SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

CC: mace_windu (975X583224)

[ 15:3:30 12:04 ]

Report on phenomena experienced during flight to Coruscant attached.

[ tano_ahsoka_report_15_3_29. file .txt ]

SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

REC: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

[ 15:3:30 16:19 ]

how much can go wrong on a four-day trip?! don't think that CC-ing Master Windu on this is going to help you, Snips. we both know he's way too busy to pay attention to comm traffic.

SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

[ 15:3:30 16:25 ]

Actually, it was more like a two-day trip! We made great time.

SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

REC: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

[ 15:3:30 16:32 ]

yeah because you went through kriffin S

SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

[ 15:3:30 16:35 ]

I couldn't help it! What was I supposed to do? Master Che says it's probably just psychic shock, and he'll be better in a few days.

SEN: mace_windu (975X583224)

REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101) ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

[ 15:3:30 16:36 ]

Thank you for the report, Padawan Tano. These developments are concerning and the Council will likely want to consider your experiences in greater detail at a later time.

Skywalker, please refrain from discussing sensitive information on personal comms.

SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

REC: mace_windu (975X583224)

[ 15:3:30 16:38 ]

yes master

SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

REC: mace_windu (975X583224)

[ 15:3:30 16:39 ]

Of course, Master.

SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

REC: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

[ 15:3:30 16:42 ]

seriously, how is he?

SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

[ 15:3:30 16:44 ]

Unconscious. I really don't think it was Mortis that did it, if that place was Mortis. The analysis the Lore Keepers handed up to the CoFK was inconclusive. We were there for hours, and Master Kenobi seemed fine, almost like being there made him stronger. I honestly think he was having fun half the time.

Even afterward he was totally normal, until we started approaching Coruscant. Then he just collapsed. It was pretty scary. I'm sorry, Master.

SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

REC: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

[ 15:3:29 16:47 ]

not your fault, Snips. i'm sorry for text yelling, just worried. send me regular reports, ok? especially if anything changes.

SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)

REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)

[ 15:3:29 16:48 ]

Will do.

Obi-Wan awoke, surprised that he had lost consciousness at all. Ventress had always been particular about making sure he was lucid enough to enjoy the full agony of whatever she had planned.

The thought was a tiny flicker, instantly extinguished as the darkness became all he could feel.

It was thick, oily, and alive with malice. Pouring through him in infinite waves, it stuck and hardened like permacrete. His ears, his nose, the inside of his throat — he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. There was nothing but the darkness, nothing else in the universe. He was alone. Alone because he deserved it. Alone because he failed. Obi-Wan was alone, and abandoned, and drowning.

He clawed at the mask, a mindless, animal motion, and found that there was no mask.

No mask.

Breathing in fury and rot, Obi-Wan knew that something was very wrong.

Someone held him down. He felt the pressure on his arms and shoulders, and the Force trying to crush him, and he fought. The mask was gone. That was important. He fought, desperate to get free enough to think. He could feel himself screaming, and was surprised again. He had grown tired of hearing himself scream, and in the end it had been a mercy when his raw throat lost the ability.

Something is wrong.

The darkness seeped through every crack, even places he had managed to forget about. He saw the Jedi Temple burning. He saw Geonosis, everyone he had called there to die, the bodies of children lying at his feet. Anakin, tall and strong and grown-up, looking at him with the distant eyes of a stranger. He stood before the Council and heard Qui-Gon sum him up in cool, indifferent words, heard Mace Windu's scathing voice say, You are thirteen years old, Obi-Wan, not a child.

Obi-Wan fought, but he couldn't break away. The darkness plundered him until it knew him, turning his blood to sludge and his body to stone, until it was him. He was back on Jabiim, where the faces of the dead blurred. The same faces, the same deaths. He stood, aching and helpless and guilty, as Anakin screamed, It's all your fault. He knew it was true.

In the end, it was the firebeetles.

He was a padawan again, blind and screaming as flesh-eating beetles swarmed him. No one could hear him. No one was coming. He would die here, alone and howling in fear, a death unworthy of a Jedi.

Still, before the darkness swept everything away, Obi-Wan had gathered the shards of an idea. The mask. Ventress. The firebeetles. Amorphous and scattered, a thread of conviction greater than his own pulsed at the center of the thought.

As much as Ventress had done to him on Rattatak — this was different. She had never known about the firebeetles.

Obi-Wan broke the surface of consciousness several more times, and each time wished he hadn't. The darkness lingered. At some points he knew he was no longer in Ventress's fortress, aware enough to sense the difference and the other presences that passed nearby. Other times, he was there all over again. He fought each time; he could do nothing else, but he wasn't strong enough. There was nothing to hold on to, no one to reach out for.

