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Satine flopped over onto her stomach and groaned into the pillow. The chrono said it wasn't quite oh-three-hundred. Nearly four hours of trying — and failing miserably — to sleep. She rolled over so she could stare at the ceiling, awash in the ambient light of Sundari, and took an inventory of her current state of affairs. She ruled out hunger or thirst. She didn't need to relieve herself. She wasn't under a a great deal more stress than usual. Some supplies were proving difficult to bring in, but as Ben liked to remind her, in what she termed his pompous Jedi Master tone, there was a war on. She wasn't terribly concerned about Korkie at the moment. He'd brought his school friends over for dinner a few days ago, and decided to stay with her for the monthly school break. The HoloNet stole his attention with an update from the latest battle, featuring none other than Obi-wan Kenobi. She always held her breath when Korkie eagerly absorbed any and all information about Obi-wan, wondering if it would be the day he saw the resemblance.
The holotransmitter next to her bed chimed softly, and she reached for the palm-sized device, thumbing on the receiver. A miniaturized Obi-wan formed in the bluish light. Satine smiled while she fiddled with the controls until his head and torso were just about life-sized. He appeared to be lying on his side in his bunk on a cruiser, and even the flickering holo couldn’t erase the lines of weariness etched into his face. ‘Hello, Ben…’. She set the transmitter down so it looked as if he were lying in bed beside her.
‘Did I wake you?’
‘Not this time.’ He had before, but she always snapped awake immediately. ‘Can’t sleep.’ She reached out and cupped her hand over his holographic cheek. He couldn't feel it, but he could definitely see it. ‘You?’
‘Can’t sleep.’ The bedding in his bunk rustled as he shifted into the position he used to employ to lie face to face in bed with her all those years ago, when they murmured their dreams to each other in the fleeting hours of night. The tired, self-deprecating chuckle that followed caught on a hitched breath. ‘Can’t seem to meditate, either.’
She could see the mug on the shelf inset into the wall of his bunk. It must have had dreychin tea in it. He often drank it before going to bed as it had a mild soporific effect, mostly in an effort to get ahead of his bouts of anxiety-induced insomnia when they were on the run. Satine could still taste it on his lips and tongue. The interplay between the cool mint, warm liquid, and the sweetness in the barest touch of honey he added. ‘The dreychin didn’t help?’ She pointed to the mug, then let her hand lie on the bed between them.
He shot a look of pure displeasure at the mug over his shoulder. ‘Just made me need to piss,’ he groused in Mando’a. Satine suppressed a giggle at that. The urbanity he wore like armor slipped when he was with her. It didn’t hurt that Mando’a had a rich and varied vocabulary when it came subjects like fighting and bodily functions. His palm curved over the back of her hand. If she closed her eyes, she could feel it, warm and callused, fingers sliding between hers. 'Talk to me,' he murmured.
'About what?' They each shifted toward one another until their noses could brush against each other, and feel the other's breath against their skin.
'Anything but this damned war.' The pain in his eyes was palpable. She'd kept a recording of his speech on Cato Nemiodia during his trial at the beginning of the war. She'd even quoted it. He didn't want to fight any more than she did, but he was bound by his oath to the Jedi Order, who had been neatly folded into the Grand Army of the Republic. The chancellor had tied their hands behind their backs, using their own creed to serve the Republic as peacekeepers against them. How they couldn't see it, she didn't know. It was painfully obvious Palpatine was using them in order to establish a firmer grip on his power. Perhaps it was only obvious to anyone who regularly moved in political circles. Jedi too often had a tendency to believe in the good of people, unless proven otherwise.
'Hmmmm.' Satine wracked her brain for something. Unlike Anakin, Obi-wan didn't secretly indulge in mindless anything on the HoloNet anymore. Stars only knew the last occasion he had the time to actually finish a novel. A clatter came from the kitchen, along with tuneless humming. Korkie scrounging for a snack, despite the lateness of the hour. That decided it. Obi-wan never seemed to tire of learning more about their son. 'Would you like the latest about Korkie?'
