"You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore"
Rating: PG
It's bad enough when Bail cheats on Obi-Wan. It's even worse when Obi-Wan fails to notice.
So he had not at all been looking for an affair when he met Wari while serving on some task force or other. She had flirted madly with him from the beginning, and while he was flattered, he made it clear he was attached. But she kept flirting with him, and he kept letting her until finally, he wasn't sure how, they ended up in bed together. It had been so reminiscent of his younger days, sex based on hormones and not affection, that it had been hard to figure out where to draw the line. At flirting? Suggestive comments? Playful kisses? Actual intercourse? He truly had not meant for it to happen, but somewhere, somehow Bail crossed the line. The act meant nothing, really, as they shared no real attachment, and the affair was over even more quickly than it had begun.
It troubled him more after the fact than it did at the time. He had no idea what to do now. He had never hidden his affairs from Obi-Wan before, but then they hadn't been exclusive back then. Nothing had really changed; Obi-Wan was still his One and Only. But he felt guilty. He had cheated on his lover. Obi-Wan trusted him, and he had violated that trust. In order to restore that trust, he would have to come clean. But he wasn't sure that was such a good idea. Wasn't that ascribing too much weight to a liaison had lasted less than a week, a fling with someone he would never see again? Still the guilt plagued him, and he knew he had to tell Obi-Wan.
Over a month went by before he received a call from the Jedi indicating that he was back on Coruscant. The call was so normal, so natural. How was the mission? How tall was Anakin now? Arrangements for dinner, catching up on news. Can you believe Nirin is getting married? I'm old enough to be an uncle-in-law. So-and-so retired from the Council. Such-and-such resigned from the Senate. When exactly do you say, "And while you were gone, I slept with someone else?" Especially when it's so good to see your lover again, to hear his voice, to be reminded once again why you prefer his company to anyone else. When do you break that happiness, watch his bright eyes cloud with betrayal, see him frown and know that you have given him this pain?
He meant to tell Obi-Wan. He really did. Over dinner. Walking in the park. On the ride back to the apartment. In the apartment. Sometime before Obi-Wan started kissing him, before they ended up in bed, before they made love. But the moment never came. The timing is never right to break your lover's heart. So Bail didn't tell him, and he lay in his bed, Obi-Wan in his arms, and knew that this was the real betrayal. Twice he had failed. In all his life he had never been such an incontrovertible bastard. Bail lay in his bed, Obi-Wan in his arms, and he wanted to cry.
And that is when the moment came. Obi-Wan sensed his unease and asked him what was wrong. Now was the time.
And Bail lied.
Told Obi-Wan about the latest controversy in the Senate, how a colleague he admired had been attacked in a vicious slander campaign. The allegations had been proven false, but still she resigned. Integrity was no longer honored in the Senate. It was true, the incident had deeply troubled Bail, even made him consider resigning as well, but it wasn't the real truth. It wasn't what had been bothering him at that moment.
But Obi-Wan, to Bail's shock, had believed it.
That wasn't what was supposed to happen. The Jedi were supposed to be able to read minds, weren't they? Bail knew it didn't exactly work that way, but Obi-Wan should have been able to tell Bail was lying.
Yet he hadn't.
Maybe Bail's answer had been close enough to the truth to slip past Obi-Wan's Jedi radar. Maybe Obi-Wan figured Bail didn't want to talk about it, so he hadn't pressed the point. Maybe it was simply that political talk bored Obi-Wan. He hid it well, and he always listened when Bail vented his frustration at the Senate, but Obi-Wan didn't have much patience for politics. Maybe that was why he fell for it. Carelessness. Lack of interest. Boredom. Listen to Bail rant so he can get it out of his system and they can go back to fucking.
Bail felt confused, guilty, and more than a little hurt. So the moment passed, and the week passed, and Obi-Wan was off on a mission again, and Bail had not told him, and Obi-Wan had not figured it out, and something was definitely wrong.
The more Bail thought about it, the more he got angry. How could his Jedi lover not know he had been lied to? Perhaps it was Obi-Wan who took their relationship too much for granted. Perhaps he was so out of tune with Bail that he could miss something so obvious. Didn't Obi-Wan care? Couldn't he see? Or was it just that Bail was convenient, so why bother with maintenance?
The second time Bail cheated on Obi-Wan, he did it on purpose. And the next time, and the next, and the next. He didn't really care about any of them. It was almost a chore, not fun the way it had been when he was young. He didn't look to these lovers for sympathy or comfort or even a good time. He was using them. He was very discreet, and the affairs never lasted more than a week. He did it because he wanted Obi-Wan to catch him, to notice, to uncover the lie - to care.
