Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars
A Shift in the Force: Chapter Forty-Five: At Last
AN: Sabé's Kyber crystals color is being purposefully left in the dark, so you guys won't actually find out their color for a few more chapters, but you guess away their color to your heart's content.
Caleb Dume had always been told he was far too inquisitive, that he asked far too many questions. He didn't think that should be a really bad thing. When was being curious something that was frowned upon?
Ahsoka Tano thought it was because he was detracting from the lessons and the teachers didn't like it.
Then he'd asked a question about Sabé Amidala and the look he'd gotten was one full of reproach.
He couldn't quite explain it, but there was a buzzing in his ears when he thought about the first time he saw her, a buzzing he couldn't quite comprehend. She'd been the teacher for their initiate class on the basics for the various lightsaber forms and her smile had made her eyes glitter, but when it had been his turn to face off against her, she had paused, tilting her head as though listening to an unheard voice before continuing.
Other Initiates called her the Exile, because that was technically true, though there was an invitation to rejoin the Order, if that was ever her desire. Some of them called her 'damaged goods'; that was what happened when you fell to the Dark Side.
Caleb wasn't so sure, and he'd learned that even so-called facts were biased.
He clicked through the computer in a corner of the Archives, looking through the Jedi Knight records, which were a matter of public record.
Name: Sabé Amidala
Jedi Class: Jedi Guardian
Specialization: Jedi Shadow
Status: MIA –redacted / Deceased –redacted / Sith Lord –redacted / Exiled
Homeworld: Naboo
YOB: 3223LY
Padawan: Talik Shala
Missions: Selectively-classified
Caleb frowned. Selectively-classified? Caleb didn't know much about the Jedi Shadows, but he couldn't imagine why it made Sabé Amidala's mission records selectively-classified.
Was that the usual protocol for Jedi Shadows?
There was an attached clip of a lightsaber duel between her and Master Reus in Jar'Kai and Caleb stared. She was good, she was really good. He'd never seen her in a good-to-honest duel, but it was impressive.
"Curious, are you?" a familiar aged voice inquired and Caleb jumped in his seat to see the small green Jedi standing at his side, both clawed hands resting on top of his gimer stick.
"I –uh– Master Yoda, um, I didn't see you there," he managed to stutter out.
Yoda's eyes to almost glint with hidden amusement. "Curious about my old Padawan, are you?"
Caleb couldn't really think of any other explanation that didn't dig himself into a hole. "Yes."
"Curious, Sabé Amidala is," Yoda agreed, "but in the past, that is, look to the future, young Initiate, your focus should be."
"You don't think she'd come back?" Caleb inquired.
"Before her, that choice is," Yoda said heavily. "Speculate, I will not."
Caleb watched the Grandmaster leave, and he couldn't help feeling that his answer was a bit of a non-answer. He wondered his Master Amidala had actually liked being his Padawan.
He looked back at the screen.
Form VI: Niman…
The mission went off without a hitch, and sooner rather than later, Obi-Wan found himself parking their transport in a port on Theed. His heart jumped a little in his chest as he cut the power, and he had to wonder if he was broadcasting his anxiety and unease through their shared bond when Anakin gave him an odd look before turning his eyes out of the viewport to see a woman looking up with a hand over her eyes. She pointed two fingers at the pair and then to the spot beside her.
"I think I remember her at that celebration after the Battle of Theed," Anakin mentioned and Obi-Wan frowned thoughtfully. He'd stuck off to the side for most of that celebration, lingering with Sabé where she'd been avoiding one of her sisters until he'd asked her to dance.
He smiled faintly at the thought. "Well, let's not keep her waiting," he said, standing with Anakin doing the same and grabbing the box that Taria had given them.
"You must be Obi-Wan Kenobi," the woman said with an air of not knowing that Obi-Wan didn't think was entirely correct, eyeing Obi-Wan up and down with an appraising look that Obi-Wan didn't entirely like and made Anakin scowl faintly. "I can see why she likes you." Then her eyes flicked towards Anakin. "And that would make you Anakin Skywalker…Padmé and Talik mention you a lot."
Anakin rubbed the back of his head, both embarrassed and pleased, and it showed.
"My name is Sola Naberrie," she said, "I'm the middle child, and I've been volunteered to take you to Varykino." She rolled her blue eyes.
