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“Obi-Wan, I…”
Satine’s voice trembled. She was studying him so intently he wanted to look away. But he made himself stare back, watching his own ambivalence mirrored in her eyes.
Force, those eyes. Sapphire blue like the Kaminoan sea. He’d been avoiding their depth since arriving on Mandalore – thinking if he got too close, he’d drown. But no. That was wrong. He’d been drowning all his life without her. Satine’s eyes were his only lifeboat.
But before he could climb inside and row across the waves, the clones burst into the corridor.
“General Skywalker…”
The space around them came to life, and Obi-Wan came to his senses. Good gracious. What am I doing? This is hardly the time or place. Tal Merrik’s body was lying on the floor between them. Anakin was barking orders, and the clones’ armor clanked a reminder that this was war.
And so he straightened his posture, and Satine swallowed whatever she’d been about to say. With seamless ease, they slipped back into the personas of Jedi Knight and Duchess.
Satine turned away. “I must get back to the business of diplomacy.”
Obi-Wan was the only one who noticed the catch in her voice.
The ship was settling down from the chaos of the near-explosion. He trailed the parade of clone troopers, weaving through the politicians and protocol droids and ship personnel, but not really aware of any of them. Even Anakin’s amusement was nothing but a faint flutter in the Force. All he could hear was the echo of Satine’s voice in his head: I have loved you from the moment you came to my aid, all those years ago…
As he watched her disappear through the doors of her private quarters, Obi-Wan held his breath. He should keep walking. Follow the clones back to the dining hall, where they would document the incident for council records.
Instead, he stopped. The hand he lifted to knock didn’t feel like his own.
The door slid open.
Satine’s quarters were dimly lit, and the standard ship design was fairly unremarkable. But the little things made it clearly her own – the poetry anthology on the coffee table, flanked by empty teacups. Bedsheets left in tangles, earrings discarded on the nightstand. The place felt like peace, like serenity. Which is why, with the distinct anxiety that surrounded her, Satine’s aura didn’t quite fit it.
“Are you alright?”
She didn’t turn to acknowledge Obi-Wan’s entrance, though her shoulders tensed at his voice.
“I’m fine.”
He allowed himself a step toward her, but no closer.
“Satine…about what I said before…”
“Don’t,” she said sharply. “People say crazy things in the face of death. Things they don’t mean.”
“I…right. Of course.”
Satine turned then, her sapphire eyes finally finding Obi-Wan’s again. They shone in the lamplight, the rims slightly red. They asked a question he didn’t know how to answer.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said more gently, “I’m going to freshen up before we arrive on Coruscant.”
Obi-Wan nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
But as Satine reached for the ‘fresher doorknob, something caught his eye – the glimmer of blood on her sleeve.
“Hold on – you’re hurt.”
She drew her hand back from the door, hiding it behind her back.
“Oh, no, it’s nothing. Really,” she insisted. “When Merrik had me, and I tried to resist, he…but anyway, I’m fine. Just a scratch.”
“Let me have a look.”
“No, it’s – ”
“Satine.”
And suddenly he was beside her, taking her hand into his own. Careful not to hurt her more, wincing as she flinched, Obi-Wan rolled up her sleeve. Even in the dim light, the gash was egregious.
“This needs to be treated. It isn’t deep, but…” His eyes traced the length of the wound.
“I won’t trouble the medics with a mere papercut.”
“Then let me.”
He pulled a little first-aid kit from his utility belt. A flicker of argument crossed her face, but then she sighed. Surrendering, she sat down on the edge of her bed. Obi-Wan hesitated – She’s a duchess, that’s her bed, it wouldn’t be proper – before sinking down beside her.
As he cleaned the cut, silence overtaking them, Obi-Wan let his eyes trail over her hands. There had been a time when he had memorized the veins in her wrist, the softness of her palm against his. When she’d run her fingers along his arm when Qui-Gon wasn’t looking. When he would’ve given anything to feel them again.
But that was then. Now, his hands were used for fighting battles, hers for signing treaties. They’d both lost their softness. There was no use for it now.
