Chapter Text
Obi-Wan never sleeps well.
Memories of Anakin haunt him.
Intrusive thoughts of his former padawan laying on the lava rock, limbless.
Anakin’s arms, his legs… it was too horrific. Obi-Wan’s sick knowledge that he had done that, to those same limbs that had let Anakin run and fight alongside him.
Anakin screaming “I hate you!”
His last words to Obi-Wan, to the world.
Obi-Wan sees all of this as he lays in bed each night, attempting to meditate himself into a calm enough state to sleep.
But even when he gets to sleep, his nights aren’t restful.
The same images seep in at the cracks, causing him to jolt out of his slumber.
He wakes often, shaking, hands sweating. Sometimes the nausea and horror of it all is too much. Obi-Wan wonders how his body can even take it.
But he killed his best friend. So he must endure the memories.
Obi-Wan is the last line of defense for Anakin’s son, and he owes it to Anakin to watch over him.
Even if Anakin is dead, and even if Owen won’t even let him see Luke, Obi-Wan can’t turn away from his responsibilities.
He made Luke and Leia orphans, and killed the man he loved more than anyone else in the world.
If existence is painful, then he made it so.
Every night, Obi-Wan relives the events of the purge.
When he first arrived on Tatooine, he was a wreck.
Jumping and starting at everything, constantly convinced the new empire in charge of the universe had tracked him here.
He checked the comms and HoloNet obsessively.
He made himself sick with it, reading the constant news reports of planets rebelling and subsequently being quelled.
Planets he and Qui-Gon had visited, befriended their peoples.
Planets Obi-Wan and Anakin had defended in the Clone Wars.
Some were total massacres.
Other news contained reports of remaining Jedi being picked off, one-by-one.
“Dangerous Traitors To the Republic”, the headlines read, “Chancellor Palpatine Vows Justice Against Baby Stealing Jedi Zealots”.
Obi-Wan tried to hide his distress as he read the fates of Jedi he hoped had escaped.
The list of the dead grew ever longer in his heart.
He hated checking the news, but he constantly did it anyway, fearing he’d become too complacent.
It was four months of jittery agony later that he first saw mention of a Darth Vader in the news.
Obi-Wan’s blood ran cold.
That name had haunted his dreams for months.
Lord Vader.
The name Palpatine had bestowed upon Anakin, kneeling before him.
The name of a Sith.
It turned his stomach to read it even now.
And this “Lord Vader” was indeed a Sith, if these reports were true.
Another uprising put down, another massacre of innocents.
‘But it can’t be Anakin,’ Obi-Wan thought, ‘Anakin is dead, I killed him, I killed him, killed him—’
No, it wasn’t Anakin.
Obi-Wan tested the remnants of their old training bond.
The link forged when Anakin had been a youngling, a padawan learner.
It was gone, a ragged edge, torn away as Anakin burned on the molten shores of Mustafar.
It hurt like a broken tooth to nudge at it, but Obi-Wan worried it just the same.
Just to prove to himself that it wasn’t real, that this new Vader couldn’t be Anakin.
Palpatine… Sidious, had clearly just taken the name and applied it to a new apprentice, the way a parent would name a replacement Sirrafish the same as the one which had died.
Obi-Wan felt sick, thinking of Palpatine simply discarding Anakin for a replacement, someone to play the role of his “Vader”.
As revolting as the Sith moniker was, Obi-Wan felt a keening in his heart, a horror and hatred at the very idea that Sidious had simply taken the name and given it to another.
Didn’t he know that Anakin was irreplaceable?
Didn’t he know there was no one who could ever fill his name, no matter what the name was?
Who could ever take the place of the young man who shone bright as the sun?
“Hey pal, you okay?” a Gotal man tapped him on the shoulder.
Obi-Wan jumped, going into defensive mode, blinking the wetness from his eyes.
“Whoa! Calm down, karking hells!” the man staggered back, “You been staring at the holonet a while, other people want to use the thing, y’know.”
Obi-Wan was risking it by accessing the news on this public terminal in Anchorhead, but it was his only consistent hookup. He didn’t always have a clear signal, and he worried too much about his holocom being tracked to use it.
“Sorry, yes,” Obi-Wan mumbled, backing away, “I’m done.”
