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It's surreal, standing there in the medical bay holding the hand of a woman whose husband he just killed as she screams and pants and brings life into the world. Two lives. Anakin's children.
Padmé almost breaks his hand, a reminder to Obi-Wan that she is capable of more strength than he ever imagined. He should know by now what this woman is made of, he's seen her prove herself in so many ways, but at the back of his mind is a voice that accuses. How could she?
He ignores it, buries down with the rest of the trauma and grief and shock he's too exhausted to process, and it stays there for a long time, because there's too much else at stake. He feels torn apart by duties he was never really prepared for, and honestly, leaving the Jedi is such an easy decision it takes his breath away. All the promises and vows he's made have no weight at all when he's looking into the eyes of another woman who's lost and alone and begging for his help - the past and present merge in his mind and all he can see is another pair of pleading eyes, mistakes made on his part that he will never fully be able to reconcile and he cannot, he cannot leave again.
So when Padmé looks at her children, twin infants he is somehow holding in his arms though he thinks he's the very last person to be trusted with another young life, and asks:
"What am I going to do, Obi-Wan?"
What comes out of his mouth is neither a platitude or a promise, it's a decision. "I'll help you," he says, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world, despite the fact that he's already screwed up horribly with Anakin - and Ahsoka, too. "We'll go somewhere, keep them safe."
"The Jedi will come for them," she worries, and he knows what she's asking.
"We will keep them safe," he says again, feeling the promise sink in, a vow that is now as much a part of him as his own bones. The truth of it hurts, but he knows - the Jedi are just as much a danger to Anakin's children as Palpatine is, and whatever their motives, they will try just as hard to steal them away and use them for their own purposes, mold them in the way they couldn't mold their father.
That can't happen. Ahsoka, for all her misguided youth, was right, he realizes. The Jedi have lost their way. Yet another piece of him rips itself away and feels so insubstantial at this point he's surprised when he looks down and finds himself still standing, still whole with Anakin's children in his arms. Grief stings his chest, but he pushes it down. Later, later.
"Where would we go?" Padmé asks, and it's a welcome distraction. "My sister has a cabin back home on Naboo, it's well hidden, kind of a family secret."
It won't do forever, they will be looking for her there, but little Luke starts crying and his sister kicks Obi-Wan's ribs and it's decided. For the moment, they will go to Naboo.
What the Amidalas call a "cabin" other people would more accurately describe as a mansion, but it is well-hidden, in a little grotto behind a spectacular waterfall on the edge of a swamp, accessible only by a water-speeder capable of submersion, unless one is a gungan. Getting out of the medical bay and into a ship on Coruscant without alerting anyone requires help from Master Yoda, but when Obi-Wan meets the old Jedi's eyes he sees a deeply familiar sadness there, and they have an understanding. Yoda will not betray them, and no being in the entire galaxy has the power to take that knowledge from his old friend's mind. Not even Palpatine, wherever that monster has disappeared to after his failure to overthrow the Republic.
It worries him that the master Sith is still out there somewhere, and no doubt looking for a new apprentice, though losing Anakin to Obi-Wan's saber after he spent so long grooming him has probably thrown a spanner in his elaborate plans. Obi-Wan has no doubt he'll recover quickly, the old man is too crafty not to have contingencies for his contingencies, but he has to leave hunting down the Sith to others. He's no Jedi anymore, his faith in the Order died alongside his beloved padawan.
It still nearly kills him when he feels their deaths resonating through the Force, a thousand and one scorching blades stabbing through his mind and spirit, their screams of pain and shock and horror bringing him to his knees in Padmé's room where she's rocking her children. It's the middle of the night on Naboo, but the infants have no care for time or the sleeping patterns of adults, and there are no servants in the residence, no droids but R2, who is sympathetic, but not equipped to care for newborns.
"Obi-Wan!"
The fear in her voice finally reaches him, or maybe it's the feeble reaches of tiny little minds through the Force, a double-image of panic and need that overrides his own. He knows she's been calling his name for a while, can see the tears of true terror at the edges of her eyes, and her hands on his shoulder and face are both desperate and soothing.
"Talk to me, please!" She pleads, but he's helpless to respond, doesn't even know how to put into words and doesn't want to. She doesn't need this, not now. He wants to shield her as much as possible, though he knows it's futile.
He touches her hands instead of speaking, offering wordless assurances, promises that he will talk to her - he will, when he can get ahold of himself - and comforts the babes first. It's easier to think when they're not screaming, and tending to them, rewrapping swaddlings and stroking pink little cheeks, is soothing to his soul. He's not their father, but they're his now, more of a family than he ever expected to have.
He sits with Leia in his arms - of the two, the girl is more demanding and she tends to set the tone for her brother - on a balcony set directly below the waterfall. It's beautiful, and the sound of the water is so overpowering it makes it easy to meditate, although he doesn't dare do that. The Force itself feels like it's in mourning, and Obi-Wan is sick with it, as are both the twins. Luke is asleep in his crib, finally, exhausted from crying, but little Leia will not tolerate being separated from him for a single second, not even for her mother. It's exasperating for all of them, but Padmé takes it with her usual grace, the instinctive wisdom that has always guided her never faltering.
She still doesn't know he killed Anakin.
Or rather, she does - she must know, it's the logical conclusion and she's always had a keen mind - but he hasn't told her, and they don't speak of him. Grief haunts them all, as constant a presence as the endless roar of flowing water overhead, permeating everything. More so now, amplified by the dying screams and terror-filled final moments of a thousand other Jedi. Obi-Wan lists them in his head, mercilessly. Mace Windu. Aayla Secura. Depa Billaba. Plo Koon. Luminara Unduli.
Anakin Skywalker.
There are a few he doesn't feel, that he hopes desperately might have escaped, but he doesn't linger on thoughts of them for too long. They are as lost as the dead to him, now. He can't help them, and they can do nothing for him but bring unwanted attention.
Somehow, without him needing to explain it all, Padmé pieces it together. Some of it, he's sure, must come from R2. The droid doesn't broadcast or transmit regularly, but sometimes he goes out on the roof, in a cleverly-disguised little crevice on the steep cliffside, and puts up his antenna. He brings back images and sound bites that Obi-Wan finds too painful to give much attention to.
He holds Leia so she will sleep, and he thinks.
"We can't stay here," he tells her one day, perhaps a week later.
"I know," because of course she does. "There are some people I know on Yavin IV. R2 says he can redirect a cargo ship from Gungan Territory. We can arrange a rendezvous in a few days."
"Yes." He's too tired to argue, and the droid has never steered them wrong. Sometimes he thinks it actually has a Force presence, the little astromech is so uncannily prescient. It's not possible, but R2-D2 is special. Perhaps it absorbed something from all of the Jedi around it, or it's a side effect of Anakin's peculiar habit of refusing to ever wipe his memory.
Whatever it is, R2-D2 gets the four of them off of Naboo safely before the clone troopers find the cabin, though it's a near thing. Padmé shoots down a probe droid the morning before they sneak aboard the cargo ship, and they pass a troop transport on their way out of Naboo space. They travel as lightly as possible, though with two babes and all of their necessities, it's not as light as Obi-Wan would like.
Stealing away in the night becomes so commonplace they are professionals at it by the time the children are two years old. After Yavin, they spend six months on Corellia, hiding from the Empire under their own nose, and then they go from Ryloth to Hosnian Prime for a few months, Mandalore to Arjan Kloss to Dantooine in the span of six standard weeks. When they can finally catch their breath again, they meet on Tatooine, in an abandoned dug-out rented from jawas, after having to separate for travel.
Padmé immediately takes Leia from him, checking her over anxiously as if she still doesn't trust him to manage on his own, though he's learned now that he should let it go. It's just a mother's instinct and there's no reason to get overly worked up over it, but he's tired, and the little girl was almost asleep. Now she's fussy, and if she doesn't settle she will wake up her brother and then none of them will get any sleep.
"She's fine," he sighs. "Do you honestly think I'd let her get hurt?"
"Of course not!" She snaps, and he flinches. They've argued before, but he's never seen such anger in her eyes before. "You're the perfect parent! You worship her, and she worships you, I'm sure you're fine without me. You're always fine without me! You don't need me at all!"
"Padmé -" He reaches out to calm her, takes a step closer to where she's standing looking down at the twins in the little squared-sided pallet he made for them, just as she turns around to face him, her hands furiously working to fold a blanket though it seems like she'd rather be tearing it in half.
"She's my daughter, Obi-Wan! Not yours!"
