Work Text:
The holovid receiver wasn’t for music, news, or pornography.
Owen had said that the first time he shoved it into Ben’s hands, years ago now. It was his wife’s idea: Force knows he himself didn’t want to spend any more time around Ben than he absolutely had to. “For weather,” he’d snapped, and then, softer, as if surprised by his own harshness: “For storms. It’s specially calibrated. Thing saved my ass in last week’s sandstorm. Won’t be too noisy. Hell, it shouldn’t even make noise unless you turn it on, or if there’s an emergency.”
It had sat in the corner of the hut ever since, half-buried under sand that snuck in like guilt. The emergency alert system had gone off exactly once; when it had successfully dissuaded him from an ill-timed water run.
Mostly it was just decorative. Something to ease Ben’s mind when he saw wind stirring up sand on the horizon out by the Lars homestead.
This morning it crackled awake on its own.
The signals must have gotten crossed; the receiver was picking up the relay from Mos Eisley.
At first Ben thought it was his mind. There were days when the hut spoke, whispering names long forgotten. There were nights when he woke to a murmur of chanting and realized, with a dull sort of horror, that it was coming from his own mouth.
But the receiver’s light was now on, a pinprick of pale green in the night. The speaker hissed, then steadied, then poured out a bright, polished voice: cheerful, crisp, the kind of cheer that had never known hunger.
Ben stood very still, water cup in his hand, and listened.
“–continuing the Emperor’s merciful work of restoring rule of law to the galaxy,” the announcer said. A young woman’s voice, sounding not much older than Beru. “Citizens are reminded that any information leading to the identification and arrest of Jedi fugitives will be rewarded.”
Jedi.
The cup slipped a fraction in Ben’s fingers. Drops of water darkened the packed dirt by his boots.
He could have turned it off. He should have turned it off. There was no reason, no safe reason, to let that word take up space in his home.
But the voice went on, smooth as oil.
“Our forces report significant progress in the ongoing capture and neutralization of Jedi traitors. The Inquisitorius continues their work to remove this violent cult from our communities, ensuring safety for loyal citizens.”
Ben’s lungs forgot what to do. For a moment he simply stood in silence, as if someone had reached into his chest and taken his breath out by hand.
Cult.
Violent.
Traitors.
The report cut to a tinny recording, the kind captured for propaganda and replayed until it became nothing but background noise. Grainy footage of a plaza on some clean, distant world. White-armored stormtroopers in a line. A handful of figures on their knees, shaking hands planted on the backs of their heads.
Not figures. People.
The camera lingered on one face too long. A young man with bruises along his cheekbone, dried blood at his lip, eyes hollow with exhaustion and, beneath it, something still alive. A spark that hadn’t been extinguished yet.
Ben’s hand clenched reflexively around the cup until it creaked. His fingers trembled. He did not know the young man. That should have helped.
It did not.
He saw the Temple in him anyway. He saw the refectory with its long tables and donated fruit piled in bowls. He saw a training room lit with pale morning. He saw a braid between small fingers, the proud grin of a Padawan having sparred well, the earnest solemnity of a youngling reciting words he barely understood but believed in with his whole heart.
There had been so many faces like that.
There had been thousands.
He had promised them a better life. With every bow of his head, with every lesson, with every hand on a shoulder, he had promised.
The announcer’s voice brightened, like a smile stretching wider.
“Shown here is the apprehension of known Jedi collaborators who attempted to incite rebellion on Corellia, putting hundreds of thousands of Corellian citizens in grave danger. Imperial justice was swiftly delivered. Citizens can rest assured: the Empire is vigilant.”
The camera shifted. A black-robed figure stepped into frame, flanked by troopers. The image distorted around him, as if the receiver itself didn’t want to hold that shape.
A lightsaber ignited. Not blue. Not green. Red; a bleeding wound in the air.
Ben’s stomach lurched. He tasted iron and the sharp mineral tang of fear. It came with a force that made his knees soften; the old, animal knowledge of what it meant to be hunted.
He had known war. He had known battlefields and strategy and the clean calculus of wartime sacrifice.
This was different. This was not war. This was erasure.
The figure raised the blade. The footage cut away before impact, of course. They always cut away. Not out of mercy. Out of control. Control of what the public was allowed to see.
