Chapter Text
“And then,” said Ahsoka, scooting closer to Satine, “Anakin handed me his lightsaber and said he’d be able to best the champion in the ring--and you wouldn’t believe what happened next.”
Satine laughed. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “He beat him?”
“No! Master Obi-wan walks in!” Ahsoka snorted with laughter. Satine’s eyes widened. “He took one look at Anakin, all half-dressed and about to step into the ring, and let him have it right there! I’ve never seen Anakin so embarrassed, or Master Obi-wan so angry. And even the ringmaster felt bad for Anakin afterwards--they gave him half the prize money as a consolation prize.”
Satine burst out laughing. “No!” she said. “No--that’s terrible! What did he do with it?”
“Well, Master Obi-wan took it, and Anakin was too sulky to ask. But Master Obi-wan never spends money on anything. He doesn’t even use the allowance the Jedi Temple gives him.”
Satine rolled her eyes and sank back against the cushion. “I can imagine,” she said. When they were on the run, Qui-Gon had had to order Obi-wan to buy a new cloak for himself. She didn’t tell Ahsoka this, though. The memory was...painful.
It’d been four days since she’d awoken in the hospital, and two days since the glass partition had been taken down. Since then, Anakin and Ahsoka had alternated shifts, while Padme had commed her with updates about Mandalore. Satine had found Anakin’s visits to be somewhat awkward--the Jedi always treated her with a sort of hesitant respect--but she looked forward to seeing Ahsoka. She’d kept in touch with Obi-wan’s Padawan over the last year, and the two could usually get a good laugh in about Anakin.
“Hey,” said Ahsoka, “did Anakin tell you that we’re going to Cato Neimoidia later tonight?”
Her eyes had taken on a tentative light, and Satine sighed. “He did,” she said simply. “And I’ll be fine.” She reached out a laid a hand on Ahsoka’s, and Ahsoka squeezed it. For a moment, the two watched the late morning traffic. The sun glittering harshly off the transports, the buildings winking like so many eyes. Satine had gotten sick of the view. “I’ll have physical therapy to keep me busy, anyways.”
That was another thing--she’d started physical therapy yesterday. She’d read through all the medical procedures she could find on her comm--partially to find out how to heal herself faster, partially to figure out what exactly Obi-wan had done--but had found nothing helpful. Her internal bleeding was fully drained, the damage patched up with heat probes, and her only choice was a slow recovery. But she could only manage to walk across the room and back, braced against a walker, before running short of breath. The droids still hadn’t allowed her to shower, instead sanitizing her wound and scrubbing down the rest of her body by themselves, and she felt both undignified and uncomfortable in her unwashed state.
Ahsoka made a sympathetic face. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll be back on your feet in no time. Besides, it’s probably good for you to rest. You need a break after everything that happened.”
Satine recoiled involuntarily at Ahsoka’s words. Everything that happened. How could she possibly take a break? She’d reached out to leaders of five neutral systems, her and Mandalore’s closest allies, and only two had responded. Their meeting was terse, fruitless. Both of them were seeking Republic aid. And although they had promised to keep her survival a secret.... Would they keep good on their word? Satine still did not know which was worse: hiding behind death as she worried about her planet’s fate, or deciding to live and let the Republic manipulate her survival.
Either way, she was running out of time to decide.
“Satine?” said Ahsoka.
Her head snapped up. “Yes,” she said. “Yes--sorry about that. I have a lot on my mind.”
“No, I understand.” Ahsoka let go of Satine’s hand and yawned. “Again, if you need me to help with anything--”
“No, no. There’s nothing you can do. Frankly, I don’t know if there’s anything I can do, either.” Satine turned on her comm. A recent article popped onto her screen: Mother Talzin had just died. Two of Mandalore’s oil conglomerates had endorsed Almec. A report from Padme listed the stream of refugees from Mandalore to Outer Rim systems, although most refugees had been rejected from new housing. A few of the wealthier families had journeyed to Coruscant--none of them her supporters.
