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Love is often not a grand gesture. It can be found in the smallest moments, the in between bits that you may never think to study. At first appearing insignificant, upon closer examination you find a kindness, an opinion, a touch are all the places where love lives.
Obi-Wan Kenobi never told Satine Kryze that he loved her. There were many times when the phrase hovered on the tip of his tongue, but he never let it out. He’d snap his teeth shut and clench his jaw, swallowing the words that could ruin his position as a Jedi.
Attachment was forbidden; it was a source of distraction and confusion. Though Kenobi understood this strict notion, his head never truly convinced his heart that he didn’t love the Duchess of Mandalore.
Though he never said the words, Obi-Wan could not subdue his inherent feelings for Satine. Love is not premeditated. True love is a matter of instinct and intuition, the heart guiding the head rather than the other way around.
When he first reached for her hand it was out of necessity, pulling her from harm’s way. They were young and naïve, still buoyant with lofty plans and ambitious ideals. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had been assigned to protect her from bloodthirsty insurgents and bounty hunters. The assignment was long and arduous, physically and mentally wearing all three of them down. As weeks stretched into months, Kenobi reached for Satine’s hand more and more; but now it was out of a different necessity, now it was a need to comfort her, to reassure her, to instill her with strength and bolster her with stability. Occasionally he even reached for her when he needed comfort.
Their friendship grew stronger, and though Kenobi tried to ignore the way his chest tightened when she smiled or the way he wanted to tell her things he would never tell anyone else, he could not ignore the way the Force drew them together. He seemed to always know what she needed and happily offered her whatever he could. Whether it be his last bite of rations, his blanket at night, or his arm draped over her shoulder when fear got the better of her, Obi-Wan’s instinct was to provide for her needs.
Naïveté can only last so long. Brutality has a way of irrevocably destroying innocence, and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s was no exception. When he was badly wounded, Satine scooped his head into her lap and stroked his hair, gently singing Mandalorian odes to him under her breath. While the Force flickered around him, threatening to burn out as his life drained away, he could think of no better place to die than in the arms of the woman he loved. Even so, he kept the confession to himself, still refusing to verbally admit the truth that lived in his heart.
They were changed forever by the horrible experience, possibly for the worse, but when Kenobi recovered the Jedi and the Duchess’s affections became bolder.
It was the freest Obi-Wan would ever be.
By the time the Jedi called him home and forced him to choose between love and duty, his youthful callowness had faded. He could see that neither he nor Satine could deny their larger responsibilities, and to throw away a lifetime of training for love would only lead to bitterness on one side or the other. He told himself that he left her because he loved her; he left her so that she might rule Mandalore without distraction.
Years later, once he had grown older and wiser, Obi-Wan finally admitted that he had actually left Satine for selfish reasons. He had not swallowed his pride, he had been too afraid of her rejection, and he had not wanted to give up his Jedi training. He had learned too late that a frank conversation might have spared them both years of heartbreak.
When their paths crossed during the clone wars he was surprised at his own calm; despite years of diplomacy and an arsenal of battle-hardened nerves, he had feared looking into her eyes. After leaving Satine on Mandalore, Kenobi had learned to shield his heart, using the Jedi Code as an excuse to keep everyone around him at arm’s length. Even so, Jedi or not, the heart cannot be repressed without also making it cold and rigid. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s austerity was learned--a matter of self-preservation--but the moment he was once again in Satine Kryze’s presence, he felt his rigidity begin to falter.
It didn’t take long before he realized he was still willing to die for her. Now that he was a Jedi Master he could never hold her hand nor kiss her nor offer her his cloak, but he would protect her even if it meant his own death. He believed he could serve the Duchess of Mandalore without risking his heart.
However, despite what he thought, once again the Force would not be denied. The two were drawn together over and over until their shared history preyed on both their hearts. They cracked in the same moment, each needing absolution for their youthful mistakes, each needing acknowledgment that their affections were requited.
They met in secret as often as they could, which was not often at all. Years later, in his exile on Tatooine, when Obi-Wan thought of Satine it was nearly always this version of her. Regal and lovely in her strength; as sharp and bullheaded as she was diplomatic and generous; Kenobi loved her more than ever. He could never leave the Jedi for her just as she could never give up Mandalore for him. But in their stolen moments they knew happiness that their youthful selves could never have appreciated. The small details stuck with Kenobi over the decades, such as his fingertips brushing across her cheek, the curve of her lips when she smiled, her quiet snores as her head rested on his chest while they lay in her bed. The tiny, silent moments were the most heavenly.
The cruelty of impermanence is inescapable, and though the Jedi and his Duchess deserved better, their time together was cut short when Satine was murdered, used as a pawn in an attempt to destroy Obi-Wan. When she died, a piece of him went with her. Kenobi was never the same; there was a reluctance in his smile and his eyes seemed tired. He wore the Duchess’s pendant around his neck, hidden beneath his tunic, for the rest of his life.
A few years after Kenobi’s death on the Death Star, Luke Skywalker returned to the old man’s home on Tatooine looking for relics that could help him learn about the Force. He found a wooden chest filled with Obi-Wan’s journals. In the bottom of this carved box, wrapped in a silk scarf, Skywalker found a kyber crystal, a Mandalorian crest, and a set of gold rings. The young man could sense that the items had been sacred to Kenobi so he carefully wrapped them up again and brought them back to the Rebel fleet where he could protect them. Anything that was sacred to Obi-Wan Kenobi was sacred to Luke. As Skywalker’s power grew, the chest became a sort of shrine where the young man kept Jedi artifacts and ancient texts. Luke ensured that Obi-Wan Kenobi’s memoirs and few prized possessions where safe and constantly surrounded by the light side of the Force.