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Chapter Text

Maul stood as he had been taught, feet firmly grounded on the rocky Tatooine wasteland, completely still. Balanced. He was evenly placed between where Obi-Wan was intent on healing a wounded bantha, and where its Tusken rider paced. The rider radiated fear and wariness, gaffi stick at the ready. Obi-Wan, conversely, was all peace, sliding deep into the healing trance he’d tried to teach Maul about, but failed. Even with his new affiliation to the light, the kind of peace needed for healing escaped Maul. He had been trained for action, chaos, destruction—nothing more. And those teachings were hard to break even with infinite time and the endless patience of the Jedi at his side.

He glared at the rider, warning him to stay back, although his lightsider green eyes were not nearly as effective as his old yellow ones when it came to intimidation. And though he was better off than in the days when the wasting disease had been slowly destroying him, his body was not as strong as it once had been. Age, the desert, and the constant siphoning of power to shield the boy had taken its toll on both him and Obi-Wan, whose hair whitened daily despite his relative youth.

Obi-Wan’s Force signature, however, remained as strong and beautiful as ever. Even while he remained ready to protect, Maul stole a glance at the inner Obi-Wan. As he leaned on the bantha, seeking the cause of its pain, the familiar shimmery blue surrounded the Jedi within the Force (he was always, instinctively, “the Jedi” to Maul). Maul felt somewhat addicted to the sight of it—that silvery sheen—especially when it blended with his own red-sparked glow in times when the two of them were in sync, or needed connection, or yes… joined intimately. Physically. And oh, Maul longed for those times more than he probably ought.

Despite war and death and trauma. Despite bitterness and emptiness and guilt, Obi-Wan remained a beacon of honor in their narrow existence on Tatooine. Maul was not so sure about himself. His life boiled down to a small list of things: avoid notice by his former master, help watch over the boy, and make this paltry existence better for Obi-Wan.

Maul had resolved long ago to protect him with his own life, if need be.

Obi-Wan was, after all, the more essential member of their team. The one destined to have a hand in righting the future of the galaxy. Therefore, logically, Maul’s essential function was to keep him safe and fed and well.

And that was that.

None of this, of course, served to actually make Maul good. It merely made him useful, which he had been trained to be. Even a bomb was a tool, wasn’t it? Though its usefulness ended with its destruction. Its usefulness was its destruction. Perhaps that was Maul’s destiny as well.

It was not Obi-Wan who thought this way. It was Maul. (And yes, he was always—to himself—Maul, even if the rest of their meager acquaintance and even Obi-Wan called him Varas most of the time.) If Obi-Wan heard him talk thusly, he would contradict him, and tell him he was essential, vital, and good.

Stupid, optimistic Jedi. After everything, so fucking trusting.

Obi-Wan did, in fact, tell him these things, through his actions. Through the Force. With the trust he accorded Maul. The way he sometimes just leaned on Maul, as though he was the answer to some long held question, as though he were comfort, as though he were more than just a useful addition to his exile.

Maul sensed the bantha’s pain when Obi-Wan found the root of the matter. He sensed the rider’s connection to the beast, felt him flinch. He locked eyes with the young Tusken and shook his head to hold him off, then stepped back to lend his energy to Obi-Wan.

___

The bantha rumbled beneath Obi-Wan’s hands, a bellow of pain he felt as much as heard. Without opening his eyes, he sensed the animal’s rider take a step toward them—his trust of Kenobi’s healing powers clearly at odds with his greater distrust of outsiders. Obi-Wan caught the tremor of his fear. Tusken Raiders were closely bonded with their bantha and this one was no exception. Despite the arrangement they’d worked out with the Tuskens over the years, these things were always a little touch and go.

At his back, he welcomed the warm, familiar Force-signature of Maul, who’d slid between him and the Tusken. His presence was protective, a warning to the Tusken, yet also soothing to both Obi-Wan and the nomad in question.

Obi-Wan smiled to himself as he sank his awareness deeper into the wounded bantha’s injuries. Five years. Five years since he’d come to accept Maul’s presence as soothing and welcoming, when it had once been fraught and fearful. Five years since his Jedi powers had turned this direction—healing, sensitivity, emotion, farseeing prognostication—and ever further from the action and reaction of his prime.

“Varas,” he said aloud, calling Maul by the name he’d adopted when he’d come to live with Obi-Wan. For strength, Obi-Wan had dubbed him thus and it was never more true than then. Obi-Wan relied on the former Sith far more than he’d thought possible. Physically, emotionally, through the Force and in the warmth of their bed in the dark of night. He felt Maul through the Force, always ready, reliably solid. The dedication he’d once exhibited toward the dark side, now light, and there to help Obi-Wan whenever and however he needed it. “Please ease our young friend’s mind and tell him that his bantha will be alright. He has several cracked ribs, but I will be able to heal them.”

Maul was better at communicating with the Tuskens. Something about him sang to them. In the desert, Maul always wore hoods and head-wrappings, allowing only his green eyes—still occasionally startling—to show. The nomads appreciated this about him. Perhaps Maul reminded them of themselves. Or perhaps it was the fact that Maul himself rather admired their brand of chaos. Despite the many ways he had changed over the years, he maintained an appreciation of violence and a delight in activities Obi-Wan might consider less than civilized.

They balanced each other, he and Maul. He felt a firm hand on his shoulder, giving him strength, Force-energy surging from the other man. The bantha’s ribs knit back together easily, and Obi-Wan extended the healing energy to the surrounding tissue before withdrawing. He quieted his breathing. Over the years, the healing had become easier, but it was still draining, even with Maul’s support, though he relished this way of using the Force now that so many others were barred from him. Mad saber fights were now confined to sparring. Piloting was reserved for navigating the canyons of Tatooine, not the terrifying yet exhilarating weightlessness of starfighter flight. Insights from the Force now used for negotiating barters, not treaties. He opened his eyes and stepped back, watching with satisfaction as the Tusken leaned in to his beast, catching handfuls of its shaggy mane and offering it soothing sounds, radiating joy at the animal’s calm response. 

Obi-Wan noted with amusement that Maul maintained a similarly soothing grip on him, holding his shoulders until Obi-Wan was steady and somewhat replenished, giving of himself so that Obi-Wan would not suffer.

Healing was good. And he, too, had come to appreciate the Tusken way of life, alongside Maul. The way they wasted nothing, left no marks on the land, lived in harmony with a desert he still mostly saw as stark and merciless. He was happy to help them, and other creatures of the desert. Through them and Maul, Tatooine—the planet he’d lived on for more than a decade—finally felt like a little like home.

Maul glanced at the position of the suns, his indication clear. They needed to go, and soon. Obi-Wan let him make their farewells and accept the Tuskens’ barter of a bantha milk and other goods before they climbed into their speeder and headed home.

From this angle, and as the suns were setting, with eyes sharp in the Force they could see the ship traffic flashing in and out of distant Mos Eisley. Obi-Wan could not help but feel the tiniest pang. He and Maul had made several trips offworld over the years— Maul faithfully maintained his hidden ship—but Obi-Wan remembered a time when he’d spent his life on starships. The memories were not always fond ones, but the activity and companionship of those days occasionally registered as profound loss.

His life with Maul was, for the most part, a contented one, though far from easy or luxurious. His battles were not outward, but inward. Was he doing enough? Would they all be discovered by the Empire? Could Obi-Wan truly keep young Luke safe? And, ah… Maul. He feared losing Maul, too. In his worst nightmares, the Emperor would come for Maul and imprison him—turn him back to the dark side. And Obi-Wan would yet again lose. More battles. More friends. More beings he loved. Sometimes he felt cursed. Infected by some dark thing that would eventually take Luke and Maul down with him. Or perhaps the flaw was within him from the beginning, its influence gradually spreading outward to doom those around him.

Maul had helped dig him out of his years of guilt and grief, but sometimes Obi-Wan thought of Luke and wondered if his greatest failure was not still ahead of him.

The sense of loss stayed with him as they unpacked the speeder and covered it for the night, as they cleaned up and made dinner and ate in silence. It was not unusual for one or the other of them to lapse into thought and memory this way. To be carried away by the past. The many solitary years they’d each endured gave them a shared understanding—a tolerance—of this inward turning and an ease in letting each other be when they needed it. They always came back together by bedtime, settling in together, the touch of their bodies enough to ward off the night fears that inevitably came calling after a day’s worth of introspection.

Something about this felt different though. Something teased the edges of Obi-Wan’s mind. Something important he’d forgotten. A warning on the winds of the Force. He couldn’t shake it.

Thus it was no surprise when Maul came to him while he banked the fire for the night, dressed for sleep in soft pants, his still muscled chest bare, red skin glowing in relief against the black in the dim light. Maul slid his arms around Obi-Wan from behind when he turned back to the fire. “Come to bed,” his low voice commanded over his shoulder, sending tremors through him even after all these years. The first time they had slept together, he’d been running from himself, from memory, running into Maul’s arms to shock himself out of that pain. He’d wanted arousal and attraction to obliterate his thoughts, sweep everything away. Maul’s body still affected him, the sight of him still aroused him, and yet it was more than that. It was all of Maul—his humor, his sensitivity, his logic—all of those things sparked and settled Obi-Wan in some perfect way he ached for, even though they were each other’s constant companions.

He accepted Maul’s touch, willing it to dispel his simmering fears, and allowed himself to be led downstairs to the room they’d carved out of the rocky foundation of the house when Maul had come to stay. He had said such protective darkness comforted him and Obi-Wan had been pleased to oblige. He found an unending delight in doing small things to please Maul, anything to bring that look of surprised wonder to his tattooed face. Anything to make him happy, or at least, content to stay. Maul had had little comfort in his early life, so little love, and though their existence was meager by comparison to many, Obi-Wan tried to give him that without reservation.

Now Maul stood at the foot of their sleeping alcove, dim orange light calling to mind more memories. Maul lit by the glow of lava as he and his clone/twin Tyûk made plans to destroy the facility on Mustafar and with it one hundred odd more clones of them. The man in front of him now was older, yes, but still lean and hale. Whittled, like Obi-Wan, by the desert. Something in his stance alerted him, a hint that Maul’s concern was not merely for Obi-Wan’s state of mind, but for his own as well. “What is it?” Obi-Wan murmured coming to stand in front of him, so close.

“It’s nothing, Jedi,” Maul said. “

It amused him that Maul still called him “Jedi” frequently, Obi-Wan mostly, Kenobi when he himself was irritated and Ben only when he meant to irritate Obi-Wan. He in turn called Maul “Sith Lord” almost never, Varas most often, Maul in his mind and amaha in the Force, the Old Corellian word—a fragment of the many languages Obi-Wan had once known—thrumming with a deep rightness, although he never said it aloud. It was as if by not speaking it he could keep his feelings from being denied. He acknowledged to himself the foolishness of such self-deception, but he kept his own secret, enjoying Maul on whatever level Maul was comfortable with and not pressing further.

He knew too well that Maul would scoff at words of love, knew too well that the respite he and Maul clung to in each other was probably more than either of them deserved.

___

Maul let the comforting rush of Obi-Wan’s presence seep into him and closed his eyes as he let out a long, deep breath. When he opened them again, blue eyes watched him warily, knowingly. It still caught Maul off guard to be known in such a way. After all these years, he still had trouble acknowledging that Obi-Wan’s concern for him was real, and was offered from a place of friendship, and maybe more than that, although neither of them sought to name whatever their relationship was.

Yet Maul reached out to take Obi-Wan’s face in his hand, the black and red of his skin stark against the Jedi’s whitening beard. “I’m filled with unease.”

“And?” It was said as a challenge.

“And I need you to fuck it out of me.” Voicing such a need always shot a plume of heat straight through him, reminiscent of the flames of dark side of the Force. He wasn’t supposed to want this. Not any act of physical comfort, nor especially the particular man in front of him. Old teachings which should no longer matter as ingrained as the tattoos the dark side had bestowed upon his skin so many years before.

“Oh, do you now?” Obi-Wan asked with an amused lift of his eyebrows.

Maul closed the gap and kissed him. Not the warm, melting, crepuscular kind, but savage.

“Ah. You do,” Obi-Wan said, serious, when Maul drew back. “Very well then.”

With Jedi speed, Maul was turned around. Obi-Wan’s hand pushed on his back until he was leaned over with his hands on their bed. Maul breathed through his nose trying to stay in control as Obi-Wan divested him of clothing. The shiver returned but also, soothing hands, running down the muscles of his back, his thighs. By the Force, he was thankful to have a lower half. Thankful the saber’s slice had taken the legs of his unfortunate clone predecessor. Thankful he remembered it, awful as it was. Thankful to have found Obi-Wan again, not once but twice. Thankful to have found his way to the light, and to this… yes, to this too.

What he did with Obi-Wan was done not out of darkness but of light—of loyalty and the shared bond of experience, at the very least. Even with the shadows upon him, with guilt in his heart, Maul gave in, every time, because it was good, and this man was good, and there was no master to punish them for finding such small moments of joy, the Force itself resonating around them as if to give its own approval.

Obi-Wan pulled his head around and kissed him hard on the lips, urging him to climb all the way onto the low bed. Cloth rustled and then Obi-Wan’s skin was warm on his. His hands caressed his body from shoulder to ankle, pausing here and there, squeezing, holding. “Is this what you need then,” Obi-Wan’s cultured voice murmured to him.

“Yes,” he admitted, savoring those hands as they brushed intimate places.

