Chapter Text
Obi-Wan sat aboard the cargo ship, wedged in between the crates alongside other passengers. She was just another sentient on a one-way trip to a world that few would willingly live on. Despite it being her choice, she understood that the life ahead of her was not an easy one.
But that was the purpose of an exile, wasn’t it?
It felt right to go back to the planet where it had all started. Another reason, if Obi-Wan were to be honest, is that no one in their right mind would think to look for her on Tatooine. Least of all Anakin, he hated the desert planet with ferocity most unbecoming of a Jedi.
If only I’d acted on that passion before it manifested itself, Obi-Wan thought, letting her forehead drop to her knees. Then I might not be here.
Mos Espa was just exactly how she remembered it. Hot, dry, and hard to look at without squinting, the brother suns in the sky bearing down ceaselessly on the city’s occupants. She slipped through the crowds like a stranger and like a ghost they saw right through her.
In a way, it was refreshing to not be someone.
Obi-Wan bought a landspeeder with the credits she had saved over the years, credits she never expected to use. She purchased a new robe and scarf to bear the spontaneous sandstorms she half-remembered Anakin mentioning. They were grey in color although she would have preferred the traditional Jedi brown or cream. That would have been too obvious. After a prolonged mental debate, she purchased a blaster, sneering delicately when the shopkeeper handed it to her.
Old habits die hard, she admitted, tugging her robe’s voluminous layers closer and boarding the speeder. She had discussed needing a new place of residence with an Arcona shopkeeper and he mentioned an empty dwelling in the Jundland Wastes, near the Western Dune Sea. Remote and near inhospitable.
Perfect.
After spending the better part of the day trying to get the vaporator working, she sat in the shade of her new abode. The inside had collected more sand than the desert itself and would require a shovel rather than a broom to clear. It felt good to be working with her hands.
“I’ll have to go to town for parts before the suns go down,” Obi-Wan said to the empty air before shaking herself off and standing. “Oh, dear. I’m already starting to talk to myself. That’s not a good sign, is it?”
A howling wind blew across the ridges of sand, swirling grit against the painfully blue sky, but there was no one to answer her.
Obi-Wan decided to stay in Mos Espa for the night, dreading the lonely house filled with sand and silence. Instead, she left her needed purchases in her rented room and headed to the nearest cantina. There were plenty to choose from, what with the planet being Hutt territory.
She picked one that was busy so she could blend with the crowd, seating herself at the bar with her hood drawn. The music was loud, played by a live band in the corner. The lighting was dim and sporadic.
The bartender came over to her, a tan-skinned Advozse female. “What’ll it be?”
“I don’t suppose you have Corellian brandy?”
She grunted, “Sure, it’s expensive though. You got the credits?”
Obi-Wan slid them forward. “I wouldn’t dream to bother you if I didn’t.”
That produced a short laugh and the Advozse inspected her a little closer. “Charming. Gotta name, stranger?”
“Ben.” She supplied. “Your’s?”
“Tamka. I run this place so don’t cause any trouble, charmer.” Tamka poured her the drink.
“I will endeavor not to,” Ben promised with a wry smile, well aware of how trouble seemed to follow her.
For the next month, she spent her evenings at Tamka’s bar, getting to know the regulars and earning her own bottle of Corellian brandy on the shelf. In a gloomy way, it warmed her heart to be a part of a group again. Of course, right about the time she had a modicum of peace her past came back to haunt her.
“Well, well, well, look who it is.”
Ben closed her eyes. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Fancy meeting you here, Kenobi. Undercover again? Last time I swore to put a blaster bolt in your gut, didn’t I?” The Duros male drawled, a mechanical vibration buzzed in his tone from the breathing tubes attached to his neck and face.
“Cad Bane,” she greeted courteously, ignoring what he had said. “What brings you to this part of the galaxy?”
There was a lull where Ben half suspected that he would just shoot her down before he seated himself next to her. “Business, as usual. You’re not on one of your oh-so-important Jedi missions, then? You know, there’s a bunch of theories on the holonet about what happened to you, why you disappeared after the War ended. They say you abandoned the Republic. Or died.”
“You always say the sweetest things, Bane,” she replied airily, pushing her crisp Coruscanti accent to its utmost primness, ignoring the slight slur to her words. “If you must know, I’m no longer a Jedi. I was expelled. I’m sure you’re pleased to hear that. Although that does mean I’m not worth anything anymore, especially not with the War over.”
He let loose a harsh chuckle. “Expelled? You? Try my other leg and maybe then I’ll believe you, Kenobi.”
“Ben.” She shot him a dark look and then dragged her gaze around the bar. “It’s Ben now, if you don’t mind.”