His only hope was that eventually, his body would give out and he would die. That freedom was the sweetest enticement, and disappointment sharpened each time he found himself alive.

Finally, the war ended and he was left to drift in peace. Whether the darkness chose to recede or exhaustion simply overcame him, Obi-Wan didn't know, because he knew nothing at all.

xxx

Blinking, Obi-Wan found himself staring at the shadowed ceiling of the Halls of Healing.

It wasn't real, of course, but it looked impressively lifelike. There were the high, vaulted roofs and the dimly-glowing pale lamps. In his periphery, he could see the edge of one of the massive windows; in the daytime it would fill the room with golden light, but now the city glow of Coruscant took the place of stars. Turning his head, Obi-Wan watched the distant lanes of speeder traffic in their thin, colorful ropes shift and dance.

Curiously detailed, for a dream, he thought, but he wasn't going to complain. This was more peaceful than any dream he'd had in a long, long time.

"Obi-Wan?" a sleepy voice murmured.

He turned to his other side and found a thin figure curled up in a cushioned chair beside his bed. She unfolded, sitting forward, and after an alarming moment of disorientation, he recognized her. "Taria? What are you doing here?"

Taria Damsin was a friend, but not someone Obi-Wan was used to meeting in his dreams. She wore soft, casual robes, like she had made this place her home for some time, and her bright hair was cut far shorter than he remembered. She frowned at him, the unfamiliar gauntness that hollowed her face only making the expression more severe.

"What does it look like? The real question is why are you here."

"It's my dream," said Obi-Wan, bemused.

Immediately, her expression shifted. Mostly, she was laughing at him, but there was something else there too. If this were real, he would have reached out to discreetly sound her presence in the Force for whatever troubled her. "This isn't a dream, Obi-Wan," she said. "You're really here."

Obi-Wan sighed, and turned back toward the window to watch the lights.

It was only peaceful until a pillow came down violently on his face. With a muffled yelp of outrage, he pushed it away and sat up. Or, tried to sit up. He ended up half propped on an elbow, because that was as far as he could move.

"Don't sigh at me, Obi-Wan Kenobi." Taria stood beside the bed now, arms crossed. The effect of her displeasure was only slightly ruined by the fact that her robe was oversized and the sleeves swallowed her hands. "I have sat here day after day watching you try as hard as you can to die for absolutely no reason. Trust me when I say that you are awake."

"Why," said Obi-Wan, "am I shackled to the bed?"

He pulled at the cuffs that bound him. They were pliable and soft with a metal clasp and secured with woven cords, but served very effectively to keep him trapped. Taria dropped her hands and reached for the holopad embedded in the wall at the head of the bed. A few taps of her finger, and the clasps unlatched with a quiet click. Obi-Wan flung them off and sat up, rubbing his wrists. They didn't hurt, but not so long ago, they had.

"So you wouldn't claw your face off." The indignation of a few moments ago had drained from Taria's voice. She sounded exhausted. When Obi-Wan didn't react, she said, "You still think this is a dream."

He looked up at her, but said nothing.

"Why are you so sure?"

"I've been to the Halls of Healing many times in my life, Taria," he said. "I know what they're supposed to feel like. I know what the Temple feels like. I know what you feel like."

"Ah." She folded gingerly back into her chair.

"There's nothing of the Force here. It's not real."

"It is real." Resting her cheek on her hand as if she was too tired to keep holding her head up, Taria said, "They've got you drugged up on suppressants, Obi-Wan."

"Of course," he agreed politely.

"Think about it. If this was a dream, you wouldn't be able to remember how you got here."

"I don't."

"Not here," she said. "To Coruscant. Weren't you traveling to Coruscant?"

Slowly, he nodded. "With Ahsoka. And then, the Force planet. And then—"

The darkness. He had felt it on their approach, and the closer they came to Coruscant, the more overwhelming it had become. He remembered the way it had bubbled in his blood, beating down on him with pressure enough to tear him apart. He had done his best to stay standing. It must not have been enough.

Taria was watching him patiently, eyes bright in the darkness where she curled against the chair.

"Ahsoka," he said. "Is she all right? What was that presence that attacked us?"

"Ahsoka's perfectly fine. Nobody knows what it was that affected you like that."

Dropping his legs over the side of the bed, Obi-Wan sat to face her. "It must have been unbelievably powerful. I haven't sensed anything like that in— ever, really. Did Ahsoka withstand it?"

"You were the only one affected, Obi-Wan. Ahsoka didn't sense anything strange. Nobody else did."

Obi-Wan stared at her. He couldn't sense the truth in her words, but he could hear it in the way she was speaking to him slowly, as if he were a child or very sick. "That can't be right."

Taria shrugged. "You're a medical mystery."

"I need to speak to Ahsoka."