“I do, as well.” Slick fingers sought entry and found it, pushing in, stretching. “By the Force, you’re beautiful. My Varas, my strength.”

“More,” Maul commanded, amidst the groans escaping him. He jammed his face into his hands where they rested on the bedding but the words still flowed out, “It is horrible how I need this, Kenobi…”

A lie, that. Or rather, not the right truth. The feel of Obi-Wan’s flesh inside him—whether it be fingers or phallus—still surprised him, as if he forgot the odd mix of pleasure and discomfort in the between times. How it was somehow more than it had ever been with anyone else. As if his mind could not keep hold of it, though he found himself also longing for it—and the reverse—as if seeking some other half of himself, and not the other half that had been cut away in their duel. 

No, this union fulfilled some different need to be made whole. A need no other such union had ever fulfilled—though it may have been the same parts, the same act. The feeling of being joined with this man—this individual man—satisfied something deep within him. To be enveloped by their merged Force signatures, surrounded by them, to merge their very souls together—it quelled Maul’s desperate, unacknowledged need to belong. Without meaning to, he found he belonged—unquestionably—to Obi-Wan. He was his—thoroughly, entirely—in ways he never would have allowed with anyone else. It was as if, before, a part of him had been feral, untamed, vicious and uncontrollable, and Obi-Wan put his hands upon it and quieted it, until it slumbered contentedly, no longer a threat, no longer starving and desperate.

It was as if he’d imprinted on Obi-Wan, all those years ago, on Selebaraan, the first time their minds had joined, the first time they’d touched each other with something other than hate or fear.

Yet all of these were feelings he had never voiced to Obi-Wan with words.

“This?” said Obi-Wan with a twist of his hand. “You’re sure this is enough?” 

He smiled into the sheets. In bed, Obi-Wan was far closer to the dark side than anywhere else. “You know what it is I need, Kenobi…”

Firm hands gripped him and through the Force he felt a ripple of laughter. “No more Kenobis, Maul. Not like this. Not when we’re like this…” he said, a moan teasing the edge of his words as he finally pushed his cock into Maul, slow and gentle.

Yes.

Maul rejoiced fiercely when Obi-Wan’s voice sounded ragged like that, so far from civilized, so close to the brink. They might be Ben and Varas in the outside world, but in bed, in their minds, it was once again, always, Maul and Obi-Wan.

They’d stilled, Obi-Wan holding off, waiting. Maul pressed back, but was pinned into immobility by a squeeze of hands on his flesh. One breath. A second, then Obi-Wan hauled him upright, astride his thighs, cock pressing hard into him, as far as he possibly could. Their bodies aligned, flesh seamed tightly against flesh, the Jedi’s chest against Maul’s back, lips on his neck. “Say it. Tell me.”

What he felt for Obi-Wan, for all of him—body and soul—sat unspoken as a tightness in his chest. Maul breathed and gave him what he wanted. “I need this. I need you. Obi-Wan.”

He let go, let himself be taken, let the mounting breaths of the Jedi he knew as well as himself carry him toward climax, holding firm as Obi-Wan slammed up into him. “Maul,” the Jedi breathed, hot in his ear. It was an answer, half moan, half growl, possessive and hard, as if fueled by the dark side though Maul knew it wasn’t. Their Force energy was a palpable, beautiful, pulsing thing behind Maul’s closed eyes as shudders of pleasure wracked him, as he came and Obi-Wan followed. The swirl of silvery energy around them—with its mix of soothing blue shimmers and residual red sparks—was always a source of amazement and comfort, an admission of what it was they shared between them, how intertwined they could be. Hot white and azure like the sky over desert, sunlight through water, proof of the belonging Maul sought but did not speak of.

Afterward they lay quiet on the bed facing each other, restless hands caressing warm skin.

“What troubled you, dul'skal de mia animo,” Obi-Wan asked. Maul had long since ceased asking him why he lapsed into Old Corellian after sex. Obi-Wan always made up a new and stranger story, each one more ridiculous than the next. I had to go undercover as an opera singer once and learned it then. I am a citizen of Corellia of old reincarnated. I communed with a Corellian Jedi Master from a thousand years ago.

Maul ignored the words and their meaning and turned Obi-Wan’s question around, aware that he had been chewing on something since they’d left the Tusken camp. “What troubled you?”

Rolling onto his back, Obi-Wan said, “What you said, about unease, describe it…”

“A feeling I’d forgotten something important. That if I didn’t remember, some great evil would occur.”

Obi-Wan tensed beside him. “Blast,” he muttered, and Maul knew he’d felt the same.

Which meant it wasn’t just a feeling, it was a message from the Force.

___

As if to confirm the foreboding feelings both he and Maul had experienced, a sandstorm kicked up the following morning, rushing in as Obi-Wan returned from fixing their farthest vaporator. He sealed the door behind him and bowed his head against the battered metal. He was too old for this. Shaking out his cloak, he hung it up and dusted himself off before removing his boots to head downstairs to find Maul.

They’d fallen asleep the night before, weary and sated, pushing aside the troubling feelings without speaking more about them. The Force would reveal its meaning in time and no sooner, Obi-Wan knew. There was no sense trying to hurry it. Patience was a thing he’d learned well in the ten years he’d spent alone after Anakin’s fall. After the rise of the Empire.

Maul was at the workbench, tinkering with his latest project. He was shockingly good with machinery and computers. His upbringing, though joyless, had included a vast and varied number of lessons. Since he’d moved in, Obi-Wan’s life had become much easier. Maul was always building something to make their home more efficient. Cooler in the heat, easier to clean. Whatever problem arose, Maul solved it. It wasn’t only efficiency, though. Maul had also made the place…nicer. His standards of “clean” were far higher than Obi-Wan’s luckily. But beyond insisting on the addition of the lower level sleeping alcove, he’d gathered bric a brac and textiles and moved things around until he was satisfied. The place was snug and softly lit with lanterns and glowing sconces, a harsher task lamp illuminating Maul’s work surface. The fragrance of the strong tea Maul loved permeated the air.

It was home. And Maul had made it so.

“You missed the storm,” Maul said not looking up. There were no windows down there, but a sandstorm did not arrive unannounced in the Force.

Obi-Wan dragged a hand over Maul’s neck as he made his way to the less comfortable chair and dropped into it. He could never resist touching the smooth heat of his skin. Maul was dressed casually for home, a grey, woven shirt with a deep vee over loose trousers, his feet bare. 

“Not quite,” Obi-Wan told him, watching him work.

Maul’s eyes flicked to him, hands carefully returning tools to their proper places. “You have sand in your beard again. Why do you not use the scarf…”

He waved this off. “Have you eaten? What are you working on now?”

“A holonomic droid. It rolls. Better on the sand.”

Stroking his beard, Obi-Wan considered this. Maul was usually right about these things. He sat up in his chair to crane his head to glimpse the work surface. With his customary grace of movement, Maul gestured with his hand, raising through the Force a small metallic ball with an even smaller head toward him, hovering and rotating it so they could both see.

“A prototype. The real droid would be bigger. The droid brain is in the head which stays in place via magnets.” He lowered the sphere to the floor and manipulated the Force as if turning a dial. The tiny droid came to life and rolled easily away across the dark, patterned rugs, then returned to Obi-Wan, its head floating independently of the spinning ball and beeping cheerfully.

Obi-Wan smiled. It had been many years since he’d had a droid. It chirped at him questioningly. “Very charming.”

Maul flicked it off and raised it back up to hover between them again. “It amuses me. But it could prove useful.”

“It’s marvelous and you know it. You should sell it. Make a fortune. The Geonosians…”

And that’s when it hit. Mid-sentence. A memory propelled to the front of his brain like a proton torpedo fueled by the following Force vision, both memory and vision exploding in his brain at once, blacking out every other shred of existence. The memory of sneaking around back tunnels on Geonosis. Dooku holding a hologram showing a sphere. Plans for something. His body twitched, recalling the subsequent torture. But then the vision made that pain seem like a trifle. A sphere again, gray and ominous, sparkling from within with a thousand lights, floating in space. The sense that Anakin was there. A planet… Alderaan? And then, lasers converging as if directly onto his heart, agony splintering through him as the planet blew apart.

He came back to himself as Maul’s droid clanked to the floor. Sucking in a shuddering breath that pained his chest as though the wind had been knocked out of him, he realized he was on his hands and knees on the floor, Maul kneeling by his side. The Force flooded his senses with power. Everything seemed more alive than before. Dust made patterns where they weren’t in the air while patterns on the floor turned to slithering creatures. The rasp of his own breath sang like the storm outside. Too much.

“Tell me you’re alright, Kenobi,” Maul said, hand on the nape of his neck.  

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t push words from his ragged throat.

“Answer me…” He’d never heard Maul sound that pained, that desperate.

Obi-Wan shook his head, stunned and disoriented, though he gathered enough wherewithal to sit back and grip Maul’s shoulder. A hot flush broke over him. He closed his eyes and concentrated, passing the vision to Maul. “It was something I saw at the start of the Clone Wars. I forgot about it in the subsequent flurry,” he rasped out after he knew Maul had taken it in. “I should not have forgotten, it seems.”

Maul scoffed at that. “You should lie down.”

Easing his grip on Maul’s shoulder, he waved that away. “I’m fine, though I could use a drink.”

“Water or whiskey, Jedi fool…”

“Whiskey, of course.”

Rising, Maul helped him back to his chair, then crossed to a cluttered shelf and drew out a dusty bottle from behind a bin of o-rings. He wiped it off and looked for glasses. Finding none, he unstoppered it and handed it to Obi-Wan.

“Uncivilized,” Obi-Wan commented, but swigged from it then passed it back.

“No time for niceties.” Maul drank too. “Past, present or future?”

Obi-Wan snagged the bottle again and willed himself not to clutch it, thinking of the vision. “Based on the emotional impact, I would say future.”

“Force visions.” Maul’s tone was disgusted and impatient. He started pacing. “Unreliable. Misleading. Easily manipulated.”

Watching Maul cross the tiny room, Obi-Wan drank once more, then set the bottle down. His hands had stopped shaking, he noted, looking at his worn and callused palms. Too old for this, he thought for the second time that morning. “Too terrible to ignore.”

Maul stopped in his tracks. “Consult Jinn?”

“Qui-Gon has also become unreliable. He’s drifted away.” In solitude, and with some initial guidance from Yoda before they’d parted, Obi-Wan had been able to communicate with his old master through the Force. In the years since Maul had arrived, it had become increasingly difficult to speak with him—to reach him through the mists of energy—as though Qui-Gon realized Obi-Wan no longer needed him. He felt the loss keenly now, though he hoped it meant his master’s consciousness was at peace.

He leaned his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers over the bridge of his nose. His head hurt.

Maul was pacing again. “Is action required of us?” he asked, stopping again and casually using the Force to put his pet droid back on the workbench.

Taking a deep settling breath, he said, offhand, “What do you call the little darling?”

“Don’t change the subject,” Maul snapped, before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I’m thinking of calling it TNY-1.”

“Tiny One?”

Maul shook his head. “It’s pronounced ‘Teeny-Wan.’ I’ll program it to watch over you when you go wandering about. It can track your saber and remind you to wear a scarf in sandstorms and cover your foolish, aged head in the sun.”

Obi-Wan could tell he meant it to sound scolding and carefree, but he knew it was not. He looked at him. Maul was profoundly agitated, worry knit through his brow. “Why are you taking this so poorly?”

The look Maul leveled on him was difficult to digest. Maul rarely spoke of emotions. Obi-Wan rarely pressed him to do so. But sometimes…“You didn’t hear you scream,” he finally said.

Obi-Wan swallowed hard. Then blinked, and tried to lighten the mood, “I love you too, my sweet Varas.”

Now Maul actually snorted in derision. “I will slaughter you in your sleep, Jedi.”

Laughing, Obi-Wan hauled himself to his feet. He felt sweaty and shaky. Disoriented and weak. But he played it off.“Stop trying to seduce me, Sith Lord. Come on, let’s cook.”

He brushed by Maul, whose lips had quirked in a smile though his eyes remained stormy. “Obi-Wan,” he called after him making him pause on the stairs. “Is action required?”

All vestiges of good humor drained out of Obi-Wan. The last few steps felt insurmountable. He could already hear the sandstorm howling outside now that he was almost back above ground. He didn’t want to tell Maul, but something about that vision felt like death. Not the millions of deaths implied by the explosion—the millions of deaths he’d felt—but his own. His life had been a busy one, until these last quiet years. He’d looked death in the eye on so many occasions, but he’d always side-stepped it with a quip and a wink.

This felt different. Inevitable. And not far away.

He thought of Luke, fifteen years old and requiring considerably more power to keep camouflaged with each passing year. He thought of Anakin and the Emperor. He thought of Yoda and Rex and Cody and all his lost friends.

Obi-Wan did not have much, now. His life was small and quiet. He looked down at Maul who watched him carefully.

Glimpsing the end made what he had that much harder to lose.

“Probably,” he said, finally. “Probably so.”

___

Maul made tea. He cooked. He joked, talked normally, hid his worry deep. Anything to bring the color back to Obi-Wan’s face after the vision.

He was willing—ready—to do what was necessary. To take action to fight whatever evil they were being warned against, but he was not required to like it. He was well-acquainted with rage, his old friend, though he did not use it in the same manner he once had. This anger felt different. That old pain of loss. The loss of what might have been. A pitiless awareness that their lives were even now, not their own. No, they were to be tossed around by the whims of the Force, still some role to play in the battle between light and dark.

