Archive of Our Own ^beta

Getting taken hostage was the kind of risk one accepted when they became a prominent figure in a galactic war—well, as much as any of them had actually had a choice in the matter of their conscription—but the knowledge that it was always a possibility didn’t make its eventual happening any less traumatizing, and semi-frequent repetition of the experience did not make it any more of a bearable one. In the beginning, Obi-Wan had done his best to comport himself as any respectable Jedi Master should. In the slightly later beginning, he had settled for comporting himself as he usually did; as any respectable Jedi Master should, plus a tad more sarcasm than that Master would find necessary or appropriate. Further on, he found maintaining even that much civility a struggle. Even further on, he found maintaining any conversation at all even more of a struggle. Even further on, and even further on, he never dared use more specific terminology than that. He’d lost count of the hours-days-weeks some large, nebulous quantity of time ago, so he couldn’t define time by how much of it had already elapsed, and with no end in sight, there was no such thing as “halfway through.” He knew that one way or another his suffering would have to come to an end eventually, but with no way of knowing when that end might be, he didn’t want to give himself any sort of subconscious false hope. It just went on and on and on, and whenever he thought he’d found some measure of peace with the hand he’d been dealt, his captors found some other way to make things ever so slightly worse for him and the process began again. Which brought him to today: wrists cracked, bleeding, and aching from the cuffs, lips cracked, bleeding, and aching from biting them in a doomed attempt to keep from crying out, and the rest of him cracked, bleeding, and aching from the tender attentions of a group of furious sentients who seemed to have no purpose in their lives other than to make him suffer. 

As had become routine—as much as anything timed deliberately erratically to throw off his internal clock could be deemed “routine”—his captors sent in someone to visit him. In his previous experience, this tended to be done to “encourage him to talk,” but his current captors didn’t bother to ever attempt conversation. Whatever they were after, it wasn’t information. Was it torture for the sake of torture? How depressingly mundane. 

Today was a blunt force day. Better than a blade day in that the pain was duller and more evenly dispersed, making it easier to drift out of his own mind and bodily awareness until he could barely feel it, but worse in that his captors knew it was less likely to result in accidental fatality than a knife would be and therefore cheerfully exercised far less restraint. In this aspect, at least, his captors were entirely unoriginal. Nothing being done to him was something he’d never known before, but that did not make the minutes it took for him to gather himself well enough to sink into meditation any less agonizing. Already-tender areas were tenderized again, broken bones were shattered further, and slowly-healing cuts were split back open until he was bloody enough an outsider would never have guessed the weapons used against him today weren’t sharp enough to cut his hair, much less his skin. Still, though, it remained nothing new. He forced himself under, deep enough into meditation that he would be unable to bring himself back up for hours. Dangerous in any other circumstance and something all Jedi were taught better than to do, but here and now? Yes, it meant he couldn’t revive himself if he needed to, cutting off an escape route most would never deprive themselves of, but he didn’t care—it also meant no one else could drag him back to full consciousness, either. 

He would survive. He always did, after all. It was only pain, and he had felt it before. He could bury himself in the Force, release all sensation of his own crude matter, and he would make it through. 

After several hours—or so he assumed, based on the quantity of fresh bruising and the shakiness he felt from blood loss as he slowly returned to coherence—he drifted awake again as a handful of the deepest cuts were tended to. This was not a kindness. His captors did not treat his wounds because they wished for him to heal or feel better, or out of any desire to adhere to the galactic rules of warfare and humane prisoner treatment. No, they simply knew that without some amount of medical care, he would die sooner rather than later, and they wished to keep him suffering for as long as possible. 

“—less than usual today. You should be grateful.”

The being crouched next to him treating the cuts most likely to get infected was rambling again, another variation on his usual monologue. Obi-Wan always did his best to tune it out. Reacting in any way would just provoke him, making things worse, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. 

He swept his ointment-covered hand across Obi-Wan’s upper thigh without any regard to direction, dragging the separated skin farther apart, and Obi-Wan choked on a sharp inhalation. His caretaker’s eyes snapped up.

“So you are awake. That didn’t sound very grateful to me.” 

Obi-Wan did not reply.

“You know, things would probably go better for you if you’d learn how to show some respect. You don’t need to make things worse for yourself.”

No, Obi-Wan didn’t need to make things worse. They would get worse all on their own, whether he asked them to or not. He knew what was coming soon, what always came last in the cycle of horrors; after the physical torture, then the medical treatment, then the isolation. It was, unfortunately, the one area in which his captors were original. 

The man snorted slightly, straightening slightly to begin work on a battered section of Obi-Wan’s shoulder. He wrapped the bandages tight, too tight, creating a throbbing pressure that would stop him from bleeding out only because it was stopping his circulation almost entirely.

“Not that you can really make things better. You’re not getting out of here any time soon. Or ever.”

With a different captor, on a different day, Obi-Wan would be quipping about how he’d been taken hostage in the past, and by much better conversationalists with much better hospitality, too! But he’d been held here for far too long for that, and no matter the conversational skills of his previous captors, there was one area in which they just couldn’t compare: this was the closest that any of the many who had tried had ever come to breaking him. 

“We were surprised you never tried to escape. You know no one is coming to rescue you, right?” 

Another pause, waiting for a response that Obi-Wan refused to give, and he shook his head. He straightened up, patting the shoulder he’d just bandaged. Obi-Wan gritted his teeth against another gasp.

“Well, that’s my job done. See you next time.”

The man left the room and Obi-Wan finally let himself relax slightly, shifting until he found the position that put the least weight on the most sensitive areas. With the constantly shifting landscape of injuries adorning his body, that most comfortable position was a different one every day, and finding it was the world’s most uncomfortable game of hide and seek. He did his best to enjoy the reprieve from constant chatter, but it was difficult when he knew the next part of the cycle: isolation. He would spend a seemingly endless span of time alone in a way humans, as a social species, and Jedi, as a highly empathic people who thrived when connecting with other life forms, sentient and nonsentient alike, were never meant to be, trapped with nothing but his thoughts until he worried he would lose whatever scraps of sanity he was still clinging to by the tips of his shredded fingertips. It would get so severe that he missed the torture. Well, the physical torture—the solitary confinement was its own form of psychological torture, and no amount of suffering could ever make him miss the psychic torture that would follow before the cycle began again, but if there were someone in the room with him, splitting his skin open with their knives or their fists, at least that would mean there was someone there. He could feel a life in the Force—one that glowed instead of flickering like his own. Just as he celebrated the peace of his captors leaving before the pain of abandonment set in, he would celebrate the return of his captors before the pain of their presence returned. The cycle would continue and continue. Obi-Wan really didn’t know how many cycles he had left in him, just as he was no longer sure how many cycles he’d already endured. 

