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He could be miserable, he knew. Lonely, falling to the deepest pits of despair. The trek to Tatooine certainly hadn't been the easiest, avoiding pirates, bounty hunters, and recognition all while caring for the small bundle in his arms that had been born months too early. It would have been so easy then to give in to the dark thoughts, falling being nothing more than a side-step away. But he hadn't, not even when they had set foot on Tatooine only for him to learn that it had all been for nothing.
But he had prevailed, had endured, and it had paid off.
There could be darkness.
"Uncle Ben, Boba is messing around with Cody's weapons again!"
"Shut up, Luke!"
Instead, he had this and all the warmth that came with it.
Cody turned around so that his back was to Obi-Wan and the door. "You go. They're your children at this hour," he muttered, still half-asleep.
Obi-Wan laughed silently, barely louder than the shaking of his shoulders, but, knowing his Commander well, he tiredly forced himself out of bed. It wouldn't be fair to ask Cody to get up, yet when the two were his students in the morning after all. Obi-Wan stretched, old scars aching, joints cracking, and sand irritating his skin. Even after six years on Tatooine, he still hadn't gotten entirely used to living here. Cody had adjusted as well as he could, partially due to his nature. The Clones had been raised and built to be adaptable, but Obi-Wan was sure that some of Cody's ease had to do with the lack of familiarity with this place. There were no Brothers here, nothing that could remind them of the Republic or the Empire.
It was easier to forget when you were surrounded by the dunes and silences.
Or dunes and bickering children.
"Luke, if they heard you, I will hang you up by your collar."
"Nuhu!"
Sighing, Obi-Wan stepped into the main living room of their small house. Luke and Boba were sitting right in the middle of it on the ground, parts of Cody's armor surrounding them like a protective shield. As soon as the two spotted Obi-Wan, their demeanor changed. Luke beamed cheerfully at him while Boba's face turned sour.
"Good morning, you two," Obi-Wan greeted them and walked to the cooler first to get something to drink. It was one of the first lessons he had learned on Tatooine. You didn't start the day before you had drunken something unless you wanted to endure dizzy spells that nearly have you fainting face first in the sand with the toddler strapped to your chest.
"So," he said after taking a big gulp of water of questionable purity, "what's going on here?"
"Nothing," Boba replied quickly while Luke immediately began to narrate how Boba had taken Cody's armor out of the hidden basement. Lue was an honest child. He resented lies, was quite incapable of lying himself too. It was very different from Anakin, though Obi-Wan had only met his former Padawan when he was already three years older than Luke. Anakin had been more prone to keeping secrets while Luke needed everyone to know everything. It was, perhaps, a side effect of not speaking to the boy for the first year. Obi-Wan hadn't even known what to tell the crying child out loud, so he had whispered in his mind instead, forging a bond that was already much stronger than any other he had ever woven into existence. It was a robust golden cord, humming with life and allowing Obi-Wan to keep track of Luke, no matter where the child went.
His second bond was weaker, forged in desperation, and the third one— Obi-Wan didn't dare to let his thoughts linger on the hurt he knew he'd find there.
"And why were you doing that?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Well, I just wanted to know?!" Boba replied, sounding pissed off.
Obi-Wan had thought they were doing fine with Boba. The teenager had warmed up in the last three years. Gone was the moody fifteen-year-old Cody had dragged behind himself through a sandstorm to get to Obi-Wan, leaving behind an eighteen-year-old adjusting to life.
Eighteen.
Nineteen tomorrow.
Time flew, even when you weren't chasing from one planet to the other.
"Luke, why don't you go do your morning meditation?"
"But Uncle Ben—"
"Please."
Luke pouted but eventually stood up and tip-toed past the armor parts to get to his room. Obi-Wan waited until he was gone before sitting down in front of Boba, legs crossed, and outside of Cody's armor to give Boba more space. Obi-Wan had grown up knowing the importance of boundaries, but now, raising Boba and Luke, though Boba was far from being a child anymore, he had grown to view them with even more weight.
"Would you like to meditate as well first or do you want to tell me what's truly bothering you?"
Boba averted his gaze, focusing on his hands instead. His lightsaber was already clipped to his belt despite the early hour. It was only one of the many tools and weapons he carried with him, but the one that mattered most.
Boba had been a complicated child. Were he not born a clone, he would have been raised in the temple. He was strong in the Force, had been so dangerously close to the dark side before Cody had dragged him through Tatooine's desert and delivered him on Obi-Wan's doorstep as a lothcat would leave a mouse. It was a miracle that Sidious or Maul hadn't found Boba and taken him in before the war had ended, before Cody had managed to get ahold of him. Then again, Maul had hardly cared, and Sidious had already been crafting his new apprentice.
Obi-Wan let it go.
Boba had grown so much, had earned the right to carry the blade at his side, even if it didn't very much look like a traditional lightsaber. When Obi-Wan had first seen its design, he had been pretty sure Boba had attempted to make it as unlike the blade of a Jedi as possible on purpose. Still, it suited Boba and its handle matched the other armor they kept in storage.
That one was older and from better material than Cody's. Beskar.