Obi-Wan wasn't completely surprised to find that she was Sabé's sister, she shared a certain amount of coloring with Sabé and Padmé, though she didn't look as alike as the pair. Her eyes were blue and her face longer, but her cheeks were the same rosy quality and the smile was identical. He only remembered her as the small girl with a furious glare when he'd been stationed on Naboo for a time with Sabé to protect her father.
"You'll have to forgive me," Obi-Wan said politely, "but I thought Sabé didn't get along with you."
"Oh, we buried that hatchet ages ago," Sola scoffed, directing them to follow her over to a speeder. "Besides, she doesn't even know you're here."
"She doesn't?" Anakin piped up, setting the box in the speeder and hoping inside, with his master following at a much calmer pace.
"I think Talik wants to surprise her," Sola said, telling the driver where to go. "So basically her friend…Taria? Taria told Talik and Talik told Padmé and Padmé told me. I think Talik thinks it'll do her good, seeing you."
"But you don't?" Obi-Wan surmised.
Sola turned her eyes on him, the blue cool and unwavering. "You're Jedi," she pointed out, "she's not."
"Talik's a Jedi," Anakin pointed out.
"Talik is basically her kid, she doesn't count," Sola snorted as the speeder took off, speeding through the streets and then out of the city. "And I really wouldn't try convincing her to come back to the Order, Talik's exhausted herself trying to do that."
Obi-Wan sighed, inwardly dismayed but also unsurprised, but Anakin's thoughts were more visible on his face; he was a very expressive person. "Any other advice?"
Sola chewed on the inside of her cheek. "Well, she's not the same as she was…it's kind of difficult to explain. You'll understand when you see her…oh, and don't mention the whole not opening her eyes thing, she's doing that for a reason."
Anakin's horror spilled over in their bond. "Is she blind?" he asked stunned.
"No," Sola said dryly. "And that's why I'm telling you now."
Obi-Wan wondered if she was always short, or if it was just with them. The trip to the villa that he remembered from his mission with Sabé when they were both sixteen was short and silent and Sola ushered them inside, directing Anakin to place the box on the table.
"They're probably still on the beach sparring," Sola said, pointing them out the door as a small girl toddled over to her, glancing shyly around Sola's leg.
"Momma, who's that?" the girl asked and Sola knelt quickly to sweep her up into her arms.
"Just some friends of Aunt Sabé and Aunt Talik."
Obi-Wan gestured for Anakin to follow him, knowing the way down, leading them down the few steps off the ledge of the balcony into the grass, following the hills down to where they met sand, both staring at the two figures on the beach.
Talik was easy to make out with the lavender shade of her skin, but the second—
"Is that Master Sabé?" Anakin asked in surprise.
Her hair was shorter, much shorter, and she'd abandoned her usual garb for wear that wouldn't be amiss on a freighter crew. She'd made a new arm, this one darker in color than the silver arm both had grown accustomed to, and her eyes were firmly closed as she twisted a quarterstaff in her hands.
It reminded Obi-Wan of Carina with her double-bladed lightsaber, not unlike Maul's before he'd killed him on Naboo.
Her brow was creased as she crashed the quarterstaff against Talik's with a surprising show of aggressive power. Obi-Wan had never seen her fight like that.
Sabé pushed Talik back and extended a hand, an unseen force sending Talik tumbling backwards to where Anakin and Obi-Wan were standing.
"Hey!" Talik complained as she righted herself, leaping to her feet. "That's no fair! No using the Force!"
"Darling," Sabé drawled out, tilting her head slightly to the side, "if you wanted a fair fight, you should find a Jedi."
Her voice tugged at his heartstrings. Her indifference to the Jedi made his chest ache.
Talik turned her head, silently taking notice of the pair standing there.
"I'm tapping out," she said aloud, "but it's a good thing there's someone here to spar against you."
Sabé's brow furrowed, her eyes still closed, but she turned her head to where they were standing, like she was trying to figure out who they were. It should've been easy; Sabé was as familiar with their Force signatures as she was her own.
Talik handed the quarterstaff to Obi-Wan. "I think you'll do better than me," she remarked. "Careful, though, she's deadly clever."
Sabé's lips curled into a faint smirk. "Now that is a compliment I can approve of."