They finished their meal and he was wiping his lips with a napkin when he saw the look on Obi-Wan’s face. Apparently he had not hidden his feelings well enough at all. 

“Speak, Jedi,” he said tossing the napkin down.

“I don’t think I’m the one who needs talk,” Obi-Wan answered, leaning back in his chair, elbow on the back of it, fingers stroking his beard. Somber.

Maul stood, chair scraping back, and took their plates to the kitchen, resisting the urge to slam them into the sink. They did not own enough to allow for the satisfying qualities of breakage. He gripped the edge of the stone counter and tried to release the more volatile of his urges into the Force, letting the eager light dissipate them. When he returned to the other room, he had enough control to at least pretend to be calm.

He leaned on one of the pillars. “Do we not have a purpose here? Otherwise, I could think of more amenable locations for our retirement.”

Obi-Wan inclined his head reasonably and waved an affable hand. “Our purpose is slightly compromised now that his uncle will no longer tolerate our presence.”

Pressing his lips hard together, Maul crossed his arms over his chest. “My fault. It is my presence he will not tolerate. Our…relationship.” It was funny, really, when he thought about it. In all of the universe, he doubted there was one single being who would actually approve of he and Obi-Wan being together like this, if they knew the whole truth of their histories. In his darkest moments, he enjoyed imagining his old master’s reaction to the fact that he was sleeping with a Jedi. He could not but think even Sidious would be surprised.

Not that any of it really mattered anymore.

Clunking his head briefly on the wall behind him, Obi-Wan shot Maul a dark look. “My fault. I had no idea Owen was a xenophobic, narrow-minded bigot when I placed Luke with him. It is a mistake I’ve learned to regret.”

Maul was never sure if keeping Luke unaware of his power—of his heritage—was a good idea or a bad one. He knew the surviving Jedi had been concerned it would call attention to him. But Maul hated seeing him defenseless. Would he not have more of a fighting chance if were actually trained? Then again, would it have been better if Skywalker had never been brought into the Jedi Order? What if his power had lain fallow? He shook the thought from his head. Palpatine would have never allowed that. Maul suspected he’d had a hand in Skywalker’s very birth.

But in theory, Palpatine did not know about Luke. Or his sister.

It was presumed Anakin didn’t either.

Keeping knowledge of the twins’ existence from them was the goal, although Maul occasionally questioned this direction. Rather, he questioned keeping the twins themselves in the dark. Especially Luke.

Obi-Wan’s contact with Luke had always been limited, quite deliberately, but since Maul’s arrival, his uncle had put his foot down. I won’t tolerate his kind on my land or near my family. Bad enough what the boy comes from, but we can stop this right here. No more delusions of power. No more of this…unnatural behavior. I won’t have him learning from your example. There were many layers to Owen’s definition of unnatural. Many interpretations of the bad example he and Obi-Wan cut.

“It is more than my species he disapproves of. And more than our power.” He appreciated that Obi-Wan took no pains to hide their relationship, but Owen’s rejection had made things more complicated.

“Thank the Force Beru is tougher than she appears,” Obi-Wan said. “If it were not for her I would have forcibly removed Luke when Owen’s prejudices became known. When I brought him to them, I only thought…” He paused here, face tightening. “I only wanted him to have a family. To have people who would love him. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Maul had called Obi-Wan out on the decision to “hide” Luke by placing him on Anakin’s home planet with the only people he might have called relatives. They could thank Owen’s stubbornness that he was growing up as “Luke Lars.” For the time being, anyway. Maul knew Owen and Beru had told him he was adopted years prior. The boy hadn’t taken it well. Now his rebellious teenaged tendencies were starting to appear. He’d been asking questions about his father. Escaping the prospect of a somewhat bleak future in his Uncle’s invented tales of Anakin Skywalker’s supposed glory.

“Have you made up your mind about the dreams?”

Qui-Gon, through the Force, had explained to them the possibility of teaching Luke within dreams. Obi-Wan, and Maul it seemed, could connect with Luke through the Force in a dreamspace, and feasibly could instruct him there. He would not consciously be aware of the teachings, but when the time was right, or something triggered them, he would have a grounding in using the Force.

The “something,” Maul feared, would likely be a traumatic event, rather than the gentle awakening and explanation Maul favored.

Obi-Wan shook his head grimly. “I am still unsure.”

Maul puzzled over Obi-Wan’s hesitance. He knew Qui-Gon believed it would work, and Obi-Wan rarely questioned the word of his old master. The first time Qui-Gon had manifested in Maul’s presence had been uncomfortable to say the least. Qui-Gon seemed amused though, and quite congenially accepted Maul’s delicate apology for killing him. Maul had wondered if he could likewise apologize to Sivrelle, the Jedi healer and friend to Obi-Wan he had likewise killed, and likewise regretted, but it seemed she had not been strong enough in the Force to linger on whatever plane Qui-Gon did.

Qui-Gon’s appearances around Maul had been few, and as Obi-Wan said, they’d grown fewer. But the last time he had seen him, Maul had not missed the soft look the Jedi Master had given his old Padawan. Nor the sterner one he’d given Maul. It had not been hard to interpret it: both grudging approval and warning. I will not be the one to cause him harm, he’d assured Qui-Gon privately, hoping the old Jedi could see in his heart the things he didn’t say.

Maul forced his attention back to the matter at hand and came to sit opposite Obi-Wan at their small table. “I just want you to consider all of it, when you drag us offworld on whatever ill-thought out scheme you’re cooking up,” he said. “I actually like the boy, you know.”

“I like him also,” Obi-Wan agreed. “He’s so much like Anakin… so quick, so strong in the Force. Joyfully idealistic.”

“Perhaps too alike?” Maul put in. Inwardly, Maul felt that reaching him in his dreams would help. He’d done it once, on his own, just to see if he could. It had not been hard, and he’d had a long, interesting conversation with the boy in the dreamspace. Maul hadn’t been lying when he said he liked him. The boy was rash, yes, and undisciplined, but good-hearted, despite his uncle’s views. He’d made up his own mind about things, and aligned more closely with Beru on that end. Obi-Wan was either unaware of Maul’s dreamspace adventure or chose not to speak of it. Their disagreement on the matter was a sore spot. Maul pressed, “You also know I disagree with you about keeping him in the dark about who his parents really were.”

Obi-Wan blew out a breath in frustration. “How am I to tell the boy? By the way…your father is evil? He thinks of him as a hard-working man dying a tragic death. A man with amazing piloting skills who could have been more but settled for a mundane life. I’m supposed to take that from him? To swap such a man for Vader? What would that do to him?”

“Yes, but… leaving him unknowing? When he finds out, and it will happen sooner or later—especially if he is to play the role you believe he is destined for—all that joyful idealism will be shattered. Absolutely.”

Obi-Wan said, steely-faced, “It is his best chance of survival.”

“Survival,” scoffed Maul. “Survival is not living. I survived years as my master’s apprentice but I didn’t live until I left him. Already I heard Luke’s been asking friends to call him ‘Skywalker’ rather than Lars, much to Owen’s chagrin. He craves the adventure he believes his father had… and more. What he believes his father never got. You know this. We may be protecting him, but in this way we also leave him vulnerable. He needs the facts to be able to choose.” He and Obi-Wan both knew what it was like to grow up indoctrinated, with little personal choice. “He’s of the age where he seeks to define himself, Ben.”

“He’s both too old and too young,” Obi-Wan said, relenting slightly.

“If we do not teach him, someone else will. If we do not tell him, he will learn the truth elsewhere and to more detriment. His piloting skills are also beginning to outstrip our ability to dampen them. What’s more it’s exhausting us both. He and his friend Biggs dream of going to the Academy. Are you going to let Luke sign up to be a TIE pilot? To join the very Empire we are hiding him from?”

Obi-Wan snorted. “How do you know all this? Have you been gossiping in Anchorhead again?”

“I have sources.” Maul rolled his eyes. He hadn’t spent all those years spying for Sidious and learned nothing. “You have put me in the unfortunate position of caring about the boy, am I not meant to know what he is up to? Am I not also meant to have opinions about his upbringing, as it were?”

“Need we go through this again?” Obi-Wan said with irritation. “You know I value your thoughts…”

Maul regarded him grimly. “Do you? Do you really? No one would blame you for not trusting this old ex-Sith to raise your savior.”

Softening, Obi-Wan jerked his head back in frustration, “Varas…” 

“None of that.” Maul did not need Obi-Wan’s reassurance. “I’m just saying, if we leave, what if something happens and we do not return? What then? What happens if he is found and he learns these truths from someone less sympathetic? You knew Anakin when he was good… there is no one better equipped to tell him. To help him process it.”

“And the fact that I can barely process it myself? What of that?” snapped Obi-Wan. These were well-worn paths between them. “Am I to believe I would be a better master through the uncertain terrain of dreams, than I was in reality? What reason would he have trust me at all if I told him about his father? I failed Anakin, Maul. As a teacher, I failed. Somewhere, at least.”

Maul huffed a breath in frustration and shook his head. He’d said it many times over the years. You may have failed but you are not a failure. Obi-Wan never believed him. Not truly. “It was not your fault. Not all of it. You cannot let this guilt consume you.” 

“It isn’t,” Obi-Wan insisted. “Not since…”

He didn’t finish his thought but his eyes met Maul’s. Maul looked down, reaching out out to take one of Obi-Wan’s hands in one of his, the pale skin a stark contrast to the black and red of his own. “Yet you cannot forgive yourself.”

“Should I?” snapped Obi-Wan. “How am I to counsel the son after what I did to his father? I said I would watch over him and watch over him I have. I did not agree to train him.”

“So we leave him untrained. Ignorant and helpless. Do you really think that was Yoda’s intention?”

Obi-Wan’s mustache met his beard as his lips pressed to a thin line. “It was always riddles with Yoda. One never knew.”

Maul squeezed Obi-Wan’s hand, drew the Force around him to give weight to his next words. “You cannot keep him in the dark, and expect him to choose the Light when the time comes.” 

Obi-Wan stared straight ahead, saying nothing, and Maul knew his thoughts had gone, as always, to Anakin. To Anakin’s choice.

He himself had never had such a choice. Not in the beginning. He’d had to create that chance so much later. And he’d missed out on so much, carried so much guilt because of it. Wasted so many years in rage and anger, when he could have been…

With a tolerant smile, Obi-Wan gripped Maul’s hand. “In a year or two, we can tell him. Not yet.”

“In the dreams you could tell him. He will access it when he is ready to accept it. When he needs it. It will be there if something happens to you,” Maul pressed.

“To us.”

This inclusion made Maul’s chest ache painfully. And yet Obi-Wan dodged his eyes. There was something about this Force vision he wasn’t telling Maul. Maul tried one last time to dissuade him from leaving Tatooine, “We don’t have to go. We can comm Organa. Use the channels as is safest.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “No, not this time. I can’t bear it. I’ve sat by and done nothing for too long.” His eyes went far away, and then he returned. He turned his hand where it rested under Maul’s and gripped it, giving it a slight shake. “Is it wrong of me to want to…check in, as it were? Pay a visit to an old friend? You felt what I felt in the vision. This cannot be ignored. I’m sure they’re well aware of the same warning we received, but…”

Maul nodded, covering their joined hands with his other one, wrapping them up as if by doing so he could protect the precious thing within.

“What else?” Obi-Wan’s voice was soft and tentative. Quiet, as if he didn’t want to scare off some rare creature.

“It seems I’ve lost my taste for danger,” Maul said finally. Maul had had all the action he could ever want. Now, he found he merely wanted quiet—and to somehow prove himself worthy of the trust of the light. “Especially where you are concerned, Jedi.”

He had no use for endearments, yet he tacked the last word on in place of one.

“You will come with me, though…” Obi-Wan said, fingers moving restlessly within the shield of Maul’s.

“It would be better if I alone went,” Maul countered, knowing Obi-Wan wouldn’t go for it.

Obi-Wan simply shook his head.

Ah there it was. Well. Maul resigned himself, “The ship is always at the ready. What’s our flight-plan?”

“Alderaan, to see Bail. And then… perhaps, one more stop. I am not sure.”

Maul tightened his grip, unsure of how to let go. “When the storm lets up,” he said.

Obi-Wan nodded and pulled his hand free as he rose from the table to go clean up in the kitchen. Maul watched him wearily. Even though he’d aged, Obi-Wan still moved with a lithe grace. Around their home he wore Jedi-style garments, although Maul had insisted on an upgrade in quality from the near rags he’d found him in five years prior. Now, if Maul squinted and thought back, he could still see the young Jedi he’d met on Selebaraan all those years ago. When the two of them had been trapped together and this understanding of each other had begun. Maul saw his own weariness mirrored in the droop of his shoulders as he stood at the sink. He crossed to him and put his arms around him, resting his chin on his shoulder, careful of his horns. “The discussion of Luke is not over,” Maul murmured.

“I know.” Obi-Wan leaned against him for a moment and the problems of the galaxy—the vastness outside their tiny desert hut—faded away until it was just the two of them. Alone with each other as it had been on Selebaraan. “I hear you. I do. And my hesitance has nothing to do with your history at all. You I trust absolutely.”

Obi-Wan left the words unsaid. Maul knew his fear. He felt it. But nevertheless he called him on it, still holding him from behind, “You seem to be suffering from one of those pesky emotions you Jedi are meant to release into the Force…”

“Oh, I’m filled with them.”

“Are you? What other emotions are troubling you? Confess.”

