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Chapter Text

The thick layer of fog on Katark was far too annoying, Anakin decided. His brow furrowed as he deflected the torrent of blaster-fire raining down on him from all sides. In the murky atmosphere, all he could make out was the flash and hum of his lightsaber as he instinctively dodged and weaved his way through the forest. Up ahead, he could barely see a clearing.

“Sir.” Rex’s voice sounded from the flesh-colored earpiece he wore. His tinny voice was slightly strained. “We have to fall back; we can’t see a thing.”

The 501st had been equipped with state-of-the-art optic specs to help them with the poor visibility, while Anakin could rely on the Force. Deflecting blaster-fire was a job he could handle fine, but attempting to defeat an unseen enemy was an entirely different matter. He supposed the technology wasn’t good for much in the face of Katark’s persistent fog. Likewise, the Force wasn’t providing him much help here, either. His senses seemed dampened on this planet, clouded somehow. The fog seemed to be a literal and figurative obstacle to their goals.

He fought back a swell of frustration and raised a gauntleted arm to his lips. “I agree. Let’s meet at the rendezvous.”

Lasers of blaster-fire flew by him as he leapt towards the clearing. On the other side, he could see a copse of trees, their twisted, gnarled branches a stark contrast against the translucent white fog. There were several troopers laying down heavy fire while using the tree-line as cover.

Anakin was headed that way when he felt as if an artillery shell had blown right in front of him. The blast knocked him off his feet, and he landed on his back, winded. For a moment, he saw stars, and he struggled to draw breath. When his senses had returned to him, a strong arm was gripping his hand and hauling him up.

“Come on!”

Anakin followed blindly; shavit, had the shell been a smoke bomb? He couldn’t see anything at this point, his eyes wide to an impenetrable layer of thick, dense mist. The voice who’d called out to him contained no trace of a Mandoa’a accent, but rather the crisp, refined Coruscanti accent he’d come to associate with –

He reeled back, and his foot snagged a tree root such that he went tumbling. “Master!”

He couldn’t sense Obi-Wan.

He reached out desperately in the Force – where was he? Obi-Wan had always been a lingering presence in his mind, steadfast and resolute, and it was only with his absence that he’d realized how much he’d come to rely on it. All highly un-Jedi-like sentiment, of course, and he knew if Obi-Wan were actually hearing his thoughts he’d get an earful of it.

The hand reached down to grip his arm again, and they were back up and running. Anakin still couldn’t see. He clung to the hand, thinking wildly that this would be quite the undignified way for him to die – the Hero With No Fear, struck down by some lucky Seppie droid’s blaster. Or, even more comical, if he was being led straight into a trap. The holos would have a field day. If he had to choose his way of dying, he would have wanted to be back-to-back with Obi-Wan, both of them defending what they believed in to their last breath. Not that he would want Obi-Wan to die with him, of course.

Where was Obi-Wan?

His breaths were coming out in short gasps, and he forced himself to snap back into the moment. Whoever his partner was, he was unerringly good; his steps were quick and silent, and the path he’d chosen was clear enough that Anakin, blind as he was, could still navigate it somehow.

Pretty soon, they fell into a clearing where the fog had thinned, and Anakin could actually see again. The blaster-fire had faded away abruptly, almost as if they were in the eye of a storm. Anakin squinted at his would-be savior and gaped.

The man was wizened and old, with a beard full of white hair and wrinkles etched onto his face. The serious slant of his mouth, the furrow between his brows – his features reminded Anakin of…but no, that was impossible. His blue-gray eyes were wide and studying Anakin with an intensity that he found uncomfortable. A local, then? He had navigated the forest well enough. And no way a man this old could move so fast, while dodging enemy fire.

He pushed the uncharitable thoughts aside. The man had saved his life, after all.

“Who are you?” Anakin asked.

The man took an unsteady step back and reached into the folds of his cloak. It was long and worn, the tails a lighter color from overuse. The thready fibers of the fabric were dusted with – what was that, sand? Anakin wanted to wrinkle his nose. There was no sand here on Katark. It was one of the only redeeming qualities of the planet, as far as he could see.

