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“Ben, is that you? You look so young!” The ghost stood between the one he recognized as his father, youth restored in death, and Master Yoda. He was the same height as Ben, had the same full beard and striking eyes, and wore the same robes, but appeared to be decades younger than Ben was when he died.
“Ah, apologies, Luke. I can-” It was definitely Ben, and he had started to do…something that made his projection blur
“No, no, you look good,” Luke rushed to stop him. Whatever reason he had for appearing like this, Luke wasn’t going to challenge it. Then he realized what his objection sounded like. “I mean, you- it’s fine. I just almost didn’t recognize you,” he corrected.
“He’s being vain,” his father interjected.
Did Ben just blush? Could ghosts blush? “Anakin!”
“What do you mean?” Luke asked. As far as he knew, Ben didn’t even know what vanity was. Every time Luke had ever seen him, he had been in the same dusty, oversized robes. He wasn’t in them now though.
“Vanity has always been his vice,” Anakin crowed, “This is General Kenobi in his prime.”
Ben was definitely blushing. “I- Anakin, like you’re one to talk.”
Anakin whipped his head around to face Ben straight on. “Hey, I was never as bad as you!”
“I seem to recall-”
“A trait that runs in my lineage, vanity is.” Yoda mused with a smirk, cutting through the brewing argument.
“Master Yoda!”
Luke chuckled. Ben had said that he considered Anakin a brother before his fall, but Luke never really had a clear picture of what that meant. Somehow, when he pictured the old Jedi order, he never imagined this much bickering and dramatic gesturing. He certainly never imagined the grandmaster throwing out witty, if veiled, insults.
Although after his training with Yoda on Dagobah, he wasn’t really sure about much concerning
the old order.
“You know he’s talking about you, too, son,” Anakin said.
What? “Hey!” Luke wasn’t vain. You couldn’t really afford to be vain in the desert. Or in a war. “Wait, so why is Ben being vain?”
“I’m not-”
Anakin cut off Ben’s attempt at protest. “His husband died.” His father was grinning.
“His who did what? ” Luke was very confused.
“His husband-”
“Now, Anakin-” Ben tried again to protest. Anakin didn’t seem keen to let him.
“Oh you think I didn’t figure it out?” Anakin’s voice was rising and his gestures were getting larger. His index finger, pointing at Ben accusingly now, nearly made contact with Ben’s ghostly nose. “You tried to hide it through the whole war, but I knew. I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me.”
With a long sigh Ben crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. Everything about him just then read impatience. “Yes, well, I believe I could say the same.”
“Huh, right.” His father sunk back out of Ben’s personal space, looking sheepish. How many times could they have had this argument in the few hours since his father’s death?
That reminded him though, “Wait, I thought Jedi couldn’t get married?”
“Ah, well, technically-” Ben hemmed and hawed.
“Married, a number of Jedi were. Always well hidden, they believed the secret to be. Always knew, the council did.” Yoda looked like he was holding back a cackle. Well, at least someone was being amused by this.
“Master Yoda, you knew?” Ben cried.
“Of both marriages, the council knew, yes. Humorous, we found it, your attempts at secrecy.” Yoda did cackle now. Luke somehow managed to restrain himself from joining in the old master’s humor.
“I-” Ben looked dumbfounded.
When Ben appeared to Luke as a ghost the first time, Luke imagined he would be able to eventually get Ben to reveal some secrets about the Jedi Order in that vague, cryptic way of his. When Master Yoda joined the force, Luke braced himself for an eternity of backwards riddles. When he saw his father’s ghost standing with his masters for the first time, Luke figured somebody may finally give him some straight answers.
Somehow in all of his imaginings, he never dreamt of the ghosts holding a gossip session.
“Hold on,” Luke force his mind back to the conversation, “Father, did you say Ben’s husband died ?” That seemed important.
“Wha- Oh yeah. He was on the death star,” Anakin said.
The death star ? “I killed him?” Ben probably hated him. How could he have killed Ben’s husband? Nevermind that he didn’t even know that Ben had a husband.
“Well, yeah, but no…” Anakin didn’t seem to know how to answer him.