The only problem was, it was hard to get caught when your lover was never around. Never around to smell someone else's cologne on your clothes. Never around to notice when you had not slept in your bed. Never around to interrupt a tryst. So half a year went by, Bail working his way through lovers, occasionally seeing Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan never figuring out the deception.
Then Bail got into trouble.
He met the man at a club, one of the low-profile ones where he sought out his paramours, an ordinary enough club where he could remain safely anonymous. Things had changed from when Bail was a Junior Senator some ten years ago. Everyone watched you now. As corruption in the Senate increased, so did the self-appointed morality cops. The merest hint of a scandal could land a Senator in trouble. Ironically, the more serious violations of public trust were overlooked in favor of the more sensationalistic, lurid crimes of sex, drugs, gambling and graft. Nevertheless, Bail did not want to get in trouble, to be accused of conflict of interest by having an affair with another senator, or a senator's aide, or a lobbyist, or a staff member - or anyone connected in any way whatsoever with the Senate. He wanted anonymous partners, safe partners, ones who would hopefully not know who he was, and who would disappear from his life, forgotten with the dawn. That's why he never took them back to his apartment, never asked their last name and never told them his own. If they had any inkling of who he was, he stayed away from them.
He thought Buvan didn't recognize him. Buvan was some kind of technician at a medical research lab. He seemed to have no political knowledge or interest at all. When they talked about anything, they talked about the smashball semi-finals. Safe, anonymous, discreet, just like all the others.
Except for one thing.
The third day into their affair, they were having dinner when Buvan mentioned Venture Corp. A flippant little remark. They had actually been discussing corporate sponsorship of the arts. Buvan had been making an argument and used Venture Corp. as an example. But Venture Corp. did not sponsor the arts. Venture Corp. was a mid-sized shipyard that specialized in making cargo freighters. Venture Corp. was in top secret negotiations with the Senate for an exclusive contract to adapt freighters for passenger service in order to accommodate the growing demand for personal transport. The bids were being reviewed by the Senate Migrations Committee, of which Bail was a member. Now, why would a med tech know about an obscure shipyard manufacturer? A harmless enough comment, but it made Bail suspicious.
That night, as soon as he left Buvan, he did a little investigation of his own. Bail called in a favor from a friend of his who worked with the Security Forces, who learned that a Buvan Marwat, who worked for Salix Medical Research, was the nephew of Zoneg Marwat, the CEO of Iridot Construction, which happened to be competing with Venture Corp. for the senate contract.
Maybe it was all just an incredible coincidence, a particularly nerve-wracking illustration of the "it's a small galaxy after all" phenomenon. Nevertheless, Bail had the distinct feeling that he was screwed, and not in an orgasmic way.
What if, despite his discretion, someone had noticed his affairs and set him up? What if someone was hoping to bribe him, blackmail him - or worse, discredit him? If word of his affair with the nephew of Iridot's CEO became public knowledge, his integrity could be called into question, his career jeopardized. Bail didn't know how to respond, how to handle this.
There was only one person he could call upon, one person he could trust to help him avert possible disaster. He sent a holonet message to Obi-Wan.
Bail hated the holonet, calling it a glorified messenger service, so the mere fact that he would use this method to contact Obi-Wan would tell the Jedi that something was quite wrong. His message was uncharacteristically taciturn: "At your earliest convenience, I need to talk to you about a very serious matter." How horrible, but Bail couldn't figure out how else to phrase it.
A week went by. Bail cautiously broke up with Buvan. There was no scene, no threat of blackmail. To all appearances, Buvan silently disappeared from Bail's life, but Bail did not trust that he would get out of it so easily.
Then at last, later than he would have liked, but sooner than he had hoped, Bail returned from a meeting to find a message waiting for him from Obi-Wan, stating that the Jedi was back on Coruscant. Bail sent an answering message asking Obi-Wan to meet him at his apartment that evening. He looked forward to the meeting with a sick resignation. Obi-Wan was finally going to learn about the affairs, all right, just not in the way that Bail had hoped.
Obi-Wan arrived barely minutes after Bail had gotten home himself. No chit-chat or catch-up, no greeting kiss, Obi-Wan was all business. "What is it?" he asked without preamble, his hands folded into the sleeves of his robe, expression concerned but not alarmed.
Stalling for time, Bail ushered Obi-Wan into the living room, seeing him settled on the couch while Bail perched nervously in a chair facing him, leaning forward, elbows resting on knees. He did his best to imitate Obi-Wan's business-like manner. "I've done something incredibly stupid," he confessed, his words deliberate and slow. "And now I fear I may be in trouble."