The tears in her eyes take away some of the sting, but it still hurts. The words don't matter as much as the venom in them, although he's surprised to find a part of him that recoils, that protests. Of course he knows he didn't father them, but they're still his children, he couldn't love them anymore even if they were his blood. In spite of what he knows is the right way to handle this, his back stiffens.
"Padmé, you know I gave up everything for them," he protests tiredly. "They are my children. Don't try to tell me -"
"They're not! You're my friend, Obi-Wan, and I appreciate your help, but you'll never be their father -"
She bites her lip.
They stand there, staring at each other. Padmé looks more fragile than he's ever seen her.
He feels something dark and painful rising in his chest, emotions so strong they make him gasp for breath and he can - he can't - he cannot have these thoughts about her, but it's too late. It's always been too late. He's very, very good at hiding his emotions, although he was never as good at it as a Jedi should be. It's how he failed Qui-Gon, how he failed Anakin, failed Satine - those stupid, stubborn, selfish feelings that are always just outside of his control, leaving him teetering, unbalanced, the opposite of how a Jedi should be.
He can't help it, he makes the same mistake again, as always hoping that this time it will be the right choice, that his faith in another person is for once not misplaced.
"I wish I was," he admits, finally, to her and himself.
"What?!" She stares at him, big brown eyes wide and sparkling with tears, and he takes a halting, hesitant step towards her, and she makes a little, broken sound like a wild animal, her eyes darting all over his face. He expects her to run, to slap him or turn around and gather up her children and leave.
Padmé Amidala does none of those things.
All of this time, he's wondered how it happened. Not perversely, he doesn't want to know the details, not like that, but he's wondered about her, because the woman he knows - the queen, the senator - she would never compromise her morals or anyone else's. Never bend the rules to her own whims and expect the galaxy to forgive her, or make the choice to fall into bed with a man who made a vow of chastity and then lie about. Senator Amidala's virtue was unquestionable.
So he'd wondered… how, why, when…?
Now he sees it. There's a light in her eyes, a smugness, a slight twist of her mouth that is both inviting and challenging and he knows deep down that it's always been there. This isn't the senator or the queen, this is Padmé the woman, just herself and nothing more, no titles or fancy gowns or eloquent speeches. She's a person, with human needs and wants and feelings and she's inviting him to share those things with her.
She comes to him, because Obi-Wan can't move. He shudders under her touch like a nervous falthier, but she soothes him with gentle strokes over his face and neck. Her fingers comb through his hair and she pulls him down, guides him to bury his face in her shoulder, whispers his name in a soft, private tone, a caress of sound that devastates him.
"I'm sorry," he confesses to a thousand crimes they've never spoken of, and a longing he never, ever thought he would have to admit. "I'm so sorry."
"Shh," her body presses against him, warm and soft and everywhere and he shudders.
He kisses her neck because he can't bring himself to meet her eyes yet, feels her respond in ways that wake up his body like he hasn't felt in what seems like decades, and he can't, he shouldn't, he doesn't even know how to -
"It's okay, Obi, it's okay."
He lifts his arms and wraps her up, crushes her to him, shaking and sobbing, too overwhelmed to do anything but hold onto her and bear it out. Everything around him is suddenly very present, he feels the sand on their skin, in her hair, the cool breeze of night in the desert, the coarse fabric of their clothes and the Force, the Force is in it all, warm and bright and blessedly pure again, pouring into him and through him. He breathes it in like a drowning man breathes that first big gulp of fresh air, over and over. It comes with Padmé's scent, and he knows he's ruined now, no matter what happens, when he reaches for the Force it will smell like night-blooming flowers and sweet plums and it doesn't matter because he's never going to let go of her. Not her, not this time.
Her skin is soft and cool when it touches his lips, as inviting as water in the dry desert and the sigh she gives as his mouth opens over it goes straight through him. He’s tentative at first, even reverent, but suddenly he can’t get enough and he’s moving purely on need and instinct, lips roving all over, anywhere he can find skin, until she digs her fingers into his scalp and drags his face up to hers. Their eyes meet only for the span of a few seconds before their lips do, and there’s nothing slow or tentative about that, he takes what she offers eagerly, tilts her head back with one hand cupping her face so he can access her better. Her mouth parts with another little sigh that becomes a moan when he licks into the gap, not pushing, just carefully tasting, waiting for consent but also savoring the moment.
It’s bliss, the heat of her plush mouth and the warmth of her lips - slightly chapped, though he remedies that quickly - and she tastes like caf and honey and like nothing else he can name, sweet and uniquely her, and he wants more of it immediately. But he can’t rush this, there’s too much at stake, for both of them really, and he honestly doesn’t really know what he’s doing. The life of a Jedi doesn’t encourage much in the way of kissing, although it’s not completely unknown to him - he sets those memories aside for now, they have no place here. He will not ruin this moment with his pain.
It’s Padmé who presses for more, her clever little tongue darting out to tease his and then slide into his mouth when he gasps, and he just lets her take and take, whatever she wants, anything. Her hands flutter down his back, fingers trailing his spine, but he’s not even remotely prepared for it when they come around and start peeling away his clothing with sure, swift movements. He lets her push away his outer garments, drops his robe and belt to the floor with abandon (though he is careful to levitate his lightsaber over within reach), but he stops her when she tries to slide her fingers under his shirt.
“Padmé.” His voice sounds foreign to him, breathless and younger than he actually is, filled with uncertainty. They stare at each other awkwardly as he holds her hands in his, and then she smiles gently and he knows he’s lost this battle before it even begins. “I’ve never -”
“I know that,” she chides with soft laughter that is only slightly mocking. “I know. But you trust me, don’t you?”
Does he? Ten minutes ago he had no idea that this side of her even existed, and now she’s looking at him with a determination that is frankly intimidating, but he does - he does want to trust her. He’s trusted her with his life before, surely this isn’t much different.
(It is, but he’s going to do it anyway.)
“Yes,” he agrees, and she leads him to the pile of animal skins and blankets in the corner that is what passes for a bed on this backwater sand planet. He watches her disrobe, just sits there with his eyes glued to her every movement, unable to help because his own hands are trembling and clumsy. Obi-Wan has never felt clumsy in his life, he’s done backflips over yawning canyons of certain doom, but this woman makes him feel like the teenager he doesn’t ever remember being, even when they first met and he was still a Jedi padawan escorting the far-too-mature, fourteen-year-old queen across a galaxy that was only beginning to become hostile. He was so sure of himself then, a student just finishing one final mission before he tackled the trials and became a master, confident in his abilities and full of blind, youthful devotion to his path.
His faith in Force now is a shaky, complicated thing, awash with doubt and bitterness and he's astounded that he ever felt it so clarion-clear. If Qui-Gon could see him now, what would he think? It doesn't matter, he tells himself. He's put the past away, speculations on the Jedi have no place here, especially right now.
Padmé takes over his thoughts absolutely, and he lets himself be consumed by her.
It's so easy to do. She's gorgeous, just as mesmerizing in her naked glory as she ever was in the costumes of a queen as she reaches out for him. They fall together and he rolls on top of her, because at this point he needs to have some kind of control over this whole thing or he’s going to panic and quite possibly run into the dead cold of the night with no clothes on, so.
So.
He gets his mouth back on her skin and it’s a steep plunge from there, despite his internal awkwardness, his body seems to know what to do and he just lets it take over. There’s so much of Padmé to touch and taste, he wants it all, wants to run his tongue over every inch of her, the sleek curve of her neck and the jutte of her collarbones and - Force be with him - her silky, full little breasts that fill his mouth perfectly and make his mind go completely, blessedly empty.
He has no idea what he expected, but the way the Jedi treat these things, the high-minded disdain and disgust for pleasures of the flesh, always gave him the impression that it would feel wrong or degenerate, like there were tendrils of the Dark side woven through it. If anything, it is the exact opposite. Padmé is everything that is good and pure and bright in the world, and he knows he’s addicted now, but it’s not a drug, it’s not a slow slide that is going to take over his life and destroy him. It’s not the Dark side, it’s the Light. And he doesn’t dwell on it, because he can’t really keep any thoughts in his head at all right now, but he understands a little why Anakin would lose himself over it, and how he could do what he did for her.
That’s the danger, he understands now. It’s not that love and sex are gateways to the Dark side, it’s that being this close to the Light, feeling it pour through your body so purely - there’s no other experience like it. Nothing can compete with the bliss he feels right now, no meditation or righteous cause or greater good, and if he were a weaker man, he would give up everything for it, even his own soul. He can see how that choice might be made, if one was purposely manipulated and misguided.
But it’s not a choice he would make, because she would never have him if he fell to the Dark, he’s well aware of that, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s relieved. Unburdened.
