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Obi-wan is exhausted. There’s no other word for the bone-deep weariness he is feeling. He’s searched for another word, something to match the horror he’s feeling, but there isn’t one. He’s simply and purely exhausted.
Luke and Leia are asleep. Obi-wan knows this. He can feel it in the Force and stars, even thinking about the Force is exhausting. It’s Light and brimming with life and there's Darkness but it’s nothing like the Dark that grew and grew as the war raged on until it was normal and— and it hurts. It hurts because everyone he knew — the people he relied on, the people he loved — do not exist in this galaxy. They’re there, in the Force, but they’re different and they’re Lighter and Obi-wan grieves for every life he felt shutter out of existence but now they’re back and— and Obi-wan needs to save them. Somehow. He needs to… he needs to… Mace and Shmi and Qui-gon and, oh, Ashoka hasn’t even been born yet, and Anakin and and—
—and he’s exhausted. His entire world just ended, shattered around him, and now it’s back. Dooku is alive; not just alive but he isn’t Dark. He isn’t Fallen. He’s gray and shrouded but his roots were firmly in the side of the Light and Obi-wan remembers every moment of pain, of agony the man caused him and the Galaxy at large and it simply felt like it had never been there at all.
Because it hadn’t been. Wouldn’t be.
(But it had, hadn't it? It had been real. His life. His failure. It had been all too real.)
The man that had looked down at Obi-wan didn’t have yellow eyes. He didn’t want to hurt Obi-wan and if the Jedi-who-no-longer-was hadn’t had negotiations to focus on, Jango’s people to save, that alone might have shattered him.
Dooku had offered, feeling Obi-wan in the Force, to take him back to the Temple.
“There’s something… strangely familiar about you,” the man had said. Obi-wan didn’t know if it was the rush of fearhurtprotectiongrief that exploded into the Force or the half-a-dozen armored Mandalorians that stepped protectively in front of him that convinced Dooku to let it go.
Obi-wan’s not… entirely sure how much time has passed since he appeared in this past. Since he’s been with the Haat Mando’ade . He’s not even sure how long it’s been since they came back to camp, everyone whole and alive . All he knows is Luke and Leia have been fed and they’re asleep, being watched over by one of the clan mothers to give Obi-wan time to… to do something, he’s sure. He just doesn’t know what. Sleep, probably.
Sleep. What a funny concept.
Obi-wan looks at the blankets and thinks about sleeping. He really does. But the more he thinks about closing his eyes the more panicked he becomes and suddenly he needs to check on Luke and Leia because he can feel them, but what if it’s a lie, an illusion,a trick of the Sith, what if they’re gone , but when he gets up to move he can’t. He can’t move , he’s alone, and his lungs have begun struggling like Anakin is holding him up by the throat with nothing but the Force and crushing— oh Force, Padme, I’m sorry—
Breathe, Obi-wan chastises himself, but the word does not bring the agonizing action into being. When he tries to suck in a breath, Obi-wan finds himself choking on a sob. He is… he is crying and he cannot be crying he doesn’t have time for crying—
He needs to get up. He needs to move. His people need him. He can’t remember the stardate and he doesn’t know how long he’s been here but he knows, he can feel, every single life he felt flicker out and more and he can save them, but to save them he needs to breathe—
—but he can’t breathe and his vision is graying out on the sides and no because if Obi-wan closes his eyes he might open them to find this was all a cruel dream, a Force forsaken life, he might find Luke and Leia gone , he might be back in the temple surrounded by children that his brother murdered and he needs to get up— he’s been given a chance, to save those children, to save the Order, to save his family— someone anyone he need to—
—he needs to do so many things and he can’t do any of them because he can’t breathe .
Tears are pouring down his face and Obi-wan can’t remember the last time he cried. It’s been so, so long he doesn’t remember how to stop . He tries, he tries so damn hard, but each breath catches in the back of his throat and brings on a new wave of crying.
His tears are not quiet, half the camp can probably hear him, and he’ll be cognizant enough to be ashamed about that later but for now he doesn’t have enough control to be ashamed. His control is lost in a swirling sea of emotions that he has no power over. He cannot control his thoughts, nor his breathing, or the volume of the cries that are tearing involuntarily out of his chest and he cannot stop—
—when suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder and Obi-wan responds without thinking because so many people that he loved have tried to kill him and he’s not safe so he grips the arm that reached down and pulls . He sees so many faces in front of him that he doesn’t know who he’s fighting, he just knows he can’t stop as he pins a body underneath him and his breath heaves at the exertion.
He barely has the strength to hold himself up, let alone keep someone larger than him pinned like this but whoever grabbed him isn’t fighting. Obi-wan’s not being attacked, but he doesn’t know how to let up. He blinks, furiously, trying to clear tears from his eyes enough to even see his enemy but he can’t. He’s still crying and Obi-wan doesn’t know how he survived— he doesn’t know why— when he’s this kriffing useless.
“ Udusii ,” a voice says, strong and familiar, “it’s okay, verd . You’re safe. Your ade are safe.” The comforting flow of Mando’a surrounds Obi-wan and he knows it’s not Cody — Cody tried to kill him, shot him down and hunted him — but it’s Cody’s voice and Cody’s face but there’s no scar and the air is so cold and when he reaches out it’s not the Force signature of any of the 212th that he finds but a stranger and what does it say that the company of a strange is less threatening than a friend?
“You’re safe,” the voice says steadily and Obi-wan can feel his arms begin to shake as his body is racked with another wave of tears.
He is not safe. Obi-wan Kenobi will never be safe. But he is so exhausted that he can’t manage the energy to care, to fight. There isn’t enough of him left to fight for. With one last breath Obi-wan reaches out into the Force and searches. He can feel Luke and Leia, shining so bright and innocent and nothing like their father, and he feels… he feels, inexplicably, safe.
The Force envelops him with the feeling, singing truth in the promises this man so freely gives.
And Obi-wan, always, has trusted the Force. Finally, he allows his shaking limbs to collapse. Strong arms wrap around him and for the first time in who knows how long he lets go .
He lets go of his thoughts, of his pain, of his regrets and fears. He lets go of Anakin and the Order. He lets go of the Sith. Of Darkness and Light and everything in between. He lets go of his responsibility, his sense of duty, his want, his shame, his despair, and even his fear . He simply... lets ... go.
He cries. He cries for so long and he doesn’t even try to stop himself. It could be days. It could be years. His tears fall and they’re loud and ugly and scared and Obi-wan is both thirty-eight and an orphan of an entire culture and he is twenty and he is a father. He is surrounded by so much Light it scares him. He allows himself to feel everything and it’s so painfully raw and broken and real that it reminds Obi-wan of his Master’s precious here and now.
And for the first time, possibly since he’s been alive, he lets himself feel without consequence, remorse, or sense of failure. He has already failed in every way that matters. And in that maelstrom of emotion he does not find peace, but he finds something else.
He finds part of himself. And it is not Obi-wan Kenobi, but someone else entirely when he lets himself be nothing except everything that he is.