Well, It Could Have Been Worse...Somehow

Title: Well, It Could Have Been Worse...Somehow.
Rated: PG
Prompt: # 97, Bonds
Summary: Obi-Wan finds out that one must be careful when telling a slayer something she might not like and also discovers the importance of having really good medical insurance if you have to. Post-TPM.
Disclaimer: See first chapter.

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The talk could have gone better. Much better.

Not to mention should have been far less painful for him.

Then again, for the short time he had known Buffy, her reaction had somehow seemed appropriate for her. That very thought made the indefinite amount time he would be spending with her a very heavy thought to consider.

Well, Master Qui-Gon had always warned him to be careful when revealing certain information. This was a very painful reminder that he should have paid more attention to his Master’s lessons.

“How did this happen?” the medical droid asked, checking the medical readouts he had just taken.

Obi-Wan glanced at the seventeen-year-old blonde standing at the foot of the cot he sat on. Looking as guilty as she actually was, Buffy shifted uncomfortably on her feet. Nervously, she glanced at him as if she expected him to give her an excuse she could use. Perhaps he should help her out. The Council had assigned him to help her in anyway he could, after all. But, after what she did, he was quite content to let her sweat out her own answer.

“Um...” she said, biting the edge of her lip. “Sparing accident.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. Buffy shrugged her shoulders, as if daring him to come up with a better excuse.

The medical droid, not paying any attention to the exchange, added the extra information into Obi-Wan’s medical history. “Please wait here. When I return, I will reset your jaw, Knight Kenobi.”

Turning, the droid rolled out of the room, leaving the pair alone.

Obi-Wan’s broken jaw was throbbing continually now, but it was a definite step up from the sharp pains that it had replaced. Closing his eyes, he brushed his fingers against the swollen lump on the lower part of his face and winced from the pain that the small amount of pressure against the wound added. Inside his mouth, he moved his tongue around to make sure that all his teeth really were still in place. It hurt like hell, but the last thing he needed was for a loose tooth that some medical droid missed to pop out one night while he was in the middle of a conversation with one of the Council members. Or worse yet, with Anakin. He’d never let him live it down.

“You know this is all your fault, right?”

Obi-Wan opened his eyes and looked up at Buffy, who was now standing directly in front of him. Her arms were crossed and she still looked extremely guilty - as she should - but there was a bit of defiance to her to her posture.

In response to her question, he furrowed his forehead while trying to raise an eyebrow at the same time.

“Well, it is,” she said childishly. “I mean, how did you expect me to react? Huh? I mean, hello, total access to my brain is so not something that I’m okay with in so many different ways, it’s not even funny. It’s not even a joke! But do you Jedi care? Nooo. You just sit there like, ‘Oh, la de da, it’s a normal thing that sometimes happen. Don’t fight it, or, you know, your brain might explode. Now, lets go play with our lifesavers or whatever.’ Which, I might add, is such a phallic metaphor. I mean, could you guys just not find a weapon that looked more like a guys -.”

He forced himself to tune her out at this point. It seemed that she was rather satisfied with listening to herself rant, and he was in no hurry to stop her. How would he be able to anyway?

Obi-Wan sighed and resisted the urge to rub his hand over his face. She was over simplifying things. The bond thingy - as she seemed fond of referring to it as - would most definitely not make her head explode, though it would be thoroughly painful for both of them if she did resist it with all her might. And he nor the Jedi Council could remove it any more than she would be able to. It was there. It was a part of them for now. The sooner she accepted that, the better off they would both be.

And the sooner she learned to react without a violent act against him for news that she didn’t like, the better off and happier he would be. Yet, somehow it didn’t seem like that would be happening in the near future.

Sith, what had he done to deserve being bonded with a raving lunatic vampire slayer?

As she moved on to swearing that she was not going to get that ‘stupid, Bobby Hill buzz cut’ that the Padawan learners wore, Obi-Wan found himself regretting that it was the Sith that been killed during the Battle of Naboo and not himself. That was a far more favorable fate as compared to the one he now had with Buffy.