The man produced a silver cylindrical object, which Anakin recognized easily enough. What he hadn’t anticipated was the familiar build of the sword – the metal alloy hilt, the way the slender hilt flared at the base, the unique groove pattern. As a Padawan seeking to build his own saber, Anakin had studied it, held it so many times he’d lost count. He knew it perhaps better than his own saber. Over the course of the war, he and Obi-Wan had traded lightsabers half a dozen times, always when left with no choice. They hadn’t made a habit of it, Obi-Wan’s sword more suited for his seamless, flowing Soresu, and Anakin’s more for his aggressive Djem So.

Before the man could even think of lighting it, Anakin had sprung; within the blink of a second, his blue saber was mere centimeters from the man’s throat.

The man stilled.

“Don’t even think about it,” Anakin snarled.

His mind raced. A thief? A Separatist agent sent to lure him into complacency, before striking him down?

He urged the saber forward such that the man was forced to back up. “Who are you? How did you get that saber?”

The man, gaze not leaving his, slowly and deliberately held open his hands such that the weapon fell to the ground. Palms facing forward, he said in that posh accent of his, “I don’t know what you’re playing, Sidious, but the game is up. You win. Surely tormenting an old man is beneath you?”

Sidious? It was the name of the Sith Obi-Wan had mentioned in his debriefing, after Geonosis and his lovely stay with that sleemo Dooku. Anakin gritted his teeth. “How do you know that name?”

Even as he said it, something in the back of his mind was screaming for him to take notice. Steeling himself, he reached out in the Force –

And immediately recoiled.

His bond with Obi-Wan was still there, but it was a limp, dead cord, shriveled and fraying at the edges. And the man before him had shoddy shields, meaning that he was Force-sensitive. Anakin experimentally poked at Old Man’s presence and was met with steadfast resistance, but it was no match for Anakin’s powers. For a fleeting second, he got vague impressions, reverberating as an echo across the bond: the sensation of being tightly held, the gold glint of suns-bleached hair, shorn short with a Padawan braid, the whisper of brother, son. The lifeless bond between them flared to life, and Anakin swayed momentarily, awash in the onslaught of emotions.

He blinked.

It was impossible, but somehow – Sweet Force. This man before him was Obi-Wan.

“Master?” The word sounded right as it fell from his lips, and the Force sang with the truth. He wrinkled his nose. “Why are you so…old?”

The corners of Obi-Wan’s mouth turned downward. “Just as insolent,” he sighed, though there was still that guarded look in his eyes. “A clone, then? Or am I simply dreaming?”

At that moment, the unwelcome sound of several rounds of blaster-fire split the air, much closer than Anakin liked. He made his decision a heartbeat later. “Well, you better snap out of it, old man,” he said. He deactivated his lightsaber and summoned Obi-Wan’s lightsaber from the ground, hooking it at his waist. If he was truly Obi-Wan, which the Force was saying he was, Anakin would have returned the lightsaber instantly. As it was, the name Sidious continued to linger in his mind, an unwelcome taint. Not to mention that the older man’s first instinct was to draw his sword. Anakin pointed an emphatic finger at Old Obi-Wan. “We are not done here.”

“I don’t doubt it,” the man muttered.

Anakin gestured for his much older master to walk in front of him, and they trekked in silence the remainder of the trail to the rendezvous point. Obi-Wan had covered a good deal of ground along the trail, but that didn’t mean that their walk was short.

The silence stretched on, deafening, between them. The few times Anakin chanced a glance at his master, the older man seemed lost in his thoughts, gaze faraway and face unreadable as always.

Anakin shivered.

At last, they stumbled into the area they’d designated as their rendezvous point. The troopers were making final arrangements for their departure off this Force-forsaken rock.

Anakin quickly located Cody, the distinctive orange markings on his armor a reprieve in the desolate, colorless landscape where every square meter appeared the same as the last.

“Cody!”

Next to Anakin, Obi-Wan sucked in a breath.

Anakin glanced over as Cody approached. “We need to get you looked at, Master. Surely there must be some way to reverse your…condition.”

Obi-Wan lifted his hands and examined them idly. “Oh, I’m not so sure of that. Besides, how do you know I have a condition that needs correcting?”

At this point, Cody had caught up. He was too well-trained to show any surprise when he saw Obi-Wan, instead turning to Anakin. “General Skywalker. Is this…?”

Obi-Wan’s brows had lifted, but to Anakin’s relief, he didn’t seem offended. “It’s me, Cody. Obi-Wan.”

