A gust of heat and sand washed into the hut as Obi-Wan opened the door and trundled inside, slamming it shut behind him with a little less strength than he might have had once. He paused in what passed for a foyer, jostling dirt and dust off his clothes onto a vacuum panel set in the floor. Without such a device, any building on Tatooine would quickly become a sand pit, and even so every surface remained gritty no matter what conventional methods he tried. He set his walking stick against the wall near the door and carefully straightened the arm where an elbow had started to ache.
"Home again the same day," he said, perhaps to himself.
It was always hard to guess.
"They shut the pod races down, now," he said, stripping off a layer of weathered, dun fabric. "No one can afford those kinds of gambles. No one who isn't a Hutt, anyway."
Slowly, he unwound a scarf, revealing chapped, tanned skin and a beard going gray, and hooked the fabric over the back of a chair in one of the hut's three rooms. A bedroom, a place to read, and a place to eat. What more could one need? A kettle jostled on the stove, and he nodded at it, frowning, waving a hand in the air.
"Yes, yes, I'm coming." He scowled and stepped down into the living room and across to the kitchen, grabbing the kettle before it moved again so he could fill it with some of Owen's preciously farmed water. He let out a sigh and rolled his shoulders. "Wasn't much to trade for today." He shrugged. "Maybe next week."
He still might have been talking to himself. She disappeared sometimes. Once, for three whole years in the middle of a conversation. Often from one second to the next. Like she'd never quite gotten the knack of linear time.
He put heat on under the kettle, which was almost a ridiculous thing to do in the desert, and lifted his head to look around. Patient, but . . . hoping.
It felt like the cool turn of autumn when her presence washed over his face. He closed his eyes, leaning into it. Cool fingers stroking his cheeks.
The knot of doubt eased away, and he smiled. Not a crazy old man, after all. Not yet.
"Darling," he said, and touched the skin where he felt the brush of her hands.
The Chal'tek board on the small dining table flicked on, and he ambled over to it, lowering into the seat with a groan. He studied the pieces and tried to recall the stratagem he'd had in mind for this one. He glanced across the board at the empty chair.
"So . . . my turn, I take it?"
Crazy old Ben, the hermit who talked to chairs. The locals weren't wrong, precisely. And their wariness was a tactical advantage. People left you alone if they caught you having loud conversations with the furniture. That he was incongruously cogent when he went into town for supplies made them more wary, not less. And that, too, was just fine.
He'd just managed to recall his Chal'tek strategy when the water started boiling. And by the time the reeshee root was cool enough for drinking, one of the twin suns had set. Tatooine had a few more hours of dusk left, and Obi-Wan had just decided on his next move. He touched a game piece and moved to touch the panel on the game board where it should go when a knock-knock shook sand from the lintel over the door.
Obi-Wan froze. Frowned. And peered out the window for a gaggle of angry townsfolk.
No gaggle.
"What in the world . . ." he muttered, glancing at the empty chair.
Another set of strong knocks rattled the grit on the tabletop, and he got up, curious and a little annoyed.
"All right, all right. Don't break it down."
He didn't get visitors. And as he he strode for the door, he reached for the Force, gathering power into one hand, just in case. He tapped the lock panel and then stepped back as he swung the door open.
A dark shadow in the shape of a man greeted him. Tall and hooded and wrapped in many loose layers to keep off the deadly heat. Obi-Wan's expression and balled fist must have spoken volumes.
"Peace, master," the figure said, and reached up to draw back its hood, revealing twin rows of long, sharp horns.
Obi-Wan's stomach flipped.
A man stood in his doorway, broad shouldered and square-jawed—the uncertainty of youth filed off and features refined. Tan skin lined with black tattoos. And those eyes.
"Tir-Zen," Obi-Wan breathed in astonishment.
They hadn't—
Since the war, since they all went into hiding.
A coded message or two to confirm who was left. He'd hoped and listened for word or rumors. But communication was risky under the Empire. Emergencies only.
He dropped his balled fist, and alarm slammed through him as the realization hit home that Tir-Zen was here. He peered over Tee's shoulder, heart pounding hard.
"I wasn't followed," Tee said, his voice the same scratchy rasp that Obi-Wan remembered. "And I'm not on the run."
Obi-Wan settled and looked at his visitor properly. "You're . . . not?"
They were all on the run, in one sense or another.
Tir-Zen smirked. "No, master."
And Obi-Wan scowled at him.
"Obi-Wan," Tee amended with warm amusement.
"It's actually Ben, now, but I'll let it slide." He shook his head a little in wonderment, still reeling from the shock, and pulled Tir-Zen into a hug. "It's good to see you," Obi-Wan said as he released him—how long had it been since he'd hugged someone? "Your horns got long."
Tee grinned, and it looked like just like Obi-Wan remembered. "I'm sorry for coming by unannounced."
Obi-Wan lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "I'm a difficult man to get ahold of these days." He gestured for Tee to follow him in and descended the few steps to the living room. "Not that I can't use the company, but . . . if you're not on the run, what could possibly bring you here?"
His insides tightened in preparation. Whatever news. However bad . . .
Tir-Zen hesitated and took only a few steps into the hut. "I . . . wanted you to meet someone," he said.
Obi-Wan's eyebrows lifted, and wariness tensed in his shoulders. Jedi didn't "meet people" nowadays. They got by. They survived. They laid low.
Tee was waiting for an answer, and Obi-Wan obliged him with a small, "All right."
Tir-Zen gestured toward the door, and then a small figure maybe half his height darted inside and attached itself to his leg. Tee flicked his fingers to swing the door shut and glanced down.
"Osh-ka," he rasped and put his hand on their back. "Say hi."
