Chapter Text
He expects death, so he is not surprised when it comes to him. He can't hide the smile on his face, because finally, everything will end: suffering, pain, regret, the awareness of how much he has failed, loneliness, and the fact that he was never enough.
He deserves to be killed at the hands of Darth Vader, so he doesn't even try to defend himself. In a way, this is his punishment - for all he did to Anakin; for not trying to save him; for that he could not kill him even when he was burning in front of his eyes; that he was not a good enough Master for him; that he had hurt him more than anyone else.
Vader, though is a cruel monster, kills him surprisingly delicately. One movement of a lightsaber and it's all over.
Ben Kenobi dies.
At least Luke is safe, he tells himself as his consciousness fades. He cannot feel anything anymore, and then he is one with the Force.
He can finally rest at last.
Death is pleasant. He is seized with a calmness he has not felt in years. He no longer feels the pain of old bones, he no longer feels tired. He closes his eyes, feeling calm. Death becomes his salvation which he was not aware that he wanted and needed.
He doesn't feel his body, everything fades in the blessed darkness. He can almost sense Qui-Gon and any other Jedi that time has split him with.
It's so quiet around, so peaceful. The Death Star disappears, all the horrors that the Empire has created disappear. All that remains is the darkness and the delicate smell of gunpowder, which he senses and...
What?
The smell of gunpowder?
Ben Kenobi's eyes widen. Something is so wrong because he remembers dying, and yet now he feels his body, two hands, two legs, he feels himself breathing and his chest is moving because he is breathing and there is no lightsaber in his stomach and his robes are different and...
What?
What?
What's going on? He blinks, trying to understand the situation he's in.
He looks at his hands - young, unwrinkled - in surprise. He is dead, but it doesn't feel like his body is dead. He shouldn't have a body - yet he does. Why? What has happened?
Other sounds come to him like from behind the fog - yells, screams, a few curses, bullets, and the clang of armor. Men dressed in white fight side by side, defeating the enemies he remembers from years ago - from the days when everything was still easy, the world was black and white, and he had people he could trust, for whom he would give his life and who would die for him.
He stands still, staring at himself in shock. His hands, his clothes, his lightsaber - it's fallen from his hand, what is it doing here? And Luke, where's Luke? What happened to him, where is Vader, where is the Death Star, and where is–?
Oh.
Oh.
He has been on the Death Star before, on a gigantic space station full of white and gray. Now he is on the surface of a planet that he recognizes easily. Utapau. Why is he on Utapau? Why is the Force mocking him and sending him here? After all, it was here that the beginning of the end began, it was here that he was betrayed, it was here that his world began to break.
…Well, at least it's not Mustafar.
A grenade explodes next to him, hot air blowing through his face.
"General, you must move!" Someone grabs his arm and pulls him with him, and he follows him, still in shock.
A stormtrooper, he should fight - but does that make any sense? He is already dead, so why should he fight for his own life? Why should he resist them?
"General!" the same person releases him violently when the two of them are hiding behind a rock, using it as a temporary cover. The cacophony of sounds comes suddenly as if everything had been muted before, and now it's back to its rightful place. Bullets, so many shots traded between stormtroopers and… droids? What are droids doing here? "General, what's going on?!"
The stormtrooper who pulled him here removes his helmet.
He freezes.
He wouldn't have forgotten that face. He is unable to forget it even after so many years of exile to which he condemned himself.
Cody.
"General Kenobi?" Cody asks him, looking at him with concern. But then the world remembers about itself and there is an explosion somewhere nearby, and Cody puts on his helmet, pulls out his gun, and starts firing at those who are so close.
"Cody," he says, shocked all the time that he is able to say anything. "What's is happening?"
"We're in the middle of battle, can't you see, General? I would be grateful if you would deign to move rather than stand still like a peg, being the perfect target."
It is this answer - something that shouldn't have happened if it was a vision or as if he was dreaming - that is what makes it all come to him.
Something rolls on the ground and only when he bends down to get it does he realize that it is his lightsaber.
Ben Kenobi is dead.
And yet, Obi-Wan Kenobi is breathing right now.