Rating: PG
Pairing: Obi/Ami Spoilers: Post ROJ
Summary: Come what may, the past has a way of affecting the future
Archive: Okay anywhere, just let me know!
Disclaimer: Not mine. The characters are GL's, the songs belong to their respective owners, identified in my earlier stories. Nothing here, except the plot, is mine.
Notes: The conclusion to my angsty Obi/Ami series. This one is set from Luke and Leia's point of view, and you probably should have read the previous five stories to understand where and why the song lyrics fit in. They are up at various sites, including Fanfiction.net, under "SaraC" stories. This has been a wonderful series to write and the feedback has been incredible. Hope you like my ending, with kudos to "Moulin Rouge" and thanks again for bearing with me this far. Now, enjoy!
Luke smiled as he and Leia made their way up the deserted desert path that led to the once and former home of Ben Kenobi.
"It's just as I left it, how long ago that seems," Luke murmured, looking around him fondly.
"He lived here all those years by himself, it must have been a lonely existence," Leia mused softly as her brother smiled at her.
"From what he told me, he didn't mind much. I think he was content to wait, for me and for what he would call his destiny," Luke replied, a wistful tone in his voice as he remembered his fallen friend.
Ben's presence was everywhere in his small home.
Funny how he had never noticed it until its occupant, its life force, was gone.
"You okay?" Leia asked, coming to stand next to him as he gazed around the small front room.
"Fine, just remembering the first time I ever came here, and learned about you, and our father," he replied quietly, knowing Leia would understand his feelings better than anyone.
"Did he tell you much, about me or him?" she asked curiously, looking around the small dwelling.
Luke sighed.
"Nothing more than that you were a princess and needed my help," he offered wryly as his sister smiled.
"He also told me Darth Vader killed our father, but he never spoke much about life before that, and certainly not about Anakin Skywalker being Darth Vader. I still feel as if I know nothing about Ben's history, or our father's or mother's," he answered sadly as Leia sighed.
"You know the most important thing, that all of them loved us, especially Ben," she whispered quietly, the Force singing through her veins with that truth.
"That was never in question," she continued. "I never got the chance to meet him, but from birth, from our mother to my adopted father, I was always told what a great man and General he was. To go to him if I ever needed help. Our mother seemed especially adamant about that, from the little I can remember," she mused, sighing as the hazy memories surfaced.
"I wish I had even those faint memories, I would have liked to have known her," Luke whispered softly as Leia hugged him tightly.
"I wish I had known her better too, so I could tell you more about her, but I remember so little," she offered as they stood in silence for a few moments.
Finally, Luke sighed and moved towards the small bedroom.
"I suppose we shouldn't linger, I just wanted to gather a few things I left here when I went to rescue you and Han," he offered quietly, moving towards the small sleeping chamber.
It was just as he remembered it, sparsely decorated, nothing more than the blanket lying over a mattress, several data pads and crystals sitting on the long bedside table, along with the tools he had used to build his lightsaber, what seemed so long ago.
That was what he had come back for.
He wanted to be able to show his children how to create a Jedi's weapon.
He needed Ben's tools to do that, and to keep the elder Jedi's memory alive.
Luke was determined that his children would know their history, and the part Ben had played in it.
Even if he was not sure he would ever know how big a part that was.
"You lived here for a time?" Leia asked quietly, as Luke nodded.
"I was recovering from my loss to Vader, and you and Han were prisoners of Jabba's. I needed time to recover, to build a new lightsaber, and to think about everything I had done. What better place to do it than where Ben had spent most of his later years," he murmured quietly, looking around at the place that had been Ben's solitude before it had become his.
Nothing had changed.
He smiled to himself, feeling the usual sadness that came with the memories of Ben, and his own long journey to reach where he was at this moment in time.
"What's this?"
He turned to find Leia tugging at something next to the bed.
"What's what?" he asked, moving towards her as she attempted to dislodge the small drawer in the bedside table.
"This drawer, it was sitting at an odd angle, it caught my eye a moment ago, and something told me to investigate," she mused, smiling in triumph as the drawer unjammed and slid easily into her hands.
"Funny, I never really looked to see what was inside," he responded as he settled next to her on the bed to peruse the contents.
"You had other things on your mind at the time," Leia replied lightly as she began to sift through the items.
The siblings paused as they felt a tremor in the Force around them.
"Something, or someone, wanted us to find this," Leia murmured.
Luke felt a lump grow in his throat as he caught sight of the drawer's meager contents, so few things, but things obviously well loved and cared for.
"Is that a lightsaber?" Leia asked, pulling out a familiar looking cylindrical silver object, testing the weight and feel of it in her hands. "Something is different about this one though," she mused, handing it to Luke.
