Think Twice

Chapter 20

            At some point during the procedure, Ahsoka had fallen asleep or passed out. He’d tried to be as careful as he could, but he could tell she wasn’t used to burn wounds. Why would she be anyways? She hadn’t been tortured for years by an evil master. So maybe Master Kenobi hadn’t done the best job ever instilling her with self-confidence, but at least he didn’t burn a lightsaber into her skin in order to motivate her or punish her. Once he finished clearing away the burned skin, cleaned up the wound and wrapped it, he washed his hands again and sighed.

            He crossed his arms and studied her face for a few minutes. They’d sure come a long way since the first time they’d met. He still wasn’t sure how. And he definitely wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve her loyalty to him. As soon as the council had offered her the rank she’d been dreaming of for years, he thought for sure he’d lost her. But then for some reason, possibly a very stupid reason, she’d passionately stood up for him and even vehemently yelled at the council in order to do so. And despite all that, Obi wan had still felt the need to follow them out and apologize. He was starting to think he didn’t know as much about the Jedi order as he thought and that maybe… maybe he’d been wrong to walk away from it. Maybe they’d been wrong to walk away. He really hoped she wasn’t going to wake up someday and regret her choice to be with him. What could he offer her really?

            He had power, he could train her further if she wanted. But he didn’t know where he stood with the force anymore. He’d hoped killing Sidious would free him of the Sith corruption, but why had he hoped that? Until he’d met Ahsoka, he’d believed that the only way to stop him was to make himself more like a Sith rather than less like one. That grey area they’d found was great for an occasional fight, but he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of floating around with no direction. Of not knowing what to call what they were. He didn’t identify as a Sith anymore, not really. He’d pretty much cast that aside to follow Ahsoka as though she knew better than he did. And maybe she did. She somehow, was so sure of who she was, so sure of her path with or without the order.

            Until he’d met her, he’d always assumed there were only two paths, two extremes; light or dark. Now, it would seem there was a crazy mess between the two and how were you supposed to learn to survive there without any kind of direction?

            He sighed and took off his jacket. Then he peeled off his undershirt and picked up the scissors he’d used to cut off her dress. He cut a few inches down the front of the neck of it and then a triangle on either side back up to the collar. Then he very carefully worked it over her head, trying not to disturb her. After fighting to get her lekku out of the neck hole, he gently eased her arms through and pulled it down, so it covered her. It was too big for her, but she looked cute in it anyways and he smiled at a job well done. Then he pulled up the blanket and kissed her softly on the forehead, pulled his jacket back on and left the room.

            He dropped down on the bunk in the other room and rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted. Beyond exhausted if that were possible. The past week had been... well had been one hell of a ride. Sidious was dead, Dooku was dead, Maul was dead, Ahsoka was with him and neither of them were fugitives. It was better than he could have ever hoped for. But for some reason it didn’t feel as good as he’d expected. Maybe he was just too tired to appreciate it.

            He’d left Ahsoka to recover from the horrific wound she’d gotten from killing Maul. He couldn’t shake that from his brain. It could have been worse, he kept trying to tell himself that. She could have died, but she hadn’t. Even though she’d begged him to let her go, it still felt like his fault she’d be forever marked by that. Somehow in the matter of seconds it had taken her to fly the rest of the way towards Maul, she’d ignited her lightsaber and stabbed it straight through his chest, while simultaneously managing to miss him doing exactly the same thing to her.