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The celebration after the Death Star's destruction lasted for hours.
From all corners of the base, the Rebels had streamed down to the landing pad in a frenzy of joy, to cheer for the pilots who destroyed the Death Star. Their exhilarated relief had turned swiftly into a party more raucous than Obi-Wan had seen in years.
Obi-Wan bowed out as early as he could, claiming he wanted to help with the evacuation prep. Really, though, he had looked around at all the bright young faces – with Luke glowing in the center of them all – and known too well that this battle was only the first of many, and that many of these people would not see the end of the war to come. Only a handful of pilots had come back from the Death Star run, after all.
However, he had also led too many soldiers to let any of those thoughts show through. He patted shoulders and shook hands and let Luke hug him every time the boy looped back through the revelers. (Eventually, Obi-Wan knew that Luke would have to face that urge: the subconscious need to check on him, and the underlying grief that drove it. But not tonight. Owen and Beru's deaths could haunt him in the morning.)
When Obi-Wan did slip out, the equipment loading and supply packing were already well in hand. A small army of droids were working under the supervision of a weathered being who reminded him fiercely of Jocasta Nu – if Master Nu had been a seven foot tall Devaronian built like a super battle droid. Some veteran Rebels, drinking more sedately as they organized equipment, nodded at Obi-Wan as he passed – whether out of recognition for a fellow tired soul, or another kind of recognition, he didn't know. They were old enough that they might remember the Clone Wars.
Obi-Wan considered going back to the party: letting Luke reassure himself until his adrenaline crashed into exhaustion, and seeing the boy to his rest. But something drew him deeper into the old Massassi temple, up the stairs to the crumbling and abandoned upper levels. Pushing through a curtain of vines at the top of the stairway, he spotted a path of footprints worn into the centuries-old layers of dust. The footprints led him to the far side of the temple, away from the landing pad and the noise of the party that was spilling out to the edges of the jungle.
At the end of the trail, the hallway opened up into a wide stone gallery overlooking the jungle. The sun had set, but the faint glow from the gas giant above limned the treetops and silhouetted other pyramids rising in the distance. Someone had built a circle of seats scrapped from starfighters here, with a bench from a transport and–
"Leia?" he said, surprised. She jerked around to stare at him from her seat on the bench, fingers caught in her hair as she plaited it.
Leia had left the party even earlier than he had, in the company of General Dodonna and some of the command staff, arguing about logistics. She had been all business since the moment they landed – save for a few sparking arguments with Captain Solo, who seemed to have a talent for bypassing all of her considerable poise – and Obi-Wan had thought she was choosing to bury her grief in work. Yet here she was: alone, freshly showered, and weaving a complex five-stranded braid into her wet hair. In the dark.
Perhaps he'd misjudged that one.
"I apologize for intruding," Obi-Wan said gently. "I'm afraid I'm not much for parties anymore, but I can seek refuge from the noise elsewhere, if you'd like to be alone."
Leia tried to pull her startlement into a smile, but it wavered and collapsed. She looked down at her hands, halfway through the length of her hair. "No, I don't want to be alone," she said, and Obi-Wan could feel the hollowness underneath her words.
He sat next to her on the bench.
"How are you?" he asked.
Leia shrugged, her fingers twisting more of her hair into the braid. "Alive," she said, "and there's so much to do. I'll go back down in a bit."
"You should sleep, Leia. A soldier knows to rest whenever he has the chance."
Her hands slowed. "A soldier. Is that what I am now?"
Obi-Wan inclined his head. "A fighter, then." She has always been a fighter, even as a little girl.
Leia came to the end of her braid and tied it off with a bit of lacy white ribbon that looked strange against the practical jumpsuit she now wore. She let her hands drop into her lap. "I don't think I can sleep," she said.
Driven by a memory, Obi-Wan reached out and folded his hand around hers, drawing it into his lap as she once had. She was not as young as she'd been, but her hand still felt terribly small and delicate in his. He wrapped both hands around hers protectively. He knew there was little else he could do.
"I haven't cried yet," she said, staring blindly out at the jungle. "Is that wrong of me?"
"Not at all," Obi-Wan said. "Grief isn't measured in tears." He can feel the sadness rolling off her in waves, an ocean of loss against which tears would be a mere afterthought.
"I feel like my heart's been cut out, but it hasn't started bleeding yet. Like maybe there's not any blood left for that."
Obi-Wan's heart ached in sympathy. For him, the grief had been like a lightsaber cutting off a limb: bloodless, sudden, always trying out to reach for and with and to something that wasn't there anymore. He wished, more than anything, that Leia didn't have to feel that way. He wished that he could reassure her, but he knew that she would be grieving for Alderaan and her loved ones in some way for the rest of her life.
