So it's yet another Teaser Tuesday! They come around so quickly - last week's completely snuck up on me! Every teaser is one week closer to the beginning of the school year. I have mixed feelings about this. I miss all my friends and life on campus, plus I get to take a super cool creative writing class in the fall. But, I love living at home with my family. I didn't realize how much until I went away to school. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Anyway, this week isn't so much a teaser. I figured enough of The Pawn was floating around on the internet so this week is a full one shot I wrote last summer. It's part of a Star Wars fanfiction series.A relationship between a certain Jedi and a Nabooian woman unfolds as told to and seen by a young Padmé Naberrie. Told in several one shots, in no particular order.The sound of rain woke him. It was beating a rhythm against the windows, the walls, the roof. A brief wind shook the glass panes. Beyond the the blurring mass of gray that was the outside he could make out the large lake, heaving and turning. He sighed and ran a hand through his spiking, brown hair, pausing to tug impatiently at his padawan braid. This was certainly one thing he might never be able to get used to when on foreign planets. Weather.
On Coruscant, where there was weather control, things like rain seldom appeared. And why should they, when you could control nearly everything but the wind? He chewed on his lower lip, considering the outside, before falling back into the pillows with a sigh. When he could leave Naboo, he was unsure.
Protect the girl, he thought to himself, Then you may leave.
But from what? Being dumped on a planet near the Outer Rim by his Master and told to protect a girl was hardly an agenda. He had no factors, no suspects, no leads or clues. As far as he knew, he might be protecting her from a mythological lake monster. In fact that was what he felt like he was doing half of the time. While Qui Gon departed to Theeds to follow up tangible leads, he was stuck here, in the mountains, fending off ghosts. And it didn't help that Helene had absolutely no sense of self preservation. For some one who had had an attempt made on her life, she showed no care. She went as she pleased, did as she pleased, and laughed when he tried to curb her behavior.
He groaned. He simply could not win in this situation. He was the one most likely to be offed by a heart attack. Today, she had disappeared for three hours with out telling any one where she was going. Neither person nor droid had seen her leave.
And speak of the devil...
He could see a familiar figure standing in the middle of the torrent, clinging to the balcony railing. She was wearing blue, though, to his eyes, it looked black, darkened by the rain. Her hair, which had always amazed him in its length, whipped around her in a frenzy in some places and stuck to her face in others. Her face was lifted up to the sky, and even through the mess that was the space between them he could discern a smile of rapture on her face. She was going to fall. He could feel it, like an alarm screaming in his head. There was no possible way that some one as small as she would be able to hold out against the force of the gales outside. Muttering obscenities under his breath, he kicked back the covers, pulled on his shirt and grabbed his cloak before heading to the living room.
As he had expected the doors leading out to the balcony stood open. Water blew in, wetting everything in its vicinity; the gale that had been kept out in his own room by sturdy windows was blowing freely in the living room. What few papers there were whipped through the air, a coverlet that had been draped over a couch was now caught around a lamp stand and the fire that had been raring quite cheerily when he had retired had sputtered out.
And there, beyond the two gaping doors and in the middle of the rain, stood Helene. She stood erect, her shoulders thrown back, arms now above her head, hands raised to the sky, her head lifted in exultation. Her robe had fallen open, and he could see from his vantage behind her, was threatening to come off of her completely.
"Helene!" He yelled. She turned around, having, against all odds, heard his voice above the torrential downpour, and grinned. In that moment he was painfully reminded of a conclusion he had come to only hours before. There was nothing strange about her brown eyes, or unsettling about her overly exuberant smile. The mark above the corner of her left eyebrow wasn't disgusting and her unusually pale skin and red lips, though unusual and almost ghost like at times, suited her and her personality. The young woman that he had thought lacked very much in the looks department had suddenly turned beautiful to him.
He was pulled out of his reverie by her sudden movement, when she left her perch by the railing to come to him.
"Obi Wan!" She laughed, and tugged on his hand, "You must come outside; it's breathtaking!"
He shook his head to clear the fog in his mind, "You'll catch your death out there, Helene. Come back inside."
"I am inside, but I am about to go back as soon as you join me."
"Helene -"
"Please, Obi Wan. It's more than wonderful outside." He paused for a moment. This, he decided, was why the Jedi cautioned against emotional attachments. He was considering. Rationality, though a factor, had much less impact. It was no longer a question of whether or not this was a good idea. It was how happy versus how disappointed she would be if he declined to go outside. As if she could sense his dilemma and her impending victory, she grinned and pulled him outside.