It was true enough that no one would be coming for him. He knew his men would try, of course. Had definitely already tried. Were likely still trying. At one point, he had been grateful that he’d been taken alone. None of his troopers had been captured alongside him; everything he had to bear was his and his alone, and he would suffer it a thousand times over if it meant that he would be the only one to suffer. That had been an indeterminable amount of time ago, though. Now, he lacked the energy to be grateful for anything, and a tiny, secret, shameful part of him buried deep in the back of his mind whispered that if even a single one of his men had been taken as well, the technology in their helmet and vambraces would have enabled them to be tracked and perhaps they would have been rescued before being brought so low. (That same part tempted him to wish for company for other reasons—a friendly face, a reassuring word or two in a comfortingly familiar voice, perhaps even a touch meant to soothe the pain instead of worsen it—but that was the exact kind of wishful thinking he was trying to avoid. The comfort a loved one could offer was never worth the harm they would suffer, and dreaming of their presence only hurt more in the long run. Past experience had taught him that.)

And so the time passed, and Obi-Wan was alone.

And so the time passed. 

And so the time passed. 

<>II<>

Unfortunately, Obi-Wan’s current captors were original in exactly one way, and it just so happened to be the worst possible way in which they could have been unique. Most of the galaxy knew very little about the bond between Jedi and their sabers and thus, any mental harm caused through the bond was, while miserable, entirely coincidental. He didn’t know who had educated these people—or if that education had been deliberate and consensual or largely through trial and miserable error—but they clearly had been educated: every move they made with his saber was precisely calculated to give him the most pain. Compared to this, physical torture was comfortable. He’d rather a lifetime of physical pain than this violation, but unfortunately, they did not offer him the choice. 

He remembered the conversation he’d had with his men in the mess hall, what seemed like forever ago now. About the way his saber reacted to people and what it implied about their compatibility. He’d compared it to colors, different souls complementing each other like different shades. What he hadn’t gone into was that the connection went both ways. No matter how many other people interacted with his saber, their bond remained intact; on some level, those people were interacting with him, too. When his troopers were passing his saber around, testing their reactions (and ranking “most and least not his soulmate,” for some reason), he didn’t feel much. It was a quick touch, not done with any sort of intent, and frankly, none of them had an exceptionally strong compatibility with him or his saber. He felt Hunch, obviously, in the sort of courtesy-notice that he got when any Force-sensitive touched his saber regardless of compatibility, but other than that, he would have had to actively seek them out using his saber as a conduit. But when someone did have a strong compatibility, it was impossible to miss. 

When someone perfectly suited for him held his saber it felt like they were holding his soul in the palm of their hands, clutching it close to their chest, and he could close his eyes and rest for a moment, basking in the knowledge that he was safe. Cherished. Warm. Someone had him and they would not let him go. The weight of the world could fall off of his shoulders for just a moment and everything would be okay. 

But equally impossible to miss, just as impactful but in the opposite direction, was a strong incompatibility. Obi-Wan liked to think of himself as a rather tolerant person and his saber reflected that. There were very few people he’d found himself to be genuinely incompatible with on a soul-deep level. He tended to handle most disagreements with patience, grace, and his sparkling wit. It was rare that he encountered someone he truly couldn’t negotiate with. But those people were out there, and the longer the war lasted, the more frequent those encounters became, and the more he met with them, the more they wore him down. Though he braced himself against it, he knew there would come a day when he fell to someone he would normally have been able to stand against. 

When his captors touched his saber, they were able to overpower all of the shields he normally had in place against such personal infringement. The sheer strength of their hatred, their wholehearted malicious intent, combined with unrestricted access to his saber—and oh, how he sometimes cursed the strength of their connection, the way it could be used against him, an unlocked back door into his mind—meant that after days upon days of their cycle of torture, he no longer had the strength to defend himself from the mental attacks. This was the dreaded fourth stage of the cycle: physical torture, the bare minimum of medical attention, isolation, then psychic abuse. They had his lightsaber and took a perverse joy in making sure he knew it. For minutes, hours, days on end, they put their filthy hands all over it, pawing at the casing until he could feel their grimy fingerprints seared into his soul. They dug their nails into the seams, dragged their fingers through every ridge along the hilt, violated every inch in a mockery of the kind of thorough care he knew he ought to give it more often. It was ironic, really. When Cody polished his saber with this same attention to detail, he made sure it was as clean as it was possible for such a war-torn weapon to be. Now, Obi-Wan had never felt more unclean in his life, and it was a filth no amount of scrubbing in the sonic could wash away. It was like spiders crawling underneath his skin, maggots wiggling their way through the ventricles of his heart, moths fighting to escape the confines of his lungs. His bones turning to ice and shattering, carving their way out through his skin. Truly, the physical torture could not compare. He could remind himself that that was only pain, it only existed in his body and he was more than just his body. As his master had told him, quoting his own master, who was in turn quoting his master: luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. No amount of damage done to his crude matter would damage what truly made him who he was. But this was far more than that. It was the deepest recesses of his soul being turned inside out and rummaged through, some part of him that was never meant to see the light of day being sadistically groped by an enemy. It was his darkest fears being mocked, his innermost secrets being shared, his blood solidifying then crumbling in his veins. It was the stuff of nightmares, and even if it stopped immediately, he was unsure if he would ever fully recover.

If time was passing, Obi-Wan was not aware of it. There was no “time” as his soul was being violated. No “seconds” or “minutes” or “hours.” There was nothing but suffering and the distant knowledge that though this would eventually end, sooner rather than later it would start again. 

<>II<>

In each of the previous iterations of the cycle, when his tormentors grew bored of torture they could not see the effects of and left him alone for the night—by which he meant, left him alone for a period of time which he tried and failed to use for some desperately-needed sleep—the pain did not just go away. It stopped getting worse, and slowly, when he’d recovered some energy, he was able to start piecing himself back together, but it was still there. It would take a lot more than bandages to heal a wounded soul, but with enough time, enough meditation somewhere safe, maybe even help from someone his saber didn’t scream at the touch of, he could get there eventually. The thought was unhelpful, however, when still trapped in a cell without access to any of those requirements. 

Today, though, something was different. The pain wasn’t just paused, it was… fading? Resolving. The bone-deep chill that had left him too cold to even shiver was receding, and it wasn’t even being replaced with a nothingness that wasn’t really much better. It was almost… warm. 

