Beyond - Legends Saga - PT Repercussions of Time - The Repost

Yeah . Poor Obi-Wan. This has definitely been an ordeal. Hopefully Ben and Arissa will get aligned soon.


Chapter 32:


Anakin was worried. He’d been accustomed to worrying about Obi-Wan’s life. His old Master had so many times valued his life as forfeit as long as he’d saved someone or furthered a cause. He hadn’t lied when he said he’d been trying to clear the thermal detonators before Obi-Wan fell on them.

Being concerned about Obi-Wan’s emotions was something that was beginning to feel more familiar but was still very foreign. Obi-Wan projected a strong, confident persona, very rarely showing any weakness. The picture of calm, he’d been the stalwart of the council. The person that the Jedi had gone to for not only a levelheaded answer, but the answer backed with logic and compassion.

For the first time, Anakin wondered if there had been chinks in Obi-Wan’s persona in the same way there had been in his own. He’d never imagined Obi-Wan could forgive him for what he’d done, yet now he knew it with a certainty as strong as the Force. Qui-Gon’s death, never an easy subject for either of them, had proven Obi-Wan capable of love. Obi-Wan bottled everything up, closeting it up when he couldn’t deal with it properly.

The only time he’d seen Obi-Wan marginally overemotional was when Maul had returned. He’d been hellbent on capturing the former Sith apprentice. Even before Anakin had killed him in cold blood, Dooku had been a touchy subject. The Sith had been circling Obi-Wan long before Anakin had been in the picture.

And then he’d defeated one…well two. Ben and Obi-Wan had dealt with Darth Vader, they’d been slowly defeating him through love. His family was keeping the villain at bay until Anakin could conquer him completely.

What unknown if different specters haunted Obi-Wan? His old Master had lost just as much, if not more, as Anakin in this destiny they found themselves entangled in. What had finally broken open the closeted emotions that had allowed Anakin to feel Obi-Wan reeling until his Master had built walls that were impenetrable to even him?

He’d gone to Master Yoda for help, but even the Grandmaster could only vaguely feel Obi-Wan’s pain but could not pinpoint his location. Anakin knew that Ben was just as frustrated. His future grandson had taken to wondering the base of Natheana to find their lost friend. Both Ben and Obi-Wan were hurting, leaving a woefully inexperienced Anakin to try to patch things up. Of course, that meant finding Obi-Wan.

In his lessons with Master Yoda, they’d begun to focus letting the Force direct Anakin in ways he’d never approached before. He’d never fully given his will up to it, preferring to be in control of this, if in nothing else. He’d discovered the advantages of letting the Force tell him its insights. He’d forgotten Qui-Gon’s and by extension Obi-Wan’s direction that the Force had a will of its own.

Once the twins were down for the night and with Padme’s blessing, Anakin sat himself down in meditation. Tentatively, he opened himself to the Force, laying bare scars both self-inflicted and those born by war. As always, the Force flooded in as if he’d broken a dam and the surge of water sought to fill every corner of him.

He breathed through the experience. Once it had frightened him, now it was a welcome feeling. The Force washing away all his aches and pains.

This was the first time he would ask it something. Not just demand or get the general sense of where is Master was, but an urgent request in the hopes he might help his friend. The Force responded, telling him that what he sought was in the children’s nursery.

Confused by the answer, but determined to follow, he disengaged from the energy field and stood. He couldn’t fathom why Obi-Wan would be at the nursery, but he was learning to trust. And as Yoda put it; do.

Natheana wasn’t nearly as massive as the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, being more of a forgotten and abandoned retreat. It wasn’t long before he found himself at the nursery and looking through a viewing window at Obi-Wan as he watched Mara Jade sleep. Despite the fondness in his expression, a struggle lay in Obi-Wan’s blue eyes.

The Jedi Master leaned over and pulled the child’s blanket to her chin, laying a soft hand on her head, before he pressed a kiss to her forehead. Anakin knew that Ben wanted Obi-Wan and Siri to raise his mother, but he hadn’t thought Obi-Wan had become that involved yet. What did any of this have to do with the past two days of absence of the usually diligent Master?

Anakin waited as Obi-Wan exited the child’s room and entered the main play area where Anakin had entered. He froze as he saw Anakin waiting for him. Stilled himself, then walked into the play area.

“How did you find me?” he asked in a voice quiet enough to not disturb the children sleeping beyond the viewing windows.

“I was mediating,” Anakin answered as casually as possible. “The Force told me to come here.”

“I see,” Obi-Wan said, nodding, but giving little else.

“Master,” Anakin started, then drew off. It was too quiet around here and he feared if things got heated, he and Obi-Wan would wake up the children around them. So he gestured to the hallway. “Let’s take a walk.”

Obi-Wan followed him out and they walked side by side through the hallways. He half hoped they’d run into Ben, but he knew without a mission, Ben liked to keep to a rigid schedule. His future grandson was long asleep.

After several minutes and nothing from Obi-Wan, Anakin said, “We’ve been worried.”

“I know,” Obi-Wan said, bowing his head in apology. “I’m sorry.”

The hall was marginally better than the nursery, but Anakin didn’t sense anyone around. He put a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, forcing the older man to stop and look at him. “Don’t be sorry. Just let me help you. I know something is bothering you. Siri won’t tell us. Ben’s been wandering the compound trying to find you.”

A wry smile lightened Obi-Wan’s face. “I know, it’s hard to dodge him.”

“Why did we need to be dodged?” Anakin asked.

“I wanted clarity first, before I did or said anything. I didn’t want Ben or you to think I was ashamed or disappointed,” Obi-Wan explained, pulling a datapad from his robes and handing it to Anakin. “I’m a father, Anakin.”

As Anakin read, he could understand Obi-Wan’s confused feelings. On one hand, he was so glad to have one more thing to share with his Master, in Ben they now had a link forged in blood. Maybe the best of them, Obi-Wan’s unfailing allegiance to the light and Anakin’s ability to defend it had been born in Ben. On the other, he could see one more manipulation of Sidious, one more plot to destroy everything Obi-Wan had come to love. Using another child that Obi-Wan could love for his dark purposes.

He was searching for the best way to help his friend when he realized something. “You said father?”

“Yes, I am Mara’s father,” he agreed. “I’ve decided that now.” Obi-Wan closed his eyes and fingered his beard. “I’m ashamed it took me most of those two days to come to that determination. I was afraid.”

“Because of me?”

“No, never you, Anakin,” he said. “Because of me. Siri and I have loved each other a long time, but all we know how to do is fight. Fight against it, fight each other. I wasn’t what you needed me to be. I have no traditional sense of a family beyond vague memories and the Jedi. You were the closest thing to family I ever let myself have, Anakin, and I nearly lost you. I had to be sure that despite genetics, I could truly be a father. That I could unlearn years of training and be more open, let myself love. I decided that if Luke could name is son after me, I could do whatever it took for Mara’s sake and for Ben’s.”

“Master,” Anakin started, then drew off as he felt something lodge in his throat. “Obi-Wan, none of this is your fault. None of it. I made my choice. I knew it was wrong, I tore bits and pieces off myself, while I wept for their loss. I was desperate and fell into Sidious’s trap. I did that, not you.”

“I could have told you sooner what you meant to me,” Obi-Wan pointed out.

“I could have been less blinded to the fact for all your speeches you demonstrate how you feel through your actions,” Anakin countered, tear slipping down his cheek. “I haven’t known how to apologize to you, Master. But I am sorry. Maybe one day I will have earned a margin of your forgiveness.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes were bright with unshed tears of his own. “Me too.”

Anakin huffed. “By the Force, we’re going to be in-laws. I never saw that coming.”

“Neither did I. But there’s still much to decide. Perhaps Ben won’t want this.”

“Why not?”

“I know he blames me in part for your turn,” Obi-Wan said. “Though, I do believe it is less than it was before.”

Anakin ran a hand down his face in frustration. “No wonder you’re related. Obi-Wan, Ben tried to set you up with Siri so you could raise Mara together. I guess he didn’t tell you that?”

The pensive hesitation eased from Obi-Wan’s features. “No, he didn’t.”

“Maybe when he first came here, he blamed you,” Anakin said. “But he wouldn’t be haunting the halls like a ghost if he didn’t care about you. Now, I don’t think there is another person he trusts more than you.”

“What about you?” Obi-Wan asked. “Are you alright with this?”

“Master, I want you to have this. I believe it will bring you a joy you’ve never experienced before. But this isn’t about what I want. What do you want?”

He thought of the scene he witnessed less than an hour ago, of Obi-Wan kissing Mara’s forehead. Knew that his oldest friend had already taken himself out of the equation in search for an answer, what was best for everyone else. It was why Anakin could be both inspired by and frustrated with his Master at the same time.

“What else is holding you back?” Anakin changed the direction of his questioning. He’d always thought that Obi-Wan had been holding him back, but maybe that was just how his Master reacted to overcharged situations. He preferred to assess, seeing all the possibilities before probing through the Force. He jumped through a few windows on the occasion, where Anakin was always ready to leap and hope there was something for him to grab on to.

Obi-Wan shifted uncomfortably, his gaze flicking to the edges of the hallway. “Palpatine.”

Anakin nodded. “Okay, I’m not going to blame you for that. I’m not really looking forward to the confrontation either.”

“It’s not just that, Anakin. It’s what kind of man will I be once we’ve defeated the Sith.” Obi-Wan blew out a long sigh. “I’m angry, so very angry. You and Mara may have been a tipping point, but I’ve hated that man and his illusions for a very long time. Do I save you, only to lose myself?”

“You won’t.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that,” Anakin said, the Force fairly chiming in unison. “Because if somehow, that anger breaks through your compassion, your mercy, and your need to make this galaxy free, then I’ll be there to help you remember who you are. If I’ve gone barvy, Ben will be there to knock sense into both of us. Because now, we have back up. My arrogance kept me from asking for help before, but I won’t let that destroy us now. So I’ll call upon anyone to help me if somehow the Light in the Darkness becomes dim.”

Anakin felt something rush out of him, not unpleasantly, but as if for that instance, assuring his former Master, he’d been more than he’d ever been before, something perhaps he’d been looking for all these years since he’d become a Jedi and left his mother behind. He wished his humility had come before he’d committed countless atrocities. For now, he’d follow his Master’s advice and made their deaths a sacrifice. Whatever he became from now on, it was because of them.

The moment stretched out in peace, Skywalker and Kenobi connected so deeply, that they didn’t need words to communicate. Anakin felt Obi-Wan drop his shields and with that his reservations lifted, his worries, even the anger dissipated like vestiges of a bad dream, soon forgotten.

“Barvy?” Obi-Wan asked sometime later, with an arch of a ruddy brown brow.

“Ben’s rubbing off on me,” Anakin said, waving it off.

“I don’t think I remember you saying so much in a single breath since you were a child.”

Anakin looped his arm around Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “Probably won’t again. At least for a while.”

“Hmm,” Obi-Wan hummed, eyeing him curiously. “Don’t be too sure.”

“I can already feel Ben running at full tilt. I think you’re in trouble,” Anakin cautioned. He grinned when he felt Obi-Wan wince. “Let’s focus on that.”

---

Ahsoka pulled her ship out of hyperspace into the remains of the pirate battle that had happened in the Indi system two standard weeks. Whispers had been spreading. Skywalker and Kenobi were waging a silent battle against the Empire.

She ran a scan of the system, hoping against hope that those rumors were true. On the cusp of what had felt like victory, so much had changed. So many were dead, both Jedi and Clones. She couldn’t turn away from the possibility, but hoping too much could lead to the possibility of losing them all over again.

She switched through comm channels. No one screamed the name Skywalker and Kenobi if they didn’t want to be found. All the Jedi were vulnerable, even those who’d left the order like her. She could be walking into a trap.

Or she could be finding the family she left behind.

For several long minutes, there was nothing but background radiation, the static of the galaxy. And then she heard it.

Two voices dearly missed.

“This is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“And Anakin Skywalker.”

“If there are any Jedi listening out there.”

“Come to Natheana for safety. We’ll be waiting.”

 

What a wonderful heartfelt talk between the two! You've captured the convolutions of their complicated past and their still-present deep affection.

 

Yes, this was definitely a selfish post as I needed them to get along after watching the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.


Chapter 33:

Ben woke with a jolt, springing upright and blinking wildly in the dark. He could feel Obi-Wan, truly feel him in the Force. Which meant the Jedi Master was no longer hiding. Good.

“I’m going to kill him,” Ben muttered, flinging the light covering off him and leaping to his feet.

He called his lightsaber to his hand and clipped it on the band of his sleep pants. He remembered a time when he used to sleep with it in his hand, caught between wanting it to go off accidentally and hoping it didn’t. He’d felt more in control once his life had a purpose, that he, Padme and Obi-Wan had brought Anakin back. And then Obi-Wan had vanished.

He took several deep breaths, trying to calm his ire. It wasn’t Obi-Wan’s fault that he’d watched each of his family members melt away as the Vong established more of a foothold on the galaxy. That Obi-Wan, all but disappearing for two days, had brought back those repressed and forcibly forgotten emotions of abandonment and isolation. Ben had already been feeling like a Aqualish out of water, it didn’t help that in Obi-Wan’s moment of pain the older Jedi still hadn’t reached out to him. Ben had trusted Obi-Wan as much as he’d trusted Luke Skywalker and, ultimately, that hadn’t been reciprocated.

Through meditation, and just plain realizing that Obi-Wan lived in a time and culture different than his own, he’d been able to press the hurt away, but the worry had lingered. What could have happened that his friend wouldn’t think he’d been willing to listen?

Once more he wasn’t needed in this karking time, so why did he linger?

His room door sputtered closed behind him. He needed to get a handle on himself. The idea was to help Obi-Wan, not scare him away.

With another cleansing breath, he started out only to have his comlink beep at him. “Jade, here,” he said quietly.

“This is security,” a voice came over the small speaker. “We haven’t been able to get a hold of Master Kenobi or Skywalker.”

“That’s okay, I’m headed my way to them now. What’s the trouble?”

“Ahsoka Tano has arrived and is asking for them.”

Well, he would scold Obi-Wan and then give him the good news. But he couldn’t promise that Ahsoka wouldn’t be seeing Obi-Wan with a black eye. “I’ll let them know. Have her wait in the docking area. Which bay is her ship in?”

“94.”

“We’ll be there shortly.”

He signed off, pocketing his comlink and making his way down to the two elder Jedi, who probably knew he was coming. He wasn’t exactly hiding his storm cloud of emotions. Look out Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, forget the Sith, here comes Ben Skywalker in a sulk. He felt like the child he’d never been allowed to be about to throw down a massive tantrum.

“Now, Ben,” Anakin said, as soon as they caught sight of him.

Ben threw up a Solo finger that had always silenced Threepio when Ben had been young. Apparently, it also worked on the maker.

The young time traveler turned his gaze to Obi-Wan. The older Jedi’s feeling in the Force was contrite and his gaze sorrowful. There was something else behind that though. A familiar twinkle in those blue/green eyes. He wasn’t hidden anymore; he was in front of Ben and alive. Had he been afraid that he wouldn’t see Obi-Wan again? Some part of him must have been.

Before his thoughts could catch up to him, he hugged the older Jedi fiercely. Obi-Wan was reaching to hug him in return when Ben pulled away, pushing the Jedi Master as hard as he could. Obi-Wan stumbled back, using the wall to catch his balance.

“The next time you disappear like that you’re losing a limb,” Ben warned. Before either his future grandfather or Obi-Wan could track the quick change of his emotions, he continued, “Ahsoka’s here. Come on. And turn on your comlinks. You’ve got security in a snit.”

He spun on his heel and started towards the docking bays. He could feel Anakin and Obi-Wan exchange glances behind him, then turn their concerned gazes to the back of his head. Another cleansing breath cured his frustration.

“Are you coming? Or are you just going to stare at me?” he snapped over his shoulder.

“Ben,” Obi-Wan’s voice came closer than he anticipated. “I need to explain first.”

“It’s fine, Obi-Wan, I get it. Everyone needs time to themselves to recalibrate. You don’t need to explain.” If the Force was merciful, it would let Ben disappear right now. His senses were heightened and attuned to even the slightest stimulant. It’s how he’d sensed Obi-Wan so quickly. Now that the danger was over, those senses fought against his desire to be under control. He refused to have a heart to heart in the middle of the compound, not when they’d been waiting for Ahsoka’s arrival.

