Chapter Text
”…I can’t explain everything now, but Almec has the support of the crime families!”
The blue of the holorecording wavered violently as Duchess Satine Kryze peered over her shoulder at something happening off-camera, shoulders drawing back in a tensed gasp. Turning back to face the recorder, her features were grim, resigned.
”Obi Wan, I need your help.”
The rumble of engines in the background, and the video panned out to show multiple faceless soldiers touching down to surround Satine. The footage flickered once as they closed in on her, weapons drawn, before disappearing.
Obi Wan closed his eyes, that last image emblazoned in his brain even when he couldn’t see. All he could focus on was the hulking figures shrouded in red armor and Satine at the center of them all, in nothing but a simple dress and completely unarmed. He had never seen her appear so small before.
Yoda’s voice, carefully neutral. “Thoughts on this, Master Kenobi?”
She’s all alone! Obi Wan bit this back, plastering on another layer to his mental shielding in an effort to hold back what felt in part like a dam inside of him about to burst. He could feel the scrutiny-laced eyes of the other Masters on him, looking for something he could not let them find.
Obi Wan drew on the strings holding himself together to summon the Jedi Master within, feeling like an outsider in his own body as he heard himself cooly recount Satine’s history with Death Watch and their break with the Separatists. If this were truly a full-on coup, they would have been acting independently.
Which means the Republic has no jurisdiction to help, which means that we are all she has left, he refrained from adding on, a new wave of concern washing over him as he realized just how dire Satine’s situation was.
Yoda and Mundi shared a glance and Obi Wan knew they had come to the same conclusion he had anyway, but judging by their solemn expressions, they weren’t thinking along the same lines he was.
“Without involvement from the Separatists, this is an internal affair for the Mandalorians,” Mundi said, confirming Obi Wan’s fears. “I’m afraid we cannot help.”
Since when was the Jedi mandate “We can only fight Separatists”? “We cannot just hand Mandalore over to these crime families and let Satine become a martyr!” Obi Wan protested, knowing he was showing his hand but the increasingly hot worry bubbling up inside him made it difficult to care.
Mundi pointed out the difficulty Mandalore’s neutrality posed, and Obi Wan so badly wanted to argue; neutrality was not a crime, nor was it any reason to withhold aid. Yoda beat him to it.
“Understand your feelings I do, Obi Wan.”
Obi Wan had to look away to keep from laughing right in his face. No you don’t. You really, really don’t.
“But to take action,” Yoda continued, “support, from the Republic Senate, we will need.”
They were all aware Yoda was right, but they were also keenly aware of something else and if no one was willing to say it, Obi Wan would. “You know what the Senate will decide. They will not send aid to a neutral system.” A part of him was surprised at the bitterness in his voice against the institution he had nearly died for several times over, but he knew he spoke the truth. If Yoda actually thought their gaunt, embattled, stretched thin, exhausted government would give even a moment’s consideration to a worthless, powder keg of a system and its leader who had openly defied them…
This entire debacle was ridiculous. Obi Wan wasn’t asking for a full-scale invasion, for stars’ sake. Just a small team, maybe even a single person, to go in and remove a woman in trouble from a dangerous situation, just as the Council had done for Satine so many years ago—
“At this time, nothing more can we do,” Yoda cut in, tone final.
Mundi nodded in agreement, and Obi Wan felt the last of his hopes fall away. His voice was hollow to his own ears, echoing way too loudly. “I understand, Masters.” He bowed respectfully, hoping to be dismissed so he could— so he could what, exactly?
“Mmhmm.” Yoda was still giving him that look, and Obi Wan was torn between bristling under the chastising stare usually used for younglings, and cowering because youngling or not, it was still highly effective.
“Conflicted, you are,” Yoda murmured, eyes narrowed.
Damn it.
Obi Wan put up his best projection of polite confusion as Yoda went on. “Help everyone at once, the Republic cannot. Their own problems planets have had to solve, many times before. Know this, you do. Said this, you have. Different from any of the others, how is this?”
Oh, no difference, just that this one I happen to be hopelessly attached to, so if you don’t mind—
“I understand the Duchess’ direct appeal to you must be hard to hear, given your service to her in the past” Mundi commented and it took all of Obi Wan’s power not to freeze guiltily as he wondered if in his panic he had managed to actually send that last thought out for the others to hear it. “The difficult thing about Jedi and friendships is that one can so often be used for others’ gain.”
