What Tomorrow Didn't Bring

A Vignette by LuvEwan for JadeSolo

Athena Leigh The three ficlets I posted the other day were responses to a challenge at an Obi-Wan Workshop, and there was a 1200 word limit. Thank you for reading! This second part was a prize for the author that won the challenge. She requested a little follow-up to Mistake. Hope you enjoy!

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The Area 4 Vegetable Garden didn't resemble a garden. It covered an acre, in neatly edged squares of vibrant yellow miniccian corn, separated by rigid segments of black soil. There were no benches for the occasional spectator to enjoy a quiet audience, likely because no one would want to study the waxy kernels, with their almost nauseatingly salty scent, for more than a heartbeat. Unlike most varieties of the food, the miniccian strain did not grow in large clusters, but within individual husks, verdant cocoons that, once removed from the fully developed pieces of corn, shriveled to a delicate translucence reminiscent of insect wings. It was the unenviable task of the farmers to pluck each kernel from its tiny nest, to be cleaned and prepared for delivery to the underprivileged. The husks were also harvested, used as filler for stews, and, well, gruel.

It wasn't exactly an entertaining or riveting hunk of information, but it was the most Obi-Wan could offer, as he and Garen traipsed along the raked dirt paths.

Garen listened to the spiritless narrative, injecting nods and 'mmhmm's whenever it was appropriate, eyes never straying from his friend's face, for fear he would really have to look at the 'garden'. About the kindest, and stupidest, euphemism I've ever heard.

There was a flicker unburied in Obi-Wan's eyes, but Garen didn't think the personal observation had been noticed. The bond between them was thick in rust. As much as Padawan Muln wanted to believe mental connections as strong as that which they once shared were eternal and unbreakable, Obi-Wan Kenobi's presence in his mind was muffled, an apparition of what an untimely milestone had taken away from them. He wasn't a blaze of life anymore. He was a solitary kernel, yanked from his shell, completely used up.

Obi-Wan sighed, feeling something cold lurch inside him, but knowing he had to say what was at his lips, not knowing what else he could say. "Sometimes, the husks are used to fertilize the corn itself." He dredged up a smile, albeit bittersweet. "Isn't that interesting?"

"Scintillating." Garen deadpanned, compassion carved into his features and reflecting in his dark gaze.

Obi-Wan's steps slowed. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

Frustration puckered his chin. "Feel sorry for me. This is where I belong, Garen."

Garen saw the dejection trembling at the fringes of his companion's composure. He gave a small smile and they started walking again, in unison. "So, what do they taste like?"

Obi-Wan stared straight into his eyes, and a sardonic sparkle, a memory of his former self, made a rare cameo. "Corn."

They laughed then, beginning with a chuckle, evolving into throaty chortles, until they were leaning on each other, flush-faced with tears streaming down their cheeks.

The languorous journey continued, and Garen caught a speck of optimism in his own thoughts, relieved that their basic kinship remained untainted. He turned to Obi-Wan, and the gloom descended, for the moisture had yet to dry in those cobalt eyes.

"Hey," Garen touched his shoulder, sobered, "Are you alright?"

A weak laugh sputtered out of Obi-Wan and he nodded. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

For all the potential answers to that question, Garen couldn't think of one, and they strolled in silence for a few minutes.

"How have you been?"

Garen looked up. What was he supposed to say? Should his response be clipped, devoid of the adventure and lessons his tutelage brought to him? Surely he couldn't describe his recent brush with death on Malastaire, or the humorous incident with Master Yoda and the rewired hoverchair? No. Not when the best Obi-Wan could provide was crop descriptions and a sad half-smile. "Fine."

Obi-Wan nodded. "I'd say knighthood is right around the corner for you."

Something ground inside the Padawan, and Garen grimaced, huffing out a breath. "Obi-Wan, we don't have to talk about this--"

"It's your life, Garen. I'd like to know." For his part, Obi-Wan appeared softly unaffected, his hands in his pockets.

Garen was less than willing to reply. He wasn't keen on toying with the knife the Order already slammed into Obi-Wan's back. It was still there. The handle, covered in the smudges of footprints, the blade hot with blood.

"My Master says three months, at the most." He admitted with an adeptly concealed wince.

But for Obi-Wan, there was no hiding his reaction. His eyes fell behind pale lashes and his lips compressed. Master. The first half of his life had been dedicated to that word, that title which signified apprenticeship under a full-fledged Jedi Knight, the embodiment of a thousand hopeful fantasies, the first real work he would be taught to do, on missions that would carry him to the exotic or dismal worlds of the galaxy. A word that could have been his salvation, but instead, became another source of emptiness, without meaning.

Master. And in his mind, a single person had masqueraded for him under that name. Fighting the painful twitch under his eye, Obi-Wan forced out, "How--How is he?"

Garen stopped totally and glanced away, gathering the strength required. "That's actually why I came."

"What?" Obi-Wan snapped, unintentionally severe, but beyond noticing. "What do you--Garen, what do you mean?"

The wind was running fingers through their hair, somehow enhancing the stillness of their bodies, the pulsing of their contrasting eyes. Garen reached out and laid wide hands on Obi-Wan's shoulders. "They wanted to tell you through a comm, but I knew that wouldn't…that wouldn't be the right way. It is a crucial time in my life, Obi-Wan, with the Trials approaching and everything.

"But I had to do this. You need to hear it from someone who gives a damn about you, not a droid."