Anakin looked to Obi-Wan, not quite knowing how to respond to that, but all Obi-Wan did was shrug off his robe and take the quarterstaff that Talik had offered, considering his old friend (and perhaps something more).
Her head wasn't tilted in his direction, in fact, it was tilted away, her ear facing him. Obi-Wan knew she'd used Force-hearing on more than one occasion, but to keep it up constantly was tiring…unless she was simply training herself to expand her senses in the loss of one?
Obi-Wan's feet crossed in the sand as he moved past her and Sabé twisted, following his movement, her staff up.
She twisted it between her hands and shot it forward.
The thing about Sabé was she'd always been fast. Her body was small and lithe, not designed for brute strength, so she'd made up for it with speed.
It had made Darth Carina so deadly.
Obi-Wan blocked automatically and Sabé's eyebrows knitted together as she pushed all of her weight against his before her leg swept under him, knocking him to the ground.
Anakin stifled his laughter.
"Are you sure your replacement is any good?" Sabé asked doubtfully, twisting her head towards Talik. "They seem—" She let out an undignified yelp as Obi-Wan responded by using her own tactic against her and she tumbled to the sand.
"I think my replacement's doing quite well, actually," Talik sniggered and Sabé's lips formed into a scowl as she leapt to her feet.
She didn't wait for Obi-Wan to gather himself; she struck.
Luckily, though, he had incredible recovery time, battering her away, colliding his quarterstaff against hers.
His eyes widened slightly. The flash of a grin across her face was unmistakable and he couldn't help but think of Carina's cruel smirk with her eyes flashing yellow.
Sabé had always been good with a vast array of weapons, it was a trait she and Taria shared, because sometimes that was necessary on Shadow missions. But still, Obi-Wan had never seen her use a quarterstaff as a weapon before.
Then, as suddenly as she'd started the duel, she stopped, her scowl like a vicious scar across her face, stabbing the quarterstaff into the ground beside her.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi…here to convince me to come back?" the disdain surprised him and Talik took Anakin by the arm, walking back so they were a bit closer to the villa so that the pair could talk and leave Sabé and Obi-Wan on their own. "Well, you can save your breath, Talik's already tried."
"Sabé—"
"Don't say my name like that," she grated in annoyance.
"Why not?" Obi-Wan was flummoxed.
"Because I don't like it." But her cheeks were a faint pink, a coloring that would normally go unnoticed with her complexion.
He actually smiled.
"Stop that," she said.
"Stop what?"
"Smiling!"
"You can't see me smiling," Obi-Wan pointed out.
She pointed the quarterstaff at him aggressively, her eyes still closed. "That's not the point; I can practically feel you smiling!"
Obi-Wan dropped his quarterstaff to the ground, using Sabé's to drag her closer until he could wrap his arms around his old friend.
"It's so good to see you," he murmured into her ear, leaning down at their good seven inch height difference.
She wound her arms around his shoulders, leaning her cheek against his shoulder, breathing out deeply, the curve of her spine relaxing in his arms. She didn't say anything for the longest time, and then—
"I'm sorry I tried to kill you and Anakin," she said so softly that Obi-Wan almost missed it.
Obi-Wan had replayed the scene in his mind over and over again, of Carina bringing down the saberstaff, but the blades never reaching skin, like she'd hit an invisible force.
"You couldn't do it," he assured her.
"I tried to do it," Sabé countered stiffly, "that's just as bad."
Obi-Wan couldn't offer anything to that.
"You were shot," Sabé recalled suddenly, leaning back, her fingers trailing over the spot and Obi-Wan couldn't help the warmth in his stomach.
"And healed," he assured her, raising a hand to grasp hers, bringing it down but not letting go. It probably wasn't the smartest thing, what he was doing, but Obi-Wan's heart had always been the softest, beating for Cerasi, for Siri, for Satine, and now for Sabé.
Her eyes were still closed.
"Sabé, open your eyes," Obi-Wan said calmly.
"You know, there's going to be some sensitivity to light, right? Since I haven't been using them, so maybe I should just—" Sabé was fumbling, and wildly at that. It was amusing to watch since it was so rarely seen.
"Sabé," he repeated her name and her floundering failed and her shoulders sagged with a sigh.