“Luke,” Ben came closer and rested his ghostly hands on Luke’s shoulder, forcing Luke to make eye contact through his brief moment of panic. “While I rather wished it had happened differently, you did not kill him. You saved him.”
“I…don’t understand. He died? He was an imp?” Would this conversation ever get less confusing?
“He was a clone,” Anakin said helpfully from behind Ben.
“Mmm. Clone Marshall Commander, he was,” Yoda confirmed.
Ben sighed, releasing Luke. He brought a hand up to stroke his beard. “I thought he was lost to me forever on Empire Day.”
“When the Jedi fell, so did the clones,” Anakin explained, shooting apologetic glances to his master. “Palpatine activated a chip implanted in their brains that wiped their minds and turned them into servants of the empire. He decommissioned them in waves when the natborns started taking over.”
“I thought, surely, he had been decommissioned before my death,” Ben confessed. His eyes shone with remembered grief. “When I failed to sense him upon my return to the force, I resigned myself to being apart from him for eternity.”
Poor Old Ben. “That’s awful, but what does it have to do with Ben being vain?” Vanity was, in fact, what started this whole conversation.
“When you blew up the death star, Cody joined the force.” Ben said.
“Cody- that’s your husband?” Luke confirmed.
“My riduur.” Ben nodded. The grief was clearing from his eyes and aura. “He joined the force as himself. I felt his signature emerge like I had never felt it since the chip activated. Our-” he dashed a quick glance to Yoda, “Our force bond reconnected.”
“So-”
“So Obi’s trying to look pretty,” Anakin teased. Now that his father was back in the light, he really was kind of a fun guy.
“I am not!”
“Oh yeah, then why are you so young?”
“Why are you?” Ben asked.
“Hey- this is the last time I was in the light. It’s not my fault I was young and handsome when I fell,” Anakin swept a hand down his form, showing off.
“Anakin-”
“You, however, were an old, old man when you died. Not-” he waved his hands at Obi-Wan dramatically, “this.”
Sigh “This is how I looked the last day Cody saw me.” Ben spoke the confession softly, gaze averted from the Jedi around him. His hands tucked into his sleeves to hide his fidgeting.
“What, you think he won’t recognize you?” Anakin pressed.
“No, I-”
“You have a force bond, of course he would.” His father had a point. He’d know Leia even if he were struck blind and deaf.
“Yes, I know, but…”
“Obi-Wan, are you… worried he won’t be attracted to you if you’re old?” Oh . Could it be that Ben actually was embarrassed by his age?
A blush flamed up his cheeks. “Of course not” He was!
“Good. Because you’d be wrong.”
Luke's head whipped around at the sound of the newcomer. Before him stood another ghost, one he had never seen before. It was a man in what looked almost like stormtrooper armor, but it was painted with geometric shapes and a sunburst on the chest plate. The man had square features and a curling scar around his left eye. He appeared to be about the same age as Ben did now.
“Cody…” Ben whispered. It sounded like the name escaped him involuntarily.
The man, Cody, grinned. He shone bright with joy and eyes crinkled. “Ner Riduur.” He ran at Ben with arms open, and to Luke’s surprise, strong, stoic Ben all but collapsed into the embrace.
“Cody, force, it’s really you.” Ben sounded like he was crying.
“It’s really me,” Cody swore. “Little gods, I missed you.” Ben gasped out some wet chuckles, and pressed his face deeper into Cody’s neck.
Luke was entranced. Since the moment Ben had rescued him from the Tuskens, Luke had had the picture of Ben in his mind as perpetually calm, always collected, disconnected from the emotions of the galaxy. But this Ben, this young, General Obi-Wan Kenobi, he was different. He was human, with human feelings and human connections. Luke’s entire mental recollection of his history with Ben was being reevaluated and rewritten as Ben sobbed into his husband’s shoulder.
“Kurr, cyare, udesii,” Cody whispered, smoothing Ben’s hair away from his face, pressing little kisses along the path his hand traveled. Cody tipped Ben’s chin up as a ghostly hand landed on Luke’s shoulder.
“Come on, son,” his father whispered. “Let’s give them some space.”
“Mmm,” Yoda hummed from somewhere around Luke’s knees. “Earned this, they have.”
As Luke tore his gaze away from the reunited lovers, he considered. Yeah. They have.