He looked at it for a moment, feeling the power humming around him growing.
"I don't think it was Ben's, or our father's for that matter, but it was a Jedi's. Someone powerful I believe," he offered, carefully placing the weapon on the floor, curious about its owner.
"Someone Ben knew perhaps? Maybe his Master?" Leia offered as Luke frowned.
"He never spoke of his Master, I never thought to ask," he whispered as Leia placed a gentle hand on his arm.
"Again, you had other things to worry and think about at the time, I'm sure he understood," she replied, earning a smile from her sibling.
"I hope you are right," he mused as he pulled out several odd looking metal pieces.
"What are those? They look kind of like Threepio's eyes," Leia stated with a smile as they sorted through the bits and pieces of metal.
"They look like some kind of droid parts, very primitive though," her brother observed.
"Luke, look at this," Leia whispered softly as she pulled out a leather bound book.
"What is it?" Luke asked, moving closer to his sister as she ran her hands over the soft cover, worn with age.
"I think it's a diary," she replied, carefully opening the book and glancing at the first page. "Our mother's diary, hand written in old fashioned script," she finished quietly, looking up at the stunned expression on Luke's face.
"Ben had our mother's diary? And he never told me?" Luke asked in confusion, feeling hurt that his mentor had not seen fit to tell him of this.
"I'm sure it wasn't something he was thinking about, he had to worry about your training, and getting you away from here, it would have been easy to see how it slipped his mind," she offered quietly.
Luke simply nodded, running his fingers across the now yellowed pages as Leia opened the diary to the first page filled with a delicate handwriting.
"Shall I read it?" she asked, getting an eager nod from her brother.
Taking a deep breath, she began to read what their mother had written.
Goodbye to you.
Goodbye to everything, that I knew.
You were the one I loved,
The one thing that I tried to hold onto.They were silent as Leia's voice trailed off.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other, amazed at what they had just learned.
"She was in love with Ben? All that time? Even when she was married to our father?" Luke asked, stunned at the emotion that filled the simple words written on the page by the woman who had given them life.
"How horrible it must have been for her. So torn, marrying the man she loved in some way, but kept apart from the man she truly loved. You can hear her heartbreak in her words," Leia whispered sadly as a tear slipped down her cheek.
"It sounds like Ben was in love with her as well, despite the pain it must have caused them both, knowing our father could never know about their love," Luke murmured as he tried to absorb what this knowledge meant.
"She sounds so anguished, describing the night of her engagement. How it must have torn at both of them. It's so sad," Leia whispered, mind picturing the scenario of two forbidden lovers fighting their attraction for each other.
"But she loved Ben enough to give him up, to marry our father, to give us a future," Luke murmured softly as Leia sighed.
"Let's keep reading, I want to know what happened," she murmured, picking up the diary again.
I can't take the distance,
I can't take the miles.
I can't take the time until the next time I see you smile.
I can't take the distance."She must have been so confused and hurt when Anakin began to turn on her, and in some way, on us," Leia managed through the lump in her throat.
She wiped away the tear she hadn't been able to hold back as she had read her mother's words, describing the fear and pain of losing her husband.
"Thank God she had Ben there to get her through it. Despite everything, at least they had each other," Luke murmured, still trying to comprehend that Ben, Old Ben Kenobi, Tatooine hermit and recluse, Jedi Knight and General, had been in love with their mother.
"And from what our mother says, they had a love that no one, not even our father's turning, could destroy," Leia murmured around the lump in her throat.
"But the guilt must have been terrible," Luke replied, pointing to a particularly moving paragraph. "See how tormented she sounds, trying to be there to help her husband, but needing Ben to get through herself," he murmured.
"I'm sure the guilt was unbearable. After all, she was married to his friend and Padawan, but she still loved him, which must have driven them both crazy," Leia noted as Luke frowned.
"They must have also worried about Anakin finding out, worried that if he did, it might lead him down the dark path, they both would have felt responsible," her brother finished as Leia sighed.
"Not to mention our mother not being able to tell Anakin about his children. I don't want to think about what could have happened to us, and to our mother if Ben hadn't convinced her to keep her pregnancy a secret," Leia murmured, shivering at the thought.
"How much she must have loved Ben to brave all that alone," Luke murmured as he picked up the diary and began to read where they had left off.
I can be your hero baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
I will stand by you forever,
You can take my breath away."Our father killed all the remaining Jedi, all his former friends and teachers?" Luke whispered in a broken voice, surprised he could still be shocked and horrified at anything their father had done as Darth Vader.
Leia reached over and squeezed his hand.