Oh, that Jedi stoicism! Obi-Wan had not batted an eyelash, merely waited patiently, his expression neutral but open. Waiting. Not suspicious. Trusting. And how undeserving Bail had proven himself to be of that trust. Bail forced himself to continue, forced himself not to wring his hands or look away. "I slept with someone."
The expression didn't change. A slight pause in breath, but that was all.
"It turns out he is the nephew of the CEO of a company that's bidding for a contract with the senate, subject to review by a committee on which I sit. I didn't know that at the time. I think I may have been set up. You see, I've...." He hesitated, licking his lips before resuming his quiet recitation. "I've been sleeping around for about six months. I think someone might have noticed and set me up, though whether to blackmail me or compromise me, I don't know. But it just can't be a coincidence, and I fear what might happen. I...I don't know what to do."
He stopped. Obi-Wan looked away. Not in anger. Calmly, as if he were mulling over what Bail had told him, analyzing a problem, not grieving over a lover's betrayal.
Obi-Wan looked back at Bail. "He sought you out?"
"Yes. He didn't know who I was. That is, he shouldn't have known. I never told him."
"When was the last time you spoke with him?"
"About five days ago. I wasn't sure whether ending things with him would arouse his suspicion, but...." Bail faltered. But I hated what I had done, I loathed what I had become. I was afraid. I wanted you to come back. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. "I thought it better to get out of the situation."
The situation? How repugnant.
Obi-Wan. So calm. So efficient. So impersonal. "Do you think he knows you are aware of his connection?"
"I'm guessing he doesn't. I tried not to betray anything." Only you.
"How did you figure it out?"
"An off-hand comment he made, a slip-up. I don't think it was intentional."
"And he hasn't said anything since then, given no indication of what he wants?"
"No. He may not want anything. Someone just may have wanted to put me in a compromising position," one he had put himself into quite willingly. "They may be trying to discredit me." And didn't he deserve it?
"Have you done a background check on him?"
"Yes. I have a friend who works on the Security Force. But other than finding out his connection to Iridot Construction, we didn't uncover anything."
Obi-Wan stood and moved to Bail's computer. "Let's see what I can turn up."
Bail crossed the room to stand behind Obi-Wan as he worked at the computer, exploring certain networks he had special access to as a Jedi. Obi-Wan asked the occasional question, and Bail answered in subdued, even tones. They might as well have been discussing the weather.
Obi-Wan did a background check on Bail's troublesome lover, but he wasn't able to come up with anything. Neither did he turn up anything particularly suspicious in Iridot's history, and at last he turned off the computer. "Well, there's no point second-guessing him. If he calls again, record the conversation and keep any correspondence he sends. You did the right thing by telling me. I can vouch that you were unaware of his connection to Iridot Construction at the time. Have you told anyone else?"
"No."
"I think you should tell Senior Bail. That way you have two witnesses who can testify that you came clean as soon as you realized the liaison was inappropriate. He can also advise you on whether it's better for you resign from the committee as a preemptive measure. Other than that," Obi-Wan shrugged, "we can only wait and see if he does anything next."
Bail nodded. And waited.
Obi-Wan stared out the window at the evening traffic, as if lost in thought. Then he shook himself, and his gaze returned to Bail. Still calm. Still neutral. "Is that all?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm going to go home. It was a long journey, and I'm tired." Obi-Wan got to his feet and started to cross the room.
Bail watched him go, frozen. That was it? He shook himself, forcing himself to act. "Wait! Aren't you going to say anything?"
For a moment, Bail thought the Jedi was going to ask him what he was talking about. Instead, he said, "What is there to say?"
Flustered, Bail said, "It seems to me there are a lot of things you could say."
Obi-Wan turned to stare out the window again, as if contemplating what those things might be. At last he sighed, "I really don't want to talk about this right now."
"Oh? And when do you want to talk about it?" Bail snapped. "Perhaps I should schedule an appointment for the next time you're on Coruscant."
Obi-Wan sighed again, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. "I need to go home and meditate on this."
"Meditate!" Bail spat, suddenly angry. "Don't you care that I've been cheating on you for six months? I've been deceiving you all this time, and you never noticed. Shall I fill you in on the details now? Do you want to know how many lovers I've had?"
"No," Obi-Wan said, a little hastily.
"Do you want to know where I meet them? Do you want to know names, dates?"
"No," Obi-Wan repeated. His voice was still calm, but he did not meet Bail's gaze.
"No? Perhaps you'd rather not know anything at all? Perhaps you'd rather I kept lying about it so you could remain in happy ignorance."
"I - I really need to meditate."
