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“I didn’t come here to watch you stare at your feet,” Ahsoka reminded Master Kenobi as she slowly paced his bleached cave.
Oh, it was ironic. The great Obi-Wan Kenobi, High Jedi General, the man who commanded the ranks of the 7th Sky Corps and the Open Circle Fleet alike, now exiled and contained in a dusty cave on the outskirts of civilization, while she, disgraced Padawan and former Jedi Commander of the 501st Attack Battalion, Ahsoka Tano, was forming the ranks of the Rebellion against the Empire.
He didn’t answer for a moment, and she felt his hesitance in the Force. His Force signature had always rivaled hers and Anakin’s- it was a dulcet greenish-yellow, like grass seas waving gently in the wind. Now, it was dampened and flooded with despair.
Hers was brighter than ever. She reached for Rex, even though she knew he was directly outside, sitting on the rocks, but alert, always so alert. She found comfort in his indigo aura, the night sky silently stretching a blanket over her eternal flame.
She wondered what Master Kenobi’s plan for her was. He left her, after all, during her trial, on the Resolute, after Order 66. He never fought for her. He didn’t even try to contact her, and when she sought him out, he had the audacity to expect her arrival. She did, however, find satisfaction in the flare she felt when he laid eyes on Rex. Was it to absolve his guilt, feel better about abandoning her, and shake hands? Did he mean to forget she ever existed? Was it his goal to erase the thought of anything pertaining to Anakin, her included?
Her being here endangered his survival, and a strange rush of sick glee flowed in her veins. She stamped it out quickly, though she knew Master Kenobi felt an inkling of it.
Minutes passed. Ahsoka waited, because she was patient. Or maybe because she liked watching him squirm.
Minutes passed. Ahsoka grew bored.
Now, she turned to leave. He wasn’t worth it, none of it was. Tatooine, the sand her Master had loathed until his death, its horrid twin suns, the boy he was watching over.
“Ahsoka,” Master Kenobi said in the same patronizing voice he had used when she last saw him on the Resolute, five years ago. She was twenty-two now, and towered over him, not including her montrals, but she would be taller than Anakin now, had he been alive to see her. He wouldn’t have believed it. “Please.”
“Please what, Obi-Wan? You left when we laid siege to Mandalore, when we captured Maul, when the clones-” she cut herself off, sucking on her teeth. “When my brothers tried to murder me. I lost them all, you know, except Rex. If you had been there, things might have been different.”
“That’s not fair.” The same words, again. It was like the man was stuck in a never-ending loop. She sensed regret in his voice this time around, as though he didn’t believe she was being arbitrary.
She wouldn’t give him the same words she did at the end of the Clone Wars. She wouldn’t. “Don’t hold your breath, Obi-Wan. I didn’t track you down to hear you repeat the things you said to me on the Resolute. I don’t need your derision. I know you think I failed him.”
“I failed him, Ahsoka,” he murmured, and she stopped. “Five years ago, I failed him.”
“What are you talking about?” She turned slowly to face him, and nearly startled at the tears on his cheeks. Never once in her life had she seen Obi-Wan Kenobi cry.
“We fought on Mustafar, but I couldn’t bring myself to- to kill him. I left him there.”
Was she masochistic to resist the urge to beat him senseless? She couldn’t, not here, and it wasn’t the Jedi way, even if she wasn’t a Jedi. She still liked to think she subscribed to the notion the Order had drilled into her- she couldn’t seek revenge, couldn’t kill an unarmed opponent.
Not that she would be able to kill him, anyway. He was still Obi-Wan Kenobi. A legend.
She cut into her train of thought, finding solace in the way the Force curled around her. She didn’t feel any need to forgive him- she shouldn’t, not after Order 66- but kicking a man that was already down never felt right. He had already suffered enough seeing his Padawan in that much mortal pain. And as much as Ahsoka hated what he stood for, as much as she hated him for abandoning her and Anakin again- she couldn’t bring herself to hate Obi-Wan Kenobi.
But he didn’t deserve what he didn’t respect, and he did not get to keep her in a shell like he kept himself, and he did not get to say he loved them when he refused to cherish the love they held for him.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was not perfect, but Ahsoka bit her tongue.
She ran her teeth over her bottom lip, relishing in the sting her canines offered when the skin of her lips gave way to them. She wished he would take back what he said on the Resolute, but that meant she had to, as well, and she was not ready to grant him that form of mercy.
“It’s been five years, Obi-Wan,” she started, and her gaze hardened when his gray-blue eyes met hers. “I think I’m going to find Maul again.”
“Ahsoka, he must die.”
“No,” she murmured. “I need his help. He offered his hand to me, did you know that?”
Confusion swam in his stormy, watery eyes.
“On Mandalore. We dueled, and just before, he said to me, ‘The time of the Jedi has passed. They cannot defeat Sidious. But together, you and I can.’ I think… it’s time I made good on that promise.”
“Ahsoka-”
“If I can help it, Obi-Wan,” Ahsoka interrupted him, “I will never see you again.”
Master Kenobi flinched as if she had struck him. She tilted her head.
“You let me down, Obi-Wan. You let both of us down,” she murmured, and stared him down. “Do you realize that? In letting Anakin fall, you promised me exile.”
He was silent, and Ahsoka decided it was high time she took her leave of this cave, of Tatooine, of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
She didn’t say goodbye.
Ahsoka let Rex tug her close with an arm around her waist, since he could no longer reach her shoulders comfortably, and led her silently to their ship.
“Where to next, Commander?” Rex asked, cheekily. She rolled her eyes, but a grin tugged at her lips momentarily.
“Next, we find out where Maul has slunk off to in the past five years.”