Chapter Text
“I think I’d like some tea.” The words fell out of his mouth with no warning, startling him. He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, didn’t even really remember thinking them. But then, he was tired, or rather, more tired than he usually allowed himself to feel, and the paperwork he was trying to focus on was drier than Tatooine.
From across the table, Mace looked up from the datapad he ws working on, before quirking an eyebrow at the cold cup of tea resting by Obi-Wan’s elbow. “Really.” Mace’s voice was even drier than the paperwork.
Obi-Wan pushed the cup of tea to the side, giving both it and Mace an unimpressed look. “You and I both know that the tea they serve in the commissary barely reaches the standards of acceptability. It’s hardly something any civilized person would drink for pleasure.”
Mace looked like he was trying desperately not to roll his eyes. “Ah, yes. I had almost forgotten that you were trained by the tea aficionado himself. Qui-Gon was always quite particular about his teas.”
Obi-Wan shrugged. “Say what you will about Qui-Gon—”
“Oh, I will.”
Obi-Wan ignored his fellow council member. “—the man had excellent taste in tea.”
Mace seemed to consider that for a long moment. “Have you considered the possibility that your tastebuds were taken hostage at a young age, and that you learned to adapt in order to survive his regular attempts at poisoning you with terrible leaf water?”
Obi-Wan gave Mace an affronted look, choosing to ignore that for a while there as a child, he really had considered tea to be terrible. “I’ll have you know, that I have some truly excellent blends. I dare say even someone with as limited taste as you would enjoy them.”
“Of course,” Mace said agreeably, which was a sure sign that he was patronizing Obi-Wan. “And were they good enough to convince your former padawan?”
“Anakin’s taste is even worse than yours.” It wasn’t the tea’s fault that their tastebuds had failed them.
“Undoubtedly.” Mace gave him an understanding look, which meant that their conversation was about to shift from jesting to something far more serious. “While I don’t understand the appeal, you really should take a well-deserved tea break.” There was something like concern in his friend’s eyes and Obi-Wan tried not to feel uncomfortable at the thought that Mace might be worried about him. “I would have hoped that with the war over you’d actually get more sleep.”
“Mace, my friend, I’m not sure I remember what it means to sleep.” The statement, meant to be a joke, ended up coming out with far more truth than Obi-Wan had intended it to. He shrugged, trying to shift the conversation away from his inadvertent confession about his sleeping habits, or lack thereof. “And we’ve been quite busy.
“None more than you, though.” Mace sighed. “You and Plo worked hard to get the clones citizenship—”
“Far too late,” Obi-Wan added.
Mace nodded in agreement, it was a common frustration among the council, how impossible the senate had been about giving the clones the citizenship they more than deserved and how powerless they’d found themselves to fix it. “And now the both of you are working to get them places to live, getting building permission on Coruscant, refurbishing empty rooms here in the temple. Not to mention, you’ve also been working with Master Yoda to help the padawans who have lost their masters in the war. Plus, you’ve been helping me—” here he gestured to the datapads sprawled out on the table between them, “—to keep the Senate happy by filing out any number of forms in triplicate.”
“Bureaucracy,” Obi-Wan muttered with disgust. While he would always and forever be a staunch supporter of democracy, he sometimes wished that there was a little less paperwork involved.
The look on Mace’s face said he agreed, but he didn’t let himself get distracted from trying to prove his point. “You’ve also been staying at Senator Amidala’s apartment nearly every night helping with the twins.” Here Mace’s face twisted into something frustrated. Obi-Wan knew that Anakin and Padme’s marriage was still a sore spot with the Council. So far no action had been taken, but Obi-Wan suspected that had more to do with the fact that there were far more important things for the Council to be worrying about at the moment then the fact that the Council was fine with the situation. “And if Plo is correct, which he most often is, you’ve also managed to find Miss Tano and arranged for her to meet Skywalker on Naboo, where he, his family, the 212th, and the 501st are all taking their leave.”
Obi-Wan sighed, not quite sure what Mace’s point was. With that last loss of three of their members, it was vital that those of the council who remained helped to fill in where they could. “Those were all things that needed, and still need, to be done.”
Mace looked like he wanted to argue that statement. “I concede that most of them did. But no one on the Council would have denied you an opportunity to take leave with your men. Plo will take leave with his battalion, and I, myself, will be taking time with my own men.”
Obi-Wan tried to smile, but he had the feeling Mace saw right through it. “Some of my men needed time and space away from me.”
“You mean your commander.”
Obi-Wan didn’t flinch, but it was a close thing. “Commander Cody has his reasons,” he reminded Mace quietly.