"I still don't fit into Cody's armor," Boba finally admitted. "So I'm still not grown and I still won't fit—"
Boba shut up. Jango Fett was a difficult topic. From Boba's love for the man to his early disregard for Cody or the Jedi, even now they sometimes didn't dare to bring him up. Obi-Wan thought it spoke of healing that Boba was talking about him out of his free will. But what did Obi-Wan know about healing or raising children when he wasn't sure how well he handled either? His current charge was six and Luke's biggest problem was whether he'd be allowed to visit his best friend later in the day.
"Do you want to wear your father's armor?" Obi-Wan asked instead.
"Yes— no, I don't know!" Boba exclaimed in frustration. "I should, shouldn't I? It was my father's and by inheritance, it's mine. That's the way of my people."
Except Boba was no longer just his people, hadn't been in nearly a decade either. Obi-Wan had no idea how Mandalorian Jango Fett had raised his son to be. Boba clearly spoke the language and had used nothing else for weeks until Obi-Wan had replied in kind and made it evident that Boba had always been understood, even when he had cursed and raged and wished death upon them.
Identity was a complicated thing when Obi-Wan used to tie so much of his own to his people. All that was left of them were their ghosts, the tales he remembered and could pass on to the next generation. Not much remained of Obi-Wan that couldn't be found in Ben. He was glad that he had Boba and Luke, but especially Cody to remind him that the past had happened, that he had not emerged a new man on this planet.
Not that any of Obi-Wan's own struggles could truly help Boba. It would be easier if Cody spoke to him, who had patched his sense of self together through the storms of Kamino, Brothers and Jedi lost.
He too passed on his tales when he could. Obi-Wan was convinced they helped Boba more than any of his wisdom.
Boba listened to the Shiny stories Cody told Luke at night and he did Jedi meditations and katas in the morning. He had reached the point where his life had grown far beyond what he had known at ten, and all of it stood in conflict.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Boba. You always have a choice and nobody is hurrying you."
"Yet," Boba mumbled.
"What?"
"I said, nobody is hurrying me about it yet. We all know the Empire's coming closer with every day. You can't keep all of us hidden away here much longer."
While Boba's voice dripped with poison, his eyes were that of a wounded animal, scared and hurting. So that was what this was truly all about.
"You keep saying that Luke looks like his father. How much longer until somebody else notices that General Skywalker's kid isn't dead? And there is a convenient old hermit and, oh yes, two clones? We are a target."
His tone reminded Obi-Wan of military camps. Men with identical voices and different souls screaming, the smell of burned flesh in his nose—
"So you think it would be safer to remove yourself from the picture," Obi-Wan gathered Boba's thoughts.
It was easy to see why he would come to that conclusion.
"People know my father," Boba said. "They know his voice, they know of me. Not his clones, me. And we're going to need cash when we start running."
Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly feeling incredibly old when faced with childhood naivety. "Boba, is your current plan for the future becoming a bounty hunter?"
"Well-"
"Who is becoming a bounty hunter?"
Obi-Wan turned his head around to see Cody trudging into the room, curiously staring at the two of them. His hair, a little longer than he had kept it during the war, was messy, and his relaxed posture contradicted with the topic at hand.
"Me," Boba replied. "When the armor fits."
The conviction with which he said it was unmistakably that of a person who had already made up their mind. While no clone was identical, especially the more time passed, some cadences were still shared, and this was one of them.
"Kid, you can't even take me in a fight," Cody commented drily. "The armor is worth nothing without the ability to wear it properly."
"Then teach me," Boba demanded and rose to his feet in a challenge.
Cody snorted and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "What do you think we have been doing? Now, go clean up this mess. We still need to head towards the market later."
A moment passed, Obi-Wan thought the argument would start again, but then Boba huffed and clean up Cody's armor. He neatly stored it back where it belonged, careful that not a single piece was missing. While he was busy, Obi-Wan laid the table for breakfast, hunger starting to make itself known.
"Tell me," he started, "are we really going to let Boba become a bounty hunter?"
Once Boba was off Tatooine, there'd be no protecting him.
"He already was one," Cody replied. "We're just making sure he isn't going to get himself killed."
They couldn't bear any more dead loved ones. Obi-Wan knew of Boba's past, but it wasn't something he liked to linger on. But Cody was entirely correct in this, seeing clearly where Obi-Wan was struggling. Once more Obi-Wan felt the need to thank him, make sure that Cody knew in his heart that Obi-Wan loved him.
"You've trained him well," Cody said, his face softening as if he had read Obi-Wan's mind. "Besides, he won't disappear too quickly."
Obi-Wan raised his brow. "And why is that?"
Cody grinned. "You really think Luke is going to let his big brother just head off when he still manages to talk Boba into playing ships and pirates with him and Biggs?"
That, Obi-Wan had actually not considered. Luke would take Boba leaving absolutely personally. He adored and loved his adopted brother. "If Luke starts to cry, you're dealing with it."
Cody just smiled in retaliation. "Of course, General."
By the time the boys had returned to the table, their previous conversation was already forgotten and the day resumed as usual.