He stops, opens his eyes to look down at her, just to see her face again and take her in. She’s beautiful as always, dark hair spread out around her head and a red flush in her cheeks, her brown eyes nearly all pupil as they seek out his. A cloud of confusion and anxiety darkens her expression and she reaches up to stroke his jaw with one hand, thumb tracing the line of his beard.
“What is it? Obi-Wan?”
“Nothing.” He ducks his head to kiss her palm, moves his lips slowly down the line of her wrist before meeting her gaze again with a smile. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just… I didn’t know it could be so… right.”
“We don’t have to go on, if you don’t want to, I understand -”
“No, no. I want to,” he stops her with a kiss, which melts into something much longer than he intended, as he makes an extra effort to prove to her that he means what he says. When they part, she’s smiling again, though her eyes are still roving over him like she’s searching for any hint of hesitation, so he says it again; “I want to.”
She nods, and then she shifts beneath him, gently pushing on his chest until he understands her intentions and gets to his feet so he can scramble out of the rest of his clothes and she can deftly slide under the blankets, slipping out of her underclothes so when he crawls in beside her there’s absolutely nothing between them. His heart is pounding as he moves in closer, every sensation alight to the slightest stimulation. It’s so overwhelming he just stares at her, frozen and feeling that earlier awkwardness starting to creep back over him, but Padmé is kind and smart and perceptive, and she has the benefit of experience.
“Lay down,” she instructs, eyes glinting with amusement as he huffs and blinks rapidly, then does it, sprawling flat on his back and watching as she climbs over him. He gulps in a breath when her body drapes over his, bare skin on skin everywhere, her thighs parted wide around him and her - her hot core so, so close. He has no idea what to do from here, he can’t move, but he aches for something, anything, and he opens his mouth to ask her what she wants from him only to find her mouth over his, reclaiming whatever intimacy they’ve lost in the past few moments of repositioning.
She kisses him until he relaxes again, all the sudden tension melting slowly from his body, and finally he can bring his arms up to hold her, slide his palms down the soft, supple skin of her back, heated from their exertions. He breaks away to spread kisses down her neck and lick at the curve of her shoulder, eliciting another of those surprised little gasps he’s coming to adore, and she leans into it, offering more of herself, always more. Everywhere his hands move, she arches into his touch like a loth-cat, and he contents himself for a moment with just that, touching and tasting, surrounded by her scent and the thick veil of her hair.
Then she moves a little, slides her body down and her hand finds a way to fit between them, taking hold of him with a confident grip, and he makes a noise that should be embarrassing, but he’s too overwhelmed to care. It’s just her hand, and it’s not like he’s never touched himself before - it’s not exactly encouraged by the Jedi, but it’s not specifically forbidden, either - it shouldn’t be that much different, but it is. And if she keeps moving it like that, this is not going to take very long, so he has to stop her.
“Don’t,” he hisses with his eyes closed, running a familiar meditation technique through his mind, a mantra that’s always served to soothe in the past, although it’s not doing much for him now. “I won’t last.”
“Oh, Obi-Wan,” she laughs again, but it’s gentle, understanding, and instead of letting go, she shifts her body up slightly, and then - then - “Is this okay?”
“Yes,” he barely manages to whine. “Please - Oh -”
It’s transcendent, there’s no other word for it.
When Obi-Wan was very, very young, almost before he could really form memories, he reached out with his mind and something bright and warm reached back. This is like that - like the first time he touched the Force, pure and blinding and all-consuming. It changes him in a different way, but like the Force, it doesn’t, it can’t feel wrong. It’s too pure, too perfect. He clutches her hips with probably too much strength, but he can’t help it, he has to hold onto something. Padmé doesn’t seem to mind, as she’s just as lost in it as he is when he opens his eyes and looks up at her. Her head is thrown back, her hands planted firmly on his chest and her mouth is parted for a sharp moan that she quiets quickly - now would be the worst possible time to wake the twins, who are somehow miraculously both asleep - and she still manages to look regal to him, somehow.
She licks her lips and opens her eyes, holding his gaze as she angles her body and rolls her hips, taking him in deeper and deeper with each slow movement. Obi-Wan can’t speak, there are no words for this, so he just watches the expressions of pleasure light up her features as she settles into a rhythm that is comfortable for her. His body wants to move with her, but he has to give himself a moment to adjust or it’ll all be over very quickly.
Padmé finds his hands and brings them up to her breasts, giving him a very pointed, demanding look, which unexpectedly draws a laugh from him. It breaks some of the tension inside him, and he smirks at her as he eagerly complies with her wishes, squeezing and rolling the tender flesh, circling her dusky nipples with his thumbs.
“What are you laughing at?” Her rhythm slows, then stops, and oh no, he can’t have that. He slides his feet up, bending his knees, and it throws her forward a little, evoking a startled squeak followed by a moan as he picks up where she left off.
“You’re very demanding,” he tells her, watching her carefully for signs that he’s doing something wrong - or right. “I didn’t expect that.”
“I know what I like, and we don’t have a lot of time,” she shrugs unapologetically. As an answer, he picks up the pace and it’s so good he can’t stop, she’s so soft and incredibly hot inside and he just can’t not move, it feels like that moment in a battle when he’s finally gotten the upper hand and he knows exactly how he’s going to win, can predict the opponent’s every move and precisely how to counter it. He may be the apprentice here, but he’s always been an excellent student, and he knows how to follow through.
“Obi-Wan!” she cries in his ear as she drops her upper body down on top of him, moving with him now, both of them increasingly urgent now that she’s reminded them that they don’t have time to linger. “Oh, Maker - yes, yes! - harder, it’s okay, please -”
“Well if that’s what you want -”
“- Oh! -”
It’s so easy to reach out and grasp the Force like this, he’s never felt as close to it as he does when he’s inside her, and he moves them both with a grace and prowess that would have impressed even the oldest Jedi, though they would never condone what he’s using it for. On top of her now, he takes over, and he gives what she asked for, throws himself into it single-mindedly. It feels so good to just thrust into her, he buries himself over and over and Padmé moans and cries with such abandon that he has to spare one hand to cover her mouth, though he does it gently. She closes her eyes and lets him, wraps her legs around him with a strength he didn’t expect, and he finally lets the last shred of his caution fall away, plunging down into pure, sweet oblivion -
He knows he’s failed her, but he can’t really bring himself to care in the moment, his body jerks and he pants her name as he spills into her. She strokes his hair as he apologizes, shaking her head slightly and cradling him as he comes down from the height of it, gets his breath back.
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay.”
He breathes in her scent one more time and rolls away, already feeling a wash of anxiety and disappointment in himself. He almost turns away from her, he just can’t imagine that she even wants to be near him, so he’s shocked when she finds his hand and drags hims close, nestling in against his side with a pleased hum.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“Why?” She sounds so amused and exasperated that he opens his eyes, and when he does she’s right there, her eyes still warm and bright and full of affection that he doesn’t deserve. She sees his expression and laughs again. “Obi-Wan. You’re not the master here, remember?”
Then she takes his hand and guides him, and his eyes go wide when she pushes his fingers directly against her hot, slick center. “Here, feel,” she instructs, gasping when he tentatively moves his fingers. There’s something there, a hard, swollen nub of flesh right at the apex, and from the way she whimpers and writhes when he strokes it, it must be very sensitive.
“Yes,” she encourages as he rubs slowly, “gently… like that… don’t stop…”
He gets to watch, with equal parts wonder and fascination, as she comes apart at his touch, shuddering and clutching his hand tight between tense thighs. He presses his lips to her neck, tasting the salt of sweat on hot skin, and nuzzles his face there, listening to her panting breaths slowly ease. When she finally releases his hand, he feels the moisture on his fingers and can’t help it, he’s already so enamored of her taste everywhere else, he has to taste her there, too.
She watches him, laughing breathlessly as he licks every trace of her from his hand. It’s different than her mouth or her skin or her breasts, not sweet in the same way, and much sharper, but he likes it. He thinks about what she would do if he were to lap it directly from the source.
“Another time,” she promises, seeing the spark in his eyes. “We should sleep now.”
Padmé sleeps, nestled up against him with one leg twined over his. Obi-Wan lies there with his eyes closed, but there is no sleep coming for him, his mind is moving too fast. Thoughts spiral in his head, seemingly at random. He thinks of Qui-Gon, his unorthodox old master, truly tries to imagine what the man would say to him now, if he'd judge or give advice. They never spoke about things like this, of course, but he thinks his master is one of the few Jedi who might hear him out, possibly have a mind open to understanding. He thinks of Ahsoka, leaving the Jedi for very different reasons, and wonders if she's still out there now, can imagine her teasing smirk and the shake of her head, montrals waving.
