Title: When Reality Attacks
Author: Sethra
Rating: Er...umm...R? NC-17?
ARCHIVE: Please? I'd love it if you would
Summary: The General turns fantasy to reality... [as
usual!
Disclaimer: Mr. Lucas invented Kenobi and had the wit to tie him up legally. Sniff.

She didn't realize she'd sighed until Kres's voice startled her. "You're insane, Maila."

Tearing her eyes from the closing door, she grinned.

"We've been through this before, methinks."

"I still think it's insane," Kres retorted goodnaturedly. "You know who he is, and yet you fawn all over him like he's a-"

"I do not fawn!" Maila stared the other tech down, arms akimbo. "If I must explain it to you again to get it through your skull: he's handsome and well-mannered with a voice to die for and he's completely unattainable. A perfect object of desire, no reality need apply. Now just because you can't make some jig down in engineering notice you…"

"Oh, low blow!" Kres complained, laughing.

Maila smiled sweetly. "You started it. Now, board three, lead 1A."

Sighing, Kres set the probe to the lead. "Green."

"2A."

"Green… Why him?"

"3A. What?"

"Green. Out of everyone on board, why him?"

Maila was silent for a moment, staring off into oblivion. "Because he is, I suppose." She shook

herself and looked down at the readout. "4A."

"Green."

General Kenobi. There was no need to explain the attraction, or rather, there shouldn't be. The very air swirling about him was different in a thousand tiny ways, each of which conspired to captivate and compel…attention at the very least, but something akin to adoration in some. His people would follow him anywhere, not necessarily because they believed he could bring them out again, but because it was inevitable, impossible that they not go where he led.

Even then, Maila realized, very few seemed to realize how attractive the man was. Or perhaps because of his leadership no one bothered to examine him as a man rather than a general. The honey-colored hair in a short tail down his neck; the golden stubble that framed a strong jaw; the lithe, muscular body that was poetry at rest and stalking grace in motion; and the piercing, changeable eyes. Oh, people noticed the eyes, how they could see right through you in an instant and continue on, leaving you to wonder what they thought of you, but they never seemed to mention how they were blue one minute, green the next, and a startling gray when you looked again.

Once in awhile she'd laugh at herself, chiding her wayward hormones for distracting her so thoroughly, but deep down inside she had a sneaking suspicion that she'd be mooning over this man even if he'd been ugly as the galaxy was wide. Thank the Maker then that he'd never know she had such vivid thoughts about him.

They were idle daydreams anyhow; Kres couldn't seem to get it through his head that acting on those impulses was the last thing she had in mind, but then males were different.

The great and fearsome General Kenobi set the datapad aside and sighed. It had been a long day in an interminable week and it was about to get longer. There was only one possible place in this sector of space for the enemy detachment they pursued to have gone to ground; that was the good news. The bad news was that as soon as he told anyone, it would be hailed as a miracle from the Force and the legendary General Kenobi would rise one notch closer to deification.

Not that he objected to godhood, really, but it did horrible things to plain old Obi-Wan's…personal life. More specifically, lack thereof. Groaning, he buried his face in his hands. There was really no help for it, not while this war dragged on.

The doorbell chimed and he straightened hurriedly, pulling his on-duty expression down over his problems. Serene and untroubled, his voice called, "Come in."

He would have either laughed or moaned when he saw who entered had he not been concentrating on his emotionless façade.

"I've brought the Admiral's summary and your dinner, General Kenobi," she told him. It was the girl with the subtle beauty who'd been sighing after him for weeks. He watched her carefully as she shoved aside a stack of papers and laid down the tray. "They sent this up when they noticed you hadn't been down to dinner, sir," she continued, too formally for the nonchalance she was trying to project.

"Why you?"

"I beg your pardon?" she blurted, startled.

He picked up the napkin and rearranged the flatware as he responded. "You are not kitchen staff. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, you're a civilian technician. While I'm grateful, I wonder why they sent you?"

She blushed but answered steadily, "Oh, I was just there in the kitchen and headed this way anyhow. It was convenient. Is there anything else I can do for you, General?"

A smile won its way past his control. "No, thank you, I-" he stopped dead, struck by something she'd said. 'Just there-convenient…' "Actually, there is something," he continued smoothly as his mind clicked along. "Stay a moment and take these messages to…"

The briefing was too deadly dull to believe, Maila thought as she stifled a yawn. Of course, it didn't help that General Kenobi had kept her running errands long into the night! How fortunate the gossip had said that the General did not welcome the Admiral's "summaries", and that the appointed messenger had stopped for a snack to fortify himself. He'd been all too glad to send a civilian into the line of fire. A slow smile crept across her face, to be obliterated by the next yawn. She didn't regret a moment of it; when he'd become caught up in his plans his energy crackled about him, giving her the momentum she needed to complete his tasks before realizing how late it was.

She wasn't precisely sure what it had all been about, but she knew that this morning's briefing and new orders were the result. But it was hard to concentrate on any of that when the colonel's voice kept fading out and the wall supported her head so nicely…

General Kenobi joined the briefing as it was wrapping up and glanced around the room. On the far side in the second-to-last tier, his admirer and accomplice of last night slept peacefully against the carpeted wall, oblivious to everything. Maila-that was her name. He grinned to himself; she'd made his tiny deception possible, and done it with such enthusiasm that he'd never realized how late it was until the last piece was in place. He wondered if she remembered him escorting her to her quarters just a few hours ago; considering the way she'd wavered on her feet, he rather doubted it.

