Chapter Text
The first time Obi-Wan saw Commander Cody again, the suns had already begun their long slow descent behind the dunes of Tatooine, turning the sky the color of gold.
Wind skimmed across the sand in thin restless sheets. The little moisture farm looked impossibly small against the endless emptiness of the desert, all hard lines and stubborn survival.
Obi-Wan was just stepping out from behind the shelter, a water bucket in one hand, when he felt it. A presence so familiar in the Force that it made his breath catch.
He went still and the bucket dipped slightly in his hand. No. It wasn’t possible. Not here. Not after everything.
Then he heard boots in the sand. The steps were measured and careful and oh so familiar. Obi-Wan turned, and there he was.
Cody stood at the edge of the settlement like he had been carved out of every terrible year that had followed them and was standing anyway. His clothing was patched and sun-faded and not quite clean, but Obi-Wan could see the orange dye underneath it. He was missing his helmet and his armor.
His face— Force, his face. Obi-Wan’s whole body forgot how to function. Cody looked thinner than he should have, and there were old scars Obi-Wan did not remember being there. There was dust in the seams of his clothes and Obi-Wan could feel the fear radiating off him through the Force. But, despite it all, it was still him.
For one frozen second they only stared. Then Cody whispered, like he was afraid the desert might steal the sound, “Hello, General.”
Obi-Wan’s grip on the bucket tightened hard enough to creak. His throat closed completely. The Force, usually so wide and spacious around him, suddenly felt too small to contain what he was feeling.
He took one step forward. Then another. And another. Cody’s face did something completely devastating. He smiled. It was a terrible, sad smile, as if he had forgotten how and was trying anyway.
Obi-Wan dropped the bucket in the sand and crossed the distance in three desperate strides. Cody barely had time to inhale before Obi-Wan had both hands on his face, checking, confirming, that he was alive, that this was real.
Cody’s breath hitched violently at the contact, but he didn’t pull away. He didn’t even flinch. He just stood there staring at Obi-Wan with wide, wet eyes like he had been waiting years for this to exist again.
“Oh, Cody,” Obi-Wan whispered, and it was broken on the name.
Cody made a sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t broken on its way out. “Hi,” his voice wavered.
Obi-Wan let out the most unsteady breath of his life and then, because apparently his body had decided dignity could go jump into a Sarlacc pit, he kissed him.
It was not elegant. It was not composed. It was not at all the kind of kiss either of them would have given in the middle of a Jedi Temple corridor where the Council might have judged them into dust. It was desperate and aching and full of relief.
Cody froze for the space of half a heartbeat. Then he made a choked little sound against Obi-Wan’s mouth and kissed him back like he had been starving.
Obi-Wan’s hands slid from Cody’s face to his shoulders, clinging as if he could anchor both of them in the middle of the desert by sheer will. Cody’s free hand rose to his waist, then paused there, trembling just slightly before settling with unmistakable caution, like he still feared this might vanish if he held on too tightly.
They broke apart only because breathing became a necessary inconvenience. Cody’s forehead dropped against Obi-Wan’s, and neither of them spoke, too busy taking in the feel of the other.
The desert wind whispered around them. Somewhere behind Obi-Wan, he heard Luke shifting in the doorway, very wisely not coming any closer.
Cody’s breath was rough. “You’re alive,” he said hoarsely.
Obi-Wan gave a wet, shaking laugh. “So are you.”
Cody’s mouth twitched. “Barely.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes stung immediately, but the next words nearly undid him.
“I thought you were dead.”Cody’s voice was low, rough around the edges. “I thought I’d killed you.”
Everything in Obi-Wan went still, and yet he found that he wasn’t surprised. He had known, somehow, that this had been sitting inside Cody all this time, heavy and poisonous and eating away at him.
He cupped Cody’s face again, more firmly now, forcing him to look up. “No,” he said.
Cody’s jaw tightened. “Obi-Wan-“
“No.”The word came out sharper than he intended, but the force behind it was gentle. “You didn’t kill me.”
Cody looked both miserable and unconvinced. He looked like a man who had been carrying a mountain on his back for years and had long forgotten the burden could ever be put down.
Obi-Wan’s throat tightened. “Cody.”
“I heard the command,” Cody said, voice breaking on the last word. “I executed it. I know what I did.”
Obi-Wan felt something in his chest crack wide open. Of course he did. Of course he remembered enough to torture himself with it, even if the details were gone. He shook his head once, sharply. “You didn’t do that.”
Cody gave him a look so full of pain it nearly made Obi-Wan reel. “I did.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Obi-Wan stepped closer until they were almost chest to chest. The desert had gone very quiet. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
He kissed Cody again before he could overthink it. It tasted like freedom. When they finally pulled apart, Obi-Wan knew he probably looked as wrecked as Cody did.
“I know what happened,” Obi-Wan said softly. “I know about the chips.”
Cody went completely still. Obi-Wan watched his words register. Watched them strike somewhere deep and buried and fracture the old terrible certainty.
Cody’s eyes widened slightly, and something in him buckled, just enough to show the raw exhaustion underneath. “Then you know I-”
He stopped, and swallowed heavily. Then he tried again. “Then you know I still-”His voice failed.
Obi-Wan’s heart broke in a fresh and immediate way. He reached for Cody’s hands and Cody let him take them. His gloves were warm from the desert suns, and his fingers were shaking. Obi-Wan held them both between his palms.
