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He was a padawan when you first met him. Both of you are barely old enough to understand the tremendous roles you would later be required to undertake. Too naive to understand the games you had to play to get there. Warm summer breezes blowing away your cares and worries and side eyes from his Master Qui-Gon.
After all you were barely teenagers, this would pass.
And after all, you loved him. You tell him this in the fall.
Well-- Except you didn’t. Your life fell apart that fall. Dreams coming to a screeching halt and happiness dying a wilting flower without any sunshine. You pushed him out before he could hurt you, too. It was childish and stupid, and even in that moment you knew you would regret it later but you couldn’t seem to muster enough energy to process your grief so you couldn’t even see far enough into your future to care about regrets. Young love was never supposed to make sense.
You meet him again in the spring. A knight now, and a calloused man mourning the loss of his master and taxed with the stress of more responsibility in the form of Anakin Skywalker. Both of you weighed down by life more than you ever thought was possible under the warm skies of that summer.
Anakin notices the lingering gaze, but he keeps it to himself.
Obi’s hair is longer than you would’ve liked or were ever used too. It seemed more relaxed, at ease. Obi-Wan on the other hand, was anything but to you. He was guarded, and cold. But you invited him for dinner anyways when you greeted him on the landing docks. He and Anakin joined you, and you left the light on after he bid farewell for him and Anakin to go to bed.
Sure enough, within the hour, the faintest of knocks against your door from his knuckles filled the room. Once inside, you realized while everything had changed, nothing had at the same time. Your Jedi was back, full of more sarcasm and half truths and wisdom than you had ever thought possible. But he was back, and you were happy again.
Until you weren’t. That seemed to be the thing with you. You could never really be happy. This time it was whispers in the Senate hall and ungodly rumors that sent you running back to the safety of your loneliness, your dignity intact. Your heart, though, was in a worse state. You cast him out again. And this time with a less shocked and more angry expression, he didn’t fight. He left.
-
The Senate building had a widespread rumor that it was haunted. You didn’t really believe it, until you walked into a large briefing room and saw the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi. He’s changed. Anyone would have, given all that this war has but him through.
You may have been keeping up with his campaign from a far, not that you would admit it to anyone.
He has become a shell of padawan you once knew. A faint reminder of the Jedi Knight you met again. He is tired, tired in a way sleep will never mend. This war has taken its toll on everyone in this conference room, but he seems to be trying to carry the burden alone on his shoulders, and trying to stay afloat in the guilt that comes with that. And by the looks of it, he’s failing.
“Senator.” His core world accent is polished and poised, cold hearted and distant. It breaks you from your thoughts like glass. Pieces of a love long forgotten left to die on artistic tables and perfect carpet.
“Master Jedi.” You cleared your throat. You wanted to scream.
You didn’t love him. You reminded yourself. You never did. You left him the moment things got hard. You never gave yourself the chance.
The room comes to a screeching halt around the two of you, and to everyone else, it seems like it takes both of you years to even notice. Both of you are just frozen in time, choking on a thousand words and goodbyes never properly said, crippled by memories filled with almosts.
I almost loved you
I almost stayed
We almost worked.
But sadly for both of you, life doesn’t run on almosts. It runs on hard and fast choices.
It’s Bail Organa who pulls the attention off you both, and calls the meeting to order. You invite Obi Wan to dinner. He accepts, aware of the ears surrounding him.
You leave the light on.
But he doesn’t come back this time.
Because if you were honest with yourself you knew why. You let something so deeply intimate become influenced by the actions of people outside of it. And if you truly looked in the mirror long enough, you would recognize that Obi Wan’s ghosts aren’t just those that he rocked into their final sleep between his two arms. He’s not just haunted by a war out of his control, he’s haunted by heartbreaks and half promises that you fed him from your shared youth to adulthood.
And a part of you wishes you stayed. Give it a fighting chance.
And a part of you wishes you never met Obi Wan Kenobi at all.