Wookiee Alert: This chapter may contain some alluding to wookie, and no I don't mean Chewbacca, sorry chewy. Really It's only alluding, and a couple of double entendres. We're still in the T rating here. Just that I thought of this warning ahead of time and was really proud of it.

Chapter 16 – Penance

Obi-Wan gasped in shock for a moment. He felt lightheaded and he couldn't catch his breath. When Satine's face first came up on the holo he remembered feeling a desire just to hear her voice again. Then he felt afraid, not for his own sake, but for hers. He could sense her anxiety on the recording. Despite her pacifist beliefs, Satine is a fighter, and it takes a lot to get her to show her fears. And so he allowed the recording to play. Given Yoda's insistence he'd've been hard pressed to find an excuse to stop them, but he didn't have the desire to try.

Somewhere in his mind Obi-Wan was aware of the many eyes around the room that were now directed at him. Anakin had a giddy smile on his face. Of course he finds this amusing, thought Obi-Wan. Then that little girl's face came to his mind again and his eyes quickly filled with tears. Blazes, I'm a Father! It became difficult to see as tears clouded his vision.

"Give him some space," Someone, was that Anakin, said. Obi-Wan felt a hand guiding him to a sofa to sit down, and another hand on his back, giving him a supportive pat.


Anakin didn't know what was going on, but he'd never seen his master in such a state. Given the level of reaction, he figured that this was the first he'd seen of the girl, if he'd even known about her at all. Nope, Anakin recognized that combination of shock, fear, and amazement. To the casual observer the man had just been kidnapped and made to watch videos of Yoda singing in the shower, his worst nightmares, and cute fuzzy animals, all in rapid succession. Anakin sure felt lucky there were no Jedi around the senate building when Padme told him she was expecting. There would've been a few questions that's for sure.

"Time sensitive, this is," Yoda protested.

"I know, but we're not gonna get much more out of him til he absorbs this," Anakin told him. "Maybe Ahsoka knows more."


And so the next thing Anakin knew he and Yoda were traversing to the back yard to where Ahsoka was playing with the twins.

"So you watched it, huh," she surmised.

"Watched it, we did," said Yoda.

"And what does the absentee father have to say?" Ahsoka spat.

"Nothing to say, yet, he has," Yoda answered her.

"I don't think he even knew about the girl, he's in such a state of shock. What else do you know?" Anakin questioned.

"A couple of weeks ago our agents were traveling near Kalevala. They had some trouble with avoiding the empire. Satine found them, gave them this message and a live prisoner, and helped our agents through the sector."

"A live prisoner!" Anakin exclaimed.

"He's an agent of the empire. May even be an inquisitor. Apparently Satine captured him trying to take her child. Given her pacifist beliefs, she was uncomfortable killing him, and there are no legal bodies to keep him prisoner anymore. Well except ours, of course. He's being interrogated. Not a whole lot has been learned from him yet, but they're still trying."

"Hmm. Help, perhaps the Jedi can be. Give you a message for the rebellion, I will," said Yoda.

"I don't know much else, besides that. The child is only a couple of months old, according to our agents. The recording is legitimate, and unaltered. I checked." Ahsoka turned to watch Luke fly his toy speeder to land on a nearby stone. "Besides that, I think only Obi-Wan can answer your questions."

Yoda nodded, "And what he knows, we shall see."


Anakin and Yoda walked back into the house. Obi-Wan was sitting on the couch and Cliegg was beside him in his hover-chair. Seeing them return, Cliegg tapped Obi-Wan's shoulder and moved away.

On the Holo-screen the recording was paused on the moment where the infant was revealed. Obi-Wan sat staring at the child. He looked loads better than before, though he was still throwing off enough raw emotion to wreak any padawan's focus.

"Ready to explain this now, you are." Yoda said as he stepped in front of Obi-Wan.

Anakin sat beside him on the couch and leaned over playfully. "Come on Obi-Wan. We have lots of questions."

Obi-Wan turned to Anakin, with tears in his eyes. "I didn't know. I swear Anak-in, I didn't know." His voice broke part way through.

"I know, master. I know." Anakin cocked his head and smiled again. "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

Obi-Wan took several deep breaths before he started. "After the purge. After Yoda told me he didn't see any hope in anything except to hide."

"That hope would not find us unless we were looking for it, you said. Remember this I do." Yoda added.

Obi-Wan continued, "I had no where to go. It was just me wandering alone in my old ship. I had no idea where Anakin even was, and he wasn't answering his comm yet. I had stopped in a Cantina. There were these two rough necks who managed to corner me. They immediately started talking about collecting a bounty the empire was offering for any Jedi. Then Satine came in swinging. She stunned them both. When I told her that I had nowhere to go, she said she'd have me at her place. But it didn't take long before we had a row."


"What do you mean you faked your death!" Obi-Wan yelled. He hadn't been this mad in a long time.