Was this what dying felt like? Obi-Wan had read about something similar in a survival class he’d taken back as a Padawan. It was years and years ago, but he never quite managed to forget the vivid descriptions used, and they’d haunted him in his quiet, vulnerable moments for years after. It was a well-documented phenomenon that when a creature freezes to death, as a desperate, last-ditch attempt to warm itself, the body can dilate blood vessels. This is the cause of paradoxical undressing: victims of hypothermia removing their clothing because they suddenly feel overheated. He’d thought there was something so desperately, viscerally human about it, the way they helped the thing killing them kill them faster out of a desire for comfort at the very end, and something poetic, too: if, in their final moments, they feel that devastating warmth, then does anyone ever actually die of cold?  

Obi-Wan did not feel cold. He didn’t even feel particularly like he was dying. He felt suddenly, blissfully—warm wasn’t quite the word, not quite enough, it was more like cozy. Like shared body heat under indulgently soft blankets, like fresh cups of tea being slipped onto his desk before he’d even noticed that his previous cup had run out. 

There might have been tears slowly tracing their way down his cheeks, but that was fine.

So this was it, then. There was nothing else that it could be. They’d finally broken him and now he was dying. He was becoming one with the Force and it felt like home and love and welcome and all the things he’d nearly forgotten about throughout the war and then during his time in captivity. Any guilt he might normally have felt was swept gently away. He had been so strong for so long. He deserved to rest, and the warmth was telling him it was finally okay to do so. He could let go. He could drift away. 

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and succumbed.

<>II<>

Across hundreds of military and civilian vessels staffed by tens of thousands of people, one thing was universal: medbays were never silent. They had a very specific kind of white noise pieced together from machinery whirring and beeping, medics carrying on quiet conversations, and other patients rustling their beds, all underscored by the sharp antiseptic smell that was a key part of the ambiance. Within the GAR, medbays all had the same mattresses as well: the crunchy, barely-cushioned model that was easiest and cheapest to mass-produce. Obi-Wan had spent enough time in medbays to recognize when he was in one before he’d even opened his eyes, and enough time in GAR medbays specifically to recognize the feel of the standard-issue cot beneath him and relax before his brain had even come online enough to process the sounds and smells surrounding him. 

However, the knowledge of where he was did not do much to answer how or why. Last he could remember, he was dying. There was much speculation throughout the galaxy on what he might perceive after such an occurrence, but last he checked, none of those theories involved the taste of bacta, cloying in the back of his throat. He was stiff in the manner of someone who had spent far too long lying on an uncomfortably firm surface, but not quite in the way of someone experiencing rigor mortis. 

But he wasn’t in nearly as much pain as he should have been. Not just physically, either. He no longer felt the painful hesitance of breathing through a broken rib or the stabbing, desperate immobility of shattered bone, but even beyond that—his soul wasn’t shredded anymore. Or, if it was, it was significantly less severely so than it had been. Somehow, something or someone had started the grueling task of stitching it back together. 

He was terrified to know for sure, but he had to. Bracing himself for a resurgence of agony, he reached inside him, searching for his bond with his saber. 

It was fine. More than that, it was better than fine, it was happy. The hours of shrieking on a level no flesh-and-blood creature was ever designed to hear, much less feel rattling their skull like a tuning fork pressed harshly straight against the bone, were over, replaced with… purring? It was hesitant, hitching as though it could scarcely believe its own existence, but. His saber was no longer in the hands of someone who would destroy it as a means of destroying its wielder. It was safe, it was being cared for, it was cherished, it was… barely a few steps away from him?

Obi-Wan jolted upright, eyes flying open before immediately clenching shut again, blinded by the harsh lights. Somehow, no matter how many times he woke up in a hospital or medbay after an indeterminable amount of time, he never remembered not to do that. An alarm began to sound, followed by footsteps. A thousand little aches and sorenesses made themselves known with his movement and Obi-Wan groaned slightly, head sinking back into the pillow beneath it. As strange as it seemed, the pain made him feel better; after everything he’d been through, waking painlessly in the care of his trusted medics with his saber safe beside him was entirely too good to be true. He would never believe he was actually free and awake. This, though—the burn of a body that had undergone a very thorough treatment but could only heal so fast—this was real. This was the proof he’d been searching for that he was still alive. 

The footsteps approached the bed. 

“Still alive?”

Obi-Wan smiled slightly as he relaxed further. Generally, having one’s medic be the first voice they heard when they woke would be a bad sign, but this time he didn’t mind it at all. This time, it meant he could know that he was safe. 

“It would appear so.”

A sudden clatter next to him made him open his eyes again and he turned toward the sound. Cody was sitting by his bedside working on a datapad, and apparently had been for long enough to let the ambient noise of the medbay fade entirely into the background, medical alarms included—until Obi-Wan’s voice startled him so badly he jolted forward and dropped the datapad off of his lap. He stared at Obi-Wan, eyes wide and shocked.

“Sir—”

“Are you feeling any pain?”

Helix cut Cody off. Cody sat back slightly in his chair but didn’t take his eyes off of Obi-Wan’s face. It took a concerted effort for Obi-Wan to look away from him to respond to the medic. 

“Less than I would have anticipated, given the circumstances. Your work is excellent, as always, Helix.”

Helix snorted. 

“Not excellent enough for you to be allowed to leave, so don’t bother with the sweet talk. You’re stuck here overnight at least. If I thought you’d actually listen, I’d order you to stay right here for three times that long, but at this point I know you better than that.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.” 

“Then it’s a good thing that in my medbay, I outrank you, General.”

“I suppose you’re correct.” Obi-Wan stretched gently, relishing in the restoration of his ability to do so. Something in his spine popped. “So? What did I miss?”

“Besides your own welcome home party? Nothing much. Some mild injuries during the rescue, but no casualties. Everyone is back to work or close to it. Cody can debrief you. I need to change your bandages.” 

Obi-Wan sat up straighter to give Helix better access, turning to Cody again as he did so. 

“Rude of me to be absent, considering I was likely the guest of honor. How was my party, Commander?”

Cody grinned at him.

“Underwhelming. It took longer to find you than it did to storm the place, and after seeing what we were dealing with, I’m insulted that they managed to get the drop on us in the first place. Our highest priority was rescuing you, so now that that’s done, we’re drifting. No new missions until we’ve reported back that you’re cleared, so most of the men are treating it like shore leave without the shore. It’s been a while since we’ve had a rest day, and since Helix confirmed you were recovering well, no one feels too bad about taking advantage of the opportunity.”

“Of course, I’m always glad to see the men get a chance to relax.”

“Even if it’s at your expense?”

“Oh, especially then! If I can’t enjoy myself, at least someone gets to.”

Helix tucked the last bandage into place and stepped back far enough to glare at Obi-Wan. 

“This does not mean you get to go off and get yourself injured any time one of the men mentions wanting a vacation, got it?”

Obi-Wan made an offended face.

“I’m hurt that you think I would ever do such a reckless thing.”