Obi-Wan stopped looking.
He stopped reading the news, stopped asking at the markets he visited infrequently.
He couldn’t bear to think about it, any of it.
Not his dead friends, his dead padawan, all the rest.
All he could do was hope that he’d be prepared should any of the Empire come seeking him and the boy.
But he couldn’t force himself to look at what the galaxy had become.
The gutted remnants of the Republic, the institutions he’d believed in enough to fight a war for them.
Obi-Wan Kenobi became Ben, the oddly silent man with a thousand-yard stare.
He had been on Tatooine for years now.
How many, he didn’t know. He’d stopped counting.
Since arriving, he’d only managed to carve out a tiny hardscrabble existence.
Tatooine was a hard planet.
He’d heard Anakin’s many stories about growing up here, and it was a dry and bleak place.
There were predators roaming the sandy wastes, both beast and mortal. And at the midday suns’ zenith, the very planet felt like it was hunting him, trying to kill all life.
Obi-Wan found a job, one where the people in charge wouldn’t ask any questions about who he was, or why he was here.
He strongly suspected many of his coworkers were also men on the run, men down on their luck.
They didn’t ask him any questions either, and he politely ignored their existence in return.
When it became clear he needed some form of transportation, Obi-Wan refused to get a speeder. He told himself it was too expensive, too many things to go wrong, too much of a temptation for thieves and scavengers.
But really, the reason why he didn’t get one was because all he could think of was how much Anakin loved to fly them.
Obi-Wan sought out an eopie breeder, and bought the friendliest one.
The old breeder had said, “I have bigger.”
“This one will do,” Obi-Wan had answered.
He named it Akkani.
Obi-Wan had a cave he stayed in near the Lars’ homestead.
If he sat outside, on a clear day, he could use his old pair of binocs from the war and see Owen, Beru and Luke. Luke was a toddler now, frequently outside with Beru.
Different from the earlier days where he could only hope from a distance that no one had come for the infant in the night.
So now he could actually look, and see the boy who was so like Anakin.
He tried not to look.
It was painful, like digging open the raw wound where his bond with Anakin used to be.
But he made a dutiful check on the family twice a day, regardless.
Visually, and never with the Force.
He didn’t bother touching the Force these days.
Sometimes he reached out by instinct, such an ingrained memory he did it before thinking.
Every time, he’d flinch back, terrified he’d exposed himself to some nearby darksider. Someone who might report back to Palpatine.
Chancellor Palpatine, Darth Sidious, now the Emperor of the Galaxy.
And Obi-Wan felt the guilt for that as well.
Remembered all the times he’d saved the Chancellor, spoken up for him.
He’d never much liked how Palpatine always hung around Anakin, but he’d never thought it was a real danger.
And that was another failing on his part.
Obi-Wan mourned.
All the ways he’d failed Anakin, all the ways he’d failed the whole galaxy. His grief suffused his whole body in a way he’d never known before. He knew only despair.
Adding to that, even though he didn’t ever touch the Force anymore, he was still aware of it.
And there was a great darkness draped across everything.
He wasn’t half the Jedi that Master Yoda had been, and so he couldn't sense all the details of it, but he knew without a doubt, that the galaxy was a darker place than before.
Existence now, for a former Jedi, was like swimming in an oil slick.
It only served to amplify his grief.
It had been another day like all the others.
Today was the last day of his work week, and tomorrow was a rest day.
He almost hated his days off, as he found the time difficult to fill. Obi-Wan laid on his blanket, coiled in the thick rough fabric. The stone beneath it was cold. Tatooine was blistering hot in the day, but once both suns set the chill crept into the rocky sand.
He did his best to push the grief from his heart, and breathed deeply as he fell asleep.
Obi-Wan woke in the night with a gasp.
Something flared to life, and it was bigger than the planet, than the system.
It was like the galaxy grew bigger than it had been. It only took less than a second, and it snuffed out the darkness that was pervading everything in the Force.
He sat upright, breathing hard like he’d been running.
He felt the tension drain from his body and clutched with relief at his blankets.
Something was better.
He felt… better.
And that was followed by a raging flood of guilt.
He shouldn’t feel better at all.
If this was healing, if this was moving on, he didn’t deserve it.