Obi-wan's eyes lit up, parting some of the shadows. 'Yes, please.'
'He's officially taller than both of us.'
'By how much?'
'Just a few centimeters.' She sighed, thinking of her ransacked kitchen. 'Given the way he's eating anything that isn't nailed down, I imagine he's got quite a ways to go.'
'How tall do you think he's going to be?' Obi-wan well remembered the day Anakin realized he'd surpassed him in height. There had been no end to the smug jokes at his expense for weeks.
Satine shrugged. 'My father was nearly two meters tall.'
'Auntie?' Korkie's voice floated through the door of her bedroom. 'I heard voices… Is everything all right?'
Satine scrambled to nudge a switch on the transmitter to lower the sound on her end so she didn't blow out Obi-wan's eardrums. 'Just something on the HoloNet, darling. I couldn't sleep.'
'I don't think watching the HoloNet is going to help with that.' Satine could easily picture the skeptical frown. It was like looking at a younger Obi-wan sometimes.
Satine faked an elaborate yawn and called out, 'I think I'll try to sleep now. I'll see you at breakfast.'
'G'night, Auntie…'
Korkie's footsteps faded, and she turned her mic back on. 'That was close,' she breathed, settling back into bed.
Obi-wan held a hand over his mouth to muffle the laughter shaking his shoulders. 'I feel like a Padawan doing something I shouldn't.'
'That makes two of us.' Their laughter died down, but remains of it lifted the corners of their mouths and eyes. 'I think he's got a crush on one of his classmates.' Satine described his overly solicitous behavior with Soniee at dinner the other evening. The way his gaze lingered just a shade too long. How his smile grew brighter when directed at her. 'He thinks he's being subtle.'
'About as subtle as I was?'
'Worse.' She made a dismissive gesture with her fingers, brushing the idea away. 'It's likely nothing but an adolescent crush.'
Even in repose, and speaking of nothing more dire than Korkie's supposed love life, Obi-wan's hand stroked over his bearded chin. There was a time when he would have said the same about Anakin, but his ardor toward Padmé hadn't cooled. Indeed, it had merely grown more intense. Thinking of his own past, and of Qui-gon's subtle rejoinders during the brief crush over Siri and the more exuberant, but deep feelings he had for Satine, he murmured, 'Are you going to let it play out or…?' Obi-wan trailed off at Satine's huff.
'Do you think Qui-gon could have prevented you from falling in love with me?' she countered softly, reproach darkening her eyes. Her fingers tightened over the edge of the duvet. That damned Jedi way of thinking.
'No,' Obi-wan readily admitted. 'No, he could not.' A rueful grin curved over his mouth. 'If anything it would have made me more determined.' And so it was with Anakin. Despite all the ideal and opportune moments to speak to Anakin about his obvious feelings about Padmé, Obi-wan had held his tongue, fearing it would only fan the flames if he said anything while it was still new and the thrill of the forbidden heightened all his senses and drive his former apprentice to do something rash.
A wailing klaxon pierced the quiet night on the cruiser, and Obi-wan cursed under his breath. 'Karabast,' he groaned, still not quite recovered from the last battle. 'I have to go.'
Someone pounded on the door of his bunk, and Anakin's voice shouted, 'Obi-wan! We're needed on command right now!'
Obi-wan sat up and scrubbed both hands over his face. He bent toward his transmitter as he pulled on his clothes, and paused long enough to say, 'Ret'urcye mhi.' Maybe we'll meet again. He stopped himself from saying the next words that hovered on his tongue. He wanted to say them, so she heard them from his lips just once. But as the clones were wont to say, today was a good day for someone else to die. There would be another day.
'Ret'urcye mhi,' Satine responded.
Obi-wan's holographic figure flickered, then faded.
Satine returned the transmitter to its usual location next to her bed, then pushed the bedding back. She wasn't going to sleep now. Not until she learned Obi-wan's fate. He wouldn't be able to hear her, but she believed somehow, he would know. 'May the Force be with you, my dear.'