"First of all, it's three in the morning. Second, she's not here. The Council sent her out on another mission."

"So soon?"

"Not really. You've been unconscious for three weeks."

Three weeks? He had already lost more than a year. If he kept losing time at this rate, he was going to end up an old man and not even know it. "How is the campaign going? Have you heard anything?"

"So far so good. It's not easy to get updates these days if you don't have need-to-know, but I have my sources. It's my understanding that we've almost taken Commenor, but Balmorra is posing more of a challenge."

Of course it would. As one of the Separatists' main droid foundries, they could hardly give it up without a serious fight. Its position so close to Kuat and Neimoidia only made it a more critical target. "Anakin?" he asked, but then shook his head. Taria didn't know Anakin. "I need to—"

"Sit down, Obi-Wan." Taria leaned forward again when he stood up. "I don't have the energy to chase you down and chain you up again."

He huffed. "As if you could."

An invisible blow hit him in the chest like an orbak's kick, knocking him back onto the bed. Indignant, he sat up sharply. He hadn't known it was coming — hadn't been able to even sense the strike except by its effects. He was practically helpless. This was unacceptable.

Taria's eyes sparkled, and Obi-Wan regarded her warily. "Suppressants," he said, tasting the word for the first time.

"Suppressants," she agreed. "So you're convinced you're not in a dream?"

"Yes, yes, yes," he said, annoyed. "I need to see Master Che. Or a healer's apprentice."

Taria groaned. "I told you, it's three in the morning. None of the night healers are going to be able to change your medication, and you know Master Che comes in at five thirty. Can't you wait? You really want to wake her up?"

As tempted as he was to remind her that he couldn't feel the Force, Obi-Wan had to admit that the prospect of forcibly rousing Vokara Che when nobody was currently dying seemed like a bad idea. She sighed, taking his silence for the acquiescence it was.

"Where are you in such a hurry to go, anyway?" grumbled Taria, snuggling deeper into the chair as if she couldn't get warm enough.

Obi-Wan could think of a dozen places he'd rather be than the Halls of Healing any day, but the meaning of her words struck him suddenly. He'd been dead for a year and a half. His clearances and requisitions would have been archived. The suite he and Anakin had shared would certainly have been reassigned. His name would have been added to the lists of the fallen, and incense burned for him in the funerary hall, since they didn't have his body.

Eyes wide, Obi-Wan looked up and found her already watching him. "Taria."

"Yes," she said, the wry twist of her mouth telling of all the things he was deaf to in the Force.

"I'm sorry."

"For what? Dying? I forgive you, so long as you don't do it again." She reached out with a socked foot and gently kicked his knee. More seriously, she said, "There is no death, Obi-Wan."

At the moment there wasn't the Force, either, he thought. He knew what it was like to lose friends, and carry their absences. "I know. I'm still sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not."

From her tone, Obi-Wan knew she was talking about herself, not him. Did she truly feel that way? She had always amazed him with her ability to find peace with her condition, and after all, your own death was the easiest one to face. It was much harder to be the one left behind.

Anakin would have been at his funeral, he realized, the pain of that thought surprising in its sharpness. Of course he had to die sometime, just as Qui-Gon had, but not like that, leaving Anakin alone to carry such a great burden.

"Get some more sleep, if you can," said Taria, yawning. "You've had a rough couple of weeks, even if you don't remember them."

Frankly, Obi-Wan was sick of being unconscious. He considered asking for a datapad to try and catch up on any news he could find, but Taria's eyes were already fluttering closed. She needed sleep, even if he didn't, and it was only a few hours to wait.

"Also I can't believe you don't dream about me. I think I'm insulted," she murmured.

Obi-Wan snorted. Lying back down in at least the outward appearance of obedience, he tucked his hands behind his head. He took a long, slow breath, and reached out for the Force.

Nothing.

It was as if the part of him that was alive to the Force had been amputated. He couldn't even really try to reach, or open himself, because the place inside him where he heard the Force's song seemed to have vanished. There was nothing to open. Unconsciously, Obi-Wan had squeezed his eyes tightly shut in concentration; he opened them, and attempted to relax.

He tried to think of it like a limb that falls asleep. For a while it feels odd, like you don't even have that limb, but in a minute it wakes up and becomes normal again. Surely, when the suppressants wore off, it would be the same with the Force.

The coming dawn was still hours away, and the rhythms of the Halls of Healing continued regardless of day or night. There were more beds in the long room, separated from each other by retractable walls for privacy. Regular as clockwork, night healers came and went like silent shadows.

Taria slept, while Obi-Wan ignored everything else and concentrated on the Force.