Bail feared he would start to cry. He couldn't cry, not while Obi-Wan remained so self-possessed and aloof. Bitterly he observed, "That's your answer to everything, isn't it? Why don't you try getting angry for once? Curse me, yell at me, hit me."
"I don't get angry," Obi-Wan said, almost in apology. "I'm a Jedi. I meditate."
Bail trembled, defeated. "Fine. Go and meditate. Throw your emotions into the trash bin of the Force. Heaven forbid you should actually feel them."
"Bail--," he began. Bail waited expectantly, almost hopefully, but Obi-Wan couldn't think of anything to say.
Releasing a long, shaky sigh, Bail said, "Forget it. Just go. Meditate. I'm sure the Force makes a much better lover than me, anyway." He turned away, pacing over to the window on the other side of the room, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and this suddenly remote man. He could see Obi-Wan's reflection in the glass, dim, ethereal, not really there. "Sometimes I really hate you," he whispered.
Obi-Wan flinched. He found himself wanting to apologize, but why should he? He was not the one who had been having affairs. He turned toward the door. "I'll talk to you later."
"Right, I'll be waiting with bated breath. Just remember: I can't hold my breath forever."
Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut, then hastily left. As he rode the public transport back to the Temple, his mind was curiously blank. He felt no emotions to release into the Force. No anger or betrayal, just fatigue. Nor could he think of anything on which to meditate. It all seemed perfectly clear: he should never have asked Bail to give up other lovers in the first place. All that really mattered was that Obi-Wan was first. He had no right to ask Bail for more. Yet somehow that didn't seem right. There was something more, but he couldn't bring himself to think about it right now.
He arrived at the Temple and walked briskly to his quarters, hoping for nothing more than to go to bed. He was therefore completely surprised to find his padawan sprawled on the couch watching a holovid.
Anakin sat up abruptly, as if he'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. "What are you doing here?" he asked, startled.
Obi-Wan removed his robe, hanging it by the door. "I might as well ask you the same question. I thought you'd be out on the town."
Anakin put on his best expression of innocence. "Are you suggesting I would sneak out of the Temple without my master's permission?"
"Yes," Obi-Wan said matter-of-factly. "So why didn't you?"
Anakin leaned back on the cushions. "I didn't feel like it."
"Is that what you're eating?" Obi-Wan queried, waving his hand at the array of take-out food containers on the table as he joined Anakin on the couch.
"Use your powers of deduction, Master. I should think you could figure that out."
Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose. "Is there anything here that isn't fried?"
"Uh - the dipping sauce?"
"That's disgusting," Obi-Wan pronounced, but it didn't stop him from grabbing a handful of fried weelies.
Anakin eyed Obi-Wan curiously. "So, what are you doing here?"
"I was tired," Obi-Wan said around a mouthful of weelies. "So I came home."
"Yeah, right." Anakin didn't buy that for one minute. "Did you guys fight or something?"
"No." The lie was out of his mouth before he even thought to make it. Obi-Wan frowned. Well, they hadn't exactly fought, had they? At least he hadn't.
"Did you piss him off?"
Not for the first time did Obi-Wan regret having such a perceptive padawan. "I am not about to discuss the details of my personal life with you, my extremely young and far too nosy apprentice."
"Thank goodness, because the details would probably make me throw up," Anakin helpfully pointed out. "But you could give me the basic idea."
"No." Obi-Wan pointed his chin at the holovid. "This is an old one, isn't it?"
Anakin almost laughed at Obi-Wan's obvious attempt to change the subject. "Aren't you always saying I should brush up on the classics?"
"I meant literature, not Rogue Jedi vids."
They were both silent for several minutes, watching the vid and munching on weelies. At last Anakin ventured, "Since you're free for the night, we could go out. We could go see a holovid."
"We're watching a holovid now."
"I meant in a theater," Anakin sighed. "Or we could go to Monument Park and climb on the rock."
"How many times have I told you not to climb on that rock?"
"About 473," Anakin supplied without missing a bet. "Or we could go to a club."
"You're too young."
"You'd be my chaperone."
"Anakin," Obi-Wan sighed, "if you want to go out you may, but I am tired. I just want to stay in."
Anakin shrugged. "Okay."
They watched the vid for a while before Anakin's curiosity got the better of him once more. "So why did he kick you out?"
"He did not kick me out, and I will not discuss it, so stop asking questions. Besides, I thought you didn't like it when I spent time with the Prince."
"Well, I don't, but when did that ever stop you? It's just weird for you to go see him and then come right back."
"I don't want to discuss it."
"So you keep saying." Anakin considered this for a moment. "Maybe that's why he kicked you out."
Obi-Wan stared at the vidscreen. Anakin had hit a little too close to the mark. "He did not kick me out," he mumbled, half to himself.
