The hum of a lightspeed engine hurtling a ship through hyperspace usually lulled Obi-Wan to sleep, but not this voyage. He lay awake on the couch in the ship's lounge contemplating the events of the past two days on board.
The company of Padmé Amidala was not at all what he had thought it would be. She was often quiet and kept to herself, although they had eaten all of their meals together and shared frequent cups of tea.
The time they had spent in conversation, he was the one who had typically done all the talking -- mostly about Naboo.
He felt strangely and surprisingly comfortable with her and freely expressed his feelings of losing his Master and his fears of training Anakin and of becoming a Knight. She seemed receptive to him and appeared to listen intently to everything he said, her large dark eyes keenly focused on him the entire time.
But she offered very little in return. She had mentioned a longing for returning to Naboo to see her family, whom she missed terribly, and of the difficulties of living on Coruscant, but she had not mentioned politics or her arrest. Not yet.
He wouldn't push her. When she was ready, she would tell him. He would give her all the time she needed, as it seemed that time was what they had plenty of.
Padmé played with a piece of lace on the bodice of her inner dressing gown as her eyes moved about her small, dark cabin. She had hoped she would get used to the odd whining noise of the ship's lightspeed engines, but since this was her last night on board, it didn't really matter.
Two days had already passed and tomorrow they would be arriving on Dagobah. The time had gone quickly, and much more pleasantly than she had thought it would.
Obi-Wan was not only pleasant to look at, but she enjoyed listening to him as well. And she had done a lot of listening over the past two days.
She wondered why she had chosen not to talk. It wasn't usually like her to be so silent, but in a way, she had been astonished, and nearly mesmerized when he spoke. No longer the mysterious Jedi, she now felt she knew the Obi-Wan behind the Jedi robes – the one with real fear, real pain, heartache, and doubts. She was intrigued, and in the process, kept her own stories to herself. At least for now.
Obi-Wan had spent some time trying to teach her sabaac, without much success. And in return, Padmé taught him a childhood game she had played on Naboo in which two players would hold out their hands, palms together. One would attempt to move a hand and reach across to slap their opponent's before that opponent could move their hand out of the way, all the while maintaining eye contact.
Obi-Wan had won most of the rounds of this game, but Padmé had a suspicion that he had cheated. She grinned as she remembered their conversation from earlier in the day.
"You're using the Force!" She accused playfully.
"No I'm not!" He teased back as he retracted his hand just before Padmé's quickly swept across to meet it. "You give yourself away." He noted with a grin and a sly wink.
"I do no such thing. I'll have you know that in school, I was one of the best players of this game."
"I'll bet you were." His teasing grin caught Padmé off guard and she didn't have a chance to move her hand away quick enough as Obi-Wan's came across and caught her own with a slap.
"Hey! That one stung!" Padmé yelped in surprise, shaking her hand back and forth. The slight discomfort however was soon forgotten, along with her ability to speak as Obi-Wan had caught her hand in his and placed his lips to her soft knuckles. "Sorry." He whispered, looking up to meet her gaze.
Padmé felt the blood rush to her face and other parts of her body as well. Embarassed, she quickly stood up and left the ship's lounge to return to her cabin and had stayed there since.
The disengagement of the hyperspeed engines caused a shudder that awakened Padmé hours later. She glanced around her cabin, wondering when she had fallen asleep, looking up and out the viewport to watch the horizontal blur of the distant stars return to their normal configuration. Feeling a quiver of excitement at finally reaching their destination, she jumped up from the bed to take a shower before meeting Obi-Wan on the bridge.
Her nose curled in slight disgust as she donned the same dark blue velvet gown she had worn for the past five days. The bodice had been torn in one place, and the skirt had spots of soot and a few small holes caused by the explosion. Obi-Wan had taken his survival pack, but she doubted there were any extra gowns inside of it.
She walked through the ship to join her Jedi companion just as he began the landing cycle. From space, Dagobah appeared multiple shades of green with clouds of white due to its heavy vegetation and humid climate. She hoped that they would find a safe place to land.
They entered the atmosphere quickly and Padmé noted with some despair that visibility was practically nil.
"Scanners unreliable. Take the controls for a second." Obi-Wan commanded her.
With just a slight hesitation, Padmé seated herself in the copilot's chair and maneuvered the vehicle in its downward course while Obi-Wan checked Yoda's datapad. He then turned to reset the ship's navigational controls.
Reclaiming control of the ship, Obi-Wan reached out into the Force and guided them safely to a clearing surrounded by dense woods, located just above a fog-covered swamp.
Padmé raised her head toward the ceiling of the ship as she heard the patter of rain hitting the hull.
"According to Master Yoda's data, we are here during the height of Dagobah's rainy season."
"That's just great." Padmé responded somewhat sarcastically, but Obi-Wan chose to ignore the remark.
"We might as well head out. We're not far from Yoda's home. It will be dark soon, so I'll come back and conceal the ship in the morning."
He put away the datapad and hoisted the survival pack up on his back with a grunt and then turned to Padmé. "Ready?"
And if I'm not? She wanted to say, but fought against the negativity threatening inside her, smiled sweetly and said. "Lead the way."