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“They're all gone.”
Asajj doesn't need to ask who he's talking about; she'd felt the sudden void in the Force the moment the massacre started. So many bright spots suddenly vanished from the all-encompassing energy, so much life suddenly and violently ended. She may have had no love for the Jedi, but there was no escaping the agony that accompanied such a massive extinguishing of so many lifeforms.
Looking at Obi-Wan now, she knew he was beginning to drown in the emptiness. She knew that feeling all too well.
Giving comfort did not come easily to her, but she remembered how it felt to be so completely and utterly alone after the massacre of the Nightsisters. She'd only had her sorrow for company, her instinctive need to survive for distraction. Obi-Wan seemed to only have sorrow right now.
Asajj gave the gesture only a half-moment of thought before her fingers closed around his; his skin was cold and trembling. The tentative touch of hands suddenly seemed too little, too insincere. One full step brought her almost chest-to-chest with the man she had once hated so viciously. Her arms wrapped around his neck and pulled him closer before he could even think of stopping her.
The way he froze then relaxed in her embrace made something heavy and warm form in her chest. When he cautiously lifted his arms to embrace her in return, that was when she broke. All the grief and guilt and aching loneliness she had mostly avoided all these months came crashing down on her. Hot tears silently fell down her face, her grip around Obi-Wan tightening in an attempt to ground herself and remember why she was doing this. This wasn't supposed to be about her own catharsis or comfort; this was for Obi-Wan, to rid him of the sadness and misery that clouded those bright eyes, to return him to the infuriating, self-righteous, snarky idiot she knew.
The arm wound tight around her waist and the heat of his palm between her shoulder blades kept her in place (as if she were really going anywhere). The weight of his forehead on her shoulder and the brush of a shaky exhale across her neck made her embrace him harder (she refused to admit how nice, how right he felt against her). They both had lost everything, everyone that had ever mattered to either of them.
But...maybe it wouldn't be so unbearable after all. Now, they had someone who truly, wholly understood what they had lost. And maybe, just maybe, they could find something new...together.
