Chapter 12: The Kiss That Shattered Plates
The comfortable chaos of the kitchen snapped into absolute stillness. The rhythmic sizzle of pancakes in the skillet was suddenly the loudest sound in the universe, underscored only by the steady drumming of rain against the magically repaired windows. Anakin’s spatula hit the tiled floor with a sharp clang, bouncing once before skittering under the island. Tony DiNozzo choked violently on his mouthful of coffee, spraying it across the counter in a fine mist as he doubled over, coughing and wheezing. Tobias Fornell’s eyebrows didn’t just rise; they seemed to attempt escape into his receding hairline, his jaw slack, coffee mug frozen halfway to his lips. Rex and Cody went rigid, their hands twitching near absent blasters, trained eyes wide with utter disbelief. Fives and Echo, caught mid-bicker over who got the last strip of synth-bacon, froze like statues. Ahsoka’s large eyes widened impossibly, her montrals seeming to stiffen in shock.
Brittany stood statue-still. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hands, warm and calloused from a lifetime gripping a lightsaber, framed her face. His lips were firm yet surprisingly soft against hers, the kiss deep, intense, and utterly unexpected. It wasn't tentative exploration; it was a claiming, a sudden plunge into intimacy that bypassed thought entirely. The scent of him – ozone, old leather, and something uniquely Obi-Wan – flooded her senses, momentarily eclipsing the aroma of burning pancakes and coffee. Her own hands, which had been poised to flip the next pancake, hung uselessly at her sides.
A second stretched into an eternity, thick and suffocating. Then, a low, dangerous growl rumbled from Anakin’s direction. He took a half-step forward, fists clenched at his sides, the air around him crackling with raw, untamed energy. "Master Kenobi!" The words were less a name, more a warning shot.
The sound shattered the frozen tableau. Obi-Wan broke the kiss as abruptly as he’d initiated it, pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against Brittany’s. His eyes, usually so composed and guarded, were wide, pupils dilated, reflecting her own stunned expression. He looked as shocked as she felt. His breath hitched, warm against her lips. "Brittany..." Her name was a rough whisper, laden with a thousand unspoken things – apology, confusion, desire, the sheer, overwhelming rightness of the connection that had surged between them.
Before she could process, before she could even breathe, Tony was there. He grabbed her arm, pulling her bodily away from Obi-Wan, positioning himself like a human shield between them. His usually playful eyes were hard, protective fury blazing in them. "Whoa, hold up! Hands off the kid, Space Gandalf!" He glared at Obi-Wan, then turned his frantic attention to Brittany. "Kid? You okay? Did he just...? Are you alright?" He scanned her face, his own pale beneath the spray of coffee droplets. "Talk to me. Did he hurt you?"
Fornell finally slammed his mug down on the counter, coffee sloshing over the rim. He surged forward, his earlier suspicion replaced by a fiercely paternal outrage. "What in the Sam Hill was that, Kenobi?!" he barked, his voice rough. He wasn't pointing a finger, but his posture radiated the intention. "You don't just grab a woman like that! Explain yourself!"
Ahsoka, wide-eyed, looked frantically between her Master and her Grandmaster. "Master Obi-Wan? What... what happened?" Her voice was small, confused. The clones remained silent sentinels, but their stillness was charged, a silent council of war assessing this sudden, bizarre threat protocol.
Brittany blinked, pulling her gaze from Obi-Wan’s intense, conflicted stare. She felt Tony’s grip on her arm, saw Fornell’s protective fury, registered Anakin’s simmering anger and Ahsoka’s bewildered innocence. The smell of burning batter suddenly assaulted her nostrils, acrid and sharp. "Tony," she said, her voice surprisingly steady, though her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. "I'm fine. Let go." She gently but firmly extracted her arm from his grasp. Her gaze swept over Fornell. "Stand down, Tobias."
She turned back to Obi-Wan. He hadn't moved, his expression a turbulent sea of Jedi restraint battling something far more primal. The connection still hummed between them, a live wire sparking in the charged air. "Obi-Wan," she stated, her tone flat, demanding explanation. Her lips still tingled. Her mind raced, replaying the instant before the kiss – the shared warmth over the stove, the unexpected ease of their banter, the way his gaze had lingered on her smile, the sudden, overwhelming pull she’d felt mirrored in his eyes just before he’d acted. It hadn't been one-sided. She’d felt the surge from him just as keenly as her own.
He swallowed visibly, the movement tight in his throat. "I... Brittany," he began, his cultured Coruscanti accent slightly roughened. "I do not... I could not..." He faltered, a rare loss for words for the master negotiator. He glanced towards Anakin, whose glare was now fixed on him, a silent accusation of hypocrisy screaming louder than any words. The Jedi Code, the very tenets Obi-Wan embodied, forbade attachment. Forbade this. The conflict warring within him was almost palpable. "The Force..." he started, then stopped again, shaking his head minutely. It was an inadequate explanation, even to himself. The Force hadn't made him do it. It had simply stripped away every barrier, every carefully constructed wall, in that single, devastatingly perfect moment.
