATE YOU!" from beyond the grave. My life from now until I die will be a hell of screaming nightmares.
The Force has been trying to tell me something from the moment I sat down, but I'm not listening. I want to shut it out forever. It didn't warn me about any of this. It did nothing to stop this. I was its loyal servant and it abandoned me completely.
As long as I have strength to think that way, I can keep the Force silent and cry out my despair in peace. But as the hours pass, I start to realize that I'm too exhausted to keep that up. I haven't slept properly in over a week, I'm still recovering from multiple battles, and now I'm dehydrated. My body starts to slump, my aching head longing for a pillow. I haven't removed my robe or boots, but I'm falling asleep. Maybe I won't wake up, I think, and that makes me feel unsettlingly hopeful.
Just before I lose consciousness, though my mind finally becomes quiet enough to hear. It's Qui-Gon that I hear. He says, you must grieve, my son, but you must also live. Live for Luke, live for the chance to set things right, live for a dream of justice, or live for yourself, but live. You must, because it is not the will of the Force that you should die. At least, not yet. You will live.