“Cody,” he said, so gently it hurt to say, “Order Sixty-Six was not your fault.”
Cody’s face emptied, and for one terrible second he looked like he had been struck. Then he laughed. It was a broken, disbelieving sound. “That’s not-“
“It is.”
“No, it’s not. I did it. I remember enough to know I did it.”
“Because you were controlled.”
Cody’s breathing turned sharp and shallow. “I still pointed the blaster. I still-”
“No.” Obi-Wan squeezed his hands hard enough to make sure he stayed present. “You were ordered to do something you could not refuse.”
Cody looked sick. “It was me, I obeyed.”
“No,” Obi-Wan said again, and now there was steel in it. “Listen to me.”Cody did. That, too, nearly undid him. Obi-Wan’s voice wavered only once. “Palpatine did this. The Sith did this. Kamino did this. You were made to obey a command buried inside you. You were controlled.”
Cody blinked once. Twice. The desert wind tugged at the edges of his clothes. Obi-Wan saw the exact moment Cody’s mind reached for a wall that had always been there and found, instead, a crack.
The commander’s mouth parted slightly and shook his head. “I still pulled the trigger.” His voice broke.
“No.”
“I still-”
“No, Cody.”Obi-Wan’s own eyes were stinging now too.
Cody looked at him desperately. “Obi-Wan, I remember enough.”
Obi-Wan felt his face crumple. Then he said, with terrifying tenderness, “You remember the aftermath.”
Cody went completely still and a tear slipped down his cheek. Obi-Wan noticed immediately and stepped even closer, as if his sheer proximity could hold Cody together. His thumb brushed beneath Cody’s eye and came away wet. He was fairly certain that Cody had not noticed he was crying.
Obi-Wan kissed Cody’s forehead again, instinctively. Then his cheek. Then the edge of his jaw. They were soft little kisses, each one gentler than the last.
“You are still you,” Obi-Wan whispered.
Cody shut his eyes and his face twisted. His free hand came up suddenly, clumsy with shock, and caught at Obi-Wan’s sleeve like he needed to make sure the man in front of him was real.
“I thought—” he began, and stopped. Then, smaller: “I thought you would hate me.”
Oh. Oh, Cody. Obi-Wan’s heart ached. He shook his head, immediate and fierce. “Never.”
Cody looked at him like he didn’t believe in miracles but was willing to accept one if it insisted. Obi-Wan leaned in and kissed his forehead again. Then his temple. Then the corner of his scarred cheek. Each one saying the same thing in the only language Cody seemed to trust at the moment: You are still you. You are still mine. You are still here.
Cody made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. Then, very carefully, as if he was asking permission from every bruise in his body, he kissed Obi-Wan again. It was softer this time, less desperate.
Obi-Wan’s hand slid into the back of Cody’s neck, fingers brushing the short hair there, and Cody shuddered so hard Obi-Wan felt it through both of them.
“Force,” Cody whispered against his mouth. “I missed you.”
Obi-Wan closed his eyes. “I missed you too.”
Cody pulled back just enough to look at him. There were tears on his face now. Obi-Wan had not seen them fall. The sight of them broke his heart further. He brushed them away with his thumb.
Cody caught his wrist gently. “Don’t,” Cody said, voice rough. “You’ll make me worse.”
Obi-Wan gave a shaky, incredulous laugh. “That’s the goal, I think.”
Cody’s mouth twitched despite himself. Then he looked past Obi-Wan, towards the little moisture farm shelter. Towards the child watching them with solemn, bewildered curiosity from the doorway.
Cody’s expression shifted and Obi-Wan followed his gaze. Then looked back, suddenly horribly aware that they were standing in the open, in the middle of a Tatooine sunset, kissing like two idiots with zero regard for decorum.
He cleared his throat, which did not help. “Oh.”Cody’s face went a very interesting shade of red from embarrassment. “Right.” A beat. “Public.”
Obi-Wan, somehow even more flustered now, turned to face Luke briefly, who was pretending with astonishing dedication not to have seen anything at all. Then he looked back at Cody. Then, because apparently he had decided subtlety was dead and could stay dead, he leaned in and kissed Cody again anyways.
Cody made a startled noise into the kiss and Obi-Wan smiled against his mouth.
When they parted, Cody looked absolutely wrecked.
“Obi-Wan.”
“Yes?”
Cody stared at him for a long second, eyes red, face dusted with wind and sun and years of survival. Then he said, very quietly: “I think I need to sit down before I collapse into the sand and die.”
Obi-Wan laughed through his budding tears. “That seems sensible.”
He took Cody by the hand and led him toward the shade of the shelter, and Cody let himself be guided, after one last glance back at the horizon, as if he still half expected the galaxy to punish him for this small miracle.
Obi-Wan saw that look and hated it. So when they sat down together at last, shoulder to shoulder in the cooling desert dusk, Obi-Wan kept one hand firmly in Cody’s and the other resting warm against his back as a grounding point. A promise of home.
Cody leaned into him slowly, like he’d forgotten he was allowed to. Obi-Wan kissed his hair once, then his temple, then the side of his helmetless forehead where the scars were worst.
Cody closed his eyes, and a long, shuddering breath left him. “Still not my fault?” he murmured, with the faintest hint of disbelief left in the question.
Obi-Wan turned his head and kissed him again, slowly, deliberately, with all the tenderness he had been aching to give him for years.
“Not even a little,” he said.
Cody laughed again. And this time it sounded almost like relief.