There are at least some, he thinks, who might understand his choices and not begrudge him this unorthodox path back to Light.
Lastly, he thinks about Anakin. The pain there is still fresh, still as excruciating as it was the day he stood over his former apprentice - his partner, best friend, brother - and dispatched his life with a final swish of the same lightsaber he still carries hidden behind his belt. Not a day goes by that he doesn't remember that battle, those last moments in Palpatine's office in perfect, haunting detail, but tonight he thinks about Anakin if he had lived. If there had been some way, some stopping point, if only he had been just a few minutes faster, arrived before other man made his final pledge to the Dark, could he have stopped it? Mace Windu couldn't, but Anakin never liked the master Jedi, he was the driving force of the council, everything Anakin desired and the unmoving wall that separated him from it. Would Obi-Wan's appeals have held weight that Master Windu's did not?
He'll never know, and it will never stop haunting him. He feels the bright, shining twin flames of Luke and Leia in the Force, vibrant even in their sleep, and his heart aches. He has now, for better or worse, the life that should have been Anakin's. Should have, but… Was it ever really an option for his impulsive young friend? He was ever-ambitious, always seeking more, and if Obi-Wan is honest, looking back, it's clear that he should never have been given the title of Jedi. The darkness that swallowed Anakin wasn't a surprise, not even to him, and he knew both the good and bad of the other man as innately as he knew his own. Yes, he would have fought the entire Jedi Council and Palpatine for the sake of his children, with relish, but would he have had the grace to step away and go into hiding for them?
Obi-Wan tells himself it doesn't matter what Anakin would have done. He's here, he's alive and he will protect the children and the woman in his arms any way he has to.
They stay on Tatooine for a longer time than they have anywhere else. It's an empty, boring ball of sand and desert and crusty, washed up criminals and no one will come looking for them on the same backwater planet Anakin Skywalker came from. Padmé cuts her hair, which Obi-Wan hates, and dyes it blue, which is interesting in a way, and she works at a casino, which he hates even more. But they need credits and a place to live, and of the two of them, she is more adaptable and personable so it's a job that suits her.
Obi-Wan's skillset doesn't really lend itself to much in the desert lifestyle, but he knows how to use a weapon and the crime lords are almost always looking for bounty hunters or guards or bouncers or some other kind of strong-arm. It's not work that he particularly enjoys, nor is he well-suited to it, but fortunately his grumpiness and overall attitude are taken as part of the usual street tough facade, and he's skilled enough that employers quickly learn to look past it. If he refuses certain jobs that are exploitative or gorey, it's ascribed to arrogance or laziness, both common traits in that line of work, and not the over-abundance of compassion that it truly is.
The Empire comes to Tatooine when the children are eight years old, and it's the worst possible timing. It happens one day while Obi-Wan is buying contraband supplies from the back of the cantina in Mos Espa with Luke. The boy is supposed to be there to help him, but he knows he's really just interested in ogling all the speeders parked nearby and pestering the pilots at the bar for stories. Leia stays with their bantha, Muu, unhappily wrapped up in scarves to keep the fair complexion she’s inherited from their mother from scorching in the sun, and to keep slavers from noticing that she’s also inherited Padmé’s looks.
He's talking to the proprietor about the stormtrooper brigade and the barracks they appear to be building, and in the five seconds his attention is not on Luke, it happens. The boy steals a speeder. Or, he climbs onto one and starts playing with the controls and then it's off like a starfighter streaking across the desert.
It takes Obi-Wan precious minutes to secure another speeder to go and catch him, and when he does, he doesn't look very carefully at the person whose hand he pushes credits into. It's not until he catches Luke and gets the boy aboard with him back into town, the accidentally-stolen vehicle floating behind them on a tether, that he sees the troopers standing outside the front of the cantina. He has no choice but to stop and answer their officer’s questions, though thankfully the sharp-faced woman is not all that interested in a gruff bounty hunter and his misbehaving urchin.
"Where abouts do you live?" One white-helmeted man asks, and Obi-Wan has to hide his surprise, because that's not a clone voice.
"Over the hills, past the old krayt dragon den in the cliffs," he gestures vaguely. Thankfully their home is a long, long way out and the officer looks too busy to waste time following Muu’s pathetic pace all the way through the desert. It’s so far that they have to take turns staying home with the children, and Padmé stays in town when she's working at the casino, two weeks on and one week off - this week she's serving tables on a pleasure barge somewhere off to the east.
"This the first time your son's done something like this?" The officer scowls, though he can’t tell if she’s glaring at Luke or just unaccustomed to the blaring light of two suns reflecting off the pale sands.
"Yes. He didn't mean to, I'm afraid he's just too curious for his own good and has no understanding of the controls on a speederbike," he explains in a carefully neutral voice.
"I understand!" Luke pipes up, because of course he does. He goes silent in shock when Obi-Wan cuffs his ear - he's never struck either of the twins, and never will again, but he needs to sell the part he's playing.
"You're in enough trouble," he growls. “Be quiet or you’ll be shoveling bantha droppings all night with no supper.”
"What's your name?"
"Ben," he tells the guards. It's what he's used for years now, the name Luke and Leia know him by, besides "father." They don't know he's not their blood - though he's certain at least Leia suspects - the twins are too young to keep that kind of secret.
"Well, Ben, you better keep a handle on that brat," another trooper grumbles. "We got enough trouble with these cantina gangs, we can't have little urchins running around stealing speeders."
Obi-Wan just nods impatiently, keeping a strong grip on Luke's arm and doing his best to look put-upon and irritated.
"You can go," they clear the way finally, "but we'll be watching for that kid."
They leave a week later, as soon as Padmé returns home and they can arrange to board a commercial liner. The tickets say they are bound for Taris, but when it stops on Lothal for a brief refueling, the four of them slip out with the help of one of the stewards in some shipping crates. The former Queen of Naboo still has friends across the galaxy, it appears, and despite Obi-Wan's objections, she insists her contacts on this planet can be trusted.
The "contact" turns out to be someone he knows, and he hears "Master Kenobi" for the first time in eight years from the lips of boy he last saw practicing drills with Master Yoda in the temple. It's jarring, it shakes him, and he doesn't know what to say to Caleb - Kanan - as they sit on the roof of a house in Lothal City and the boy tells his story.
"She saved my life, but for what?" Kanan ends finally, face still full of grief for his dead master.
"I'm sorry. I don't have any great wisdom for you," he apologizes.
"Did you break the Code, Obi-Wan?" Kanan gives him a hard look. "I can do math, you know. Most people can. What happened? Did you and Anakin fight over her?"
"No!" He denies immediately, standing up because his heart is leaping so hard in chest he feels physically ill. He paces, clenching and unclenching his hands. It's not Kanan's fault, the Jedi failed him in much the way they failed Ahsoka, they way they've failed all the apprentices who made it out of Order 66 alive, and he deserves answers, but Obi-Wan doesn't have them. Deep breaths of the evening air slowly calm him, and he closes his eyes and feels the Force around them, listens for the right way to approach this.
"No," he says more slowly. He checks again to make sure they're completely alone on this rooftop. "We are together, Padmé and I, but they are not my children."
"And the baby?"
"What?"
Kanan looks so smug, he almost wants to draw and ignite his lightsaber, a wordless challenge to the younger man to test his resolve. He doesn't, but it's a near thing.
"You didn't know?" The former apprentice's dark eyes are wide with genuine surprise. "So it is yours."
"I… It…" He senses it now, the slightest hint of a spark subsumed by Padmé's fuller flame, and a thousand little things begin to make sense. Leia has been more clingy than usual lately - and that in itself is a feat, because she often refuses to go to bed unless Obi-Wan is there in the room watching her fall asleep - and Padmé was speaking of taking time away from work before they left Tatooine, of whether or not it was worth the risk to visit her sister. She's been planning this for a while, their leaving, he realizes. No wonder she had all of her contacts and tickets and credits lined up.
"It must be," he agrees. A child. His own blood. It's a terrifying concept, but…
"You have nothing to be afraid of," Kanan chuckles, laying a hand on his arm. "The other two are great kids. I'm sure you'll do just as well with this one."
Padmé gives him a long-suffering sigh when he proposes, but it's affectionate.
"I'm sorry. I should have asked a long time ago."
"You should have," she agrees. "Tatooine was a hard place to live. I'm glad we're away from there."
They get a protocol droid to perform the ceremony. She wears a red silk gown with scarlet gemstones in her hair and around her neck, and smirks when Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow as she approaches on Kanan Jarrus’s arm.