Cody snapped into a smart salute. “Ah, good to see you, sir. We were worried about you for a moment there. You weren’t responding to our comms.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “I seem to have misplaced my comlink,” he said, with an air of mischief Anakin wasn’t used to hearing.

At a loss of what to do, Anakin decided to pick up where their conversation had left off. “Master. What do you mean, you don’t have a condition that needs correcting? You’re old. Older than usual.” He had been aiming for a teasing tone, except the tremble in his voice probably betrayed him.

“I gathered as much when you and Cody didn’t even recognize me,” Obi-Wan said dryly. He stroked his beard, such a common sight that Anakin almost jerked from the discombobulating familiarity of it. “Katark? That must have been…oh, over fifteen years ago.”

Anakin swallowed. He felt an icy wave of dread wash over him. “Fifteen years ago? That’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible through the Force,” Obi-Wan said, and Anakin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. If there was any doubt about this man’s identity, it was completely erased now. Even after almost two decades, leave it to Obi-Wan to preach his Jedi platitudes.

“Yeah, okay. I’m getting Kix. Here.” Anakin gave Obi-Wan back his lightsaber before racing off, leaving Cody to face Obi-Wan.

Cody quirked a smile at his general. “So, General Kenobi. I see you’ve got even us beat in accelerated aging. I’m sure the Kaminoans would love an interview with you.”

Obi-Wan smiled at Cody. “Yes, well, unless the Kaminoans wish to unlock the secrets of time travel, I’m afraid I will be of no assistance.”

Cody shook his head. “Just when I thought you jetii couldn’t surprise me anymore.”

“Oh, Cody.” His aged general huffed a laugh, the deep crow feet at his eyes crinkling. The sound of it seemed torn unwillingly from his chest, like it hadn’t been done for some time and he was just now remembering how to. “Never think that.”

Luke’s head was bent over his homework when he heard raised voices at the door. He looked up, thoughts of Tatooine’s flora and fauna evaporating like water under the twin suns.

The air also felt strange; it felt considerably lighter, like there was a bright star peeking over the horizon. Luke shivered, feeling an undefinable warmth unfurl in his chest.

He hopped off his stool and headed towards the source of the light. His feet took him to the entrance, where Owen and Beru were arguing with a stranger.

Luke had never seen him before. He had ginger-gold hair that glinted from the twin suns overhead and a bearded face. The man was saying something, but stopped when he saw him.

“Hello,” Luke said timidly.

Owen turned around. “Luke! You can’t be here.”

Beru, too, had turned around and was already making to lead Luke away, except Luke’s feet stayed firmly planted under him.

Something was telling him to stay there. His gaze roamed curiously over the stranger. He was dressed in a long brown cloak, which looked worn from use. He had kind blue-gray eyes that regarded Luke with equal curiosity.

Those eyes crinkled at the corners. “Hello there, young one.” He said nothing more, turning to Luke’s uncle, who looked ready to explode.

“You cannot be here,” Owen hissed. “We can discuss what you can and can’t remember later.”

Beru placed a steadying hand on Owen’s shoulder. “Owen, please. Ben is just confused from wandering in the desert for so long. Surely, we can invite him in for dinner?”

Owen glared daggers at the stranger, who only appeared bemused from the force of hostility.

The man raised his hands, palms forward. “Please, I don’t mean to impose. I’ll just be along my way.”

“Nonsense.” Beru reached out and gently gripped the stranger’s hands. The man stiffened at her touch. “You’re dehydrated and haven’t had a decent meal in days, Ben. Do us the courtesy of coming in and accepting our hospitality.”

Owen still looked ready to argue, but he deflated the instant Beru shot him a look. The stranger, meanwhile, nodded his head, looking resigned.

Luke was confused, as he’d never seen his uncle so upset before. Well – except for that one time Luke had forgotten to turn off the irrigation spout several seasons ago. That had wasted a lot of precious water. Or that other time, when Luke had gotten lost in the desert and almost been stranded at night. A good Samaritan had found him and returned him to his uncle and aunt. Luke had been too young to remember the details, but his aunt’s hushed recounting was enough to convince him to always tread carefully in the desert. What he did remember, however, was the sensation of warmth and lightness, of strong, sturdy hands carrying him to safety. It was comforting, and something Luke turned to when he got the occasional nightmare.