“Hey.” Ahsoka laid a hand on Satine’s shoulder, and Satine ran a hand over her brow. She was careful not to disrupt her braid: Ahsoka was still trying to figure out human hair, and Satine's braid was slowly coming undone. “It’s gonna be all right.”
“I just don’t know what to do,” she murmured. She stared hopelessly at the comm, then turned it off. “I’ve just been sitting here, and I can’t figure out how to announce my survival in a productive way. I’m thinking of helping the refugees who arrive on Coruscant, but they’re wealthy enough to manage on their own--and I’m hardly equipped for humanitarian work. Times like this I envy Naboo’s system, Ahsoka. Padme served as both Queen and Senator, and was involved in public service long before she entered the legislative system.”
Ahsoka tilted her head. Her skin was pale beneath the sunlight. “You don’t have that on Mandalore?”
“We’re not democratic.” Satine glanced at Ahsoka, who was now watching her with interest. “I thought you’d learned this in your politics classes?”
Ahsoka blushed. “We...well, the Outer Rim unit was short. We didn’t really talk about it. And, uh, I was on a mission. I didn’t study that much.”
Tsk, Satine wanted to say. But a sense of unease crept over her--a mission? How old was Ahsoka, again? Although Korkie was not her son, she’d hardly allowed him to go a day without class. And here was a girl his age, running off to fight a war instead of staying in school.
“You were saying?” said Ahsoka.
“Ah.” Satine shook her head. “Yes, I was saying that I had a sheltered upbringing. I studied at Coruscant for several years. Until I...went on the run...I’d rarely ever seen the outskirts of Mandalore. The rural areas.”
Ahsoka blinked. “So that’s how you developed your Pacifist ideals? By being exposed to war?”
“No,” she said, “no. I had those ideals long before the Mandalorian Civil War. I could never stomach or make sense of violence. And it wasn’t just me asserting pacifism, either. I had a political party backing me up.”
“Huh.” Ahsoka glanced tentatively at Satine. “If you wouldn’t--if you wouldn’t mind me asking, did that put you in opposition with your family? Your clan?”
Satine laughed and shifted her weight. Oh, if only she knew. “I don’t mind,” she said. “And no...not quite. My mother was always supportive of me. She feared for my safety, though. My father, on the other hand, disapproved. He sent me to Coruscant to rid me of those ideals.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Satine let out a bitter smile. “Ironically, he was murdered in the Civil War.”
Ahsoka’s eyes widened. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She took Satine’s hand. “That’s terrible.”
“It’s in the past. What can we do but move forward?” she sighed, then stretched her arms. The tubes rattled, but she could only feel a mild pain in her ribs: just a few more days, and she wouldn’t need the machine anymore. “But enough about me.” She smiled encouragingly at Ahsoka. “Your stories about Master Skywalker are the highlight of my days, my dear. Tell me more.”
Ahsoka grinned. “I was--well, I was actually hoping you’d tell me about Master Obi-wan. Like, I can’t even imagine him when he was fifteen.” She hesitated, waiting for Satine to rebuff her, but Satine shrugged. Oh, what’s the harm?
“I...well...if we’re going to talk about Obi-wan’s stinginess, there was one time when we dropped our provisions in a river.” Satine smiled. “Obi-wan dove right in and got them out, but it was winter--”
“Oh no. He didn’t.”
“He did!” Satine laughed softly. “He was freezing afterwards, and the food was ruined. Both Qui-Gon and I told him not to eat it--he got a terrible cold, too, mind you--and he agreed to throw it out. But then, a few days later, he got food poisoning--”
“Oh no--”
“And we realized it was because he’d kept eating it anyways.” She grinned, her arms around herself, suddenly filled with a warm, childish delight. What she did not tell Ahsoka was how Obi-wan had been so cold that night, shivering so fiercely, that he hadn’t even objected when she’d given him her blanket. That was the first night she’d stayed up for a shift, wasn’t it? She’d taken Obi’s watch. She’d watched him in the moonlight: swaddled tightly in two heavy blankets and two sleeping bags, Padawan braid falling over her pillow--they’d started sleeping close together for warmth, and he always took up too much room--and a lump had risen in her throat.
