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It is, perhaps, the most normal thing Obi-Wan finds himself doing now that he's in Darrow. It's Sunday evening, he's dressed in clothes more fitting of a Darrow resident -- the denim trousers he's come to quite like and a plain sweatshirt under his long robe -- and he's wandering the aisles of a grocery store, one of the baskets from the front hooked over his arm as he fills it with food.

For so long they had been on the front lines of a war. Before that, the temple on Coruscant had supplied him with everything he would need, or those housing him and Qui-Gon if they had gone on a mission. Obi-Wan has never really needed to cook for himself, but he's a smart man, resourceful, and he's learned a fair bit in his time here.

That doesn't mean he doesn't also want a frozen pizza every now and again.

What he's not expecting is to turn down another aisle, reading the back of the frozen pizza box, and find himself standing mere feet from Anakin's grandson. He looks up when he senses him, then smiles and puts the pizza box in the basket.

"Ben," he says in greeting. "How are you?"

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"Some," Ben said, adding, "I did enough of that on my own."

He'd closed himself off as a boy. Gradually, then with more conviction when Snoke's voice began whispering in his ear.

"How much of our story has Rey told you?"

"Some," Obi-Wan answers. "Most of what she's told me has had to do with the Chan- with Palpatine. What he tried to convince her was her birthright."

He has no patience for such ideas from men like Palpatine. Given everything he had done to Anakin, to Rey, Obi-Wan thinks his opinions on birthrights and power should be dismissed out of hand.

He also knows such things aren't so easy.

"Before Palpatine lured her to Exegol, I was there, trying to convince her of the same."

It was a bit more complicated than that, and he'd cared little for her bloodline, but their goals were ultimately the same: To see Rey on the sith throne. To see her rule the galaxy, in the name of the dark side.

"But you changed," Obi-Wan answers. He pauses, feeling Ben's presence in the Force. "She changed you?"

It isn't entirely a question, but he prefers not to make any assumptions without confirmation, even when he could reach out deeper into the Force and probably develop a bigger and clearer picture. This is Ben's story to tell if he wants, if he's willing to share. There's no reason for Obi-Wan to try to unlock more than he's allowed to know.

"She did," he answered simply, his jaw clenched tight. "Among other things."

He thought of his mother, of her light and warmth reaching out towards him, in his darkest moments. And his father's anguished face, and the forgiveness that had come so easily, even if it had only been within his own mind.

"When I was boy, around the time my mother sent me off to Skywalker's temple, I began to hear the voice of a man, who... Whom I believed saw something special in me. But it was Palpatine, all along, and I believe now that he was only using me to get to her."

Just as he had with Anakin, Obi-Wan thinks. Just as he had Ben's grandfather. There are times when Obi-Wan still considers the timelines tangled knots he's unable to pick apart, no matter how carefully he approaches them, but he also knows the picking apart of them doesn't really matter. They're all here now, all with their own experiences, their own loss and their own pain.

And no matter how tangled, he sees much of Anakin in Ben, in his experiences.

"Looking back now, knowing what I know, I can see the signs," Obi-Wan says. "Things I overlooked because I trusted him to be fair. He was an expert at manipulation and clever enough to watch and wait in order to find things he could exploit. Clever and patient."