Title: S.W.A.L.K.
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
E-mail: amchau@popullus.net
Summary: Obi-Wan receives a mysterious package.
Pairing: Obi-Wan/Bail
Rating: some adult concepts, but nothing detailed or explicit.
Warnings: very mushy.
Disclaimer: George's, not mine. I only borrow, no harm intended, and I make no profit.
Archive: am-chau.popullus.net; my livejournal, amchau; and Jedi Rita's site. Notes: set in Jedi Rita's Obi-Wan/Bail universe, after her story "Batter My Heart" (post-ROTS, pre-ANH), and betaed by her. Thanks for everything, Rita.
Notes part 2: for an explanation of the title, see http://www.swalk.com/swalk.htm

* * *

It had, apparently, been sent from Sernpidal.

It was a medium-sized rectangular package—a little over a hand-span in each direction—and light; it was covered with cheap brown wrapping-plastic, and crudely tied with a seemingly plant-based string.

The address was droid-printed on a simple label:

Ben Lars,
Jundland Wastes,
Tatooine,
Outer Rim.

On another sticker, thirty-seven Empire stamps (bearing the stylised image of the Emperor himself) had been stuck. On Coruscant, such a primitive method of communication would have taken Obi-Wan by surprise; but on Tatooine it was at least as common as electronic data transfer. Very few people on Tatooine owned datapads, himself included.

He hadn't received it until he'd gone into Mos Eisley, nominally seeking fresh supplies of fruit and grain in trade for the little gadgets and trinkets he carved from the rocks—a good bottle-opener was worth a few coins, which could be spent on basic foodstuffs. The postmaster had shouted at him on the street as he wandered along, trying to talk passers-by into believing that they wanted something.

He had just called, "It's very useful!" after a rapidly departing back, wishing he had either Bail's talents of persuasion or sufficient lack of moral scruples to use the Force, when someone shouted his name.

"Ben Lars?"

Obi-Wan had swung around, startled, battle-senses alert, unused to being hailed. The postmaster had apparently seen something menacing in his reaction, because he hurried to explain, all four hands spread in a calming gesture.

"Mr Lars, didn't mean to make you jump—it's just I've got a parcel for you, and I can't get out into the Wastes since my speeder broke. Sorry, sir, but if you'll just come into the post office and sign for it—old-fashioned, I know, but we don't have password-checkers out here yet. It's such a little parcel but without a speeder…"

He'd accompanied the many-limbed, grey-skinned postmaster into his office, and signed. It felt awkward to sign his alias; he didn't practice it that often, but he doubted anyone would notice. Enough people—slaves—on Tatooine couldn't write at all, so that a slow scribe was unremarkable.

"Here you go, sir," the postmaster said, "hope it's a good parcel—came through Hutt space, you know…" He was, Obi-Wan thought, probably hoping to see what had been sent so far and through such dangerous territory. Obi-Wan, though, didn't want to share whatever might be in his parcel with a nosy postmaster, however much that small excitement would make his week.

"Thank you," Obi-Wan said shortly, and with a curt nod, left the office.

On the doorstep, he tucked the parcel inside his robe and extracted his collection of carved rocks. Time to start selling again; no good wasting the trip just because he was now eager to got back to his cave-like hut and examine the parcel.

Once in his hut and sure he was alone, though, he simply dumped the bags of grain and dried fruit on a shelf, and sat at the table.

Sernpidal, the inky marks over the stamp said. He thought Sernpidal was somewhere in the Dalonbian Sector, on the other side of the galaxy entirely—it would have to have come through Hutt space, as the postmaster had said… if whoever posted it didn't want it to go through the Core, a much faster route.

Probably, then, it was a contact from another rebel—Yoda? Bail, or his Alliance?

For a moment, Obi-Wan hesitated. To accept this—to open it—would confirm his status as a rebel against the Empire, as an outcast. And the postmaster knew that, knew who he was and that he had taken it… it was a big risk, but probably too late now. Carefully, he untied the string (could use this, he mused, to mend that belt…), and pushed back the wrapping-plastic. Inside was a wooden box.

The wood was dark, polished but undecorated, the corners sanded smooth. At the front, a bronze catch gleamed invitingly. Obi-Wan gently flicked it open and lifted the lid.

Inside, the box was filled from corner to corner with water purification tablets. A packet of two hundred, crushed slightly to fit it in.