Helix glared at him but moved on to adjust something on his IV pole. The conversation trailed off for a moment. Focused on running through a mental list of things to check in on as soon as he was cleared for duty (and a few he thought he could get away with inquiring about before he was cleared), it took Obi-Wan a moment to realize the tension in the air. He looked up. 

“....Is something the matter, gentlemen?”

Helix frowned.

“I’d like to discuss the incident with you, General, if you’re feeling up to it. I understand that it might be difficult, but I need a few things cleared up if I’m going to provide sufficient medical care.”

“I can step out if you’d prefer, sir,” said Cody.

Obi-Wan frowned.

“No, there’s no need for that, though I do appreciate the offer. You’ll have access to the mission report once it’s completed regardless, and you are my commander. If anything that happens to me on a mission has the potential to compromise my leadership, or if I need any medical care that could do so, you need to know in order to compensate for my shortcomings. Please, Helix, ask away.”

“I’m not concerned about you having shortcomings, General—” Cody said, but Obi-Wan cut him off.

“Nonsense, it’s a perfectly reasonable concern.”

“My priority—”

“Should of course be our men and our mission. I understand.”

“Sir—”

Helix glared at them. 

“I do not tolerate arguing in my medbay. General, I can’t kick you out. Cody, I can and I will. Deal with this later.” He crossed his arms. “General, sir. You had severe wounds all over your body that indicated several sessions of physical torture. Several broken bones, and we had to operate to remove a shard of rib from your left lung, but all are healing well. I know bedrest is a losing battle, but you are not going to put any weight on your left ankle until I say you can, and no heavy lifting, either.”

Honestly, it was better than Obi-Wan had expected. He wasn’t sure if his captors had been more skilled at avoiding lethal damage than he’d thought, or if it had never been that bad at all and his desperation had caused him to blow it all out of proportion. It would be better not to let Helix find out about that train of thought, though—or Cody, for that matter. He was grateful for his talented team of medics regardless. 

“Other than that, it’s mostly cuts and bruises that have been treated with stitches, bacta, and bandages as applicable. Some were treated already but I don’t trust whoever did it, so I treated them again. I’ve got you on a course of antibiotics, painkillers, and something to improve your blood flow, especially to your hands. They took some damage due to inhibited circulation, both from the cuffs and their position over your head. You’re also on a hydration and nutrient drip; I’m assuming they weren’t generous with food or water. You are technically cleared to have a drink—water only, not tea, especially not any with caffeine—and a simple meal whenever you feel up to it, but some of your medication is known to cause nausea so the drip is sufficient if you’d prefer not to try. Is all of this in line with your experience so far?”

“It is, yes. As always, I appreciate your attentiveness.” 

“The physical damage can all be explained by the circumstances we found you in, and all have been taken care of. I’m concerned about other kinds of damage.”

Here Helix seemed to hesitate, like he was threatening to put his question into words. 

“You may speak bluntly, Helix. What are you concerned about?” Asked Obi-Wan. 

“I’m not really sure, sir. I don’t have the training to deal with non-physical injuries.”

Obi-Wan was surprised. 

“You’re worried about my mental health?”

Helix shook his head. 

“No sir. Or, maybe yes. Your psychic health?”

Oh.

Yes, that made sense. 

Obi-Wan’s mental shields—normally very strong, and a point of pride—had been utterly shredded and would likely take much longer to repair than his physical injuries, and he would have to play it safe and avoid any Force-sensitive opponents (and potentially Anakin—though he meant well, he was often overbearing) in the meantime. This had been achieved through the worst kind of violation that could possibly happen to a Force-sensitive. A lightsaber was a powerful weapon, but it was also a powerful weakness—to bond with a Kyber crystal was to choose to create a key into the deepest depths of oneself and then carry that key around for the world to see. It was a risk that most Jedi chose to take, but even though circumstances like the one he’d found himself in were definitely possible, the idea was so anathema to them that for most, it could never cross their mind that their bond with their saber could be perverted in such a way. 

Obi-Wan just happened to be one of the unlucky very, very few. 

“Sir?”

He’d hesitated for too long. 

“Yes, Helix, my apologies. That is a fair concern. I have been psychically damaged, yes, but it is not the kind of injury you can help me with, I’m afraid.”

“What happened to you, sir? When they brought you in, you were delirious. I’ve seen you sleep-deprived, concussed, and drugged, but never like that, and then you just passed out. We thought about putting you in a medically-induced coma while the worst healed.”

“Ah, I did think I was surprisingly well-healed from my ordeal. That was a wise decision, since you’re so convinced I’ll attempt to escape your domain at the first opportunity.” Obi-Wan joked, but neither Helix nor Cody cracked a smile. 

“We didn’t end up doing it, sir. Based on your physical healing, you should have woken up days ago, but you just. Didn’t. Your brain scans kept improving, so I decided to just let you sleep it off, so to speak, but I’ll admit we were all starting to get nervous.”

Obi-Wan fidgeted with his blanket. 

“Well. I know you don’t know much about injuries in the Force, but that was the right thing to do. You can’t inject bacta into my soul. Recovery from this sort of thing takes patience, rest, and a lot of meditation with my saber, since it was the means through which the damage was inflicted.”

He paused.

That wasn’t entirely right, was it? His healing was progressing remarkably well, even though he hadn’t been caring for his saber this entire time. He knew that Cody someone else had been caring for it on his behalf, and doing a powerful job of it. Still, though, he ought to reclaim custody of it sooner rather than later, even if just for his own peace of mind. After what he’d been through, no amount of knowing that his saber was in Cody’s good hands would calm his anxieties quite like holding it himself.

“Where is my lightsaber?”

Cody jumped up and immediately offered him the hilt of his weapon.

“My apologies, sir, I should have offered it back to you the second you were awake. I’ve been holding onto it, since you weren’t in a position to do so. I don’t know if there was a procedure I should have followed to take care of your saber after captivity, but if there is, we can discuss it when you’re healed so I, or anyone else involved, know for next time, sir.”

“I appreciate it, Cody, and I assure you, you’ve done nothing wrong,” said Obi-Wan, holding up his palm in a gentle rejection. Perhaps another Jedi in his position would have immediately wanted their saber back, but Obi-Wan did not. There was no safer place in the galaxy for Obi-Wan’s saber—for Obi-Wan’s life—than Cody’s hands. 

Helix’s eyes narrowed as Cody sank slowly back into his seat, rubbing his thumb gently along the casing.

“Would the location of your lightsaber make a difference in your recovery?”