Obi-Wan grasped his arm and Ben went into defense mode, slapping it off and giving another push to the Jedi Master. This time, Obi-Wan anticipated it, barely moving from his stance. He splayed his arms wide in a show of surrender. “I just want to talk.”

“Tough,” Ben spat.

“You need to hear what he has to say. Ben, please,” Anakin said. Sounding so much like the Luke that was Ben’s father, that now Ben wanted to punch Anakin too. Which was the real problem. As much as he’d grown to love, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, Siri, Yoda, the twins and toddler Mara, they weren’t his parents, they weren’t Aunt Leia and Uncle Han, or Jaina and Jacen. He missed Kam and Tionne. He missed the life he was supposed to have.

He’d figured on being dead by now. And there was no place for him in this time.

“And don’t you dare shush me,” Anakin said, as he saw Ben trying to quiet him once again.

Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Anakin, you aren’t helping the situation.”

“Speak with young Skywalker, I will,” came Yoda’s gravelly voice. “Greet our wayward Padawan, you will.”

“Master, I…,” Obi-Wan drew off, his gaze flickering anxiously over Ben and Yoda. A fight waged on Obi-Wan’s features and in the Force. Whatever he’d been trying to tell Ben, it was important enough to consider risking Ben’s continued irritation and the Grandmaster’s disapproval. He felt Obi-Wan’s own seeking prob and let the Jedi Master feel his raw nerves and bleeding emotions. “Yes, Master. We’ll talk later, Ben.”

Phrased more as a statement than a question, Ben still nodded his agreement. “Ahsoka’s in Docking Bay 94.”

---

Relief filled Obi-Wan as Ahsoka reached out and hugged Anakin tightly. After reciting all that had happened since they had last seen her, Anakin had waited in silence for her reaction accepting whatever was to come. It took Obi-Wan a moment to realize that she was crying. He stood up from the table he’d been leaning against, ready to add his own comfort.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I shouldn’t have left, I should have stayed. I could have helped you.”

“This was not your fault, Snips. It’s all on me. What I became was my fault,” Anakin assured her. He gently pulled her at arms length, making sure her eyes met his. “Entirely, my fault. Okay?”

Her large blue eyes studied his features, searching for that darkness that could only be sensed like black wisps of clouds surrounding a glorious sunrise. Obi-Wan knew this activity well. Every morning since Anakin had come back to himself, he’d performed the same ritual. After a moment, Ahsoka nodded her begrudging understanding.

Another thing they shared; their need to take the blame.

“I think we all need a little forgiveness and kindness towards ourselves and others at the moment,” Obi-Wan interjected, seeing Anakin’s nerves had increased. “Tensions are high as it is. I hope you can forgive both of us for what has happened.”

“And that you’ll stay?” Anakin said, hopefully. “Things are changing, Ahsoka.”

“Is that why Master Obi-Wan has turned into an Ewok?” Ahsoka asked, with a teasing glint in her eye.

Anakin’s expression mirrored Ahsoka’s.

“You are not allowed to call me that,” Obi-Wan cut him off before Anakin could put words to thought.

Anakin rolled his eyes, but there was still a hint of mischief in his presence. He’d probably tell Ben, who would continue it without any remorse. Things still being tentative between he and Ben, Obi-Wan would probably allow it.

He gave a long-suffering sigh. “Just a re-arranging of priorities.”

“Apparently, he was always this soft and squishy, we just didn’t get to see it,” Anakin continued.

Normally, he would threaten beating Anakin in a spar, but he still couldn’t bring himself to face Anakin with a lightsaber in hand even in exercise. That didn’t stop him from getting Ben to do it under the guise of training.

“I’m going to have Ben teach me that trick that seemed to quiet you so effectively,” he threatened instead. He cocked a challenging eyebrow; a battle of wits was still perfectly acceptable in his new moral.

Finally, Anakin called a surrender. There were still certain advantages to be had over the boy he'd raised. “Fine. I won’t. I promise. But no finger.”

“Deal,” Obi-Wan agreed.

Ahsoka beamed at them, looking between the two Jedi as though she wasn’t sure who to hug first. Obi-Wan opened his arms, hoping that she was just as willing to forgive his part in Anakin’s fall and her desertion. Without hesitation, she flew into his arms, and he hugged her tightly. Perhaps he was getting as soft and squishy as Anakin proclaimed. The last two days in deep communion with the Force, asking questions he never thought to apply to his own life, had changed him in deep and radical ways.

At one point, he’d been sure that he’d heard Qui-Gon’s voice. A quiet, simple presence that had whispered his name. He’d swear on his life that it was Qui-Gon. He just wasn’t sure what it meant yet. He’d planned on sleeping and then meditating before Anakin found him. Now Ahsoka was here, he didn’t want to sleep. He rejoiced in one more reunion. What was one more sleepless night?

Once he released her, she hugged Anakin once again. “You two feel better together than you did before. Not so conflicted.”

Obi-Wan frowned. He’d been so desperate to relieve the stress Anakin had been under at the time, the pressure from the Council and the assignment to spy on Palpatine, he’d even asked for Ahsoka’s help in bringing his friend relief. On Anakin’s side, there’d been a barrier. He’d quietly been isolating himself, feeling singled out by the Council, used where needed and tossed aside when not. Obi-Wan had unintentionally put her in between them.

Don’t center on your anxieties, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon’s voice, this time remembered, came to him. Yes, he’d made mistakes in the past, but he couldn’t live there. All he could do is try to fix what he could in the present.

“Why don’t we show Ahsoka to her quarters,” Obi-Wan suggested. “And around the compound.”

“Quarters?” Ahsoka asked, surprised.

“We were hopeful,” Obi-Wan said, a gentle smile touching his bearded features. Anakin’s face showed more of his enthusiasm, but it was still tentative.

Ahsoka’s gaze turned down, before saying, “I’m not sure if I can come back, Masters.”

“Just stick around for a little while,” Anakin pleaded. “See how things are working out. Offer suggestions of your own. We’re still trying to figure things out.”

“Besides, we have Sith Lords to deal with and that is our specialty. We could use your information on Maul.”

---

Ben followed behind Master Yoda, not really paying attention to where they were going. His nerves only settled a little once they stepped out of view of Anakin and Obi-Wan. If he wasn’t in the mood for an awkward conversation with Obi-Wan, he certainly wasn’t in the mood for a lecture from Master Yoda.

“If you hit me with that gimmerstick,” Ben warned. “I won’t be held responsible for what follows.”

“Always need a fight, you do. Give you one, I will,” the old Master replied evenly.

Ben realized with a sudden shock that Yoda had led him to one of the training rooms. He felt a glimmer of anticipation. Most of Ben’s opponents were taller than him. He’d never battled someone who was shorter and yet more skilled than himself. A feral part of him thrilled at the challenge, but the more logical side of his brain, the one he usually gave more power, was a little trepidatious about fighting not only a Jedi Master but the Grandmaster.

His ego right now, could only take so many hits. It would be endlessly embarrassing if he were to only last a matter of seconds before the Grandmaster. Ben didn’t count himself an expert in many fields, but he’d always been the victor or at least a draw when battling anyone outside his father or mother. And even in that instance, Luke and Mara weren’t out for his blood the way the Vong had been. He knew Yoda wouldn’t hurt him; it wasn’t about fear.

Or maybe it was. Maybe Yoda knew that Ben needed a foe he couldn’t best but also wouldn’t hurt him. A way to physically get rid of that pent up energy that always seemed to be the result of his standing stagnant so that he could sort out his emotions without pushing everyone he loved away.

Another way for his family of this time to continue their ‘Let’s Fix Ben Skywalker’ project. He chaffed under it, believing this whole time that he didn’t need fixing, he wouldn’t live long enough for that to be the case. Now, he had to face the true fear. Maybe he just couldn’t be fixed.

Not the way they wanted him to be. Not the way he wanted to be.

His senses triggered half a second before Yoda lunged at him, cutting a strike at his legs. He parried it just in time. Nearly 900 years of experience, Yoda was a little green blur as he spun around Ben. The young time traveler had to lose himself completely in the Force to keep up with the Grandmaster’s antics.

He briefly wondered if this was where Anakin had acquired his flare for the dramatic. Where Ben was a brawler, Yoda was an acrobat. Beyond that, in Ben’s inner eye, he felt Yoda in the Force, see him as a steadying balance. If Ben longed for death after a short life of pain and suffering, how did Yoda feel after watching 900 years of people pass before him. Was that why he’d claimed he’d finally earned his rest? Did Ben deserve to long for that same rest?

He jumped back as he sensed Yoda’s green lightsaber tip char the midsection of his tunic. He looked up at the old Master. “Cutting it a little close aren’t you?” He pulled his tunic away from his skin. “You’re going to have to buy me a new one.”

“Credits, I have not,” Yoda said, with a curve of a smile. “Attention, you need to pay. Lost in thought you are. Think too hard, you do. Always trying to figure out what should be, instead of what is.”

Ben was forced to flip his grip into the reverse as the Master made another low strike. “What is? We would have never met if I accepted that.”

“And now, what would you do?” Yoda asked.

Ben sensed the object zooming towards his head and he held out his hand and caught it in the Force. He’d lasted longer against the Grandmaster than he thought, but his patience was beginning to run thin. “Are you trying to make me angry?”

“Already angry are you. At what, hmmm? Trust the Force do you?”

With a flick of his wrist, Ben sent the object to the floor. An old training sphere, forgotten as much as the rest of Natheana. “Of course I do.”

“Then question why now do you?”

Ben focused his attention on the sphere, pouring his pain into it and watched as it began to dent and splinter. He turned away from it, releasing his focus. The strain of metal quieted. Yoda studied him silently, then sighed. “Neglected you, I have.”

“Anakin needed you more,” Ben excused.

“Maybe. Hard to say. Found his peace young Anakin finally has. All my doing it was not.”

“Could you send me back?” Ben asked, knowing the old Master would understand.

“Know not how you came to be here,” Yoda countered. “Know not how or where you’d return do I. Or return at all you would. Cannot send yourself can you?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. Before the Force showed me the way.”

“And now it does not?”

“Nothing,” Ben agreed. He didn’t want to be angry or scared or in the pain he couldn’t seem to shake. He’d let go of his life only to find it inverted. Would Luke one day refer to him as Ben the crazy old wizard?

“Many are there afraid of death. Changed Anakin it did into Darth Vader.” Ben shivered at Yoda’s words. “Afraid of life, maybe more dangerous. Once again bearing the brunt Obi-Wan is.”

“Obi-Wan can take it,” Ben affirmed.

“Fears rejection does Master Obi-Wan. A long deep seeded fear, left to fester it has. Opened anew by Anakin’s betrayal. Careful, young Ben, of his feelings.”

“I’ll apologize.” He smirked. “I guess you’ll have to bear the brunt of my tantrums.”

Master Yoda called the training sphere to his hand. With a casual concentration, Yoda popped the dents and straightened the strained metal. Yoda’s liquid eyes met his own. “Handle it I can.”

“Master, I want a place to belong,” Ben admitted. “I’m afraid if I make a life here, it will be taken away again.”

“Always in motion is the future. Change come it will.”

Ben thought of his father. Luke could see the future, many times without trying. Ben had never wanted visions, hadn’t gone seeking them, but then he’d been the one to see the past. And a way to change it.

“Wherever you go, young Ben, promise I do, that life important it is to live in the moment. All ahead, even the Jedi cannot see.”

Ben deactivated his saber and sat down on the training room floor, looking more evenly on the Master’s face. He was breathing hard and now that he wasn’t so entrenched in the Force, he knew that more time had passed than he’d realized. Sweat stung his eyes, and his hair was sticky and matted. Of course, Yoda appeared fine. Yoda shut down his own lightsaber and called his gimmerstick to his hand.

“Another fight do you need?” the old Master asked, leaning heavily on the stick.

Was that old Jedi Master appearance just an act or like Ben did Yoda only feel the age after he’d released his call on the Force? Maybe a little of both, Ben figured. When he’d been younger, he’d played the helpless skiffer card more than once. There was always a price after. Usually, an overtaxed child-Ben curling up in sleep until he had to be on the move again.

It was part of the problem now. Every moment of his life until he’d come here had been about survival. He was used to moving, and yes thinking several days or weeks ahead, to keep the Vong at a distance. Because the Vong had cut themselves out of the Force and he couldn’t rely on it fully.

Fighting Yoda had necessitated a complete merge, a true faith with the Force, to stay not only alive, but to keep himself from falling on his face the first minute into the battle. His senses felt better too, not nearly as stimulated, waiting for that enemy that was still bidding it’s time on the fringes of the galaxy. A void where all else, even Maybe later he would need another spar, but for now, he had some semblance of peace.

“No. I’m good for now. Thank you, Master.”

Yoda’s shoulders sunk in exaggerated relief. “Good. Not since Count Dooku have I had such exercise.”

“Right,” Ben agreed, his voice lilting upward dubiously.

Yoda ignored the jab and rested a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Not as lost as you think you are, young Skywalker.” To Ben’s surprise, he felt a clawed finger swipe at a tear he hadn’t known he’d shed. “Now, apologize to Master Obi-Wan, you will.”

Ben dropped his gaze but nodded. Taking the opportunity to dash away any other unwanted revelations of how he felt, he thought he’d trained the ability to cry out of himself. “Not really my area of expertise. Any ideas on how to make it better?”

“Push him around, try not to,” Yoda offered.

“A font of wisdom as usual, Master. Anything else?”

“Not so different, you and Master Obi-Wan, are. Where you belong, each of you searching.”

 

Wonderful spar and words of wisdom
Always a good thing having Ahsoka around.

 

My need for a happy Skywalker/Kenobi family is great. And I love Ahsoka.

Chapter 34:

Padme had just reached the comm station, ready to contact Bail, when the door signal chimed. She’d been trying to keep appraised of the situation in the senate and its new Galactic Empire. Technically, she was still a senator. She’d arranged with Queen Apilana to take a medical leave of absence, but she was still voting through Jar Jar.

Not that it mattered much. She, Bail, Mon Mothma and Bel Iblis were drops in a river trying to change the course of its flow.

Ben and Obi-Wan would have just come in once they’d politely checked for availability in the Force. Of course, now would be the time she received visitors other than her unusual family. She pressed the door open and was surprised to see Padawan Deirs looking nervously around her.

“Padawan, how may I help you?” she asked, surprised that the Arissa Deirs had come to their home. She’d all but ran from Ben once she’d learned his heritage. Now she was here at Anakin’s quarters, if somewhat reluctantly.

“M’lady do you have a moment?”

Padme nodded, despite her wishes to check in with Bail. “The twins are asleep, so I have some free time. Please come in.”

Arissa stilled at the mention of the children. Padme herself was still getting used to the idea of a time-traveling grandson. “How are you fairing? I know infants can be tasking.”

Padme had forgotten that during the war, Arissa had been guardian of the Jedi children. “Thankfully, there are many here willing to chip in when Anakin and I are tired.”

She led the Padawan to the nearly threadbare sofa in the living space and they sat together. “So what can I help you with?” Padme asked.

“It’s about the pirating campaign that Master Kenobi and Ben have been orchestrating. I know it’s to get Darth Sidious out in the open, but I believe they are only fighting half the battle.”

“And what’s the other half?” Padme asked.

“Even if they manage to get Sidious to attack them directly. The Jedi are now enemies of the state. He’s legal bound to destroy us. Their concentration is on getting rid of the Sith, they aren’t thinking about what follows.”

“Which could end up being their arrest and execution,” Padme concluded. “But why come to me with this?”

“You’re a member of the senate, even if you are a precarious one at the moment. We know now that the Chancellor and Sidious are one and the same man behind each side of the war. Now I don’t know if being a Sith Lord will hold up in a court for the immediate execution of the leader of the Empire or Republic, but if we could find proof that he was the one behind the war from the beginning, that would be grounds to show that he was manipulating his rise to power.”

“Treason. Which would then have to be brought to the senate,” Padme said. She eyed the younger woman. Ben had said she’d see things others wouldn’t. “Politics, children, is there anything else you can advise us on?”

Arissa gave a wry smile. “I was moved around a lot during the war. The children were one of my last assignments, but I was a courier for diplomatic packages regarding the war for a couple of seasons right after Geonosis. I listened and I learned.”

Padme’s heart dropped. Ben and Arissa would have made a good partnership whether friendship or something more. She couldn’t blame the other woman for keeping her distance, but she wished there was some way to mend the breach between them. Then an idea popped in her head.