Obi Wan kept his voice very, very even despite practically feeling his blood pressure rise at the insinuation. “You’re suggesting her call was in bad faith?”
“Suggesting that the Duchess may not be the only one targeted, I believe he is,” Yoda corrected, now eyeing Obi Wan with a look that clearly said Watch it.
Obi Wan winced at both the glare and his own defensive behavior— Force, he was starting to put on the same cornered animal act Anakin pulled whenever he poked around the topic of Padmé for too long.
Thankfully Mundi hadn’t seemed to notice. “Exactly, Master Yoda,” Mundi agreed, troubled gaze drifting off into the distance slightly and Obi Wan remembered with a start that Mundi was the one Jedi with multiple known families to his name, an entire host of wives and children— and each and every one of them a liability. Mundi probably knew better than anyone the risks involved for others harboring emotional attachments to a Jedi.
The Force rolled uneasily around him; If Obi Wan was truly the cause of Satine’s troubles…
No.
He shook his head. “I respect your concerns, Master Mundi, but I doubt this has anything to do with me personally. The Death Watch may be no fans of mine, but on the occasion we crossed paths I was little more than a bothersome obstacle they were unable to get around. Their goal has always been Satine and Mandalore.”
There was that pair of scrutinizing looks again, and Obi Wan forced his spine to remain perfectly straight, standing tall. He had done nothing to earn those looks.
Liar.
“Alert the Senate of Mandalore’s request I will tonight,” Yoda said eventually, and Obi Wan dared to let out a tiny breath of relief. The meeting was over, and then he could—
He could…
Not wait around for the Senate’s rejection, that was for sure.
“Yes, Master Yoda,” he said, Mundi echoing him, but the dismissal from Yoda never came. Glancing up, he saw Yoda’s wizened old eyes still on him, thoughtful now, and a bolt of apprehension ran through him.
Yoda was up to something.
“Called here for another reason you were tonight, Obi Wan.”
Of course I was. Here it comes.
“The upcoming peace talks on Elul’i, highly volatile they are, much potential for violence they hold,” Yoda told him. “Updated reports we have received, and two Jedi may be suited better than one, we are now thinking. More smoothly the situation may go if joined Master Windu on the Elul’i mission, you did.”
And there it is. Obi Wan was no fool. He caught Mundi’s momentary flash of surprise before it disappeared into the Force. He had read the Elul’i reports too, and Mace was set to be perfectly fine on his own; the Separatist forces there had been on the brink of surrender for months.
Elul’i also just so happened to be a Core world on the other side of the galaxy from Mandalore.
Yoda’s words were not a request, however, so Obi Wan put Mandalore in the back of his mind— where it sunk like a rock right into that place that encompassed everything. “When would I be leaving for this assignment?”
“Begin tomorrow the talks will. Depart a couple of hours from now, you are scheduled to.”
“I see.” Obi Wan honestly didn’t, not really. There were a million things he could say on the tip of his tongue, but what came out was “Thank you, Master. Might I get a look at the current mission details?”
“Forwarded to your personal files the details will be. Go and pack, you should. Expected in Hangar 5 you will be in three hours.”
Obi Wan couldn’t think of anything else to do other than bow again, feeling much like a malfunctioning droid getting stuck on old motions. Hells knew his brain wasn’t cooperating in processing anything else besides that haunting message over and over and over and over…
“May the Force be with you, Master Kenobi,” Yoda was saying to him with yet another bow, and Obi Wan once more hurriedly dipped into a bow in return.
“And with you, Masters,” he replied, voice still coming out oddly to his ears. Standing back up, he turned on his heel and made his way to the doors of the holochamber. He was half-expecting Yoda to call him back again, so when the doors hissed shut behind him, it felt like they were cutting the last of the supports that had been keeping him upright. Practically slumping right into the button for the lift, he stepped inside the blissfully empty space and allowed himself to get lost in his own mind.
”I need your help!”
He shook his head, trying to get her eyes out of his mind, but how was one able to remove something that had always been there?
This was an internal affair, Mundi had said.
This was an internal affair, the Senate would undoubtedly say.
This was an internal affair, the rational Jedi part of Obi Wan was telling him.
“I need you,” Satine said.