“Oh, yes,” said Obi-Wan. “A huge one, actually. How much do you know about the relationship between a Jedi and their saber? Were you present for my impromptu mess hall lecture series on the topic?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Then I’ll summarize the relevant parts. When we say your lightsaber is your life, that is a lot more literal than most people would assume. Our lightsabers are not just fancy weapons, they are a part of us.” Obi-Wan frowned slightly, staring down at the saber in his hands. “It can be extraordinarily difficult to explain to someone without firsthand experiences with metaphysical connections, but similar to the likening of the Force to an extra sense, think of my lightsaber as like an extra arm. Atypical, but useful. With it, I can accomplish tasks that a human that does not have it cannot. But that does not mean that it is just a tool. If you break it, it will hurt.” 

Cody inhaled sharply. Obi-Wan glanced at him before returning his gaze to the medic. 

“You mean, if someone touches your saber, you can feel it?” 

“Not as directly as a hand on my arm—that’s where the metaphor falls apart—but yes. Jedi are connected to their sabers. They are allies more than they are weapons. To many, they are also very dear friends. Friends with a very limited sentience—depending on the Kyber crystal, the Jedi, and the connection that they share, communication can occur on a very basic level similar to a plant turning to face the nearest sun or on a more nuanced level like a pet that can learn a couple of basic tricks. But Kyber—and therefore lightsabers—are capable of experiencing sensation, which is transmitted to those bonded to them.”

Helix was taking notes. 

“And how strong is your bond with your saber?”

Obi-Wan flushed slightly. 

“Well, that’s a rather personal question to ask, but. Much stronger than average. With the houseplant/pet analogy, my saber is somewhat like a tooka. It is definitely capable of having opinions and not particularly shy about making them known. I believe several of your brothers can verify that, having experienced it firsthand the first time I explained this.”

“You didn’t, though,” Cody cut in. 

Obi-Wan turned to him. 

“Pardon?”

“That day when brothers were passing around your saber, comparing the ways it reacted to them. You explained that the saber could feel them, would have opinions about them holding it, but you didn’t say that you could feel it, too.”

Obi-Wan frowned. 

“Were you there? I don’t recall seeing you.”

He definitely hadn’t been—Obi-Wan had become familiar with his saber’s reaction to Cody over the past few months. It was quite distinctive, and he liked to think that he was a rather intelligent man. It would not have taken him so long to put together where the warmth-safety-peace was coming from if he’d first felt it while witnessing the source.

“No, I wasn’t, but it was all the men would talk about for weeks after. There’s an official not-soulmate ranking and everything. If you’d said that, I would have heard it by now.”

He looked oddly uncomfortable, but Obi-Wan couldn’t figure out why. Cody knew about Obi-Wan’s bond with his saber, didn’t he? Surely he must. There was no way all of the times he’d used it to their mutual advantage when Obi-Wan had been stressed or anxious or overworking himself had been accidental. He tilted his head slightly, trying to figure out how best to put it into words. 

“I suppose I didn’t mention it in those terms, then. It’s not a direct connection though. As I said, this is where the extra limb metaphor begins breaking down. If you were to pick up my saber now, I would not feel a hand on my arm. It’s very difficult to explain to those who do not use the Force.”

“Try it anyway, General,” said Helix, crossing his arms, sacrificing note-taking in favor of looking disapproving.

Obi-Wan looked between the two of them, unable to understand why this was such a sticking point. Helix, as his medic, was likely interested in Force-based injury both as it related to this specific incident and for future medical purposes, but why did Cody seem so upset? 

“In this context, my saber is less like a limb and more like a conduit. To touch my saber is to touch me in the Force. Just like the men talked about the different things they felt when they picked up my saber, I felt those too, but on a smaller scale. Muffled, especially because I was deliberately shielding. It’s nothing personal, just a reasonable precaution when letting others handle one’s saber. It protects their privacy, and mine. So when Boil said that touching my saber was like a deluge of icy water, I didn’t feel that. With my substantial shielding, I felt nothing at all, but with standard shielding, I would have gotten the impression of a chill in the specific area of my consciousness that is connected to my saber. If Boil handled it frequently enough, I would become used enough to it that instead of feeling ‘someone has picked up my saber and they feel cold,’ I would just feel ‘Boil has picked up my saber.’” 

Helix had picked up his datapad again, resuming his notes. 

“You compared deliberately strengthened shielding to standard shielding, but you’ve mentioned things damaging or weakening your shielding before. What happens if, for whatever reason, someone touches your saber when you are not able to adequately shield yourself?”

Obi-Wan flinched slightly, grasp on his bedding tightening instinctively before he deliberately released it, smoothing his hands across it then laying them flat in his lap. Neither Helix nor Cody missed the movement. 

“That would be the downside of such a powerful bond with my saber, I’m afraid. If I were unable to shield myself at all, my saber would cease to be a conduit and become more of an amplifier. Waxer’s priority alert comm reaction, vibrating to hold my attention, would likely become powerful enough to make focusing on anything else difficult, if not impossible entirely.”

“And Boil’s icy water?”

“Would be exceedingly likely to sweep me off my feet, yes. Less running laps in a rainstorm, more going for a swim in a hurricane.”

It was so tempting to close his eyes and drop his mangled scraps of shields deliberately, let Cody’s warmth carry him away. Surely these troubling conversations could wait for another day.

“So you’re saying if something happened to your shields and we didn’t know about it, if you dropped your saber on the battlefield and the wrong brother picked it up, we could accidentally kill you?!” 

Cody’s hands tightened on Obi-Wan’s saber as someone had tried to take it from him, protecting Obi-Wan from threats that were nowhere to be found on their ship.  Obi-Wan startled, now understanding their fixation on the topic.

“No, not at all! Intent is a very powerful factor.”

“You just said Boil could sweep you away.” 

“Knock me off my feet, yes! Do actual damage? Not at all. Since Boil would never willingly hurt me, him touching my saber with my shields down might be unpleasant, definitely startling, but not harmful. There’s a difference between picking up my saber and touching it with the intent to make me feel it.” 

Cody sagged heavily in his chair by the side of Obi-Wan’s bed. As he leaned farther away, Helix moved closer. His voice lowered slightly. 

“You said you’d been psychically damaged, General. Is that what happened? They… touched your saber like that?” 

Some small, uncomfortable part of Obi-Wan that had been hoping to not have this conversation died a painful death. Cody continued his soothing fidgeting with the saber and Obi-Wan used the movements to time his own breaths, keeping them steady. It was over. He was safe.

“…yes, that is what happened.” 

“And your shields, sir?”

“…broken down through a period of sustained bombardment.”

The group was silent for a moment while Obi-Wan gathered himself. 

“You are aware that my injuries are consistent with periods of physical torture. Those were interspersed with periods of psychic torture as well.”

Helix looked like he didn’t want to hear more, but they both knew he needed to. Obi-Wan did not look at Cody. Cody’s tender care for his lightsaber was like bacta on his soul, far more intimate than anything he had experienced with another sentient in his life, but seeing pity on his face would be far too much for him to handle. 