“We should discuss this further with the council and Ben. Would you mind coming for dinner later today? I don’t know if you remember Ahsoka Tano, but she returned the other day and she might have information that could help us bring a case against Palpatine.”

Arissa shifted awkwardly. “Are you sure that’s wise, m’lady?”

“If Anakin will make you uncomfortable…,” Padme started.

“It’s not that,” she countered quickly. “It’s obvious that he’s been trying to make up for what he’s done. I’m still uneasy around him, but I don’t have the fear I once carried.”

Surprised, Padme asked, “Then what troubles you? Did Ben do something that worries you?”

“Besides travel through time?” Arissa scoffed. “No.”

It didn’t take long for the holoprojection to coalesce for Padme. “You’re worried he’ll go back.”

“Partially. But your own experience shows how dangerous our feelings can be,” Arissa answered honestly. “And Ben is clearly very powerful.”

“He’s lost many others without going to the Dark Side, Padawan Deirs. That’s why he came here. He was the last of the Jedi. An invasion from another galaxy had threatened to conquer our own. Does he feel or seem different? Because I could tell just from talking with Anakin that he’d changed. He wasn’t the same.”

The young Jedi shook her head, her brow crinkled in an internal battle. What she wanted and what she thought was best.

“You know what made me fall in love with Anakin?” Padme asked into the silence.

“The Jedi robes?” Arissa asked deadpan.

Padme smiled. “No, though …,” she drew off and retrained her thoughts. “No, he made me laugh. Made me forget all the pressures I’d endured since I was twelve and the Princess of Theed. He made me feel like a person and not a title or a figurehead. Something I hadn’t realized I’d needed until then. Come to dinner regardless, your insight is necessary. But if Ben gives you a gift like Anakin gave me…just think about it.”

“I will m’lady. Thank you for your time.”

Padme knew when a meeting had ended, and she stood up to lead Arissa out. “One more thing, m’lady,” Arissa paused outside of the door. “Ben may not be on the Dark Side, but his grief is still there. I can feel it, like a child’s whimpering on the edges of my perception when I’m around him. There are other ways to break a Jedi.”

“We’ll discuss that in another council,” Padme assured her. She wasn’t about to let her future grandson whither and suffer alone.

---

Ahsoka studied the young man before her. She knew him to be around the same age as herself. His hair was fighting between golden red and an auburn ashy color. He had the Skywalker dimple in his chin and his eyes were a green/blue color reminiscent of Master Obi-Wan. He was on the shorter side, a couple finger-widths taller than Ahsoka. This obviously from Padme, since Skyguy easily towered over them all.

The scars that were prominent on his face and were visible on his hands sticking out from his tunic caused Ahsoka to gnaw at her lower lip. Jedi didn’t usually have this amount of scarring though the occurrence had increased with the war. Anakin’s scar on his eye had been dealt by Asajj Ventress and had only scarred because there hadn’t been any synthiflesh or bacta around for a proper healing.

He was from the future, a future where Anakin had continued to be Darth Vader, and what had been wrought by the dark side was written on his skin. Yet, he joked with Master Obi-Wan and Anakin with such ease.

“You’re staring,” Anakin said, coming up to lean against the wall next to her. He folded his arms and nudged her playfully, shoulder to shoulder. “He’s real, you know?”

“Has he told you how he…got all those scars?” she asked.

“Not specifically, no. I’ve thought about asking, but I’m not sure yet if I really want to know. I’m sure it has something to do with these Yuuzhan Vong that are waiting to invade. They did nearly kill him but how and exactly when, well I’m still trying to find my peace. Having Ben’s torture and pain laid out before me when I’m not completely healed, won’t aid that.”

“And Master Obi-Wan?” She’d sensed a disquiet in the older Jedi that she hadn’t felt before.

“I think he’s dealing with things that he just can’t push aside any more. He’s always been better at focusing on other people’s problems than his own. And now, aside from Palpatine and keeping Natheana running, he’s had more time to himself than he’s ever had before.”

Ahsoka thought about the last season, away from the Jedi, seeing the galaxy from new eyes. “I guess I can understand that.”

“I’m sorry, Ahsoka,” he said. “Obi-Wan is too. He tried back when you were arrested to make the council see sense.”

“He never said anything,” she remarked quietly. “I thought he might have believed the worse.”

“We’ve all been too silent.” His eyes looked over at Padme who was sitting with Padawan Deirs, talking quietly. She noted that when Ben thought no one was looking he’d cast a longing glance at the Padawan. “I’m sorry for that, too.”

She grinned slyly up at him. “You know, you and Padme, wasn’t really a shock.”

He chuckled. “So I’ve been told. And here we thought we were being so careful.”

“I’m not sure you understand the meaning of careful, Skyguy.”

“Once that was true. I have a lot more reason to be cautious these days.” He gave her another playful nudge. “You’re part of this family. Whether you stay with the Jedi or not. Luke and Leia will grow up with Aunt Ahsoka and Uncle Obi-Wan as I’d always wanted and was too afraid to ask for.”

“No matter what happens. If I can’t stay, I’ll always come back to visit.”

“That’s good to know. Though, it may have to be on Naboo. I haven’t mentioned this to Obi-Wan, but once the Sith are dealt with, I’m going to hand myself over for judgement.”

A cold, wet knot formed at the pit of Ahsoka’s stomach. “You could be executed.”

“Maybe. I can’t say I don’t deserve it.”

“Does Padme know?” she asked.

“Yeah. We’ve discussed it. I think she’s mentally planning my defense through mitigating circumstances. But I was wrong. I know that and I’ll submit to any judgement the government makes.”

“You’re better to us alive than dead,” she pointed out. Did she get him back only to lose him again?

“So were those I killed, Snips,” he said. “I’ve come to some terms with that, but they deserve justice. I can’t claim to be a Jedi and not give them that.”

With her own experience with the Martez sisters, she knew that the Jedi’s view had become myopic in a way. They’d been so focused on the Republic, that they’d forgotten the people inside of it. Anakin had always tried to reach out to both, even if his patience could be easily tried.

Ahsoka wanted to argue that out a little more, but than Master Yoda arrived. Ben turned away from helping Obi-Wan clean up, to greet the Grandmaster. He waved a hand in the direction of the left-over food, clearly asking if Master Yoda was hungry. Ahsoka heard him joke about Master Yoda’s stew. Yoda weathered it with a long-suffering sigh and an obligatory threat of the gimmerstick.

“Teach you manners, Master Obi-Wan has not,” Yoda quipped.

“Oh, he tries, but I’m just too uncivilized,” Ben said, shooting a challenging grin at the older man.

Master Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, but in the fond manner that she’d seen him do with Anakin and herself countless times. “Master, try not to encourage him. He thinks he’s funny.”

“Or you’re all too old to appreciate good humor,” Ben said with feigned solemnity.

“Hey,” Ahsoka interjected. “I’m younger than you.”

That seemed to surprise the younger Skywalker, but he grinned even broader. “Except Ahsoka. I’m sure she’s young enough not to be tainted by the staid, dry humor you all seem so fond of.”

Master Obi-Wan straightened with that gleam in his eye that he was about to cause someone trouble and enjoy it. “Master, permission to spar with your Padawan?”

“Granted permission is,” Yoda said easily, coming over to sit on one of the floor cushions set up for him.

“Finally, let the coddling come to an end,” Ben huffed, but followed Master Yoda on the cushion next to him.

Padme, Padawan Deirs, Master Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka joined them with chairs around a small holotable. Ben keyed on the holomap and a cluster of stars appeared. He paused looking around. “Where’s Siri? Didn’t we invite her?”


“Knight Tachi is taking care of Council business at the moment,” Obi-Wan said stiffly. “She’ll be informed of any conclusions that are made tonight before any official mission orders are made.”

“Translation; you’re still not getting along,” Ben said.

Master Obi-Wan leaned over and rested a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “We’ll work it out.”

“Anyway, I finally found the skeleton,” Ben said, turning back to the star fields. “It’s in the Myniri system. I had trouble tracking it because I think they just barely started putting it together and it wasn’t big enough to mark in a gravitational map. I would have missed it if not for Artoo’s knowledge. Palpatine’s long game is to get rid of the Senate, so he has ultimate control. Anyone who goes against him, and he’ll send his planet destroying Death Star.”

Ahsoka stopped him there. “Sorry, late arrival here, did you say, ‘planet destroying’?”

Ben quickly lined out the future for her, the destruction of Alderaan and the desperate battle by Anakin’s son and the rebels to stop the Death Star. It had taken the Empire nineteen years before it would be operational, Ben didn’t even want to give them that.

Padawan Deirs interjected. “Senator Amidala and I have been discussing the shortcomings of this plan.”

“Shortcomings?” Ben asked, turning a bland gaze on the older Padawan.

Ahsoka felt a wave of hurt from him before he threw up his shields and he disappeared so deeply in the Force that she had to blink to make sure he was still in front of her. There’s the Master Obi-Wan in him. She’d seen plenty of Anakin in Ben, could feel some of the similarities, but until now Ahsoka hadn’t seen any of her grandmaster in Ben.

Could she still call Obi-Wan her grandmaster? Did she want to? She’d missed them, Anakin and Obi-Wan, she was infinitely relieved that Obi-Wan had never actually believed the accusations that had caused her to leave the Order. But could she come back? Her heart yearned to say yes. Being on her own had given her a sense of independence and accomplishment. Endless loneliness was less appealing. And it seemed that the rebellion against the Empire would start here.

As she had told Anakin, she needn’t be a Jedi to visit.

“I think what Arissa meant to say was that while the plan to bring Palpatine out in the open might bring the end of the Sith, it will still leave the Jedi vulnerable,” Padme put in diplomatically.

"And any idea how we’re going to makeup for this shortcoming?” Ben asked.

Padme turned her concerned gaze from Ben to Ahsoka. “We were hoping that Ahsoka might have some information on this?”

Ahsoka frowned. “I’m not sure how I could help?”

“Maul,” Padme answered.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ahsoka saw Obi-Wan stiffen. Ben must have noticed it too, for he reached out a tether of the Force to the Jedi Master. “Who is Maul?” he asked.

“A former Sith Apprentice,” Obi-Wan answered. “He very much wants to kill me.”

“All right. Not to bring up bad memories, but don’t all the Sith want to kill you? That’s kind of their main goal. Kill the Jedi, dominate the galaxy,” Ben said.

“This is a little more personal. I cut him in half,” Master Obi-Wan explained.

“That’s why he laid the siege on Mandalore. He expected you and Anakin to come,” Ahsoka explained. “He wanted to kill you both. Revenge on you Master Obi-Wan. He also wanted to stop Darth Sidious’s plan to make Anakin his new apprentice.” She withheld a wince as she saw both Anakin and Obi-Wan shiver. “I’m not sure who he hates more, Master Obi-Wan or Darth Sidious.”

“Do you think he knows about the war?” Arissa asked. “That Sidious was controlling both sides?”

“Probably not enough to be any use to us in the Senate,” Obi-Wan mused. “That’s what you’re hoping to get, correct? Viable evidence showing that Palpatine was treasonous by setting the Republic against itself.”

“It’s better than the three of you succeeding in destroying Palpatine but being arrested immediately after. The Jedi are still legally enemies of the State. Killing the Emperor is only going to help remove him from power. Our position would still be precarious,” Arissa agreed.

“Catching Maul is still important,” Ben said. “Regardless if he knew everything Palpatine was planning, he may know a way in which to find evidence of his plans.”

“If he will talk,” Anakin countered. “And that line of thinking would say, I would know where his plans were. I didn’t know about Order 66 until he literally issued it in front of me.”

“Also, I lost track of Maul when Order 66 was made. It was either Rex’s life or re-capturing Maul. I let Maul go,” Ahsoka explained.

Ben gave a feral grin. “That’s okay, we’ll just dangle Obi-Wan out and see if he bites.”

“You want to use me as bait?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Well, with me as back up, of course,” Ben said.

“No,” the Jedi Master said in a tone that Ahsoka had never heard before.

The tension that had built up between Ben and Arissa had dispersed as they planned, now it was instantly renewed between Master Obi-Wan and Ben. Ahsoka, and probably everyone else around that table, frowned as a strange amalgamation of Skywalker/Kenobi stubbornness fell on Ben’s features.

“What? Why?”

“I can handle Maul on my own,” Obi-Wan said, that steely reserve still in his voice.

Ben’s face hardened to match Obi-Wan’s tone. “But you don’t have to.”

“If we go through with this plan, I go on my own. That is final.”

“Fine,” Ben suddenly reversed, his face becoming as blank as it had with Arissa.

Master Obi-Wan blinked, clearly not expecting acquiescence so easily. “What?”

The younger Jedi shrugged. “If you feel that strongly about it, then fine.”

Ahsoka eyed him knowingly. Ben was planning something under those red/gold locks. She noticed Master Yoda watching the younger Jedi too. The Grandmaster’s expression was mischievous but for Ben’s or Obi-Wan’s sake Ahsoka couldn’t tell. Maybe both. Yoda caught her gaze in his own and the look he gave her was both warm and apologetic.

“Maul’s only one avenue,” Padme broke into the silence that followed. “We know that Palpatine escaped a lot of detection because he used others to fulfill his goals.”

“What about Dooku?” Ahsoka asked. “Or Asajj. Dooku was the head of the separatists, if we can find away to connect him with Palpatine that could go a long way.”

“Dooku’s dead,” Anakin reminded her.

“But he must have kept some records,” Ahsoka argued.

Ben rested his chin in his hand, his head cocked and his gaze far off. “I don’t remember much that Dad and Mom found during those early years. Visions and the help of the Artoo of my time, helped me recognize you when I arrived on Mustafar. Dooku was a Sith, right? He would have wanted to take down his Master eventually. He would have had plans for that in the least.”

“He didn’t protest when Palpatine told me to kill him,” Anakin countered.

“He could have thought it was a test of loyalty,” Ben guessed. “Thinking that Palpatine would save him in the end. I remember something that Dad found about Dooku not being a fan of the rule of two.”

“Your father researched the Sith?” Obi-Wan asked.

“His training was remarkably brief. Most of it was self-taught snippets in between his duties with the Rebellion. Once you sent him to Yoda, he wasn’t there more than a month before he went after Aunt Leia and Uncle Han.” Ben closed his eyes and gave his head a clearing shake. “He needed to know what to avoid, what not to avoid. What was dangerous and needed to be hidden away. He had a couple of mishaps early on with students who didn’t know better and didn’t want it happening again. Dad was never really afraid of anything, let alone the Sith.”

“Anyway, we have a couple more avenues to pursue,” Anakin said, his voice soft. “Arissa, have you thought of any others?”

Padme and Arissa exchanged looks. “There’s the Senate building itself,” Padme said. “For the last 13 years, he’s been seated in the Chancellor’s office. The room doesn’t only have ears. It has eyes and mouths.”

“Would it be admissible in court?” Obi-Wan mused. “As you’ve said, the Jedi are in a vulnerable state.”

“That’s why it can’t come from a Jedi,” Ahsoka said. “Me, Senator Organa, Padme, any other senators who are still loyal to the Republic, could present it. The entire senate knew that I was under suspicion, they also know I left of my own free will.”

Anakin huffed next to her. “I don’t like this.”

Ben stood up and started pacing around them. “It would have to be while we’re engaged with Palpatine. I don’t know how much time that would afford you. There’s also the problem of traps. Something that might alert him that you’re sneaking around. When is the Senate next in session?”

“In three 7-days,” Padme answered. “Why?”

“Security will be more lax in his office. The Empire is still new, he’d still be willing to put on a show.”

“And if he is signaled?” Anakin asked tersely.

“We do something that ensures he’s required to remain in the Senate,” Ben said.

“Aggressive negotiations,” Padme beamed.

Master Obi-Wan quipped, “She was a diplomat before she married you, Anakin.”

Anakin glowered at him. “What do you think of all this, Master Yoda?”

“Fought and lost this battle have I. Alone the Emperor is, alone was I. To victory together the light in this room will lead us.”

 

Wonderful talk between Padme and Arissa. I love the insight into what made Padme love Anakin--I believe that is definitely part of the appeal... Someone who knows and appreciates you for yourself and you can be your genuine self around them. Anakin and Ahsoka's chat-- very much in character. I love the candor.

The big group discussion... lots of undercurrents But I think they maneuvered through all of that to arrive at a solid strategy.

 

I glad the group discussion worked. It's very hard to write so many different people in one go. Thank you.