Luke hastened to help set the table for an additional guest. As he grabbed a napkin and silverware, he peeked at the stranger from underneath his blond fringe. The source of light – yes, it was coming from him. It was almost like he was glowing from the inside.

“Why are you so – bright?” Luke blurted out, then flushed in mortification at his daring.

The man only seemed amused, which was better than being offended. “I should ask you the same question. Luke, is it?”

Luke nodded. “Yeah. Luke Skywalker, what’s yours?”

The color drained from the man’s face. He stared at Luke as Beru came over and set a steaming clay teapot on the table. Owen, meanwhile, was watching the exchange with a deeply uneasy look. He grunted when the man turned wide eyes to him.

“We talk later,” he said gruffly. “Luke, sit down and start eating.”

Luke did as he was told.

Dinner was a stilted, awkward affair; usually, their dinner conversations would be filled with talk about moisture farming, vaporators, and inquiries about Luke’s studies. Luke always treasured their dinners, but today, he could sense the tension at the table. Beru made a valiant effort at small-talk, asking their guest about his travel to the Lars homestead, how his own home fared, to even the man’s eopie.

The man responded in short, clipped responses, almost as if he were distracted but was still aiming for politeness. Luke stared at the man throughout the meal, but he didn’t glance his way again.

Afterwards, as Luke was scrubbing at the pile of dishes in the sink, he could hear the low tones of the adults speaking at the table. He wiped his face with his forearm and stilled, straining his ears.

“– trust it’s you?” Owen was asking. “This should be impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible through the Force,” the stranger responded calmly.

“Tch, the Force! You and your overblown piety are not welcome here, Kenobi.”

“Owen.” Beru this time. “Who else could it be?”

“He could be an Imperial spy.”

“Owen, listen to yourself.”

“It makes more sense than – whatever kark this man is feeding us!”

“He looks exactly the same as when he came and brought Luke to us –”

At this, Luke’s ears perked up even more. This man – Kenobi – had brought Luke to them? What did that even mean? Without quite realizing it, he inched closer to the doorway separating the kitchen from the dining space.

“And that doesn’t strike you as odd?” Owen. Then more sharply, “What’s wrong with you, Kenobi? Why don’t you remember any of this?”

“It hasn’t happened to me yet, I suppose.”

Owen sputtered. “Yet? Beru –”

“Hush, Owen. Let the man speak. Ben, what was the last thing you remember?”

There was a pause. “Well.” A short, disbelieving laugh. “It sounds fantastical, but I was deployed in a war-zone, on a Mid-Rim planet called Katark. I was fighting the Separatists, and then blown off my feet. Woke up to find myself in a hut out in the desert, I’m assuming on Tatooine?”

There was another moment of silence. Luke could imagine the look his uncle and aunt would be sharing; the desert was unforgiving, and it had claimed another victim. This poor man’s mind had cracked. Luke distantly recalled that there was a hermit by the name of Kenobi living in the Jundland Wastes, by the Western Dune Sea. Kenobi had always had the reputation of crazy old hermit, and this Kenobi definitely fit the bill, if not as old as the rumors had led him to believe.

“That’s right.” Beru spoke softly and slowly, like she was speaking to a spooked bantha.

“I haven’t lost my wits,” Kenobi said wryly, “Though I suppose me even saying so suggests that I have.”

“It’s not that we don’t believe you, Kenobi,” Owen said. “It’s clear that you do.”

“What about Luke?” Beru asked.

“I was hoping to ask you that,” Kenobi said.

“You stay away from our boy.” Owen’s voice shook. “This is a one-time thing, okay, Kenobi? After today, no more.”

“I can’t promise that.” Kenobi’s voice was so soft that Luke had to creep closer to hear. “Please, answer me this – how is he related to Anakin?”

Anakin. Was that his father’s name? Luke’s heart was pounding furiously, and his breathing was loud in his ears.

There was a deathly silence.

“Anakin’s the father, isn’t he.” The voice sounded resigned. “He has his coloring, but there is something of his mother in his features.”

His mother. Luke listened further with bated breath, but there was no more talk that he could hear.

A part of him was disappointed that he hadn’t gotten more out of who this Kenobi character was, but in one conversation, he’d learned more about his parents than Owen and Beru had told him in fifteen years.