In a few hours, he succeeded in giving himself a massive, throbbing headache. But it was worth it because, like wiping grime off a window, the Force returned, layer by painful layer. It was sluggish and reluctant to respond when he called it, but it was there, and simply feeling it move was a relief deeper than Obi-Wan could express.

Giving up on any form of rest, Obi-Wan sat up and crossed his legs. That was where Vokara Che found him.

Technically, he was able to sense her approach, in that he coaxed the Force to tell him of an indistinct movement of some kind. For a moment, Obi-Wan stopped straining and tried to push away the dull roar of pain behind his eyes. The more he could feel the Force, the more an angry cloud of pressure gathered at the edge of his vision.

"Good morning, Obi-Wan." Master Che arrived with a datapad and a healer padawan at her shoulder. Obi-Wan hadn't even been able to tell that there were two of them. "It's good to see you awake."

She didn't look surprised, Obi-Wan thought. He moved to sit on the side of the bed. "Good morning, Master Che. I don't remember much. Can you tell me what happened?"

"And with full mental capacity as well — even better."

Obi-Wan blinked. Had that been in question?

Vokara Che spent a few seconds looking at the datapad mounted next to his bed. Absently, she raised the brightness of the lights near them. "Padawan, I want you to look at these readings. Study them, and see what kind of interpretation you can give me."

The padawan, a teenage Devaronian boy, glanced down at his own datapad and nodded. "Yes, Master."

He left, and Vokara Che turned to Obi-Wan, weighing him with her steady gaze. Obi-Wan had always known her to be compassionate and stern, by turns. He had rarely known her to be troubled, as she looked now.

"How do you feel?"

"Fine," he said, "except that I can't feel the Force."

"Not at all?"

"Very little."

Expectantly, she cocked her head at him.

"When I first woke, it was like the Force didn't exist, but now it just feels... distant. Hard to reach," he explained.

"That is no cause for concern. I had you put on a complete dose of Force suppressant solution, and that is what blocks your connection to the Force. It is beginning to wear off now and, if you don't apply another dose, your full connection should be restored quickly."

"I wasn't aware such a thing existed," said Obi-Wan, curious.

"Few are," said Vokara Che, her voice clipped. "It is dangerous, and not to be used unless it absolutely cannot be avoided."

"How can it even be possible? The Force is within all living things. If it is suppressed, shouldn't I be dead?" He vaguely remembered not using the Force on Centares, but it hadn't been the same. He hadn't experienced the horrible dead-limb feeling he felt now.

"I am not completely privy to its exact chemical makeup, but it's my understanding that it agitates the midichlorians in such a way that it makes them unable to function together. The Force is within you and all around you as always." Seeing him frown, she added, "Think about if something were able to somehow scatter the impulses traveling from your eyes to your brain. Both organs are perfectly healthy, they simply can't communicate."

Taria stirred, their voices rousing her to wakefulness. "Force, you're not blind too?" she muttered.

What did she mean by too? Eyes narrowed, Obi-Wan meant to ask her, but the words stuck in his throat.

She unfolded, yawning, and Obi-Wan could see the terrible thinness of her face and hands. The nearly translucent paleness of her skin. In the night, the shadows and dimness of the lamps had hidden it, but she was very, very sick. In the time he had been gone, her Borotavi syndrome had clearly progressed.

Her eyes were bright, though, when she looked at Obi-Wan; she was happy he was awake, and ready for him to tease her back. He wanted to, but he couldn't think of anything to say. He had known her diagnosis was terminal, before, but it had seemed so distant. Hadn't she been in remission?

A year and a half, he thought. Suddenly it seemed like a lifetime.

Obi-Wan's recovery was too slow, and Taria's expression changed in a flash at the look on his face. "Don't," she said, fierce and low.

He couldn't feel her anger, but he was sure it was there. I'm sorry, he wanted to say, but he knew it was the last thing she wanted to hear. Obi-Wan said nothing. The pounding in his head had deepened, and he found it hard to tear his mind away from dwelling on how little time Taria had left. Looking to Master Che, he tried to find his lost thread of thought.

"That doesn't— make sense. How can a synthetic chemical affect such a fundamental part of a life form?" No one outside the Order had the understanding of the Force to be able to manipulate midichlorians — though not for lack of trying — and he would have said that no one inside the Order did either, except for this evidence.

Master Che's mouth quirked slightly. "I told you, I don't know the details. What's more important for us is that, ideally, I want you off it as soon as possible. We don't know what the effects of prolonged use are on... healthy connections to the Force."

"That shouldn't be difficult. You said it's already wearing off."

She nodded once, but didn't speak. Taria watched him with a pained compassion in her shadowed eyes. It was, Obi-Wan thought, probably the way he had just looked at her, and he had to admit that she was right. It was intolerable.