Obi-Wan settled back to the little ledge he slept on, and tugged the blankets back around himself.
He needed sleep.
Maybe in the morning he’d wake and everything would feel normal again.
Obi-Wan woke slowly, the early morning heat starting to warm the entrance of the cave.
He vaguely remembered waking in the night feeling unsettled.
It was clear that something had shifted. Everything felt lighter, less oppressive. He wondered if the Force had balanced itself, if the darkness simply couldn’t be sustained.
Obi-Wan resolved to look into it this week, maybe even today.
He was running out of portion bread and banthawat, and he had planned on using his day off to go into town and do some shopping.
He sat up, stretching, and trying to ignore how much better he felt.
Another roiling churn of nausea as he remembered Anakin screaming, dying. That removed the sensation entirely, and suffused his whole mind with agony.
How could anything possibly be better in a universe where that had happened to Anakin?
He heated some of his water, and poured it over some caf.
Obi-Wan preferred tea, but it was hard to find on Tatooine, and expensive.
It was another thing he missed, and simply had to endure being without.
He poured the unused boiled water into the small water storage tank. Noticing it was low, he took his tumbler of caf and wandered outside to check on the vaporator.
Even the poorest of Tatooine residents knew the first thing to buy and upkeep was a water vaporator.
The moisture farmers were always there to buy from, but in a bad year you’d be pushed deeper into poverty just from the higher costs of water.
So it was always good to have at least one vaporator of your own, ideally three. The sandstorms were hard on machinery, and if one went down, you wanted to have a failsafe.
Obi-Wan only had one vaporator.
Obi-Wan leaned in to inspect the machine, and cursed when he saw the empty water levels levels and red warning lights.
The thing was erroring. He flipped out a small screwdriver and opened up the front panel. On examination, it seemed the reuptake flange was physically worn away. All the water that was supposed to be sent to the reservoir tank was simply running down through the machinery. It had shorted out the whole thing, and there was a faint acrid smell.
Obi-Wan felt the despair take hold of him again. He didn’t have much money, and this was clearly going to be expensive.
Right now the local Jawas were on their great migration to salvage the western spans. Teeka had told him she’d be gone for at least a month.
Obi-Wan was going to have to stop in at Tosche Station, find extremely specialized parts, and attempt to repair it himself. The mechanics at Tosche weren’t the type to do on-call repair work, at least not at the rates Obi-Wan could afford.
Taking another sip of his bitter caf, he resigned himself to the task.
He hadn’t been the strongest in engineering and mechanics classes in the Temple, but he had a small guide to vaporators. Surely he could get it working, with the proper parts.
He leaned in and turned it off.
Obi-Wan didn’t want to risk further damage by leaving it running.
But now there was no time to waste. He finished his caf, and went to saddle up Akkani.
He arrived at Tosche Station just as the second sun was rising.
He hopped off of Akkani, leading the eopie behind him.
A local man named Jedren ran the place, as Merl Tosche was the owner in name only. Jedren was grizzled and affable, a stocky man with rosy cheeks.
Jedren was one of the few local people Obi-Wan knew by name, even though he didn't often come to Tosche Station.
He didn’t have much in the way of tech in his cave in the first place. Just the proximity sensors, the vaporator and a small cooler for his perishable food.
Transporting machinery parts from the outskirts of Anchorhead to the cave was a hassle at best, impossible at worst. For some larger items it would require renting a landspeeder, as he didn’t want to risk Akkani tiring, nor the damage from dragging delicate machinery.
Obi-Wan typically bought from the Jawas, who at least were willing to meet him closer to his cave.
After explaining the problem to Jedren, Obi-Wan was dismayed to learn that there were no parts that could help.
“Not right now at least,” Jedren said, shaking his head, “Had a big order, some moisture farmer out by Mos Pelgo got hit by that big sandstorm. Had to replace all their actuators, transistors, even motherboards. Bought me out totally.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Obi-Wan sighed, “Thank you anyway.”
Obi-Wan did the math in his head for a whole month's worth of purchasing all his water. In sandstorm season, with a moisture farm taken down for repairs? It was definitely more than the cost of repairing a vaporator.