If you ever need anything— he had blurted out nineteen years earlier, nineteen years old and reckless at the heartbreak of her going somewhere he could not follow, even if in reality, he was the one leaving her.
She had stood there in all her extravagant finery, looking at him with tears sparkling in her eyes, leaning forward and he thought with fluttering anticipation, this was it, she was when she would tell him, I need you, and he wouldn’t have to go anywhere without her again.
But she was pulling him into a gentle embrace and he knew, even before her smooth cheek brushed against his, metal wings from the circlet she wore digging awkwardly into the side of his head, before she raised her lips to his ear and whispered, voice thick with unmitigated sorrow, If I do, I’ll let you know.
She hadn’t. Not until now, he thought, faintly aware of the vice around his heart squeezing as tightly as they had each other for that last, desperate heartbeat so long ago.
The lift chimed out that it had reached his floor. He hadn’t even realized he had put in a floor.
He should get off.
He should go down the hall, find his rooms, get the new mission information off his datapad, pack, and report for his assignment.
He found himself making this mental to-do list at the same time he was stepping back into the lift and punching in a different floor.
What am I doing?!
Right now, he told himself, he was going to find another ship; he doubted Mace would be interested in taking a short detour to Mandalore.
* * *
As they watched Obi Wan exit the chamber, Yoda could feel Ki Adi’s curious stare. Once the doors slid closed, he turned to where his former pupil was looking as if he very much wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how. Yoda found that many people tended to get this look when speaking with him, though he couldn’t imagine why. “Something on your mind, you have?”
“Yes, Master,” Ki Adi started, hesitating slightly before continuing. “I think we both know there was nothing about Mace’s mission status that changed enough to warrant sending an additional Jedi, let alone another Council member. I guess I’m wondering why; Obi Wan did seem distressed at the message, but I failed to sense anything from him that would lessen my trust—“
“Trust him, I do,” Yoda interrupted. “The issue, trust is not. But there are things that I know. Feels strongly, he does, very strongly, and when controlled, a better Jedi it makes him. Get caught up in these feelings, however, and blinded by opinion, one can be. In his apprentice, we can see it, as we could in his Master.” And his grandmaster, Yoda did not say, though the stubborn jut of Dooku’s chin when he had his mind set on something sent a flash of pain through his thoughts before he caught it and released it into the Force. “No different, Obi Wan is.”
Ki Adi nodded slowly. “So your concern is that his judgement may be impaired in this case due to these feelings?”
Yoda felt a brief touch of morbid humor. “Saw his friend at his funeral, you did.”
Ki Adi paused and Yoda knew he was recalling the woman’s wretched sobbing and the utter devastation that radiated off her in waves so strongly they could actually be detected through the hurricane of grief taking up the entire room that was Anakin. “Well, yes, but it wasn’t until I saw him today that I considered the feelings might have been anything close to mutual. All the other admirers…”
Yoda rolled his eyes unsympathetically. “Yes, yes, an attractive nuisance he is, know this we do. Care about his safety, we should,” he emphasized.
Ki Adi’s eyebrows raised. “So you agree that this may be a trap for him?”
“Know, I do not,” Yoda admitted. “Tense, though, the Force is. Like it I do not at all. Better for everyone, it would be if he had something to occupy his thoughts. Good for him, this mission will be.”
Ki Adi did not speak for a moment, and Yoda could tell he was warring with his well-earned respect for Yoda and the thoughts Yoda knew everyone had been keeping from him these days. That the Grandmaster was getting too old, too stressed by the war. Too paranoid.
If they only knew…
“Shall I alert Mace to the change in plans?” Ki Adi asked, and Yoda relaxed slightly at his acceptance before shaking his head.
“No, tell him I will. Retrieve the mission data for Obi Wan, you can.” Mace would undoubtedly have questions on why he suddenly had a mission partner, and Yoda didn’t particularly care to air other Knights’ troubles without cause. He would have to come up with another explanation— or if that failed, prod him into just going along with things for now.
“I will do that right now, Master,” Ki Adi said, bowing once before turning and leaving Yoda in the room alone.
His ear twitched. Yoda felt another rumble of the Cosmic Force, once as clear as a bell in his ear, now little more than hushed sayings twine past him and he reached out for it, only for it to slip through his metaphorical grasp as so many others had done lately.
With the dawning darkness approaching, these days it was getting harder to see anything, and any and all loose ends needed to be reined in.