Chapter 35:

Siri watched through the viewing window of the nursery as Obi-Wan played with his daughter. He was laying on the floor, leaning on one elbow, as he helped Mara push shapes through a sphere. The little girl laughed as he feigned confusion with a star shape and a round hole. The look on his face as he gazed on her, by the Force had Siri ever seen him look like that? A few times, when Anakin was young and the weight of Qui-Gon’s death was far enough behind him that it wasn’t a constant pressure. Though he’d never let Anakin see that, not when he was trying so hard to be a good Master.

Perhaps that was Obi-Wan’s curse; to care more than he believed was appropriate. Except now that had changed. At least with Mara, he’d found it a gift.

Arissa came in and interacted with the children, helping them put away the few playthings that the Jedi had been able to cobble together. There weren’t many children left, ranging in ages, from Luke and Leia at over a season old, to one who was just below Padawan age. A little more than a dozen.

It was getting closer to her meeting with Obi-Wan if the children were going off to eat for lunch. Obi-Wan sat up and offered Mara a hug. The little girl only hesitated a fraction, still wary after all that had happened. She’d gone through three sets of guardians in rapid succession. The parents that Palpatine had given her to raise, the Sith Lord himself, and now Obi-Wan.

Siri smiled when Mara planted a sloppy kiss on Obi-Wan’s cheek, and the Jedi Master was caught between adoration and slight revulsion at the line of slobber catching on his beard. He waited to swipe it off until Mara left the common room. He wore a bemused expression as he used the arm of his tunic.

That’s when he caught sight of Siri and his step hitched before he purposefully made his way to meet her. The door whirred softly behind him. “I thought we were meeting in the council room.”

The council room was really a conference room that had a table large enough for her, Obi-Wan, and Yoda. With a space for a Jedi or two connected to the subject at hand. Today, the council would discuss the upcoming missions to uncloak Palpatine. “I thought we could walk together.”

She saw the surprise flicker with a quick raise of an eyebrow that too anyone else, save maybe Anakin, would have seemed like a twitch. “All right.”

“How is Mara doing?” Siri asked after a corridor of silence.

“Better. She’s feeling more comfortable here. More comfortable with me,” he said.

“You seem to be spending a lot of time with her.”

“I try to visit everyday. When Palpatine is defeated, I want Mara to come home with me,” he admitted. “I’m sorry how I treated you when you told me the truth. I wasn’t ready for it. So much has changed in such a short time. In some ways it felt like Naboo. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“You actually took it a lot better than I thought you would. I feared you would have left right then to destroy Palpatine,” she said jokingly.

“Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind. I spent a lot of time, meditating, searching for a way to be both a Jedi and a father. If it were possible, with how much I despise that man.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“Nothing concrete yet, but I have hope. Actually, something Ben said earlier gave me a path. He said Luke wasn’t afraid. He didn’t fear the Sith, death, or the love he had for his son. I’ve never feared my own death, but the Sith, how I felt about Anakin, my feelings for you…those were all things I feared because I knew my own weakness.”

“Don’t be afraid now, Obi-Wan, take your daughter. Be happy. Don’t fear that either.”

“I can’t, well, not yet. Not until the Sith are gone. I can’t give her a home, only to lose it if I die. Mara’s been passed around enough. She needs stability right now.”

Siri gave a bitter laugh. “There isn’t much stability to be had, Obi-Wan.”

They rounded the corner and stopped just shy of the makeshift council chamber. “Are you still on my side?” he asked.

“Of course, I am,” she assured him. There was something intense and uncertain in his eyes. “Is this about Maul? Ben told me you forbid him from going.”

The line in Obi-Wan’s forehead increased. “He talked about that with you?”

“He was trying to understand your point of view. You can’t keep pushing this off Obi-Wan, he needs to know about you and Mara.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “I know how that boy thinks. I can handle Maul well enough on my own. I don’t need someone else thinking they need to take a saber to the gut for me.”

“You can’t keep him locked up either,” she pointed out. “I know how he thinks, too, and right now, he’s feeling rejected. Think if Qui-Gon had forbidden you to go with him without any explanation.”

“I’m not his Master,” Obi-Wan said.

“No, but he thinks of you as a team. You brought Anakin back together, you’ve been instigating changes in the Jedi from ideas brought from him. You saved Mara together. Fighting to destroy Palpatine together. Now, you insist he needs to stay here. He doesn’t understand your history with Maul, but he feels something is wrong. He wasn’t raised like us. He doesn’t follow a decree just because the Master said so. In fact, his instinct is to do the opposite.”

Obi-Wan fingered his beard, silently reflecting on her words. “What would you have me do? I won’t bring him with me. It will be too distracting for both of us.”

“Take Anakin,” she said. Shock flashed across his handsome features. “Wasn’t expecting that were you?”

“No, I wasn’t.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Ben put you up to this, didn’t he?”

She shrugged an easy grin on her face. “We discussed the possibility.”

“It’s a wonder you’re not Mara’s mother. Ben certainly takes after you.”

She stepped closer to him, her heart thudding at the intimacy. “Look, he had a good point. If you were trying to kill him, I wouldn’t have any problem, and I don’t think Ben would either. But you’re trying to capture him, you’ll be holding back, which Maul won’t be.”

“Ahsoka managed it,” he pointed out.

“With the 501st backing her up. You and Anakin make sense, you always have in a strange way. And it will be good to get him away, while we run the Senate operation. He’s going to be worried about Ben, Ahsoka and Padme if we don’t give him something else to focus his energy on.”

“You trust him that much? I’m sorry this seems like a major reversal.”

“You aren’t the only one who has been meditating. I’ve mostly made my peace with what happened. Ben explained some of Anakin’s point of view to me. The way the Force feels to them. It’s still wrong, but I can also see how well he was manipulated. We’ve all been fighting a war under Palpatine’s direction. We’ve all been caught in Palpatine’s snare. Anakin isn’t the first of us to go to the Dark Side. He managed to do what no one thought possible; he came back.”

He brought a hand to her cheek, running his thumb along the curve. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It had nothing to do with you,” she said, giving him a push with one hand, while ensuring his hand stayed on her face with the other.

He chuckled. “Then I’m doubly glad. You’ve been on my side. What if I asked you to stay by it? How long do you think you could do that?”

“Oh, maybe a lifetime,” she said, wondering why she sounded breathless.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “When we aren’t standing in the middle of a corridor, I’ll give you a proper showing of my feelings.”

“You always were a tease, Kenobi,” she said, closing her eyes of the feel of his lips as he lingered there. The few kisses they shared across the years she could count on one hand and still have fingers left. “Besides, Council meetings are always so boring.”

“Then think of the reward after,” he promised.

It was a mental and physical effort to pull away from him. “Alright, we’ll save the galaxy first.”

He reached down and laced their fingers together. “No need to save all of it. But duty first, I’m afraid.”

Which suited her, or mostly did. Part of what she loved about him was that he put others first. His ability to forget himself. She didn’t want anything to change that. “You’ll take Anakin with you?”

“Yes, if he agrees.”

“Then it’s good that Ben is talking about it with him now.”

---

It didn’t take Ben long to convince Anakin of the plan he and Siri had concocted together. If anything, Anakin seemed relieved that he would be away on a mission of his own. What he hadn’t expected was Anakin to start him on training. Especially with his former Padawan.

Anakin felt like things were out of his control and he was trying to deal with it with the skills Yoda had given him. Yet, Ben could still feel his disquiet. So he’d give Anakin something else to focus on. By being his wonderful, charming self.

Ben had actually grown to rather like Ahsoka in a very short amount of time. She was smart, funny, didn’t mind his sass and wasn’t afraid to put him in his place if need be. She’d all but cornered him after the meeting in Obi-Wan’s quarters, demanding what he was planning. He imagined it was what a sister would have been like if Luke and Mara hadn’t been on the run with him.

By the Force, she was fast. He wasn’t used to dueling someone so close to his height. Fast, classically trained, with two lightsabers, Ben had a job of work to keep up with her. Why had the notion never occurred to him; two lightsabers. It was brilliant.

“Watch your footwork, Ben,” Anakin called.

Ben snapped an insult in Huttese that caused Anakin to chuckle but would have made Luke wag a finger at him. It also caused a hitch in Ahsoka’s assault. Ben took advantage of this using his lightsaber to force one blade into the ground and kicking out with the toe of his boot to hit a nerve in her hand. It did the job and she dropped the lightsaber.

She spun out, swinging their conjoined blades into the air, now pressing her own advantage with a two handed grip. Ben switched off his lightsaber, taking a step back as she stumbled slightly. Ahsoka recovered quickly, sending a hand out and a blast of Force energy caught him at his stomach, sending him to his back.

Getting her footing, she stood over him, lightsaber raised for the strike. Reaching out, he grasped her lost lightsaber in the force, switching it on and raising both his and her captures one to block the strike.

Still, she had the position of greater strength and she pressed against the blades. He vaguely heard Anakin’s gasp as Ben split his concentration.

Leaning over him, Ahsoka grinned. “Concede yet?”

“How about you?” Ben asked, as he used the Force to bring Anakin’s hilt to the small of her back.

They starred at each other for a moment, before breaking into laughter. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Ahsoka said, offering hand up for Ben.

Ben handed Ahsoka her lightsaber and went to pluck Anakin’s from the air when another Force grasp returned it to its owner’s hand. “No,” Anakin said.

“But they match,” Ben said waving his duplicate one in the air.

“Why don’t you build your own and we leave that one for Luke, Leia or Mara,” Anakin said. “Then we can work on your foot placement. It’s atrocious.”

Ben leaned closer to whisper to Ahsoka. “He’s just bitter because I stole his lightsaber when we met.”

“I’m serious, Ben. When we go up against Palpatine you need to be in top form,” Anakin stated firmly. “Being clever isn’t always going to save you.”

“I have a lifetime experience that says it does,” Ben countered.

“Not against a Sith Lord,” Anakin snapped.

Ben folded his arms and shot his future grandfather a pointed glare. “I don’t know, I handled you well enough.”

“I wasn’t really trying to kill you.”

“You want to now, though, don’t you?” Ben said with a smirk.

Anakin huffed a laugh, running a hand down his face in a gesture for patience. “I’m going to owe Obi-Wan a lifetime of apologies if I was this difficult at your age.”

“Anakin, you’re assuming you’re not this difficult now,” Ben said with a wink at Ahsoka. His mood shifted and he sighed. “Look, I may not have all your flourish and style, but I can handle anything that’s dealt to me. I’ve been doing it since I was a child. And I really need you and Obi-Wan to stop the over-protective poodoo and let me do what I’m supposed to do here. I didn’t come to this time to be useless.”

“Maybe we’re not in a hurry to see you go,” Anakin said.

“There’s nothing really you can do, either of you, to determine that. The Force wills, what the Force wills. I stay here at its whim; I think we both need to reconcile to that.”

Anakin nodded, letting out his worry with a cleansing breath.

“Which isn’t to say, I can’t learn some of your more flamboyant and flashier maneuvers.”

“Flamboyant!” “Flashier!” Anakin and Ahsoka protested simultaneously.

Ben rolled his eyes. “Oh, please don’t try to defend that. I’ve seen you all fight. Sure, it’s probably good for intimidation, but you know what’s better; dispatching your enemies quickly.”

“Ahsoka, what do you say we teach this youngling what a real dualist can do?” Anakin said.

Ben’s lip turned up, a feral grin. “You can certainly try.”

---

Arissa watched with the children as Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano beat Ben for the third time since they’d arrived. After lunch, all the children had caught sight of the three dualist and had pressed their noses to the viewing windows. Arissa couldn’t blame them. The spectacle was tremendous even by Jedi standards. She wondered what it would have looked like if Master Kenobi had joined the foray.

Arissa was pulled from her musings at Mara’s moan as Ben fell to his back for the third time. Picking the three-year-old up, she pointed to Ben standing up. “He’s alright, sweetheart. See.” She also pulled a thin shield around Mara, just enough to keep her from feeling the bond with her future son.

Ben leapt to his feet in a smooth motion. He spoke with Anakin and Ahsoka, copying a few moves as they demonstrated. His blue-green eyes followed every movement, memorizing it. As she’d watched the last three fights, Arissa saw that Anakin and Ahsoka tended to move in their chosen forms, but Ben was all over the place. Testing, searching, trying. It didn’t matter to him if he got thrown to the ground. He’d get back up again. And each time, it took them a little longer, fighting a little harder to knock him down again.

This was Ben Skywalker unmasked.

Not in a moment of glory, but in a slow crescendo. Anakin and Ahsoka didn’t even see it. The crest of a wave no one saw until it fell upon them.

Ben fell seven more times. He rose to his feet again, wiping a trail of blood from the corner of his lip. He smiled, taking more instruction from the Jedi and his former apprentice. Arissa found herself mirroring Ben’s smile. He had them.

In this fight, he used Anakin’s and Ahsoka’s strengths and turned them against them. He constantly weaved in and out between them, turning their sabers towards one another. Until, he caught Ahsoka off balance and he kicked out at her. She spun away, leaving Anakin and Ben facing off each other. Anakin’s movements were powerful, clean. Ben’s were unexpected, charged and fast. Neither could quite get the advantage of the other.

She felt the Force build up in a bubble around them. Everyone in the compound did, she was sure. Until the two Skywalkers came to a stop, breathing hard, hunched over, hands on their knees. The built-up energy didn’t escape like a detonation but flowed over the compound like the water lapping in the underground pool below; warm, gentle, and soothing.

“What was that?” she heard a child whisper.

Mara reached a hand out and touched the transparasteel where Ben could be seen. “Mine,” she said.

“Yes,” Arissa agreed. “One day.”

Ben stood up straight, made a comment that had Anakin swiping for his head. He easily dodged it. While he went to offer a hand up to Ahsoka this time, Anakin watched him with a look that was like a longing suddenly fulfilled. For the first time, Arissa wondered how lonely the Chosen One must have been all these years in a Temple full of Jedi that couldn’t understand him the way Ben did. Those that had feared him or relied on him to do the impossible, all the while expecting him to change and bend.

Ben hadn’t defeated Anakin, he’d lifted him up, but it was still a victory.

That’s why she loved him. As much as he was bloodthirsty compared to the Jedi of this time, Ben’s ultimate goal had been to lift the Jedi Order up, not tear it down.

As she watched Ben and Ahsoka smile at each other, she wondered if she’d come to this realization too late.

 

Superb details of fighting prowess and practice. Love Arissa's realization.

 

Arissa will be taking some action on that realization soon.


Chapter 36:

Ben looked up at the starship that Anakin and Obi-Wan were flying out to lure Maul out. Anakin had gone through it with extra precision, but Ben still doubted it’s worthiness. The haul must have been through a concussion field because it was pitted and marked with tiny little dents. They’d worked out the bigger ones in a hurry but, especially on the time restraint they were on, it would have to do.

Halfway tempted to go dark in the Force and stow aboard, he tried to reconcile the fact that Skywalker and Kenobi would be going together. It just wouldn’t be him. He always thought if given the chance, he would enjoy a quieter life. Wouldn’t need to be in the middle of the action. Not going with them, made his skin itch. He couldn’t be everywhere at once; they really didn’t even need him. It was a lesson he’d need to learn.

So no, he couldn’t just hide on board their transport. It took every measure of his control not to do it.

Thankfully, Obi-Wan came down the gangplank to greet him. It was easier not to be rebellious when the older Jedi was watching.

“Where’s Anakin?” Ben asked.

“Oh, he’s putting a few last touches on the hyperdrive. Said my contributions were no longer needed and to get the ‘kriff’ out of his maintenance access.” Obi-Wan rolled his eyes in fond annoyance. “He’s picking up on your terrible language.”

“What can I say, I spent two seasons living with former smugglers. Aves was probably the worst. I swear Dad cringed every time any words came out of his mouth.” Ben shrugged. “Uncle Talon tried to keep us separate, but I was always curious. They were the closest thing Mom ever had to family before she met Dad.”

Obi-Wan looked down, a shadow falling over his features. “There’s still so much about your life I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s good you don’t have to. It’s not much of a happy tale until now. When you get back, I can tell you about the happier times. There’s no need to rehash the rest.” He smiled wryly. “The futures now in the past. Hopefully, things will change enough that the Vong won’t even be a problem.”

“Ben, I owe you an apology,” Obi-Wan started, that awkwardness that had been between them since he’d disappeared in full view. “I never meant for you to feel rejected.”

