The Jedi And The Warrior

No More Choices

Pregnant. The word thrashed through her, a tolling of dreadful chance. How could they care for a baby, when they were barely caring for themselves? It was enough to ask it of Flyra, when she knew she could never muster the gentleness of a mother, or bring a child into a world so dark and cruel as this.

But to ask it of Obi-Wan, after everything he had endured, everything he was still enduring... As if he hadn't already had to care for his brother, when he was but a child himself. As if he hadn't then had another child forced upon him, in the wake of his master's death. As if he hadn't lost them both to darkness. As if he didn't blame himself for all of it.

She stared at him, his blue eyes looking back at her vacant with shock, and knew. She could not do this to him.

Shouldn't do this to herself, either. Not now, not here, not with her fractured and troubled soul.

"Are you sure?" she whispered, and his throat bobbed before he nodded.

"I felt it," he told her. "Another heartbeat beating alongside yours."

The words broke something in her, and she realised her hand was crushing his against her stomach. This little child, this little life... it was hers. As nothing else in the world had ever been.

No, it was more than that. Hers and Obi-Wan's, the evidence of their love, the joining of him and her in a piece of soul that fluttered in rhythm with hers.

But no. No. It was unwise to think these thoughts. Impractical.

"I don't understand," she managed to say. "We did everything right, we... How did this happen?"

He shook his head. "Sometimes all the precautions in the world aren't enough," he said quietly.

She had to reach over to brace her hand against the arm of the rock. "What do we do?" she asked, and her voice trembled. "I don't... I don't know what to do."

Obi-Wan slid his hand from under hers, so that her own was pressed against her belly, though he did not let go of it. She closed her eyes, imagining that she could feel the child beneath the skin and flesh, imagining she could sense the rhythm of its heart.

But Obi-Wan's free hand came up to cup her cheek, to tilt her chin towards him, coaxing open her eyes. "What do you want to do?" he asked her, and the shock had faded from his eyes. They were unreadable now, if earnest and filled with compassion.

But Flyra shook her head, inwardly cursing herself for the way her throat tightened against the words she had to say. "We can't keep this baby," she said, her voice steady despite her heart's protest. "We — we can't. How can we hope to raise a child in a world like this, with... with the Empire, and the Sith, and you're being a Jedi?"

He nodded; but his eyes flickered across her face, searching her, determining the measure of sincerity behind her words.

"And I cannot ask it of you," she went on, even if she knew she was rambling now. "Not after Anakin, and Ben, and... everything. I —"

"Enough of that," he said. "Do not even consider reasons such as those in a decision like this. I will be beside you whatever you choose."

She looked at him, then, and had to stifle her sob. He was such a good man, such a pure, wonderful soul, and she...

"But what do you want, then, Obi-Wan?" she asked softly.

And his mouth tightened for a second, before he took a deep, steadying breath. "You once told me that Anakin could be my second chance, after Ben," he said at last. "But maybe it was this, maybe this is the second chance, for us, together." He paused, shutting his eyes tight. "During the war," he went on, "I used to dream of you. I did not sleep well, even then. But I'd dream of you — of our child. No matter where I was or how hopeless the hour, it was always you." Flyra knew she was crying, but she didn't much care, not as Obi-Wan whispered, "I never thought it'd be an option for me. For us. But now... we'd love that child more than any other soul in the world, and if this is our second chance then... then I don't want to waste it." He smiled, a tentative, trembling thing, and took her free hand. "But none of that matters if you do not want this. This choice belongs to you."

Flyra laughed bitterly, even as it was laced with a sob. "I had hoped I'd never have to make any more choices," she said. He smiled again, but it was entwined with affection. Flyra took a deep, steadying breath, and said, "I want this baby. I really do. I want to have a child with you, I want... I want this."

Something fractured in Obi-Wan's face, like a great weariness cracking into depths of joy, like despair chased away with hope. His face crumpled, and he grabbed her to him, folding her so tightly into his embrace that she was engulfed in his smell and his strength and just... him.

He was crying, and so was she, but the tears were tears of a glimpse at happiness, no longer tears of loss. No longer tears of despair. No longer.

And maybe, just maybe, Flyra thought, the galaxy was beginning to pay back the great debt she owed to them, to make right the suffering that had been heaped upon them. Perhaps. Perhaps fate might at last begin to smile upon them.

***

As the long months passed, the steady gloom that had lain upon their hearts gradually began to lift. Obi-Wan began to talk, telling in detail stories of Anakin, and the war, and all the Jedi that were now dead. He spoke not only of the good but also of the bad, choosing to grieve for all that he had lost in its entirety, remembering Anakin's kindness and his bravery and his humour, but also his ambition and his stubbornness, his pride.

Obi-Wan spoke ill of the dead, and loved them all the more for it.

And his tales encouraged her to tell her own, of the many adventures of the Warriors of Fate, of the things Malco Flint had done to her in the darkness, of the Crystal of Amarth and its unbreakable power. For even now she still walked the path on which it had set her, and she would end in the manner it had prepared for her.

And all the while a tiny, unquenchable, joyful life grew within her.

She knew that Obi-Wan would make a wonderful father, but she was not so sure of her own skills as a mother. Obi-Wan assured her that she'd be perfect, that they'd learn together, but... she'd never been particularly good at patience and understanding.

When she communicated these doubts to Obi-Wan, he reminded her softly that she seemed relentlessly patient and understanding when it came to him, and that perhaps she was only impatient when dealing with idiots.

The sunset over Tatooine never got old. Watching one red sun and one golden sun dip below the horizon and blaze across the dunes was an experience Flyra would never grow tired of.

Together they sat outside their cave, hand in hand, watching it paint the sky in gold and red.

"I don't want to make any more choices," Flyra said quietly, "for the rest of my life. No more door-closing decisions."

"Saying this as we're about to have a child does not seem like a wise statement."

"I know," she said, laughing. "But you know what I mean."

He squeezed her hand. "I do," he murmured, and she rested her head against his shoulder. "No more choices," he said quietly onto her hair.

Before them, the suns sank below the horizon, and a deep twilight settled over the world.