Two Halfs of One Warrior • Obikin/Vaderwan One-Shots

Coming Home

• Summary: Because nothing says Christmas like a little incest. And instant coffee.

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Outwardly, Obi-Wan was entirely calm and collected. The cab driver sitting in the seat in front of him who’d picked him up at the airport was certainly not giving off any hints that he noticed any of the nervousness Obi-Wan felt constricting his chest and souring his stomach. And why should he? There was nothing to be nervous about. Obi-Wan was simply coming home for Christmas, a perfectly normal thing to do that people all over the world did, year after year. Obi-Wan should probably have done it more often, all things considered. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel like he was running a low-grade fever or that his stomach was going to leap out of his mouth at the earliest possible opportunity. Was he sweating? He checked the watch on his wrist, which he’d synched to local time while waiting to deboard the plane, and used the motion to also surreptitiously swipe the back of his hand across his forehead. It was barely five a.m., and the sun wasn’t even all the way up yet.

A traitorous part of Obi-Wan had hoped for a closed road or a freeway pile-up or a broken snowplow or some other natural disaster to have delayed their journey, but the cab driver pulled up to the curb in front of Qui-Gon and Shmi’s house almost exactly thirty minutes after leaving the airport, which set a new personal record for Obi-Wan. Perhaps there was something to be said for red-eye flights, light dusting of snow on the ground notwithstanding.

And it was, Obi-Wan had to admit as he got out of the cab, stretched his legs, and counted the fare out of his wallet, rather picturesque. Sunrise was just starting, casting a low, dim light on the fallen snow, making the front lawn look like it had been bathed in white glitter. Obi-Wan didn’t miss living in a place where it snowed on a regular basis, but it sure did look nice, if one had the luxury of never having to walk to a bus stop in it or shovel it off the hood of a car before getting in. But for sitting inside, perhaps with a steaming mug of coffee and a good novel, recent snowfall couldn’t be beat.

Obi-Wan slung his duffel bag over his shoulder, tipped the driver, and turned to look up at his childhood home. They’d had the front door repainted, since he’d been home last, and the welcome mat on the front porch had definitely been replaced, but everything else about it looked exactly like how he’d remembered it. It might as well have been a painting, or a photograph, frozen not in ice but in time, plucked from any year of Obi-Wan’s life from the ages between three and eighteen.

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had moved into the house, together, after Obi-Wan’s mother died, and Qui-Gon fully intended to never leave. It was the house he’d raised his son in. It was the house he’d brought his new bride home to, when he’d remarried the year Obi-Wan turned sixteen. It was the house Anakin and Ahsoka would remember as their childhood home. Someday, they would be the ones standing on the sidewalk next to the mailbox very early on Christmas Eve, exactly the way Obi-Wan was now, reminiscing about summer birthday parties in the above-ground pool in the backyard and Qui-Gon’s experimental, recipe-less cooking methods and coming down the front staircase to meet their prom date. All of which memories Obi-Wan had, too, and he certainly wouldn’t begrudge his siblings the same, except…

Except. It would be hard on any sixteen-year-old, he supposed, to suddenly be told they were getting a stepmother and two stepsiblings, especially when those siblings were all of seven and two years old. Ahsoka, the baby, was a delight from the beginning, with adorable pudgy cheeks and a laugh that her family could not help but join in with every time they heard it. Even Obi-Wan, who’d been convinced he was far too cool to hang out with a toddler and much more interested in dating and passing his driving test, had been entranced by her sweet smiles and mercurial moods. No, Ahsoka hadn’t been the problem.