Anakin scoffed, the sound harsh and bitter. "The Force? That's your excuse? Since when does the Force tell you to kiss people without asking?" His voice dripped with sarcasm and a pain that went deeper than this single incident. The hypocrisy stung, a raw reminder of his own forbidden love.
"Okay, enough," Brittany cut in, her voice slicing through the tension. The air vibrated with unspoken accusations, confusion, and the potent aftermath of the kiss. She took a deliberate step back from everyone, reclaiming her space. Her face felt warm, but her expression was carefully schooled into neutrality, the mask of the NCIS agent, the surgeon, snapping firmly into place. The bewildered young woman who had just been kissed breathless retreated behind formidable walls. "The pancakes are burning." She stated it like a fact of universal importance.
She turned, mechanically grabbing a different spatula Tony hadn't knocked over, and flipped the charring disc in the pan. It landed with a dispirited plop, blackened side up. She didn't even look at it. The mundane action was a stark contrast to the emotional maelstrom swirling behind her.
Silence descended again, thicker than before. Tony ran a shaky hand through his hair, glancing from Brittany's rigid back to Obi-Wan's conflicted face to Anakin's stormy expression. Fornell crossed his arms, his gaze speculative now, shifting between Obi-Wan and Brittany, reassessing the dynamic. Ahsoka fidgeted, looking utterly lost. The clones remained unsettlingly still.
Obi-Wan finally moved, a small, almost imperceptible shift. He bent down, retrieving Anakin’s fallen spatula from under the island counter. He placed it silently on the countertop near the stove, his movements deliberate, regaining a semblance of his usual composure, though the storm still raged in his eyes whenever they flickered towards Brittany’s back. "My... apologies," he said, the words formal, strained. He directed it to the room at large, but his gaze briefly touched Brittany’s stiff shoulders. "That was... unforeseen."
"Unforeseen?" Anakin muttered under his breath, loud enough for everyone to hear. He snatched the spatula off the counter with unnecessary force.
Brittany didn't turn around. She stared at the ruined pancake, the acrid smoke stinging her eyes. The warmth of Obi-Wan’s touch, the shocking rightness of the kiss, warred violently with the cold reality of the situation – the witnesses, the Jedi Code, Anakin’s pain, her own fiercely guarded heart. The generator hummed. Rain lashed the windows. The smell of failure – burnt batter and disrupted peace – filled the kitchen.
Without a word, Brittany switched off the burner. She picked up the hot skillet, walked the few steps to the large, stainless-steel sink, and dumped the charred pancake unceremoniously into the disposal. The grinding whirr echoed in the silence. She rinsed the pan under cold water, steam hissing violently. Then she placed it carefully on the draining board, the clang of metal on metal final.
She didn’t look at anyone. She simply turned and walked out of the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the polished floor. She didn’t head towards the living room or the repaired greenhouse corridor. She walked straight to the reinforced back door that led onto a covered veranda overlooking the storm-lashed grounds. She wrenched it open, letting in a gust of rain-chilled air and the roar of the downpour, and stepped out into the stormy twilight, pulling the door shut behind her with a soft, definitive click.
Inside, the silence stretched, broken only by the rain, the generator, and the faint grinding echo from the sink disposal. Obi-Wan stared at the closed door, his expression unreadable. Anakin glared at the spot where Brittany had stood. Tony sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Fornell just shook his head slowly, looking older than his years.
On a discreet monitor near the pantry, unnoticed in the chaos, a security alert flashed silently: Perimeter Alert: Vehicle Approaching Main Gate - NCIS Credentials Verified. The ID tag read: Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
The rain lashed against the thick windows, the generator’s steady thrum the only stable thing in the room. The silence left behind by Brittany’s exit was suffocating, thick with unspoken accusations and the lingering scent of charred batter. Anakin stared at the closed back door, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped beneath his skin. "Unforeseen," he spat, echoing Obi-Wan’s inadequate apology with scalding contempt, his mechanical hand tightening around the retrieved spatula handle. "Just like Padmé was unforeseen? The hypocrisy stinks worse than those pancakes."
Obi-Wan flinched almost imperceptibly, the words striking deep. He looked away from the door, his usual composure fractured, replaced by a weary desolation. "Anakin, this is not the time," he murmured, the words lacking conviction. He ran a hand over his beard, a gesture of profound disquiet. The kiss, the raw connection that had momentarily shattered his Jedi restraint, felt like a seismic event within him.
