Cold-hearted Obi-Wan and Ice-queen Satine are about to start yet another day dictated by duty and obligations...when something unexpected happens!
Flashback at the beginning: how Satine reacted to Obi-Wan's departure after their year on Mandalore
Flashback: Sundari, Mandalore
The day seven Mandalorian planets aligned was the day the people of Sundari rejoiced.
The whole city was festive, its citizens on the streets throwing flowers and biodegradable confetti, anxiously awaiting for their young Duchess to declare the end of the civil war and the beginning of a new era. What a momentous occasion.
It was midday on a summer day and the sun shone brighter than ever: two good omens for Satine Kryze and her prosperous tenure.
Satine's glowing carriage awaited her, but the Duchess herself was missing. As to why, nobody had a clue.
Nobody, except maybe for an old maid from Kalevala, Satine's homeplanet.
Constance scanned the rooms of the palace with her expert eyes. The palace's governess had stressed that it was of utmost importance to find the Duchess right away, as she was already running late on her schedule.
She was neither in the throne room nor in her quarters. Not in the garden, nor in the kitchen. Where everybody else failed, Constance knew she would succeed. She headed for the highest tower. Satine always had this thing of hiding in high places, when she was younger. It would give her reassurance and it would scare the hell out of Constance, who was supposed to look after the Kryze children.
Upon reaching her destination, Constance braced herself with patience before unlocking the tiny wooden door open. As she expected, Satine was in there, sprawled on a little bed in a corner, light splashing from a window onto her long blonde hair and white dress, lending her the look of a weeping angel.
She was audibly sobbing, her back shaken by fits and starts.
Constance eased herself on the edge of the bed, leaning a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"Come on, Satine. Your people await you" she attempted.
Satine sobbed even harder.
"Don't you be afraid. I know what an exceptional young lady you are. Now you must let the Mandalorians know as well."
Satine raised her head, meeting her maid's eyes with her own, puffy ones. "I don't know how to handle this, Constance" she whispered.
Constance had a growing suspicion, but for the time being she chose to ignore it.
"You will, as you always have. You have the fight in you, my dear"
As a response, Satine burst into tears, burying her face in her hands.
"He is gone, Constance. He is gone for good."
Here it was. Constance had seen it coming. The old maid had noticed her unusual behavior around the young Jedi protector ever since she returned to the palace two weeks earlier.
"Come on, come on. If he were here, I'm certain he would encourage you to face the crowds."
Those words had a strange effect on the young Duchess, for she momentarily stopped crying, staring at a distance with sheer determination in her eyes.
"Yes, he would." her tone more stable.
It didn't last long, however, because tears soon resumed flowing relentlessly.
"I should've told him, Constance."
"Told him what, dear?" Constance asked sympathetically.
"How much he means to me. That the world has taken a whole different shape ever since he stepped into my life…completely, blatantly uninvited at that!" she almost shouted.
Constance sat in silence.
"I should've told him that I wanted him to stay."
Constance spoke lightly: "Then why didn't you tell him, Satine?"
Satine's chin trembled, her eyes deepening.
"Because…I love him."
Jedi Temple
Before the crack of dawn, Obi-Wan could already be found meditating.
He was surrendering his feelings – of anxiety, frustration, even anger – into the Force so that he would be ready and functional for yet another mission.
Surrender – this seemed to be the recurring theme in his life lately. Surrender to whatever the day throws at you. Accept – don't fight. Be tolerant – don't reject. The way things were going, he was starting to feel like an overstuffed recycling bin whose label was never respected. But he couldn't afford lingering on the dark wastelands of his soul; his responsibilities as General – to his men, to the mission, to the Republic – were too great to leave room for anything else.
He wasn't well-rested, but he wasn't blaming Ahsoka for keeping him up way past an acceptable bedtime. If someone was to blame, that was himself, and the recurrent images that kept forming in his head. The way the Duchess made him lose his focus was destabilizing, in the very least.
When it was time to go, he begrudgingly put his chipped, scraped armor pieces on and headed to the hangar to meet with the Clones.
Right outside the door, he bumped into Anakin. If he weren't so self-absorbed, his alarm bells would have definitely gone off, for it was highly unusual for the young Jedi to be up so early on a day off.
"Master!" he exclaimed.
"Hello Anakin. I think you may want to check on Ahsoka, later" Obi-Wan remarked sharply, frowning.
Anakin didn't waste any time: "Sure…I'm sad you couldn't be there yesterday, we had a great time" he said catching up with his Master's pace.
"Oh, did you?" Obi-Wan stubbornly kept looking ahead of him.