“It is possible lust is another,” Obi-Wan said, turning toward Maul with an exaggeratedly abashed look on his face.

“Lust? Hmm….perhaps I can assist you in releasing that one,” Maul joked back, letting Obi-Wan divert the conversation. “Leave the dishes for morning. Let us ride out this storm together…”

“Ride?” Obi-Wan questioned with the raised eyebrow that always meant he was up to no good.

The wind howled outside, sand lashing their small abode. Here, they were alone. Here, they had only each other. Maul took the Jedi’s head in his hands and brought their lips together. Obi-Wan’s mouth gave trustingly beneath his, feeling his intent and matching it. In moments like this, he wanted nothing more than to hold Obi-Wan within the shelter of him and soothe away his doubts, however he saw fit. He yanked Obi-Wan tighter to him, kissing him harder, pressing their bodies more firmly together, as if by holding him close he could keep both the storm and that ominous thing beyond it at bay longer.

—

Of the many things Obi-Wan had forgotten, he would never have thought the vertigo-inducing speed of space travel would be one of them. Not the actual motion of it, but the celerity with which one could be on the opposite side of the galaxy and in an entirely different climate, situation, world… what have you. Add to that the disorientation of sipping fine ale with an old friend in a luxurious setting after the hardship and deprivations of Tatooine and—after living so long away from the center of things—Obi-Wan was having trouble wrapping his head around this moment. He’d spent years on starships. Years being jerked around the galaxy at other people’s whims. This shouldn’t be so hard.

Maul had stayed with the ship, tinkering with his baby droid. Obi-Wan suspected this was a ruse in order to give Obi-Wan privacy for this reunion with Bail. Maul promised to join them when the time was right. Obi-Wan felt the inquisitive mind touch asking if all was well, and sent an answering assurance Maul’s direction.

Bail’s embrace had been hearty and welcome. He looked older, as Obi-Wan did, but maintained the vigor of a life in full bloom. They sat on a wide veranda with a beautiful view of the mountains and the lake the villa was nestled by. Obi-Wan’s eyes kept returning to the rippling body of water as the sun dipped lower. When had he last seen anything like that? The further the ale seeped into his body, the more he lusted to rip his clothes off and dive in. To submerge.

More memories.

Why had he not appreciated his freedom when he had it?

Or had he never truly been free?

The longer he and Maul were together, the more similar he realized their lives had been—how little choice either of them had ever had. The more he realized that Maul eased something within him, something tight and terrible that came from a place the Jedi had never touched. Oddly, being with Maul was the closest he had ever felt to complete safety. A feeling that went beyond the snug comfort of their simple existence on Tatooine, more akin to being completely immersed in the Living Force. A feeling, almost, that everything would eventually be right, be as it should, be as was best.

He recalled the night before they’d left, during the storm, when Maul had coaxed him to their bed and taken him slowly apart, first with his mouth and then….other ways. He’d soothed every ache in his body, every tension which had mounted since the Force vision hit. Maul was strong, yet he’d used his strength to caress. Being with Maul—in every way, but especially that way… the most intimate way…naked, in bed—felt natural, not vulnerable. Maul’s hot, smooth, tattooed skin was like the sun, warming after the cold of space, chasing the mists away at sunrise on Selebaraan, golden like sunsets on Tatooine. Obi-Wan couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t imagine life without him anymore. (How far he’d fallen from the Jedi rules against attachment.) But that night—unlike that first time they’d been together, that violent, passionate first time—Maul had gone slowly. Teasing him, raising him up then pulling him back, opening him gently, joining them together with quiet and reverence. And unlike that moment even further ago on Selebaraan when Maul had first kissed him, Maul’s kiss was now knowing and confident. He cupped Obi-Wan’s cheek with his hand, brought their lips together with loving sureness, meshed their tongues with need as he started the rhythm with his hips that undid Obi-Wan and yet built him up. It was impossible that Maul could know him so well, please him so well, make him feel so secure and cared for and loved, despite the words having never crossed those beloved tattooed lips. Yet it was also real. And true. And despite his misery over what had happened with Anakin, his indecision over what he needed to do with Luke, over the state of the galaxy in general, the rightness of Maul radiated through him and into the Force.

It was a happiness and contentment that shocked him. Joy and love he seized and clung to with all his heart. How could he not feel gratitude and let their love bind him together with Maul—further to the light? Would it not be an affront to the very nature of the Force to do otherwise?

He ran a hand over his beard, which he knew was now almost all white, and looked at his old friend Bail, who was older and greyer, worn around the edges in the same way—the way that constant stress will make you. He saw himself through Bail’s eyes: aged, ragged, not much use, his glory faded long ago. Thank the Force Maul made him wear presentable clothing. He shuddered to think how he would look if left to his own devices. How he had looked, five years earlier when Maul found him.

He felt a lurch in his heart and knew Maul sensed his strange turmoil and was on his way. He hauled his attention back to the Senator in front of him. They’d come all this way. He needed to focus.

The pleasantries, such as they were, had already been covered. Obi-Wan had nothing to add to galactic politics, no progress, no positives. Neither of them had spoken of the children yet. It felt forbidden. Taboo.

A quiet settled. Obi-Wan broke it, realizing the time was upon them for blunt speech, “I had a Force vision. Of the future. Are you aware of any Imperial plans for a large space station? If so, are you aware of its capabilities?”

Bail’s eyes, his mouth, his very aura took on a hardness. “What do you know?”

He softened the blow. “Remember that Force visions of the future are always just possibilities. Sometimes they come true, sometimes they do not. It is always complex speaking about them because by your action, you may bring about the very thing you seek to prevent.”

“And yet you are here, at considerable risk.”

“The station I saw destroyed an entire planet.”

A deadness replaced the steel of moments ago. As if Bail could no longer take more bad news. Then his eyes darted behind Obi-Wan, to the darkness beyond the edge of the veranda. “Shook?” he said.

Obi-Wan didn’t need to look. He’d felt Maul approach, then hesitate. “Senator, this is Varas, my companion.” An understatement for what Maul was to him, but the simplest explanation.

Bail’s eyes darted to his with confusion, “But…”

Maul placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “I think the Senator has mistaken me for someone else? Our young friend, Tyûk, perhaps?”

Maul’s voice held a smile and Obi-Wan glanced quickly up to catch it. True smiles from him were rare creatures. Then he turned back to Bail, “You know Tyûk? I do hope he hasn’t been causing trouble.”

But Bail wasn’t alarmed by Maul’s presence, nor had he seemed so by the idea that Tyûk was there. More surprised and bewildered. “Shook is—has been—a rather helpful associate of ours. And, interestingly enough, a profitable source of intel about the, errr… project you’d mentioned earlier.”

He and Maul exchanged a mutual quiver of delight at this revelation. When they’d found the young clone on Mustafar, it had been somewhat of a conundrum as to what to do with him. They’d eventually set him free with much trepidation. Unleashing him on the galaxy had been a nagging worry of Obi-Wan’s—and conversely one of Maul’s most cherished acts of chaos. They’d urged Tyûk to set aside his Sith teachings, but they’d never been sure. It seemed he’d listened.

Bail suddenly recalled his manners and rose to greet Maul. “Varas…any friend of Ben’s is a friend of mine. Please, be welcome.” He gestured for Maul to take a seat and called for a servant. “Ale?”

Maul nodded graciously as he took the proffered seat. Moments later, a young girl waltzed out of the house carrying a silver tray with three beverages on it. She walked with considerable confidence, sharp brown eyes taking in the entire scene on the veranda and gauging. As she set down the tray for them, Bail spoke, “Leia, does your mother know you are doing the Makael’s job for him again?”

“No, father. I just thought your visit might be best kept in the family.” Those sharp eyes contained humor.

“Which is to say you’re feeling nosy, and wanted a closer look at our guests,” Bail said, rising to embrace his daughter. He turned her to face them and put his hands on her shoulder. “My friends, Ben and Varas, meet my daughter—officially—Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan.”

He and Maul rose and both gave her a formal bow, but Obi-Wan assessed her curiously. She was tiny, but she offered her hand to each of them freely, showing no dismay or intimidation from Maul’s admittedly fearsome appearance. Her long brown hair was dressed in a simple braid drawn over one shoulder, and he was reminded, achingly, of her mother. And her father. The inquisitive air about her—undaunted, almost careless—was so like Anakin, while the smoothly diplomatic way she handled the meeting was all Padmé. She was different than Luke, had been raised differently, but she was every bit the Skywalker he was.

He gazed at her in the Force and found a strangely null space. Not absent exactly, but peculiar. As if one looked upon a solar eclipse.

Bail gestured for them to sit again, and gently shooed Leia off. “Is your curiosity satisfied now, you little wretch? Get out of here.”

But Leia turned back to Obi-Wan one more time. This time she bowed. “It has been my honor to meet you,” she said and then gave a smaller bow to Maul before kissing her father and going inside. No true names or titles had been mentioned, but somehow, he had the keen sense she knew exactly who and what he once had been. He had another flash ahead, this one almost conciliatory, as if granting him this vision was to make up for the agony of the former one. He saw them together, Luke and Leia. Not too much older than they were now, the vivid excitement of a mission on their faces. Just like the look their father would get. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed with melancholy sorrow.

They were all quiet for a moment, Bail gazing after her. “She’s lovely,” Obi-Wan said to him. “And also quite formidable. I sense she will not have an easy life, but she will do good things for the galaxy.”

“Try to stop her,” Bail said, chuckling. “She’s fifteen and already talking about wanting to run for the Senate. She’s nosed her way into all of my affairs. I’ve come to rely on her in ways I probably shouldn’t. She’s party to things that should be beyond her years.”

“Who put the dampeners around her power?” Maul asked, voice low and soft.

Bail gave him a sharp look, reminiscent of his daughter’s, then slid his gaze to Obi-Wan. “Yoda. When she was three she started…” He made a two-fingered swiping gesture reminiscent of a Jedi using the Force. “It was terrifying. I had no way of hiding it. Yoda appeared out of the blue and locked most of it away. What’s left is…”

“Not insignificant,” Obi-Wan said. “Useful in politics and diplomacy, no doubt.”

“She feels…” Maul paused, frowning. “She feels almost like a healer.”

Obi-Wan thought of Sivrelle and knew that Maul did too. The Jedi healer had brought him and Maul together, ultimately, in a very round about way. More friends lost. More old memories dredged up. There were times when he felt so unbearably sad. Quite literally. Like he didn’t think he could stand it. Unexpectedly, Maul reached over and covered his hand were it rested on the arm of his chair. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and opened them again, back to the present.

Like the smooth diplomat he was, Bail changed the subject. “As for the other topic of conversation, yes… we know the Empire has been diverting a tremendous amount of resources to a single project, for some time now, although what that project is remains a mystery. It’s enough to have caused a rift within the highest circles of power. Like many such projects, it’s behind schedule and draining money and manpower others would prefer to be appropriated differently.”

“And what is being done?”

“We have…people—our mutual friend Shook, for one—looking into it. Other teams are working to undermine the construction of whatever it is. Tie up funds. Slow things down. How long do we have? Can you tell?”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and slid his senses elsewhere. “Years, I believe,” he answered. “But not many.”

Bail’s mouth tightened back into that grim line. He nodded. “Thank you for the warning, my old friend. And the visit. It is restorative.”

“More than you know,” Obi-Wan replied.

“How might we contact Tyûk?” Maul asked, out of the blue.

“I can share his codes with you. You look as if you could be brothers. Are you?”

“Of a sort.” Maul’s facial markings made his smile into a terrifying thing at the best of times. “It has been many years. I am gratified to hear he has made himself useful to you.”

By some unspoken signal, they all stood. “Will you stay the night?” Bail asked them, even though all of them knew they couldn’t.

They embraced again, and Obi-Wan and Maul melted back into the darkness, making their way along the lake’s edge to where they had left the cloaked ship. The night was warm and humid, insects singing to the stars.

Obi-Wan stopped Maul when they got to the ship. He gripped his arm and turned to look at the lake, drawing deep breaths of the moisture-laden air. Ah, that damp, fecund smell, unmistakeable, never-forgotten but long absent. “Swim with me?”

“Is that wise?” Maul asked.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “Of course not. But that’s never stopped us before.”

He was infected with a wild energy, as if all the weariness of age had dropped away from him. He wanted to feel young and alive again. To be young with Maul. To be vital. To be of importance. To matter. Urgently, he felt as if he could just get in the water it would be like the dried up husk of himself would be somehow renewed.

Pulling Maul to him, he kissed him, fierce and raw, as if they were young, as if the galaxy hadn’t chewed them up and spit them both out years ago. Maul slowed things down, pressed his forehead carefully to Obi-Wan’s, then wordlessly nodded and stepped back to strip out of the smuggler style clothes they were both wearing. Obi-Wan never grew tired of seeing Maul reveal his tattoos, but he also stripped and plunged into the water with a heedless haste he rarely ever exhibited.

Water.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in water deep enough to swim, and certainly not for pleasure. So many missions, so many fraught and terrible situations. Swimming to Otoh Gunga with Qui-Gon, fighting the Separatists on Kamino. So many Jedi cloaks discarded and lost to waterlogged excursions. Ha, that was something he missed, just being able to requisition a new set of clothes. He’d learned, over the years, how to mend his, but he missed the ease, sometimes, of that old communal life.

Sinking beneath the surface, he let the water muffle all sound, then felt Maul near him and burst upward again, throwing his arms around Maul’s smooth skin to ward off the onslaught of the deeper thoughts and doubts that quiet and memory always brought.

