quarter after one (R; Obi-Wan, OC, mentions of Anakin)
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.
Author's note: I owed estora some Rynobi action. This is ffv!canon, except for the last bit. I'm going to have to write another companion piece to fill in the blanks a bit. (Sorry, Es.) Anyway, the title is from the Lady Antebellum song Need You Now.
quarter after one
Ryn Orun sidles up to a decrepit-looking bar in what would be the bad part of Anchorhead if there were anywhere else in Anchorhead to be and nods at the barkeeper. She flashes a coin and jerks her head at a cooling unit that holds several bottles of prepackaged, substandard ale that was probably brewed in somebody’s basement. “One.”
He scowls at her. “Sure you don’t want water?”
“Will it kill me?”
The bartender gives the cooling unit a speculative look. “Might.”
“Then definitely the beer.”
He hauls out a bottle and passes it her way. “Ain’t you a little young to have a death wish?”
Ryn levers off the bottle cap and salutes him as she flicks the coin his way. “I look good for my age.”
The bartender snorts and turns back to his business, not unduly concerned about the welfare of a stranger, and Ryn tips up the bottle and endures a long pull. The flavor is somewhere between distilled liquor and industrial paint thinner, so probably it isn’t actually anything she’s used to calling beer, but she’s not convinced that this is important right now.
What might be is that Obi-Wan Kenobi is here, now, on this very planet. Chased him half-way around the Outer Rim, using every hunting technique and underhanded anti-discovery skill she’s learned in twenty-five fucking years of training for, apparently, exactly this: to find her best friend’s mentor hiding in plain sight on Anakin’s fucking home planet.
The sheer audacity of the plan should have led her to him immediately, of course. This is just the kind of crazy thing Obi-Wan would have done -- the kind of thing Skywalker-and-Kenobi would have done -- back in the old days. Before Kenobi decided that killing his brother was the solution to everybody’s problems.
As if that could put the fucking galaxy back together again.
There is no chance in hell that Obi-Wan doesn’t know she’s here. He probably sensed it the minute she came out of hyperspace, insystem. Ryn almost doesn’t hang around to see if he’s going to try and kill her, too, just for taking Anakin’s side when Ferus finally found her again. (She tries not to hold it against Kenobi that he never came for her himself, that year and a half when she was being tortured to the brink of death and then dragged back again, over and over and over again ... but it’s an uphill battle, and she’s got more of those already than she knows how to fight.) But even if he doesn’t really deserve the chance to explain himself -- and what could either of them possibly say to convince the other, anyway? -- Ryn sticks it out because Padmé Amidala died pregnant but wasn’t buried that way, her death records have been erased so extensively even Ferus couldn’t sort them out, and Bail Organa is raising a mysterious adoptive daughter with an absolutely blinding Force-presence.
Ryn doesn’t believe in coincidence, not any more.
So when she feels the concentration of energy that suggests Force-use gathering behind her, she picks up her drink and turns casually, lifting the bottle in Obi-Wan’s general direction. “It’s been a long time.”
~*~*~*~
Ryn is standing at the bar when he walks in, nursing one of the horrendous local drinks he’s never been able to explain: masquerading as really bad beer, but far more alcoholic, and probably dangerous to any living organism. If it’s cauterizing Ryn’s insides, though, she doesn’t give any sign.
She’s different, and yet so much the same his heart catches in his chest. She’s cut her hair above her shoulders, and she’s wearing it loose now; and her weariness rides closer to the surface. But her shorter hair is the same jet-black it always was, she still carries herself with the same effortless grace, and when she rolls her hips against the bar to turn and face him, the ironic twist to her mouth is so familiar it strips away the years and drops them back on Borsana Terce or some such place.
“It’s been a long time,” she greets him, and Obi-Wan stiffens his spine.
“Not nearly long enough,” he says. “What brings you out here?”
Ryn tilts an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “That’s no way to greet an old friend, Master Kenobi. And you’re a hard man to find.”
“That was on purpose,” Obi-Wan says tightly. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” Ryn swirls the noxious liquid in her bottle, takes a swig. “Mission accomplished.”
Obi-Wan gives her his most severe stare, but that never did much good, even when she was a scrappy little teenager. Ryn is hard to ruffle. “I’ve seen you on the news.”
Ryn sips again. “Have you, now?” she asks drily -- probably because she’s on the HoloNet more than Vader. No one can say she hasn’t made the Empire look better. (It’s one of many things Obi-Wan resents her for.)
“You are supporting the Empire,” he accuses her.
“I am supporting Vader,” Ryn corrects him, as though there is a difference. She waves her bottle at the bar behind her. “Buy you a drink?”
Obi-Wan feels the corners of his eyes narrowing, even though Ryn has always insisted it’s his tell. “I don’t drink with criminals.”
Ryn’s jaw hardens. “That’s my line.”
“You think because what you’re doing is legal, that makes it right?”
“It makes it non-criminal,” Ryn answers, bitingly. “And you don’t know what I’ve been doing. Not if you’ve been getting your information from the HoloNet.”
