By the time he wakes again it's past midday. He spends the rest of the evening worried that he imagined her or that he missed the chance to speak with her and she won't be able to come back.
He meditates after supper. The Force swirls around him like dust in a sand storm, but he can gleam no information about how he should proceed. He allows himself to sink deeper and trusts the currents to take him where they will.
Trust in the will of the Force. He can almost hear his old Master's voice.
It's been a long time since he's had to trust in something or someone. It no longer comes easy. Too many betrayals. Too many friends lost. Too many years with no one but himself to rely on.
He meditates deep into the night, trying to release his feelings into the Force and remember trust worked.
The morning brings with it a nervous energy despite his long meditation. It hums beneath his skin, making him twitchy. To keep his mind occupied after he's checked the vaporators he picks up minor chores around the house that have been put off. Shoring up and plastering over the small cracks around the door from the last storm, organizing his small stores of goods. It's too soon to show his face in town still, with Jabba's thugs on the lookout for the stranger who sabotaged them, and he'll have to make things last a while longer.
He sighs. That reminds him, he should check on Luke again. Make sure the boy hadn't suffered an ill effects from his bump on the head. It was doubtful that Owen Lars would trust him enough to confide in him if there were a problem, and perhaps seeing Luke again, even from afar, would once again call Padme's presence forth.
For once, in a very long time, things go his way. He's sitting on the ridge, macrobinoculars trained on the distant Lars home. He'd watched Owen appear and begin working on a speeder. The motions easy in the dimming light. He turned to call out to someone behind him and a small figure darted forward carrying a box. Tools no doubt.
Obi Wan sighed in relief. Luke seemed fine. Owen's movements showing him more than any forced conversation would.
"Thank you again Obi Wan." the soft voice drifts from beside him and he turns to face her.
"I've been watching him too," she smiles fondly in the direction he'd been looking. "He growing up to be a fine boy. Brave, but impulsive. But I suppose that runs in his family."
It's been long enough now that he can think back such memories with fondness. Of a young Queen defying the Senate to be with her people, of forming strange alliances and daring infiltration plans. Of Anakin, rushing off in battle with nothing but half formed plans and absolute confidence in his own abilities.
A light winks off across the sand. Owen must be finished for the evening. The first of the suns is almost to the horizon. Padme seems unconcerned with the growing dark. Well he supposes ghosts have little to fear from the creatures in the Wasteland.
"I should head back home." he says, biting back the request on his lips. Padme isn't anything like his Master, she isn't anything close to a Jedi, but one does not make demands on Force ghosts, this he knows.
"I'll follow" she says, drawing her pale skirts up. "You have much to catch me up on."
and with that they begin the journey back across the Wastes to his small house, Padme seeming to glide along the sand beside him.
"I didn't realize how lost I was," he admits, as they sit in the darkness of his home. He finds it easier to speak in the dark, with only the gentle glow of her form illuminating them.
They'd stuck to lighter, more mundane topics on the walk back. She'd drank in story after story of Luke, and laughed at his retellings of early misadventures as he'd gotten used to Tatooine living. She told him quiet moments she'd been able to glimpse of Leia. He'd treasure that story. He dare not contact Bail these days, dare not risk drawing attention to himself or Luke.
Now, sitting on the ragged couch with Padme hovering beside him, they delve into deeper topics. He reveals emotions he had barely dared admit to himself. His fears and his anger. Fears for Luke, of not being able to watch over the boy properly, of not being there the next time he wanders off to do something so fantastically stupid and brave. Fears of fading away, of dying alone here in the desert with no pyre and no one left to speak the ancient words over his body and the only the sand to wear him down and buried his bones. Lost and forgotten beneath the suns.
He admits his anger in halting whispers as well. Anger at Owen Lars for not letting him train Luke, anger at the Council for how could they all have sat there and missed the corruption seated at the very heart of their society, anger at himself for failing his duties, for not being able to help the people here. For failing Anakin, for not reaching out and doing more and...and tears are falling now and he foolishly thinks about wasting water so soon after the drought and what a ridiculous notion… and that's when he feels the cool press of lips against his forehead.
He shatters. Folding in on himself and just feels.
Padme's small form glows brighter as if trying to counteract the crushing despair and darkness he feels and he drinks in her comfort like a plant too long neglected and left dry. She pulls him close and whispers her own secrets instead. Whispers her hopes for a better future, whispers of her joy she feels in watching Luke grow and play and act so bravely. Her pride in Leia's fiery passion. She brushes kisses across his head and over his closed eyelids and down tear stained cheeks and tries to lessen his burden as best she can.
Two lonely souls drawn together in the darkness.