"He was not Anakin Skywalker then, he was Darth Vader. A completely different person, you have to believe that," she whispered quietly, seeing the pain fade slightly from her brother's eyes.
"But Ben, he must have suffered so greatly, loosing the only family he had ever known, feeling as if he had failed," Luke whispered, suddenly understanding the comments here and there that Ben had made about his 'failures.'
"But at least they had each other, and it sounds like that was the only thing that got them through, that allowed us to survive," Leia responded, squeezing his hand tightly.
"She sounds so lonely, so desperate for Ben to be there, even though it must have meant risking everything for him to come to her," Luke replied, leaning back as Leia again began to read aloud.
No one's gonna harm you,
No one's gonna dare.
Demons'll charm you for a while,
But in time,
Nothing can harm you,
Not while I'm around.The tears were flowing freely down both of their cheeks as she finished.
"They gave up so much for us Leia," Luke muttered hoarsely. "Their love, then us, and then their lives," he finished, seeing the understanding dawn in her eyes.
"But they did the right thing. As painful as it must have been to split us apart, to leave each other, they did it. For us to have a future, at the sake of their present," she whispered, brushing away another tear.
Luke remained silent, still absorbing his mother's words.
Reading between the lines, able to see and feel Ben's reaction as well.
"It devastated him as well, just from how she describes their goodbye, he must have been heartbroken, and then he had to give me to my Aunt and Uncle," Luke mused, suddenly understanding the happiness he'd noticed in Ben's eyes when he'd woken up after the Sand People had attacked him.
"Then, he must have seen living here alone all those years as his punishment, for what he believed was his failing our father, the woman they loved, and her children," he finished softly, heart aching even more for his lost friend and the suffering he must have known.
"But he didn't fail, don't you see?" Leia replied quietly. "If he hadn't separated us, hadn't left the woman he loved more than life itself, hadn't spent all those years here, watching over you, both of us would not be here, I'm sure of that," she stated fiercely as Luke sighed.
"I wonder how he managed, knowing our mother and you were on another planet, and I was being raised by people determined not to let me know who I really was," he replied, sighing as he turned back to the diary.
He frowned as he noted there was no more writing.
"Her writing stops here, no word on what happened next, how she and you survived, if she ever heard from Ben again, there's just nothing," her brother whispered, turning the pages, only to find the rest blank.
"Well, we know Ben stayed in his self-imposed exile here, on Tatooine, watching you grow, until the Force brought you two together," she answered as her brother ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
"I still feel like we're missing something though, it just doesn't feel like it should end right there," Luke murmured, standing and walking back over to the now empty slot where the drawer had once been.
Dropping to his knees, he again began searching the space, looking he knew not what for, just something, anything Ben might have left to explain those missing years.
Just as he was about to give up, he felt a breeze sweep through the room.
Being as that it was the middle of the summer on Tatooine and breezes were few and far between, he took notice.
He noted his sister had straightened as well.
"Did you feel that?" Leia asked him, looking around her curiously.
"Yes, and I think," he paused, his hand suddenly brushing across something, wedged tightly into the very back of the empty slot, "I found something."
Leia moved over to him, her curiosity aroused, still shivering slightly from the after effects of the breeze.
"What is it?" she asked, as he pulled out a sheaf of papers, also covered in handwriting.
"I think it's more of our mother's diary," he whispered, handing her the pages which she quickly scanned.
"Actually, I think this is Ben's form of a diary," she whispered in awe, seeing her brother's head rise.
"Ben kept a diary?" he asked curiously as the two settled back down onto the bed to examine the papers.
"It looks like it," she murmured, beginning to skim the words. "These first pages are all about how much he loved our mother, and missed us," she whispered, feeling the tears threaten again.
Luke, reading over her shoulder, also felt a lump in his throat as he read the heartfelt words his friend had put on paper.
"He loved her so much, yet he carried so much guilt," he whispered, the anger and frustration and great guilt Ben had felt leaping off the pages.
"He seemed to carry the burden for everyone," Leia murmured, respect growing for the man who had been determined that she and her mother and brother remained safe.
Even at the cost of his life.
She smiled as she read several more paragraphs.
"He watched over you, and obviously didn't approve of how your uncle was raising you," she teased, laughing at how he described Owen and Beru.
But he could never say anything, not until I was ready to hear it," Luke whispered, again marveling at the things Ben had endured.
For their future and the future of the galaxy.
Leia's eyes clouded as she came to the end of the written pages.
"He knew he was not going to return from your mission to rescue me," she whispered, seeing a tear fall down her brother's cheek as he read the heartfelt words of his friend and teacher.
"But he seemed so calm about it, no fear or anything, just acceptance. And this great love, for our mother and for us and even for our father," he whispered.
You're in the arms, of the angels.