He gasped when the water hit him, slamming into him like a million pinpricks of cold and wet, soaking him instantly to the skin. The gale, which had until then left his cloak alone for the most part, caught at the rough, brown fabric and jerked it into the air behind him. There was no relief beneath the water; it pounded relentlessly against everything, his skin, the floor, the windows, and Helene. He blinked. Until then, he had not been consciously aware that water could get caught in his eyelashes.
Helene's hand was still clasped tightly in his. She was examining him, her brown eyes missing very little of his reaction to the storm. In her eyes he could see the joy she received simply from being in the rain. Why? It was wonderful and exhilarating to be sure. He could contemplate that. The adrenaline that was pounding in his own veins was testament to that. But where was that child like joy coming from? He lifted a hand to her face, his thumb sweeping across her cheek, as if touching the place where he saw such joy would impart wisdom.
"Why are you so happy?" He could see the struggle in her eyes; she was battling with something again. More and more often he was seeing that look on her face. "Helene?" He prompted, moving closer.
"I like the rain," she finally responded. Despite the simplicity of the answer, he felt that it wasn't what she meant. Her eyes. Always her eyes had something to say that she would not. It was as if something in her head had finally clicked together, some problem had resolved itself. There was relief now; serenity seemed to smooth away a wrinkle he had not even been aware of between her brows. The space between them had closed and he had not even been aware of it. Now, suddenly, he towered over her. She was small in comparison to him, rising only to his shoulder, and thinner, too. She lacked muscle and true weight, so that she never seemed grounded. His thumb, which had never moved from its place on her cheek, stopped its to and fro movement. She laid her right hand across his hesitantly and looked down, afraid that the gesture would be rejected.
Their faces were close now, so close, he thought, that perhaps their eyelashes might have tangled if they moved closer still. Their foreheads touched, he could feel her breath, warm in contrast to the cold of the wind whipping around them, spread across his face and then fade away with every exhalation.
He was afraid to move, closer or further, for fear of shattering this moment. What little logic there was left for this night was telling him to move away, to return to his room, and bury this one sliver of time deep in his memory. But he didn't want to. This moment was perfect, in a way that he had not thought perfection could exist. It was not flawless, or picturesque. It was simple - she and him were there, alone, sharing something. Something that defied being named or given description.
"Obi Wan," he could not hear her voice above the roaring of the wind. But he could imagine it and the unique Nabooian lilt it gave his name, the way she could caused letters that he had not even known could be rolled, to roll. He wanted to kiss her, he realized suddenly. He had kissed before, to experiment and understand what all the fuss was about. And though he had not understood immediately - his first few attempts had been distinct failures - he had caught on soon enough. And yet, even during the successful attempts, this had never existed before a kiss. All the biological reactions were correct, but what was happening in his mind and his heart were different. He knew that gratification would be present, but also that it would go beyond that. This kiss, he understood, would satisfy something beyond physical need. It would satisfy the something that had suddenly sprung up between them and now dominated this moment.
She stood on her toes now, closing the space between them that he had not dared to cross. The hand that had been nestled in hers now rested against her back. Their lips brushed, barely touching, and her eyes, those strange brown eyes, closed, her hands settling on his shoulders. He pulled her closer. Perhaps he could not move, or was afraid of what moving forward on his own would bring, but she would. And she did, pressing her slight frame against his larger one, allowing her body to give and mold around his. Still, they did not kiss. This was better, some how more important. A sharing of selves, perhaps.
They only returned inside once he noticed that she had begun to shiver. Once he dried off and changed, he returned to the living room, to find the doors closed against the storm, and Helene feeding wood to the fireplace. She looked up, her dark, wet hair pushed behind one ear, the sleeve of her robe trailing over the tips of her fingers. He could sense her fear immediately, and see it, too. It was difficult to miss the way her eyes widened marginally, and more difficult still to ignore the way her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. He did not know what to do. How to recapture the moment they had shared outside? How could he revive the trust that had survived between the two of them in the middle of the raging wind? They had only been apart for a few minutes. Was that significant?
The doors shook, rattling violently when a particularly nasty wind slammed against the house.
"Did you lock the doors?" An odd way to recommence communication, but usually successful.
"Yes." Perhaps not. Should he go to her? Should he ask her about their moment outside? And how would he refer to it? 'The moment'? But she took it out of his hands. She stretched out her hand to him from her spot on the floor. Wordlessly - and gratefully - he went to her, and took her hand, sitting beside her. After half a moment's hesitation he pulled her against him, tunneling his fingers through her damp hair.
"Helene," he sighed, as if that should convey everything he felt. Perhaps it didn't, but for now it was enough. Enough as she looked up at him, with a shy smile, and traced the dimple on his chin. Enough as he lay back against the cushions in front of the fire, and she curled against him. Enough, at least, for tonight.
