Hello friends and new readers! I will confess I thought I was done with all this Obitine business when I finished The Last of the Clan Kryze, but I found, despite my completely logical ending, that I couldn't stop considering the what-ifs. And so welcome to A Tear in the Force (tear as in rip), where I have thrown canon to the wind and written a rather different future for Obi Wan and Satine (and young Korkie Kryze-Kenobi!) than I had never imagined writing. It will be a wild ride.
This story follows the events of The Last of the Clan Kryze, but it is my no means required pre-reading. For me, this story exists in a separate, but also equally possible, galaxy.
And so, we begin our story with that fateful moment in the Battle of Naboo, five months after Qui Gon Jinn and Obi Wan Kenobi left Mandalore. I very sincerely hope that you enjoy.
The fatal wound would be painless. Obi Wan Kenobi knew that, in his rational mind – the mind to which he retreated in that terrible moment. Qui Gon Jinn's nerves had been cleanly cauterised and he would not feel the gaping hole in his abdomen. But Obi Wan, the ever-loyal – too-loyal – Padawan, felt the blow for him.
It felt like fire in his gut. A tearing, catastrophic pain. He felt as though he might vomit, or collapse. His mind was reeling. He gripped his 'saber and forced himself to breathe through this enormous pain. Red in his vision. The gate. The demon's face. The horrible, blinding pain.
Breathe, Obi Wan.
His Master's voice.
The barrier before him was extinguished and Obi Wan launched himself forward. A Jedi Padawan hurtling into the path of the sneering Darksider. The galaxy seemed to be melting around him. His body was alive with pain. But the path before him was clear.
Satine was midsentence in parliament when she felt it. Some sort of blow, a tearing pain, faint but true, deep in her abdomen.
Do not touch your belly, Satine.
If she were to do so, she would disrupt the carefully draped satin of her gown and her illusion would be extinguished, revealing the gentle swelling underneath. It was nearly time to announce it. But not today. Not before she had the latest instalment of the Mandalorian Aid Treaty approved in parliament.
Satine could admit that it was a flimsy excuse. She was the Duchess of Mandalore and there would always be a new bill to pass. She was growing bigger by the day and she would have to tell them eventually – unless she preferred to suffer the indignity of others observing her pregnancy first.
No, that wouldn't do.
But in truth Satine was still in the process of steeling herself for the more private announcement, the discussion that would be the greatest indignity of all. The Mandalorian public would have no difficulty believing that she was violated as a prisoner in Keldabe but Obi Wan would know better.
Stars. Having to tell him. Having to tell him that she had been wrong about her starvation and her periods and the rest of it. To tell him that he really, truly, did not have to make any sacrifice for her or the child. To tell him that this was her mistake and that she would live with it happily. To omit that she caught herself dreaming, at times, of the family that they could be together.
Simply put, Satine had been procrastinating.
Do not touch your belly, Satine.
But the pain was insistent. She wanted to lay her hand there, to feel the reassuring kicks and swishes of her tiny baby. The pain was not overwhelming in itself; she'd endured far worse, certainly. But it felt wrong. Something was wrong.
"Perhaps an intermission is in order," Satine announced, barely aware of what she had been speaking of. "My apologies for having gone somewhat overtime."
The pain was building by the second. Stars. Satine tried to clear her head as she strode purposefully from parliament and towards her study. She would call her doctor. The baby was presumably fine. Did she think herself some sort of Jedi? Sensing things. By the stars, Satine.
By the time she reached her study Satine felt clammy and sick. There was a tearing pain growing stronger still in her belly. Jedi or not, Satine knew that something was wrong.
Sewlen Jerac wasn't even a blasted obstetrician. She'd wanted to be a psychiatrist, of all things – the last job that the droids couldn't do. But a war calls for surgeons long before it calls for psychiatrists, and there weren't any decent medical droids on Mandalore anyway, so humans would have to do, and thus: Sewlen was a psychiatry trainee turned low-resource general surgeon and trauma specialist. She was proud, of course, to serve her people in the field in which they needed her – but stars, there was too much blood in trauma surgery. And now, courtesy of surviving a war that had wiped out more than half her profession, courtesy of making some sort of a name for herself, as some sort of blasted war hero who saved a few lives in poor bleeding Sundari, she'd attracted the attention of the Duchess Kryze and had found herself invited into the bloodiest specialty of all.
It's not to say that it wasn't a total honour. The Duchess Kryze was a hero, for stars' sakes. It would be an enormous privilege to deliver the heir of Mandalore, illegitimate though he may be. But Sewlen felt more than a little panicked as she hurried to the Royal Palace, the Duchess's words on the comm call replaying relentlessly in her mind.
"It might be nothing. But I was hoping that you could come, if you're not too busy. I have this pain, and it… it doesn't feel right."
Sewlen Jerac was no damned obstetrician but she was a good enough doctor to know that the patient was usually right. She abandoned her attempt at taking some relaxing breaths and broke into a jog in the streets of Sundari, long-outdated assistant droid T9 trailing loyally behind her.
Obi Wan hadn't killed since Mandalore. He remembered that day. When Satine had raged and screamed at him and he'd felt that horrible emptiness deep in his chest. He remembered it because he felt that same emptiness again now, as he held his dying Master in his arms.
"Promise me you'll train the boy."
No real goodbye, from his Master of over a decade. A Jedi Knight should not be so selfish as to crave one. But by all the kriffing stars in this miserable galaxy. Hadn't he meant anything to Qui Gon?
Obi Wan knelt on that cool metal and felt homeless and lost. And such a pain, deep inside him. Building still. The battle was done but the pain was phenomenal.
And so, with this little taster, we begin. I have broken from my usual rule of finishing a story before I publish it, but have a decent amount of writing in the bank and hopefully will be able to update consistently twice a week.
Let me know what you think! I would love to hear some initial musings on this premise.
Next chapter: Sewlen is greeted by a medical emergency. Satine makes an important comm-call.
Much love,
S.