Oh, sure. He knew that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter. He had loved his mother. They were both dead. But that was it. Luke got the feeling Owen and Beru hadn’t known his father all that well, anyway.

But now, he had a name. And he could imagine what his father looked like – tall, blond, side-by-side with his mother, with a face similar to Luke’s. Luke closed his eyes, daring himself to imagine his parents, the Force sparking with joy at these revelations.

Luke could hear footsteps approaching, so he hastily returned to his dishes and made the appearance of being busy when Beru appeared. Her lifted brow showed that Luke had accomplished his mission with minimal success.

“Luke,” she sighed. “How much did you hear?”

Luke tried to school his expression into one of innocence, but he suspected Beru saw right through it. Like she always did.

Beru shook her head. “Ben Kenobi is a good man, Luke, but you should honor your uncle’s wishes about staying away from him.”

“Why?” Luke was stung. This man knew his parents! Knew what they looked like. Maybe he had some stories, and could answer some of Luke’s many questions.

“Trouble seems to find him,” Beru said. Fondly, she folded up Luke’s sleeve, which had slipped while he was cleaning the dishes. “Just as it seems to find you.” She bopped Luke on the nose, and he made a face.

“I’m fifteen, not five,” he grumbled. “Sorry, Aunt Beru, but I just –” he made a mad dash past Beru before she could tug him back into the kitchen.

He entered the dining room, but was disappointed to see just Owen sitting at the table.

“Kenobi’s gone,” Owen said, seeing the look on Luke’s face and reading him just as he always did. “Hopefully for good. Luke.” He sighed and stood, coming closer to Luke. He rested a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “That man is trouble.”

Luke craned his neck to look at the entrance door, where Ben had left from.

And like Beru said, trouble always seemed to find Luke. He couldn’t help but hope that this form of trouble found him again.

Chapter Text

There was an unearthly beauty to Tatooine. The landscape contained a seemingly infinite stretch of sand dunes in every direction, with brilliant, cloudless blue skies overhead and the fine shimmer of sand scattered by the occasional wind. It was the kind of beauty that only a local or, ironically, a one-time excursionist, could fully appreciate.

As it was, Obi-Wan was caught in the unhappy middle between the ends of the spectrum. He had neither the expertise acquired from many years on Tatooine to inure him to the discomfort, nor the rose-tinted shades of a foreigner who could admire the view from a distance, no strings attached. In fact, he had never experienced the elements of Tatooine, having been a passenger sheltered aboard a Nubian cruiser many years ago and as such falling in the latter category. Needless to say, he was thoroughly unimpressed by the sensation of sand in his beard and the peeling of his skin.

He grimaced as he tugged his cowl over his head. The twin suns were blistering hot, their heat like a brand on his face. He had been to overly sunny worlds before, but the harsh, abrasive sand on his face made the experience multiple times worse.

He had woken earlier that day, heart pounding furiously and mouth dry.

He’d blinked, confused at the change of scenery. He could have sworn that moments earlier, he’d been on Katark, deep in battle meditation as he deflected blaster bolts and inched agonizingly closer to the enemy line. He was now in a hut of some sort – laying atop a semicircular couch laden with animal pelts. Muscles protesting the action, he pushed himself up from the bed and looked around.

There were small tables and shelves in the open space, many of them clearly a handcrafted effort from hammering in planks of wood into the walls. The only light streamed in from two windows overlooking a blindingly bright sand landscape.

Closing his eyes, Obi-Wan used the Force to probe his immediate surroundings. There were no life-forms close, and he was the only one here. The Force felt strange. It was ostensibly quiet, but through the Force, he could sense the shifting of sands outside, the stirring of light winds. There was a bleakness to the Force that he’d never felt before, an emptiness that screamed at him, wrongwrongwrong. He could still tell that there was life on this world, but wherever he was, he was not on Katark or with –

Anakin. Obi-Wan opened his eyes. Where was Anakin?

He reached out in the Force and instantly recoiled. His bond with Anakin was blackened and burned. There was a roiling darkness on the other end, the inky blackness almost suffocating in its fear and hate. Against his better judgment, he prodded curiously at it, only to be met with an incandescent rage that took his breath away.

Not from the sheer force of it, but from how familiar it was.

Icy dread curled in his stomach. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Then another.

Wherever Anakin was, he was in trouble. He had to find him.