___

Maul struggled with the wash of emotions pouring over him as he treaded in the cool water. The unfamiliar fervent joy apparent in the press of Obi-Wan’s body to his own. In all the years they’d spent together, Obi-Wan approaching him with joy was a rarity. Gratitude, yes. Passion, of course. Trepidation, anxiety, melancholy sadness, lazy contentment…all of those. But this, it was different.

They’d taken infrequent excursions together, off Tatooine. Keeping their hand in things, every so subtly. Earning a few credits. Observing the lay of the galaxy. But up until now, Maul had never seen the Obi-Wan of before. The Jedi Master. The Negotiator. The General. An Obi-Wan who was secure in his purpose, untroubled by the pressing weight of grief.

That brief respite on Selabaraan, when this body had been new, had been mere months after Qui-Gon’s death and Obi-Wan had been troubled, mired in a different grief but finding his way to the strength and purpose of the Jedi of the Clone Wars days. When he’d found him years later on Tatooine, all that had been lost. The grief of losing Anakin had swamped him. 

He knew Obi-Wan’s most fervent wish was to bring Anakin back from the dark side, although he also knew Obi-Wan had little hope it would come to pass. Of course, if it were up to Maul—if he were ever presented with the opportunity—Maul would risk everything he had to murder Darth Vader in the cruelest manner possible. The old pathways to rage were well-worn in his mind, if dusty and largely abandoned in favor of the light, but they could be easily uncovered.

When Obi-Wan had told him the story, so long ago now, Maul had responded the only way he knew how. In the face of Obi-Wan’s anguish, he’d replied with calm and reason, absolving Obi-Wan of at least some of his terrible guilt. But the longer they were together, contrary to what Jedi teachings might tell you, the more anger Maul felt.

It didn’t help that Vader had grown worse over the years. The reports of things he’d done, the casual way he used his power—and not for good—each time they heard of some unspeakable act, Maul would experience days of Obi-Wan’s inward-turning grief. Unable to express his own anger, Obi-Wan turned everything on himself, turned it into guilt, spiraling inexorably downward into unknowable depressions from which Maul would then extricate him. Obi-Wan swore he was content with their life, swore he had forgiven himself though his reluctance to train Luke spoke differently.

Maul himself was not immune to guilt, of course. He was not immune to finding fault with the evil he’d done. But by all things light in the galaxy, bringing Obi-Wan out of it would be his one glorious achievement. Maul’s one small blow for the side of things Obi-Wan had fought his entire life for.

“Kiss me,” Obi-Wan demanded, so Maul did. The Jedi’s hands roved his body underwater with intent.

Maul pushed him off. “Swim, you fool. We can do that anywhere. We may never swim again.”

Obi-Wan’s laugh was pure and ringing, but he did as he was told, twisting and gliding in the water alongside Maul, showing off his still limber body. Maul reveled in the feel of it, remembered learning to swim so many years ago. In typical fashion, the method used consisted of throwing him in to see if he would drown. He didn’t. Now, he floated on his back in the water, listening to the night insects, Obi-Wan rolling and spinning in the water around him, agile and happy. He did not know how long they frolicked so, but they eventually dragged themselves from the luxury of the water and gathered their things on the banks of the lake.

They stood for a moment, naked and dripping in the starlight. Obi-Wan tucked his head in the crook of Maul’s neck and murmured things in Old Corellian and Maul bit his neck gently on the other side. “Why do you choose a dead language to speak to me of these things?”

“It suits you,” Obi-Wan said back. “Why do you choose not to say them at all?”

“You know anyway…why must I speak?”

And here, Obi-Wan remained silent. He edged quietly away and they returned to the ship. Unsettled, Maul yanked on pants to pilot them offworld, and set a course to one of their random destinations, taking them into the soothing limbo of hyperspace. Then he went to find Obi-Wan, who was lounging on the bed in their cabin. He did not know if Obi-Wan would want to talk—whether about what Maul refused to speak of or what had transpired on Alderaan or of what they meant to do next—but he found himself pulled down to the bunk and wrapped up in pliant male body, still naked and chilled from the water.

“You’re so warm,” Obi-Wan sighed.

And that was the last thing either of them said for quite some time.

Maul had somewhat unconsciously brought them to Ord Segra, the planet from which they’d launched Tyûk into the galaxy. “It’s funny they call him Shook,” Obi-Wan said, unerringly pinpointing why they were there as they looked out at the spaceport, both of them remembering the moment they lost Maul’s young clone into the crowd.

“I’d imagine that is how he felt after one month in the outside world,” Maul said, laughing. “It’s not an easy thing to reinvent oneself. Choosing one’s own name is a start, and easier to explain than calling yourself something from the Sith mantra.”

“So logical today, my dear Varas.”

“I leave the romanticizing of things to you.”

Maul waited, and Obi-Wan struck to the heart of the matter, “Do you want to try to contact him?”

“I keep asking myself what the purpose would be,” Maul said, shrugging. “It would only be danger, and the stirring up of old wounds.”

Obi-Wan still crackled with the energy of the night before. “And yet I sense that you do…”

Maul pursed his lips together. Obi-Wan knew him far too well. “I cannot fathom why it is not enough to hear he is working for the Rebellion.”

“And for me, to know they are aware of this potentially terrible space station. It should give me peace.”

“It doesn’t.”

The calm, logical side of Obi-Wan clearly tried to reassert itself, “And yet, you are correct, we have a purpose, back on Tatooine.”

“Home,” said Maul thinking of lantern light filtered through punched metal beside the dark of their sleeping alcove. Knowing Obi-Wan was thinking of dust and sand and rock.

Maul’s teacup droid rolled down the ramp and chirped at them.

This drew a sidelong look from Obi-Wan. “You son of a murglak, you already did it.”

It wasn’t a question. And he wasn’t wrong.

“We don’t have to act on it,” he said, conciliatory. But he wanted to. And he knew, deep down, Obi-Wan wanted to also. Was it foolhardy? Probably, but Maul couldn’t bear to extinguish that fizz of excitement he felt bubbling through Obi-Wan. It was infectious, but when Obi-Wan clapped a hand onto his shoulder, they exchanged a look.

“This is stupid, isn’t it?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Yes,” Maul answered. Yet Obi-Wan was grinning and he probably was too. “But as you said, it’s never stopped us before.”

—

Back in the ship the communication from Tyûk contained coordinates and a word that translated as Beat, in Chandrila.

“Brentaal?” Obi-Wan said, unerringly pinpointing the destination. “Perhaps too close to Coruscant for comfort.”

Brentaal was at the intersection of a number of trade routes and hyperspace lanes. It would be busy enough to pass unnoticed. Should be, anyway. Maul just locked eyes with Obi-Wan and programmed the navi-computer.

Beat turned out to be a club, the deep thump of the music audible even from the street outside. Maul had painted his face dark, and both of them wore nondescript but well-fitted smuggler’s clothes. Obi-Wan ran a hand over his mostly-white beard. “I’m too old for this,” he said.

“It’s an adventure, oh aged one,” Maul quipped back.

He was grateful when the glint returned to Obi-Wan’s eye. “Famous last words.”

They’d been instructed to say they were there for Shook, and to use “our name, in Mando’a” when prompted. Both Varas and Tyûk meant “strength.” This process went smoothly and they were led through the crowd to a balcony that overlooked a lower floor which swarmed with people dancing and a bar. Maul’s eyes found Tyûk easily, tucked as he was with his back to a pillar near the edge of the room. It was simple. That was where he himself would have stood.

Though Maul had the sense that he knew they were there, Tyûk continued whispering in the ear of a wispy Togruta, his hand trailing over the skin of her back. Identical markings to Maul’s on full display beneath a sleeveless shirt made of mesh, Tyûk’s body fluxed unconsciously with the rhythm of the music, as though he wished to be dancing with the others. Maul remembered the fluid, loose-limbed ease of his movement in his younger days…even though they were clone twins, Tyûk was probably twenty years younger in terms of years lived. He had a head start on Maul in terms of actually living though, apparently. He murmured some final words to the Togruta girl and his eyes flicked up to find Maul. Maul watched as his younger twin pulled the girl into a kiss, swaying with her momentarily before letting her go and then jerking his head toward the corner he was closest to. Maul and Obi-Wan moved to meet him, reaching the bottom of a low lit stairwell before Tyûk appeared to usher them through an unmarked door into a stark office. The Weequay behind the desk tilted his head curiously at Maul’s appearance.

Tyûk did not hesitate but hugged Maul as though he was a long lost brother as the Senator had assumed. Maul took it in stride and returned it, used to the casual intimacy of Obi-Wan’s touch by now. Twenty years ago, Shook would have found a different reception. Five years ago, Shook might not have offered. “Varas,” Tyûk said with the edge of some emotion in his voice. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”

“Brother,” Maul answered, allowing the emotions of the moment to flow through him. It was so very strange to hold this man in his embrace, like hugging a ghost of himself, or some other self who had never existed, but now did. It felt… good. “You look well.”

___

It was true. Tyûk did look well. As he drew back from Maul, Obi-Wan took note of the expression on his face, one he’d never seen and would never expect to see on his Maul. It was the cocky delight of youth encountering something much longed for but unexpected. Stunningly, it was without suspicion. It was Maul, sleeping on Selebaraan all those years ago. Maul… trusting him, sagging into his arms at a moment when he was lost and broken. More than twenty years ago, that moment, yet the beginning of everything. The moment when it became impossible to call Maul an enemy.

Obi-Wan looked away.

How he wished he had all those years back, that he’d had them to share with Maul somehow. Of course, it didn’t make sense. The fact of them—their relationship—was a direct result of all that had happened in those long intervening years. But sometimes, Obi-Wan wished for it. That he’d been able to be with Maul when they were both young and hopeful, like Shook still was. When what they did meant something. Before all the anguish and sorrow and guilt and loss.

He rubbed his chest as though the physical sensation could push aside the emotional pain.

Maul’s eyes flicked to his as though he was well-aware of Obi-Wan’s distress.

And then Tyûk hugged Obi-Wan too.

“Shook?” Obi-Wan said when the younger Maul released him.

Tyûk shrugged. “It’s easier for people to spell.” Then he turned to the Weequay, “Ardo, get us some drinks. Good whiskey. Family reunion. Have to celebrate.”

Once again, Obi-Wan marveled at the young man’s giddy joy at their presence. Giddy was not a word he would have ever thought to use to describe Maul, and yet, Shook radiated actual delight. Loose and eager and bursting with vitality. When he trained his gaze on Obi-Wan though, it was with a start he realized Shook’s eyes still blazed a Sithly yellow. 

Old memories overlaid the present. Maul facing him behind the energy barriers on Naboo. Maul sitting at the table drinking tea on Selebaraan. The other Maul—the original Maul—rising miraculously from death on metal legs—half-mad and vengeful.

He stole a quick glance at Varas—his Maul—for reassurance. He and Varas rarely spoke of that other Maul, the one that might still be out there somewhere. Two was quite enough.

But oddly this young and vital Maul in front of them, he called to mind that other one, just a bit, as if the youth and vigor of Shook translated somehow into the chaos that surrounded the mad one he hoped to never see again.

The Weequay closed the door behind himself and Shook perched on the edge of the desk, looking between them and shaking his head. “What rock have you two been hiding under?”

Maul waved a hand dismissively. “You’ve done well for yourself.”

The grin Shook returned was feral and now Obi-Wan could see some of the vestiges of the determined Sith Lord he’d known in his youth on the man’s face. “Well enough. I was trained for mayhem. You know… trained for pretty much everything. And since you two set me free, I’ve set about learning how to enjoy life a little.”

“And?” Obi-Wan asked.

Shook laughed, golden eyes glowing. “I’ve enjoyed a lot. But in my spare time I’ve also been working really, exceptionally hard to fuck up my former master’s plans in as many ways possible.”

“It’s rather difficult to stop being a weapon, is it not?” Maul said.

He and Shook exchanged a long look, and then the younger version dropped his head. “Yes,” he said with no trace of mirth. When he looked back up it was all hopelessness, quickly erased. He waved an arm with an airy grace, “We were always meant to be bombs, were we not, Varas?”

“Boom,” Maul replied, smile equally grim.

Obi-Wan filed this reaction away for later. There were still moments, even after five years together, where he still felt that Maul—his Maul—was unknowable. “The joy you both take in destruction is upsetting,” he quipped to cover his unease.

The two tattooed men shrugged identically.

“What brings you to see me, old friends,” Shook asked.

“We heard you’re working on a bit of research,” Obi-Wan said. “We may be able to shed some light on the subject.”

“You mean the super secret, very expensive project our esteemed former mentor is working on?”

“The very same,” Obi-Wan answered. “May we speak freely here?”

Shook nodded and flipped a switch on the desk. “Soundproofing,” he said by way of explanation. “Two minutes before it would become suspicious to anyone.”

“We have reason to believe it’s space station of some sort, with enough firepower to destroy a planet.”

Shook whistled. “Lovely. Operational?”

“Not yet, I’d say…”

“Where did you come by this intel?”

“Force vision,” Maul answered for Obi-Wan.

His shoulders dropping, Shook threaded a hand through his horns in a gesture so familiar to Obi-Wan it gave him vertigo. “Useless to ask if you know where the blasted thing is then,” Shook said, his language and casual cadence dispelling the very familiarity Obi-Wan had just noted. He wondered if Shook had spent time with pirates.

“Alas, no,” Obi-Wan answered. “Yet the size of it would seem to make it less than difficult to find.”

