As It Was ▸ Obi-Wan Kenobi

12. Goodbye.

content warning: grief 

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A day ago thousands of souls reached out and then were silent. And I did not know what it was.

Hours later we found it to be the destruction of Alderaan.

An hour ago one soul reached out, one so familiar it was like the other half of me. And then it was silent. And I knew what happened.

Obi-Wan was gone.

I had been asleep, fitfully so because I felt a deep tension in the Force, something shifting in the balance. Yavin 4 was peaceful, serene even, and I had been getting excellent sleep here over the past two years so it was unusual.

But the fluttering of tension in the Force woke me. Something wasn't right, like the Force was screaming at me to do something, anything, but I did not know what I was supposed to do.

Because it knew, it knew what was coming.

I'd taken a walk through the compound, the hanger doors wide open to let in the cool summer night. It was quiet, I'd even checked over the compound for anything out of place. A far off watchman saluted me and I nodded back, not willing to break the silence. The clouds shifted, revealing a rarely seen glow from another moon.

In that moment I felt it, the presence I had not felt in years, as if he was right there with me - as if Obi-Wan were about to reach out and touch me on the shoulder.

But then he was gone. Really and truly gone. I hadn't ever before realized that I had always faintly felt him. But suddenly he was not there, like a breath ripped from my lungs.

I fell to my knees, a sob escaping me, my body crumpling. There was no doubt in my mind, in fact I'd never been more certain of anything: Obi-Wan Kenobi was gone.

I faintly made out the watchman's footsteps nearing me, her footfalls hurried, but I shut them out. Even when the woman reached down to touch me I couldn't help it, the Force exploded from me, sending her flying, her body seeming to soar through the air in slow motion. Almost without my permission the Force caught her, cushioning her fall.

This all happened in silence, even the crash of the woman hitting the ground seemed muffled to me. Because my entire life was playing before me, everything I had ever done included him. There was not a moment he was not there, at least in thought, with the knowledge that I could return to him as a safe place, a home. He was a stationary point in a constantly moving universe, something solid to hold on too when the world seemed to spin too fast.

But he was gone. I knew it more certainly than if I had watched him die, more certainly than if I had held him in my arms while he breathed his last breath.

And the Universe grieved with me. She even shed tears - I could hear them falling outside - mourning the other half of my soul.

-

I think I stayed there for hours, far into the early hours of the morning until someone came to get me, to tell me that they had to land a ship in the landing bay and I was in the way. I met the gaze of Jan Dodonna, his eyes soft, waiting .

"He's gone," I whispered, voice breaking and heart shattering, "Obi-Wan is gone."
"I'm sorry," General Dodonna said, "I'm sorry you didn't get to say goodbye."

I nodded, my tears falling anew. I let him almost pick me up, barely cognisant of my feet moving. In the nearly two years I had been on Yavin 4 he knew me best, frankly he was one of the very few people I knew from before the Republic fell.

General Dodonna ushered me out of the landing bay, gently depositing me in an unused meeting room. I flopped into a chair, my limbs numb, my heart empty. He knelt down in front of me looking worried but his eyes sparkled with a glimmer of hope I barely recognized.

"Take your time," he started, "But I think you'll want to meet the kids about to get off this ship."

"Kids?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"Leia Organa," he smiled, "And a boy she said came from Tatooine."

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a/n: tysm for reading! despite this being the saddest chapter of this fic, it IS my favorite. one more chapter to go! happy holidays!

xx