The heath of her body against his, the scent of her skin entrancing him. He was charmed. The first lights of dawn were splashing on their entwined bodies, painting a luminous picture. It was as if nature was singing all around them. Obi-Wan hadn't felt so liberated in a long, long time.
He joyfully looked at the woman who was resting her head in the crook of his neck, holding him as if she didn't wish to be anywhere else in the worlds. His eyes were seeing an enchanting scene, one he would not have dared imagining, let alone hoping for, not even in his wildest dreams. Yet, here he was, freed and unashamed of it. So boundless that he could almost picture himself confessing...
"Satine"
Her head sprang up, her eyes resting their gaze on his face, like colorful, balletic butterflies. He took notice, and it took his breath away.
Her voice took slightly longer to follow.
"Yes?" she whispered, sensing the sincere emotion in his tone.
"I love you so much" he thought. But for some reason, his words never left his throat.
Come on, tell her - an inner voice encouraged him.
She was lovely, cocking her head slightly to study him, so comfortable with him, so comforting to him and to the Force around them...he raised a hand to caress her cheek and the curve of her swan-like neck, wishing that his hands could convey what his voice apparently could not. As his hands brought her pleasure, he couldn't help acknowledging that, on most days, those very hands would only contribute bringing war across the galaxy. He had the logical answer as to why he was embracing the Jedi Order cause. Still, deep down, he couldn't shy away from doubt, and an inner rebellion that was boiling within. Was it all truly necessary? Was the war - especially the way they were fighting it - the best course of action? Was it...too late?
Tell her.
She parted her lips slightly, as if hoping that he would say the word.
But he didn't.
Every ounce of regret he had was soon drowned by her passionate ministrations, never to be unearthed again.
Or at least, so he believed.
Every ounce of regret he had experienced and more, were unearthed with a force as soon as Obi-Wan woke up with dirt on his face to a ferocious whiplash, on the wastelands of Zygerria, where he had passed out from fatigue minutes earlier.
"Lazy!" a slaver roared.
He was chained and wore a Force-suppressor around his neck. For reasons yet to be established (he was convinced his capture hadn't occurred by mere chance) his abductors had dumped him on the dusty mines right outside the semi-industrial city of Grebak, expecting him to slave his life away there. They had also made sure to break him as much as possible, having learned from their previous mistakes how to deal with Jedi. They wouldn't kill him though, at least not before he repayed his debt in hard labor. Moreover, he had a feeling it wasn't they who had full decisional power over his fate.
Still shell-shocked from everything that had taken place on that fateful day, Obi-Wan opted to obey orders for the time being, having no energy to fight back.
Outpowered, Obi-Wan had been knocked down and beaten so hard that now he could barely hold himself up on all fours. His ribs were so crushed it hurt to breathe.
He was bruised and bleeding, but his mind was elsewhere, for physical pain was nothing compared to the shortcomings that were gnawing at his conscience. He had let Padme and Anakin down in every way possible. He wondered what would be of them, recognizing he had been wrong at having hesitated to intervene. Guilt was ravaging his very core, yet in no way did he feel he deserved what the Zygerrian slavers were putting him through. His heart had been purged from violence and nihilism too much for him to fall in such self-destructive psychological traps anymore. Satine, he recognized, had played a major role in his "liberation".
He had been having a dream about her, right before the slaver interrupted it by ripping his back apart with that infernal whip of his. It wasn't the first time, either. Since her death, it had happened on several occasions, events which he couldn't prevent, nor forsee. Not that he wanted to: while being reminded of her death hurt him to no end, Obi-Wan realized those dreams were the only means the Force was giving him to let her live on. Reliving past, most intimate interactions with Satine in very vivid dreams was something that was both saving and destroying him. Strange enough, those dreams seemed to physically energize him, safeguarding him from the toils of forced labor and torture. While experiencing them, he had the sensation of traveling through space and time. What was it all about? Why did they keep occurring? Why did they feel so real?
Thinking about her, and about the scenarios that could've been but that never were hurt him too much, especially in a post Order 66 scenario. Now everything from the past felt more futile than ever, everything except for love. Love, the first thing that had perished, under unmeasured pressure.
Oh, Satine. Why couldn't he stop thinking about her?
How foolish of him to go after that chimaeric spaceship, on Coruscant. Perhaps, if he hadn't made that detour, the Zygerrians wouldn't have captured him. With every passing minute, he was increasingly sure that the presence he'd sensed and that he'd recklessly gone after wasn't hers. No, it couldn't be. It was a similar presence, but not the same, he had detected a small - yet significant - difference within it. How deluded he was.