I watched the first two episodes of Kenobi, cried, and then ran to my laptop to write this. Obvious spoilers for the show if you haven't seen it yet. The story starts right at the ending scene of the second episode. Hope you enjoy!
If Not Hope, Then What?
By: The Hat Potato
The wall of the cargo ship is too sharp and oddly cold for the humid air surrounding him, but it's all he has to brace against as he collapses. Gasps of air keep flooding his mouth, yet not his lungs, and he swallows around the distinct taste of metal, blood or panic, he cannot tell. His mind is scrambling, falling like dominoes in a thousand different directions, shattering like the shards of a dropped crystal bowl.
"You were my brother—"
No.
He needs to focus. Needs to see the truth for himself, though an acute feeling of veracity already gnaws at his gut.
He steadies his breath as his eyes flutter close, memories traveling back to his training, his factitious days of security. Slowly, discreetly, he allows his mind to slide into the galaxy beyond, searching the Force. It's cold there, calming almost, like a stream of clear blue water, searching for its pool.
Then he sees it— him— burning like fire, and his delicate stream nearly crashes as a wave.
"Anakin."
They're close suddenly, circling each other in some kind of twisted dance, spitting and red and angry. Anakin's energy slithers like a viper now, a far stretch from the steady glowing beacon Obi-Wan used to know. Buzzing, blistering emotions are flooding his veins, threatening to spill over. Shock. Fear. Sorrow. …Relief? Completely unjustified, selfish relief that he hadn't been the one to kill him. That Anakin— Vader— lived to see another day.
Obi-Wan flees. Escapes from the numbing pull of nostalgia, observes the convulsing monster from afar. With this distance, his presence is no less captivating, but more as an imploding star than as a person, so tumultuously beautiful that he barely catches sight of the branching strands weaving away from it, forming a fragile sort of web.
One shines gold, solid like a rod, yet practically undetectable against its blazing roots. He recognizes it easily, has sought it frequently in recent years, the ever simmering energy of Luke. The other is thinner, wispy silver tendrils, entwining. Hypnotizing. He follows it further back until he returns to the ship itself and to the little girl in front of him. Leia.
"Who is Anakin?"
His breath stalls as he tries to regain grounding, trying to equate Anakin to Vader to Luke to her and coming up empty. She's so young, so pure and innocent, full of hope and possibilities. He'd met Anakin like that too, as just a round face and propitious mind. Except no, he met Leia long ago, had been the first to hold her, to brush his fingers against her weeping cheek and bestow the comfort of a human touch that neither parent could provide.
"There's still good in him. I know, I know there's still—"
His words stumble into the present. "He was… an old friend of mine." He feels weak, incredibly so, and he slouches to his knees.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I interrupt Jedi things?"
She says it with such concern that a slight smile takes his face, which is far more than he could wish for compared to the misery brewing within. "No need to be sorry."
She grins. "What's it like to be a Jedi?"
The question drags him further into reality, gives him something else to concentrate on. "It's lonely, now. All the people I cared for have gone. But none of us are really Jedi anymore. Not in practice."
"Well what was it like to be a Jedi? Before all the bad people came? Did you fight in a lot of wars?"
"I did. In the Clone Wars, alongside your father—" he chokes on the word, "—when he was a Senator and I was a Jedi Knight. That's how I know him."
"Father always makes it sound like an adventure."
"In many ways, it was, until it all came crashing down. A story with a bad ending."
She perks up, indignant. "You know, I was born right at the end of the Clone Wars?"
"Then I guess something good did come of them." The irony stings.
Leia giggles, chiming and clear. "I like your name. Ben. It sounds nice. Ben, Ben, Ben." She sings it.
She's trying to cheer him up, he realizes, innately discerning his anguish with abilities she doesn't know she possesses. Her wisdom is staggering regardless. "Thank you, Leia."
"Thank you for saving me. Twice."
He nods.
Silence passes between them, aching memories elapsing again and again within him, torturing him, and he can sense her worry growing as she watches. She bites the nail of her thumb, then blows on the wound, deliberating.
He's spent so long fixated on Luke, on protecting him, on watching him grow in his skill and as a person, that he hardly counted her as real in his mind. He avoids thinking about the people and events come and gone, and he'd shoved her away in the process, unaware of the beaming potential he sees now. She's a perfect echo of her past, strong and stubborn and resilient. Snarky, in an endearing way. Resourceful. Smart. Anakin— the true one, the good one— would have loved her, and it makes him yearn for the family she might have known. The life she might have lived.
"Is your old friend okay?" Her words spill over quickly now that she's made up her mind to say them. "You seem sad about him, and my mother says that when you feel sad, the best thing to do is talk it through so you don't get all con– convested."
"Congested. And your mother sounds very wise, just like you."
She stares at him expectantly, with Padmé's big brown eyes and Anakin's stubborn brow, and his stomach lurches. "Well? You can tell me, Ben—"
"No. My friend is not okay."
"Maybe you can help him."
"I don't think so, Leia. Not anymore."
She sighs and scrunches her face in thought. "Everyone can use help! Maybe he just hasn't been helped by the right person yet." She quiets again, thoughtful, then approaches him hesitantly, gently laying a hand on his arm and her head on his shoulder. "I hope Anakin gets better."
His heart seizes, drenched with the slimy black agony pooling in his chest. But even the darkest night is pierced with stars, pinpoints of light to guide the way. Leia is a star, he thinks. Shooting with powerful determination, bright and shining. A leader. And so long as she keeps her hope, her brilliant, radiant hope, then perhaps the universe still has the fighting chance it desperately needs to recover. A chance to heal. A chance at balance.
His restless spirit stills with her touch, reaching at long last something akin to peace.
"I do too."
The End
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!