Cody’s thumb swept up, down. Up, down. Up, down. Obi-Wan resolved to be as concise in his report as he could be. 

“The information I have shared with you today about Jedi/Kyber bonds is not widely known. It is rarely shared outside of the Jedi Order, and for good reason. My captors clearly knew it and used it against me. Through consistent, strategic application of physical contact with aggressive intent, they broke down my shields and frequently assaulted me.”

“And psychic assault is…?”

“Analogous to physical assault, but being performed on my soul, not my body. An agonizing violation of everything that makes me myself, attacking my existence.” He paused, folding and unfolding his hands together, unable to make eye contact with anyone in the room. Unwilling to look at the expressions he feared were on their faces. “In extreme cases, it has been known to result in a total eradication of the self: a breathing body that can do nothing but scream and a mind only capable of reflecting its suffering onto others.”

“And how is that treated? Sir?” Judging by his expression, Helix had a pretty good idea of the answer. Obi-Wan hated to confirm his suspicions, but did not have a choice. 

“…Euthanasia.”

Helix closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. As a medic, he was trained in neutrality. He had heard and delivered far worse news than this many, many times in his short life and would have to do so again. No matter what he was feeling on the inside, he knew how not to show it on his face. 

Cody did not have this expertise. The sound that he made was like a man being stabbed in the gut, and Obi-Wan could say that from lived experience. He looked up and immediately wished he hadn’t. 

Obi-Wan had seen his Commander in a lot of different situations. He’d seen him laugh and cry, both openly and in secret. He’d seen him at the tail end of brutal campaigns and (much less frequently) after days of leave, awake at three in the morning and asleep at three in the afternoon. He thought he knew and had catalogued every expression that that precious-to-him face could bear, but he had been wrong. Obi-Wan had never seen this level of pure agony on Cody’s face before and he desperately never wanted to again. 

“Cody? Are you alright?”

Cody was clearly not alright.
“Sir… General… I…”

Helix frowned. “Breathe, vod.” 

Cody did not breathe. Instead he lurched forward, unsteady on his feet, and practically threw Obi-Wan’s lightsaber into his lap. 

Obi-Wan had not realized just how much Cody’s psychic love-home-safe-protect warmth was serving as a painkiller, how strongly he was relying on the steady rub of Cody’s fingers to keep him anchored in this time and place instead of burying himself so deeply in the safety of his subconscious he might never find his way back out, until it was suddenly, abruptly wrenched away from him. He could not stop himself from crying out, a wordless exclamation that somehow conveyed nopleasedon’t far more clearly than any language Obi-Wan could speak, lifting one hand and reaching for the Force to fling his lightsaber away from him and back into the solid home of Cody’s chest. Cody caught it—of course he did, he had never let Obi-Wan down before—and pressed his palms flat against it, cradling it like something precious, close to his heart. 

All three of them froze. 

Obi-Wan gave a deep, shuddering breath as the gentle hearth of Cody’s soul began rethawing the ice that had begun creeping back over him, into him, the moment his saber left Cody’s grasp. 

The moment dragged on for one heartbeat, two heartbeats, three before he found his voice again. 

“My apologies. That was deeply unprofessional of me. It is not your responsibility to care for my weapon now that I have awoken, and you of course are not obligated to keep doing so.” 

He reached out to take his saber, but the tense line of his shoulders practically screamed how much he didn’t actually want to do so. Clearly reading this, Helix held up a hand to stop Cody from giving it back, but there was no need. Though he still looked rather ill, Cody had made no move towards Obi-Wan. Instead he adjusted his grip into something less reactionary, more comfortable; a deliberate hold rather than the aftermath of blocking something launched at him with great speed. 

Obi-Wan and Cody stared at each other for a moment. Helix glanced between them both. 

Slowly, hesitantly, Cody broke the silence. 

“I… don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what?”

“Why you would want me… why you would let me anywhere near your saber?”

Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed. 

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Helix and Cody both looked at him like he was an idiot. 

“But— you just said.” 

Obi-Wan dug through their previous conversation but couldn’t think of anything that could have garnered such a reaction. Hadn’t he thanked Cody in the past, not just for returning his saber, but for taking such good care of it while it was in his custody? What had he done to give Cody grounds to doubt that he had ever been anything other than thankful? 

It was Obi-Wan’s turn: “I don’t understand.”

“I think that makes three of us,” muttered Helix. Neither man laughed. 

“You just said—it’s the intent that makes a difference, when someone touches your saber,” said Cody, still holding Obi-Wan’s soul close to the beat of his heart.

Obi-Wan felt himself begin to blush. Were they really going to have that conversation now, in a medbay of all places? With Helix as an audience?

Helix, who was looking between them. Helix, who suddenly looked like he’d figured something out. 

“I do have other patients to worry about, so. I’ll give you two a moment,” he said, then retreated from the room, leaving Cody and Obi-Wan alone. 

Cody looked a breath away from calling after him to stay, but braced himself and did not. Instead he squared his shoulders, facing Obi-Wan with a rigidity he hadn’t worn when the two of them were in private since around the third time he’d switched Obi-Wan’s tea for decaf and witnessed him collapse face-first onto his own desk. 

“General. Sir.” The words held none of their usual affection, only pain. “I owe you an apology. I am so, so sorry. Ni ceta, General. I never meant to— I thought—”

Obi-Wan could not stop his jaw from dropping. 

“What are you talking about, Cody? What could you possibly have to apologize for?!”

“Your saber, sir, I— for touching it. For every time, and for before you woke up, and for right now…” He trailed off, staring at his own hands and the saber within them as if they belonged to someone else, as if he had never seen them before and yet here they were, suddenly on the ends of his arms, and he had no clue where they had come from or what to do with them now that they were here. 

Obi-Wan laughed brokenly. 

“You’re apologizing for being the only reason I am conscious right now? For being the sole thing keeping me together these past few days—these past few months, perhaps—, the reason for whatever bit of sanity I still have? Forgive me, Cody, I cannot accept your apology.”

“How can you say that, when I’m just as bad as they are?!” 

“As bad as who are?!”

“Those monsters who’ve had you this whole time!” 

Both of their voices were rising.

“In what universe could you ever be anything like them?!”

“In this one, where I’ve been doing the same things they have!”

“They have been tearing me apart while you have been holding me together—”

“But you said it was INTENT.” 

“And?!”

“Intent, General, intent, that there’s a difference between picking up your saber off the training room floor like most of our men have and picking it up with intent, touching it to touch you, touching it with the intent to make you feel it—like they did to you, like they did to torture you, like I have been doing for months—”

“But you didn’t—”

“I did, I knew, of course I knew! I noticed when I touched your saber it helped you be calm so I started doing it on purpose, but I didn’t—I never thought about it like that.” 