Obi-Wan got out of the makeshift bed and looked around. The tables and shelves contained a varied assortment of relics from different worlds. It reminded him of Qui-Gon, and the thought burned in his chest. At least there were no plants that needed tending to; it occurred to Obi-Wan that it was likely nothing much green grew here. He came across a rumpled travel brochure, the flaps dog-eared and worn. “Welcome to Tatooine!” it said, with a cheerfully sunny depiction of sand dunes and banthas plastered on the front. The colors, once bright, had faded over time.

This was impossible. He had sunken too deep into battle meditation and trapped himself in some bizarre dream.

How could he explain the way the Force felt, then? Anakin’s icy presence in the Force?

Heart sinking, he raised his comlink to his lips and attempted to make contact. “Cody? Cody, come in.”

No response.

Tatooine was more than several lightyears away from Katark, and not even Anakin’s long-ranged modified comlink he’d given him for that one ill-fated mission on Cato Nemoidia, where Obi-Wan had gone in alone, could overcome such distances.

There was a vacuum-seal chest next to a large structural column in the small living room area. Obi-Wan hesitated before opening the chest, the guilt of breaking into another’s belongings giving him pause. However, the overwhelming sense that its contents were important overrode any moral compunctions, and his suspicions were confirmed with what he found.

The instant his fingers curled around the smooth cylindrical hilt, he dropped it as if it had burned.

He stared.

It was Anakin’s lightsaber, all right, with the same scuff marks and grooves Obi-Wan knew like the back of his hand. In fact, he thought that he knew Anakin’s lightsaber better than his own, which made no logical sense except that Obi-Wan could tell anyone who would listen that he’d picked up after his Padawan more times than he could count. How many times had he told Anakin, “This weapon is your life”, while waving said previously displaced object in front of him?

What could explain how Anakin’s lightsaber was here, then? And with a few more scuff marks than he remembered, Obi-Wan realized, as he examined it even more closely. Not for the first time, Obi-Wan wished that he’d been gifted with psychometry, the rare talent certain Jedi such as his old friend Quinlan Vos possessed that allowed them to read impressions from physical touch.

Anakin was alive…of that, Obi-Wan was certain. He shuddered as he felt the icy cold darkness coiled in the back of his mind. Cody and his men, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps Obi-Wan had been knocked unconscious and brought to this planet as a captive? No. Obi-Wan was un-restrained, not to mention armed with his own lightsaber clipped to his belt, and he felt no deception in the Force.

It was as if he had been plucked from the war-zone on Katark and ended up here, comlink, lightsaber, vambraces, and all.

As Obi-Wan explored more of his surroundings, he realized with no small sense of disquiet that the hut felt warm and familiar. In fact, it felt like home. There was no other way of describing it.

But home was the Jedi Temple. Home was wherever –. He quickly derailed this thought before it could go further, knuckles whitening around Anakin’s saber reflexively. Blast this place. It was practically steeped in sentiment.

He soon came upon a cleverly hidden trapdoor in the floor. There was a Tosharan carpet covering it and no discernible change in pattern on the floor, but Obi-Wan knew where to look.

The trapdoor led to an underground cellar. Before contemplating if he was walking straight into a trap, Obi-Wan descended into the darkness, using a glowrod from his utility belt to light his way.

The cellar was clearly used for storage and mechanical work. In the dim light, he could see tools neatly aligned on shelves, a metal workbench, and strung-up dried fruits, vegetables, and meats. There was a cistern for storing water and an auxiliary generator. Whoever had lived here clearly knew what they were doing.

Obi-Wan neared the workbench. There was an ancient leather-bound book, barely held together by a sewn binding that looked ready to fall apart. What he saw inside it nearly made him drop his glowrod.

For there, written on the parchment in neat lines and inked flourishes, was his own hand-writing.

Obi-Wan uncrossed his legs.

He’d been poring over the book in the last fifteen minutes or so, and he already had a crick in his neck. It dredged up memories of a long-distant past, where as a Padawan, he had perused the Jedi Archives on behalf of Qui-Gon’s research. At the time, he had found the task exceedingly dull, but now he missed the comfort of the Archives.

What he was reading was clearly a journal. A journal that, impossibly, he had written.