“Look, Obi-Wan, I already told you, I don’t need to know. Everybody deserves some time away. You’ve been through a lot lately; I’m surprised you didn’t vanish sooner.” Time for a little honesty of his own. “I just thought you knew, if there was anything you needed help with, I’d be there for you. I thought we were friends.”

“We’re not friends,” Obi-Wan said. He must have seen or sensed Ben’s hurt shock as he hurried to continue. “I’m messing this up entirely.”

“Yes, you are,” came an echoing voice from the ship. Obi-Wan waved a hand and Anakin cried, “Owe, that hurt!”

Ignoring Anakin, Obi-Wan caught Ben’s eye. “What I mean to say…you’re one of the most important people in my life, Ben. You’re family to me, just like Anakin, Siri, and…and Mara,” Obi-Wan explained.

Ben frowned. “Mom?”

“I’m Mara’s father.”

Obi-Wan explained everything. Palpatine’s manipulations. For all Palpatine had tried to destroy the Skywalkers in varying ways, he’d also made it possible to save them. He’d used Anakin’s love against him but didn’t know how easily it could reverse back on him. The Sith, ultimately, didn’t understand love. How intrinsic it was to the Skywalkers. Ben guessed that it was also just as embedded in Obi-Wan now. Maybe it always had been, and the man had trained himself not to acknowledge it until it reversed back on him.

When the Jedi Master was finished, he waited in silence as Ben scrambled for thought. “All right,” Ben said slowly. “So how do you feel about this?”

“Once the Sith are gone, I want to raise my daughter with Siri. If you’re okay with that?”

He felt relief flood over him, his knees wobbled for half a heartbeat. To his surprise, it wasn’t because of him. His mother would now have a family of her own. A father and mother that she could go to when things were hard or even when they were great. Double relief that despite all his training, despite needing two days to process it all, Obi-Wan wanted his daughter.

“Why wouldn’t I be? You being ours through blood now that’s great, but ultimately a non-issue. In my mind, in my heart, Obi-Wan Kenobi was always my other grandfather, even if we never labeled it. You gave what any family member would, your time, your sweat, your tears, and your life. Hell, you were there when I was born, Obi-Wan, helping keep me and Mom alive long enough so I could come into the galaxy.”

Obi-Wan’s relief was just as palpable as Ben’s. He thought about chastising the older Jedi for being so worried. Then realized that Obi-Wan had said he wanted to raise Mara with Siri. He opened his mouth to utter the sly tease when Anakin popped his head out of the ship.

“Wait, what?” he asked.

“Anakin, you don’t have to pretend you don’t know. It was kind of obvious that you did,” Ben said, exchanging an amused glance with Obi-Wan.

“No, not that. You said that Obi-Wan was there at your birth, but he would have been long dead in that timeline,” Anakin said.

“Right,” Ben affirmed. “Dad could sense you were there, too. But he couldn’t hear you like Obi-Wan.”

Now it was Obi-Wan and Anakin’s turn to exchange glances and they weren’t as amused. “Okay, you know how that sounds, right?” Anakin asked.

Concern dripped off of them. Anakin’s eyebrows were lowered and the line between Obi-Wan’s brow had formed. “Why are you looking at me like that? You know how…you’d have to or…You know how to keep your presence here so the living can see you?”

Obi-Wan folded his arms. “Explain, please.”

“The mechanics are little hard without meditation, but it’s a way to not go on to the netherworld of the Force. Like a bridge from what I understand. You purposefully let go of your life and turn into a luminous being.” He shrugged, still a little uneasy with the way they were looking at him. Siri had suggested mind healing and he didn’t want both of his future grandfathers to throw their weight behind it. “Didn’t you think it was a little odd that I thought Anakin was my father when he healed me?”

“I assumed Luke looked like me,” Anakin said.

“No, well, he does, but it’s because I’d talked to him after he died. We kept it minimal, especially once I started figuring out how to come here. Watching him go each time was hard, it felt like I’d lost him again. But sometimes, I really needed his presence. How did you think I stayed sane? There is no death, only the Force. That’s a key part of the Code.”

“I heard Qui-Gon, at least I thought I heard him,” Obi-Wan said. “When you were younger, Anakin, you used to say you could hear him talking to you. At the time, I thought it was your way of processing things.”

“When did you hear him?” Anakin asked carefully.

“When I was meditating about Mara,” Obi-Wan answered. “It was a very different meditation than I was used to. My mind was more open. It was only my name, but maybe he’d said more.”

Almost simultaneously, they turned their gazes back to Ben. The younger Jedi heaved a sigh. “I can teach you when you get back. Its more of a discipline than anything. Dad could hear you, Obi-Wan, right after you’d died. I don’t know if that’s because of the first instructions you gave him, even then discipling his mind to what he would need to see in the future. The Jedi were all but extinct, you probably wanted to insure even if you died, you could continue that instruction. Or because it happened so early in his training, he didn’t know any better, and expected it as normal Jedi abilities. Or if it was his natural state of mind and Force sense. It took me a lot longer to be able to see and hear Dad. But I’m a lot more hardened than he was.”

“No preconceived notions,” Obi-Wan said. His hand reached up to finger his beard as he hummed thoughtfully. “Anything else?”

“You have to reach a level of peace with life, with death. At least to pass on to that place that is and isn’t death.

“Which would explain why Master Qui-Gon was able to figure it out,” Obi-Wan mused.

“Or even know to look,” Anakin agreed. That same sort of trepidation caused Anakin to eye his Master. Ben caught his gaze and cocked a red-gold brow questioningly. Anakin shook his head minutely. Not something to discuss right now. “What do you want to do?”

Obi-Wan let out a long breath, then smiled. “Qui-Gon’s been waiting 13 years, I think he can wait a few more days. Ben, I do want you to speak with Master Yoda about this. Maybe he’ll have some insight.”

Ben saluted him. Then felt a shift in the Force, the rest of the family had come to see Anakin and Obi-Wan off. He was surprised to see Siri and Mara with them. Anakin and Obi-Wan went to greet them. Anakin embraced Padme gently as she held a sleeping Luke. Behind her Ahsoka held Leia who reached out to pull on Anakin’s long hair.

It was a good thing that Anakin hadn’t been holding one of the twins, as he would have likely dropped one, when he saw Obi-Wan lean down and kiss Siri quickly. The Jedi Master held his arms out to Mara and the girl leapt into them. Seeing them together, Ben wondered how he didn’t make the connection between Obi-Wan and his mother before. Not exactly the same hair color, but still a shade of ginger. The shared furrow between their brows. The way they each would get cross with him. Mara’s lips were fuller, but the shape of the eye was Obi-Wan’s.

“Anakin, close your mouth. You look like a Gubber fish,” Obi-Wan said dryly.

Ben understood how Anakin felt. One thing to want something, know it, but another thing entirely to see it. He couldn’t help the wide grin on his face. He gave a silent laugh. Obi-Wan had told him that they were getting along better. Obi-Wan, the master of the understatement.

As he approached his oddly reversed family, he saw Ahsoka blink several times at Obi-Wan. Unsure what all this meant, but there was a smile on her face as well.

“About time,” he said happily. He grinned teasingly at Siri. “Does this mean I get to call you grandmother?”

“Siri will work just fine,” she said. The faux growl to her voice unconvincing as she drew him into a side hug. “At least for now,” she continued quietly. “And later, much later…I guess you’ll have to.”

---

Arissa had nervously walked away from Ben’s door a handful of times, before he actually had the good sense to come home to sleep. When he saw her, his step hitched for a moment, before returning to its normal gait. He pulled his keycard from his tunic and pressed it to the reader plate.

“Is this a stay in the hallway conversation or a come inside conversation?” he asked. The door sputtered open.

She frowned, her stomach twisting in anxiety. She hadn’t even decided what she wanted to say, let alone where to say it. “I’m not sure.”

“Come inside,” he said, softly. “Always better to err on the side of caution.”

The light came on as Ben entered his room. It was like most of the smaller quarters in Natheana. A small common space, an alcove with a sleep couch in the far right corner from the door, a kitchenette in the opposite end and a refresher hidden behind another door in the middle.

“Are you thirsty? I can get you some recycled water,” he said, not quite meeting her gaze.

“I’m fine.”

He sat on the edge of the lone chair in the common room, allowing her to sit on the small stuffed couch. “What can I help you with, Arissa?”

“Am I too late?” she spat out the first thing that flew to her mind.

“Too late for what? If you’re talking about Anakin and Obi-Wan, they left several hours ago.”

She played with the edge of the sleeve of her robe. “No, not that.”

“I’m tired, Arissa. It’s been a long day. Whatever you have to tell me, just tell me. You haven’t seemed to care about sparing my feelings before. Don’t let it stop you now.”

She’d known her actions had hurt him, but she thought he wouldn’t have been this short with her. Did that mean he cared for her as much as she did for him, or had she pushed him too far away? “I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention. I’m not sure…this is new for me.”

Some of the defensiveness softened in him. “Good to know.”

Silence followed and she felt it weigh down in the pit of her stomach. She should have planned this better, understood her feelings better. She’d left after her shift with the children, all but running for his quarters so as not to lose her nerve.

Glancing up from her hands, she said, “I like to swim at night, it helps calm me down after a busy day. Makes it easier to quiet my mind and fall into rest. I have a birthmark at the front of my right thigh, halfway down. I don’t like muja fruit and would trade it with my best friend for fried tubbers. Okay, now it’s your turn.”

Baffled, Ben shook his head. “I’m not sure…”

She stood up and walked over to him, watching his face as he morphed from confusion to surprise. “I want to get to know you better.”

He fought back a smile. “Are you sure? Because my family just became a bit more complicated.”

“I don’t care. You could be Palpatine’s nephew, and I wouldn’t care,” she said. She narrowed her gaze at him. “You’re not, though, right?”

“Not that I’m aware of, but I just learned that Obi-Wan’s my grandfather.” He gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. “I still don’t know who my maternal grandmother is. I haven’t had a lot of time for swimming, but I’d love to learn if you’re willing to teach me. No birthmarks, but I have a pattern of moles on my right shoulder that look like a starship. I’ve never had muja fruit or fried tubbers, but I’ll trust your judgement. And I just want you.”

Emboldened, she wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer. “Professionally or…”

She didn’t get to finish before his mouth was on hers. It was an awkward kiss, full of feeling, and heady heat but lacking experience. Innocent in this area of life, she still sighed when he drew away far sooner than she preferred.

“That answer your question?” he asked, his cheeks slightly red. The smile he’d repressed before burst through his barricades and lit up his scarred face.

“I’m not sure. I think I’m need of further evidence.”

Ben was more than willing to oblige her.

 

Wonderful conversations and SQUEE! at the end.

 

That scene has been one I've waited along time for.


Chapter 37:

Padme walked alongside Ahsoka as they made their way to the now Emperor’s office. The last time she’d felt so out of place here Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had just rescued her from the Trade Federation. In hindsight, she’d been too young, too trusting. Would Palpatine have risen so far so quickly if she hadn’t trusted his words against Valorum when her people were dying. She tried to see without biased eyes, but she couldn’t help but think her youth had been a detriment.

They were in disguise, but she feared someone would peer deeply into the shadow of their hoods or see past the makeup they’d used to distort their features and know them immediately. Padme had never backed down from her political views and in the media, whether she’d been labeled a hero or a maniac had never missed an opportunity display her senate speeches to the galaxy. Ahsoka may have been a Padawan during the war, but she’d always been with Anakin or Obi-Wan or both, and the holonews loved any opportunity to bring up the Hero with No Fear and the Negotiator after a tough mission.

Padme used to be thankful for those holo-casts, especially when Anakin was so far away and it was nearly impossible to get messages to one another. He’d throw up a hand gesture that was meant for only her, a signal that he was okay and that he loved her. They’d spent their time at Varykino after their marriage coming up with their own code.

She shook herself out of her reminiscing. Thankfully, Ben had attacked one of the senate security guards, left him with a heavy sleep suggestion and taken his clothing. The scars on his face gave him an air of maturity and for the first time, Padme saw Ben not just as the boy who was her future grandson but the harden warrior. He walked different, each step purposeful and silent, like a Loth Cat stalking its prey. His blue/green gaze was everywhere, taking each minute detail in and analyzing it.

When he looked at her and Ahsoka, there was something cold and calculating behind his eyes. It frightened Padme. He’d never shied away from the truth, had repeatedly told them that he’d survived terrible odds. This was the first time Padme had seen how he’d done it. He may have been the prey, but he’d developed the teeth of a predator.

“Ben,” she called to him softly.

Some of her boy came back, in his expression as he asked, “What?”

“You’re not alone this time,” she said, reaching out and squeezing his hands quickly. “We’re here.”

He gave her a bemused smile. “I know. Don’t worry so much.”

Padme exchanged a look with Ahsoka, but the former Jedi Padawan was more questioning than commiserating. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and Ben, they’d all come off of a war . While Padme hadn’t been completely detached to the ramifications, she hadn’t been in the middle of the fighting as constant as the four of them had been. Ben had watched Padme’s daughter and son die, he’d survived while everyone he’d loved had faded away.

Arissa had warned her there were other ways to break a Jedi than the Dark Side.

They came to Palpatine’s office and Ben swiped his stolen access card. “Oh, karking hells,” Ben said.

“What?” Ahsoka asked.

“We’ve already set off a security trigger. It’s asking for a secondary pass code.”

“What are we going to do?” Padme said.

“Ahsoka, can you hold it until I’ve got the explosives set?”

“On it,” the former Padawan held out her hand and the ticking numbers counting down, froze.

Ben reached out with the Force and pulled the door open. “Get inside. I’ll be right back.”

---

Ben touched the commlink hooked to his collar and whispered. “Siri.

Her voice was stuttered and garbled as they were using an ancient Jedi device they’d found on Natheana. Hopefully, one that wouldn’t be detected by Senate security. It broadcasted on a wavelength that it had taken Ben and Anakin days before they could understand how they worked.

“He’s still speaking, but I can tell he’s getting nervous. He keeps glancing to the left,” Siri said.

It came in fits and starts and the static behind it was more than Ben would like in the silent halls, but it was their only hope in keeping contact with Siri and their get away transport. “Good. I’m going to work on the explosives.”

“Just be careful,” she said, causing him to grin. He thought about teasing her about growing attached to him, but he didn’t dare risk more static than necessary.

“Will do. I’m shutting down for now.”

He thumbed off the comlink and pulled the bag of explosives from under his tunic. He’d been able to get them through because it was really a mixture of foods that when combined provided a short, but rather loud burst of energy. It might do some superficial damage to the woodwork, but they were mainly looking for loud and impressive. He’d tried to pull the story from Obi-Wan when the Master told them the ingredients, but the man was tight-lipped as usual. Anakin had seemed as confused as Ben, but Siri had smirked knowingly before being forbidden to relay the story.

Ben pulled the first one out and smashed the ingredients together before throwing it in a trash receptacle and set his ten-minute timer. Padme had helped them choose the nearest corridor that would be the least likely to have any life forms. Ben ran down the corridor, smashing the packets of soon to be volatile foodstuffs and setting them in receptacles, potted plants, or other inconspicuous places.

Once he dropped his last one, he headed back towards Palpatine’s office, hoping that Padme and Ahsoka had been able to find the information they needed. He was running down the next corridor that would adjoin to Palpatine’s office when the Force sent him a warning. He skidded to a halt, a moment before a lightsaber came out of nowhere, centimeters from his neck.

[hr]

Anakin hated waiting. He’d grown better at tempering his impulse, the need to always be moving, to give that Force-energy inside of him an outlet before it overwhelmed him. He’d used bravado to cover that need. Yoda had helped him quiet those eddies and waves, the froth of emotion that he’d never been able to sooth.

But he was still Anakin Skywalker and waiting would never be his expertise. It should have been Obi-Wan’s. He’d seen his Master wait on dignitaries, politicians, crime kingpins and Sith Lords with his usual charm and whit with far more calm than he displayed now. They’d gone to the outskirts of the city of Neth, waited in a recently abandoned battle droid manufacturing facility, once they’d made their presence loudly known.

Obi-Wan had tried to meditate a handful of times but was now pacing the length of what once had been an assembly bay. Anakin had taken to tinkering with the droids left in partial construction, disassembling and assembling. While his Master paced, he took comfort in wires and diodes.

After Obi-Wan came away from a seventh meditation unfulfilled, Anakin felt he had to at least try to intervene, though he felt widely out of his depth. “Master.”

