Ben Kenobi is alone in his hut on Tatooine, having as much fun as a lonely Jedi is supposed to be having after the rise of the Empire. Unexpectedly, someone knocks at his door...

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Ben had returned to his dismal hut after a day spent meditating under the scorching suns.

He removed his boots, emptied his pockets from bucketfuls of sand and plopped himself on his stone-carved bed; then he remembered that he should rather tackle some house chores that could no longer wait.

Obi-Wan used to be tidy, once, but Ben was slovenly, his inability to put things in order mirroring his mental state.

He went outside to collect water from the DIY vaporator he had put together to avoid begging for necessities at Owen's.

One more step towards complete hermitage: successful.

Once back inside, Ben moved a few boxes around, striving to obtain a semblance of tidiness, before giving up completely.

What was the point of it, anyway? It wasn't like anyone would visit him. It wasn't like he had a reputation to preserve. Reputation, ah. Such a funny word, to the ears of one of the most wanted fugitives in the galaxy.

He would warm himself up with dinner, instead.

Clearing his throat, he crouched on a pew pot, filling it with water and...what else?

The pantry was empty, save for one single half-rotten pika, which he would save for the morning. Not able to turn a blind eye to his food situation any longer, he would have to make the trek to Mos Eisley to gather supplies the next day. An encounter with other life-forms, oh the delight.

That night, Ben restlessly tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep, be it for the fear of recurring nightmares, be it for his itchy skin. All that UV exposure and sand sure didn't benefit him.

It was on nights like that one when Ben wondered if he should have died alongside the other Jedi during the Order 66 purge. It was on nights like that one, when he couldn't even chase haunting dreams away, that despair took over and he no longer knew who he was.

His life wouldn't improve, but it was fine: he deserved to be punished, for all the harm he had caused. With this thought in mind, he forcibly closed his eyes shut, but when he did, the faces of the ones he had lost punctually came visiting him, accusing him, shedding corrosive tears that ate into his flesh. Their voices got louder, as well as a rapping noise...

RAT-TAT-TAT

Wait a minute. The noise was real? Someone was at the door?

Ben's pity party was over as quickly as it'd begun. In a moment he was on his feet, lightsaber deactivated but at ready as he stealthily peeked from a window to get a view of the outside.

No-one in sight.

Strange, he thought he'd sensed a presence somewhere nearby...

With caution, Ben opened the door slightly, squeezing his way out through the small opening. Since he couldn't see anything in the dark, he would have to rely on the Force completely.

He moved a step forward, only to bump into something. Scared, Ben gave a start, igniting his lightsaber as a reflex, an unforgivable mistake in case anyone was trying to frame him. Deactivating it back, Ben looked at his feet only to find a...box.

A box? Who would go all the way to his hut in the wastelands to deliver him a box? Was it a trap?

Curiosity got the better of him, so Ben, with a wooden shaft he had procured himself, tore the tape that held the box together, revealing its content. What he saw left him gaping: food supplies and toiletries.

Among the items, there was plenty of the freshest-looking fruit he had seen since the Clone Wars, a packet of tea, bloddles and podpoppers, spelt flatbread, an expensive-looking bar of imported soap and even a sunscreen tube that read "for human - twi'lek topical use only". Overall, enough stuff to live comfortably for a month or so.

If Ben was on the alert before, now he was discombobulated. Who? Why?

He sniffed the food, looking for traces of poison, but he found none. He had a benefactor, apparently, and didn't know what to think about it.

Evidently, whomever had delivered the box knew him well enough to guess what kind of goods he was in desperate need of. And it wasn't all: they had also thought of pampering him with products he was fond of, like tea and shampoo.

Ben was worried. Was someone spying on him?

While on the one hand he felt threatened, on the other he reasoned that it was a very unusual behavior for an ill-intentioned individual to drop a box of goods and then disappear.

Perhaps Owen or Beru pitied him to the point of showing some generosity. As unlikely as it seemed, this theory lost even more consistency in light of one fact: the majority of the toiletries he was given were luxury (by Tatooine standards) items the Larses wouldn't buy for themselves, let alone for a freaky hermit like himself. Beru and Owen were homemade-bantha-lard-soap-kind-of-farmers, blueblossom shower oil - among other things - wasn't in their style at all.

After racking his brain, Ben decided to retreat in the hut: the last traces of the presence faded, it would be useless to remain outside at this point.

For the rest of the night, and for the entire day afterwards, the presence didn't show up again.