Mace nodded. “No, I know. But the fact remains, you deserve a break just as much as everyone else.”
Obi-Wan wasn’t sure how much he agreed with that statement. He couldn’t help but feel that he’d failed, over and over, during this war. That if he’d been better, more vigilant, then this whole war might have been avoided, or at least ended far earlier. But he also knew that Mace would disagree were Obi-Wan to voice the sentiment, and he didn’t want to force his friend to try and defend Obi-Wan’s failures.
“As do you,” Obi-Wan noted. “In fact, you are more than welcome to join me for some tea.” He gave Mace a teasing grin. “I really do have some wonderful blends, some not touched in over three years. I’m sure at least one of them will be able to convert you.”
Mace laughed. “That’s highly unlikely. However…” he glared at the datapad in his hand. “Even leaf water would be preferable to this current batch of reports, and I won’t deny you the opportunity to fail at converting me.” He sighed in distaste, scrolling through the rest of his file. “I would’ve thought that with all the effort you and Plo put into getting the building permits there would be fewer reports, not more.”
“On Coruscant?” Obi-Wan snorted. “We’re lucky that enough of the Senate is feeling grateful for our existence at the moment—” and that had been a whole other fight, ensuring that the Senate didn’t try and dump this war entirely at their feet. But a fight that, thankfully, they seemed to have won. For the moment. “—or we would literally be drowning in truly unnecessary bureaucratic red tape.”
Some red tape was genuinely necessary. But, Obi-Wan had discovered, some red tape existed purely to inconvenience everyone.
“I know, I know.” Mace waved him away. “Now go start making us some tea. I’ll join you as soon as I’ve finished this report.”
Obi-Wan nodded and tilted his head in a small bow. “In that case, I’ll see you soon.”
Mace nodded back, before turning his attention back to his datapad. Obi-Wan turned away, making his way out of the commissary, mostly empty this late into the evening, and towards his quarters.
His steps came a little slower than normal, the exhaustion weighing on him. It was almost strange how much harder it was to keep the exhaustion at bay, now that they were at peace. Being a general and a council member, as well as a member of the famed ‘team’ meant that he’d never really had the opportunity to stop and rest during the war.
When he wasn’t on the battlefield, he’d been fielding reports, organizing battles for the battalions under his command, discussing the needs of the Jedi and the clones, trying to schedule in meetings with the more cooperative members of the Senate to try and stem the needless diversions the Senate tried to force onto them, attempting to help both Anakin and Ahsoka, and more.
For all of Obi-Wan litany of failures, he would hope that he would never give anything less than his all. Even if he’d discovered that his all was never, ever enough.
He shook the depressing thought away.
As it was, the pressing list of things to do hadn’t stopped with the end of the war. No, there was still so much to do, so much to put right, to fix, to change. He couldn’t stop. There was no option other than to keep going. Even if he found that his ability to push past his exhaustion was starting to fade.
A wave of dizziness hit him, the hallway blurring around him as reality distorted until he almost wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. The corpse of a padawan stared back at him accusingly.
He closed his eyes, fighting down the sudden bout of nausea, caused either by the wave of dizziness, or more likely, the strange visions that plagued him.
Mace was right, as usual. Obi-Wan desperately needed a break. Needed to rest. Force, even the thought of a nap sounded like absolute bliss.
In all honesty, there was more than just duty that was pushing Obi-Wan in his incessant need to keep going.
His head throbbed relentlessly at the thought, and he was so very, very tired.
His mind had been plagued with foreboding shadows every time he so much as closed his eyes. And sleep, as much as he wanted it, was an inescapable loop of terrors.
It would be easy, or at least easier, if he thought it was merely his mind creating worst-case scenarios to torment him. It wouldn’t be the first time his mind betrayed him in such a way, after all.
He feared it wasn’t that simple.
The last days of the war were crystal clear in his mind. He remembered running through the Senate building, the Force howling in his ears, pushing his steps faster, faster, faster.
The sight of Mace standing over Palpatine, keeping a stream of lightning at bay. Anakin standing to the side, two choices laid out in front of him.
That one moment had seemed to stretch into eternity for Obi-Wan. Mace and Palpatine both pleading with Anakin.
In reality, it couldn’t have lasted more than mere moments. But those moments seemed to have broken something in Obi-Wan.
He didn’t know if he could call it a vision. If it was, it was unlike any vision Obi-Wan had ever experienced before and the after-effects were nothing like Obi-Wan had ever heard of associated with visions.
In his dreams the temple burned, the Jedi died, and the eyes of his former padawan gleamed a terrible yellow.