He looked genuinely shattered and sounded close to tears and Obi-Wan still wasn’t sure why or how he could fix it. 

“Like what, Cody?”

“Like I was assaulting you.”

That was the straw that broke the bantha’s back, apparently. A tear leaked slowly from the corner of his eye, tracing its way down his cheek. Obi-Wan could not look away from it and could not respond.

“I knew—obviously I knew I hadn’t asked your permission, and I knew you could feel it, but I thought it was like switching your tea for decaf. Not generally acceptable, for most people, but different for us. Going over your head, but doing it to help you even if you don’t really want to be helped, when you need it but you’re too stubborn to admit it. Because I’m doing it for you, and you know about it but never call me on it, and we don’t talk about it because that’s the only way you’ll let yourself be taken care of.” 

Obi-Wan blushed slightly. He’d known about the tea, of course, and Cody was right in his thinking that it was something they both silently agreed not to talk about because Obi-Wan was stubborn and proud and viciously independent and still struggled accepting help, even from those he would trust with every part of himself. It still wasn’t entirely comfortable to hear it spoken out loud. 

“I suppose that is a fair comparison, yes,” he replied, but Cody was shaking his head before he’d even finished. 

“But it’s not! There’s a difference, this isn’t making you a cup of tea that’s not what you would have chosen for yourself, but you know I’m making you tea and you know when you taste it which tea it is and you know where we got it and you choose to drink it, there’s a difference between that and groping your soul!” 

His fingers twitched on the saber like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to cradle it closer to himself, shelter it from the world with his own body, or never touch it again. 

“They wanted to hurt me, you only ever wanted to help me—”

“But I didn’t ASK! Of course I wanted to help you, that doesn’t matter, what matters is that I was touching you, touching your soul without your consent!” 

Both of their voices had risen over the course of the argument, both could arguably be said to have been yelling, but that last word was like the cracking of a transparisteel viewport in hyperspace: loud not just in volume, but in its implications. 

Not just heartbreaking. Unerringly fatal.

Cody was shaking, and Obi-Wan finally understood why. 

“Cody, I need you to listen to me.” 

Obi-Wan’s voice was gentle. Cody stared down at his feet and did not respond. 

“Cody. Are you listening?”

Softly: “...yes, General.”

“My dear, I need you to understand that you have never, not even once, made me feel uncomfortable with the way you have held my saber. Should we have spoken about it before now? Yes, we likely should have. But that is just as much on me as it is on you, perhaps even more so since I am the one who truly understood what we were doing.”

“But I, I used it, I took advantage—”

“No more than I took advantage of you.” 

“I stole your saber when I wanted to calm you down.”

“And I left it where I knew you’d find it when I wanted you to calm me down.”

Cody looked up, startled. Obi-Wan met his eyes, no longer flustered. They were past the time for being coy with each other. Now was the time for honesty, for mutual vulnerability, no matter how terrifying a concept that was. 

“You—” Cody hesitated. “Really?”

Obi-Wan nodded once. 

“Really.” He paused, tilting his head slightly. “May I describe for you what it feels like when you hold my saber?”

Cody’s eyes widened. 

“Yes. Yes, please.”

Obi-Wan considered his phrasing carefully. He had thought about this at great length but never needed to put it into words before and was therefore not entirely sure where to begin. 

“You recall, of course, that there is a difference between the way… well, less the way someone feels through my saber depending on the strength of my shields, and more the intensity with which I feel them. I believe I should begin by clarifying that though you may have slipped through my shields in the beginning, that was only possible due to my immense trust in you, and from the moment I realized what was occurring, it has been a conscious decision to welcome you through them every time since. Though it was never verbally communicated, you have never once done anything to violate my consent.” 

Cody swallowed nervously, eyes dropping again. Obi-Wan continued.

“I explained that if anyone held my saber often enough, I would be able to identify them through that feeling. You and I reached that point a very long time ago. Every time you pick up my saber, be it on the battlefield or off, I know immediately, and it has never been anything other than a relief. No matter what situation I find myself in, even though it might inconvenience me to be unarmed, it is always reassuring to know that my weapon, and therefore a part of myself, is safe. Cody, you feel safe.”

“What… exactly does that mean? Feeling safe?”

Obi-Wan thought he was likely to begin blushing again soon. The flow of blood in his body was not something he was currently capable of controlling, but he could control how he felt about it, and he refused to let it embarrass him. 

“It’s difficult to describe—psychic feelings do not usually translate well into nonpsychic sensory terms—but I will do my best.”

He paused for a moment, cocking his head to the side as he ordered his thoughts.

“Warm. Not like sunlight, usually, more like a campfire—like how a campfire is more than just flame, it’s also community, or like how the hearth is the heart of a home. The way a blanket is warm not just physically, but also in its softness, or its smell. Sweet—a clean sweet, not overly sugary, not a piece of candy but a floral tea, sweet both in taste and in the way it warms you up from the inside out. That’s warmth again. It all tends to overlap a bit.”

He spread his fingers across his blankets, making an effort not to fidget. He was meant to be reassuring Cody, and it wouldn’t work if he did not look confident.

“Honest. Fierce. Spiced, like shig. Fond. Strong. A shelter from a storm. A deep, shining gold.”

Cody hesitated.

“I don’t think I understand. How it can feel like, taste like, look like all of those things all at once. Especially when we’re talking about something you’re feeling in your mind.” 

Obi-Wan chuckled slightly.

“Well, I’m afraid that’s the best I can do to explain it. It’s difficult to articulate something I feel to someone who doesn’t have the same senses I do. How do you explain it tastes sweet to a member of a species with different taste buds? How do you explain the color gold to one who is colorblind?”

“...Like that, I guess.” 

“Exactly.”

The two remained in silence for a moment, but it was lighter than before. Cody was thinking through everything Obi-Wan had said, so Obi-Wan waited patiently while he processed it. 

“So every time I’ve picked up your saber, you’ve felt all of that at once?”

“Not every time, no. It took quite a while to be able to isolate individual characteristics so specifically.”

“What was it like in the beginning?”

Obi-Wan frowned.

“Mostly just safe and warm and good, Cody. That’s why I chose to let you in further, feel your presence deep enough to get to the point I could analyze it. If you’re looking for a time you’ve hurt me, you’re not going to find it.” 

He still didn’t look convinced. 

“And for the past few days? You’ve been in a coma, you’ve had no shields at all and here I was—”

“Unwittingly performing a legitimate Jedi healing technique?”

“...What.”

“It’s not used often, of course, but that’s more out of a lack of necessity than anything else.”

“What did I do?”

“You took care of my saber.”

Cody flushed slightly. 

“But I didn’t do anything other than normal.”