He came upon an entry dated only a few years in the future. “The galaxy plunged into a civil war that would last over three terrible years. […] The Sith Lords engineered every aspect of the Clone Wars […] If my words sound like the ravings of a paranoid, crazy hermit, consider the fact that the Sith Lord Darth Vader serves the Emperor, and the Jedi are all but gone.”*

The entry ended there. As Obi-Wan flipped through more of the book, he was met with empty pages. There were a few sparse chapters later in the back, discussing how to build a lightsaber and other points of the Force that would be more suited for a young Padawan learner.

He clenched his hands to hide their trembling. What this journal spoke of was impossible. The Jedi – gone? The handwriting was very good. A convincing forgery? An elaborate Separatist ruse to demoralize him? The tale the book spun seemed outlandish, but...it had parallels with what Dooku had told him on Geonosis. He’d said that a Sith lord was controlling the Republic, that he’d infiltrated the highest levels of the Senate.

This was clearly Dooku’s work.

Feeling slightly foolish, Obi-Wan said aloud, “Dooku. Your game is up. You will get nothing out of me.”

His statement was met with silence.

Obi-Wan’s fingers ached to reach for his lightsaber still clipped to his belt, next to Anakin’s saber which hung on an extra utility ring he’d found. Fighting an unseen enemy was much like what he’d been doing on Katark – for much of this war, he supposed – but he truly had no idea as to what he was up against this time. His credits were on Dooku, except at this point, the proud count would have come out to gloat and say his piece about convincing Obi-Wan to join him.

Unless…what the journal said was true.

Obi-Wan’s nails were biting painfully into his flesh. It couldn’t be true! The Jedi couldn’t be gone.

But the emptiness in the Force. The icy coldness when he’d reached out to Anakin. What had happened?

He would find answers, of that he was certain.

He re-crossed his legs and closed his eyes, attempting to center himself.

Meditating was about the delicate balance of surrendering control to the Force, but also maintaining enough self-awareness to not get lost in its current. Obi-Wan felt the tide of its power pulling him under, and he welcomed its embrace. The Force swirled around him with it characteristic warmth and steadiness, but something was wrong. The eddies and currents, usually fluid and graceful, flowed ponderously, their passage slow and turgid. And the warmth of the Force soon turned cold as dark shadows obscured his view. Where Obi-Wan could previously see only bright light, he now saw a seething black cloud of hate. And there was a sound – deep, modulated breathing, coming from a respirator of some sort. A baseless jolt of terror leapt in Obi-Wan’s chest. He knew, with a sense of crushing finality, that this sound was the last thing many souls heard. From behind the black mist, Obi-Wan could hear the unmistakable snap-hiss as a lightsaber activated, and a blood-red beam of light shone through.

The rational part of his mind, the part that wasn’t screaming at him to reach for his saber, helpfully supplied him with the name he’d seen in the journal: Darth Vader.

Around him, he could sense the combined anguish of his fellow brothers and sisters in the Jedi Order. Twisted in the anguish was the feeling of betrayal, cutting deep to bone. The darkness around him became thicker. There was the sound of blaster-fire from all sides, getting closer and closer…

He tried to see through the near-opaque wall of shadows, but there was no glimpse of the source of the blaster-fire. It occurred to him that the answer should be obvious, yet something in him was telling him it couldn’t be droids…

Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes tighter closed and breathed deeply. With great force, he imagined parting the veil of darkness, and he pushed.

He fell through, gasping, into light. He looked around; the shadows were gone. There was no sign of the Sith lord.

The Force churned around him, still unsatisfied. The currents became more insistent. Follow me, they whispered. Golden strands wove their way through his consciousness, converging on a single location like a compass pointed north.

Obi-Wan found himself following the path. Through the swirling mist around him, a face took shape. It was a young boy, with suns-bleached blond hair and achingly familiar blue eyes. Obi-Wan started, but it wasn’t Anakin.

The vision began to fade, and even as Obi-Wan wished to see more, he knew what he had to do. His eyes remained closed as the Force relinquished its embrace entirely. With an abject sigh, Obi-Wan relinquished the sense of warmth and comfort last, the lingering whisper of family still floating in the air before him.

He opened his eyes at last. There – in the back of his mind, running alongside his blackened husk of a bond with Anakin, was a new thread, gold and strong despite being just formed.

He clambered to his feet, stretching out his still-sore muscles. Now, he just had to follow that thread.