The announcer continued, chipper.
“Remember: the Jedi are responsible for the attempted assassination of Chancellor Palpatine and the betrayal of the Republic. Though this footage isn’t pleasant to see, it is a necessary step to remind enemies of our glorious Empire everywhere what the consequence is for treason. Do not be deceived by their lies or their false spirituality. We are not a theocracy, and their time is over. The galaxy moves forward.”
Ben made a sound that did not feel like it belonged to him.
It was small, at first, just a breath that caught in his throat. Then it grew into something ragged, something that scraped raw along the inside of his ribs.
He set the cup down very carefully, as if any sudden motion would shatter him. Then he crossed the hut in two steps and reached for the receiver.
His fingers hovered over the switch.
He could still make it stop.
He could be wise. He could be disciplined. He could be what he had been trained to be.
The announcer said, “The Emperor’s New Order will not tolerate–”
Ben’s hand slammed down, not on the switch, but on the receiver’s side. The plastic housing rattled. The sound warped and hissed, then steadied again, stubborn.
He did not turn it off.
He could not.
Because part of him, the part that was still a Jedi no matter how desperately he tried to bury it, was counting. Taking inventory. Listening for names, for planets, for any scrap of information that might mean someone somewhere was still alive.
And another part of him, a quieter part, a softer part that had been hurt too many times, wanted to suffer properly. Wanted to be punished by truth until he stopped believing he deserved to live.
The broadcast rolled on.
There was a segment about a newly erected monument on Coruscant, some shining obelisk dedicated to “the brave clone troopers who defended democracy against Jedi treachery.” Ben’s vision blurred at the word brave. Cody’s face flickered in his mind, helmeted and unreadable, and behind it the memory of a voice that had once sounded like trust.
There was another clip, this one of the former Temple steps, now draped in Imperial banners; scaffolded and shrouded for conversion into the Imperial Palace.
It was brief, almost incidental, meant to show the Empire’s reach and majesty. A symbol of galactic unity and progress.
There were piles of rubble where once stood monuments that had been revered for centuries. Millennia.
Ben’s body reacted like he’d been struck.
His knees hit the dirt floor. The sound was dull, swallowed by the hut. His hands went out instinctively to catch himself.
The Temple steps.
He had walked those steps a thousand times.
He had carried a sleepy youngling up them once, small head lolling against his shoulder, robe dragging. He had stood on them beside Qui-Gon and felt the morning sun on his face and believed, for a moment, that the galaxy could be made right.
Now there were banners.
Now there were troopers.
Now the place where he had been forged, where he had belonged, was a burgeoning stage for the lie that he had betrayed it; his most sacred places in ruin.
He stared at the flickering image until it became impossible to tell whether the blur in his eyes was tears or dust.
Somewhere in the broadcast, someone laughed. A chuckle from an interviewer, the pleasant sound of a relieved citizen being told they were safe. Ben’s teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.
His mind tried to run.
It ran, the way it always ran, back to the night of the Purge. The smell of smoke, metal and flesh. The crackle of blasterfire. The sound of screaming that ended too quickly.
No, he told himself. Not that. Not now.
But the broadcast kept dragging him back. Every word hooked into a memory and pulled.
He saw the archives. Jocasta Nu’s careful hands, her devotion. He saw the Council chamber, empty chairs. He saw the meditation gardens. He saw Anakin.
That one was a blade all its own.
Ben’s throat closed. The Force around him felt thin, like cloth worn too long, but it stirred anyway, responding to his grief the way it had once responded to his peace.
He pressed his palms to his eyes, hard enough to see stars.
“Stop,” he whispered.
The receiver did not stop.
The subject of the report shifted to a list of “known Jedi sympathizer networks dismantled.” Names of planets. Names of organizations. A line about “rehabilitation centers” for those influenced by Jedi ideology.
Rehabilitation.
Ben’s stomach twisted. He had seen what the Empire did to people it wanted to remake.
The announcer’s tone softened, as if unfazed by what she had just said.
“And in local news, a reminder that ration distributions will occur tomorrow in Anchorhead. Citizens are encouraged to report any suspicious behavior, particularly among itinerant refugees and offworlders.”
Ben lowered his hands.