“You know,” Satine mused, her voice shattering his repose, “You’ve gotten good at this. You used to hate blood.”
Obi-Wan allowed himself a chuckle. “I did not hate blood. I just preferred to keep it inside my body. Where it belongs.”
“Oh, sure you did.” Her laughter was like music. “Remember when Qui-Gon got scraped up on Draboon? You could hardly look at the wound as you stitched it up.”
“I did what I had to do. I didn’t have to enjoy it.” Obi-Wan tossed the antiseptic cloth aside and began to cushion the wound with gauze. “And besides, things change. I see so much blood now, I dream in red.”
The words brought painful images to his head – clones collapsing on the battlefield, civilians caught in the crossfire, innocents fallen to war. And suddenly, his laughter was gone. “Goodness. Perhaps I am the ruthless warmonger you make me out to be.”
Satine’s brows knitted together. “You know I didn’t mean that. What I said earlier...I’m just frustrated with the situation, that’s all. I know you’re not the villain here.”
“Don’t sound so sure. The longer this war goes on, the more I wonder if there even is a right side, much less if I’m on it. I don’t want to believe I’m the villain. But sometimes…” He bit the inside of his cheek, as though that might stop the words from coming out. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”
“Well, I do.” She was back to smirking again, and he ignored how it turned his insides warm. “You’re the boy who ran three miles pursued by viper wasps just to lead them away from me.”
Now he couldn’t help but snort. “Don’t remind me. Sometimes I still hear the buzzing in my dreams.”
She bumped her shoulder against his, laughing. “And you’re the boy who stayed up the entire night to make sure I didn’t have an allergic reaction to the venom.”
“I told you, I just couldn’t sleep. Too high on adrenaline from running so far.”
“Right, right,” she said. “The point is…Obi, you’re not the villain. You never could be.”
He allowed himself a moment of nostalgia, to slide back into the cocoon of who they used to be. But no. They didn’t fit inside it anymore. They’d long outgrown the shell of the past.
So he shook his head. “I’m not the boy you used to know, Satine. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
“But you have the same heart. I can see it inside, even now.” Her shoulder was still pressed against his. “After all, you didn’t kill Tal Merrik.”
“A few moments longer and I might’ve.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“You don’t know that! You don’t know me. Not anymore.” His hands shook ever slightly as he wrapped the gauze around Satine’s narrow wrist. “In that moment…I might’ve done anything. I was blinded by attachment…”
She scoffed, and he stopped short.
“What?” he said.
“You and your platitudes.”
Obi-Wan couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Well, it’s true. Attachment just leads to pain. It clouds your judgment.”
“Oh, please. I didn’t invite you in here to read me the Jedi Code.”
“Then what did you invite me in here for?”
He bit his tongue, regretting the words instantly. He didn’t want an answer to that. Besides, what was he hoping for her to say? He busied himself finishing off her gauze. Then he stood, moving to throw the excess away, but really just needing some distance. They’d been too close. Close enough for him to do something stupid, something he’d regret.
He was still facing away from her when she spoke, her voice soft and cautious.
“Do you really mean that?” she said. “That nothing good can come from loving someone?”
“I never said love.”
The side of her mouth quirked up. “Well, not all of us are comfortable with the Jedi’s dispassionate phrasing.”
She was still sitting on the bed, cradling her now bandaged wrist in her lap. He looked her in the eye, ready to reply that of course he meant it. That’s how Jedi chose to live – no attachments, no love but a selfless, general compassion toward everyone. It was better that way. Wasn’t it?
But then he found himself thinking about Qui-Gon. How his old master had been the father he never had, someone who had supported him and guided him with gentleness and kindness. How destroyed he’d been after Qui-Gon’s death on Naboo.
He thought of Anakin – how he’d carried Obi-Wan on his back when he’d been hurt in battle, then sat by his bedside every moment of the rough days that followed. How he’d ached with Anakin after he’d lost his arm on Geonosis.