Obi-Wan could barely hear the litany above his pounding heart. "What do you mean, Garen? What do you need to tell me?"

Garen's grip tightened. "He's dead, Obi."

During his gut wrenching trip to Bandomeer, the Jedi had scripted the different scenarios he might have been met with, when delivering the news. Screams of rage-or satisfaction, calm weeping. And, in the darkest places inside him, he feared a righteous smile. But it was still Obi-Wan, beneath the farming clothes and stolen fate, still the good-natured boy of their childhood.

And he wasn't smiling now. He wasn't shouting in misery or rapture, nor releasing tears.

"How?" Obi-Wan asked very quietly of his informer. "When?"

"About two weeks ago, on a battlefield." And there Garen saw it, a crease in the curtain, a flaw in the steady façade. No tears, but there was hard anguish in Obi-Wan's eyes. "Two bolts to the chest. He was gone-instantly."

Obi-Wan was glad for the fingers clasping onto him. If not for the hold Garen had, he would probably have collapsed in the dirt.

Dead. Dead for two weeks on a battle ground from two bolts to the chest instantly gone, instantly dead, for all his worth, that was what it took to destroy a star of the Force and a pillar of the Temple but what did he care about that anymore why would he care about the Temple or the Force or Qui-Gon Jinn? Gods, why did he care?

Obi-Wan blinked, and the flooded miasma of his vision cleared. Garen was there again. "Why would they want to tell me? I haven't seen him…in years."

Garen wasn't letting go of him, and Obi-Wan was horribly aware of that. "Once the Council knew what happened, his will was read.

"Obi-Wan, he left everything to you."

Obi-Wan's brows knit. He tried to speak, but was only able to muster a confused gasp. What was Garen saying? Where was he? What in hells was going on?

Wordlessly, Garen linked their arms, and led his friend outside the garden dome, into the hall, and to a chair. He waited for the mist to dissipate from Obi-Wan's senses before he continued, "Obi-Wan, I didn't believe it either. But that's what it said. Everything, every last cent he ever accumulated in his life, was left to you. He didn't even share with family, or the Jedi. All he had," Garen shrugged, "Is yours."

Obi-Wan was quivering, but his voice was surprisingly placid. "He left it--to me?"

Garen crouched in front of him. "There wasn't much. He wasn't a king. Or even a businessman. He was Jedi, so his pocketbook was never crammed. But he had six and a half thousand credits, and a small cottage handed down to him from his parents."

Obi-Wan blinked, his jaw slack and eyes helplessly searching.

A warm hand hugged the side of his face. "There's more, Obi." Garen's face was grave, brilliance smothered in gray undertones. He dug in his robe, and produced a gleaming cylinder.

A breath caught in the former Jedi's throat. "What--"

"When it was found, it was returned to the Temple. And, since it belonged to him, it belongs to you, as he dictated."

The saber was in his hands before Obi-Wan was prepared, but his fingers flexed around the weight involuntarily. "But I thought--"

Garen shook his head. "Master Yoda allowed it. He said that…that destiny would see to your ownership of it, no matter how things turned out. He said," And the Padawan waited until their eyes were fastened, "It was still meant to be."

Obi-Wan's bones melted in with his tears, and he slumped into Garen's waiting arms, stomach muscles jerking, sobs torn from his lungs.

He cried for a long time, while fragments of that brief moment in time replayed, and he cried after those had faded, and a fogged mass of gray lay dense over his mind. His tears were purged from a bottomless well, from the loneliness that evaded its rightful vanishing, from the isolation.

The devastation turned to almost spastic heaves, and Garen could do nothing but gather him closer, unwavering in the chaos.

Finally, Obi-Wan was spent, and pulled away, eyes bruised, cheeks splotched with exertion and embarrassment.

"There's more, Obi-Wan. I…I came to ask something of you."

Obi-Wan wiped the dampness from his face. "W-What?"

The sympathy was replaced by something else, something with a fury that spiked in Garen's deep voice. "Take the money he left you-and go. Just go, Obi-Wan. Find that cottage and make it your home. Or sell it, for gods' sake, and take that money, too. Make a life. Start a family. Do what the Jedi would've kept you from." He framed the pinched face with shaking fingers, "Do what this place wants to keep you from. Stop struggling here, trying to get in a niche that just doesn't exist in this damned place."

Obi-Wan drew back from the intensity of Garen's words, standing and absently pressing the lightsaber to his chest. "You know I can't do that."

"Why not?" Garen wondered, launching to his feet. "Why can't you do what all of us are meant to do, at our core? Find a woman, Obi-Wan."

"I can't. That part of me, the part that craved that…" Obi-Wan shook his head, "It's all gone. I'm all gone, Garen. I won't try to love someone, raise children, when I don't have anything to give them." He looked down at the weapon in his hands. "He wanted me to have everything that belonged to him. I'm here because he knew I didn't have it in me, to be a Jedi. It was a knowledge only he seemed to possess. And I have that now." He smiled. "It was the first thing he gave to me, more valuable than credits or a cottage. I belong in the Agricorps, Garen."

He cupped his friend's jaw, and their foreheads met. "I won't leave."

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'I won't leave.'

And Obi-Wan Kenobi sat in his sleep berth, staring at the satchel of credits, the saber, the yellowed, hand-written deed.

'I WON'T leave.'

But perhaps he wasn't so sure about that after all.

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