"Maul gave me no choice. I could watch him torture my people and turn them into an army of evil, or I could participate in his insane exhibition," Satine was heavily emotional. This conversation ceased to go the direction she'd intended long before this.

"I thought you had died! You could at least have signaled me somehow! Let me know not to trust what I was seeing!" As Obi-Wan yelled he circled her and didn't bother to suppress his emotions. They were on fire now. "Or found me afterwards!"

"You didn't bother to send me any signals when you faked your death! When I went to your funeral! Anyways what does it matter to you? Why does the Jedi care? Besides, I said…"

"I loved you!..." Both shouted it together. They were breathing hard as they stared at each other.

"And I meant it," Satine whispered. She had tears in her eyes.


"And I don't know who moved first. The next thing I knew we were kissing. I didn't know what to feel. It was the first time anything like that's ever happened to me. I was breaking the code, but everything the force was telling me was good. There were many times where I'd almost left. Each time the force was there telling me to stay, and everything in me wanted it, wanted her. Besides, I had no where else to go, so I kept going back." Obi-Wan looked down in shame. "I thought something was wrong with me. How could the force be telling me to break the code?"


Obi-Wan took several long breaths before he continued. "And then when Yoda started coming me again, when he sent me to go with Anakin on that mission to Wrea, it was the first time I left her. After we completed the mission, I was careful about asking Yoda about attachments. I suggested to him that you," Obi-Wan motioned to Anakin, "had struggled with an attachment with Palpatine. He suggested grace and said that attachments were most dangerous when they were used against us."

Yoda threw up his arms. "Many lectures I gave. One conversation, you remembered."

"But you weren't looking for a lecture. You were looking for permission." Anakin's serious face twisted his lips to tease a smile.

"No. I guess it really didn't matter what Yoda said. I knew he wasn't going to throw the book at you. Anakin, you'd just saved us. If you hadn't reported Sidious when you did, who knows how many of us would even be here." As Obi-Wan said this Anakin looked down in shame. He still felt he should have done more. "It was still very early, and I don't think either of us fully expected me to return. When I did, I made her so happy." Anakin's eyebrows shot up. "I told myself it wasn't an attachment. Nothing I couldn't stop if I had to. We settled into a routine. I'd leave every so often to do Jedi business, sometimes swearing that I wasn't coming back, but always in the end I'd return."

Across the room Cliegg scoffed. "How you Jedi can talk about Love in the same way one talks about an addiction, I'll never understand."

Owen laughed. "Still, you know how to tell a man's addicted, when he insists he can stop if he wants to."

Obi-Wan continued, "Well, I did stop. I did walk away, about nine months ago. Things were really going well. I hadn't threatened to leave in so long, and I'd even shaved my beard. She never liked it. But then I started to notice an increase in empire activity in our sector. They were doing random sweeps and I realized what Yoda meant, about attachments being used against us. I knew if I were discovered with Satine, I'd do anything to protect her. And she still could've been killed because of me. I couldn't put her life on the line like that. It was the hardest decision I ever made. I had no idea she was p-p." His breath faltered at the word and tears streamed down his face.

"Yeah, Yoda was setting up Melren at the time, and you asked to stay, I remember," Anakin finished.

"And there we have the definition of Love. Giving up one's own happiness for the sake of another," Cliegg put in.

Obi-Wan looked to Anakin for support, but he was nodding in agreement.

"Much to learn about attachments, there is," Yoda hummed.

"And did you tell her why you were leaving?" Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan's head snapped to Anakin. Then he looked down in shame. "No, I commed her and implied I was staying with the order, but I didn't want to endanger her by mentioning the inquisitors or any specifics. I suppose I should have said more."

"Where is Satine now?" Yoda asked.

"On Kalevala, her old home world. I recognized the location of the video." Suddenly Obi-Wan's eyes became large with fear. "I have to go to her. I have to help them."

"To Kalevala we shall go," Yoda agreed.

"I'll fly," Anakin sounded excited.

"Hurry, we must," said Yoda, and Anakin dragged a hyperventilating Obi-Wan along with them.


After they left the Lars's in search for a ship, Padme emerged from the back room. "Shmi I put Leo to sleep in your room. It took forever to get him to settle. Hey, where's Anakin?"

"He, Yoda, and Obi-Wan are on their way to Kalevala. They need to protect Obi-Wan's daughter from the Sith." Beru summarized. "Though she sounded really mad on the holo-video, so I don't know how that reunion's going to go."

"What! Always after I leave a room, does it finally get interesting." Padme was floored.


Hello everyone,

I know I broke cannon with Satine, having her only faked her death in the animated Star Wars episode. I never actually saw the episode, so I don' know how much is feasible. I'm going off of youtube clips here and Wookieepedia. Anyways, it was a small, calculated break. I hope you don't mind.

I've already started writing the next part, and it's gonna be fun.

Please do leave reviews. This site is having a slight issue with reviews not showing up right away. They say it will be resolved soon, but If I haven't sent you a response yet, that's why. I also cross post on AO3, under the same username.