All that, for… water purification tablets? Obi-Wan almost laughed aloud. Not that he couldn't use them, but they seemed incongruously common for such a well-made box.

Almost, that is, until he heard his master's voice—just behind him? Within his head? He knew enough to know that it wasn't worth turning around, anyway; he'd been disappointed once too often on that score.

"Do not scorn a gift," Qui-Gon's voice said. "There may be more to this than appears at first glance."

Nodding, Obi-Wan lifted the tablets out. There was, indeed, more to this: another layer below the first, and this layer wasn't anything as dull as water purifiers. First, there was a tiny, hand-knitted child's doll, dressed in brown and grey scraps of cloth—supposed to be a Jedi, Obi-Wan realised, and thought with a pang of seeing young Leia Organa playing Jedi vs. Sith.

He laid it on the table next to the tablets, and went on. More household goods, but rarer ones: three boiled sweets of the kind he liked best in their distinctive green wrappers, a sprig of the perfumed flowers commonly used on the Core worlds to scent clothes, and a bar of soap whose brand name he didn't recognise.

Finally, there was a small ring of plain iron, slightly larger in diameter than his thumb.

When everything was laid out on the table, he frowned at it. Who would want to send him water purifiers, a doll, sweets, flowers, soap, and ring of plain metal? Yoda would never have considered a doll, and was unlikely to have chosen those sweets, and in fact wouldn't send a message unless it had a hidden purpose.

He examined the box closely, in case this was merely a disguise for a hidden message (it would be a good disguise, he thought; it was utterly bemusing). Nobody would run the risk of sending something without a good reason, surely—though he had to admit that whoever it was had been careful; the parcel hadn't been opened by any customs inspectors, as far as he could tell, and by sending it across Hutt space most of the trail would have been covered.

An hour later, though, darkness was beginning to fall, and he'd found no secret message, no hidden compartment, nothing. Neither fingers nor Force could find anything but plain wood and bronze. If there was a message at all, it would have to have been hidden in the contents of the box—and those would have to wait for tomorrow. He didn't feel hungry, but he knew that he hadn't eaten that day, and that were Qui-Gon here—or for that matter, Yoda, or Anakin, or most especially Bail—they would be reminding him that starvation wasn't part of the plan.

Over his meal—salted bantha meat and gritty bread made from home-ground wheat—he gazed at the mysterious things he'd been sent, attempting to interrogate them.

"There could be a message hidden in any one of them," he said aloud. He was aware that the habit made him seem even more like a crazy old man than usual, but he'd decided that it was part of the disguise—and besides, it felt like he was speaking to Qui-Gon, which was a much more comforting way of thinking of it.

"The tablets are unlikely to be hiding something, however," he continued. "They are still sealed in their factory-produced plastic wrapper, which should be tamper-proof: if anyone's hidden something in there, they're very good at the job." That didn't rule them out entirely, but it made them an unlikely candidate.

He took a bite of meat and went on.

"The sweets similarly, though tampering would be easier. And yes, master, I do know it's rude to talk with my mouth full, but I think it's only as bad as conducting conversations while invisible, so you can't really complain. I'll have to be careful when I eat them, anyway.

"That's if they aren't poisoned, of course." He swallowed hard. "I've been assuming this is from a friendly source. There's nothing particular to prevent it being the work of an enemy… someone could have got to…" Yoda would resist torture, would die before revealing him. But Bail—and Leia—didn't have that kind of training… "No… Force, don't let it be that."

He reached out for the Force, wishing he could feel Bail's presence there, knowing that at least he could check on Luke, and maybe check on Yoda or even Leia. Luke was there, bright and close, and in the distant swirls he thought he sensed Yoda… but right behind him, so strong it couldn't be ignored, was Qui-Gon's essence. Strong hands pressed his shoulders for an instant, and Obi-Wan remembered to release his fear into the Force. "They are safe for now," said Qui-Gon's voice.

Obi-Wan relaxed. "Thank the Force," he whispered, and then added, trying to give himself an illusion of good humour, "Not least because now I know I can eat the sweets."