“That’s ridiculous,” Ahsoka was saying. “Especially because he’s so stringent about health for, well, literally everyone else.”
Satine laughed quietly. “That’s true. There was one time, when both Qui-Gon and I got sick, and Obi--I mean, Obi-wan--you’d have thought he was the sick one, the way he was running around and giving us medicine and panicking.”
“That’s a sight I’d pay to see,” said Ahsoka wistfully. “A panicked Obi-wan. Actually, on the second thought, the day I see him panic is probably gonna be the day the world ends.”
Satine looked away. Panic. Her heart beat faster. She swallowed. One memory had haunted her for the last few days, had refused to leave her--Obi-wan a frantic blur, his face pale with fear. She had never seen him like that. She wished she never had, as if his reaction to her death were not meant for her eyes. As if it were something so personal, so private, that her gaze had somehow been a violation.
My death. She took a deep breath. She’d spent the last few days in a stunned fear, her hands grabbing onto her blankets on instinct, as if testing her tether to reality. She’d forced herself to read the news, to nap, to talk with Anakin and Ahsoka--anything to distract herself from the perversity of her existence.
“Has he sent you anything, by the way?” Ahsoka said, jolting Satine out of her thoughts. “Obi-wan. He didn’t send anything to us.”
Satine blinked. “What?”
“Obi-wan,” she said. Her eyes darkened. “He’s been...online. But he hasn’t updated me or Anakin, and, well, Anakin’s resentful. I’m just...worried.”
She turned on her comm. Nothing. “Have either of you messaged him?”
“No,” she said. She turned to Satine, and her gaze was troubled. “To be honest, I think...I think he’s scared, or at least worried. But I don’t know whether we should give him more time alone, or reach out. He always--”
“No, I understand.” Satine let out a breath and ran a hand over her brow. Obi-wan. Yet another train of thought she’d been determined to derail. Her anger had kept him out of her mind for the last few days, but it was now beginning to peter into worry. “He pushes people away. Frankly, Ahsoka--and this is between you and me--I don’t think he knows how to reach out.”
Ahsoka was silent. Then she nodded pensively. “That...that makes sense,” she said. “I guess I never thought about him like that before.”
You Jedi and your stoicism. It’ll be the end of you.
Ahsoka turned towards Satine, a small smile on her face. “I can sense what you’re feeling, you know. Some of it.”
Satine snorted, more to hide her embarrassment than anything else. But Ahsoka’s comment had taken her aback: the Padawan would’ve never spoken to her like that on Mandalore. When she was still Duchess. Had her wound somehow made her less formidable? Someone to pity? “I’m not the only one who thinks that way,” she snapped. Ahsoka blinked, and with some effort, Satine softened her voice. “I respect your way of life. I do not agree with it.”
Ahsoka tensed. “Fair.”
The two lapsed into silence. Satine let out a breath, then pulled up her comm again.
She gasped.
One new message from Bo-Katan Kryze.
“What?” said Ahsoka, sitting upright. “What happened--”
Bo-Katan. Bo-Katan--had she seen Obi-wan leave Mandalore with Satine? Why had she waited so long to make contact? Satine had pushed her sister out of her mind--it was better not to think about family during times of crisis. And now....
“One moment,” murmured Satine. She freed her hand from Ahsoka’s and pulled up the message. Her shoulders tensed.
Satine--
I did not know how best to contact you. I decided to wait until you announced your survival, but seeing as you have not yet made a statement, I am writing with a warning. A Clan Saxon ship was seen leaving Mandalore a few days ago. We traced it to Coruscant. I assume Kenobi took you there.
Nothing else. Satine scrolled through the rest of her private messages, her eyes narrowed, blood roaring in her ears. Clan Saxon? Why would that clan make the five-day trip to Coruscant? And Bo-Katan.... There was nothing else. No indication to where her sister might be, although the message was clear: don’t contact me back. Bo-Katan was a renegade terrorist. No regime would accept her.
“Satine?” said Ahsoka. “Are you all right?”
Satine looked up, her heart pounding. “Do you have the logs of the Senate building?” she said with some effort. “About who’s visiting, and when?”