The Rebellion would help Leia: a sense of purpose, important work, like-minded people. Tatooine had been very bad for Obi-Wan in those first years, with only a vague duty to Luke to anchor him against the drowning grief and guilt.
But none of that would help Leia right now.
"Your heart is very large and in the right place, just as it's always been," Obi-Wan said – a gentle enough joke, he hoped. "This time will be hard, but you're not alone."
Leia turned and grabbed his hands, almost painfully tight.
"You're going to stay, right? With the Rebellion?" she asked, looking directly into his eyes. "You're not leaving again?"
Obi-Wan squeezed back carefully, trying to soothe her. "I'll stay as long as I can. I promise."
Leia's face crumpled. She tipped forward and buried her face in the front of his robes, hunched over their clasped hands like she was in physical pain. Obi-Wan curled over her as best as he could, freeing a hand so he could wrap an arm around her shoulders, pull her in tight, and hold her as she shook.
She didn't cry. She was almost silent, except for the unsteady hitching of her breath. He let her pain flow through him, not trying to shield from it or control it or dam it at the source. Her grief was his grief, for a time.
Eventually Leia calmed and sat up a bit, leaning sideways against his shoulder. With his arm tucked around her, he marveled again at how tiny she was, even now that she was fully grown. Her presence made her seem so much larger.
He ran his hand up and down her arm, somewhat at a loss. She wasn't a child anymore – not that she had accepted any coddling at that age, either – but he didn't want to just assume she was alright, as he had earlier. Nor could he ask if she was alright, because of course she wasn't.
"Are you warm enough?" he asked, finally.
Leia snorted, and to his surprise, he felt a spark of amusement brightening her mood. "Obi-Wan. We're on a jungle moon. I'm definitely warm enough."
"Ah, well. Good," he said. Admittedly, Tatooine had probably ruined his perception of 'normal' heat forever, but he'd deserved that. He imagined Luke asking someone at the party for a sweater, and smiled to himself.
Leia shifted in her seat. "You're hiding something again," she said quietly.
"Yes," he sighed. He'd been…something of a coward, telling Luke about his father. Luke had needed to come to Alderaan with him, to want to learn about the Force enough to overpower any objections by Owen – though that hadn't mattered, in the end – and Obi-Wan feared that the full story would have driven him away instead. But mostly, he'd been a coward.
"You going to tell me before I fall off a roof this time?" Leia asked dryly.
Obi-Wan tucked his cheek down against the top of her head, smiling a little, and chose not to point out that she had jumped off that roof. "I will. But it's a long story, and an unhappy one. And someone else should be there, as well."
Leia was silent for a moment. "You mean Luke, don't you? You didn't just bring him because he found the droids, or because he's Force-sensitive, like those other children we saved. You were on Tatooine for him all along."
"It's a long story," Obi-Wan repeated, wincing a little at the accuracy of her intuition. Wise and discerning, indeed.
From a certain point of view, Obi-Wan had told Luke the truth, but that story wouldn't be enough for Leia. She was remarkably sensitive to the minds of others – a skill she must have sharpened further on her own, to survive working as a Rebel inside the Imperial Senate. Even if he told them part of it, that they were twins, Leia would sense the omission. However much Obi-Wan wished to spare her that grief after what Vader did to Alderaan, she would want to face it.
When he closed his eyes, he could still see Vader in the moment that Artoo closed the blast doors between them and ended their duel – and could still feel the swell of rage that followed him even as the Falcon flew away. Obi-Wan had let go of his guilt over Anakin's death – and accepted that he was truly dead – but it would always hurt to see Vader. He would always grieve for his friend, who had been so bright and loving.
He could have killed Vader that day they fled Jabiim, but the Force had pulled him away, back to Luke. Away from the past, and toward the future, he'd thought, and an act of mercy that his heart had sorely needed – but he could sense now that Vader had some part to play in ending Sidious. There was a knot in the Force between Vader and Luke and Sidious, some fate that they had to play out together, for good or ill.
Four Jedi Masters had faced Palpatine together and been killed. Yoda had fought him and lost. Nineteen years of assassination attempts had failed. Obi-Wan knew that his own fate would be the same, if he tried.
But there was more than one way to win a fight, and Luke would be the one to see the path.
Obi-Wan had hoped to train him, but he hadn't counted on it. He'd had visions of so many futures over the years, and many of his own death. That was why Qui-Gon had taught him how to keep himself together in the Force after death. He'd been ready to die on the Death Star – maybe more than ready, exhausted by all the deaths, Owen and Beru and Bail and the echoing terror of Alderaan pressing down on him. He was so tired of being the one who survived.
But if he had died, Leia would be alone right now, so he could not regret it. He leaned back more comfortably and she turned her face into his robes.
They would get through this together.