He looked around his hut as if he had never seen it before. The bare stone walls. The cot. The single shelf with its few worn items. The folded robe he never wore anymore because it was too recognizable, too dangerous, too him.
Itinerant refugees.
Offworlders.
Suspicious behavior.
He had become the kind of person a bright, cheerful voice told others to turn in.
And then, like the broadcast had saved it for last, as if some producer had understood exactly how to drive the knife in deeper, the announcer said, “The Emperor’s office has released a statement celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Declaration of the New Order, and commemorating the restoration of peace.”
One-year anniversary.
Ben’s breath caught so sharply it hurt.
He had not been counting. He had been counting other things of course, because his mind counted everything now: days since his last proper meal, nights since he’d slept more than an hour at a time, the number of times he’d almost reached for his lightsaber out of habit before remembering it was buried in the sand like a corpse.
But he hadn’t let himself count that.
One year since the Temple burned.
One year since the Order fell.
One year since the galaxy decided, with frightening speed, that the Jedi had always been the enemy.
He remembered standing on Utapau’s landing platform, feeling triumphant for a heartbeat because Grievous was dead and perhaps, perhaps, they could turn the tide.
He remembered Cody handing him the comlink with that easy familiarity.
He remembered the words. Execute Order 66.
He remembered turning his head too late.
He remembered the sensation of falling.
He remembered climbing out of the sinkhole with his hands bloody, and the Force around him roaring with pain.
One year.
Ben’s mouth opened. No sound came out at first. Then a laugh did, cracked and wrong, and it turned into something else halfway through, something that bent him forward until his forehead touched the dirt floor.
The grief didn’t arrive politely. It did not come as a tearful moment and then relief.
It came like weather on Tatooine. Sudden. Violent. Unforgiving.
He rocked, a small motion at first, and then larger, as if he could shake the memory loose from his bones.
“Please,” he said, but he didn’t know who he was begging.
Qui-Gon? The Force? The children whose names he could still recite in his sleep?
“Please,” he said again, and his voice broke.
A flash of the Temple crept in anyway. Younglings lined in rows, faces turned up. He saw their braids, their clipped hair, their robes too large on small shoulders. He saw their trust.
He had failed them.
He had left them.
He had run, and he could name all the reasons, all the strategic necessities, all the burdens of the mission on Tatooine, and none of it mattered because the image of those faces did not accept explanations.
The broadcast continued, relentless. It began to play a recording of the Emperor’s voice, deep and resonant, speaking of unity, peace, democracy, safety and the danger of those who “pretend at virtue.”
Ben’s body went cold. His mind tried to shrink down into something smaller, something that could survive being in the same room as that voice.
He remembered kneeling in a chancellery office. He remembered the way Palpatine’s smile had never quite reached his eyes. He remembered the weight of dread he hadn’t been able to justify or explain at the time.
He had been right to fear. He had been too late.
The Emperor’s recorded speech said, “Let the Jedi be a lesson. Let their memory fade.”
Ben’s hands flew to his mouth as if to stop a sound from escaping him. A sob slipped through anyway, muffled. It shook his whole body.
Let their memory fade.
He could not let it fade. He did not know how to live in a world where the Jedi were reduced to a slur on someone’s tongue, a cautionary tale in a cheerful broadcast.
He had always believed the Force would endure, that the light would endure, because the light was not an institution. The light was a choice. A practice. A daily turning toward compassion.
But the Order had been more than an institution to him. It had been family, and home, and structure. It had been meals eaten in silence with others who understood what silence meant. It had been the shared rhythm of thousands of lives aligned toward something bigger than themselves.
It had been him.
And now the Empire was not only killing Jedi. It was killing the idea that Jedi had ever mattered.
Ben dragged in a breath that tasted like dust and salt. He lifted his head.
The receiver’s green light stared at him.
For a moment he imagined himself standing. Imagined crossing the hut, picking up the receiver with both hands, and smashing it against the stone wall until it was nothing but shards. Imagined the satisfying finality of silence.
Instead, he crawled toward it.
His knees left tracks in the dirt. His fingers trailed, slow, as if he were approaching an altar.
He reached the receiver and, very gently this time, touched the switch.
The sound cut off.
Silence fell.
Silence was worse.
