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Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead.
Legally, at least, and not just because all the unaccounted-for Jedi are presumed dead. The last time that he’d seen the man, Obi-Wan had watched as Bail signed the death certificate of Obi-Wan Kenobi—for all the good that’ll do them—before they’d split off to their separate tasks, each with an infant in tow. It isn’t even the first time he’s faked his death for the good of the galaxy. At least this time he got to keep his beard.
Sometimes, Obi-Wan wonders if it wouldn’t have been for the best if he hadn’t faked his death that first time, hadn’t let his padawan think he was dead, hadn’t stopped Cad Bane and the rest from killing the man who would become the Emperor.
It’s hard to believe that would have made any difference. Palpatine was the sort to have contingency plans for his contingency plans, spinning an invisible web through the Force just waiting to pull taught, and none of them could see it until it was too late and the noose tightened and the boy you raised-
Well. What’s been done is done, and Obi-Wan has delivered a squalling baby to his new home, the first home he will ever know, and has begun to make a home of his own out in a wasteland.
His new abode is small, homely—for lack of a better word—and it’s about as well decorated as his rooms back in the Temple. Earthly possessions and all that, doing his best to follow the Jedi code more faithfully than he did in life because someone has to, after all that’s happened.
The argument could be made that his lack of decor is due to how impermanent this whole plan feels, how he can’t shake the idea that he will wake up one of these days and it will all have been a bad dream. A different argument could be made that what he called piety was closer to punishment, and that he did not allow himself good things because he did not believe that he deserved them.
Luckily, he doesn’t talk to anyone, certainly no one close enough that they could make such incisive arguments, so he doesn’t have to worry about any of that.
Instead, he wears grooves into the new floor as he practices his footwork, old exercises helping to keep him focused and keen. He uses his new walking stick to practice saber drills, moving through the positions with fluidity and hands that certainly do not shake.
Every so often, he will lift his saber, thumb hovering as though to activate it. He knows that training sabers are all well and good, but they can’t quite replicate the weapon you will truly fight with if, Force forbid, blades must be drawn. He’d told that to his padawan when training, knows that if he is to remain alert he should take his own advice and practice the way he will have to fight, but he can’t shake the prickles of fear that begin to creep across him every time he imagines it.
There is the worry that somehow, turning on his saber and letting himself move with the Force will send out ripples, ones that could be picked up by anyone searching for him or the child that he hides. There is also the truth hidden underneath that he does not face, which is that this is the saber he used to teach the boy that he raised and to strike down that same man that he became, and the thought of drawing forth its blade again makes his stomach roil with nausea. He tucks his saber away without investigating the source of that dread time and time again, and grows quite adept with a walking stick.
No matter how much may change, the man once known as Obi-Wan Kenobi remains a deft hand with obfuscation, even—especially—when it comes to himself.
Day by day, the galaxy gets a bit quieter, the shadows grow a bit deeper, and he maintains his post as the strange man out in the desert. He only stops by town to pick up supplies and news of the Empire’s spread, and Owen and Beru aren’t exactly inviting him over for family dinner. Life gets smaller and smaller, and the less there is for him in the present, the more he finds himself focused on the past.
It’s astonishing how many ghosts a place like this can hold, even for a man who only visited once, years ago. For all that he holds out hope to hear his fallen friends echoing through the Force, he finds himself haunted instead by a thousand moments of mundanity. A speeder zips past, and he would swear he hears laughter on the wind. Sand gets caught in the layers of his robes, and his complaints are echoed by a man who isn’t there.
A child stands with shoulders hunched, waiting for the next blow to fall, and Obi-Wan sees his padawan once more, years before everything went wrong when he was still just a scared child, new to the galaxy and the cold halls of the Temple.
He cannot stop seeing the boy that he raised, and in all those negative spaces, he sees the woman who should have been allowed to raise him instead.
On the Lars homestead, two gravestones are embedded in the sand, edges worn beyond their years from the sandstorms. On nights like tonight, ones where the sky hangs dark and heavy and impossibly vast, Obi-Wan makes a pilgrimage to stand before them, and one of them in particular. “Hello, Shmi.”
She does not respond, of course; she has been dead for a number of years now. Died in her son’s arms, according to Owen. Died after a decade without seeing her son, after giving him to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan with all the hope she had that they would be able to give him a better life than that of a slave. Obi-Wan hadn’t even known that she’d died until he’d come here with baby Luke, put the timeline together in his own head.
He wishes that his padawan would have told him. He can’t exactly blame him for not doing so.
“Your grandson is doing well,” he says, instead of saying any of that. “He’s started walking, looks like he’s already getting into trouble.” Obi-Wan isn’t exactly involved, but he’s been keeping a distant eye on the boy as best he can, picks up gossip now and again when he’s in town. He has his father’s sandy hair, and Obi-Wan’s hands tingle with the urge to ruffle it just the same. “He is-”
Obi-Wan’s throat goes thick, sand catching and calcifying around the words. Every time he tries to continue with the inane patter he falters, chokes, and so he sighs and drops his hands, folded white-knuckle tight before him. “You already know this, of course.”
The Force pulses around him, heavy and silent and tugging him towards something he has never been able to see. Perhaps things would become clear if he was willing to truly turn his attention towards it. Perhaps he would not remain left in the dark if he was brave enough to do more than sit back to back with his own fears, but change in name and location and life itself cannot change the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi is a coward.
He swallows, and does not buckle. “Your son was-” and then his throat catches again. False start after false start, only witnessed by the desert wind and a worn headstone. Standing alone, Obi-Wan says, “You should not have given me your son to raise.”
Again, there is no response, and that is probably for the best. It leaves a silence that he cannot help but to fill, all the words that he’s never said finally breaking free. “I promise you that I tried. With everything I had, I tried, but I was barely more than a boy myself, and I had just lost-” Despite all the years that have passed, for a moment, his grief for Qui-Gon’s death is a raw and bloody wound. “I shouldn’t have been the one to raise him, to- I had to teach him to swim.” Obi-Wan’s voice cracks around the words. “Anakin was just a boy, and I let him be swallowed by shadow until nothing remained.”
The stars wink overhead, watching, and the desert is silent save for the wind. Obi-Wan swallows, gathers his robes around himself. He knows that there is no point in seeking absolution from a corpse, that he is not welcome on this land, that he has footwork to drill, that are a thousand excuses to draw him away. Even so, he stands at the foot of Shmi Skywalker’s grave to say, “I am sorry. For more than I could possibly say, I am sorry.”
With that, following the path of least resistance, Ben Kenobi heads back towards his home in the desert.