And then finally, Satine – how they’d slow-danced on the shore of the Agape Sea years ago, with no music but the crash of the waves. How easily they bantered, and argued even more so. How leaving her was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
And he decided that yes, loving people makes you vulnerable. It makes you privy to grief, to the fear of losing them. Loving people can blind you.
But he’d rather face love’s blindness than see a world without her.
He looked down, shaking his head. “What did you call me earlier? A collection of half-truths?” He laughed bitterly. “I guess you and I both know it, then – Jedi say plenty of things we don’t mean.”
“Do you, now?
Do I? Do I ever. More times than he could count. Over the years he’d repeated the lies in his head like a mantra, as though etching them in his memory would make them true. Lies like, There is no passion. Like, I don’t love her. And the worst one, the hardest to believe:
I can live without her.
Satine stood up, and Obi-Wan could feel her gaze even as he avoided it.
“Maybe we all convince ourselves of things we don’t really believe,” she said. “Sometimes it’s the only thing we can do to survive.”
He tried to smile, but feared it was more of a grimace. “Then I’m doing a poor job of surviving.”
“So am I.”
Finally raising his eyes to meet hers, he raised an eyebrow.
“And what are you trying to convince yourself of?”
Her eyes still held onto a sliver of mirth, and how easily she could’ve laughed him off. But all at once, the lightness vanished. What was left was emptiness. Longing. Hunger. And suddenly she closed the distance between them, so close Obi-Wan could feel the words on his neck as she spoke them:
“That this isn’t what I want.”
Her hand brushed his cheek so lightly it could have been wind – gentle, but filled with the promise of storms. He knew he should draw back. Take shelter.
But then the gale of her fingertips blew through his hair, and she was leaning in, or maybe he was.
And so he let himself be swept away.
Before he knew it, his back was against the wall, his body pinned against hers. His hands tangled in her hair, the pins coming loose and sending her blonde locks into a tempest against his face. It felt like her heart was beating in his chest, like they shared the same breath and the same pair of lungs, gasping and gasping for more. The whole room had gone mute. The universe was still, and he was blind to everything, everything but this. Everything but lips, and hands, and skin, and Satine, and Satine, and Satine…
She pulled away.
And all at once, the whirlwind ceased.
Obi-Wan caught his breath, dizzy with the desire to be close to her. He wanted nothing more than to pull her back in, to be wrapped in the storm of her breath and her body. But she took a step backward, then another. His hands fell from her waist and hung limply at his sides. And the moment she was out of reach, the severity of the situation came crashing down on him.
What are we doing?
This was impossible. This was wrong. He had a duty to the Republic and to the Jedi, as she did to Mandalore. Every second they spend wishing it were otherwise would only make it harder when they had to turn away. No, this simply could not happen. And in Satine’s eyes, those beautiful eyes, he could see she’d come to the same conclusion.
So they would return to the lies. Trying desperately to believe what they could never really mean.
“I should go,” Obi-Wan forced himself to say.
Satine’s arms were wrapped around her waist as she stared at the carpet. She nodded.
He didn’t move, though. Not right away. Some part of him hoped she wouldn’t let him, would ask him to stay. Had she said the word, he would’ve.
Had you said the word...
But Satine’s only reply was silence.
He left her that way, her eyes a void and her shoulders deflated. A goodbye stuck in his throat – one more thing he couldn’t give her.
But perhaps he could give her something else – the truth. He at least owed her that.
He stopped just before reaching the door.
“Satine…perhaps Jedi do say things they don’t mean,” he said softly. “But when I told you…when I said I would’ve left…”
His voice trailed off. She didn’t turn around.
When he finally resigned himself to the fact that she wasn’t going to answer, he turned away. He had one hand on the knob, bracing himself for the tumult of the corridor, for returning to a general’s façade.
But then, so softly he almost couldn’t hear her, she spoke:
“I meant it, too.”
The words carried him into the hallway in a trance – he hardly remembered leaving. But as the door slid closed behind him, her voice becoming no more than a memory, the world around him began to return. He’d return to life, return to war, return to duty, where he’d have forever to spend grasping for her memory.
And forever to drown.