“What are you staring at?”
“Red? Really?” He stammers before he can stop himself. She smirks and winks at Kanan, who has the grace to look embarrassed on Obi-Wan’s behalf before he gives his information to the droid as their witness.
R2 is there, too, and he’s brought another astromech with a flat, orange top that he seems to have become chummy with - if droids can be said to have friends, they chatter at each other like schoolgirls, although it’s completely unintelligible. They adjust the train of Padmé's dress, though there's no one to see it but them and Kanan Jarrus.
“It’s the appropriate color for brides on some planets. It’s a symbol of -”
“I know what it’s meant to symbolize,” he shakes his head, taking her hands in his. “Where did you even find it?”
“Obi-Wan, aren’t you going to at least tell me I’m pretty?” She chides, for once in their lives sounding every bit as nervous as he feels.
“Of course you are. You’re as stunning as always, darling.”
“Always?”
“I’ve always thought you were a beautiful woman, Padmé. From the day we first met,” he confesses. “I was a Jedi, not a blind man.”
“You’re still a Jedi, Obi-Wan,” she insists. “You carry your lightsaber, don’t you? You’d give your life for me, for our children -”
“Jedi are forbidden such attachments,” he shakes his head sadly.
“Then perhaps the Jedi are wrong. Look at you. This life has made you a better man, not a worse one.”
He wants to argue, years of training and teachings float through his head, a thousand and one Jedi platitudes, but he sees young Kanan standing there, listening to them, and he thinks very hard about all of the apprentices that have been failed by the system he pledged his life to.
“You may be right,” he concedes. “But perhaps we should talk about this another time.”
They say their vows instead, and then Kanan drags them back to the safe house for a celebration where Obi-Wan is introduced to an alarming number of people who seem to know his wife rather well, and he understands that Padmé wasn’t just working to make money. Risking her life has never stopped her from campaigning before, of course being a mother and in hiding didn’t stop her. He should be angry at her for putting their children in danger, but he’s honestly just impressed that she managed to both build a resistance network and keep it a secret from him for eight whole years. At the end of the night, when Obi-Wan is looking longingly for a way to sneak his new wife out of the room and back to their bed chamber after carrying a sleeping Leia to bed (Luke went hours ago of his own accord, the boy is far shyer than his sister), Kanan introduces him to a green-skinned twi’lek pilot with the last name of Syndulla, who ruthlessly plies him for information on the operation of star destroyers and TIE fighters. He doesn’t miss the way the boy watches her, or how they slip away in the early hours of the morning hand-in-hand.
He tries to sleep and ends up lying in bed thinking about his earlier words before the wedding, and wondering what would have happened if Anakin had been allowed to court Padmé openly. It’s not something he thinks about often, but he’s in bed alone because there is networking to be done and plotting happening and the woman he just married would not be herself if she wasn’t trying to find some way to resist facism in all its forms, and he has nothing to do but think. He feels like he cheated somehow, this life he has doesn’t belong to him, it belongs to a man he killed, a man he loved like the brother in the family he barely remembers being taken away from, and that’s a whole other part of Jedi dogma that he’s now re-examining.
Connections are what make people human, he realizes over the next few days. He plays with his children and trains with Kanan and listens to his wife speak with perfect poignancy and elegance about the world she wants to build out of the ashes of the empire they are going to take down, and he thinks.
When she finally comes to him and asks him, point blank, he’s ready. There’s a feeling of shifting in the Force, sadness and loss fading as something else rises up to take their place - resolve and something else Obi-Wan hasn’t felt in a long time.
Hope.
“I need you to be Obi-Wan Kenobi again,” Padmé tells him. “We’re going to a party.”
“Of course we are.”
They leave the twins with Kanan and Hera, which is probably the hardest on him, as even Leia seems to have taken to the other Jedi and Luke is obliviously in love with the twi'lek pilot as only a nine-year-old can be. Obi-Wan has never been to Ord Mantell and he can already sense that it’s not a place he’ll ever want to return to the second they come out of hyperspace around it. He takes a breath and turns to his wife and finds her eyeing him in a way that says she knows exactly what he’s about to say, and he says it anyway.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
She puts a finger over his lips and muses up his hair, then kisses him soundly. “Just follow my lead, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
He feels too old for her, though really there’s - what? ten years between them? - and he takes up a watchful pose directly behind her as they exit the ship. R2 comes along behind them with a crate full of Padmé’s luggage, which is surprisingly light given that they are going to a so-called ‘party’ which he assumes means gowns and make-up and carefully-concealed blasters. She’s not a pacifist, his wife, though she puts on a good facade.
It’s exactly what he expected it to be, a nightmare of too many people, in a large building with multiple rooms and a stage for musicians and dancers on tables with elaborate costumes that block the view and servers with trays everywhere. He tries desperately to keep Padmé on his arm, but within an hour she’s gently but firmly deposited him at the bar with instructions that he is to wait for a contact, and he has no choice but to let her go about the room in her slim-fitting black and purple brocade ensemble. She’s not showing just yet, but the dress is slightly looser around the waist and hips than the style calls for. Her eyes are lined with dark purple paint that also stains her lips and her face is powdered and her hair is caught up in netting that sparkles with amethyst gems and he wants nothing more than to take her back to the rooms they’ve been given and worship her like the goddess she is.
He’s certainly not watching for the contact as instructed, but even if he had been, he wouldn’t have been prepared for the familiar blue-and-white striped lekku sticking out of the blue velvet hood, or the soft, raspy voice that says his name. The bartender gave him something to drink and he forgets it’s even in his hands until it falls to the ground, where it remains forgotten as he’s pulled into a tight hug with strong, calloused hands.
She’s taller than him now, or at least the curving edges of the montrals on top of her head have lengthened to that point, though her eyes are still on a level just slightly below his, a bit darker blue than he remembers. Grown-up Ahsoka looks exactly like sixteen-year-old Ahsoka when she smiles.
“Obi-Wan. It’s good to see you.”
He holds her at arm’s length just to look at her, because even though his eyes are telling him that this is in fact the girl he trained, the one he loved like a sister every bit as much as he loved her master, he can’t believe it. So he hugs her again, and this time he doesn’t let her go.
“You’re alive.” He’s crying and he shouldn’t, it will draw attention, but he can’t stop it now. “Ahsoka,” he breathes her name against the thick velvet folds of her cloak, forgetting that she’s clearly trying to conceal herself. “I can’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. It was hard, afterwards, and I… I was on my own for a long time.”
They sit at the bar, tucked into the corner so she can hide her distinctive appearance somewhat in the deeper edges of the shadows, and he tells her, brokenly, with multiple pauses, about Anakin. She takes it all in silently, with the grace of a woman grown, and again he’s faced with the fact that the apprentice he knew is fully an adult, with her own lessons and trauma and wisdom. There is a sadness to her that feels like the deepest kinship, and they sit quietly for a long time, trading stories of Jedi, the dead and the living.
Finally, he tells her about Anakin’s children.
She tells him, haltingly, about Rex and the other clones who tried to kill her on the star destroyer and how it crashed smoldering into a distant moon. How she buried them all, then left her lightsabers in the hopes that whoever found them would think she died. And then about the woman she’s here with, points out her white hair and the red leather outfit that are both easy to make out from across the room, as are the paired saber hilts on her belt. She’s talking to Padmé, of course, and Obi-Wan realizes that Ahsoka has had eyes on his wife all night, is just as wary and protective of her as he is.
She knows Padmé is carrying his child, and there’s no judgment in her clear blue eyes, just warmth and light and hope.
“I think the Jedi were wrong,” he says finally. “About attachments.”
“We were wrong about a lot of things,” Ahsoka sighs, and the tacit agreement, the lack of judgment, it’s like a weight he didn’t feel before has suddenly been lifted from his shoulders. “I just wish we’d figured that out sooner.”
“Some lessons come at far too high a cost,” he agrees. Then he takes in the women across the room again and shakes his head, somehow finding it in himself to tease her. “I can’t believe… Ventress, of all people.”
“She’d been trying to seduce me for years, I was just an idiot,” Ahsoka laughs with him. “We helped each other when there was no one else to turn to, and… I thought if I stayed with her, I could turn her to the Light.”
“Well, it seems to have worked.”
“Sensual negotiations,” she shrugs. He blinks at her and she smiles smugly. “Aggressive negotiations failed, so I decided to try something different.”
“Not something you learned from me. Anakin, perhaps.”
“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow and she raises one back. “Satine Kryze.”