"You asked me what happened," said Master Che abruptly. "Again, I have to say that I don't know. What I do know is this: you were brought here three weeks ago, unresponsive and bleeding from your nose, eyes, and ears. Your body shows signs of severe recurring trauma, most of it healed, but there was extensive scar tissue from past muscle damage.

"If the damage had been recent, we could have repaired it completely. As it was, we did our best to reduce the scar tissue, but that means you will likely experience some weakness and soreness when you start moving around. You have to treat yourself as if you'd been recently injured, not like it happened over a year ago. There is a good chance you will have your full strength and range of motion, but you will have to pursue a diligent routine of strengthening and stretching exercises."

Obi-Wan listened with raised eyebrows. So far, he'd heard nothing surprising except the bleeding from all his orifices part. He didn't remember that.

"You are also underweight. Less so now, since we have had this time to begin correcting your nutrient intake, but still something that will need your attention. None of this, though, kept you insensible for three weeks. What did was the most acute psychic storm I have seen in my entire time as a healer."

And now they were getting to it. "I don't know that term. Is it similar to psychic shock?"

"Psychic shock is the Force equivalent of a muscle strain, and is fairly common. Most often it is a result of overextension, as you know—" she gave him a pointed look "—but there have been cases of psychic shock from violence, like having another Force user enter your mind against your will. A psychic storm is much more rare. I have only seen a few instances personally."

"And?" Obi-Wan prompted, when Vokara Che paused. It was impolite, but he wasn't feeling particularly patient at the moment.

"Psychic storms are a reaction to absolute extremis. When a being has been pushed, physically or mentally, beyond the limits of endurance. Essentially, they are the result of a being turning against themselves, tearing their own mind apart in the Force. The cases I have seen were young, untrained Force-sensitives from underdeveloped planets outside the Republic. Often they had seen their families murdered before their eyes, or had been horrifically abused in other ways, and not knowing how to handle their own power, their reaction became self-destructive."

Obi-Wan had heard of those sad cases too, only no one had mentioned psychic storms. Instead they just said, He went mad.

Vokara Che was saying that in the time he spent on Rattatak, Ventress broke him in half.

Frustration simmered inside Obi-Wan, trying to boil up into anger. Releasing it to the Force was like bailing out a sinking ship; for every bit he managed to jettison, far more poured in.

"So, what stopped it?"

"Nothing did."

He stared at her, incredulous. "Then I suppose I'm not actually sitting here, talking to you?"

Only Vokara Che's single raised eyebrow acknowledged his sarcasm. "You are sitting here thinking and talking because you can't access the Force, Obi-Wan."

She was definitely right that he wasn't firing on all cylinders, Obi-Wan thought, because it was only just now that he finally understood what she was trying to tell him. For a moment he just sat, stunned.

Then, he said, "That's ridiculous."

"Obi-Wan—" Taria tried to speak, but he shook his head, cutting her off.

"Master Che, I'm fine. What happened— was a long time ago. I would have had a reaction before now, if what you're saying is true. The suppressant is wearing off, like you said, and I can already feel the Force. I'm not raving or bleeding yet."

"Not yet, but you will be." Vokara Che spoke gently, but was unyielding. "We tried everything, for three weeks. Everything, to calm your mind and heal your turmoil. The suppressant was a last resort. Your relationship with the Force is damaged. Your relationship with yourself. You need the suppressant, at least for now."

Obi-Wan glared at her. She was wrong. She had to be. "The only thing damaging my connection is the suppressant. Once it clears, I'll be fine. Probe my mind and you'll see."

"I don't need to," said Vokara Che.

"You don't have any shields, Obi-Wan." In response to his sharp look, Taria lifted one shoulder in an apologetic shrug. "Not a one."

That sounded familiar — but he had begun rebuilding his shielding aboard Anakin's cruiser. He had already improved quite a bit just in those few days. What happened?

Startling, Obi-Wan felt someone sounding him in the Force. Kind of. It was like seeing a vague shape through frosted transparisteel, or trying to hear someone speaking on the other side of a thick wall. It was Vokara Che, he thought, but that was only a guess based on her expression.

"I sense that the darkness is close to you."

She reached out as if to touch her fingers to Obi-Wan's head.

In an instant, a single impulse became the only thing he knew — that he must not be touched. Everything else went white, and Obi-Wan had recoiled halfway up the bed before he realized it.

He froze, staring at her as Vokara Che silently took back her hand. Some kind of point had been made, but he wasn't sure what it was.

That was the first anyone had spoken of the Darkness, and Obi-Wan wished she hadn't, because now he recognized it. His headache, grown into a sharp spike of pain driving through his skull. The shadows that gathered in the corner of his vision, no matter where he looked. The anger that came rushing up out of nowhere and refused to be tamed by all his attempts to let it flow through him.