Sabé had grown rather accustomed to the darkness, something that the Force whispered in her ear that she would one day need.
But she fluttered her eyelids open, opening them little by little in order to be accustomed to a world of light and color once more. Her eyes were trained downwards.
He was wearing those brown boots that Anakin and Talik had once tried to paint as a joke; Sabé could still see a few flecks of blue staining the sole. Sabé followed the boots up to brown trousers and a cream tunic, the dark spots in her eyes fading as she kept them open longer, all the way up to look at his face.
The sun was making his hair and beard look redder than she would've thought possible and his hazel eyes were bright and gleaming.
He was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen, and Sabé's heart raced in her chest.
"Brown," Obi-Wan said with a smile, raising a free hand to cup her cheek, thumb smoothing across the skin under her eye. "I always liked that color more than the yellow."
Sabé's eyes widened slightly.
"You were always running away from me…after that mission to Alderaan," Obi-Wan said and her teeth came together tightly behind her lips, a muscle jumping in her jaw. "And I was trying to work out everything, how I felt about it, how I felt about you."
Sabé shook her head quickly, a soft and sad smile on her lips. "Oh, Obi-Wan, you don't have to explain, I understand."
"You –you do?" Obi-Wan faltered. That would make it so much easier.
"I know I'm not your type and you're far too steadfast in your beliefs in the Jedi. I couldn't ask you and wouldn't expect you to change for someone like me," Sabé said calmly, taking her hand out of his in order to stoop to grasp her quarterstaff where Obi-Wan had dropped it.
…Or not. Obi-Wan very nearly sighed, and he thought once more of those words that Sabé had said so long ago.
"'I do not think that I would fall in love with a simple man," he quoted and she froze. "They would have to have complexity and understand my devotion to the Order'…were you talking about me, that time?"
Sabé sighed. "Yes," she said as she straightened, looking deeply uncomfortable, "but things have changed…it's been six years. I'm not as devoted as I once was."
"What—" Obi-Wan paused, his tongue swollen in his mouth with all the words he didn't know how to say. "Why are you so aggravating?"
The exasperated tone earned him an amused arched eyebrow. "Darling, it's in my nature," she said.
His palm collided with his forehead. Some days she was worse than Anakin, so what he did next, he did without careful patience, throwing caution to the wind.
He cupped her cheek with his hand once more, causing Sabé to start in surprise before he sealed his lips against hers.
Sabé gasped under his mouth, drawing her hands up to tangle in his hair. Her enthusiasm threw him off and Obi-Wan almost tumbled backwards.
Then—
"Yeah, Sabé! Get it!"
They both parted suddenly, with Sabé casting a glower in the direction of the balcony where she could just make out her younger sister standing there.
"Sola is incorrigible," she complained with a grumble, running a few fingers through her short hair. "Padmé's worse. Luckily she's working through the day."
"Anakin will be disappointed," Obi-Wan said simply, a smile curling the corners of his lips.
Sabé rolled her eyes. "Come on," she said, linking her fingers with his, "I want to see how much Anakin's grown."
And Obi-Wan followed her rather bemused.
"Okay, first they were kissing, now they're arguing," Anakin muttered quietly to Talik, both sticking to the kitchen while Sabé and Obi-Wan spoke in loud voices in the sitting room.
"Do you think it's weird?" Talik asked instead, watching Sabé's eyes flash as she splayed a hand. "Both of them, you know, together?"
"Not really," Anakin realized. He'd become so used to their dynamics together that he hadn't even realized that it was like having two parents –a thought that made him think painfully of his own mother. When he couldn't talk with Obi-Wan, he always went to Sabé. Her opinion mattered to him more than most.
After she and Obi-Wan had had their little reunion, the first thing Sabé did was go to Anakin and apologize for trying to kill him. Anakin was very understanding about the whole thing and it hadn't taken long for his bruises to heal; besides, she'd been Carina then, he couldn't blame her when she hadn't been in the right mind in the first place.
Her face had softened and she'd hugged him tightly in a manner reminiscent of the last one he'd had with his own mother.
"Besides, Jedi aren't allowed to have relationships," Talik pondered. "What d'you think is going to happen?"
"No idea," Anakin said.