Ahsoka nodded and pulled up her wrist comm. “Yes, of course.”
“Last name Saxon.”
Ahsoka’s eyes widened. “Saxon?” she said, already scrolling through the logs. “Didn’t they--I thought--there’s nothing here. Nothing from the last three days, or today.”
Satine cursed quietly. “They’re under a fake name, then. Or a visitor’s pass. But Ahsoka--”
“You want me to track them.”
Satine nodded.
Ahsoka stood, and the bed sprang back to normal. Her eyes were hard and determined. “All right,” she said. “Consider it done.”
“Thank you.”
Ahsoka strode to the door, then hesitated. “Satine,” she said, “I think...I think that maybe you should call Obi-wan. If what you say is true, about him not wanting to reach out to anyone, then you might be the best person to get to him.”
Satine swallowed. “I...I’ll consider it,” was all she could manage. “Thank you, again.”
Ahsoka gave her another nod. A hesitant one. And then she left.
Satine sank back into the silence.
Saxon. Clan Saxon. Her stomach turned--just when she thought the situation on Mandalore couldn’t get worse, here was yet another complication. If the Chancellor had already moved to endorse Almec, he must have plans for Saxon as well. Satine glanced at the door. Could she risk involving Padme in this? Ahsoka was far enough removed from the Chancellor to avoid attracting suspicion, but Padme was a high-ranking Senator. She had her own planet’s interests, and she’d already defended Satine once....
Satine swallowed. I have no choice, she realized. I need to announce my survival right now--as soon as possible--before this spins out of control. Her hands closed around the tube leading from her rib cage to the machine. How could she possibly make such an announcement without implicating Obi-wan?
And, once again, anger flooded through her. Had Obi-wan really expected her to stay silent while she recovered? To wait for him? Her planet was at stake. Her people were in danger.
Satine pulled up Padme on her comm. Please come see me, she typed. I would like to announce my survival as soon as possible. The message was painfully informal, but it was all she could manage. She hit send.
The reply came almost immediately: I’ll be there in an hour. I can gather your allies for you: Bail Organa would definitely support Mandalore’s sovereignty and your bid to retake power. I’ll also plan for a transport to get you off Coruscant, as a last resort.
Thank you, Satine replied.
She turned off her comm and stared moodily at the view. The noontime rush had picked up, and her eyes blurred as she tried to follow each speeder. The traffic on Coruscant was so different from that in Sundari. Sundari was so much more organized, the buildings connected to allow a greater range of transportation. Satine had assigned the city planner herself: she knew that the pedestrians could walk alongside the speeders, that Sundari’s new layout had reduced carbon emissions by two-thousand percent. The city planner...Hera Ualin. Where was she now? Had she survived Maul’s war?
Satine closed her eyes. Had it not been for Anakin and Ahsoka, she suspected that the enormity of her loss would’ve overwhelmed her days ago. It was almost unbearable to sit in such stillness, in such silence, as her world burned down around her. And to have survived.... She felt too pathetic to cry.
It’d been like this years ago, too. Decades ago, when all her loss was inseparable from her selfishness. Thirteen months after she had gone on the run, Qui-Gon Jinn had walked into their shelter with a poster. She and Obi-wan had looked up from their game of st’ayika--a board game which she played mediocrely, but which Obi-wan played terribly and therefore led him to assume her expertise (she wasn’t about to correct him, anyways)--and Qui-Gon had cleared his throat. Obi-wan shot to his feet. Satine remained sitting.
“Duchess,” said Qui-Gon, with a slight nod. Satine blinked, then frowned. Why the formality? “Padawan. I have just received word from the nearest township. The opposition party has issued a formal writ of surrender. I made contact with our touch person in your party, Duchess, as he instructed me to do in this situation. We will return you to Sundari in two months.”
Satine froze. Obi-wan’s mouth hung open. Dimly, through the chitter of the birds and the creaking of their impromptu shelter--it was spring, and they’d neglected to set up a proper rain barrier--she felt her stomach twist. Return you to Sundari.
Two months.