The darkness couldn't reach him now, but it waited patiently. It would grow along with his connection to the Force, until it swelled again to try to destroy him. Was this the psychic storm she was talking about?

Obi-Wan sensed someone reaching out to him again. This time he checked their faces, and thought it was Taria. She looked at him and he looked back, and could barely feel anything. He knew the glow of her in the Force, but the most he could sense was like picking up an object someone else had been holding, and feeling the latent, quickly-fading warmth they left behind.

She was so far away.

Vokara Che's comparison came back to him suddenly — his disrupted grasp of the Force like disrupted vision. If someone gave Obi-Wan the choice between his sense of sight, or sense of the Force, he didn't even have to think about what he would pick. He of all people knew that blindness was no barrier to being a great Jedi, but live without the Force?

No.

He took a long breath. If the darkness did return? Well, it wasn't overwhelming him now, and that meant he had this time to build up his strength. It had taken him by surprise before, this attack, but now he was ready. He could call on the light, he could fight it.

He had faced darkness many times before. This was just one more battle, and the Force would be with him.

"I don't intend to take any more of the suppressant."

Vokara Che shook her head slowly. "I believe that, as things stand now, you won't be able to function without it. I have drawn up a plan, and assigned a team of healers—"

Obi-Wan stood up. Barefoot and in a shapeless healing robe, he knew he wasn't the most daunting figure — not that Vokara Che could ever be daunted, anyway. But this was not up for negotiation, and she had to understand that.

"Master Che," he repeated, "I do not intend to take any more suppressant. I am happy to hear whatever else you have to say to me before I am released."

He was ready to stand firm through a lengthy debate, but Vokara Che looked at his face and simply nodded. "When you begin to lose control of the Force, you must return and contact me."

"Of course." Her sureness was deeply provoking, and Obi-Wan resolved to never allow that to happen.

"Physically, you are cleared for Temple duty, with the caveat that you should keep strenuous activity to a minimum."

Taria, a traitor, asked, "What's a minimum?"

"One hour a day," said Master Che. "Light exercise is encouraged, of course. Other than that, I just have some details to go over with you about how we expect to move forward."

"My clothes—"

"You're going to need to visit the Records Archivist before the quartermaster can release anything to you," said Taria, pushing to her feet.

"But I believe we still have the clothes you arrived in." Vokara Che stepped away to hail one of the padawans, and Obi-Wan eyed Taria.

"Don't think I missed the fact that you already knew all of this," Obi-Wan said. "You could have told me as soon as I woke up."

Taria pursed her lips. "Hey, it's her job to be the bearer of bad news. I'm just a lowly teacher of lightsaber technique. Speaking of which, I would go with you, but I have a class at seven."

"You would let me wander the perilous Temple halls alone? I'm shocked," said Obi-Wan dryly.

He didn't ask how she could teach a lightsaber class when just to stand she kept her hand braced on the chair back for support.

Vokara Che returned with the gear Anakin had lent him, which had been cleaned and pressed while he lay unconscious. Putting it on, he couldn't help but remember the confusion of waking up with Anakin's great bulk half-immobilizing him, a human space heater when he slept as always. Obi-Wan had found the world shattered into contradictory pieces, none of which fit with each other.

Despite what Anakin told him, while it was just them in that small clinic room, his old reality had overwhelmed everything else. Him and Anakin dealing with trouble on an unfamiliar planet, as usual. It was seeing Ahsoka that truly brought it home to him that things were different, now, and he was living in a strange new world that he didn't recognize.

Thinking of Taria, Obi-Wan wondered how many more surprises lay in store for him.

While changing, he found two transdermal patches on his lower stomach. He didn't know what they were, so he didn't remove them. He would have to ask Vokara Che.

She and Taria had withdrawn down to the room's exit to let him change alone so, when he was done, he went out to meet them. To travel the length of the room, Obi-Wan had to pass niche after three-walled niche, each one with its own bed and its own patient. None were empty. He didn't gawk, out of respect for the privacy of whoever was being treated, but felt grateful to be able to walk out of the hall under his own power.

Near the door, the women had been joined by a third figure. Obi-Wan found himself stepping forward quickly and grinning.

"Garen!"

Garen looked up from talking with Vokara Che, and smiled. "Hey!" he said and, surprising Obi-Wan, his friend grabbed him in a tight hug.

After a single shocked moment of stillness, Obi-Wan somewhat awkwardly patted his back. "It's good to see you, Garen."

"You too," he said, pulling back and then making an overwrought, sorrowful face. "Although, actually, maybe not. You look like you've been spat out by a gundark."

He couldn't say the same about Garen. He had his shoulder-length hair tied back, and wore a stripped-down version of his usual Jedi tunics with a dark, plastoid chest plate and armored gauntlets over his arms. He looked a little tired, maybe, but otherwise just as strong and energetic as always.