Obi-Wan stopped pacing to face him. “I’m fine, Anakin. Just thinking.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Anakin said. “You don’t have to do it.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Obi-Wan said, always the master of evasion.

“You’re trying to keep your worries from me, as you’ve always done, but now it’s just insulting. I’m your friend, Obi-Wan, we’re family. You don’t have to protect me any more. I’m not going to the Sith if you tell me you’re having troubles. We’re supposed to share our burdens, remember?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Take it from somebody who knows, that’s exactly when you should,” Anakin countered. He stood up, dusting droid parts from his lap. “Talk to me, Master. Anything you’re feeling or not feeling, I won’t judge.”

“Qui-Gon meditated before Maul ran him through. I keep thinking if he was preparing himself the way Ben explained. If he knew that I wouldn’t make it in time.”

“Master, we’ll take him together. I promise,” Anakin said, hitting at the heart of Obi-Wan’s plight. Qui-Gon hadn’t waited, Obi-Wan hadn’t been fast enough. His Master would never blame Qui-Gon for his part, so it was clearly all his own. “You won’t fall behind or leap ahead and neither will I. You’ll disarm him and I’ll use the special tranquilizer that Bant made for us. Neither of us is going to die.”

Obi-Wan was about to say something when they both stilled. “He’s here.”

“Time to spring the trap,” Obi-Wan agreed. He gave Anakin a quick weighted glance. “And neither of us is going to the Dark. I trust you, Anakin.”

---

“Where is he?” Padme asked for the fifth time in the last half an hour.

Ahsoka sighed. The explosives had already gone off and they were trying unsuccessfully to open up the very secure holo receiver in the side room, that Ahsoka and Padme had found in the first hour they’d been here.

“He’s probably running security a wild bantha chase,” Ahsoka said. She could feel Ben, his mind very active and distracted. She would go check on him, but there was a distinct and resounding sense of ‘Stay Away’ in his mind.

Padme pulled out another datacard with a new decrypt program. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take or if we can even get in.”

“Keep trying,” Ahsoka encouraged.

As predicted, the Senate had gone on lockdown. The Senators and the Emperor were quarantined in the arena. Everything was going according to plan, except Ben was supposed to be with them. Picking through the Emperor’s dirty secrets.

She sent another general query to him and the answer was just the same. “Stay Away.” But there was a second almost directly behind it. “Keep Padme safe.”

From what? He didn’t have time to explain and she couldn’t sense. The Force was turbulent as hit had been since the Clone Wars. The death of many Jedi all at once had eddied the flow of the Force even more.

It was the first time she’d been at the center of it all, the place where the Temple had fallen. The first glimpse of it burnt and gutted had left her reeling. Her heart stuck in her throat and tears silently trailing down her face. The Council had turned their back on her, had left her to fend for herself in an increasingly charged political arena. At that moment, it had felt like everything she’d believed had been a lie.

She’d thought she had no choice but to walk away. To find a better path.

Instead, Anakin had fallen to the Dark Side, the Jedi murdered by those they’d trusted. Obi-Wan would have spent the next twenty years of his life, watching Anakin’s son grow on Tatooine. Alone. No Skywalker and Kenobi. The one thing she thought would never change had broken. She hoped the repair would leave them stronger.

“Ahsoka,” Padme called to her, switching cards again. “Can you sense him?”

“He’s close and busy, Padme,” Ahsoka evaded.

“Ask him why he’s taking so long,” Padme insisted.

“I’ll try,” Ahsoka said. She rolled her eyes. Why was she forever running interference for the Skywalkers? “It’s not a good idea to distract him.”

Padme must have heard something in her words, for she turned away from the holoprojector and studied the Ahsoka. “What’s going on?”

Ahsoka shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“But somethings wrong, isn’t it?” Padme said, standing up. “You need to help him.”

“He’s pretty insistent that I don’t.”

“Why?”

Ahsoka gestured at Padme’s abandoned task. “He doesn’t want me to leave you or the mission.”

Padme’s dark brown gaze flickered to the pile of decryption cards around Palpatine’s holoprojector. The ones they’d used to pull information from the few datapads they’d found. She turned back to Ahsoka. “How bad is it?”

“I told you the truth, Padme, I don’t know. His definition of dangerous doesn’t exactly equal mine. It’s not very logical either.”

“Ahsoka, best guess on what you feel,” Padme said, kneeling down and gathering up the decryption cards.

The former Jedi rested her hands on the hilt of her sabers. “It’s not good.”

“Is there a way we could just cut this out? With maybe your lightsaber?” Padme asked. “Would it keep the information intact?”

“If it’s there,” Ahsoka said. “We’d have to be sure to take the storage system and the processor. It wouldn’t be very subtle.”

“My grandson may be in danger, subtle is the last on my priority list,” Padme said.

“He’s a Jedi, Padme. From what I gather, he’s always been in danger. He doesn’t want either of us to join him.”

“Yes. But he’s just spent the last four years of his life believing he had to save everyone but himself. Forgive me if I don’t trust his judgement on this either. Get to work. I’m going to contact Siri.”

---

Ben held his breath and looked down at the violet blade held at his throat. It was held by a tall man with dark skin. One side of his face was nearly as scarred as Ben’s and the eye was cloudy and sightless. He also bore the cauterized stump where a hand once was. By the Force, was everyone taller than him in this time? He wondered why the other Jedi bothered with the saber, when he could probably just stomp on Ben with a high knee.

“Hey, there,” he said slowly. “Let’s not do anything hasty. I’m new here so you might be a little kill now ask questions later, but I’m a Jedi, too. I want to stop the Sith. I’m guessing that’s why you’re here.”

That man regarded him with the one seeing dark eye. “You echo through time.”

The man’s words were stilted, broken. The injury to his face had the ruddy coloring of fresh scarring, unlike Ben’s that had long turned white. When Ben reached out a tendril of the Force to test him, he felt a discordant thump as the older Jedi’s shields locked in place. Whatever happened to the man, he wasn’t well.

“You shatter everything around you,” the man said, coming around to face Ben straight on. The tip of his saber now threatening the curve of Ben’s throat.

Ben’s heart thudded in his chest. “I’m just trying to fix things. To keep the Jedi from going extinct. You can help us. My name is Ben, what’s yours?”

“Ben, Ben, Ben…,” the man repeated his name, his gaze both lucid and clouded, focused on something that only he could see. “Ben Skywalker. You’re the traitor’s spawn.”

Certainty hit Ben as he looked over the man once more. “Vader did this to you? Didn’t he?”

Besides the fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin, and Luke’s own missing hand, Vader had been the stuff of legends and stories. Nothing that had directly touched Ben in the same way it had Obi-Wan, Luke, Leia and Han of the time he’d left behind.

He’d known much of what Vader had done; now it stood before him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Ben had been here almost a year, the twins were now crawling and pulling themselves up on furniture. Vader had been a memory and Anakin a reality for most of his time here. The man must have struggled to remain alive, though Ben wondered if it had cost him his mind. The man didn’t feel dark himself, but there was a shadow around him.

“Vader’s gone,” Ben continued. “Come with me, we can help you. I know what it’s like. I’ve been where you’ve been.” He ran a finger down a knotted line of flesh on his cheek. “We’ll destroy the Sith together.”

“You’re too dangerous to be left alive. Every Skywalker is,” the man said. He towered over Ben, the blade now burning the flesh of his neck.

Ben fell backward and rolled away, coming back up with his lightsaber in hand. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I really don’t want to die either. I’m guessing if you lived through Vader’s attack that you’re a heavy hitter. But you aren’t well. I can help you.”

The man swung at him and Ben deflected the violet blade with his own. He felt the impact shudder through his arm. “Okay, I guess we do this your way.”

---

Siri kept to the line of traffic that had been stuck since Ben had set off the explosives and had put the Senate building on emergency alert. Every door was sealed magnetically. All exits and entrances blocked off. Except Padme had known of a way to get out, a secret exit for Senators if the situation became deadly. Palpatine wouldn’t use it yet, no one in the Senate would, but it was only a matter of time.

Ahsoka, Ben and Padme were supposed to use the exit long before it became an issue.

That time had long since passed. She couldn’t get Ben on the ancient communicator. The discussion with Padme hadn’t eased her worry either. She knew it had been a mistake to not go in to the Senate herself. Everyone had wanted Ben to drive the speeder, but they also knew the time traveler wouldn’t have agreed. She couldn’t very well chastise Obi-Wan for protecting the boy, only for her to closet him away as well.

Now she wondered if their worry had masked a warning from the Force. They were all embarking on new territory, being a Jedi and having attachments. And Kark it, she’d become attached to all of them. Even the traitor. Especially, the strange mixture of Anakin and Obi-Wan that had dodged all her usual defenses and claimed a piece of her heart. Ben may not be hers by blood, but he belonged to her. Maybe that was a better way of putting it. Not attachment, but a belonging.

She wasn’t about to let any one of them die.

 

Chapter 38:

Maul dropped down upon them with lightsabers ignited. Their hilts already in hand, it was a flip of the thumb and a raise of their arms and united they batted the former Sith Lord away. Maul flew backward and hit one of the warehouses walls.

As Maul hit the ground, his metal legs stabilized him. “Kenobi and Skywalker. How unexpected. I thought for sure you’d be kneeling at Sidious’s feet, Skywalker.”

“Things change, I’m learning to accept that. You should, too,” Anakin said.

“Kenobi, two against one, hardly seems sporting,” Maul continued.

“Didn’t seem to trouble you so much when you and Savage tried to kill me,” Obi-Wan replied. “And I don’t need Anakin to kill you.”

“There’s that Kenobi arrogance,” Maul said, with a cruel twist of a smile. “Why bring the whelp here?

“Whelp?” Anakin asked, indignantly.

“Oh, he’s here to make sure I don’t kill you. Right now, Maul, we have a common purpose. We both want Sidious gone, you may have information that can help us do that. You can come with us willing or we can take you by force.”

Obi-Wan leaned back raising his blade horizontally above his head and stretching his left hand out with two probing fingers. Beside him, he felt Anakin shift in preparation as well.

In that moment, whether they were able to take Maul or not, Obi-Wan felt a surge of assurance. He and Anakin were together, and no matter what happened, they would succeed. The unchartered often left him off-kilter and he’d always prefer a calculated plan with guidance from the Force, but he had faith. He lost his fear. The fear he wouldn’t be able to love as wholly as his heart yearned. That something said or done would trip him or Anakin into the dark abyss they’d fallen into but had clung by their very finger tips to keep themselves from plummeting beyond each others reach.

“It’s your choice, Maul.”

---

Ahsoka and Padme stood up and dusted the metallic shavings from their clothes. They’d managed to surgically remove the comm center with Ahsoka’s lightsaber, memory cache intact. But as Padme eyed it, her stomach tightened.

“How are we going to get this out of here?” she asked, her hands planting at her waist.

“Leave that to me,” Ahsoka said, putting out a hand and raising the comm center off the ground.

Padme smiled at the former Padawan. “It’s very impressive, but once they realize that there really isn’t an attack on the Senate and start opening those doors, it’ll be really had to keep our cover.”

“Don’t worry,” Ahsoka said warily. “I think Ben is making a spectacle enough to keep eyes off of us.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Padme said.

“Look, we knew this would be risky. You’ve got to trust him,” Ahsoka said. “He’s more than capable of taking care of himself.”

Padme twisted her hands over the antiquated comlink. She brought it up to her mouth. “Siri, we’ve got the device, we’re going to head to the rendezvous point.”

“I’m already here. You and Ahsoka get that to the ship and if Ben and I aren’t back in time, you take off.”

Padme’s hand tightened over the comlink until her knuckles turned white. If Siri could feel Ben was in danger and it was serious enough for her to come after him, then it was worse than she’d feared. “I’m not leaving either of you here.”

“You may have to, but I promise I’ll get him out,” Siri said after a long pause. “Just get to the ship.”

“Siri,” Padme said warningly. “I’m not going along with this plan. Ahsoka, let’s go.”

---

Ben dunked as the violet blade aimed for his neck swiped with such speed and precision that he smelt burnt hair in the air. Well, he had thought his hair was getting too long. Shav, but that was too close. He swung his blade up, nudging the larger man’s away from him. It gave him enough time to roll away, to gain some distance.

He knew this older Jedi was hurt, broken, in a way he understood all too well. Beyond that, the discordant sense in the older man was wrecking havoc with his own abilities. He gave his head a shake closed his eyes briefly to center himself and leapt to his feet. His grandfather’s lightsaber before him.

“You feel it, don’t you?” the Jedi said, gazing at Ben through his clear eye. “Every moment you’re here, you shatter what was meant to be.”

“I don’t believe that,” Ben said. “I’m just hastening what was meant to be. You know my family; very impatient.”

The mind-sick Jedi smiled, but in the same way an old door sputters open. It nearly ran off its tracks and seemed more dangerous than helpful. Ben preferred him stern. “You have to go home, Ben. This is the only way to do it.”

“Murder?” Ben asked with a raise of his eyebrows. “Doesn’t seem very Jedi-like.”

He straightened. “A Jedi must be ready to make any sacrifice.”

“Even your soul? It’s not an easy sacrifice to make. Even if you’ve convinced yourself it’s the only way,” Ben said. “I’ve made that choice before. It doesn’t make you a better Jedi, it leaves you empty. The Force is life, it doesn’t inhabit husks.”

Ben tried to push down those dark times, after Luke died. He the wild bantha and every Vong in the galaxy chasing after him. The memories shot at him like laser blasts, too fast to avoid and left a burn that never bled. He wondered if it would have been better if he’d bled. He’d made bad choices during those times, dark choices. His desperation mirrored in the older Jedi’s face. The older man was wrong, caught up in whatever these things Ben was supposedly shattering, but Ben could only feel empathy for him.

Maybe this was what Dad felt when he faced Darth Vader and only saw his father. So much belief that he’d pulled Anakin Skywalker through the black suite and made him a man. The good man once again.

Ben didn’t know if he had that ability. He wanted to try, not only for the broken nameless Jedi before him, but for the broken child who’d lost everything.

Ben reacted by the Force and instinct when that violet blade came down upon him a second time. It took both hands to restrain the power in the older Jedi’s one arm. Ben jumped back again, batting the violet blade aside and blocked, parried, blocked, and blocked again, before he tried reason again.

“You felt them die? The Jedi? You family. I know how that feels. The madness that can seize you.” He shuddered at his own memories.

“They are…still…dying,” the older Jedi said through clenched teeth. A tear fell from the clouded eye. Ben blocked against a flurry of attacks. The older Jedi probed his strengths and weaknesses.

“I know,” Ben said, feeling that remembered pain. It wasn’t as bad in this time. Because the Vong had not only gone for the Jedi but anyone who was Force sensitive. Now, the Empire was still in its infancy. It hadn’t had time to be the Vong’s role model for vanquishing the Jedi. “I’m sorry.”

He recalled Luke’s story of his last encounter with Vader. How he’d refused to fight, how he’d actually tossed his saber aside. Ben’s habit and instinct kept him from doing that. This older Jedi barely gave him time to breath let alone unlearn years of ingrained survival instincts. There were some leaps of faith Ben couldn’t make. He wasn’t his father, but maybe he could still help this Jedi.

If he stayed alive long enough to do it.

---

Anakin truly understood what lead Maul to leap at him. After all, nearly a year ago, Obi-Wan had warned him not to try overcoming him on the high ground and Vader had made the leap. Understanding it, didn’t mean it wasn’t karking annoying.

Not that he didn’t enjoy the exercise. Between he and Obi-Wan, Maul was more an object lesson than a threat. A reminder that he’d made the right choice in returning to the light. He’d been blinded at the time, but seeing Maul now, remembering Dooku in his final moments, he saw clearly how easily Palpatine would have displaced him when he was no longer of use.

He actually felt pity for this former Sith. Their lives were different. Maul had continued to keep the mindset, the revenge that ravaged his heart and kept him hellbent on destroying Obi-Wan. Anakin had rejected it, had flung it as far as he could, but it still haunted him. Yet, he knew what Maul felt. That urge to dismiss the pain that seemed so large it would burst out of you. Maul thought killing Obi-Wan would rid himself of it. Sidious’s abandonment, Savage’s death, Maul would always hunger. That was the way of the Sith.

Anakin watched as his Master neatly sidestepped Maul’s lunge and set Anakin up for a threatening stab of his own. If Maul had refused to help them, the plan had been to use Obi-Wan to hold Maul’s attention while Anakin hit him with a tranquilizer that would put a bantha out. Then, they would put the Force suppressant collar on him and bring him to Natheana.