"Yes, everyone was nice…especially the Duchess Satine. You're lucky Master"
Obi-Wan almost stopped abruptly from the shock "Wha-? Anakin! I…don't know what you're talking about. Satine and I are friends. Our relationship is strictly professional"
Anakin chose to ignore him: "Yes, yes. She's almost more workaholic than you are. I bet she yearns a break from all this professionalism in her life"
Anakin had evidently struck a chord, because Obi-Wan turned to look at him: "What do you mean?"
"Me? Nothing Master, really. Besides, I don't get why you should care, since, as you said, your relationship is strictly professional, and such it must remain. Right?"
Obi-Wan bit his tongue, unnerved at having Anakin so close to thwarting his ice-cold cover of indifference. That boy would drive him mad.
Shortly after they parted ways, Obi-Wan reached his departure terminal, where the Clones were already waiting.
"Good morning Cody, are we all set to go?" he greeted jovially upon seeing the scarred Commander in orange-sprayed armor.
"Ready as ever, Sir"
Senate of the Galactic Republic
Satine was speechless. Onaconda Farr, the Rodian she'd had dinner with the previous night, the pro-peace agreement Senator, was dead, murdered under everyone's nose. This tragic event certainly accounted for an abrupt change of plans. Padmé and her colleagues were busy shedding light on the fishy case, while juggling with the upcoming Senate vote at the same time. Satine felt uneasy. She didn't like this story one bit, to her it was a confirmation that there was something terribly rotten going on at the high-levels of the Galactic Republic. She was indignant, but as much as she ached to help uncover the larger plot under this event, she recognized that her intervention would both be inappropriate (for her own people, whose safety she was responsible of) and of little use.
Therefore, after Farr's flash-funeral later that morning – an event that she solemnly attended, well-aware that she could've been the one in that casket – she was left with little choice but to leave.
Ironically, now that she really did have a day free from any obligation, she would've rather worked. She watched the baby-blue, merry sky of mid-spring. The nature was calling for her to go outside. Determined – in spite of everything – not to waste such a rare opportunity, she informed her guards of her intention of having a walk around the city.
Jedi Temple Hangar
Pre-flight tests: check.
Roll call: check
Strategic debriefing: check
Admiral on board: check
They were ready to go. Obi-Wan stood erect, tightening his belt, the reassuring weight of his lightsaber on his left hip. He was about to give order to board the ship, Cody faithfully at his side, when an out of breath Adi Gallia appeared in his field of vision.
"Kenobi, STOP!" she shouted across the hangar.
Obi-Wan outstretched his neck, tense. Last-minute communications always accounted for complications ahead.
"What is it, Master Gallia?"
The Jedi grimaced, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead, then delivered the most incredible news Obi-Wan could expect in that moment:
"The mission is cancelled"
Obi-Wan's eyes almost popped out of his skull. Never, in the year-and-a-half of Clone Wars they'd fought, had a mission he was assigned ever been cancelled.
"How come?!" he stuttered, hardly recognizing his own voice.
Adi Gallia walked a few steps ahead so that everyone could hear her.
"President elect Nooa was murdered by the Separatists shortly ago. Master Plo is already on his way to Chardaan to investigate, he can reach the planet far earlier than any ship can from here in Coruscant. As you all know, time is crucial in these cases."
Silence fell in the hangar. Cody looked at Obi-Wan questioningly. The latter didn't have many words left to begin with. He brushed his beard, thinking fast.
"I would say you can all use some rest until the next order"
The Clones began chatting. Some of them were disappointed, others excited at the prospect of having a free day. Obi-Wan exchanged a few words with Cody and the Admiral, waiting for Adi Gallia to exit the scene, then, once she was out of sight, he excused himself and literally flew to his quarters. Acting quickly, before he had any time to rethink what he was about to do, he disposed of his armor, scattering the pieces on the floor. He put his boots on not bothering to change into his usual Jedi robes. He was wearing the tight black bodysuit that acted as "under-armor" and his tabard and obi, along with the belt of course. However, he did bother to stop at the mirror to check his hair before running outside. Sure, he was in a hurry, but he didn't want to risk looking unpresentable. He didn't want to waste any other minute, so quite uncharacteristically for him he rushed out of the Temple and plunged into the chaos of Coruscant. With most Jedi occupied with the war, the Temple was almost deserted, however if Obi-Wan had paid attention to his surroundings he would've noticed, behind the two old Jedi who muttered "young people" at his passage, the prying eyes of a Togruta Padawan.
Where was Master Obi-Wan headed in such a rush? Wasn't he supposed to be on a mission, anyway? Ahsoka resolved to ask her Master about it later that day.