"The tunics are a little odd, but surely not that bad," Obi-Wan said, pretending confusion.

Garen took a second look. "Ha. Those are Anakin's."

"I won't be able to get any of my own until I'm no longer officially dead."

"Okay, what do you say we do that, and then get breakfast?" said Garen hopefully. "I'd hate to waste the chance to eat something other than GAR rations."

Taria raised her eyebrows at Obi-Wan. "Now you'll have someone to protect you from falling off a causeway, or being killed by a malfunctioning janitor droid."

"That kind of thing is much more likely to happen with Garen than without."

"No way, my priorities are strictly rest and relaxation. No time to waste with shenanigans," said Garen, who had never passed up a good shenanigan in his life. "Besides. Obi-Wan's unkillable."

With an amused snort, Taria said, "Well, I've got to be going. Have fun. Obi-Wan, I'll come find you later."

"Why did that sound like a threat?" said Obi-Wan.

"I'm sure you'll find out."

"Why did that sound like an insult?"

Garen grinned. "Welcome back."

Of course, it was never that easy to leave the Halls of Healing.

Vokara Che first had to introduce Obi-Wan to two different healers, people who he would be working with on what she called "the physical side" of his recovery. Then, she told him about the soul healer she wanted him to see, and gave him the name of the master to contact to make an appointment.

"Developing shielding will be their first priority, so if you can, work on that," she advised.

He did get a chance to ask about the patches. The silver one was the suppressant, which was spent. He could throw it away. The other was to monitor his vitals, and she would prefer that he keep it on for now, she said, in a way that made Obi-Wan want to rip it off immediately.

Finally, though, he and Garen broke free.

Obi-Wan's headache had only worsened, dull pain morphing into stabbing heat, but as he stepped into the halls of the Temple, he felt confident. Behind them, the huge, arched windows had begun to glow with the light of morning.

The only mastery worth having is mastery of yourself.

Obi-Wan had a lot of practice deciding what he wanted to concentrate on, and drawing his body and mind into tight obedience. A Jedi could survive without food or sleep for days on end, relying on the Force. That didn't mean you didn't feel tired or hungry — it just meant that those feelings didn't matter. They existed, but didn't affect you. They didn't rule you.

His headache was like that.

He acknowledged it, put it to the side, and moved on. It existed, but it didn't affect him.

Personnel records were kept in a separate, smaller complex near the base of the Tower of First Knowledge, close to the Academy. Obi-Wan and Garen took a turbolift to the highest main floor of the Temple. Taria had to come this same way to teach her class, and the halls were probably the most familiar of any in the galaxy to them.

Master Tun, an ancient, wizened Feeorin, had been the Records Archivist since before Obi-Wan was alive. They found him in the first record office, working at a holotable with a padawan.

"Good morning, Master Tun," said Obi-Wan.

He straightened up, sensitive head-tendrils twitching restlessly. "There is a familiar voice," he said. "Obi-Wan Kenobi."

The padawan twitched, glancing up from the holorecord she was viewing and then quickly back down.

"I think I know what I can do for you," Master Tun went on. "You need your record reactivated, yes? Lena, please bring me archive collection TT-503."

"Yes, Master," she said quickly, darting off to the next room.

"Thank you, Master Tun."

He made a short humming noise in his deep voice. "My pleasure. Not much call for this kind of thing, after all. Much more of the reverse."

"Surely there have been some Jedi mistakenly thought dead over the years?" said Obi-Wan, curious. Knowing the kind of missions Jedi Knights were routinely sent on, it seemed likely. On the other hand, the Order typically took recovering its missing personnel very seriously.

Master Tun pondered the question. "Most often, when I make an incorrect entry, it is because I have been deliberately misled."

"For the sake of a mission?" asked Garen. "Like when Siri went undercover and the Council told everyone she'd thrown a fit and left."

With an effort, Obi-Wan kept his expression blank. He didn't think Siri would appreciate that description very much.

"Exactly. Then I have to go back, untangle and undo my own work... It is— unhelpful," he said diplomatically. "Ah, here we are. Thank you, Padawan."

The girl returned to her post, keeping her eyes riveted on the holotable as if the scrolling list of names, planets, and dates were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. Master Tun took the holobook she had handed him and carefully slid it into a port on the side of the table. A glowing menu spread out over his side of the display, and he entered a search term.

"It will take me some time to reactivate everything. You don't need to stay for the whole process, but I will need your biometric signature to begin."

"Of course." Obi-Wan moved slightly to the side, and shot Garen a look. That was the third time he had clipped Obi-Wan with his elbow.

Garen widened his eyes at him, and then glanced meaningfully at the padawan.