"It's probably not any of your business, anyways," Sola pointed out as she peeked her head inside briefly, Pooja in her arms and keeping an eye on Ryoo as she frolicked around in the grass.
"You're afraid!"
"Afraid?" Sabé scoffed loudly. "Of course I'm afraid, Obi-Wan, I've seen what I'm capable at my darkest, and that's murder! And I've seen what will become of the Jedi, Obi-Wan, I've seen the Temple full of ash and bodies."
Sabé gave a full body shudder, her arms wrapping tightly around herself. "I can't set foot in that place, not even if the Jedi hadn't cast me aside."
"You don't know if that's true," Obi-Wan countered. "Visions can be misleading—"
"Oh, I'm well aware of that, thank you." Sabé's eyes were hard and cold and Obi-Wan thought fleetingly of Carina's own. "But I'm not going back to the way things were when I wasn't even remotely happy then."
"Running from your problems isn't going to solve anything."
"So you admit that the Jedi are my problem!" Sabé declared in triumph, jabbing her finger in his direction.
"You are exasperating!" Obi-Wan complained loudly.
"Better to be exasperating than to be so contained that I become as emotionless as the Jedi High Council!" Sabé retorted, her hands on her hips.
"Yikes," Talik winced. "Hands on the hips. I'm glad she's not mad at me."
"And sacrificing Talik's training is your way of proving that?" Obi-Wan was unimpressed.
Sabé glared. "I am not sacrificing her training," she hissed angrily. "Talik will be returning to Coruscant with you and Anakin to continue her training under Aayla and Master Che."
"Wait, what?" Talik started in surprise. She'd known it wasn't going to end well if Obi-Wan had brought her into his argument. "I don't want to go back without you!"
Sabé looked on her sadly. "Oh, darling, you must. You're already completed two of the five Jedi Trials, I won't have you throw your life away simply because mine is out of sorts. You are well on your way to graduating to Jedi Knight before you're nineteen."
Talik mouthed wordlessly.
"That, was a low blow," Sabé added to Obi-Wan, her voice taking on a dark edge. "Talik is my pride and joy, but a Jedi must know when to sacrifice themselves for something bigger."
"You are still speaking like a Jedi," Obi-Wan pointed out, crossing his arms.
"A Jedi, I am not. A Je'daii? Perhaps." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "But a Jedi I still was when I sacrificed my own Light to keep that Holocron safe. I didn't commit that act without thought, and it took falling to the Dark Side for me to realize that the Jedi had made me forget myself."
"You –you really believe that?" Anakin asked, so surprised where he was sitting beside Talik, who was still stunned at the prospect of returning to Coruscant without Sabé.
"I do," Sabé said seriously. "And I'm starting to think I'm more like Carina than I'd originally thought."
"You're not," Obi-Wan insisted. "I've known you for years, Sabé, you're not—"
"A lot of people have known me as a lot of different people, who's to say that they didn't know the real me, either?" Sabé arched an eyebrow. "Disguise is so often a self-portrait; every Shadow knows that."
She picked up an image-caster, pressing it into Obi-Wan's palm and pressing the button that activated it in order to show a rotating pyramidal object.
"This is the Sith Holocron of Korriban," Sabé said shortly, "it's the genuine article and I am its keeper. But the Jedi won't be getting it. They've already gotten the Gauntlet of Kressh the Younger. The Holocron would be too much power to allow the Jedi."
"Why are you acting like the Jedi are the enemy?"
Sabé curved Obi-Wan's hands around the image-caster, cutting off the image, before removing her hands from his to look on him with remarkable disdain.
"Perhaps because to me, they are," Sabé said. "I am not the first to fall to the Dark Side and return, yet exiling me seemed to be their first and only choice."
"You haven't been exiled, you can come back," Obi-Wan stressed.
"Oh, to the distrust and disgust? I think not," Sabé said frostily, turning on her heel and making her way out of the room.
"Where're you going?" Talik called after her in concern.
"Out!" Sabé barked. "I've had quite enough of Jedi for today!"
All three winced as the door slammed shut behind her.
Well, Talik thought rather bitterly, that went well.
AN: You'll see more of Caleb Dume in a few chapters. Sabé and Obi-Wan fighting was the most exciting thing I wrote this chapter. I may or may not be marathoning Star Wars Rebels.
As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!