Another uncomfortable realization hit Anakin. If he’d remained Vader, he’d be just as dogged as Maul in killing his Master. Sidious, Maul, Dooku, Asajj, Vader, anyone who’d been connected to the Sith had been trying to kill his loved ones for a long time. His willful blindness to this fact when he’d been desperate was something he’d need to talk to Obi-Wan and the future Council about.

If the Jedi were going to allow love, being attached, they’d need new trials for the upcoming Jedi. Obi-Wan was facing one now, though it was old and rehearsed. His dance around Maul so perfectly choreographed, that Anakin had no trouble believing his Master had foreseen this fight in his mind a thousand times since Qui-Gon’s death.

No this wasn’t Obi-Wan’s trial. He’d passed it already twice before with Qui-Gon and Satine.

No, it would be the same as Anakin’s; facing Palpatine. The Sith that had tried to kill Obi-Wan and destroy Anakin’s soul; nearly succeeding in both.

Anakin was pulled out of his thoughts as Obi-Wan cut through Maul’s saber, causing the saber staff to become two free moving lightsabers. Enraged, Maul leapt at Obi-Wan again, the Jedi Master blocking with practiced ease, but with a vehemence that made Anakin uncomfortable for his Master.

This was his cue.

He pulled the tranquilizer from his belt and with a push of the Force, sent it sailing towards Maul’s exposed neck.

---

Ahsoka followed behind Padme, bringing the comm station behind them. Ahsoka preferred to be leading, especially since she knew the risk to Padme and by extension to Anakin. There were many things she’d questioned about the Jedi and the Council once she’d left. The rule of attachments hadn’t been one of them. She started hunting for the Jedi, only to find her Master and Grandmaster, both in love and with children.

In the beginning, she’d been shocked, but now she was worried. Ben explained in his time that love and attachment wasn’t forbidden but was part of the Jedi way. Of all the changes Anakin had spoken about, this one stood outside of the realm of her understanding. She’d had feelings for Lux. Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme had been her family. She’d walked away from all of it sad but resigned.

Could she say the same for them now? Obi-Wan had faked his death to save Palpatine, but that had caused a rift that he’d fought hard to repair with her and Anakin. She felt safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t do anything like that again. But if Padme died, if Ben, Siri or Ahsoka died? Would either of them learn to live with it?

She’d seen the aftermath of what happened when a Jedi allowed attachments. She couldn’t quite trust it? Nor could she deny the sense of rightness when Master Obi-Wan had held his daughter or kissed Knight Tachi.

Cautious knowledge and reckless faith. How could both be right in the Force?

Ahsoka didn’t have any answers. All she knew was she was going to try and help her friends as best she could. Which meant keeping them alive long enough to learn those answers.

---

Ben slipped through the net of the Jedi’s offense. Watched as Siri rounded the corner and stopped. Her eyes sparked with recognition. “Master Windu?”

The powerful Jedi stopped at Siri’s words, his attention blissfully turning away from Ben. Ben took the time to breath, to reformulate his plan. No one would accuse him of having a silver tongue. The fact that Anakin had come back to the good side was more Obi-Wan, Anakin and the Force than anything Ben had done or said. His one asset had been a disease his enemies had given him.

Master Windu eyed Siri like he was trying to recognize a picture through a waterfall. “Knight Tachi? You’ve always been loyal. Help me destroy this aberration.”

Siri turned an alarmed look on Ben.

He shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”

“Master,” Siri said, approaching Windu with a slow purposeful stride. “He’s just a boy. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Not a hundred percent true, but he wasn’t in the mood to have the argument. Besides, he could feel Padme and Ahsoka coming. They were short on time.

“Siri,” Ben said, his saber still held in front of him. “We need to leave.”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Master Windu said, putting his violet blade between Ben and Siri. “This ends now.”

Ben braced for the Jedi Master to attack him once again. Surprise froze him in place for a heartbeat as Windu unexpectedly turned his blade on Siri. Ben acted more on instinct than any formed thought. As the purple blade drew back, Ben caught it in his Force grasp and pressed his hand to the tip of the blade forcing the beam of light down back into its pummel. He gritted his teeth as the beam fought back and stabbed through his palm, causing pain to lance up his arm.

He wanted to save this Jedi, but he couldn’t let him harm Siri either.

This was his solution.

He would not fail.

It took a moment for Master Windu to realize what had happened to his blade. The concentrated violet light glowed and sparked against the pummel he almost had retracted completely. The pain of his hand licked at the edge of his concentration, reminding him that bone, muscle and tendon had just been severed by a laser sword.

He was about to grunt to Siri to knock the Master unconscious, when Padme yelled, “Get down!” a second before something large and metallic set the Jedi Master flying through the air. Ben felt and heard the wind sheer as it passed by him.

“You over did it,” he mumbled, as his knees gave out. “Is he out?” he forced out, hoping it was loud enough for them to hear.

“Probably concussed,” Siri assured him. He felt her catch him, his vision had taken to splotchy patches of darkness and light.

He caught his right hand in his left and pressed it against his stomach. At least he kept the hand. That was more than either his father or grandfather could say. He felt Padme and Ahsoka join them. Someone reached out to touch his hand and he instinctively retreated, hissing between his teeth.

“We’ve got to go,” he said, willing his vision to coalesce. It remained hazy. “Help me to my feet.” He didn’t need to see to move. Pain was just a reaction of the body and mind, letting him know damage had been done. He could silence that signal. “Get Master Windu.”

Together they managed to get him up with Padme slinging his good arm over her shoulders. “What were you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?” she snapped.

He could feel her fear and worry. It resonated in Siri if more controlled. Only Ahsoka understood. He’d done what was necessary.

“I came here to save Jedi, not to kill them.”

---

Obi-Wan fingered his beard as he looked down on Maul’s unconscious form. The Force suppression collar hugged the ropes of muscle at the former Sith’s neck. There was a time, a time in the not too distant past, that he would have been happy if that collar had slowly cut off the oxygen from him. Now, he surprised himself in his feelings. Pity, with a bit of self-loathing.

That day on Naboo he and Maul had both been abandoned by the mentors they’d pledged their allegiance to. Where Qui-Gon had gifted him with Anakin, Maul had been left with only his hatred to support him. Yet both of them had come to want vengeance, each of them abandoning reason in pursuit of it.

The Sith had hurt them both immensely.

He walked away, putting distance between himself and the bad memories that had haunted him for far too long. He let them go remaining in the past where they’d belonged. The emptiness he thought he would fell was replaced by warmth and peace. Maul would face justice, but his actions would no longer pain Obi-Wan. He let that go, too.

Ben had said that to reach the level of connection with the Force to remain in this world he would have to come to peace with his life and well as his death. Knowing that Maul was alive while Qui-Gon had died, that Anakin had been denied a Master that wouldn’t have led him into the arms of the Sith, were the last to go. Though they clung with sticky fingers to his soul. Or maybe it was the reverse. He preferred the fault being with him, it was easier to fix if it were.

“Master,” Anakin greeted him as he took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair. “How’s our former Sith Lord?”

“Still alive and sleeping.”

Anakin gave him a wry smile. “I wasn’t worried.”

“How far out are we from Natheana?” Obi-Wan asked, continuing to finger his beard.

“Two standard.” Anakin made a few more calculations on his datascreen. “I could cut it down if you feel it’s necessary.”

“I feel uneasy,” Obi-Wan said, not understanding his own disquiet. He knew it wasn’t Maul. Obi-Wan had double checked the amount of sedative that was being regularly injected into his blood stream. Had run a scan of his brainwaves to ensure that his activity was still maintaining unconscious patterns.

Anakin eyed him warily. “That’s never good.”

He shook his head. “It could be nothing. After all these years, I still have trouble keeping my focus on the here and now. I don’t know if Master Qui-Gon would be amused or disappointed. Maybe a little of both.”

“How ‘bout neither,” Anakin countered. “That uneasiness has kept us alive more times than I can count.”

“When I’m not in need of rescue?” Obi-Wan countered.

“You’ve never been good at realizing your worth, Master.”

“I’m sorry I put you in those situations. I never realized what I was putting you through, what it cost you.”

“You have your strengths, I have mine. That’s what always made us a great team,” Anakin assured him. He drew a breath and Obi-Wan could see him measuring his words, something he’d been doing more and more since he’d come back to the light. Maybe all of those diplomatic lessons had finally paid off. “This is the second time you’ve spoken of Master Qui-Gon in as many days. Are you nervous about the training Ben mentioned, what it will lead to?”

“It’s brought back some difficult memories, but no, I’m not nervous. I’ve often wished he was here, as he would have done a far better job at training you than I. Ben may have never needed to come back in time to set things right.”

“Or there may have been no Luke or Leia, no Mara, no Ben. It may be selfish, but I prefer things the way they are. The only thing I would change, would be no Darth Vader, and that I made your life a little easier.”

Obi-Wan set a hand on his former Padawan’s shoulder. “You were difficult,” he gently teased. “But you’ve also been the greatest light in my life, Anakin. Selfishly, I would want you with me always, but I would never put my needs before your own. I’ve always wanted the best for you, Anakin. Even if that meant not being my student.”

Something shifted in the Force and they now shared a knowing glance. “Ben,” they said together.

“I think it’s time you make those calculations, Anakin.”

“I think you’re right. I have a bad feeling about this.”

 

Hi, I just noticed that this is being updated again and wanted to drop by since I read the first page or so a while ago and remember really liking it. Thanks for sharing more of it with us! And eventually, someday, I hope to catch up.

 

No problem. Thanks for readying what you can.


Chapter 39:

Ben leaned over his worktable with an extra light over his project. His right hand was still incased in bacta in synthiflesh, but most of the fine work would need to be done with the Force anyway. Right now, he was placing the focusing chamber into the pummel of his new lightsaber. Or sabers as the case was now. He’d already made the first one with his own special modifications. He thought Uncle Han would be proud.

Not only did making the new lightsabers keep his mind off of the pain in his hand, it also gave him a reason to tuck himself away without overtly avoiding his family.

He’d been ashamed and worried about a lot of the things he’d done to get to this time and something after that. Making sure Master Windu and Siri lived and were not harmed, he would wear as a badge of honor. He was tired of death and just because a Jedi was broken, didn’t mean they couldn’t be mended. From what he’d heard, Master Windu had made some mistakes, but who of them hadn’t. He’d sustained a traumatic brain injury, that alone would affect his connection with the Force. Couple that with the death of hundreds of his own people, Ben understood what that kind of trauma could do to a Jedi.

The door behind him sputtered open and his back muscles contracted in readiness. “If you’ve come to give a well meaning lecture, I’m busy.”

He felt familiar arms wrap around him from behind and a chin rested on his left shoulder, the essence of warm spring water tickling at his nose. “No lectures,” Arissa whispered in his ear before giving his cheek a kiss. “Just came to rewrap your hand. Still busy?”

“For you, never,” he assured her. As he rearranged himself on the work bench, she came to sit in front of him with a medkit. “Are they still plotting?”

“You act as though they’re the enemy,” she chided him gently.

“To my sanity, maybe,” he huffed.

Placing his hand on antibacterial gel pad, she pulled at the synthiflesh with a pair of med tweezers. “I don’t know,” she mused. “When you’ve got the ‘Hero with No Fear’ thinking precautions, that does lend to a certain type of recklessness.”

His brow furrowed in consternation. “I thought you said you wouldn’t lecture.”

“Is pointing out an obvious fact a lecture?” she turned back on him, with that twitch of a smile that he generally liked to see.

Her hair was mostly dried from her swim but it still hung in ringlets around her as she worked to pull the old synthiflesh away. “I hate it when you use logic. It makes being sulky and offended impossible.”

She laughed, her face lighting up like the first rays of dawn. She turned her green eyes to him. “Is advice welcome or should I avoid that as well?”

“I’ll listen,” he said. “But I can’t make any promises.”

She’d removed the last of the old synthiflesh and gently moved his hand back and forth. The hole that had been there was gone, filled in with the bacta that had been rapidly regrowing his flesh. Dursteel plates replaced the bone that had been burnt through in an instant. All that remained of the wound was a pink circle of flesh, ringed in red.

The ring would scar where the saber had cauterized his skin. It didn’t bother him. What was one more scar?

She began to wrap his hand in the new synthiflesh. It joined to the bacta in a protective way, creating a seal that would be moved by normal motion, but it pulled apart gave away easily. He’d never thought about it before, but he wondered when the two had been found to be so beneficial to the other.

“Try and see it from their point of view. Your arrival has spared many lives and grief. Especially, to we who love you. Is it so strange to you, that they’d want to spare you from a little grief in return?”

She probably didn’t notice what she’d said with so much ease, yet Ben latched onto it. “Love, huh?”

Blushing, she gave his shoulder a push. “You’re missing the point.”

“No, I think I found it,” he said, reaching out to brush her hair away from her face and touching her cheek.

He was stuck between two spaceways. Not long ago, he’d begged Master Yoda to send him back to where he belonged. So he could be the son of Luke and Mara Skywalker. But now, no matter where he ended up, he would feel a keen sense of loss. Because he loved them all. And in that moment, the idea of losing Arissa seemed as though it would leave a hole inside him that no amount of bacta could cure. He suddenly understood why Anakin had been willing to do anything to save Padme. Why his father had seemed a ghost after his mother died. Why Siri and Obi-Wan’s presence in the Force had grown larger than two people, once they’d resolved their feelings.

“You’re staring,” she said, the mixture of bold and bashful that he felt was unique to her. “And I’m finished.”

“I made you something,” he said.

Confused at the sudden change of subject, she played along, but he felt the disappointment in her. “How industrious of you?”

He pulled the third lightsaber hilt he’d built from the shelf underneath his worktable and held it out to her. “I noticed you haven’t carried one. I asked Master Yoda and he said you lost yours when your Master died. I didn’t know you were at Geonosis. I’m sorry.”

Gingerly, she took it from him and turned it in the light just as carefully as she’d examined his hand. “You have been busy. It’s beautiful. I’m not sure I deserve it.”

“You’re a Jedi. A Jedi needs a lightsaber,” he reminded her.

“I haven’t felt like one in a long time.”

“Because Master Lin-Beel died?” he asked gently.

She shook her head. “Because I wasn’t strong enough to save her.” This time her twitch of a smile wasn’t brought on by joy. Tears shimmered in her eyes.

He’d wished he’d asked Master Yoda sooner about Arissa’s past. How long had this doubt plagued her, causing her to bounce from job to job while the Jedi were at war? A Jedi in body, but not in spirit.

Clumsily, he took both hands and wrapped her fingers over the hilt. “Let this one, who loves you, ease some of your grief. While power can do many things, a good heart can do many more. Without you, I would not have known my mother was at the Emperor’s storehouse. And without you, we may have destroyed the Sith but still doomed the Jedi. “

“And your heart, your wisdom, have made a scarred broken Jedi want to live again.”

“Love, huh?” she said, shooting his words back at him.

He shrugged. “Well, I generally don’t make lightsabers for just anyone.”

“Thank you,” she said, grasping the hilt tighter.

“I thought we could put our crystals in together,” he continued. “Once you’re ready.”

She leaned forward and he moved to meet her, their lips coming together in and ardent kiss. His hands moved to her waist, pulling her closer. One day, he knew, he may have to let her go, but today, he could hold her a little tighter.

---

Palpatine paced the length of his vandalized office in the Senate. It was late in the night cycle on Coruscant but spotted lines of illuminated traffic still latticed Coruscant’s sky. In contrast silence pressed in on the Senate building’s corridors. Once the meaningless attack had been deemed at an end and Senate Security had cleared the building from further attacks, full body sessions had been put on hold for an indeterminate time.

Palpatine had already been steering the investigation to lead to a disgruntled former senator who hadn’t been re-elected mainly because Palpatine had endorsed his opponent. Something would have to be done about the Jedi and that boy. He could feel the boy’s presence all along the corridor. That smug self assured child, who’d thought insults would taunt him. Now he was playing at subterfuge Palpatine had spent decades perfecting.

He would show this upstart and the Jedi who was truly Master of the Force.

Before him, shrouded in a dark cloak knelt his newest apprentice.

“I think it’s time we repay the Jedi in turn.”

 

Thank you again, It was such a wonderful surprise to see more of favorite story. I look forward to
reading more and finding out who the new apprentice is. I love Mara, and concur that she should be
Obi-wan's daughter.