Shook snorted. “You’d think, right? But they’re being remarkably cagey about this one. We’ve known there IS a project, but we can’t find specifics. So much blasted money and we can’t find the thing itself. A week ago we ‘liberated’ a certain scientist from a lab on Eadu, faking his death in the proces. He seemed relieved, claiming he’d been forced into the work. Yet will not fill us in on specifics. He feared repercussions against his family and apparently my—well, our—‘facade’ does not inspire trust? In any case, what they were doing there was only part of the puzzle. Something to do with kyber. He would not speak of what the project is destined for, although we suspect it relates to the project you mention”

“Try Geonosis,” Obi-Wan said, the explosion from the vision filling his mind. The agony of so much simultaneous death.

“I’ll go myself.” It was firm and decisive. But when the door opened and the Weequay entered with a tray of glasses and a bottle of something, Shook’s subsequent grin was less feral and more wicked. “But first… we drink.”

The whiskey was of better quality than Obi-Wan expected, yet they all knocked it back in one fluid motion. The first one anyway. The second glass he and Maul sipped as they adjourned somewhere more comfortable in the heart of the club. Obi-Wan admired Shook’s presence as he cycled repeatedly through genial host, shrewd club manager, and old friend, the glimpses of the Sith darkness hidden behind his various personas. Every so often he would seem to be just the young man he looked like from the outside, fashionably dressed, mildly intoxicated, and in thrall to the music and atmosphere of the club, his eye caught by the pretty Togruta girl time and again.

“Is it serious?” Obi-Wan asked.

Shook shot him a look. “What?”

“You and the girl…is it serious or just new?”

And now Shook’s face took on another look Obi-Wan was familiar with. “Shana? New…” he said. “And serious.”

Obi-Wan nodded. How he wished for all young lovers to have their time. He remembered his dinner with Maul on Corellia years ago. Watching people enjoy themselves while he himself was mired in guilt and self-doubt. Wondering that anyone could have fun while the Emperor ruled, while Vader marauded.

He connected eyes with Maul who was in a heated discussion with Shana, and it settled him down.

“And you two?” Shook’s voice called Obi-Wan’s attention back to the younger version. “Serious?” The tone was teasing, but not unkind.

“Quite,” Obi-Wan answered.

Shook laughed. “Given our…interesting history, that’s somewhat of a miracle, isn’t it? How in the galaxy did that ever come about?”

“Long story.” He looked sharply at Shook. “Very long. When you met us, we were already in the middle. So many ups and downs between us. Did you hate me? Do you still?”

“I did.”

“I do not blame you. I killed you. I killed him, for that matter. I don’t know why he doesn’t hate me for it.”

“Technically, you gave both of us life. I myself thank you for it. Had you not killed that one, perhaps neither Varas nor I would exist.” Shook shook his head. “Mind you, I hated you for a time, when I first came to exist—I mean, myself. For a time. But I was alone. I had time to dwell and stew upon it. I gave it up, when I left Mustafar. When I could really see the rest of the galaxy, when I could be a part of it, and not merely as tool of my master, I had to think long and hard about a lot of things. None of it was easy.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Nothing is, these days. None of us are what we thought we’d be.”

Shook spoke again, chuckling, “Perhaps that is a good thing. But I don’t hate you now. I couldn’t, when I saw that he didn’t. It was a fair fight, after all. I killed your master. I am sorry about that, by the way.”

“Don’t worry, one of you has already apologized,” Obi-Wan said with a rueful laugh. Maul and Shook both shared the same set of early memories, right up until the duel where he’d sliced them in half. Still, he could see that Shook’s apology was genuine. “Both of us are pleased to see you doing what you’re doing.”

Shook shot him a look that was all “old Maul” dangerous and wild, yellow eyes glowing. “You haven’t seen everything I’m doing.”

A shiver of something ran through Obi-Wan. Fear? That ambiguous smile on Shook’s face was meant to alarm him and did so.

As he had on Alderaan, Maul reached over, unbidden, and put a hand over his own. What a world, where an ex-Sith existed to comfort a former Jedi. Where Maul was the more emotionally stable of the two of them. Nevertheless, the touch worked as it was meant to. Obi-Wan calmed and Maul removed his hand.

Obi-Wan drank some more whiskey. When he went to use the fresher, Maul caught him in the back hallway. “We should go,” he said.

“Not yet,” Obi-Wan answered, pinning Maul up against the wall with a hand on either side of his head. “Dance with me.”

“I don’t dance.”

“You danced with me once…” 

Maul snorted. “With lightsabers. That’s different. And also, I was trying to kill you at the time.”

He brushed his lips to Maul’s ear, whispering, “Maybe… we should go with Shook to Geonosis.”

“No.”

“I sense something…”

“It’s not our problem. We’ve done what we set out to do. And more. We should go home.”

Obi-Wan realized he was mildly drunk. Intoxication mixed with an agitation he hadn’t felt in many many years. The urge to act when it wasn’t protocol to do so. Something familiar insisting he do something, not knowing what was right or wrong, but knowing something must be done.

___

Maul pushed Obi-Wan to arm’s length and locked eyes with him in the pulsing light of the club. “This isn’t our mission. We should go home,” he reiterated.

“Don’t you miss it?” Obi-Wan said, almost too low for Maul to hear in the noise of the club.

“Miss what?”

“Making a difference.” The lights in the club flashed red. Obi-Wan’s eyes were alight with determination, as they had been once before, on the other side of a force field. “Doing.”

He turned Obi-Wan around so his back was to Maul’s front, putting one hand on his waist and the other on his face. “Look out there. Do you see Shook? That is good. We did that. He is the good we can do in the galaxy. Him, and Luke…”

Together they watched as Shook leaned close to Shana’s head, whispering something in her ear. A whisper of envy snaked to Maul through the Force. Obi-Wan’s feeling. While from his body brother came a tendril of excitement. Despite them essentially sharing the memories of their first 20 years, Shook was different. Younger in years, yet also freer in soul. His adventures had been kinder to him than Maul’s. Kinder than Obi-Wan’s too. Maul felt an exultant gladness that Shook had been spared so much. That he’d been freed from Sidious’s influence so much sooner than Maul had. Yet he was also… jealous. Shook was a younger him, not all twisted up like he was. Free and joyful.

Perhaps it was not wise to spend too much time with Shook. It was…confusing. There was a strangeness to knowing there was another you in the world. More than one, maybe. Where did they stop and you begin? Were you truly unique or just a pale copy of some original thing?

“You should have had such freedom… such joy,” Obi-Wan said, perhaps reading his mind, perhaps not.

“What makes you think I do not?” he replied, holding Obi-Wan close. “Nevertheless, we need to go home and guard our charge. We have decisions to make about his instruction. We need to keep faith that when the time comes he will make a difference.”

Yanking his head away from Maul’s hand, Obi-Wan twisted in his arms. “But what if he doesn’t? What if we’ve hidden him too well? What if when the time comes he fails, because we could never train him? Or if our training is lacking?What then? What good are we then? Varas, what if he falls?”

Ah, there it was, the heart of the matter. Obi-Wan could not bear to lose another pupil that way. He’d rather not know him, not train him, than risk losing him to the dark side as he had Anakin.

Maul let go entirely, biting back words about fear. “What good are we to him if we get ourselves killed? We have the tools… we must prepare him. I’m right on this, Obi-Wan. You know it.”

Obi-Wan wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m going to get another drink.”

It was on the tip of Maul’s tongue to tell him he’d had enough but he let the Jedi stalk off. He let himself slump against the wall. The club felt suddenly too loud, with too much input after so many years of quiet and solitude. He couldn’t say he didn’t understand Obi-Wan’s internal debate. When he’d closed off his own access to the dark side and gone into hiding, he’d raged inside. The despair he’d felt at his own lack of power was crippling. But he’d found his way to the light. He’d found his way to acceptance that sometimes small acts in the universe were as impactful as the large ones. He’d learned to accept stillness. He’d thought that Obi-Wan had too.

Now? He didn’t know. Darkness surrounded them both.

Darkness.

Maul lifted his head. He started shoving his way through the crowd after Obi-Wan.

He didn’t make it. He sensed the assailants seconds before hands closed around his upper arms.

“Shook,” said a voice to his left. “You need to come with us.”

He stiffened to test their strength. Something about them felt like they were more than your average lackeys. On his other side, a similar voice hissed, “Come quietly and we won’t have to make a mess all over your fine club.”

Maul honestly doubted Shook would worry about such a thing too terribly much. He might be working for the rebels, but his eyes told the truth of his remaining allegiance to the dark side. Still, Obi-Wan generally preferred the slaughter of innocents to kept to a minimum, and so Maul grudgingly bided his time. “And who is it that’s looking for me, friends?” he asked.

“Lord Vader.”

That was not good news. Maul glanced at the crowd to see if he could spot Obi-Wan or the real Shook, but he could not. The two men holding him guided him to a back corridor of the club. Kneeling on the floor in binders was Ardo, with an elite class stormtrooper pressing a blaster to his temple. This also complicated things. Once upon a time, such a predicament would have posed no threat to Maul’s escape, but…times had changed. He sighed heavily.

“You can let him go. I shall accompany you without difficulty,” he said as he allowed his own wrists to be placed in binders.

“I think we’ll keep our little insurance package,” an Imperial officer said. “Move along.”

As he was forced down the corridor, with Ardo hauled to his feet and hustled behind him, Maul calculated the risks and scenarios. A quick mental warning to Obi-Wan along their bond assured him that the Jedi remained safe. He sent a flash of Ardo and wondered if he could reach Shook’s mind, considering it was so close to his own.

With any luck, perhaps he could manage to free them before they got to Vader, or worse, were taken offworld. There was a dread of Vader, and yet, also… a painful smack of jealousy struck him, an old jealousy from twenty years in the past. The familiar taste of hatred pooled in his mouth and he tried to let the Force purge it away. Hatred was pointless, he’d learned, and yet he was never able to truly stop hating Skywalker. Obi-Wan’s grief over his padawan’s fall was too strong, too constant. So Maul hated him. Yes. Though he had to admit, if he really examined his feelings, they would amount to a rather perverse sort of curiosity.

What would Vader be like? Would he retain any shred of Obi-Wan? Or would he feel more like Maul’s old master?

Maul could honestly say he didn’t fear facing Vader.

What he really feared was Obi-Wan facing Vader.

His pulse increased and he twitched again, testing the guards strength. Now that his hands were bound they’d relaxed their grip, but not enough for him to get away easily. He bided his time. They were loaded into transports and driven a short way to what appeared to be a military installation including a large hanger with offices built into a cliff-face above it. The sullen gray of the exterior was constructed in the familiar Republic-era style, stately and symmetrical. He lost sight of Ardo as he was led to a windowless interrogation room that opened off of a larger, multi-storied chamber with open stairwells on both ends.The ceiling appeared to be natural rock with elegant light fixtures strung across at intervals in an incongruously crude fashion.

He was pushed against a wall and his hands were unbound and then chained to a ring above him, feet and ankles chained to the floor. A bit of overkill for a conversation, perhaps. The Empire always had tended to overcompensate. Maul’s nose itched and he practiced old skills to keep from fidgeting. It was hard not to remember the last time he’d been chained like this… ten years ago? He’d been in a stupor of loss, his mind racing after the Imperials’ brutal murder of Kasia. He’d balanced on a razor’s edge, dark side energy gathering around him like the old times. It would have been easily accessed and yet… he had held strong against it. He’d managed to escape without it. That time.

Closing his eyes, he named and released his feelings as they arose, as Obi-Wan had instructed him 20 years prior. Anger. Fear. Humiliation. Wry, unexpected humor.

If this was how it ended? How ridiculous.

He did not have to wait long. The door opened and two guards entered and stationed themselves on either side of the entry. Vader swept in, his presence a noxious, choking cloud of dark energy that surrounded his formidably tall physique. There was a heaviness surrounding him, the weight of metal. Maul could feel the crystals of Vader’s lightsaber vibrate in the Force, along with the crystals of his own staff.

The current Sith Lord stood on the other side of the table, holding the staff in one hand. “So, you are Tyuk,” Vader rumbled, his voice deep and resonant, accentuated by the vocoder incorporated into his armor. His correct pronunciation of the Sith version of Shook’s name made clear. “Somehow, I would have expected you to be younger… and, yet….”

He trailed off, his helmet tilting.

Maul looked up at him, feeling keenly the truth his green eyes betrayed. 

“You are not him,” Vader finally said, receiving an answer from the Force. The steady rasp of Vader’s assisted breathing filled the room. “And you are also not…him, the one Kenobi sliced in two.”

It struck Maul painfully, the tone in Skywalker’s voice when he uttered Obi-Wan’s name. If he only knew how his old master mourned him. If he only could feel what he had put him through. Maul allowed himself a grim smile.

Maul hesitated. How should he reply? He let the quiet in the heart of the Living Force wash over him. He fortified his shields before he spoke. “No. You know the answer, yet you do not wish to understand its implications.”

Vader came closer, eyeing Maul up and down. Maul assumed the helmet augmented his vision. He should be able to tell that Maul had no cybernetic parts. Vader reached forward to lift his shirt and examine the skin of his waist. He found only the truth, of course, the smooth skin of Maul’s stomach, unmarred by a scar. Vader let his shirt drop back down and turned back toward the door.

“You understand now, don’t you?” Maul said to him.

“Leave us,” Vader snapped at the guards.