If he was lucky, he woke up. If he wasn’t, the dreams grew worse.
He felt clammy, another bout of nausea coming over him. He forced his eyes open, grateful to see the halls empty of any corpses and started walking again, his steps somehow ever slower than they’d been before. But the exhaustion weighed on him. Like the weight of the sky itself had fallen on his shoulders.
He had yet to speak with anyone about what he’d seen, about what he was still seeing. From what he could tell, no one else on the Council seemed to have seen anything. Though it was possible that the others, like him, were merely keeping quiet. But they’d all spoken at length of the terrors that Palpatine could have inflicted, and none of them seemed to truly understand the scope of the destruction. None of them seemed to realize that not even the younglings would have been spared the wrath of Sidious and his new apprentice. That the last act of the Republic would be to cheer for their deaths even as the Republic itself fell, an Empire rising from it’s ashes.
Obi-Wan hadn’t been able to say anything, finding his tongue tripping over what he couldn’t prove, but was terribly certain, was the truth.
But visions were just that, visions. And it hadn’t happened that way. The future, ever in motion, had chosen another path.
Yet it still haunted Obi-Wan.
Anakin haunted Obi-Wan.
He couldn’t speak to Anakin of what he’d seen. There was a part of Obi-Wan, that part of him that had always believed in Anakin, that rebelled at the dreams he saw. Anakin struggled, this was true, but he wasn’t alone in that. Anakin’s strength had rested in that, no matter his struggles, Anakin always, continuously kept striving.
Obi-Wan still believed that. He did. He believed in Anakin.
But there was a part of Obi-Wan that was suddenly afraid. He didn’t want to believe that Anakin could Fall. That Anakin could do the monstrosities that Obi-Wan had seen in his visions. More, he didn’t want Anakin to think that Obi-Wan believed him capable of such things.
Fear leads to anger. Anger to hate. Hate to suffering.
Anakin, Obi-Wan realized, had a great deal of fear. Had a great deal of anger and hate, burrowing under his skin and poisoning him.
Obi-Wan had never truly been oblivious to it; he’d seen it, had reached out, time and again, to help his padawan release it, even after Anakin had been knighted. But Anakin had turned him away… and Obi-Wan had trusted him. Had trusted that Anakin understood the dangers, and that Anakin was handling things in his own way.
Obi-Wan had been wrong.
And now, now Obi-Wan had his own fear.
And he wouldn’t, couldn’t, let that fear poison him.
But it was so very difficult when the dreams persisted.
He tightened his robes around himself, trying to keep out the chill that was less due to the temperature of the temple and more due to the ache in his heart and the clamminess that coated his skin whenever he allowed himself to dwell on things that weren’t now and couldn’t be.
It was better to focus on those things that were now and might be. To focus on what Obi-Wan could do.
There was, after all, plenty of that.
He finally reached his quarters, still moving far too slowly as he let himself in. He leaned back against the door, staring blankly at the rooms.
He laughed a little. A short, dry rasp that held little genuine humor in it. A few boxes had been opened when he’d looked for the necessities; the rest were neatly stacked against the wall, still neatly labeled from three years ago when he’d placed them there. He’d left his old quarters for Anakin, once Anakin had taken Ahsoka as his padawan. At the time, he had naively thought that the war would end soon and he’d be able to make the rooms comfortable.
But the war hadn’t ended, and Obi-Wan had spent the majority of his time on the front lines. What time he did have on Coruscant was full of meetings and planning sessions and paperwork; the time and energy that he would have needed to unpack had always seemed better spent elsewhere. It had helped that he had his bunk on the Negotiator to fall back on, and eventually, he’d found himself more comfortable in his small room on his ship then in the barren quarters of the Temple.
Perhaps, had the shock of Palpatine’s betrayal not sent Padme into labor, Obi-Wan would have found the time after the end of the war. Instead, Obi-Wan had found himself in the Senator’s household, doing just as much to keep Anakin and Padme from crying as he did the infant twins.
Admittedly, it was slightly easier to bear when it came from the twins, whom Obi-Wan found he’d loved from the moment he’d first held them.
When it came to their parents on the other hand... Anakin and Padme had not been prepared for children. Force, they barely seemed prepared to truly live with each other beyond the few days at a time they’d managed to scrape by during the war.
Part of this was likely due to the war. Anakin had been on the frontlines almost as often as Obi-Wan himself, and the couple hadn’t really had the opportunity to settle into their marriage. But there was the further complication that, if Obi-Wan’s opinion was asked, which it hadn’t been, the two of them had rather rushed into their marriage in the first place.