Her ears rang. The enormity of the situation finally crashed down on her: Sundari in two months. Her home. She was going home.
“Well,” Qui-Gon said graciously, now with one firm hand on Obi-wan’s shoulder, “I will prepare dinner. Why don’t you two find some berries outside? I was thinking of making some dessert, and the market prices were quite high.” He squeezed Obi-wan’s shoulder again--Obi-wan still looked stunned, as if he were the one returning to Sundari instead of her--and whisked away to the edge of the shelter. Dust motes swirled in his wake.
For a moment, both Satine and Obi-wan sat still. And then Satine managed a smile at Obi-wan. “Come on,” she said. Her voice sounded strangled, tight. Obi-wan met her gaze, then looked away. So that’s why Qui-Gon called me Duchess. This is going to end. Why did it hurt so much to breathe? “Let’s go.”
Obi-wan returned her with a curt nod. Automatically, her hands balled at her side, Satine stood and left the shelter. She half-feared that Obi-wan wouldn’t follow her. It was late afternoon. The sun fell through the trees in gentle golden shafts. His hair was almost red beneath the light.
Silently, side by side, they headed down the path. The forest was unusually quiet, as if waiting for them to speak, and Satine could hear Obi-wan breathe. Unsteady. Shallow.
They took a right at the gnarly tree, as they had for the last week. The river burbled before them--they’d played a Jedi training game in there just days ago, and they’d both resorted to cheating--and they walked alongside the riverbank. Over the gnarly roots. Around the muddy patches. They came to the tree-trunk bridge, the one that would lead them to the berries. Obi-wan braced her automatically against him, and she flinched as his hand tightened around hers. They did not look at each other as they crossed. Had he gotten taller in the last few months? She could barely see past his shoulders now.
Finally, silently, they arrived at the berry patch. Then Obi-wan turned to Satine, and his eyes were wide. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I forgot to bring the bucket.”
She blinked. “What?”
“For the berries.”
“Oh. Okay.”
They stood facing each other, neither able to hold the other’s gaze. Satine’s throat was tight. The wind blew her hair into her face--and she was startled. How long had it been since she’d cared for her hair? She would’ve never let this happen in Sundari--none of this. Not her hair, not this informality, not...him.
She looked up, and an absurd need to cry rose in her throat. Obi-wan was still not looking at her. He shifted his weight from one foot to another. He was gangly, scrawny after a year of subsisting on the wilderness. His Padawan braid longer, his cheek still scarred after the Venomite attack. She’d been the one to patch up that wound, and now it was all she could to resist reaching out to him.
“Obi-wan,” she said gently, “we should talk.”
He looked away automatically. She stepped towards him, and he flinched. This hurt her more than she’d thought possible--that after all this time, after all the nights they’d fallen asleep next to each other, after all the times they’d laughed at one another and Qui-Gon--his instinct now was to recoil.
Obi-wan looked up. Guiltily. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“No. No--I--” Satine withdrew her hand. Sank into herself. Her arms folded around her stomach, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. What was there to say? How could she possibly say it? She’d spent the first six months of their flight in a state of angered panic--she had a planet to rule, for blast’s sake!--and she could barely sit still and sleep for her impatience, for her indignance. And when she did sleep, she dreamed of politics: of all the reforms she could push through if she were still in Sundari, of all she’d hoped to accomplish--now dashed by this war and by her own cowardly flight--
And then, slowly, somehow...all those concerns had begun to fade away. Until Sundari was little more than a dream, and she’d come to tolerate--then enjoy, then look forward to--the long, drawn-out days. The rain, the dusty sun. The nights they couldn’t sleep from boredom, and the nights they fell asleep immediately out of exhaustion.
She’d almost tricked herself into believing it’d never end.
That she didn’t need it to.
Obi-wan said nothing. Satine’s throat twisted as she realized he didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know, either--and she wanted to scream at the unfairness: that none of her training as a politician had prepared her for this.
“Well,” she said automatically. She bent down and began picking berries, and Obi-wan followed suit immediately. In a moment of wild fantasy, she wished that these plants had thorns--that one of them would prick their finger and that the other would rush to their aid--but nothing happened. She gathered a fistful of berries, then stood. Obi-wan knelt at the other end of the clearing, staring at his boot. He caught her gaze. Looked up. His face was pale. His hands shaking ever so slightly.