The little tornado of cloth and hood struggled to resolve into a child. A Zabrak with rust-colored skin and two inward-curving horns just starting the sprout from the crown of their head with the suggestion of a few more making a circlet around the back.
An apprentice?
Obi-Wan's eyes widened. An apprentice, was he mad? Trying to get caught?
"Osh-ka, this is the old friend I told you about."
The child gazed up at him, then directly at Obi-Wan, meeting his stare.
His spine jolted. Eyes—fiery orange, strange and disarming. Her—his instincts told him—her father's eyes. His stomach went cold and hot, and he must have been slack-jawed gawking.
Osh-ka gave Tee an uncertain look, but he nodded at her, and she released her death grip on his pant leg. A second later, she stood at the top of the steps, almost at eye level. And then she bowed very formally from the waist.
A laugh crackled through Obi-Wan's dumbfounded shock, and he bowed in reply, grinning like a fool. A daughter. Tee's daughter.
The little girl stared at him.
"My papa says you dance bad."
Another startled laugh bubbled out.
"Osh-ka!" Mortified.
"No, no," Obi-Wan managed. He waved at Tee and focused on the girl, warm with amusement. "Maybe I do. Should we find out?"
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and tapped on a small box on the table next his reading chair. Thunderous Corellian Hard Style blasted through the little hut. Osh-ka slammed her hands over her ears and scowled, but kept watching. And Obi-Wan—he let himself recall dancing. The way it felt to move to a beat, to not care what anyone thought or anyone saw. To feel the bass in his belly and lungs. To feel the joy in the Force like he had never felt it, saturating and intoxicating. His knees ached now, but he danced.
And then let Osh-ka see him peeking in her direction.
She made a face and shook her head, hands flat against her ears. And that was enough of that.
He stopped and flicked off the music, a little winded.
"No?" he asked, between deep breaths.
She shook her head again.
"Well"—he turned his hands up—"then I guess your papa was right."
Tir-Zen cleared his throat and stepped down into the living room, giving his daughter a look that Obi-Wan couldn't read. They both stood watching her silently until she frowned, self-conscious. They hadn't come to dance. Or drink tea.
Obi-Wan gave his old friend a sidelong glance. "Does she . . ."
"Have the gift?" Tee said, and nodded. "Yes."
"That's dangerous."
"We keep moving. Living on freighters. Everyone needs a good mechanic."
"Her mother?"
"A pilot."
"Of course."
"Busy watching the baby."
Obi-Wan smiled at him and bowed his head. "Congratulations. Twice."
Tee bobbed his head and cleared his throat, though it sounded painful. "There's . . . a . . . reason I wanted to bring her, since we were passing so close to this system," he admitted, and his gaze traveled the otherwise empty dwelling. "I thought . . . maybe . . ."
Ah.
It made sense now. Might be random timing, but Tee always had some of a seer's premonition in him. Obi-Wan could feel Aylee's presence gathering in the Force, the cool comfort a light touch across his skin.
"Is she . . .?" Tir-Zen asked, his voice small and hopeful.
Obi-Wan nodded and looked at Osh-ka as she silently observed the adults.
"Yes," he said.
Tee let out a pent sigh, and across the room a drawer at bottom of the table next to the couch snapped open with a metal thunk and a rattle.
Obi-Wan spun toward the sound. Saw the source. And froze.
His fingers went cold, and his pulse quickened.
Oh.
Oh, Aylee . . .
He understood all at once, and his throat went dry.
"Was that her?"
Osh-ka hopped down a step. "Was what who?"
Obi-Wan swallowed and nodded absently as he drew close, the only sound crunch of boots against the gritty floor. He hadn't opened that drawer since he'd arrived on Tatooine. Sixteen years, and not once. It had simply ceased to be.
He bent and lifted a small leather bundle out. He pulled the knotted tie free gently and unrolled it, letting Aylee's lightsaber roll free into his hands. Heartache scorched through his chest, and he turned slowly to show Tir-Zen.
Tee gasped and looked from the lightsaber to Obi-Wan and back. "But I gave that to you!"
"Yes . . ." Obi-Wan nodded and smoothed his fingers over the worn surface. His throat burned, and he struggled to keep his voice steady. "But it seems I've held onto it long enough." His bones felt like jelly as he paced over to little Osh-ka. She gazed back at him, more steady than he felt. "Do you know who Master Desai was?" he asked.
She nodded and twisted her fingers together. "Papa's teacher."
"Yes." The word came out strained as he tried to smile. He took a shaky breath and held the lightsaber flat across his palms. "This used to be hers. And if you'll let me, I'd like to give it to you."
Osh-ka glanced uncertainly at Tee, and he nodded once. Her eyes grew saucer wide as she took the lightsaber, closing both hands around it to keep from dropping it. It was too big for a child's hands yet, but she examined it with care. And Obi-Wan suspected it was not her first time holding such a weapon.
He stepped back and urged Tir-Zen to make space.
"You can turn it on, if you want," Obi-Wan told her. "But you must be careful."
Osh-ka gave him a steady, serious look—so like her father—and very deliberate flicked the lightsaber on.
The blade hummed to life with a sound that sent a chill through Obi-Wan's bones. The sound of his best moments, and his worst. Of a life lost. Of an age gone. The tiny hut filled with a golden glow that he hadn't seen in so long. He had rarely ever seen it. And the memory had almost faded out.
"It's beautiful . . ." Osh-ka's small voice sang, full of wonder.
Something cracked in Obi-Wan's chest, and he glanced over at Tir-Zen to find that he had a hand clamped over his mouth. And that he, too, was fighting back tears.
"Yes," he said as he met Tee's gaze. "It really is."