Disclaimer: All characters and places in this story belong to George Lucas/Disney. Oh, well, at least I don't have to pay for playing with them.

...

Ghostly Experience

"I have a bad feeling about this."

This was the main thought in Ben Kenobi's mind as he stepped out from the shadows. The black clad figure on the other end of the repos seemed to be patiently awaiting him. Lightsaber in hand, still not ignited, he took some careful steps forward.

For almost two decades now he had followed Vader from a distance, by means of holo news, intel and their almost non-existing Force bond, but they had not met in person. Not since Mustafar. To his surprise Vader felt considerably different from the dark and hateful presence he'd fought on Mustafar. The hate was there, the evil as well, but it was more muted than it had been in the fateful duel back then. It was like Vader had lost something of himself. Which was true, from a certain point of view.

Vader stepped forward, red lightsaber in hand. Ben ignited his own.

"I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but a learner, now I am the master."

"Only a master of evil, Darth."

The two lightsabers clashed together. As they before had fought side by side, or even back to back, they were now opponents. Just as they had been on Mustafar.

Obi-Wan had not expected anything else.

Vader's taunting words about his age did not afflict him the least. Age would come to everyone, even Vader - or what was left of him. He noticed that much of the energy that had been Anakin's trademark in duels was gone. Maybe the armor made quick movements impossible?

"Despite my age, I might even pull it off to kill him," he mused. Still, as sabers clashed he could feel the remaining physical strength in the man that had once been his brother and intuitively he knew that he could not perform any killing blow yet. As so often before he was the bait, the one to create the diversion. He had to keep Vader occupied until Luke and Leia were safe. It wouldn't harm if Solo and Chewbacca came out of the Death Star alive either.

The duel continued with calm, almost lazy, attacks and counterattacks. In the corner of his eye he saw four figures on the other side of the abyss. None of them wore full stormtrooper armor. Good, his proteges were escaping nicely.

Pondering how he best could aim a fatal blow to Vader he suddenly felt the Force gathering around him. It felt more dense, more soothing and more comforting than he'd ever felt it before.

"Now is not the time for him, but your time has come."

The wordless whispering made him startle for a moment.

My time? Now? Am I not to see Luke and Leia reunite? Am I not to see the end of the Empire? Am I supposed to die here?

And then he relaxed.

All my life I have tried to follow the Force's will and do my duty. If this is what the Force bids me in this moment, I will obey.

After all, living in the Jundland Wastes wasn't that much fun.

Calmly he held his lightsaber up in front of him and Vader's strike fell.

A searing pain hit his neck as the red lightsaber met flesh and bone, but only for a moment. Then everything turned grey.

…

It was as if he was surrounded by a soft, calming light. No, not correct. He was the light and still only a part of it. He was the durasteel beams, and the small rivets keeping them together. He was the stormtroopers' armor and the air they breathed. He was everything, but yet nothing. He was at peace. Eventually.

But not for long.

"Remember what you were taught, Obi-Wan."

The baritone voice came from somewhere near his ear, if he had any. Simple deduction made him conclude that the chance of that was small. Somehow he was certain that even if his body still was laying on the repos where they had fought, he wasn't there. And nobody was whispering encouraging words in that ear.

Oh, yes. Maybe this was the part where he might, or might not, transform into a Force ghost? For the tiniest moment he felt the temptation to just be, to stay in the light in all eternity.

"No, not yet. There's still work to be done." The thought that had followed him through his entire life was still insisting and persistent.

He felt the Force gather again, flowing through him, being in him and around him and on the same time prodding and probing - would he be worthy to regain his self? Or more like it, give it a corporeal form? Because as much as he felt being a part of, well everything, he still felt very much like Obi-Wan. Which in itself was surprising. He hadn't felt like Obi-Wan in at least a decade. Some time along the way he had transformed his former self into 'Crazy Old Ben'.

A blue flicker came into view in front of him. It looked suspiciously like a hand. His own hand.

Good, I think. At least I can see, and I have a hand.

Slowly he could see more of his body materialize. Boot clad feet were soon followed by legs clad in standard jedi leggings, and the edge of a tunic came into view.

"Hm, I hope I won't appear as a headless ghost," he thought with a wry smile. Which actually meant that there had to be a head on his shoulders, he guessed.

The blue color slowly vanished and he, or the parts of him which he could see, seemed normal. Just like himself. Only that the leggings were much cleaner than they had been throughout the last years in his hut. And his hands were younger. The liver spots that had decorated his hands for the last five years or so were gone and his hands appeared smoother and more youthful. As from a distance he could see the brown robe laying on the repos where Vader had struck him down. Empty.

"What in all the blazes is this?"

"That is your robe," the voice answered.

"I can see that, but where am I?"

"You have passed into the Force."

He had grabbed the concept of Force ghosts during his multiple talks with Qui-Gon on the topic. Well, if one could call it "talk" when the counterpart had deceased more than 15 years ago, but he truly had believed he would appear the same age as when he died. If he appeared at all. Obviously he had transformed somehow, but shouldn't his body, well, frankly his corpse be laying on the repos, preferably inside the robe?

"That I realized, but where is my body?" He couldn't bring himself to utter the word 'corpse'. The sound of it was too final.

Qui-Gon, a surprisingly young Qui-Gon, stroke his beard pensively.