Which was an issue that Obi-Wan didn’t yet have the energy to deal with, and was following the Council’s lead on waiting until they’d managed to extinguish the more urgent metaphorical fires before turning to Anakin’s terrible disregard of the code they were meant to live by.
As it was, Obi-Wan, for all he loved both the twins and their parents, had been more than ready to let Padme’s parents take a turn in helping the new parents adjust.
He did genuinely hope that things would go well for them on Naboo.
There was a part of him that wished that he’d been able to join them. But he couldn’t in good conscience leave the rest of the Council to deal with the chaos the war had left behind, especially with the loss of Kit, Agen, and Saesee.
Nor could he bear to see the pained expression on Cody’s face whenever his commander caught sight of him.
He rubbed his face, trying to wipe away the exhaustion, and noted distantly that he really needed to trim his beard.
No, his men needed time. Time to be men and not soldiers. Time to figure out what their new lives could be without having their General looking over their shoulders.
He couldn’t help but wonder where they’d all go, now that they were free to go. The army hadn’t technically been disbanded. The Senate was not quite ready for that yet, not fully trusting this new peace. But with their citizenship in place, the men now had the choice as to whether they wanted to stay.
He tried not to think about it too much, the 212th had been with Obi-Wan for so long it was difficult to imagine not having them near now. He loved them dearly, but part of loving them meant hoping for their best. Even if that meant Obi-Wan would have to say goodbye.
He did hope that whatever they all chose that they’d at least return to Coruscant so that Obi-Wan could say goodbye. His decision to not go to Naboo had been a last minute one, and he hadn’t had the opportunity to properly make his farewells. But he’d decided, after a morning of reality-distorting visions, that it was perhaps not only Cody that needed his space.
Too often he had thought he’d glimpsed yellow in Anakin’s eyes. Thought he felt blank unawareness in the men’s Force presence, a quiet whisper of Execute Order 66 echoing in that empty space. Even Padme’s presence was tainted by pained screams and her face as pale as death.
The temple wasn’t necessarily better, with the corpses he often saw littering the ground, and the glimpses of darkness and flame in his peripheral.
But there was enough that needed doing that he could keep himself distracted while he tried to find his equilibrium. And if the thought seemed contradictory, well, Obi-Wan had often found balance in doing his duty.
Except, if Obi-Wan was completely honest, he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to do that anymore.
He wasn’t sure he remembered what it was like to be a Jedi and not a soldier and general anymore. He couldn’t quite remember what peace felt like.
Yoda, he knew, was hoping that Obi-Wan would take a new padawan. There were so many padawans who had lost their masters, and so many initiates that would need to be trained.
But the very idea of taking a padawan left Obi-Wan feeling faintly sick. It wasn’t that he did not care fo the padawans and initiates. He genuinely hoped to one day take another padawan. But now now, not yet. Not when his last attempt at taking a padawan had been so firmly rebuffed. Not when the rawness of this failure with Anakin was still so fresh.
Not when Obi-Wan didn’t understand where he had gone so wrong.
When he had re-learned what peace felt like, when he had found his center again. Maybe then he could try again. But not now.
No initiate deserved to have to put up with him as a master. He was falling apart at the seams and he would not use a padawan to put himself back together again. That was not the responsibility of a padawan. Even with Anakin, no matter how desperately Obi-Wan had been drowning at the time, he’d never let the burden of care land on Anakin’s shoulders. And he wouldn’t do it now.
There were some mistakes from his own past that Obi-Wan refused to let repeat.
He just… didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
He took a deep breath, acknowledging the fear, the anxiety, the despair, accepting them and the reasons behind them, before carefully letting them go. They would be back, as they often were. And Obi-Wan would continue to deal with it then.
For now, small steps.
Tea, first. He had come here to make tea.
He moved to the kitchen, his steps a little steadier. It took him a few moments to find where he’d left the kettle and where he’d stored away his favorite tea blends. But soon the water was heating.
He looked through the rest of the cupboards and the cooling unit skeptically. Other than a few packages of old crackers, a carton of rotten blue milk, and a few rations, his kitchen was rather bare. Lately he’d been eating in the commissary while working with one of his fellow councillors, grabbing a bite to eat at Senator Amidala’s while helping with the twins, or, on luckier occasions, eating at Dex’s, though even that had served the primary purpose of getting Dex to fill him in on the whispers that were spreading through the underground to ensure that there would be no nasty surprises waiting for them.