 

I'm nearly done with my semester in school, 21 credit hours takes alot out of you, and plan on finishing this. Thanks for continuing to read this.

 

Super talk between Ben and Arissa. A lot of things have been cleared up and said particularly between Anakin and Obi-Wan, but there feels like a lot left to do.

 

Yeah, still much to do.



Chapter 40:

Obi-Wan signaled Ben’s door, announcing his arrival. Normally, he would just open the door and announce his presence verbally. But he did not wish to push the boy into retreating again. Ben struggled with being caught between two times and it hadn’t helped when his family of this time tried to keep him from his purpose. He needed their love, but also he needed respect and space.

Not a moment later the door opened. Ben wasn’t on the other side it was Arissa Deirs. The young Jedi’s face turned a shade similar to her hair. “Master Kenobi, I…I was just leaving. Ben should be out in a moment. Would you like to come in?”

Obi-Wan thanked his years of diplomacy for his ability to respond. “Yes, of course. How are you this morning?”

“I’m well,” she said, meeting his eyes for a moment before shying away. “Ben, I’m leaving.”

The boy came into the common room from his bedroom and stilled at seeing the two of them together. He tried to hide a smirk. “Obi-Wan, you’re here early.” He crossed the room steadily and gave Arissa a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

Arissa gave Ben a scolding look but smiled. “Have a good day, Master Kenobi.”

“You as well. Do tell Mara I will be visiting her later.”

“I will,” the young woman said and then was gone through the door.

“Try not to make this too weird,” Ben said, a brazen grin on his face.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. He rather thought it had already been strange the day Ben showed up and saved he and Anakin’s fragile souls. “I’m sure you’d prefer me to make it ‘weird’ as you say, if only for you and Anakin to poke fun at me.”

Ben scoffed knowingly. “I may have gotten carried away.”

The Jedi Master eyed the boy before him. He had rarely seen Ben so carefree and content. “Ben,” he began, but was quickly cut off.

“I know it’s complicated, Obi-Wan, but I love her and…”

“Ben,” Obi-Wan grasped the boy’s shoulders, stopping the tirade before it could gain speed. “I was going to say, if you need my help for anything, know that I’m here.”

The younger Jedi blinked up at him. “What?”

“I suspected Anakin and Padme’s relationship early on. I never said anything, believing that it was the better I remained ignorant. But that left Anakin no one to turn to but Palpatine. I vowed I would not make that mistake again. If you or Arissa need help, I’ll be there.” The corner of the right side of his mouth cocked in a wry grin. “No matter how awkward it may be.”

Ben grabbed onto his arm with his good hand. Though he was still, nearly frozen on the outside, on the inside a wave of love and gratitude and relief shot out and enveloped Obi-Wan. “Good to know.”

They stood there, while Ben gained control of his emotions. Obi-Wan felt it when the boy’s more mischievous side took over. He caught Ben’s grin that reflected his own. “Let’s talk with some dead people.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes while wrapping an arm around his boy. He’d become more at ease with this type of gesture. Especially with Ben, who’d needed it after years of being on his own. He’d always done what he’d thought to be right, but he wondered how Qui-Gon would react to the Jedi he was today. Despite their differences, he had wanted Qui-Gon to be proud. That taking and then keeping him as his Padawan hadn’t been the risk his Master had long feared it would be.

As they came into the training room, he realized that he was about to have that opportunity given to him. Yoda and Anakin waited for them, their sense in each other’s presence so safe and assured that Obi-Wan had to pause long enough to bask in the peace. His reach on Ben tightened briefly before he released the boy.

Ben had talked to Master Yoda about retaining your presence in the Force and learned that the Grandmaster had already started his journey on learning that particular skill. Had even heard Master Qui-Gon. Apparently, this was something that Yoda was planning on giving Obi-Wan training on once Vader and Palpatine had been solved. Then Ben arrived and in typical Skywalker fashion all previous plans had been tabled.

They sat in a meditation semi-circle, Obi-Wan automatically working on the breathing that had always helped quiet his mind. He could feel Anakin anxiously watching him, while Master Yoda had already measured his own breathing.

Ben was at ease as he settled between Obi-Wan and Anakin to complete the circle. The young Jedi caught Anakin’s expression and turned it to Obi-Wan. The Jedi Master had been looking forward to this day since Ben had mentioned the ability, but now, with it so eminent he felt ill at eased. He knew why Anakin was nervous. Ever since his overreaction to Mara and Ben, his former apprentice had been watching him for any sign of upset.

“Why does it feel like we’re holding a funeral instead of a reunion?” Ben said.

“It’s nothing, Ben,” Obi-Wan answered

Anakin scoffed, “Master.”

“Truly, Ben, it’s nothing,” Obi-Wan said, using a glance to silence his Padawan. “Before he died, Master Qui-Gon and I had a few arguments. But we had reconciled so there is no need to tip toe, Anakin.”

Anakin raised his hands in surrender.

“Let me guess. Qui-Gon was a tall son of a Gundark, know-it-all. Who thought he could do whatever he wanted without repercussions to the people around him, and used the will of the Force as an excuse.”

Obi-Wan blinked at the young time traveler. “Ben,” he snapped. “You can’t call…”

“Easy, Master Obi-Wan,” Yoda intercepted. “Master Qui-Gon’s description that was.”

For the first time, Obi-Wan noticed that Ben wasn’t looking directly at him but just behind him. He craned his head, hoping to catch Qui-Gon’s dearly missed visage. Instead, he was met with empty air and soulless walls. His shoulders dropped and he slowly turned his head back to Ben. Disappointment was expected, but he didn’t anticipate the relief. Perhaps Anakin was right. In the smallest part of him, he felt that nagging doubt. What if he finally could see Qui-Gon and only find censure from his Master?

He looked inward, falling into a light meditation without thinking. He examined the censure and found it inside himself. He’d never truly forgiven himself for Qui-Gon’s death. He felt like there were parsecs to go before he could forgive himself for his failures with Anakin. Yes, and some bitterness, that despite his hard work, everything - the Order, the Republic, his brother - had all come apart.

Please, Master, he thought wildly. He reached out with his mind, sending tendrils for that signature he’d only briefly glimpsed before.

“You’re trying too hard,” Ben said softly next to him. “You always try so hard. Relax. Let me show you.” He felt Ben’s presence reach out to him and Anakin. In Anakin, he felt his own disquiet reflected. “Accepted it. Everything. The good, the bad. You don’t have to like it, but accept it. It’s made you the people you are today.”

Obi-Wan exchanged a knowing look with Anakin then closed his eyes. He felt Yoda join them and take the lead of the meditation. And suddenly, it felt like he’d fallen into sleep.

****

“Master, are you still asleep?” a voice that was Anakin’s but deeper and gruffer, brought him up from his sleep.

Blurry eyed, he sat up and regarded his former Padawan. Anakin was just as tall and broad as he had been in his early knighthood, but his sandy colored hair, now had streaks of grey in them. The loose curls that had once been evident in his long hair had been tamed with a more exacting haircut on the sides with tuft of longer hair on top. Lines laced his mouth and the corner of his eyes. They were emphasized as he looked down on Obi-Wan in amusement.

“You’re getting old, old man,” Anakin teased him.

This was his cue to give Anakin a drool look and give his friend some threat or another that implied wisdom far outranked youthful abandon, but all he could do is stare dumbfounded at the changes before him.

Anakin’s expression morphed into concern. “Are you all right?” he said, dropping down to sit next to Obi-Wan. A heartbeat later, Obi-Wan felt Anakin’s hand on his forehead.

“I’m not ill,” Obi-Wan protested, batting Anakin’s hand away. “Just a little sleep addled.”

“Are you sure you want to come on this mission? I’m sure Ahsoka and I can take care of it.”

Obi-Wan rubbed at his eyes, clearing sleep from them. This was everything he’d ever wanted. In his heart of hearts, he had always wanted it to be he, Anakin, and Ahsoka facing the galaxy together. It was something he’d wanted with Qui-Gon but had never come to fruition. “What mission?”

Now Anakin looked very concerned. Not good. “Separatists on Malastare, remember? We were assigned to clear them out.”

Just like that, he felt his heart drop into his stomach. He guessed that Anakin was twenty years older than the time Obi-Wan just left. Was it possible, if Anakin had never turned, had never shown signs of ever turning, they’d be fighting a twenty year war. Had Palpatine wanted to slowly whittle the Jedi away and delight in their slow agonizing decline?

Anakin’s comlink beeped and the chosen one glanced at it briefly before silencing it. Obi-Wan cocked an questioning brow. “Aren’t you going to answer that? It’s probably Padme.”

“Padme?” Anakin’s deep voice skyrocketed into higher notes when he said the senator’s name.

“Yes, your wife, Anakin.” At this, his grown-up Padawan’s eyes grew larger than credit chits. “By the Force, you mean to tell me after 30 years of knowing each other you still haven’t told me.”

“Master, I…,” he drew off unable to finish the sentence.

“Anakin, please, no more lies. I don’t want that any more. Nor subterfuge.”

It struck Obi-Wan at that moment that this was an old dream, a long held desire that no longer meet his expectations. As a Jedi, having Anakin by his side or he at Anakin’s had been the most important thing after doing his duty to the Force. But he was no longer that Jedi. He was now a Jedi, a father, a brother, a grandfather, and he hoped if Siri was willing, a husband. Yes, the Force would come first, but it would come first with all of them. They would be united in purpose with no secrets to cast shadows. As Anakin froze in that desperate stare, Obi-Wan reached out to the Force. The light was there welcoming, waiting, and encouraging.

None of this could have happened if Anakin hadn’t gone to the Dark Side, and while he never would like it, would always have wanted to spare those lives taken, he could accept it and what the experience had taught him.

He couldn’t excuse everything, maybe these revelations could have come with honesty and questioning of the Order, but he could accept what had occurred and move on.

With that, he found the forgiveness in himself that had always seemed so elusive. He willed himself back to his rightful body and opened his eyes.

“Hello there, Master.”

***

In a blink Anakin was on Naboo at Padme’s estate on Varykino. Currently, there was an older, but still very beautiful, Padme asleep on his chest. In the haze of early morning light, he looked around the room he and Padme had spent their honeymoon in. There were holo pictures of Luke and Leia that he recognized having just taken. They weren’t alone, as he moved around the room, he saw his son and daughter grow up around him. He guessed from where the holos stopped, his children were in their early teens. He and Padme featured in the room as well. There was their wedding holo that he must have pulled from Artoo or Threepio’s memory banks. Family photos that featured him in nice shimmersilk instead of his Jedi tunics.

He'd been here a long time. It felt lived him, it felt like home.

He glanced around the room again. Not one of the holos after their wedding showed him in his Jedi tunics. With all of these revelations in his head, he came to a startling conclusion. He’d left the Jedi Order.

Whether the council had found out or he’d decided on his own, the ramifications of that lay next to him and circled around him in the room. No war, no death, no pushing himself to the limit and beyond to save those under his command. No internal conflict of being both a Jedi and a man with deep feeling and emotions. No Sith. No Palpatine. No Chosen One. Just he and his family.

Carefully, he extracted himself from beneath Padme and padded into the living space. Luke and Leia were sitting on the couch, flipping through holo channels. As Anakin passed behind them, they chirped, “Good morning, Dad.”

He paused studying them. Leia’s hair was already done up in an intricate pattern of braids, while Luke’s was still messy from sleep. He caught the features that Luke had passed on to Ben and wondered what his other grandchildren, Leia’s children, would take from their mother.

At that moment, his joy was so full, he probably radiated in the Force like a supernova.

“Good morning,” he said, leaning to press a kiss to the top of Leia’s head. He then turned and ruffled Luke’s hair. “What are you up to?”

His children exchanged a conspiratorial look that reminded him of himself and Ahsoka that he knew trouble was brewing. “It’s nothing,” Luke assured him quickly. “Just trying to confirm something we heard this morning.”

He wondered how long his children had been awake. In the next decade, did he and Padme become so indulgent that the slept into the later hours of the morning. It seemed like a humorous anecdote in a fantasy. Imagine him, former slave and Jedi, sleeping in past work hours.

“Ah,” he cautioned, “It’s never wise to lie to a Jedi.” Double winces came from his kids. “Leia, would you like to elaborate?”

He watched as a very familiar stubbornness fell over Leia’s features. Stars and skies, he thought Luke would take after him in this department, but oh no, it was going to be Leia he’d have to watch after.

Luke glanced between them as if this was a familiar battle of wills and sighed. “I know you don’t like talking about the Jedi, but we heard this morning that there was holo news about a Jedi dying in front of the Temple.”

“We didn’t find anything,” Leia said. He reached out to the Force, felt her fear and sadness.

He’d assumed when he walked in that they were trying to find something to watch. Instead, they’d changed a channel to avoid him seeing something. Something that Leia was very afraid of him seeing.

“Put it on,” he said. He had a sinking feeling as to what they wanted to hide from him.

“But Dad,” Leia protested.

“Princess, I know what your doing, but you don’t need to protect me. That’s my job.”

Luke switched it back on to the holo news. His fear was confirmed. Except it wasn’t just one Jedi, but several. Clone troopers barricaded the exits of the Temple. Anakin opened and clenched his hands, remembering himself being there. The footage shifted from the clone troopers to a lone Jedi with a blue lightsaber battling against those who’d once served side by side with him. No Anakin, no Ahsoka by his side.

The camera shifted again as a young girl, close to womanhood, but not quite there, advanced on his Master. Red-gold hair, green eyes shaped like Obi-Wan’s, and Ben’s lips. Mara.

“No,” he breathed. Some part of him debated on which would be worse to see Obi-Wan die or his Master killing his own daughter. Neither of them aware of the connection they shared.

Since his fall and return to the light, he’d wished he’d never been a Jedi. Wished he’d left before everything had fallen to pieces. He’d believed he was the axis on which the Sith turned his machinations. After all his work to be better, he was still arrogant. If Palpatine couldn’t turn him, he’d just move on to someone else. How many apprentices had Palpatine already blown through.

Master, he called out, throwing his senses throughout the vast galaxy until he felt the familiar presence of his Master. Don’t do it. Run, hide. I’m coming for you.

He felt a flicker of surprise from his Master, but also a resounding ‘no’. Too dangerous. Stay safe.

We’re better together, he countered.

Fond sadness filled his senses. Goodbye, Padawan.

“Dad, we’ve got to help him,” Luke’s voice broke through his mental connection.

He may be late, but he would have at least tried. This was his mission, to save those who would not or could not save themselves. Or was it? He’d fallen because he trusted his dreams that had come true on more than one occasion. He’d been desperate enough to nearly throw it all away. He had done it before Ben had come and changed the timeline. He’d tackled the problem alone, allowing himself to trust Palpatine because he was offering what Anakin so desperately needed.

Even now, his first instinct was to hop into his ship and save Obi-Wan on his own.

“Dad?” Luke questioned, firmly but still kindly. In this, his son took after Padme.

He looked at his children. He gauged them to be just around Padawan age. Ahsoka’s age when he first knew her. Where was Ahsoka, he wondered. Was she trapped in the temple with the clones or would she have left the order regardless. He was wasting time in his indecision.

“Luke, get the ship prepped.” Luke’s eyes widened in anticipation, looked almost like he would fly away and save Obi-Wan on his own. By the Force, he and Padme had their work cut out for them. “Leia, find out if there’s any of our contacts on Coruscant that might be able to rescue Obi-Wan.”

“I’m getting the droid,” Luke told him as he ran down the hall.

“What are you going to do, Dad?” Leia asked.

He gave her a wry grin. “Wake up your Mom. We need somebody to get us out of trouble once we get into it.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was a grin on her face as she hurried to the comm station.

As he made his way back into their bedroom, Anakin felt lighter. Alone, he’d felt that all encompassing need to be incredible, to do the impossible, and save those around him. He thought that he had learned the lesson already, but once again, he was being reminded that he didn’t need to be everything to everyone. And he remembered the other time, the time where it was Skywalker and Kenobi. The team. Perhaps he should have understood then. If he, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka worked together, there wasn’t anything they couldn’t accomplish.

For the first time in his life, he accepted that he was just one person, even if the Chosen Once, and he could share that burden with others. For someone who clung so desperately to others, he’d slowly blocked those he cared about out. Even Padme.

Maybe it was time for the Chosen One to create a Chosen Team.

 

Wonderful

 

Woohoo! A super team. Led by the super 3.