"Actually that is a good question. You must have mastered my teachings to perfection. I have never seen that happen before. Well, to be honest I haven't seen anyone passing into the Force and instantaneously becoming a Force ghost either, but you had to burn my body on the funeral pyre on Naboo. Maybe the difference is that I wasn't really ready to become a Force ghost when I passed?"

Obi-Wan copied his former Master's gesture and stroke his beard, -just to realize that his chin was totally beardless.

"Wait? What? Where is my beard?"

"Don't worry, Obi-Wan, the Force is kind enough to let us appear at any age, but preferably the one when we were happiest," Qui-Gon's voice said next to him.

"I..but…you…?" Force, he obviously had lost his ability of creating coherent sentences. Not good.

His mentor laughed heartily.

"I take it as a compliment, Obi-Wan. Right now you have the appearance you had when you were about 16 years old."

Instinctively Obi-Wan touched his own shoulder. Right. The padawan braid was resting nicely there.

"But you appeared older than now when you came to me on Tatooine? Now you seem to be the same age as when I was your padawa…oh…."

"That's right. When we appear before the living we will mostly have the appearance as we had at the time we died. Or at least when we saw them the last time before we died. But in this…dimenson…so to speak we will get the appearance from the time when we were happiest. And to make it even more confusing, we will mostly see others as they were in the same period of our lives too."

Obi-Wan felt slightly dizzy.

"You mean…I would appear as a padawan to you and if Anakin were here, I might appear as my grown up self to him?"

"Right! You were always a clever learner."

"I'm not…well, right now I may look that way but…I'm actually only three years younger than you. I mean, than you were when you died."

Now his head was really spinning. Being dead would definitely have the potential to give him a migraine. This was complicated. Now he was a 57 years old padawan. As if it weren't bad enough that Vader had chopped his head off his shoulders. Exasperated he let his fingers run through his hair, since beard striking definitely was out of the question. He settled with a simple: "But you aren't blue. When you visited me in my hut in the Wastes there was always some bluish shimmer around you."

"That's how we appear for the living. I believe it's the energy we're using when we appear as individuals that create the effect."

"Oh," Obi-Wan was still dumbfounded. Then a thought struck him. "What do you mean by 'we'?"

"I mean 'we', as in 'we', Padawan. There are more of our fellow Jedi here. It's much easier to create a visible image of ourselves to others in the same dimension," Qui-Gon explained. "The teachings of the Master of the Whills apparently was valid for how we can move among the living. Very few can do that. But here it's not too difficult to be visible to each other."

"Will non-Jedi also appear visible to us?"

"Some of them, but for some reason not all. Padme is here, and some others but I have mostly met Jedi."

"Oh…" This was complicated indeed. "Is it so that we mostly can see people who were important to us when we were still living?"

"Could be. Unfortunately there isn't any 'Guide to Afterlife' to be found here, and the Force haven't granted us any clear information about that part."

"Where will I…we…stay? I mean, I assume I don't need to sleep or eat or any of that in my present…state, but we aren't supposed to just float around here in all eternity? Are we?"

Again Qui-Gon's laugher rang in his ears. What was going on? Qui-Gon had never laughed that much while he was still alive.

While speaking they had been walking, well more like gliding actually, through the light but now it appeared to transform into shapes….like the Temple.

Obi-Wan stopped abruptly.

"What. Is. That?"

Those three words had repeated themselves a lot the last minutes.

"That?" Qui-Gon said innocently, "that, my dear Padawan, is the Jedi Temple from Coruscant, despite it being placed in somewhat greener surroundings."

"So I can see," Obi-Wan whispered. "What is going on here?"

"I believe you, we all, were happy in the Temple, before the clone wars began and somehow our common consciousness has created this place. But I assume the surroundings are more like Coruscant looked like before it became the city planet we knew. I guess we don't need more than this to feel at home."

Obi-Wan nodded.

"Does this mean that I will meet my friends here too? I mean, Bant and Reeft and Garen and…Siri?"

Blast it again, now he even talked like the 16 years old padawan he was not.

"They're all here," Qui-Gon confirmed. "And, if you don't mind, we are going to share our old quarters."

This time Obi-Wan's head wasn't only spinning, it was making a full scale somersault, but fortunately landing in the right position again. Or so it felt.

"You mean, we're recreating to some extent the life we had before…well, before?"

"Correct observation. If you don't mind, that is. You can always have the quarters you shared with Anakin."

"No. No I don't think so. It's just so unreal."

"It will take some time to adapt," Qui-Gon confirmed, "it's not the physical Temple of course, but our minds mutually creates happier times and we will stay here until we have missions out there in the living world. For the others they stay here or they …unite with the Force from time to time. In this place it's fairly easy to manifest ourselves, so we're actually able to come and go into the Force. I cannot explain it, but it seems to be so. And for totally natural reasons you will not meet those who still are alive here, so Anakin is not here. Yet."

Obi-Wan shook his head. It was a lot to take in, but he looked forward to meeting his old friends again. There had been so many deaths. Geonosis, Jabiim, Christophsis, and many, many more, before the horror that was named 'Order 66' struck and they were all wiped out."

He drew a deep calming breath, or at least he recreated the feeling of doing so, and with determined strides he aimed for the main entrance of the Temple.

"Let's go home, Master."

Maybe this afterlife wasn't going to be so bad at all.