Obi-Wan had never felt so free in his entire life. The sun was shining high and bright in the sky, there was a slight, temperate breeze, fitting perfectly with his state of mind. He was unrestrained, and he couldn't quite explain how this had happened. For once, he was thinking with his heart, not with his brain. And what his heart told him, without giving him means to totally rationalize this, was that he wasn't going to live with regret. Not today. The impossible had happened: Satine was on Coruscant AND his mission was cancelled. It was a coincidence so great even he – in his years-long quest to severe all attachments – could not ignore.
He hopped on and off public transports in between stretches of pedestrian platforms.
He knew where he was going.
Although not completely sure, he had a vague idea of where she might be. For some reason, he felt he needed to find her physically, instead of comm-linking.
When he got to the building where he knew she was residing in record time, near the Senate District, he approached a guard outside the main entrance.
"Excuse me, where can I find Her Grace, the Duchess Kryze?" he asked with trepidation.
"I'm sorry, the Duchess is not receiving anyone today" the guard replied inflexibly.
Obi-Wan chose not to let this hurdle sway him. He considered his options. Since mind-tricking a well-trained Mandalorian guard would be pointless, if not counter-productive, he concluded telling a little lie wouldn't hurt: "I understand. Although, as personally appointed Republic Bodyguard to the safety of Her Grace, I'm afraid this restriction doesn't apply to me" he crossed his arms on his chest, trying his best to imitate Anakin's swashbuckling attitude.
The guard eyed the lightsaber on his belt, changing attitude right away: "I see...if such is the case...the Duchess has just left this building with two of our men. They were on their way to Nicandra Plaza
Obi-Wan didn't need to be told twice. He ran the distance that separated him from the Plaza as if he were on a mission. Once there, he got lost in an interminable sea of people.
He was nothing but an ant in a swarming anthill. But his heart was too hopeful for him to just surrender.
He closed his eyes, getting attuned to the thousands of sentients' presences in the Plaza. He would find her. He knew he would. He searched and searched, coming in contact with countless different flavors of signatures, each with their own texture; from the dark to the merry, from the idle to the twitchy. Some of them felt coarse and rough against his own aura, others were plain and average, others again more pleasant. Then he found a thread. It was intermittent, almost a mirage in its feebleness. If he concentrated hard enough, he was able to cling onto it for brief, inebriating moments, before it slipped away, again and again. He was excited, he was unnerved, he feared he was grasping onto an illusion. It was only when he understood that it was also a matter of wanting to find her, rather than just focusing, that he stood up, moving around tentatively, chasing his lead in the same way a perfumer would chase the rarest scent. His senses alerted, he progressed among the crowds slowly but surely, his hands getting sweatier by the minute.
Then he saw her. A vision. To him, she stood out like sandalwood in an ocean of tar. His legs suddenly wobbly, Obi-Wan nonetheless quickened his pace, stopping just before reaching her, from the back. She seemed to be slightly lost in her thoughts. He guessed she too had had to surrender a lot lately. Surrendering her privacy, for the guards to follow her at all times, for instance.
Obi-Wan stepped ahead. "Satine!" he called.
She stopped cold in her tracks, believing for a moment that her ears had played a trick on her. She turned around, and stared.
Obi-Wan would never forget the light in her eyes the moment they met, nor would she forget his expression, so open for once.
She stuttered before remembering who she was, and what was expected of her: "It was brought to my knowledge that you were off on a mission today…"
Obi-Wan took one step ahead, wind sweeping through his sun-highlighted hair.
"You're correct. But the mission was cancelled. I…remembered you weren't to leave for another day and I wondered if you would like to…be my guest, here on Coruscant". He offered her his arm. Force only knew how long he'd been fantasizing about a moment like this, in his wildest, deepest dreams. "Let me take you on a walk"
For a long moment, Satine didn't reply. She was too astonished to, trying to decide if she were in a sort of parallel reality or if this was happening for real. She blinked once, then a smile enlightened her features. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, hoping that she wasn't blushing too noticeably.
Obi-Wan held her gaze, glad that he wasn't able to see his own, presumably close-to-scandalous expression in that moment. He would've been lying to himself if he said that he hadn't noticed her physique, among other things. She had traded her headdress and ceremonial outfit for "civilian" yet classy clothes, which brought out her curves beautifully.
After what felt like an eon - an eon spent in blissful unavoidable contemplation of the other and of the situation - Satine dismissed her guards, drawing their attention to her new "locally experienced" bodyguard. Being Duchess, she held the power to do so.
The moment she laced arms with Obi-Wan, the magic officially began. All the sad, unnecessary restraint between them vanished at this simple, spontaneous contact.
Laughing like two kids, they ran together, off to new adventures. It was like going back in time, when they were younger and far less burdened.