But it was past time for him to shift back into a routine that wasn’t entirely dominated by the war and post-war reparations. Obi-Wan wasn’t the best cook, but he’d yet to give himself food poisoning, and it would be good for him. Probably. Either way, it was still parsecs better than eating rations morning, noon, and night.
Or more accurately, eating rations whenever Cody tracked him down and shoved them at him.
But the point still stood.
The water was still heating and Obi-Wan turned back to his tea stash.
Mace was particular, but Obi-Wan was determined to find his friend a blend that he’d genuinely enjoy. He considered what he knew about his friend. His friend had something of a sweet tooth, and also seemed to enjoy the rich flavors from his home planet. Perhaps the Livyan blend? Or maybe the Oriondar?
He considered the two options seriously, before dismissing them both. The Barach blend. He glanced through the tea blends he’d brought down, but didn’t see it there. He was sure he had at least enough for two more cups somewhere.
He moved to another cupboard, intent on finding it, and found himself grasping for the counter as another wave of dizziness hit him.
His kitchen fuzzed around him, turning from the barren room it was to the center of an explosion as though someone very powerful had lost their temper and taken it out on Obi-Wan’s quarters.
He blinked, and his kitchen came back into proper focus.
He turned slowly, feeling off balance. Perhaps the Livyan blend was fine for this evening. He’d find the Barach blend later. It would probably be a better use of his time to try and get a bit of meditation in while he waited for Mace to join him.
His head was aching, a deep throb behind his eyes and a pounding at his temples. His heart was beating at a rate that he knew was faster than it should be, as though it was demanding that Obi-Wan stop ignoring it.
The clamminess from earlier returned with a vengeance, and, as Obi-Wan took a step forward, he realized that he was shaking.
He took a deep breath in, trying to center himself. He pulled at the Force, trying to bring it to bear on his body, to soothe away the chill and ease the pounding.
The Force moved over him and through him, a tender whisper.
There and gone, and Obi-Wan felt none of the relief he’d been searching for.
He tried not to feel betrayed.
The Force had been his constant ally through the past few years. Giving him the strength he needed to push through the exhaustion and pain when his own energy was depleted and his own strength wasn’t enough to keep pressing forward.
Why would the Force forsake him now?
There were screams and whispers echoing in his ears, vicious and pained in equal measure. The room was fading around him again, distorting into the kitchen from the future that wasn’t.
Everything was mixing together. Reality and distortion.
The sound of the tea kettle whistling, sharp and piercing, mixed with blaster fire and unanswered cries, and a steady pounding in the background of it all that Obi-Wan couldn’t place.
He could feel a familiar presence, reaching out to him, wrapping around him. Concerned and worried and real, real, real.
Mace.
Mace was at the door. That was the pounding.
Obi-Wan tried to open his mouth, tried to speak. But nothing escaped.
He tried to step forward, but his legs refused to move.
For a long moment, he stood there motionless, his body refusing to respond to his mind’s demands to move.
There seemed to be some sort of terrible battle going on between his mind and his body, Obi-Wan the helpless spectator, before the fight came to a sudden end as his body failed him. Obi-Wan crumpled to the floor.
Where his head hit the floor ached, sharp and bright, contrasting to a deeper pain, an ache that permeated through his entire body, and deeper still, to his heart, his soul.
He couldn’t seem to pull in enough air, he couldn’t breathe.
Was he dying? The thought slipped through his mind like a wraith, but Obi-Wan discarded it as unimportant.
Mace’s voice was calling for him.
Oh. He hadn’t meant to worry his friend. But Obi-Wan couldn’t reassure him right now, his mouth still unable to produce the words he’d need to assure his friend that he was fine.
He blinked, the vision of his kitchen blurring, and Obi-Wan noted with some gratitude that it was the kitchen as it should be, even if gray was creeping into the corners of the sight.
The tea kettle was still whistling. Obi-Wan hoped that Mace remembered to turn off the stove. He didn’t want his kitchen to burn down.
The temple should never have to burn. Especially not because of Obi-Wan’s own carelessness.
It was a shame, he mourned, his thoughts blurry. He really had been looking forward to enjoying a cup of tea with Mace.
But at least, for the moment, he didn’t have to decide what it was he was supposed to do. The decision had been taken completely out of his hands.
His thoughts twisted again, slipping away, and Obi-Wan slipped with them. The Force pulled at him, gentle and kind, and Obi-Wan couldn’t forget the way it had abandoned him only minutes ago.
But Obi-Wan was used to being abandoned, and he welcomed the Force back the way he would have everyone else that’d left him.
He was just the grateful the Force had returned; the Force guide him into unconsciousness.
He just hoped he wouldn’t dream.