May you find some comfort there."He was ready to go," Leia offered with a small smile, finding it difficult to speak through her tears. "He had done what he had promised our mother, taken care of you, led us to each other and set us on the path to our destiny, then he faced his," she finished quietly.
The two sat in silence for a few more moments, absorbing the tale of their past.
"They loved each other so much, he was ready to join her, to finally be with her, together, like he had always wanted," Luke murmured, as Leia nodded and wiped her eyes.
"Theirs might have been a forbidden love, but a great one none the less. I truly hope they are happy together, and have made peace with our father," she whispered, leaning against her brother as he sighed.
"Ben once told me that there was no death, only the Force, that we would all return to it when we died," Luke mused as Leia smiled softly.
"Then I believe he and our mother are together now, with our father and the other Jedi, at peace, watching over us," she replied, feeling the air vibrating around them.
Luke suddenly found himself staring intently at the corner of the room, blinking his eyes as he began to see shapes form from the air around them.
"Leia, look," he whispered, pointing to the corner where he could now clearly see two figures, standing tall and proud, arms around each other, smiling at them.
"Ben?" Luke murmured as he saw his friend and fellow Jedi smile.
"Mother?" Leia whispered, tears in her eyes as she stared at the shimmering figures.
Luke felt his breath catch as he turned his gaze to the beautiful woman who was smiling at him from Ben's arms.
He knew, without a doubt, it was their mother.
"She's beautiful," he whispered, drinking in the face he'd always dreamed about seeing.
"They look so happy, they are together," his sister whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek as she watched the silent figures staring at them.
The two suddenly started as other forms began to take shape around them.
"Who are they?" Leia asked, not frightened, just curious at the energy currents flowing through the room.
"Our father," Luke whispered, watching as the tall man came to stand on the other side of Amidala, a smile on his now unscarred face.
"He was handsome," Leia murmured as she gazed upon the man who had wrought such destruction, such pain on those she loved.
She found herself fighting back tears as she finally gazed upon the man whom she had wondered about for such a long time.
"Master Yoda is standing next to him," Luke murmured, as she turned her gaze to see a funny little creature, holding a strange stick and wearing a small smile.
"The others must be Jedi," he whispered, in awe at the faces smiling back at them.
"They were waiting for us, waiting for us to find this diary, our history," Leia whispered softly.
Luke looked at her and nodded, turning back once more to take a last look at his family and friends.
"Now they can go, knowing we know the truth, knowing we know they are at peace," he whispered, feeling the lump in his throat grow as the shimmering images began to fade.
The two remained silent as the figures disappeared as quickly as they'd come.
After a few moments, Luke's sigh broke the silence.
"I think that was our cue to go," he whispered, seeing his sister nod.
"They can rest now, as can we," she replied, letting him help her from her seat on the bed.
When they had both straightened, Luke reached for their mother's diary, opening it to the final page and tucking Ben's writings into the back.
"Let's go," he stated softly, smiling as she slipped her arm around his waist and let him guide her towards the door. When they reached it, she smiled, leaning up to press a kiss against his cheek.
"I'll be outside," she whispered, knowing he needed a private moment to say his goodbyes.
He smiled as she left him, turning to gaze once more around the now barren home.
"Thanks Ben, for giving us a future," he whispered, feeling the Force surge around him.
He knew all was now right.
Then, clutching the diary in both hands, he followed his sister out the door, and into their future.
***
Two ghostly figures watched them disappear from view from the doorway of Ben's old home.
"They know their past, and now will be able to face their future," Obi-Wan whispered to the woman in his arms.
"It has been a difficult journey, but in the end, all is as it should be. They are remarkable children, aren't they?" Amidala whispered, wiping away a tear as she snuggled back against her love.
"That they are, they come from good stock," he replied softly, smiling at the tall man standing just off to their right, engaged in a conversation with Qui-Gon.
Amidala smiled at Anakin, amazed that he had actually accepted and understood their feelings for each other.
She was still his Angel, and the mother of his children.
But now, he was her friend.
It was the relationship she'd always wanted with him, open and caring and loving.
And now, she was free to be with the man she had always loved.
No guilt, no pain, just simply living and loving.
"It's not been an easy road, but I think we've followed its winding path quite well," she whispered as Obi-Wan placed a kiss against her shoulder.
"And in the end, you and I got our happy ending, we get to be together, for eternity," he finished.
She sighed as she leaned back against him.
"Ours is truly a story about love," she whispered as he drew her back towards the light shining behind them.
"A love that will last forever," he whispered, placing a gentle kiss on her lips as he pulled her with him into the light and back into their forever.
***
The End
(Well, rather sappy, but did it work?)