“That’s not fair,” he says immediately, but it’s not untrue. “There’s nothing in the code that forbids flirting. It’s harmless.”
“Alright. I took what I learned and expanded upon it.”
He laughs, and she orders them another drink, which surprises Obi-Wan all over again, because in his mind, Ahsoka should not be imbibing alcohol. She grins at him like she’s getting away with something when she sips from her cup, though she nurses that second beverage for a long time, and her eyes flit around the room as much as his do. He’s proud of that, and just as proud when she suddenly jumps to her feet, throws off the cloak and leaps onto the countertop, smoothly drawing a pair of white-bladed sabers. He’s only a second behind her, but she slices through the curtain concealing the assassin and rolls to face the second one before he can do anything but ignite his own weapon. Ventress finishes that one off with a Force-choke, Padmé pressed to the wall behind her with the ex-Sith’s body between her and the rest of the room.
Several people shout “Jedi!” and the whispers continue as whatever passes for guards on Ord Mantell come to haul the bodies away, but no one assaults any of them - what Imperial presence there is here is bought and paid for by the local crime bosses. It’s not a safe planet, but it is safely outside of the Empire’s purview, although word of the events will most certainly spread to the Inquisitors and probably the Emperor.
Padmé watches it all take place with a thoughtful expression, and suddenly Obi-Wan understands that the whole thing was orchestrated from the beginning - this is what she meant when she said she needed him to be Obi-Wan Kenobi again. Ahsoka and Ventress are also part of it, clearly, although he’s not sure the former padawan was in on it fully - it’s clear from her smug expression that Ventress certainly was.
“Before you start,” the Dathomiri woman begins before either of the Jedi can open their mouths, “I’m done hiding. If the Inquisitors come, let them come. We are not rats, to hide in the sewers, we are trained to fight, and that’s what I intend to do.”
“I never said I wouldn’t fight -” Ahsoka’s tone is venomous, so Obi-Wan cuts her off.
“She’s right, dear one. We’ve hidden in the dark long enough.” He glances around the room, taking in the startled, curious and fascinated looks of the surrounding party-goes, and plants his feet beside his wife, reaching down to fold their fingers together. “And I think there are more of us than there are of them. If we show our fellows the way…”
Ahsoka is shocked, but very quickly she meets his eyes, sees the determination there, and nods in agreement.
“We fight, then. It'll be good to stand by your side again, Master.”
“You’re not an apprentice any longer, Ahsoka,” he shakes his head. “And I’m not a Jedi.”
“We are all Jedi, any of us who can use the Force and stand up to the Empire are ‘Jedi,’ now,” Ventress sneers at him. “It doesn’t matter who used to be what. No one cares about your stupid codes and your council is gone. Only the name stayed, and they use it for everyone. We’re all Jedi, whether we want to be or not.”
It clearly costs her to admit it, and he’s about as happy applying the term to her as she is to accept it, but she’s not wrong. To the galaxy, the Jedi are the Force, regardless of temple-training or whether they’ve built their own lightsaber. Obi-Wan lets her words stand.
When they get back to their rooms, on the bottom floor of an otherwise empty brothel (which just seems appropriate for this planet, really) thankfully windowless with just two doors, Obi-Wan double checks all the locks and searches the room from top to bottom with his lightsaber ignited in his hands. There’s no one there, they are completely safe and with Ahsoka and Ventress guarding the outside of the building, he’s sure no one is coming inside, but he can’t put it down, he can’t stop pacing the room. His pulse is pounding, his muscles are loose but tense like a predator looming and he feels twenty years younger. If Padmé weren’t watching him, he’d be running himself through forms and he thinks vaguely that there might be a training droid back on the ship, he could go get it, he’s that desperate just to swing his weapon. He feels alert and alive and is nearly suffocating with energy.
And then his eyes fall on Padmé, and she looks so stunning in the black dress that hugs her curves and dips low between her breasts, sleeveless with black satin gloves that he wants to take off with his teeth -
Obi-Wan has never been like this before, in all their nine years of life together. Their love-making has always been good, it’s the best thing he’s ever had in his life, but he’s always so careful, gentle even when she begs him to move, harder, faster - he’s still methodical in the way he handles her body, very much in control of himself and the entire situation. But now, he wants, and there’s no other word for it, he wants to ravish her.
She has perhaps two seconds to register the way he’s looking at her, soft frown parting in a gasp, worried brown eyes going wide, and then he has her in his arms and he’s pinned her against the wall. He rips the netting out of her hair, all the little gems in it clattering to the floor, and buries his fingers in it, holds her head where he wants it as he plunges his tongue into her mouth like he’s going to die if he doesn’t taste every bit of her. She flounders, startled and seemingly amused, but she doesn’t stop him, doesn’t try to push him away, even when he sinks his teeth into her neck and she whimpers at the sharpness, her hands still clutch at him and she moves willingly any way he directs her.
He does peel her gloves down and then gets on his knees and rips them off with his teeth, holding her eyes the entire time until she pants and looks away. Her pulse beats so fast he can feel it with his lips as he kisses up the length of her wrist, traces the blue veins there with his tongue all the way up until he bites again at the soft flesh of her upper arm.
“Obi-Wan, what… What are you doing?” She stares at him like she’s never seen him before, and maybe she hasn’t, not this side of him. This is not a side that he even knew existed, although it doesn’t feel foreign, it feels like he’s opened a hidden door in the house he’s lived in for years, and now he’s about to explore it.
“Whatever I want,” he warns, promises, and it comes out so dark and low he pauses, meeting her eyes again to reassure them both that there’s still affection there. “Whatever you’ll let me.”
“Anything,” she breathes, though her chest is rising in quick, shallow gasps as if she’s facing down terrible danger. “You can do anything you want to me, Obi. You know that.”
“I do,” he agrees. He finds his lightsaber again and ignites it, eyeing her dress thoughtfully. “How attached are you to this outfit, my dear?”
“If you split it up the side, it can be repaired.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
She still looks frightened, and he can feel her mind jumping around, bright and skittish. She doesn’t breathe as he draws the blade down her side, the tip just kissing the fragile fabric, which singes and falls away at the seams, first one side, then the other.
Padmé gulps in air as he lifts her out of it, takes her in his arms again and then lays her out on the bed. Her undergarments always seem made to drive him mad, and this time is no exception, they’re sheer and soft, made of violet silk with tiny black buttons in the shape of roses. They come apart just at the hint of the edge of the blade, and he doesn’t ask if she wants them salvaged, because he slices them down to scraps. He puts the blade away, finally, and kneels on the floor next to the bed, pushing her legs as wide as they will go, though she parts them for him immediately. She flinches at the scrape of his teeth in the inside of her thighs, moaning and shivering, but never tells him to wait or stop.
She’s whimpering uncontrollably by the time he lowers his head to taste her, and she’s so wet it soaks into his beard immediately, though he couldn’t care less. Usually, when he does this, he likes to tease her, to run his tongue delicately over her sensitive flesh, and he laps at her with slow strokes. Not this time.
This time he means to devour her, and he opens his mouth around the center of her, presses his tongue to the little bud and sucks at it, humming to himself when she screams and her legs try to close. He keeps his hands there, holding her open, which just makes her scream louder and roll her hips against him. He takes it eagerly, laps at her with unrelenting fervor, feels her go suddenly tense, notes the subtle change in the timbre of her voice that he knows the meaning of well, and keeps going.
“Obi-Wan,” her voice is pleading, and it’s beautiful. “Please -” She whines, legs jerking, and that’s fine, he wants her to beg, wants to hear her howl and keen and lose herself completely.
He wants to ruin her, and she’s not there yet, so he keeps going despite the notes of desperation and bewilderment in her voice. “Oh - Maker - Obi -”
He hums into her flesh and holds her trembling legs as she shudders through another peak, then lowers his attentions to her entrance, pushes his tongue inside to explore her in a way he’s never done before, drinks her down and plunges back in for more. She climaxes again for him, keening his name beautifully, and then her body goes utterly limp and he glances up to see her chest heaving, her eyes closed and her head thrown back with her mouth open, panting.
“Padmé? Are you alright?”
“I…” She gulps in air and shakes her head helplessly. “I think so…? Maker, Obi-Wan!”
“Shall I stop, then?”
“You want to do more?” She pushes herself up with effort, eyes wide, still gulping air as her body twitches and jerks with involuntary little spasms.
He gestures down at himself, smirking openly. “I’m not even undressed.”
“Oh,” she shakes her head at him, and it wobbles a little on her shoulders, then she drops back down to the bed and just lays there, arms and legs spread wide. “Do whatever you want, but I hope you don’t expect me to move much.”