He moved on. The soap was still packaged, too; which left the flowers, the doll, and the ring. "Flowers seem too dainty. Unless…" Bail had once told him that some cultures used flowers as a language, for sending messages to lovers; at the time, Obi-Wan had believed that Bail was using it mostly as a ploy to get him to wear the blue flower Bail had picked out as "bringing out the colour" in his eyes. Now, it took on a different tone. But what did the common hali flower mean? How was he supposed to know, stuck in a desert that hadn't flowered for a thousand years?

If that was a message, Obi-Wan decided, it wasn't a very good one. He'd have go into Mos Eisley again to even have a slim chance of finding out, and that would have to wait until the morning.

What about the doll? "Too small, surely…" Nevertheless, he examined in it the lamp-light, peeling off the layers of cloth and peering at them.

Briefly, it struck him that he was undressing a Jedi, just as Bail had sometimes undressed him… but this was a child's doll, it didn't really carry that meaning, and the task in hand was more important than any idle reminiscences, anyway.

He found no messages in the doll's clothing, or on its knitted body—even the occasional dropped stitches didn't form a pattern of any sort. Obi-Wan did observe that it was blond haired (long hair; a Knight's haircut, or even a Master's, not a Padawan's) and blue eyed, and that it had even been given a miniature lightsaber of sorts—a short piece of thick steel wire, by the feel of it. Someone had taken much care over this; someone was thinking of the Jedi. He wondered if the corresponding Sith doll—presumably there was one—had been made as lovingly.

Not liking to leave it—him—undressed for too long, Obi-Wan painstakingly wrapped the robes around the doll, correcting a fold here or there where the complex robes and sashes had confused the maker.

Then he stared for a while at the ring, but found nothing there but iron. Eventually, he put everything back into the box in which it came, hid the box in the chest which kept his other remaining reminders of the Jedi Order, and went to bed.

He undressed automatically, still thinking about the box and its contents—letting his mind wander, now, remembering Bail and his curious interest in the Rogue Jedi holovids, Leia playing at being a Jedi, wondering if—when Beru let Luke into town—he and his friends played such games. Thinking of Anakin, who had, on first being told that mediation was central to a Jedi's life, said, "I thought it was fighting!" as if he'd been cheated in some way.

Later, Anakin had confessed that he'd once played Jedi vs. Sith—"They used to make me be the Sith," he'd explained. "They said I shouldn't get to be the Jedi always." His life here had made such a mark on Anakin… and would make a mark on Luke. Obi-Wan could only hope that Luke's circumstances were different enough. At least he wasn't a slave; that had marked Anakin incredibly, to the point that he'd been horrified to see Bail and Obi-Wan wearing tattoos…

Absent-mindedly, Obi-Wan pushed his trousers off, and ran a hand over his own tattoo. BO, it said, standing not—as Anakin had once suggested in a fit of temper—for body odour, but for Bail Organa, Obi-Wan's… Obi-Wan never knew what to call him. Occasional lover, in the sense that they made love whenever a suitable occasion arose; alternative universe bond-mate, in that they might have been bonded in another reality… comfort blanket, in as much as Obi-Wan went to Bail for comfort, and found him nice and warm to sleep under.

The letters nestled on his hip, intertwined, each a little over a thumb-width across.

Like something else he'd measured that day.

Suddenly, Obi-Wan was almost running in the tiny hut—opening the chest, hunting out the box, throwing the water purifiers on the floor, scrabbling for the ring… he had it.

Taking it between finger and thumb so that he could lay it flat, Obi-Wan matched the ring to his tattoo. A perfect fit. It wasn't just a ring, it was a letter. Written, not in invisible ink or a secret code, but in plain sight, where only the one possessed of the decoder could find it or read it.

"Clever," Obi-Wan breathed, "Clever, Bail, you old show-off."

For the first time in years, Obi-Wan smiled.

Epilogue

Obi-Wan slept with the ring under his pillow that night; and in the morning, he returned to Mos Eisley, not to sell or buy, but to use his last remaining credit to access the public data-net. The search took ten minutes, during which Obi-Wan fidgeted so much that he knew Qui-Gon would want to set him calming mediations by the bucket-load. But finally the page loaded, and he read the short entry:

Hali: Common on many worlds and popular for its sweet scent, in the Corscanati language of flowers hali is used to convey a desire for one's suitor to remain distant. In the Alderaani system, however, it is used to signify 'I miss you.'

Trust Bail, Obi-Wan thought, and walked out into the sunlight.