"Well, don't worry about it, Master," Anakin counseled. "He'll come around eventually. He's kinda dopey about you."
Obi-Wan kept his eyes on the screen, eating the fried weelies, and said nothing.
They finished watching the Rogue Jedi vid, then watched another. Anakin mercifully kept his mouth shut about Obi-Wan's mysterious return to the Temple, and they talked only about the outrageous inaccuracies in the holovids, as if it were a perfectly normal evening.
After the second vid Anakin went to bed and Obi-Wan returned to his room to meditate. That had been his excuse for leaving Bail earlier. It would not do to make a liar of himself. So he settled onto the floor of his room, closing his eyes, calming his breathing, and let his feelings rise to the surface of his mind so they could be examined, dealt with and released into the Force.
Except nothing rose. He felt the same emptiness as he had on the transport back to the Temple. Empty, cold, and very tired.
Obi-Wan tried another approach: memory recall. He reviewed the evening in his mind. The air had been warm and slightly humid when he had exited the transport near Bail's building, enough to make him sweat a little in his heavy robe. The door guards had greeted him. Goli had gotten her left ear pierced yet again. Obi-Wan did not think anyone in security should wear so much jewelry that a foe could use to advantage in an attack.
He had entered Bail's apartment. There was a new tapestry on the wall in place of that ceremonial mask that Obi-Wan had always thought looked like Master Windu suffering from an acute case of constipation. Bail had been wearing those green robes with the saffron piping. Obi-Wan didn't care for those robes, found them too ostentatious. He much preferred those russet robes with the - what did Bail call it? The jacquard weave. A nice warm color that brought out the golden sheen of Bail's skin. Obi-Wan remembered the first time he'd seen the Prince in those robes, when they had met at the Senate building for a quick lunch before Obi-Wan had to leave for a mission on Tiamanis...but he was letting his mind wander.
Bail had been tense, had difficulty meeting Obi-Wan's eyes. His hair had been slicked back from his forehead, but one curl hung over his ear in obvious disarray where Bail had been pulling on it. He had been nervous.
"I've done something incredibly stupid." His voice low, subdued. He twisted the ring on his left hand. "I slept with someone."
There. A flicker of something, a tightening in his chest. What was it? What was that feeling? It echoed in his heart even now, but he couldn't identify it. Not surprise. He should have expected something like this. Not betrayal. That was irrational. Not anger. What would be the point?
No, it was none of those things. Not resentment, not grief, not fear or loneliness or jealousy. Surely he'd felt none of those, surely not. Those emotions made no sense. They were petty, obsessive, selfish, insecure. Obi-Wan wasn't insecure, was he? He wasn't afraid that Bail would leave him. He didn't feel abandoned. He wasn't crying.
Startled, he opened his eyes, raising a hand to touch his face. His cheeks were dry, his vision clear. No, he was not crying.
Why wasn't he?
"Throw your emotions into the trash bin of the Force. Heaven forbid you should actually feel them. Don't you care that I've been cheating on you for six months? I've been deceiving you all this time, and you never noticed."
Obi-Wan buried his face in his hands, trembling as the emotions he hadn't let himself feel rose up in him at last, but he didn't release them into the Force. He let them roll through him, crashing back and forth, shaking him, racking him with a near physical pain, like a blast wound in his chest, splintering his bones, shredding his insides. How horrible they were, how awful this loneliness and grief. Hidden fears broke free at last, that Bail had grown tired of waiting for him all the time, that he was bored with fidelity, that he craved new, more exciting lovers.
"I'm sure the Force makes a better lover than me."
Loneliness, grief, fear and betrayal. But not just his own. Those had been Bail's feelings as well.
"Don't you care?"
Desperation, desire, love. Bail's feelings, and his own.
Obi-Wan's shoulders drooped, his arms falling loosely at his sides as the tidal wave of emotions flowed through him and ebbed finally into the Force. Not a trash bin, but a well-spring, his source of peace and serenity. But not his source of love. He looked to Bail for that. The Prince made a far better lover than the Force ever could.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes once more, breathing deeply, evenly, filling himself with the calm warmth of the Force. It was calm, it was healing, but it was no substitute for Bail's embrace.
The next morning he woke to a decidedly unpleasant smell. His padawan was cooking again. With a resigned sigh, Obi-Wan dutifully shuffled out to the dining table, seating himself before a plate of.... "Cookies?" he suggested, holding up a sample of the item in question.
Anakin gave him a sheepish look. "They're supposed to be muffins."
"Did you confuse baking soda with baking powder again?"