There’s a ring of truth in her words, under the insult. Obi-Wan sizes her up again, tests her resonance in the Force. She’s darker than she used to be, but it’s mostly sadness. And it’s Ryn, but ...
“He doesn’t know I’m here,” she says softly, and Obi-Wan blinks, startled, because somehow he hadn’t thought to ask, even though the fear of Vader’s arrival has been scrabbling at the edges of his mind ever since she landed in Mos Eisley.
He meets her eyes, sees an unexpected vulnerability there, and remembers that this is the same girl who strapped herself into an outrageous sequined evening dress and went to a heinous Senate ball with him so he wouldn’t have to face Satine all alone. (He ended up ditching Ryn with an overenthusiastic Corellian so he could see Satine alone after all.)
The same girl who was waiting with the airspeeder when the almost-tryst turned into a fight. (She dragged him to a terrible bar in a worse part of town where they met Anakin and all three of them got far more drunk than responsible leaders should.)
“Let’s ... go back to my place and talk about it.”
~*~*~*~
On second thought, inviting Ryn back to his place was probably a mistake. She’s Vader’s personal assistant, for stars’ sake; Obi-Wan is gambling with not just his own life, and Luke’s, but the fate of the galaxy. And besides ... it’s not like he’s really set up for entertaining.
But Ryn sits at his bare kitchen table and takes careful sips of metallic-tasting water, and they don’t talk about it, because really there’s nothing to say, and he can’t tell her the things that matter.
Ryn probably guesses most of them anyway.
“There were twins, weren’t there?” she asks eventually, and Obi-Wan hesitates just a second before nodding.
She sniffs once and smiles sadly into her cup. “Anakin would have been so happy.”
~*~*~*~
In retrospect, talking about Anakin was probably a mistake. Because if they hadn’t both missed him so damn much -- in very different ways -- then they wouldn’t have felt the need to comfort each other. And if they hadn’t felt the need to comfort each other, Ryn would never have reached out and touched Obi-Wan’s hand on the tabletop. And if Ryn hadn’t touched his hand, Obi-Wan probably wouldn’t have dragged her half-way across the table to get his hands in her hair and kiss her mouth bruised.
And if he hadn’t dragged her off the table and into his lap, she definitely wouldn’t have tugged his robes loose and dumped them on the floor.
After that, Obi-Wan’s memories are a little fuzzy. He has the feeling, watching Ryn strap her utility belt on in the already-golden morning light, that she may remember their evening a little more clearly, and it strikes him that this is probably a bad thing.
Talking about Anakin in the morning is definitely a mistake.
Author's note: I owed estora some Rynobi action. This is ffv!canon, except for the last bit. I'm going to have to write another companion piece to fill in the blanks a bit. (Sorry, Es.) Anyway, the title is from the Lady Antebellum song Need You Now.
quarter after one
Ryn Orun sidles up to a decrepit-looking bar in what would be the bad part of Anchorhead if there were anywhere else in Anchorhead to be and nods at the barkeeper. She flashes a coin and jerks her head at a cooling unit that holds several bottles of prepackaged, substandard ale that was probably brewed in somebody’s basement. “One.”
He scowls at her. “Sure you don’t want water?”
“Will it kill me?”
The bartender gives the cooling unit a speculative look. “Might.”
“Then definitely the beer.”
He hauls out a bottle and passes it her way. “Ain’t you a little young to have a death wish?”
Ryn levers off the bottle cap and salutes him as she flicks the coin his way. “I look good for my age.”
The bartender snorts and turns back to his business, not unduly concerned about the welfare of a stranger, and Ryn tips up the bottle and endures a long pull. The flavor is somewhere between distilled liquor and industrial paint thinner, so probably it isn’t actually anything she’s used to calling beer, but she’s not convinced that this is important right now.
What might be is that Obi-Wan Kenobi is here, now, on this very planet. Chased him half-way around the Outer Rim, using every hunting technique and underhanded anti-discovery skill she’s learned in twenty-five fucking years of training for, apparently, exactly this: to find her best friend’s mentor hiding in plain sight on Anakin’s fucking home planet.
The sheer audacity of the plan should have led her to him immediately, of course. This is just the kind of crazy thing Obi-Wan would have done -- the kind of thing Skywalker-and-Kenobi would have done -- back in the old days. Before Kenobi decided that killing his brother was the solution to everybody’s problems.
As if that could put the fucking galaxy back together again.
There is no chance in hell that Obi-Wan doesn’t know she’s here. He probably sensed it the minute she came out of hyperspace, insystem. Ryn almost doesn’t hang around to see if he’s going to try and kill her, too, just for taking Anakin’s side when Ferus finally found her again. (She tries not to hold it against Kenobi that he never came for her himself, that year and a half when she was being tortured to the brink of death and then dragged back again, over and over and over again ... but it’s an uphill battle, and she’s got more of those already than she knows how to fight.) But even if he doesn’t really deserve the chance to explain himself -- and what could either of them possibly say to convince the other, anyway? -- Ryn sticks it out because Padmé Amidala died pregnant but wasn’t buried that way, her death records have been erased so extensively even Ferus couldn’t sort them out, and Bail Organa is raising a mysterious adoptive daughter with an absolutely blinding Force-presence.