“Have you tried the jawas?” Jedren asked, “They don’t usually handle big orders, but they may have something for a one-off like yours.”
“On their great migration this month,” Obi-Wan said, “Unfortunately.”
“You're an unlucky guy,” Jedren chuckled.
“You have no idea,” Obi-Wan gave a wan smile.
“I can sell you a flange at least,” Jedren looked apologetic, “Cheap. On account of your misfortunes.”
Jedren rummaged in the bins in front of him and pulled out a few flanges.
The price he named wasn’t actually that cheap, and Obi-Wan haggled him down to a fair price.
As he slipped the flange into his over shoulder bag, he suspected he had still overpaid, because Jedren looked pleased.
“Now, I wouldn’t normally do this,” Jedren said slowly, “But you might want to check at the bazaar. Heard there’s a new trader, does some mechanic work on the side.”
The bazaar was the main market in Anchorhead, with a great many permanent structures, as well as little carts scattered through.
“I was actually planning on going there today,” Obi-Wan replied, “For other goods. But that’s very helpful, thank you. Do you know how I might find them?”
“Not sure precisely,” Jedren shrugged, “Heard his name’s Nakken? Something like that anyway. If you ask Ikiicha at the Brune, she’ll know.”
Obi-Wan thanked Jedren again, and hopped back up on to Akkani.
Maybe he was in luck after all.
The Brune was a little bar on the corner near the north side of the bazaar.
Ikiicha was a surly bartender, and Obi-Wan was certain she loathed him. He couldn’t blame her, as he didn’t often drink. He had mostly come here when he’d first arrived, as a way of scouting information. He’d made the classic error of lingering too long without buying drinks.
Ikiicha enjoyed giving him a hard time now, and he dreaded going in.
He was going to have to buy a drink at least, just to get the location of the new trader.
Obi-Wan worried the cost of the vaporator repair really was going to become high enough to make it not worth it.
Obi-Wan left Akkani at one of the local eopie stables, and set off for the Brune.
When Obi-Wan walked in, he set straight for the bar at the back.
Ikiicha was there, pouring a drink and wiping the counter. She was a harch, which meant she had six arms, and six eyes.
Her arms were typically doing a great number of tasks every time Obi-Wan saw her.
He sidled up to the bar, attempting to be his old charming self. The role felt unnatural now, like a too tight costume.
“Ikiicha,” he said smoothly, sliding onto a bar stool, “Could I trouble you for a Taraav ale?”
It wasn't the most expensive drink on offer, but it was one of the finer ones.
He thought it best to be overly polite, trying to avert any difficulties. If worse came to worst, and she refused to help, he could stroll the bazaar as he looked for the other things on his list.
“Well, of course,” Ikiicha said and reached for the import shelf of the cooler.
Obi-Wan had missed fine drinks, and a little bit of bribery may as well benefit him as well.
As Ikiicha slid him the drink, she held out one hand.
“That'll be five wupiupi,” she said, clicking her mandibles charmingly.
“Only five?” Obi-Wan blurted out before he could think better of it.
The last time he’d been in the Brune, a Taraav ale cost eight wupiupi, and Ikiicha was likely to make him pay eleven because of their history.
“Well, if you’d like to pay more,” she chittered, clearly amused, “I won’t deny you.”
She was playing some sort of game, he thought.
Or perhaps it had been long enough she really didn’t remember him.
“Sorry, I was just shocked,” he smiled sincerely, “It’s a very good price.”
He pressed the coins into her hand.
“It’s a very good ale,” she shrugged, pouring another drink for a man down the bar, “Maybe it will be more the next time you come.”
And that sounded more like the Ikiicha he knew, but still. She was friendlier, as if she’d never kicked him out of the bar, or tossed one of the small wooden coasters at his head.
“I actually have a question,” he took a sip of his ale and had to pause.
It really was very good.
It was made from the Taraavian duskflower, and it was specially cultivated. On Taraav, the drink was known as duskwater, and Obi-Wan had developed a taste for it while on a mission there with Qui-Gon.
This particular brew wasn’t as good as the draught version you could get in any inn on Taraav, but it was a damn fine drink.
Swallowing, he looked back up at Ikiicha.
Reaching into his pocket he pulled out another wupiupi.