The boy's face shone with the divine light of revelation. "That's why they didn't rise! Well, don't worry, Master. They still taste good."
Obi-Wan gamefully took a bite of the cookie-muffin. It was dry, crumbly, and utterly tasteless. Indeed, a vast improvement. Anakin's baking experiments usually tasted like duracrete mix. "Not bad," Obi-Wan appraised.
Anakin beamed, then suggested, "They're even better with jam."
As Obi-Wan reached for the condiment, Anakin returned to whatever impending disaster he was working on in the kitchen. "Did you sleep well, Master?"
Obi-Wan carefully drenched his muffin in jam. "Eventually."
"Did you figure out how you're going to apologize to him?"
Obi-Wan fought the urge to snap out, 'I'm not the one who needs to apologize!' Instead, he sighed heavily, rubbing at his weary eyes. He had not slept enough last night.
"You should bring him flowers," came Anakin's suggestion from the kitchen.
"Flowers?" Obi-Wan echoed in skepticism.
"Yeah. People like flowers. You know how he is; he always wants a big fuss. No offense, Master, but you don't fuss over him enough."
"No offense, Padawan, but you'll forgive me if I hesitate to take romantic advice from someone who has yet to be kissed."
Anakin appeared in the doorway, his cheeks flushed scarlet. "What makes you think I've never been kissed?" he protested.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "I seem to recall you were saving yourself for someone in particular."
Anakin said nothing, but his cheeks flamed even darker, and he hastily retreated to the kitchen.
Several minutes passed blissfully advice-free as Obi-Wan munched on jam piled high on a base of cookie-muffin. Then Anakin piped up again, "I still think you should bring him something. He hardly ever sees you. He'd love for you to make a fuss over him, but you never do. You don't even give him real birthday presents. You just send him a letter."
Obi-Wan bristled. "For your information, he cherishes those letters. A letter is far more personal than a bunch of flowers."
"Maybe. You should try it, though. I bet he'd fall all over you, kissing you and being all mushy." He appeared in the doorway, a plate in his hand. "You'll never do it, though. That's probably why he kicked you out."
"He did not kick me out."
"Yeah, right." He held out a plateful of rubbery, burnt eggs drowning in grease. "Ready for breakfast?"
Flowers. How absurd. Was he supposed to bribe his way back into Bail's favor?
And anyway, he wasn't the one who should apologize. He hadn't done anything wrong. He couldn't be blamed for not knowing Bail had cheated on him. How was he supposed to have known? Was he supposed to scrutinize everything Bail said to look for falsehood? Was he supposed to notice if Bail was upset or distant or guilt-ridden or....
How did this all end up being his fault?
Obi-Wan stalked along the skyway, his arms clenched in the sleeves of his robe, his pace brisk, his gaze locked blankly ahead of him. Flowers. Love wasn't about the exchange of material goods. What was the point of giving someone flowers? Sure they looked pretty, smelled nice, but they wilted in a few days, putrefying in their stagnant water. Not a very good symbol, in Obi-Wan's opinion. Anyway, Bail always kept his apartment stocked with fresh flowers. What would he do with any flowers Obi-Wan gave him?
Obi-Wan abruptly halted his furious pace and looked around him. He had been so busy grousing, he had left the florist district without being aware of it. Turning on his heel he backtracked until he was once more among the colorful booths. How did he expect to find the right flowers if he wasn't even looking?
He studied the array of blossoms before him, overwhelmed by the variety. He should have swallowed his pride and brought Anakin with him. The boy would know what to get.
One of the sellers noticed Obi-Wan's perplexity and asked, "Can I help you?"
"Um," Obi-Wan hesitated, abashed, "I need to get flowers for a friend."
"What kind of friend?" the seller asked. "Business associate? Next door neighbor? Best friend? Lover? Dentist?"
"Lover."
"Birthday or anniversary? Someone you're wooing or someone you fought with?"
Obi-Wan gritted his teeth. "A fight."
"Ah, you need the 'I'm sorry can we kiss and make up' bouquet," the seller offered. "You going for color or fragrance?"
Well, was there a standard 'I'm sorry' bouquet or not? "I'm not sure."
"What does she like?"
"He likes...." Obi-Wan frowned. "I don't know what he likes."
"Ah," the seller nodded in understanding. "A new lover."
"No, we've been together almost ten years," Obi-Wan corrected.
The seller looked skeptical. "Ten years, and you still don't know what kind of flowers he likes? No wonder you need an 'I'm sorry' bouquet."
Obi-Wan scowled. They were just flowers. What the sith did it matter what kind? He pointed at a large, bright orange bloom. "How about that one?"
The seller cocked an eyebrow at him. "You want a potted plant instead of a bouquet?"