Bane gestured dismissively. “Whatever, I don’t care if you’re not worth a single credit. I still have a score to settle.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi, former Jedi General, blinked up at him, her blue eyes dim. “I won’t fight you. I can’t. I don’t have a lightsaber anymore.” She turned back to nurse her drink. “Do what you must.”
Bane stared, clenching a toothpick between his fanged teeth. “What? That’s it? Where’s your self-respect, Ben?”
“On Corascant, with…” Ben stopped herself, glaring at the alcohol in her hand. “I’m too drunk to be talking to you, Bane. I’m going to say something I regret and I’d hate to ruin our wonderful comradery.”
Swaying just a hair, she pushed herself to her feet and waved a goodbye to Tamka. “I think I should go home now.”
Ben managed to take a few tottering steps before a firm hand gripped her arm. “Not so fast, Ben. You’re plastered, why don’t I walk you?”
His deep voice, thrumming with his breathing apparatus, sounded so soothing that she almost believed in his good will. “Mmmm, I’m sure you have the best intentions, eh?”
“Of course.” There was that sharp toothed smile that made her itch for a weapon in her hand.
Ben considered her options and relented with a careless shrug. What did she have to lose? “Fine, my speeder is this way.”
“You’re joking, Kenobi. You live here?” Cad Bane was in Obi-Wan’s living room on Tatooine and it took drunk Ben a moment to wrap her mind around such a ludicrous scenario. “There is literally nothing around for miles, what the kriff do you do besides drink yourself into a stupor?”
Ben pouted, insulted. “I’ll have you know that I meditate and talk to Qui-Gon, my Master.”
Bane glanced around. “I don’t see him. He live here?”
“No, you lout, he’s dead.” She snipped, as if it were obvious.
“Forgive my ignorance, I should’ve known,” he retorted dryly, sitting down at her rickety table and kicking his booted feet up. “Don’t suppose you got anything to drink here?”
“We were just at a bar,” Ben exclaimed, squinting at him incredulously. “Why didn’t you drink there?”
His red eyes peered at her from under the brim of his hat. “I don’t trust cantinas, particularly the ones on backwater planets like Tatooine.”
“Rude, Tamka is a proper barkeep. She- she’s, hm, I had a point but I lost it.” Ben muttered, pressing a hand to her cheek. “Why are you here again?”
“When you sober up, I’m going to kill you.”
“Oh, right. That was it. Goodnight then,” she replied before slumping onto her bed.
Ben woke up, sweating and with a splitting headache. There was the smell of food in the air and she wondered if Anakin had decided to make breakfast for once.
Her vision blacked out briefly when she jolted upright, recalling that she was not on Coruscant but Tatooine and Anakin hated her.
“Bane.” She greeted cordially, clenching her hands over her eyes. “What is this?”
“Breakfast. For me. You can make your own.” He had a cup of caff and a datapad in his hands. Where he had gotten that she had no idea, she hadn’t checked the holonet in weeks.
After quelling a bout of nausea, Ben wobbled over to her caff maker to pour herself a hearty mug. Usually she'd go for tea but her aching head demanded a stronger sort of caffeine. “It’s my food. And it’s not exactly easy to get out here in the desert.”
Bane observed her clumsy progress as he drank. “You’re going to be dead soon, so does it matter?”
“Please, let’s be civil and wait until after breakfast to talk about my death, shall we?” She selected the chair across from him, making sure to keep her hands in view at all times. Honestly, this was reminding her too much of her time as Raka Hardeen and their tense but genuine rapport. It was making her lower her guard. Was she really that lonely that she was glad to have Cad Bane around to talk to?
A shrug of slim shoulders from the Duros answered her. “Fine, your funeral.”
“Precisely,” Ben retorted and drank deeply.
A week passed with Bane threatening to kill her, but she was soon proved to be an unworthy target in his eyes. Apparently slaying an unarmed, depressed ex-Jedi drunk (Ben had huffed at that, she was not a drunk) would be more of a mercy than a kill worth boasting over.
“Listen, Kenobi, I’m still going to be the one to put you down. I’ll be back on Tatooine after a few jobs, so try to make it worth my while, alright?” The Duros sneered, tugging on his coat. He’d invited himself to Ben’s place the entirety of his stay, claiming it was so he could keep her in his sights but she suspected he didn’t like the noise from Mos Espa. Desert towns were often rowdier at night when things cooled down enough to make movement not an encumbrance.
“I can make no promises,” Ben simply smiled. “Happy hunting, try not to kill any innocent civilians.”
“Right there!” He pointed. “Try to get some of that smug self-righteousness back and I’ll be around to execute you in no time.”
Propping her head up with her hand, she used the other to wave. “May the Force be with you.”
“Bite me, Kenobi.”
“Oh, you wish, darling.”