“I was wondering about a trader I heard about,” he said, sliding the coin across to her, “Nakken? Does mechanic work on the side. I heard he’s at the bazaar, but I wasn’t sure where.”
Ikiicha took the coin with evident delight.
“Yes, oh, I like you,” she said, “You know what things are worth.”
She pocketed the coin. She was acting so unlike herself, Obi-Wan was now certain she didn’t remember him.
Perhaps his hair and beard were just unruly enough now to make him look unfamiliar.
“I try to pay a fair price,” he smiled.
“That trader,” she said, “He’s new. Came from Mos Espa, and set up shop in that little shack at the end of Wreck Row.”
Wreck Row was the “end” of the bazaar for lack of a better term.
It was where most of the other storefronts tailed off, until it was just a few scattered sellers. At night it was where the more unsavoury characters tended to lurk, and would linger there after the bars closed.
Obi-wan knew the shack, actually. It was actually one of the only permanent buildings near that end, and was rare, in that it was made of wood.
There were wooden carts, but all of the actual shops were solid pourstone.
The shack had been built by a shopkeeper who was getting on in years and could no longer haul his cart into the bazaar.
If it had been anywhere else, the other local businesses would likely have pushed for it’s demolition, but down on Wreck Row no one cared.
It had weathered the years, and the passing of the original owner. Obi-Wan knew people sometimes used it as a shelter when the sandstorms hit. It would have been woefully inadequate out on the sands, but in the middle of Anchorhead it was still relatively protected by the pourstone buildings.
Even so, it was a rickety old thing by now.
Obi-Wan finished his drink and bid farewell to the strangely friendly Ikiicha.
He wandered down to the bazaar, and bought the food he’d come here for.
The goods were almost always overpriced, especially in the dry season. There was little fresh produce, and what there was had been imported, at great cost. Obi-Wan was good at haggling, and fell into the rhythm of it, the social dance so familiar to him.
He managed to replace his stocks of portion bread, and banthawat, loading them into his shoulder-bag efficiently.
Another drawback of fresh produce was how much space it took up. At least his regular meals were easy to get back to his cave.
He tried to find a merchant with tea, of any sort, but the only ones were ridiculously overpriced.
The only seller he found offering tea below 20 wupiupi had rather suspicious stock, and Obi-Wan assumed it was mixed with other less valuable plant materials.
He passed on it, and kept on his path to the old shack.
Many of the merchants at this end of the bazaar were selling from blankets spread on the ground.
This was the most active busy part of the day, when people came out to get things done before the hot hours. Once midday hit, most who could would retreat into cool stone homes, or flock to the many local cantinas.
The heat of the dry season would kill, and rather easily at that.
Many of the merchants here had no shelter but umbrellas and the fabrics that draped across the laneways.
Finally he arrived at the shack, dusty and feeling rather sorry for himself.
He’d been thinking about how many shifts it would take to recoup the costs of the vaporator repair. He was going to have to be judicious with his water for a while as well.
He gave a quick rap on the open door, which rattled the whole front of the small building, and stepped inside.
The exterior had been no different than normal, but the interior was very different than the few times he’d been inside.
It was always small, but now it seemed even smaller.
There was clutter everywhere, piled on small tables and stools. It seemed to be mostly droid parts and other electronics. But there were other things scattered in.
Dried herbs hung on the walls, and there were banthafat candles set up on small shelves jutting from the walls.
Some looked for sale, but others were clearly used for lighting the shack.
Light was bleeding in from cracks in the wooden walls, gaps between the boards.
Wood was rare and valuable on Tatooine, and it wasn’t likely to be wasted on repairing such a dilapidated old building, but he could see places where newer boards had been used.
The counter at the front only had a small space cleared, with a battered old chair set up behind it.
There didn’t seem to be anyone here.
“Hello?” he said cautiously, glancing around.
“Hold on!” a voice came from a space beyond a curtain, “Sorry.”
The curtain was yanked aside, and a young man stepped up to the counter, wiping off his hands with a rag.
It was Anakin.
Obi-Wan’s brain skidded to a stop.
“Anakin?” Obi-Wan breathed out in disbelief.
The man smiled, bright like the sun, that charming way he always had.
“That’s me,” he said, “What do you need?”