Alone with Vader, Maul pressed the issue, “He had 125 of us ready to do his bidding. And Shook and I remember everything, right up until Obi-Wan killed us. We are the same, until that point. You see?”

“Cloning technology cannot…” Vader began.

“It did. We exist. Palpatine did it.”

“The facilities on Kamino were shut down.”

“By whose order?”

Maul let it dawn on him. Let him figure it out. He knew his message had hit home when Vader turned to deliver a vicious backhand across Maul’s face.

The taste of blood in his mouth, sharp and familiar, called to mind the last time Sidious had struck him, upon his return from Selebaraan. He remembered kneeling in front of his master choking down the blood, trying desperately to leave memories of Obi-Wan hidden where he’d walled them away.

He felt the anger emanating off of Vader. “Yes, you see don’t you? He leaves you like this…” Maul looked him up and down. “For his own reasons. He feeds you empty promises while he lives on your pain.”

“He saved me. When Kenobi left me mutilated, in pieces, burning, clawing for survival.”

“Saved you?” Maul drawled. “Oh, I see. And he has kept his promises to you?”

Vader was silent.

“Do you understand?” This button pushing used to be second nature to Maul. He remembered the fierce joy of finding just the right pressure point. But now… it felt sad. “You know I’m telling the truth. He could have made you a new body by now, but he lets you suffer like this…”

A saber ignited but Maul kept his gaze firm on the garnet eyes of Vader’s mask. He recognized the hum of his own staff, of course. What a way to go, vanquished with one’s own weapon.  

“And why would I need that when I already have so much power?”

Maul shrugged carelessly. “You had power before.”

“The dark side gives me more. You cannot dispute that.”

“Can’t I? The power of the light is different, but far from less.”

The staff hummed as it grew closer to Maul, familiar yet no less bloodthirsty than when it was created. The crystals preened to feel the dark side energy again, so long denied them. Such a casual betrayal.

“I am not here for such philosophical talk. I need to know what Tyuk has done with Uravan. I know he is not dead, so let us dispense with that fiction.”

“Alas, I do not know the answer to that question,” he replied.

The saber’s red glow filled Maul’s vision as Vader held it near his throat. “Allow me to refresh your memory.”

Obi-Wan had known the second Maul was in danger. It was like something reached inside of him and squeezed his heart in a firm grip. Not crushing it, but holding it hostage. He turned to Shook, and saw the same feeling overpower the younger man. 

“Ardo,” Shook said, his gaze turning inward.

Maul. “Varas too.” And then the next key piece of knowledge flowed in, fast behind the first. It was Vader who had him. Obi-Wan had long ago foregone any feelings of wonder when the Force provided information. He was used to it by now, after so many years with the Force as his ally. But it had been many many years since someone he loved had been endangered in this way. It had once been commonplace and his body and soul had borne the brunt of the constant stress and anxiety. The constant loss and fear of it. This, however, was fresh. And he’d forgotten how awful the uncertainty was. It was not lost on him that Maul had tried his best, not moments ago, to remind him of how fortunate they actually were. Had encouraged him to avoid rushing into danger. 

And now, danger had found them. Found Maul.

But Obi-Wan was damned if he’d let Maul pay the price for his foolhardy longing for past glories. “We need to get them back,” he said firmly to Shook.

“No question,” Shook replied with the same fluid certainty Maul would have used.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and sank his awareness into the Force with an ease that had escaped him back in the days of the Clone Wars. He reached again for that connection which had grown within him during the past five years with Maul. The feeling that all would be well. That things were happening as they should be. The certainty the Force vision itself had shaken, but that now he needed back.

He breathed deep and the Force provided an answer.

“I need to get to our ship.”

Shook had a speeder at their disposal in minutes. Back at the ship, Maul’s ball droid chirped angrily at him when he opened the gangway . “Yes, Teeny One, I know. Do you know where your master is?”

More frustrated beeps.

“No, not me. Your other master. Your maker.”

Maul had joked about getting the droid to track Obi-Wan, he could only hope that he’d tested this out on his own saber. The little sphere burbled worriedly, circling him and Shook, pausing as if to sniff the air in several directions. Finally, it settled on a path.

“That way?” Shook said with Maul’s dry skepticism. Then tilted his head to look at Obi-Wan with a familiar, languid wave of his hand toward the droid, “Do you trust…this?”

“Varas built it, and therefore I trust it with my life,” Obi-Wan answered. “What lies that direction?”

“An imperial hanger.”

“Then we must move quickly, before they take them offworld.” Obi-Wan led the way into the ship, heading for the cockpit.

“If they haven’t already,” Shook answered, even as he commed for back-up.

“You know as well as I do they haven’t. Not yet.”

Shook took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair. “Just as you know as well as I who else we will find when we get there.”

Anakin.

No, Vader. If he was meant to go into battle against him, it would be as Vader. Obi-Wan sensed him in the Force. Familiar yet jarringly malevolent.

Shook scanned his communicator as Obi-Wan did the pre-flight rundown. “Some of my associates are handy with explosives. They’ll meet us there.”

“You drive,” Obi-Wan directed as he lifted them off. 

Shook took over as Obi-Wan tried to quiet his mind. He could not lose Maul. He could not face Vader. He could not fail Luke this spectacularly.

He could not lose Maul.

Ah, Anakin, was this what you felt? At the thought of losing Padmé?

He knew he had mere moments to regain his equilibrium. He could do this. Action would snap him out of these thoughts. The need for action would free him to allow the Force to guide his hand. He would do only what was right in the Force. All would be well, he reminded himself. All would be as it should. The only problem was that the Force’s idea of what should be, was occasionally different from Obi-Wan’s

“Have you faced him before?” Shook asked in the quiet.

“Yes.” Sulphur and heat. Anger and anguish. Anakin flipping in the air. The easy slice of saber through all his remaining limbs.  “And no. He was my padawan, before he fell to the dark side. We fought. I am the reason he wears that suit. I have not seen him since.”

Shook grunted in dismay. “So it won’t be a happy reunion, then.”

“I should say not.”

“Is he as strong as they say?” Shook was descending.

A hundred memories flashed through his mind. All the times Anakin had shone with light. All the times he’d done stunning, unbelievable things in the name of the Jedi. All the times Obi-Wan had counseled him on restraint and caution and he’d thrown that to the wind and triumphed in the end anyway. 

“Yes. He is. Maybe more so now.”

He named the panic clawing its way through his heart and set it aside as he had been trained to do. Then named it again, and again, and again, as it kept rising within him.

This would not do. He would doom Maul with his lack of discipline.

Obi-Wan stilled his mind and did not allow himself to doubt that he would do what was necessary this time.

TNY-1 let out a lonesome sound.

“Gone? What do you mean your maker is gone?” Obi-Wan looked sharply at the droid who was weaving concerned figure-eights on the cockpit floor. He tested his bond. “His saber is gone. Not him.”

“The hanger is there.” Shook pointed at a rocky hillside with a gaping hanger door and golden Republic-era lighting. “There is a small space to land above and behind the main door, sufficient for this craft. My more incendiarally inclined associates will meet us there.”

Shook guided them to a landing in the sheltered area, noting a small group already gathered. They wasted no time on introductions, but showed the group a schematic of the facility. “They’ll probably be in holding cells here… or here.” 

“If we get out of this intact, we’re going to need to beat a hasty path offworld,” Shana said. “Shall I prep our exit strategy?”

Shook nodded, but sighed heavily. “I did so enjoy the club, alas.”

They sketched a hasty plan, including explosives and escape if possible. Obi-Wan hung back, offering insight where he saw fit, but letting the younger people take charge. He was gratified to see they were up to the task. The galaxy, it seemed, had moved on without the Jedi quite capably. Shook embraced Shana before she left to go to whatever ship they had prepared, but when he turned back to Obi-Wan his face was the impassive fearsome visage he’d first seen so many years ago on Tatooine. The one he’d faced on Naboo, burning eyes and all.

He and Obi-Wan were meant to infiltrate the facility with a small team. To find and release Ardo and Maul while the rest distracted with explosions. It was a simple plan.

“I do apologize if we brought this on you by dropping in for tea,” Obi-Wan said before they descended through the air shaft on the roof.

Shook gripped his shoulder. “Rather, I feel as if I brought this on you. If they thought Varas was me this is my fault.”

“Either way, let’s get them out, shall we?”

“It would be my honor to fight at your side,” Shook said, without mockery. “I have always owed you and Varas for setting me free… and I always will. We will get them out.”

Obi-Wan nodded and then… into the fray they went.

In the red glow of his own saber, Maul felt the invisible grip on his own airway. The grip tightened, the voice became silky smooth, the oily feel of the dark side slithering inside it, “Tell me. Tell me everything.”

But Maul knew that trick. He knew those tendrils, knew how to resist them, how to hide his thoughts and feelings deep. He breathed, letting his own connection to the Living Force push Vader’s chokehold away. “I was using that method since before you were even born.”

The saber switched off and leather-clad metal fingers dug painfully into his cheekbones and jaw. “Tell me everything.” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know any Uravan,” Maul said. Stalling. He needed time to figure out a way out of this before Vader killed him.

Then a white hot blaze of pain as Vader’s other hand easily and casually snapped one of his horns off at the base.

“That one was always in the way anyway,” Maul ground out around the pain. Fuck Obi-Wan’s snappy banter. Why? He used to bear torture so stoically. He mourned the loss. It was more dignified to suffer and glower and not engage in Kenobi’s indulgent chit chat. It seemed he’d picked up some sloppy habits during his time with the Jedi. He’d scold him about it when this was all over.

But Vader didn’t let up. “Tell me.” He felt those unforgiving fingers rest at the base of a second horn. “Everything.”

“You should know that pain won’t work on me. I was raised on pain.”

“Where is Uravan? My master would like him back.”

“Our master,” he replied.

“My master,” Vader emphasized. Maul only had a flash of warning before Vader ripped away—not his horn—but the stud earring he wore high on his ear. The cartilage popped as it tore. “Your eyes betray your change of allegiance.”

He felt blood running down the side of his head. The ping of the jewelry hitting the metal floor rang absurdly loud in the quiet room. He thought only of Vernet, green as his new eyes. The smell of rain in the earth of the farm. The same rain on the roof of the house he’d shared with Kasia. He thought of her hands, teaching him to make tea, her tongue on that stud making him shiver.

“Who do you serve now?” Vader’s deep voice demanded.

Maul made his mind blank. He opened his eyes and surveyed his own reflection in the ruby lenses of Vader’s helmet. Nothing. No one. “I serve only myself. Name the right price and I’ll sell Uravan back to you.”

The silkiness returned to Vader’s voice. “No, I sense you are… protecting something. Someone.” The insidious, cloying undercurrent of darkness oozed into Maul’s mind. He thought random thoughts of Ord Segra. Of Shook joining the throngs of people there. The delight of launching him into the galaxy. The chaos of it.

“Your resistance is formidable,” Vader said. “My master trained you well. But rest assured…” Vader said, stepping back. He opened the door to the room with a casual flick of his hand and summoned one of the guards. “I have yet not exhausted my methods.”

Maul supposed he was not the only expert on pain in the room.

He retreated, drawing his mind deep into a meditative state, rousing only when the high pitched whine of machinery warned him of something’s approach. A ball floated toward him through the air, bristling with wicked metallic arms, its single red eye glowing with menace. 

Ah, a mind probe.

“Do you really think I haven’t encountered interrogation droids before?” he asked, letting his tone drip with disdain. “I’ve built them.”

“I’ve made several… modifications… to this one. I suspect it will be a novel experience even for you.” Vader stood back, his stillness more fearsome than action.

The droid hovered closer, a syringe flicking outward. Maul willed himself not to flinch as one of the guards held his arm and allowed the droid to angle the needle perfectly into his vein. He drew the living force around him, not knowing what the injection would do.

“The effects are almost immediate,” Vader said, his voice somehow directly in Maul’s brain, starting somehow in the middle and swarming outward like the swamp snakes of Rodia.

His mind recoiled.

No.

Indeed, this was something new. New and unexpected was almost always bad. The visage of Darth Vader swam out of focus in front of him. He sank his awareness deep, reaching outward for the connection to the vast expanse that was the living Force. 

But those snakes.

There was a legend of a Sith serpent on Korriban that was itself made all of snakes. Snakes spawning snakes spawning snakes.

At each turn they blocked the path, pushing Maul inward and inward. 

To solitary darkness.

To old wounds

To guilt.

Who do you serve?

No one.

No one.

No. Wan.

Maul seized control of his wavering mind and thought of anything but that.

He thought of all the cantinas he’d drifted through. Of hours spent in observation. Of the blackness of space. Of droid circuits, meandering.

Who do you serve?

What did you do for my master, back then? Did he ask of you the same things he asks of me?

Theft.

Kidnapping.

Torture.

Murder.

Destruction.

Betrayal.

He could smell the memories. Taste the moments. He let it all wash over him He deserved to relive every last awful thing he had done. Here in the darkness they all returned and he did not stop them.

The flames of the dark side licked around him. Remember? they asked. Remember how it felt?

“Ah, yes, the power. Did you truly forsake that power?”

Maul thought of the sparkle of Obi-Wan’s force.

No. Not that.

Go back to Vernet. To the life of the growing crops on the farm. The living Force rising from the land.

He had to protect…

Vader seized on it, of course. “Protect what? Or… who?”

“My memories from you, you fuck,” Maul snarled, awareness snapping into his body. He lurched forward, yanking on the chains that still bound him to the wall. The metal creaked with the strain.