“And you’ve been taking care of me for quite some time. Of course this was nothing different.”

“But how?”

“My saber is a part of me. To attack it is to attack me, yes, but to take care of it is to take care of me. When a Jedi is unable to connect psychically with other Jedi, whether due to a coma or any other reason, their saber serves as, if not a perfect replacement, then certainly an adequate proxy.” 

“And that’s medicinal?”

“It certainly can be. I have been summoned to the Halls of Healing on several occasions to tend to the saber of someone whom I am close to. We take turns so that the afflicted individual can know as many different comforts as we are able to provide, feel their soul being held in many safe hands so that they know it is safe to return to consciousness again. Had you been able to contact the Jedi temple—or perhaps only if they had known of the level of intimacy we have shared—our best Healers would likely have advised you do exactly as you did, to whatever extent you were comfortable with.” 

Cody did not respond, so Obi-Wan continued. 

“Do you know why I woke up when I did?”

Still silence. 

“Because when I was drifting back in the general direction of lucidity, I reached for my saber to see how much harm had been done so far, and I was so braced for agony that the feeling of gentleness shocked me back to full consciousness. Without your care, I would not have woken up yet, and when I did, it would be in significantly worse shape than I am now. There is no one else in the galaxy who could have achieved that.”

“I’m flattered—no, I’m honored—that I’m able to help you, but you’re awake now. Don’t you—” 

Cody shifted as if he were going to offer the saber back again, and Obi-Wan cringed slightly. 

“My dear, when I said that you are currently holding me together, I was not exaggerating.” He laughed a little bit, and very bitterly. “While I know you’ve done your best, the damage my captors did to me is not the sort of thing that can be healed overnight, or over however long I’ve been comatose. The strength of my bond with my saber is a blessing and a curse in equal measure. My shields have been decimated, I couldn’t separate myself from my saber if I tried, so we’re making each other worse. An empath with no protection is like an exposed nerve; the empathetic brush of every single sentient on this ship has the potential to overwhelm and agonize, and my saber is a million shards of broken glass, so if I hold it now I’ll just cut my hands as we form a feedback loop of shattering whatever recovery either of us has managed to attain.” 

He saw Cody open his mouth but barrelled on anyway, eyes drifting shut as he braced himself against his own words.

“The only exception to all of that is you. You are holding my broken glass together tightly enough that the cracks can begin to mend, and through our connection, you’re holding me together, too. You are the shield protecting me from the effects of everything done to me and you are the bulwark keeping me from crumbling under the weight of the work needed to try to recover and I know that is an incredible burden to place on someone, I know it’s unfair, but I am afraid I must beg you to carry it just a little longer because if you put it down, I’m not yet strong enough to pick it up for myself.” 

His lungs were burning slightly, not quite yet up to the task of such a tirade, but he’d feared that if he let himself stop speaking, even just for long enough to catch his breath, he’d never have been able to start again, so he’d forced himself to keep going. Now he was out of words and slightly dizzy, waiting for Cody’s response. 

He knew he had Cody’s acquiescence before his Commander had even opened his mouth. He could feel it in the way Cody’s grip on his saber shifted, the way he’d begun cradling it tightly against himself as if he intended to never let it go. Obi-Wan sagged slightly, all the panic and desperation he’d been channeling moments before flooding out of him. He didn’t need it, didn’t need anything other than what he was already being granted.  

“Sir,” Cody began, softly but powerful in the quiet of the room. “You don’t have to ask. It’s not a burden, and even if it were, it would be an honor to carry it for as long as you’ll let me.” 

Obi-Wan’s eyes—still shut—began to water. 

“That might be a while.”

“Then I’ll carry it forever. To the end of this blasted war, and beyond. General, it would be the greatest privilege of my life to carry you forever.” 

The tears began making their way down Obi-Wan’s cheeks, but that was okay. Cody would never judge him. Exhaustion swept over him like he’d overtaxed his quota for emotional revelations and difficult conversations for one day and any more vulnerability would slide him right back into unconsciousness.  

Cody, always so able to read him and know exactly what he needed, clearly noticed the shift. 

“Is there anything else I can do for you, sir? Tonight, for your recovery, or in general?”

Obi-Wan paused. Surely it would be asking too much—

“Anything, sir.” A beat. “Obi-Wan.”

The sound of his name—no title, no honorific, as if they were just two men, not fighting a war at all—was enough to do him in. 

“I’m not— I can’t—,” words were so difficult, but if Cody could be brave enough to offer him anything, Obi-Wan could be brave enough to be selfish, to ask for what he needed. “I’m sorry, Cody, but—just for tonight—could you stay close to me?” 

Cody froze, and for one horrible, awful second, Obi-Wan thought he’d finally overstepped so egregiously he’d ruined everything. But then Cody began removing his armor and stacking it on the chair. It was a difficult task to do one-handed but he managed, occasionally switching the saber from one hand to the other but never setting it down. 

It was as if the straightforward request had burned away any hesitance, any discomfort or insecurity he may have felt. When he was down to his blacks, Cody pressed the button on the wall to dim the lights and stepped up to Obi-Wan’s bed. Obi-Wan shifted to make space as best he could. Medbay beds were hardly large enough for one grown man and definitely never meant to accommodate two of them, but neither of them would complain. The closeness was rather the point. Cody’s firm hands supported him, taking some of his weight and guiding him forward so Cody could recline against the medbay wall before tugging Obi-Wan back against his solid chest.

The warmth was overwhelming in the best way. Obi-Wan’s eyes drifted shut immediately. Between the physical closeness he was feeling with his own body and the warmth-safety-home he was feeling through his saber, it was highly unlikely he would be awake for much longer even if he tried, but he was unwilling to resist his own exhaustion. He was safe. All parts of him. Cody would make it so. 

<>II<>

“It doesn’t just have to be tonight, you know.”

Obi-Wan hummed, sleepy and inquisitive.

“You asked if just for tonight I could stay close. I’m saying, it doesn’t just have to be for tonight. When I said carrying you, caring for you, is a privilege, I didn’t just mean your saber.”

Obi-Wan sat up slightly. The sheltering confinement of Cody’s arms around him wouldn’t let him move far, but he neither wanted nor needed to. He rolled over onto his stomach, tugging Cody forward until he scooted far enough from the wall that he could fully lay down. He then draped himself fully across Cody’s chest and tucked his face into his neck, his lightsaber trapped safely between them. No words were exchanged; they didn’t need to be. Cody could likely feel Obi-Wan’s smile pressed against the side of his throat. 

Obi-Wan was safe. More importantly than that, he was the most comfortable he’d ever been in his life. Surrounded on all sides by the astonishment-affection-relief-joy-golden-warmth of someone who cherished him and wanted to do so forever, he drifted off to sleep.