“Don’t worry,” he promises her, sitting on the side of the bed to remove his boots and then standing to swiftly get rid of his belt (which he hangs within reach of the bed, always, even today) and then the rest of his clothes. “I’ll move you where I want you.”
He makes good on that promise almost immediately, turning her onto her stomach so he can mouth his way down her spine, hands running possessively up and down her hips. But tasting her isn’t enough, he needs to be inside her. He’s never taken her like this, in the back of his mind it still feels disrespectful, but there is something unhinged about him tonight, and he wants to try it, so he does.
It feels just as good as it always does, she’s hot and perfect and he could die just like this and not regret a single moment of his life, but when he moves it’s deeper and different, and Padmé mumbles his name and rocks back against him like she likes it, too, so he picks up his pace rapidly. It’s not quite enough to just have her limp underneath him, so eventually he gets her to bend her knees a little with some of the unnecessary throw pillows from the bed stuffed under her hips and that - that’s incredible. It feels like something he is going to have apologize and seek penance for, but it also feels too good to stop, especially when his wife is murmuring his name like a prayer and her body clenches around him, quaking from within -
He thrusts into her violently, hearing her scream, begging and pleading and encouraging him to keep going, more, always more. She gets the pace and the power she's always wanted, he doesn't even try to control it and he doesn't worry himself about respect or even not hurting her - she's his wife and she's carrying his child and she belongs to him, so he takes from her over and over, drives himself into her like a feral animal. Padmé sobs and keens and gasps for breath, but she doesn't stop him, just submits in a kind of bewildered awe to anything he wants to do.
She comes for him again when he pulls her arms behind her back and holds her there, and when he gets her on her back again, there are tears in her wide, unfocused eyes. He kisses her until she starts to respond, and then he folds her legs over his arms and plunges into her again.
"Oh, oh, I can't anymore, Obi-Wan, please!"
"Tell me to stop," he says, watching her face carefully, "just say it, Padmé."
"I… You… I want you to…"
"Tell me," he persists.
"No."
Her eyes flash stubbornly and he shakes his head, then draws himself out of her completely. She has, occasionally, when she really gets into their love-making, taken him into her mouth of her own accord. He has never asked, or indicated that he wanted her to do it, because Obi-Wan's head is still filled with the odd, puritanical ideas of ancient Jedi. Tonight he tells them, in absolutely no uncertain words, to kriffing get out.
He tells her what he's going to do, and gives her another, final opportunity to say no, or stop, or indicate in any way that she doesn't want this. Padmé narrows her eyes and shakes her head, and he has no idea why she's playing this game, but he needs this too badly to second guess. So he crawls up and positions himself over her and slowly feeds his member into her mouth until he feels it stop against her throat, and then he leans over the rest of her body and puts his mouth on her again.
He takes, and he gives, and it's so good he can't decide if he wants to end it this way or not. He's never had the nerve to thrust into her mouth, and probably won't ever again, but Maker it feels incredible, tight and hot and she's doing something with her tongue, holding him against the roof of her mouth and sucking and -
He doesn’t curse often, but he does now, although he can’t really hear himself, doesn’t know if he’s whispering or shouting or even speaking out loud. It’s so good he drags it out as long as he can, and he laps at her with as much skill as he can muster until he is absolutely exhausted and she shudders and makes a muffled noise in her throat that certainly sounds like another climax.
When he finally rolls onto his back and lays beside her, neither of them move for what feels like hours. Obi-Wan doesn’t sleep, but his mind is completely, perfectly blank as if he’s been meditating for days, even when he finally gathers himself to wash up (he gently cleans her, too, with the softest cloth he can find, getting her under the covers so she doesn't have to sleep cold) he still feels blissfully empty.
In the morning, he wakes up with a start, appalled at himself and frightened of what he’s done. Padmé takes one look at him and throws a pillow in his face, then rolls over in the bed and shifts her back up close to him.
“Stop spiraling and hold me, unless you've turned to the Dark side now, and in that case, get out of my bed.”
It’s enough to calm his panic, though he’s still extra solicitous of her, every touch gentled and every word respectful, for weeks. Until she wakes him up one night and demands fruit that he’s not even sure exists in the system, let alone the planet they’re on. He spends all night looking for it, and all morning holding her hair and applying a cold cloth to her forehead as she suffers through pregnancy-induced nausea. This repeats in several ways with different foods, at different times of the day and night, until they're both genuinely sick of each other and Padmé finally agrees to see a midwife, who gives her some leaves to chew.
By the time they go back to Lothal, Obi-Wan has managed to fit the myriad pieces of himself back together in a way that works, and he greets the children as his normal self, if a tad quieter and more reflective.
He spends some time meditating before he even processes that a lot more happened on Ord Mantell than just him realizing that he might enjoy rough sex once, and that maybe, perhaps, it’s okay to seek a release of tension in that way. “Sensual negotiations,” Ahsoka called it.
Weeks later he gets up the nerve to say something, as offhandedly as possible, to Kanan while they’re meditating together, and the other man snorts and rolls his eyes so much like another apprentice he once had that Obi-Wan stumbles.
“You’re not falling to the Dark side because you like sex, old man. Get over yourself.” It’s so close to what Padmé said to him, he laughs out loud and the other man joins him.
“Where did you learn to talk to your elders like that?”
“Ahsoka,” Kanan says without pause, and they share a knowing look. “Hera says Ventress was with her on Ord Mantell.”
“Yes, she was,” Obi-Wan admits. “She saved Padmé from an assassin, or at least that’s how they made it appear.”
“Don’t tell me what it looks like, because I don’t want to know, but just imagine for a second in your head what the two of them do -”
“Why would I -” He starts, and then he stops, because Force help him, he can see it, and he understands immediately what Kanan is getting at. He's seen what it looks like when Ahsoka and Ventress fought, the blur of their movements, the constant clash of four blades, the sheer acrobatics, the viciousness of it... “Oh, yes, I see.”
“If you had to guess, who do you think tops?”
“Ventress,” Obi-Wan says immediately, and then blinks at Kanan’s slow grin. “No? Well. That is interesting.”
They don’t talk about it any more, because discussing other people’s sex lives, despite the fact that they’ve done away with certain parts of the Jedi dogma, still feels inappropriate. It makes sense in his mind that Jedi shouldn’t gossip, it’s not something that lends itself to building compassion and empathy with strangers. But it is interesting to know that sometimes appearances can be deceiving, as can the assumptions made on such appearances. He can almost hear Qui-Gon telling him something remarkably similar, and it’s good to know that he still has the heart of a Jedi inside him.
Even if he does like to slice open his wife’s clothes once in a while.
Obi-Wan stands on the polished wood balcony of a forest home on Kashyyk with his new-born daughter in his arms and watches star destroyers explode and break apart on the planetary shields. Next to him, Kanan waits quietly for his words after delivering the news of the Empire's defeat.
Two months ago, they met up with Ahsoka and another stray surviving padawan and dispatched Sheev Palpatine once and for all by luring the old man into an unpredictable joint-attack that involved Asajj Ventress and the last living Force-witches of Dathomir. They’re all still a bit overwhelmed with relief and shock that it actually worked, that out of the remnants of the Jedi and the cast-offs of the Sith, they formed some kind of alliance and successfully rid the galaxy of the plague of Dark-side ambition. Ahsoka and Ventress and Cal Kestis have been mopping up Inquisitors for weeks while Kanan remained on Kashyyk so his girlfriend, newly-dubbed Resistance General Hera Syndulla, could coordinate with Padmé while she remained on bedrest in the last month of her pregnancy.
"It's over, then," he sighs finally. He feels both younger than he has in a decade and too old to be the father of a newborn infant. Kanan puts a steadying hand on his arm.
"It is," he sounds just as disbelieving as Obi-Wan. "Are you going to introduce me?"
"Oh!" Laughter feels strange here in the hush of the massive trees, but everything right as this moment feels a little surreal. Kanan wiggles his hands in the baby's face, and Obi-Wan realizes she's awake, her pale blue eyes are wide open though she hasn't made a sound. "Her name is Anakin."
The other Jedi smirks, but he doesn't say anything rude or inappropriate, sensitivity and understanding are still defining characteristics of their order. The baby grabs his finger and he grins. "Hello, baby Ani."
Ahsoka comes to Kashyyk when the twins are twelve. Leia is the first to see her, running out to meet the corvette as it touches down in the spaceport, and from the moment she lays eyes on the togruta Jedi, Obi-Wan knows it’s time. He swallows his tears as he hugs her, then turns to his daughter’s very-serious-for-a-twelve-year-old face and forces his expression into something warm and neutral.