Without the broadcast’s bright cruelty, his own thoughts flooded in. His own memories. The sound of young voices singing in the Temple’s acoustics. The clatter of sabers in training rooms. The hush of the Council chamber. The low murmur of Masters exchanging greetings in corridors. The steady cadence of Qui-Gon’s footsteps behind him.
Ben squeezed his eyes shut.
He waited for a voice to comfort him. He waited for Qui-Gon, for the steady presence he sometimes felt at the edge of his awareness like a hand hovering near his shoulder.
Nothing came.
He was alone in a hut of stone and sand on a world that didn’t care.
His chest tightened. He pressed a fist against it, as if he could hold himself together.
He thought of the Lars homestead a few kilometers away. Of Beru’s steady kindness, Owen’s harsh pragmatism. Of Luke, bright-eyed and restless, too young to understand the galaxy’s cruelty.
Luke was the reason.
Luke was the tether.
Luke was the thing that had pulled Ben across the stars and anchored him in this dust.
He stared at the receiver’s dead light and understood, with a clarity that made him dizzy, what the broadcast had been trying to do.
It wasn’t just information. It was a weapon.
It was meant to make him feel small. It was meant to convince him that he had been on the wrong side of history. It was meant to hollow him out until there was nothing left but shame, until he would stop being dangerous.
Until he would stop being Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He wanted to curl up and disappear. He wanted to lie down in the sand outside and let the suns bake him into bone. He wanted to stop remembering, stop feeling, stop being the man who had lived through the end of everything he loved.
But Luke existed. Luke was alive.
And if Luke was alive, then some piece of the Order still breathed, however small, however fragile.
The words came without him thinking. Words he had spoken a thousand times. Words that had once been simple.
“There is no emotion, there is peace.”
His voice trembled on peace. He almost laughed again. Almost broke.
He tried again, quieter.
“There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.”
Knowledge. That the Jedi were being hunted. Knowledge that the galaxy cheered for it.
He swallowed hard.
“There is no passion, there is serenity.”
Serenity was a memory he could barely imagine.
“There is no chaos, there is harmony.”
The Force did not feel harmonious. It felt wounded, stretched thin across a galaxy that had decided cruelty was order.
He reached the last line and his voice nearly failed him.
“There is no death, there is the Force.”
He inhaled, shaky. Exhaled.
“No death,” he whispered, and in his mind he saw faces. Thousands of faces. Names he could not hold all at once. Laughs and lessons and small moments that would never be broadcast. The Order as it had been, not as the Empire said it was.
He closed his eyes and let himself feel it.
Not the propaganda. Not the lies. Not the bright voice declaring extermination like it was weather.
The real thing.
The way the Force had felt in the Temple at dawn when the halls were still quiet and the day was a blank page. The way it had felt when a youngling finally succeeded at a difficult form and beamed with pride. The way it had felt when Qui-Gon had stood beside him, steady as bedrock, and the universe had seemed survivable.
Ben’s shoulders shook.
He did not try to stop it.
He sat there on the dirt floor and for a long time he let grief wash through him in waves. Not tidy. Not noble. Ugly, relentless, human.
When it eased, even a fraction, he wiped his face with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of dust.
Then he got up, slow and unsteady, and stepped outside.
The desert air hit him like a slap. Cold for this hour, sharp enough to sting his lungs. The suns had not fully risen yet; the horizon was a pale bruise.
Ben stood in the doorway of his hut and looked out at the dunes.
Somewhere out there, the Empire was telling the galaxy it was safe now.
Somewhere out there, Jedi were still dying.
Somewhere out there, Luke slept in a warm bed, unaware of the weight of history trying to crush him before he even understood his name.
Ben closed his eyes. He breathed in. He breathed out.
He let the Force, thin as it was, touch him.
“I remember,” he said aloud, voice barely more than a rasp. He didn’t know who he was speaking to, but the words mattered anyway. “I remember you.”
The wind answered, not with comfort, but with motion. Sand shifted. The world continued.
Ben opened his eyes and watched the first edge of sunlight cut across the dunes like a blade.
He did not feel peace.
But he felt something else, small and stubborn.
He stepped away from the hut and began walking toward the Lars homestead, because there were chores to do, and water to haul, and a boy to keep safe.
And because as long as he could still choose to put one foot in front of the other, the Empire had not won everything.