One Last Hope

by Bonny ( BonnyMagret@hotmail.com )

Archive: M_A

Category: Angst

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Summary: Ruminations of the exile when a lady comes calling

Feedback: are you kidding? Of course!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Lucas thought these guys up, and owns them entirely. I am just trying to give them a little life off screen. I not only don't make any money off this, I lose a lot because of the time and attention these boys demand.

Thanks: To Inya for her persistent patience. And to my dear beta, Jedi Rita, whose advice and guidance I cherish. All tweaks and mistakes are mine and mine alone.

It had been a long time since he had let himself do this, to let his mind wander down this long abandoned path. But here he was, torturing himself.

The past was long since dead, as were the many Jedi who had followed the light of the Force only to fall to the sword of the dark side or some equally obscure unrecorded ending. Jedi knights who had stood beside or behind him in battle; masters who had walked the halls of the Temple with him, discussing training methods or class schedules; initiates who had looked on with longing, hoping that they too would soon be among the chosen.

Chosen. That's what it had been called. All those bright-eyed youngsters hoping, yea, praying, that they would be chosen to be among the elite. Little did they know that being chosen back then was a guarantee of a horrible death at an early age. Death at the hands of a Sith, or dismemberment by a flashing red blade, or simply extinction by a well-aimed blaster hit, bits and pieces of the body sparkling brightly in the air for a moment, then nothing but gore added to the refuse already collected on the ground.

Chosen as a padawan apprentice learner by a mighty Jedi Master: that was the highest achievement any of those young initiates could imagine. How futile. How ignoble. How sad. Even his own choosing – he'd fought for it so hard, with all of his being. And he'd succeeded. Or at least it had looked like success at the time.

He remembered the littlest one, a female Mon Calamari, with her shiny scales and bright eyes. Such a tiny thing with a heart as big as her whole corporal body. And the little blonde human, Brun or Bruck or some such. He couldn't remember if the boy had ever been chosen. It had been so many years ago, so many lost hopes and dreams ago. He ought to make himself remember. It was his own past, after all. But he hadn't exactly lived an ordinary Jedi life for the last few decades, so perhaps his memory lapse could be excused.

And his own padawan? The brash and bold little guy who only wanted to be loved. That was the one thing he could not do for the boy. He could teach him to fight, he could teach him to fly, he had taught him every trick in the book. And all those years of training had come back to haunt him. Such promise. Such a grand future had been planned. And all for naught.

All dead now. The best of the best, the brightest of them all, the truest devotion to duty, the promise of the future. Just ashes now. Ashes spread all over the galaxy.

Did it do any good to mourn the dead? Did they know they were mourned? Were all those brave souls joined in the Force now? Would they welcome him with open arms, hail fellow, well met? Or would they shrink away and let his soul dissipate with his earthly remains? More likely the latter. And he couldn't really blame them, either.

Because it had been his failure that had counted. He'd had a few bright years of love, when he had thought anything was possible, that the universe had a balance and he had a place, a purpose for being. But he couldn't save the one person who mattered most. And then the love of his life was gone. Like the glowing ember of a wood fire after the flames have died. It's just a matter of time before the glow gives way to the grey dust of ash and the cold creeps in again. Into the air, into his bones, into his mind and heart. Be he warrior, healer or ordinary citizen, the light in a man's eyes fades fast when death comes upon him. One instant, and the glow was gone, the body growing cold.

All these years Ben had stood watch, ready to step in and lend a hand if he felt the Force called upon him to do so. Performing his Jedi duty, although it was probably a lost cause regardless. But habits of childhood are ingrained in the adult and he could no more put aside his need to fulfill his destiny than he could have turned to the dark side with so many others.

He'd been taught as a young initiate that the strongest urge in a sentient being was to survive. Force help us, he'd lived to see that proven true. All he'd done these many years was survive, thinking that his survival was, in and of itself, a performance of his Jedi duty.

Had he loved? Had he been loved? He liked to think so, although he really wasn't certain. Well, not exactly. He knew he had loved. He had loved his master with a passion that belied the Jedi motto that passion led to the dark side. His love had been pure and clean and fine. Just the memory of it sustained him. When he woke from his dreams some nights, he could remember what it felt like to be surrounded by strong warm arms, and he felt that if he could just recapture that feeling, be back in those arms again, he would be safe. But there was nothing safe in this universe any more, and when he remembered that, the sweet lingering aura of his dreams would dispel and be nothing more than mist in his mind.

No, he hadn't been able to save the one being who it turned out had mattered most. He tried. Force knew, he had tried. And been tried in return. But there is only so much that a man can do, and what he had been able to do had not been enough. Not nearly enough.

So he'd lived in exile all these years . Not really lived. More accurately, he had existed. Doing his duty, biding his time. He had come to a certain peace within himself and with the fate that had brought him here. That sense of peace was gone now. All gone in the blink of an eye, a puff of breeze and a young fresh-faced youth flat on the ground. He couldn't help but heal the boy. It was his duty, after all. The compulsion of duty could not be ignored.

Then Luke told him that the little droid was his. That he owned it. Or at least, the little R2 unit said he owned it. Luke said that his uncle had told him that the owner was dead, but he wasn't. Not yet, at least.

Oh, yes, he had loved, and the belief that he had been loved in return had sustained him all these many years. He had succeeded at times, but he had failed in the one thing that was, in the end, of greatest importance, the one task he had promised the one he loved to undertake. He had known fear and death and disaster, and he had come to know peace.

But the time had come to set all of that aside. The Force had called upon him again. One last time. It carried a message for him, that shiny silver bullet-shaped R2 unit. A message from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. A wavering blue message, indistinct, but distinguishable. A lovely lady in shimmering white saying "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."

An Ceann