Ryn doesn’t believe in coincidence, not any more.
So when she feels the concentration of energy that suggests Force-use gathering behind her, she picks up her drink and turns casually, lifting the bottle in Obi-Wan’s general direction. “It’s been a long time.”
~*~*~*~
Ryn is standing at the bar when he walks in, nursing one of the horrendous local drinks he’s never been able to explain: masquerading as really bad beer, but far more alcoholic, and probably dangerous to any living organism. If it’s cauterizing Ryn’s insides, though, she doesn’t give any sign.
She’s different, and yet so much the same his heart catches in his chest. She’s cut her hair above her shoulders, and she’s wearing it loose now; and her weariness rides closer to the surface. But her shorter hair is the same jet-black it always was, she still carries herself with the same effortless grace, and when she rolls her hips against the bar to turn and face him, the ironic twist to her mouth is so familiar it strips away the years and drops them back on Borsana Terce or some such place.
“It’s been a long time,” she greets him, and Obi-Wan stiffens his spine.
“Not nearly long enough,” he says. “What brings you out here?”
Ryn tilts an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “That’s no way to greet an old friend, Master Kenobi. And you’re a hard man to find.”
“That was on purpose,” Obi-Wan says tightly. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” Ryn swirls the noxious liquid in her bottle, takes a swig. “Mission accomplished.”
Obi-Wan gives her his most severe stare, but that never did much good, even when she was a scrappy little teenager. Ryn is hard to ruffle. “I’ve seen you on the news.”
Ryn sips again. “Have you, now?” she asks drily -- probably because she’s on the HoloNet more than Vader. No one can say she hasn’t made the Empire look better. (It’s one of many things Obi-Wan resents her for.)
“You are supporting the Empire,” he accuses her.
“I am supporting Vader,” Ryn corrects him, as though there is a difference. She waves her bottle at the bar behind her. “Buy you a drink?”
Obi-Wan feels the corners of his eyes narrowing, even though Ryn has always insisted it’s his tell. “I don’t drink with criminals.”
Ryn’s jaw hardens. “That’s my line.”
“You think because what you’re doing is legal, that makes it right?”
“It makes it non-criminal,” Ryn answers, bitingly. “And you don’t know what I’ve been doing. Not if you’ve been getting your information from the HoloNet.”
There’s a ring of truth in her words, under the insult. Obi-Wan sizes her up again, tests her resonance in the Force. She’s darker than she used to be, but it’s mostly sadness. And it’s Ryn, but ...
“He doesn’t know I’m here,” she says softly, and Obi-Wan blinks, startled, because somehow he hadn’t thought to ask, even though the fear of Vader’s arrival has been scrabbling at the edges of his mind ever since she landed in Mos Eisley.
He meets her eyes, sees an unexpected vulnerability there, and remembers that this is the same girl who strapped herself into an outrageous sequined evening dress and went to a heinous Senate ball with him so he wouldn’t have to face Satine all alone. (He ended up ditching Ryn with an overenthusiastic Corellian so he could see Satine alone after all.)
The same girl who was waiting with the airspeeder when the almost-tryst turned into a fight. (She dragged him to a terrible bar in a worse part of town where they met Anakin and all three of them got far more drunk than responsible leaders should.)
“Let’s ... go back to my place and talk about it.”
~*~*~*~
On second thought, inviting Ryn back to his place was probably a mistake. She’s Vader’s personal assistant, for stars’ sake; Obi-Wan is gambling with not just his own life, and Luke’s, but the fate of the galaxy. And besides ... it’s not like he’s really set up for entertaining.
But Ryn sits at his bare kitchen table and takes careful sips of metallic-tasting water, and they don’t talk about it, because really there’s nothing to say, and he can’t tell her the things that matter.
Ryn probably guesses most of them anyway.
“There were twins, weren’t there?” she asks eventually, and Obi-Wan hesitates just a second before nodding.
She sniffs once and smiles sadly into her cup. “Anakin would have been so happy.”
~*~*~*~
In retrospect, talking about Anakin was probably a mistake. Because if they hadn’t both missed him so damn much -- in very different ways -- then they wouldn’t have felt the need to comfort each other. And if they hadn’t felt the need to comfort each other, Ryn would never have reached out and touched Obi-Wan’s hand on the tabletop. And if Ryn hadn’t touched his hand, Obi-Wan probably wouldn’t have dragged her half-way across the table to get his hands in her hair and kiss her mouth bruised.
And if he hadn’t dragged her off the table and into his lap, she definitely wouldn’t have tugged his robes loose and dumped them on the floor.
After that, Obi-Wan’s memories are a little fuzzy. He has the feeling, watching Ryn strap her utility belt on in the already-golden morning light, that she may remember their evening a little more clearly, and it strikes him that this is probably a bad thing.
Talking about Anakin in the morning is definitely a mistake.