Oh, who did he think he was kidding? Obi-Wan had no idea what he was doing. This was ridiculous. "Never mind," he grumbled. "Thank you for your time." He turned and wove his way though the crowd.
The seller stared after him, shaking his head. "Buddy, you're gonna need a lot more than flowers."
Bail returned home weary that night from a thoroughly rotten day. His confession to Senior Bail had only been slightly less mortifying than his confession to Obi-Wan. Antilles had been as calm and dispassionate about it as Obi-Wan had been, but at least with Senior Bail such dispassion should be expected. Senior Bail had refrained from pointing out how obviously stupid Bail had behaved. Indeed Coruscant was not the same as when the Prince had arrived fresh-faced from Alderaan over a decade earlier. Bail's primary error had been his attempt to hide the affairs. Anything hidden in the current political climate was regarded as secret, inappropriate, illicit. If Bail had been as open with his philandering as in his younger days, it would have been harder for the Senate watchdogs to claim he was behaving inappropriately.
The two senators agreed that Junior Bail should resign from the Migrations Committee. As near and dear as the refugee situation was to Bail's heart, there were plenty of other causes he could take up in its place, so it was no great loss. There might be a few questions, but nothing major. Politically the situation was resolved. Now he had to worry about the personal situation. Bail doubted that would be resolved so easily.
Senior Bail had likewise tactfully refrained from mentioning that infidelity. Indeed that was a personal matter, and as the Prince's senior colleague, Antilles had no business discussing it. But he knew Obi-Wan. All the office staff did. It was among the office staff that Bail and Obi-Wan were probably most like an old married couple. This rupture between them would impact everyone in the Alderaan senate office. Bail had let them all down. He felt as if he owed them all an apology, but he could not exactly announce his betrayal. They would find out soon enough. They would remain professional, but he would catch their looks of disappointment, hear their whispers of disapproval. Obi-Wan was universally regarded among the office staff as being a "good influence" on Bail, and Bail would hardly disagree. He had to resign himself to weeks of subtle "how could yous" and "for shames."
The housekeeper had dinner ready for him shortly after he returned home. Charris didn't know yet, either, and he definitely would not be pleased. How could it happen like this, that the betrayal of one person could become a betrayal of so many? Relationships, it seemed, did not exist in isolation, but within a large larger network of friends, family, and co-workers. Bail and Obi-Wan were not married but they might as well be, for all the other people who seemed to have a stake in their relationship. For that matter, what would Anakin think when he learned what Bail had done? The Prince stifled a groan. Anakin could add this to his daily-growing list of reasons not to like Bail. Then again, if Obi-Wan broke up with him because of it, Anakin might be grateful to finally have Bail out of their lives. When had things soured between himself and the boy? When had things chilled between himself and Obi-Wan to the point where he could cheat on the Jedi?
Bail felt only worse and worse. The truth was, he deserved all this disapproval. He had no one to blame but himself, and if Obi-Wan broke up with him, it was no less than what he had earned. Yes, he didn't see Obi-Wan very often. Yes, Obi-Wan could be rather unsentimental and not very demonstrative. Yes, they had their problems. But he loved Obi-Wan. The Jedi was one of the greatest joys in his life, and Bail should be flayed alive for having treated that joy so callously.
After dinner Bail sent a concerned Charris home, then curled up on the couch, flipping idly through the channels on the vidscreen. He thought about calling up a friend to commiserate with, but then he would have to make yet another confession, he wasn't up to that yet. So he lay on the couch feeling sorry for himself and waiting, waiting in the hope that Obi-Wan might deign to forgive him.
And then the door chime rang. Even though he didn't dare to hope, he knew perfectly well who his visitor was. He peered through the security window to make sure. Yes. Obi-Wan. Bail took several deep breaths, trying to calm his wildly pounding heart. He doubted he was ready for whatever the Jedi would say, but he knew as the transgressor he had no right to complain.
He opened the door without a word. Obi-Wan just stood there, silent as well. He was not wearing his Jedi robes. Instead he had on that green silk shirt, the one Anakin had picked out for him about a year and a half ago, because Anakin could get away with buying clothes for Obi-Wan and Bail could not. Bail decided to take Obi-Wan's wardrobe choice as a good sign. "Would you like to come in?" he asked.
Obi-Wan's lips twitched in a near smile as he stepped into the apartment. He held up a box he'd been keeping behind his back. "I have something for you."
