Chapter Text
Obi-Wan stood on the edge of a rooftop in Coruscant, the sprawling city stretching endlessly before him. He had needed to get away, to breathe, to be anywhere but the Temple’s suffocating walls. The rain had started as a drizzle, but now it fell steadily, soaking into his robes, clinging to his skin. He barely noticed, where usually that sensation would have driven him to madness.
Kix’s words rang in his mind, cutting deeper than any blade.
“You should have stayed gone, Obi-Wan. It would have been easier that way. At least then, we could have remembered you as someone worth following.”
Obi-Wan flinched, the memory still raw. Kix had not shouted. His voice had been quiet, measured, and all the more devastating for it.
“Ahsoka mourned you. Cody prepared for the worst, for the day they’d reassign us to some heartless General like Krell who wouldn’t care if we lived or died. Do you understand that? Do you realize what you left us with? And for what? To be the Council’s pawn? To obey without question? You weren’t supposed to be like them.”
“The Council left me no choice—”
“There is always a choice, Obi-Wan.” Kix’s voice had been heavy with disappointment. “You just didn’t think we were worth considering.”
And then he had walked away, leaving Obi-Wan standing there with nothing but the weight of those words pressing down on him. He knew, in his heart, that Kix was on;;y speaking from a place of hurt. But his brain was far too exhausted not to immediately take every word of it to heart.
The clones no longer met his gaze. Ahsoka slipped away whenever he entered a room. Kix had treated his wounds with professionalism, but no warmth. Not even his old friends had reached out. The ones who were still alive, anyway.
Kix’s quiet disappointment had been the final blow. Not his son. He had said that the war could, and would, take most things from him without remorse. But not his son. The mission had succeeded, but the cost had been too steep. Every time Obi-Wan tried to do the right thing, it only ended in failure. He had lost so much, and now it seemed he had lost them all too.
The rain intensified, cold and unrelenting. The Force nudged at him, a quiet presence trying to offer comfort, but he recoiled from it. He didn’t deserve its solace. Not when he had failed so completely.
The city below continued as if nothing had changed. Speeders zipped through the sky, neon lights flickered, and life went on. It felt wrong that the world could continue so easily when he felt like he was unraveling.
His arms wrapped around himself, his fingers digging into the damp fabric of his robes. He was tired. So tired. He had done what was asked of him, what was expected, and still, it was not enough. He was always failing, always falling short.
Kix’s words echoed in his mind. Maybe he should have stayed gone.
The Force pulsed around him, unwilling to let him sink too far. It would not let him break. Not yet. It wrapped around him like the rain, insistent, unwavering, refusing to let him go.
Obi-Wan exhaled shakily, closing his eyes and tilting his head back to better feel the rain upon his face. Eventually, he would gather himself. He always did. He would push the pain aside, put the mask back on, and play the part of the steadfast Jedi once more.
But the Force knew the truth. It saw the cracks forming. It would not allow him to keep breaking himself apart just to survive.
And so, it intervened.
–
Obi-Wan was beyond terrified.
He thought he knew fear, watching his clones run themselves to the ground on the daily. Watching his own Jedi brothers and sisters fall to the war. Watching his master fall to a sith. He thought he knew fear, huddling in those tunnels every night and holding the babies of the Young close in the hopes of guarding them from the inevitable night terrors felt by all of them. He thought he knew fear, scrambling across no-man’s land and desperately firing blaster shots in the vague direction of his opponents. He thought he knew fear, looking into the eyes of his fellow slaves in the deep sea slave mines of Bandomeer.
He knew nothing of fear. Not in comparison to the feeling of his body being yanked forcefully through the cosmos during his most recent meditation, floating in a horrible limbo outside of his own body. The force is practically screaming at him, a cacophony of cries and fears. Everything is so overwhelming, a wash of light and blurred shapes. He can’t anchor himself, can neither breathe nor pass out, stuck beyond all belief.
Everything comes to a stop in a jarring bright white flash, and a feeling as though he had hit a physical wall with his full body weight. His shoulders ache as though he’s been holding them stiff since the day he was born, his right throbbing with painful aches. He can’t remember where he is, and the feeling of where he was before the feeling of pain took over everything is rapidly leaving his mind, leaving him stranded with no idea of how. He’s exhausted, catching himself on a wall as his knees buckle beneath his weight. He feels… he feels deep, genuine fear, the likes of which he hasn’t felt this strongly since the day he was told no master had chosen him, since the day he was told his home in the temple would not be his own anymore.
To his disbelief, he can feel tears welling up in his eyes, strangely shaken up by what feels like a fresh, raw wound of rejection. He doesn’t know where he is. He wants his master. He wants Cerasi. He’s scared.
He takes a careful, deep breath in. He can’t lose control like this, not when the fate of his knighthood is already so on the rocks. Master Qui-Gon left him on Melida/Daan, he took his sabre, he took his braid, he left.
So why is he so desperate for his comfort?
He wants to blame it on this strange place he’s in. He wants to blame it on the traumas of being in a slave mine, of being in an active warzone.
But he knows he cannot truly blame his own attachment issues on another factor. It is a fault of his own. And somehow, the Masters of the temple must have found out, otherwise why wouldn’t he have been chosen?
He cannot by any means blame them. He doesn’t need to be a genius to see the problems that he has. He is too quick to anger, too fierce in his loyalty. He is rash, unruly and to some degree it could even be argued he was plain and simply too emotional.
Too stuck in his own musings, he doesn’t notice until it’s far too late that the hallways he’s walking down aren’t as unpopulated as he initially assumed - in fact, he careers headfirst into a pair of armoured legs, and cold fear washed down his entire body as he realises he has just likely collided with an elder. Ben panics and scrambles backwards, chest heaving as he frantically attempts to put some distance between himself and the enemy who clearly outranks him in both weapons and skill. Oh force what does he do? He can’t die here. He has people to lead. People to come home to-
He’s so caught up in his own musings he barely notices the warm voices trying to get through to him, only catching the ends of words like ‘osik’ or ‘ad’ika’ or ‘lost’. He doesn’t know what any of it means, but the deep baritone voices imply someone who is older, someone who could cause him and the others harm. His panic must translate into the force, because all at once he feels wrapped up in a warm non-physical hug, a deep feeling of peace, at ease, safety washing around him, though he finds it impossible to truly believe it. Ben should know better by now than to allow panic to cloud his judgement, but when he feels a broad hand make brief contact with his injured shoulder, all he can think of to do is run, run, run-