“Leia Amidala Skywalker, meet Ahsoka Tano.” His eyes blur with double vision for a moment, and he remembers being in a similar position, shaking hands with a solemn-faced young boy who would become his own apprentice.
“Are you a Jedi? Do you have a lightsaber?” The little girl trails Ahsoka like a hungry loth-cat waiting for its dinner. Obi-Wan watches them fondly, though Padmé isn’t pleased.
“It’s too soon,” she insists. “You don’t even have a Jedi Temple anymore. Or a council. How can you just… assign padawans? Do you even know if Ahsoka wants to take her on?”
“All questions I’m sure will be answered with time,” he promises her, and then reminds her: “You were the Queen of Naboo at fourteen.”
“It’s not about that.”
“It is.” He wraps his arms around her, tugs her against him though she resists at first. “You’re scared. We’re all scared. But of all the Jedi alive, all the ones I know, I trust Ahsoka more than anyone. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose I do,” she sighs. “I just don’t want to lose my daughter.”
“You won’t, darling. It won’t be like it was, we won’t take people away from their families forever. But Leia needs to be trained, and I can’t train my own child,” he says patiently.
“Why not? You’ve broken so many other traditions -”
“This one is different. I understand its purpose, and the others agree. Jedi took on apprentices long before there was ever a Council, you know. Cal Kestis found logs of the ancient masters on Zeffo.” They don’t have a formal governing body, but he keeps in touch with Kanan and several of the other survivors of the old order, and they’ve hashed out quite a few things. One of those is that the galaxy needs the Jedi, whatever they come to be. There will always be Force users, and thus there will always be Dark Force-users, so it’s better for those who wish to pass on the teachings of the Light side to have a structure, a fellowship, a communal order.
They’re not sure exactly what it will become. Ahsoka has her own ways of thinking, and what she passes on to Leia will not be exactly what Obi-Wan would pass on. He doesn’t intend to ever take another padawan, and the others haven’t pressed him. Many of those who were once padawans are accepted as masters now - Kanan, Ahsoka, Cal. Master Yoda agrees with Obi-Wan’s assessment (though no one knows where the old master is physically hiding, he speaks with them through holos delivered by probe droids when and if he feels like it). The youngsters have proven themselves, there’s no need for them to suffer through formal trials, even if they can ever recover the Coruscant Temple - a task that is taking Master Jocasta and Quinlan Voss much longer than originally expected. Palpatine did such unspeakable things, including the slaughter of countless younglings, when he fashioned the Inquisitors there, there’s no telling how long it will take to purify the heart of it. Generations, perhaps.
“It will be alright,” he promises Padmé again, and she puts her hands on his arms and rests her head against his chest, giving in and allowing herself to be comforted.
“I know. I can’t help but worry about Leia, I’m her mother.”
“You’ve always worried more about Leia than the others,” he chides, gently. “There is darkness in her, I sense it too. But she’ll be fine. We all have a bit of darkness here and there.” He nibbles on her neck, a reminder that he, too, has dark tendencies sometimes, and she hums softly in pleasure.
“Don’t you ever worry that they’ll be like him?” She asks, and for once, Obi-Wan shakes his head.
“No. Not anymore.”
“No?” She spins on him in surprise, but he remains unmoved. “Never?”
“Padmé, I loved Anakin more than anyone else I’ve ever cared for, except you and the children, but he was troubled. Even Qui-Gon knew it was risky to train him,” he looks away, remembering the bitterness, the uncertainty left to him after his old master was killed. “I didn’t even know if it was the right choice or not, but I gave my word. Perhaps I should have listened to Master Yoda, or perhaps I failed Anakin in some other way I never understood, but he was corrupted in the end because Palpatine sensed his secrets and the pain in his soul and he preyed on it. I don’t worry about that happening to Leia, because she’s stronger than him, and we raised her to be kind and good. You raised her, sweetheart. She’s just like you, don’t you see that?
“I don’t worry about her turning to the Dark any more than I worry about you committing some terrible atrocity. Even if you were tempted in some way, it’s not who you are.”
“Thank you, Obi-Wan.” Her hands cup his face, fingers curling in his beard, and she pulls him down and kisses him deeply, thoroughly. It still steals his breath, sends him reeling. “Thank you.”
It’s easier for them both to bear when Luke decides to train as a pilot under Hera Syndulla, and though Obi-Wan and Kanan both teach him things about the Force here and there, they all agree that he’s a better pilot than he would have been a Jedi. Luke Skywalker is a fantastic pilot, in fact, partly because he knows a few things about the Force and uses it to his advantage just like his father before him. Unfortunately, he’s also a bit gullible, and Hera doesn’t have eyes in the back of her head, though it seems R2-D2 and Chopper do. The droids drag the boy out of several cantinas and he’s disciplined for racing speeders so many times that she finally just dumps him planet side one day and goes to run a mission on her own.
Hera is infinitely sorry when she comes back to Kashyyk without Luke, though Padmé and Obi-Wan can’t really hold it against her. Who can be expected to keep tabs on a seventeen-year-old at all times with a five-year-old of her own in tow and a whole battalion wing to manage? It’s not her fault that he purposely chose to ditch his droid bodyguards at a place he knew would refuse them entry. Still, they all, Hera included, run themselves ragged for a week searching everywhere they can think of and scrubbing every contact and data bank they have access to for sight or sound of Luke Skywalker.
When he comes back, it’s on the ship of some lousy smuggler with a very annoyed wookie pilot and an equally irritable twin sister, who was quite busy escorting diplomats to Alderaan and did not want to be dragged away from her training to fetch back her ungrateful twin. The wookie immediately gets in an argument with the elders on Kashyyk, while the smarmy smuggler who convinced Luke to help him steal a Mandalorian fighter just stands there and looks on.
They are all shocked when Leia comes home two years later, engaged to said smarmy smuggler. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka rehash some of what they are now calling “Jedi guidelines” and decide that apprentices probably shouldn’t be allowed to get married.
Which doesn’t stop Leia from getting pregnant.
They kick around the idea of a “no sex outside of marriage” guideline, and decide that it’s just strongly discouraged and that a good master will find things for their apprentice to do that keeps them too busy to even think of sneaking off. No one suggests to Ahsoka that Leia’s sneaking off is her fault, but she seems to think it is anyway, and there’s a lot of tension in the months up until the baby is born. Padmé and Obi-Wan keep him while she finishes her training, but Leia is determined to take him with her when she starts assuming Jedi missions of her own, and she’s a surprisingly competent mother, although baby Ben really only seems to want to listen to his Aunt Ani. They’re not at all comfortable with the idea of Leia training Ani, but when the kids are all adults or close enough to it, there’s not a lot any of them can do about it, and while Leia and Anakin tend to skirt the Jedi guidelines, they do complete their missions. No one ever has anything bad to say about either of them, and the diplomats and senators and bounty hunters and even the crime lords adore little Ben.
It works, somehow. Leia becomes a Master Jedi and takes on Ani as her padawan and Luke goes on to take over for one of the retiring New Republic Wing Commanders, and for a while, everything is good. And then it’s not, but the New Republic leadership endures under the guidance of Padmé and Luke and the Jedi are there to back it up with Obi-Wan and his daughters to lead them, and the galaxy goes on.
Padmé Amidala Kenobi, Mother of the Rebellion and Founder of the New Republic, lives to be eighty-nine years old. She has three children and two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren and more friends and allies and mourners than can fit in or outside the temple where her funeral is held. She's laid to rest on her home planet of Naboo, where they raise a monument in her name and the airspace all around is flooded with ships for the celebration of her life.
Obi-Wan survives her by sixteen years, long enough to see his grandson corrupted by a remnant of the Sith and the failed rise of a new generation of authoritarianism, both of which are thwarted by an orphan girl from a backwater sand planet who becomes Anakin's apprentice - the irony is not lost on anyone. He retires from the Jedi Fellowship when his older daughter takes his place, and he's there on Naboo when the daughter of Rey and Ben Solo, Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala’s great-grandaughter, is elected Queen of Naboo at the age of thirteen. He’s there when Jacen Syndulla, Kanan and Hera's kid, finds a sacred island with relics of the ancient Jedi on a lost planet that’s mostly ocean in the Unknown Regions and starts a school there to better serve the growing ranks of their fellowship of knights.
He slips away into the warm embrace of the Force one night in his bed there at the school, with his youngest daughter, the one who carries his blood and the Skywalker lightsaber and Anakin’s name, as the only witness. There is no funeral, as per his wishes, but there are many tearful reunions, apologies and forgiveness afterwards.