Bail's eyebrows rose in surprise. This was definitely unexpected. Obi-Wan was not usually one for gift-giving. He took the offered present and led the way to the couch. When they were both seated, he opened the box and unwrapped the bundle of tissue paper inside. Obi-Wan had given him...a doll? He held up the toy. "A Rogue Jedi action figure?" he asked with a wry grin. He studied the dark maroon robe and blond hair of the figure. "Master Jara, I believe," he said. "Or is it supposed to be you?"
Obi-Wan only nodded to the box. "There's another one."
Suppressing an eager shiver, Bail unwrapped the other figure. Green trousers. White shirt and black vest. Dark hair. "Captain Ito?" he inquired. "But I don't have a moustache."
With a sheepish smile, Obi-Wan confessed, "They're the closest I could come up with."
Bail fondly shook his head. "This has got to be the silliest present anyone has ever given me."
Obi-Wan's grin widened. "I seriously doubt that."
"It's also the dearest."
"I doubt that, too." Obi-Wan grew serious once more. "Do you want to break up with me?"
"No!" Bail cried.
"Maybe you should be released from your promise to me. You should be free to take other lovers."
"I don't want other lovers. I only want you," Bail protested in distress.
"But I can't be here very often," Obi-Wan pointed out. "It isn't very fair to you."
"That doesn't matter. You're the only one I want. I don't mind waiting, that isn't why I --." Bail stopped. No more lying. He owed Obi-Wan the truth, even if he wasn't sure what that truth was. "Sometimes I just...I wonder if ...." He couldn't go on. He didn't want to know what he might say.
Obi-Wan waited expectantly, his expression open, encouraging. "What do you wonder?"
"I...." I wonder if you still love me. I wonder if you really want me anymore. But he couldn't bring himself to say that, so he stammered, "Nothing."
Obi-Wan reached up, cradling Bail's cheek in his palm. "You know what I love more than anything else in the universe?" He waited for Bail to respond, and at last Bail shook his head. "I love waking up next to you in the morning. I wish I could wake up every morning next to you, but I have an obligation to the Order. I have to go when and where they tell me. I have a duty to attend to my padawan. Sometimes I feel like my life is defined by obligations and duties. But there is one area where it is not." His eyes searched Bail's. "When I'm with you, it's by choice. I don't have the luxury of many choices in my life, but every minute that's mine to give away, I give to you. I know they don't add up to much."
"They're more than enough," Bail assured him. "I have obligations, too, you know. Half the time when you're here, I'm not. I'm either on Alderaan or tied up in some committee meeting or senate investigation. Neither of us has the time we wish. That's not why I slept around. I suppose I just wanted you to be angry with me. It was a way of assuring myself you still cared."
"I was angry," Obi-Wan confessed. "I've been running around all day telling myself why I shouldn't come back here and apologize to you, why I have every right to be angry. But I realized I didn't want to waste what little time we have together fighting. I do care, Bail. I'm sorry I didn't notice something was wrong, but I don't want to stay angry. I just want to wake up next to you all the mornings that I can."
Bail could scarcely bear it. After the way he had treated Obi-Wan, to be treated in return with such grace and forgiveness. He had been so mistaken, and yet he'd known it all along, known that Obi-Wan loved him, known he would be forgiven. What did it truly take to trust another person? What did it really mean to commit yourself to someone? Bail hardly knew, but he would keep trying as long as Obi-Wan had the patience for him. One of these days he would finally get it right. He smiled at the Jedi. "All right, I'll let you wake up next to me, provided you forgive me for being such a complete asshole."
"I think I can arrange that," Obi-Wan laughed fondly, pulling Bail close to him.
"Tell you what," Bail suggested. "You take this one," handing him Captain Ito, "and I'll keep this one, and that way we can wake up every morning next to each other."
Obi-Wan held up the figure with an expression of mock skepticism. "You expect me to carry this thing around with me on missions?"
Bail wrapped his arms around Obi-Wan's neck. "You will if I ask you to."
"You think I'm that easy?"
"I know you're that easy. Now shut up and kiss me."
Obi-Wan willingly obliged with a fierce kiss, but Bail twisted away. "Not like that," he protested. "Kiss me that way you do, that makes me feel all golden. Like I've been found and I'll never be lost again."
Obi-Wan smiled. "Anakin was right; you really are sentimental."
"Did that come as a surprise to you?"
"Not really. But sometimes it helps to be reminded of it." His fingers laced through Bail's hair. "I'll kiss you, Bail Organa. I'll kiss you to last through all the times when I'm not here."
And he did. Lips gentle but passionate. Slowly, as if they had all the time in the world. A kiss that Bail could drown in, a kiss that intoxicated him. A kiss to burn into their memories and linger on their flesh long after they parted. A kiss to remind them that they were not forgotten.
A kiss to mark them as bound by choice.
~ fin ~