The colonel finished her briefing and dismissed her audience; before she could notice the slumbering technician, Obi-Wan began explaining a minor detail of the plan and casually led her out the door. With her out of the way, he reentered the briefing room.

She shifted to find a more comfortable position, then wondered at the quiet. Prying open her eyelids, too sleep-mazed to worry about official retribution for dozing through a briefing, she caught a glimpse of his golden, bearded face and returned his smile. Suddenly her preservation instincts caught up with her and she sprang to her feet, registering the empty room at last. "Oh, sir-General!"

"Not to worry," he soothed, grinning. "I hope you don't mind, but I ran a little… interference for you; Colonel DeMayt never noticed."

A wry smile escaped her dismay. "Yes, sir, thank you."

"No, thank you," he told her quietly. He continued more briskly as he ushered her out of the room and down the corridor, "And, in compensation-if you agree-I'll inform your watch commander that you're reassigned as my aide temporarily." He led her through the door to his quarters. "So. No one will come looking for you and you can get some sleep."

She stopped in her tracks, confused. "Sir?"

"It's the least I can do. You'd never get any rest down in BOQ. Good night." And he turned and walked out the door.

It was hard to walk out that door. By the Force, it was difficult; there was an utterly charming, attractive young woman in his bed! One that thought she was attracted to him, and dazzling, and intelligent… and exhausted. But he drew serenity about him and went about his duties, preparing for the battle he'd committed them to in a little less than three days.

Several hours later, he was back in his quarters, trying to concentrate on his dispatches but all too often contemplating the figure who just now began to stir on his bed. He was mildly disturbed; the Force was trying to tell him something about her, but he simply couldn't make out what. Beautiful; so beautiful. He gave up on the dispatches as she sat up, yawning. "Sleep well?"

"Yes, sir, thank you." Laughing, he asked, "What does it take to get you to stop saying that?"

Her eyes sparked mischievously, but she answered demurely, "I don't know, sir."

There was no way she'd tell him the first thought that popped into her head at that question, so she'd responded to his question safely…or so she'd thought.

But his grin shifted slightly to a more predatory smile; he rose from the desk to prowl toward her, stalking her elusive answer. "Oh, no; you thought of something," he told her, his smooth conversational tone belied by his too fluid movements.

She watched him in fascination, her brain and mouth working at normal, safe levels while her body and eyes operated on quite another level. "Still a bit asleep, actually, sir; sorry. I was thinking of something else."

His eyebrows went up. "Really."

She ignored his disbelieving, knowing tone. "Yes, sir." Her eyes were locked on his stubbled chin as he came to stand before her; her heart pounded she wondered if it echoed. "Is there an errand you need run, sir?" Ignore his nearness, ignore his scent, ignore the warmth that radiates from him.

"I thought I asked you to stop that."

Startled, she glanced into his eyes and fell in. "I didn't say thank you!"

His eyes unfocused briefly as though he looked inside himself…and took her with him. Then they returned to her face as he caught her hand. "I meant stop calling me 'sir'." He pressed a kiss into her palm that made sparks shoot along her nerves and waited in invitation.

He'd finally figured out what the Force had been whispering; the shock had hurried him into this. Even for one as naturally impatient as he, it was too fast, too sudden, too spurious. Even the speed didn't exhilarate him as much as she did; he hoped he'd read this right, that she wouldn't be offended or change her mind. By the Force, this could get him in trouble! But her eyes were shining and, with a sudden grin, she took the half-step between them and kissed him thoroughly.

They tripped on her boots and found the bed more quickly than anticipated; he tried to 'protect' her and ended up on the bottom. Her smile reminded him forcefully of a cat who's just noticed a braid hanging down. He began unpinning her hair as she unfastened his space black tunic, letting her lips explore what her fingers bared. He was soft, gold-sprinkled flesh over coiled muscle that woke anew under her touch.

She moved back up to investigate with kisses the underside of his jaw where skin met beard as her hair tumbled down, silk against his bare chest. He began to work on her tunic but every time she moved, her thigh between his legs drove him crazier than he meant to be… yet. He flipped them over, kissing her eager mouth until she moaned, letting his hands loosen her clothing while his lips played over her face and eyes and tongue and ear, teasing her senses. She was sweet softness that suddenly kindled for him, a voice that murmured his name in the darkness, a will that dear sweet Force blazed before him. Her long fingers ran through his hair, freeing it to fall about his shoulders as her explorations moved firmly urgently forever downwards.

Mundane reality loosened, replaced inexorably by fire. Pleasure crackled, danced, and sang as it spiraled ever upward, higher, tighter, faster into the moment when gold spilled back onto shoulders, bodies arched and lips left each other to cry out release to the universe that crashed into the shore of their sharing, to drain quietly, peaceably back out to sea.

"You know…"

He propped himself on an elbow. "Yes, Maila?"

"The General might want to tell me his name if he doesn't want to be called 'sir'."

A low chuckle. "You know my name."

"Hmm. So I do."

And words once more became superfluous.