His hatred for Vader—for Anakin Skywalker—flared bright. Hatred. The dark side flames crackled and surged. How dare he. How dare he cause such pain, how dare he abandon…

No.

Not that.

Not him.

Not them.

But Vader insisted, his deep voice reverberating in the room and inside Maul’s very skull, “Who? Who is it you don’t want me to see?”

He thought of lonely nights on the bunk of his ship. Grungy spaceports across the galaxy. He thought of people looking at him and fearing him—fearing the worst of him. He thought of Obi-Wan on a clear, starry desert night. Drink with me?

He replaced Obi-Wan’s face with another’s. Anyone but him.

But drink with me became stay with me and the emotions seeped through his wandering mind, even as he tried to stuff them back and then Vader was poised in front of him holding  a small, wicked looking device and somehow his jacket and shirt had vanished without him having knowledge of their removal. The guards were gone and it was only Vader in the room, expectant.

A a thin red blade the length of a man’s hand ignited from the instrument Vader held. “Which tattoo was the first?”

Which one? The one on his chin. Glaring and unhideable.

“I’ll start with this one,” Vader said and leaned forward with his barbarous blade, cutting across Maul’s chest, following the black lines there.

Maul bit his lip, right where that original tattoo seeped over the edge. He was out of practice with this. It hurt and he was not used to it.

“This blade is carefully designed not to allow the cauterization that happens with a normal light saber strike. It…stings. You will bleed,” Vader said, calm and matter of fact. “Or you may simply tell me who it is you are trying to protect.”

The slicing went on and even Maul was not immune to the vicious brand of pain it caused.

“Tell me who you are protecting and this will stop,” Vader said, those insidious snakes crawling from his voice through Maul’s brain.

This was death.

Vader would kill him, slowly, life seeping out along with his blood eventually. He knew it.

Tell me.

It would be a poor repayment of everything he’d gained in the past five years if he allowed Vader to have that information. But, by the Force, it hurt. It all hurt.

Vader’s voice continued, tearing and shredding his mind, as efficiently as the blade cut his flesh, “Did my master cast you off? It seems unlike him to leave such a dangling thread.”

Maul found his voice, “I left. I made a choice.”

The first choice. To change. You are hope.

“You had such power at his side. Why would you choose otherwise? Running away like a beast to lick your wounds. Perhaps you did not deserve the power.”

There were many things he did not deserve. He did not deserve goodness. He did not deserve love. Yet he had them. Had he earned them? He did not know.

Vader pounced on that thought. “Love?” he scoffed. “You think love is your savior? Love is weakness. Love is fear.”

“You threw it away.” The words flowed out like the blood seeping from his chest.

“It was taken from me,” Vader snapped and the blade cut deeper. Maul groaned. “Everyone who ever loved me is gone, or turned their back on me. Love was worthless to me.”

“And you blame love itself for this? Did your own actions have nothing to do with it?” A mind connection could go both ways, and Maul peered back into Vader. Was there nothing of Obi-Wan left in him? Nothing at all?

Vader set the small blade aside and admired his work, using the Force to raise Maul’s blood like a red mist between them before dispersing it. “How far you’ve fallen. How right my master was not to spare you further thought. That one such as you could sink so low as to put your faith in love of all things. I’ll have to kill you, so as not to leave an embarrassment such as you alive to wander the galaxy,” Vader intoned in that deep, false voice, the regulated breathing always present behind it.

His saber’s crystals hummed as Vader took it up again. Maul waited for the blow.

“When I first saw you fight on Tatooine… how I dreamed of  the day when I would be taught to fight like you. I waited for the Jedi to teach me. I waited and waited, while the Jedi went on and on about attachment and serenity and negotiations.”

“I would say I am flattered, yet you fell so short,” Maul ground out. Obi-Wan’s infernal quipping habit again. He’d never been one to talk much. Back then.

“You took my true master from me. I had you to hate for that.”

How many times had Maul heard Obi-Wan echo this sentiment. It was not to be stood for. “You should not be so quick to toss away your allegiances. Kenobi taught you well. You were revered as a Jedi.”

“I am feared a thousand times more as a Sith.”

“And is the trade off worth it?”

“You should know that answer.”

Maul smiled. “I have gained far more than I ever had to lose.”

“You disappoint me. Are we back to love again? You don’t deserve to wield this weapon.” Vader extinguished Maul’s saber and crumpled it easily between his gloved, metal hands, crushing the pieces. Maul felt his crystals shatter as if they were his very bones. One. Two. Three. Four. Little shards of him being pulverized to dust as Vader’s impassive mask stared him down. Maul heard other voices in his mind.

You are weak. How will you ever rise to take my place? 

You disappoint me. 

You are a failure.

Vader let the ruined pieces of the saberstaff fall from his fingers. They clunked to the floor with a dull, lifelessness that struck Maul like another blow.

A different voice spoke in his mind. A voice that spoke in Old Corellian.

But Vader went on, present and louder. “You’re weak. Not good enough to be Sith. An embarrassment. You have no value.” A gloved hand reached forward and took his chin in a painful grip. He scoffed, “Love. Who could ever love you?”

The pain from his cuts swelled. The black snakes swarmed through his mind. Vader’s words echoed in his brain:

Who could ever love you?

The words were meant to wound… and they had.

Yet the pain of the words hurtled him deep within his own mind. So deep he could hardly see the way out. Deep enough that Vader could not reach. So far within the darkness seemed to invert and became a familiar silvery light, warm and protective. Sheltering him so that all the thoughts he’d shrouded even from himself were unveiled. He could not prevent the thoughts, could not hide what he needed to hide. How often had he felt undeserving of love? How often had he thought the very same things Skywalker had just said about him? How often had he seen the love in Obi-Wan’s eyes and turned away, feeling unworthy?

How long had he stayed silent?

The words had never come out of his mouth. He’d never said it. Yet he’d known. It had been clear from the moment Obi-Wan had asked him to stay on Tatooine after they’d destroyed his clones on Mustafar, after they’d set Shook free and come… home.

It had been the first time—perhaps ever—Maul had felt wanted. Felt… welcomed. Had known that Obi-Wan wanted and welcomed him—needed him even. Needed him to be—of all things—a light against the darkness. Obi-Wan had healed him, and in the resultant emotional swell, he’d leaned in to Obi-Wan. 

The kiss was an agreement.

A promise.

Yes.

I will stay with you.

I will be here with you.

I will be here for you.

It had moved from slow and promissory to fevered and desperate as Obi-Wan had put his hands on Maul’s skin. In the dust-sparkled, shifting afternoon light of Tatooine’s two suns, he and Obi-Wan had made love to each other. He’d taken hours to explore Obi-Wan’s body with lips and tongue and hands, talked with him and laughed with him and joined with him in every way he could. 

And he had kept those promises. All of them. And one more. Through all their darkness and loneliness and guilt and loss, they had had each other. They protected each other, housed each other’s experience, walked the path of memory side by side. They were respite and shelter and the hand that gripped you when you were falling, falling, still falling into despair and anger and sorrow. They were desire and escape and warmth in the night. Peace and laughter, support and criticism. A steady light against the shadows and loss. A reason to keep going, keep trying, keep learning and moving forward, day after day, night after long terrifying night.

All these years. Maul had held him and clung to him and shown him—through touch and breath—that truth he could not voice.

As long as I live, you need never be alone.

That thing in his chest growing all the while. That thing that kept those promises. That need to protect, that want to make the galaxy a better place for him, for Obi-Wan, that desire to touch and soothe and make right. He’d always known what it was, but he’d always feared to say it aloud. As if admitting it would make it less, make it vanish, let it be taken away. You cannot lose that which you do not have. You cannot claim that which you do not name.

Love.

So much love.

When you cannot love yourself, I will be there, loving you, so you do not lose hope.

“It isn’t about who loves me,” Maul rasped out finally, surfacing from that deep place, the light of Force giving him strength. “It is about who I love. Love is about giving.”

“I should cut you in two just as Obi-Wan did,” Vader snarled. “I would have given everything for them. I did give everything, my soul, my honor, my body…”

“You gave things they would never have asked you for, never have wanted from you. You betrayed their love for who you were, their faith in what you were. You did not give, you took, even though you thought it was something else.”

The building shook violently and Vader’s attention was drawn away to the ceiling where light fixtures swayed in the wake of an explosion. 

“The real Tyuk, I presume?” Vader said impassively, as if all that had come before had never been said. Then his head cocked, “And…someone else.”

He looked back down at Maul.

“Impossible,” he said, turning toward the door. “My old master?

Equal parts fear and relief surged through Maul. He was bruised and bloodied. Horn missing. Ear torn. His mind was dizzied, muddled.

He was vulnerable in every way.

But his heart was wide and clear.

Vader turned back to him. Unaccountably, he laughed, deep and booming. “Him? And you?” He moved back to Maul’s side. “You think him capable of love? Would you like to see how he showed his love to me?”

Vader stripped the glove off of his left hand, revealing the gleaming artificial appendage. “Do you want to see what he did to my face? He told me he loved me—my ‘brother’—as my flesh burned off, right before he left me to die. He took my last hand. My legs.” Vader paused here, the slow rasp of his breathing steady as always despite his rage. His helmet tilted up and down as he looked at Maul. “But then, he did the same to you, didn’t he?”

Who could ever love you? Vader had jeered, trying to hurt Maul, to provoke him.

Yet behind it, the white hot poker of pain and anguish and self-loathing in the center of Vader’s chest: 

Who could ever love me?

The despair. The heart-wrenching loneliness of it choked a sob from Maul. He couldn’t help it, and he knew Vader would hate it, but he felt, of all things, pity.

Pity for Skywalker who had, through his own actions, lost everything. The man who had done horrible things from which he could not escape. Who lived his life in pain, under the thumb of Palpatine—a being with no love in his heart, nor conscience. Palpatine knew nothing but his own self-interest, and used those around him to accomplish his own gains. But Skywalker had known love, known loss…and now? He was a prisoner inside his own armor with nothing left but hate.

Maul didn’t know what Vader had seen in his mind. But he had seen into Vader’s. Into places even the dark lord dared not look.

The living Force blazed bright inside Maul, scouring the snakes away. 

“You think you have nothing left to love, but you are wrong…” he said. 

Vader hissed at him, his metal fingers wrapped around his own light saber, “Do not say another word.”

He thought of Luke’s bright face, and let the Force decide if Vader should see it or not.

The building trembled violently again. Maul did not look away, starting at his reflection in the ruby lenses of Vader’s mask. He waited for the light saber to ignite. For the blade to extend into him. For the end.

Maul thought of Obi-Wan. His grief and unfathomable sadness. He risked it, “He loves you, even still…”

Abruptly, Vader stood and turned away. He drew his gloves back over his prosthetics, shook his helmeted head.

“If you both live through this, tell him…” Vader said, then paused, hand on the door. “You can tell him there is not enough left of me to save.”

The chaos of the hallway flared as Vader stepped out and then was silenced again when the door shut behind him. 

Maul reached his recovering senses out. There was Shook. And yes, Obi-Wan.

He separated the fear and let it drift away.

Alone, he concentrated on freeing himself from his chains.

___

It was just like old times. Obi-Wan and Shook dropped into the hanger through a vent on the roof. Slipping in with stealth just before the explosions began. The clack of armored troopers running through hallways. A light saber in his hand.

He knew Maul would not want him here. Would not want him attracting notice, alerting Vader to his existence. Maul would rather he kept far from the fray. Maul would feel himself unworthy of rescue. Of risk. Would not understand that Obi-Wan would never leave him like this, no matter the danger.

“The two of you are really quite unsettling,” Shook muttered at his side as they waited a moment for the coast to be clear.

“Whatever do you mean, dear friend?”

“This…” He waved his hand as if to indicate Obi-Wan’s internal debate. “It isn’t the Sith or the Jedi way.”

Obi-Wan gave him a sharp look. “We are neither of those things—now—so it is only fair for us to break the rules. We… balance each other. Somehow.”

“Even I can tell he wouldn’t want you doing this. Your history with Vader makes it most unwise.”

“He saves me. I save him. There is no question of doing otherwise,” Obi-Wan responded.

Shook shrugged and made a scoffing noise. “So be it. As your devotion goes, so shall your doom. You check the left room, I’ll take the right.”

They split up at the juncture where the hallway opened up into the hanger itself, the mezzanine level lined with doorways on one side. Alarms blared and chaos reigned below, as was intended. Obi-Wan’s room held two stormtroopers, a grey-uniformed official, and Ardo, chained to a wall. 

He tried not to be disappointed, deflecting the blaster fire with his light saber while he simultaneously stunned all three with his own blaster. Too easy.

He freed Ardo from the manacles holding him to the wall. “Shook is with me. Do you know where Varas is?”

“They took him the other direction,” Ardo answered, rubbing his wrists. He reached down to seize a blaster from one of the downed stormtroopers. “If I know Shook, we should go before the place falls down around our ears.”

“Fond of explosives, is he?”

“Varas isn’t?”

“Oh, very much so. I have to find him, but there are ships waiting on the roof,” Obi-Wan answered, already out the door and heading the opposite way down the balcony. Ardo followed. “What did they want from you?”

“They want their scientist back.”

“The dead one?”

“It seems his death was not as convincing as we’d hoped.”

Hope welled up in Obi-Wan. “Interesting. Perhaps they can’t complete their project without him.”

They found another interrogation room, mirror to the one Ardo had been in. It was empty but for the remains of Maul’s light staff and a smear of blood on the wall.

___