“We should go back,” he said. His voice careful and controlled.
No. No--don’t. We shouldn’t. Because this was it. Because she knew that after this moment, neither of them--both so full of pride and duty and self-imposed dignity--would acknowledge this again. That they could either speak now, or live with their silence forever. Please, Obi-wan. Say something. She almost opened her mouth, almost pushed aside all the pride and duty that kept her lips sealed--but she forced herself to stay still. To plead with him, silently, desperately, to speak. Say something. Obi-wan, please, say something.
A moment passed. Two. Obi-wan’s gaze was agonizing. She looked away.
“All right,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”
They started back. She walked two steps ahead of him, determined not to give him the dignity of her gaze, burning with anger and embarrassment and sadness--but the river forced her to stop. Carefully, Obi-wan helped her onto the log, one hand braced against her waist, the other wrapped around her fingers. As she stepped onto solid land, she pulled away, freed his fingers from hers--
But he held on. His right hand tightened around her left, and the motion--reaching out to her, clinging to her--was so abrupt that he almost toppled off the log. For a moment he lurched back and forth, still holding onto her hand. Satine froze. Her heart was in her throat. Obi-wan regained his balance. They stayed like that: her on the bank, him with one foot on the log. The river churning merrily beneath them, silver in the evening light. Obi-wan’s hand was warm. His grip was just tight enough to implore her--stay, please--but just loose enough that she could leave. That she could walk away, and....
Satine closed her eyes. Her hand tightened around his, and Obi-wan let out a small, choked breath. They did not look at each other as he climbed off the log. As they headed back to the shelter, hand in hand for the first time. The last. Their hands swung slightly. Their fingers were wound tightly, desperately, around one another’s palms. Satine realized that she had never seen Obi-wan’s palms before--had never studied them the way she’d imagined lovers would read each other’s hands--and the thought filled her with an immeasurable grief.
The sun was a dull, lazy gold. They took a left at the gnarly tree, and Obi-wan let out a laugh. “I think I dropped my berries somewhere,” he muttered. His voice was low, and Satine choked out a laugh in reply. “We’re just gonna have to tell Qui-Gon that there were none left.”
“It’s all right. They were just for dessert, anyways.” The berries in her left hand were warm. Her fingers were numb as she opened her fist and let them fall, and her palm was bloody and red.
They still had berry jam for dessert--the food she’d mentioned offhandedly to Qui-Gon months ago, the food she always ate when she was sad--and Satine thought that maybe the market prices hadn’t been that high after all.
Now, as Satine stared at the Coruscant noon, she realized that she did not remember whether she or Obi-wan had been the first to let go of the other’s hand. She did not know which was worse. And for all the brief moments of beauty they’d shared that year, they’d still chosen to leave the other behind--because there was no way Obi-wan could’ve fit in her life, and there was no way she could’ve belonged in his.
But now...now, her life had been upended. And it would be upended yet again, whether she liked it or not, if she let her dignity keep her from contacting him.
Satine pulled up her comm.
Obi-wan, she typed. She let out a breath. Come back. I need
She swallowed. you, she yearned to write. to talk to you, was her only acceptable option. The cursor blinked on her comm, and slowly, she finished her sentence. Hit send.
She stared at her comm. At her message, hovering detached and displaced in blue light. Her words were so small and pathetic. In a moment of anger, she wanted to spite him--to delete her semi-plea, to eradicate all evidence of her needing--all to challenge him to respond. To make him need her, because for all she knew, he had stopped needing her a long time ago.
Satine’s cursor blinked. Her throat tightened, and her hands balled into fists. Deep down, she knew Obi-wan was probably fighting. Or marching, or healing. Perhaps sleeping. Neither of them had never been quick to reply to messages, anyways. Her legs shifted beneath the sheets. The heartrate monitor beeped.
The traffic sped by her window. The cursor kept blinking.
Satine swallowed and looked away.