Tony slumped against the kitchen island, rubbing his temples. "Kid walks out into a monsoon over a space-wizard kiss? Seriously?" He glanced at Fornell, seeking backup. "We need to—"
"Need to let her breathe, DiNozzo," Fornell cut in, his voice low and surprisingly calm, though his eyes were sharp, tracking Obi-Wan. He’d seen the look on Brittany’s face before she masked it – not fear, not anger, but profound, unsettling recognition. "She’s processing. Give her space." His gaze flickered to the discreet security panel where the alert still glowed: Gibbs: Arriving.
Ahsoka stepped closer to Anakin, her expression a mix of confusion and worry. "Master Skywalker, what's happening? Master Obi-Wan... and Brittany?" Her large eyes darted between the two Jedi. "The Force feels... tangled." Rex shifted beside Cody, exchanging a silent, grim look; this wasn't a battlefield they understood, but the tension was just as lethal.
Suddenly, the heavy back door banged open again, slamming against the wall with enough force to make everyone jump. Rain and wind gusted into the kitchen, carrying the scent of wet earth and ozone. Brittany stood framed in the doorway, soaked to the skin. Her hair plastered to her skull, rain streamed down her face, but her eyes burned with an intensity that cut through the storm’s gloom. She looked utterly wild, elemental.
She didn’t hesitate. Her bare feet slapped wetly on the tile floor as she strode with single-minded purpose across the kitchen, ignoring the startled exclamations – Tony’s "Whoa, kid!", Fornell’s sharp "Brittany!", Anakin’s growled "What now?" She walked straight past them all, water pooling in her wake.
She stopped directly in front of Obi-Wan, who had straightened, his own eyes wide with renewed shock and a flicker of desperate hope. He opened his mouth, perhaps to speak, perhaps to apologize again. He never got the chance.
Brittany reached up, her wet hands framing his face just as he had done to her moments before. Her touch was firm, possessive, and ice-cold. She pulled him down to her level, her gaze locking onto his with fierce, undeniable intent. There was no hesitation, no request. Only demand.
Then she kissed him.
It wasn’t a gentle reunion or an exploratory touch. It was fierce. Consuming. A claiming. Her mouth moved against his with a bruising intensity, a silent declaration that tore through the remnants of his Jedi reserve and the room’s stunned silence. She kissed him like she was branding him, pouring every ounce of confusion, fury, and the terrifying, undeniable pull she felt into that one, searing connection. Her fingers tightened in his hair, holding him captive to the storm raging between them.
The reaction was instantaneous chaos. Tony made a strangled noise, half-protest, half-disbelief, gripping the counter's edge. "Holy—!" Fornell’s jaw actually dropped this time, his coffee mug forgotten. Ahsoka gasped, taking an involuntary step back, her montrals flattening slightly in shock. Rex and Cody tensed, hands automatically going to belts holding weapons that weren’t there.
Anakin’s reaction was volcanic. His face twisted with a raw mixture of betrayal, fury, and agonizing pain. The spatula clattered to the floor again, forgotten. "No!" The word ripped from his throat, harsh and guttural, shaking with disbelief. He took a furious step forward, the air crackling dangerously around him. "You hypocrite! Both of you! Breaking the Code—!"
Brittany broke the kiss as abruptly as she’d initiated it. She didn’t look at Anakin, didn't look at anyone else. Her eyes, blazing with a tempestuous mix of defiance and something deeper, darker, remained locked on Obi-Wan’s. His own expression was shattered, breath ragged, lips slightly parted, his world visibly tilted off its axis. Rainwater dripped from her chin onto his tunic.
She released his face but kept her gaze fixed on him, her voice low, rough, and absolutely clear, cutting through Anakin’s rage and the room’s shock. "Mine," she stated, the single word resonating with finality. It wasn’t a question. It was a fact laid bare in the wreckage of the kitchen.
Only then did she turn. She swept her rain-soaked hair back from her face with one hand, her posture radiating a sudden, terrifying calm. She looked past the stunned faces of Tony, Fornell, the clones, past the heartbroken fury of Anakin and Ahsoka’s wide-eyed confusion. Her focus was entirely on the hallway leading to the front entrance. The muffled sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor, accompanied by the familiar, gruff voice calling, "Brittany? DiNozzo? Report!"
Gibbs was inside.
Brittany took a slow, deliberate breath, squaring her shoulders, the water still dripping from her clothes. She met Obi-Wan’s dazed eyes one last time, a silent, unreadable communication passing between them. Then, without another word, she walked towards the hallway, towards the approaching footsteps, towards her godfather. Leaving Obi-Wan standing amidst the wreckage of pancakes, protocol, and shattered expectations, the phantom pressure of her lips still burning on his.