Oh, he was trying to communicate. Not losing control of his limbs. It was odd and clumsy, and Obi-Wan felt very strange for a moment. Those kinds of subtle nudges were almost always given in the Force.

When Obi-Wan turned to the padawan, he found her already staring at him. She dropped her eyes immediately, and he frowned. A blue-skinned Chagrian, she was about fourteen or fifteen years old, unless Obi-Wan missed his guess. She wore carved metal cuffs on the horns that tipped her lethorns — a common custom instead of a padawan braid for the Chagrian species — but all the slots meant to be filled with colored tiles were empty. Not even a black one.

Was she unchosen?

"Please place your hand here."

Obi-Wan held his palm over the holotable, where Master Tun indicated, and sent Garen a quelling glare. He had an idea what his friend was so aggressively trying to telegraph, and didn't appreciate it.

"Hm!" said Master Tun, blinking his opaque, yellow eyes at the holo display. It was difficult just from the sound to tell if he was annoyed or surprised, or both. "Ah, there we are. I should have your Temple accesses up in twenty minutes or so, but you will need to be re-authorized for any security levels you held before," he explained. "The only thing that may take longer is your stipend account, since all the funds would have been consolidated into the treasury when your record was archived. It may be a week or more before that can be restored."

"Not a problem." Obi-Wan shrugged. He couldn't remember the last time he had looked at his stipend account anyway.

"Then you will be up and running very soon. Do you have any questions for me?"

"No, I don't think so. Thank you again, Master Tun."

The formidable old master bowed. "It is good to have you back, Master Kenobi."

As soon as they stepped out into the hall and the archive door shut behind them, Obi-Wan said, "Don't."

Garen's eyes sparkled wickedly. "Should we eat breakfast on this floor's refectory? It's closest."

It was also closest to the Academy, and therefore almost always thick with padawans. "I don't think so," said Obi-Wan with dignity. "Honestly, Garen, so much time has passed. Nobody is going to still be thinking about that."

"You didn't feel that padawan's interest. You can't really think that coming back from the dead is going to make you less famous, can you?"

Obi-Wan started walking.

"Where are we going?" Garen called as he caught up.

"Southwestern refectory."

A cloud seemed to hang over Obi-Wan, poisoning Garen's good-natured teasing into something darker. He knew Garen was right; as the war became ever more intense, Sith-killing could only have risen in relevancy.

Years ago, hearing that moniker for the first time had been a shock. It had felt ridiculous, even disrespectful. Jedi were not supposed to be pleased with loss of life, even the life of a Sith, but that wasn't what bothered him. Obi-Wan couldn't help but feel that the praise in the name was a mockery. Finding that purpose-filled serenity in the Force, hanging over a fathomless drop, had allowed him to defeat the Sith — but it was only what he should have done much, much earlier.

If he had, he might have been there when Qui-Gon needed him.

With time, Obi-Wan had come to see past his own grief. It wasn't about him, he had realized. The padawans who used the name were just like he had been as a boy, looking for hope and heroes wherever they could find them. It had helped him understand Anakin's complex feelings toward being called the Chosen One.

This was all old ground, well-covered in the past. So why was it bothering him so much now?

"You good?"

"Fine," said Obi-Wan, glancing across at Garen. Not being able to reach out with the Force was infuriating. How else was he supposed to communicate? Words could only say so much.

The walk to where they were going in the Southwest Quarter was simply across and then down one level. They passed through the Academy, where most of the initiates were transitioning from morning meditation to breakfast, before their first class. They ranged by in small groups, friends talking and smiling as they started their day.

Obi-Wan had been one of them and knew what it felt like, but he couldn't feel it now. Leaning into the Force, he touched its flow not like dipping into clean water, but slow and thick. A lightsaber ignited somewhere nearby, and Obi-Wan smelled burning plasma. War, he thought. He would know its sights and sounds anywhere, even here.

The hallway ahead was dark, only the strip of emergency lighting near the floor giving off a dim glow. Urgency thrummed through Obi-Wan — there was something he had to find, someone he had to get to, but he didn't move. There were shapes discarded there in the hall, lying terribly still and quiet, and he knew he couldn't go any further.

A Jedi faced the truth without fear, but Obi-Wan was afraid.

He felt sick, the pain in his head so sharp that it nearly blinded him, and he welcomed it. He didn't want to see. He had never turned away from an awful knowledge before, but now there was nothing he wanted to do more.

"Obi-Wan."

Distantly, Garen's voice filtered down to him. The weight of a hand on his shoulder brought him back to reality.

The hall was normal, brightly lit with the usual lamps and filled with initiates. Obi-Wan had stopped, frozen, in front of the open door of one of the practice rooms. Inside, two younger students were swinging practice 'sabers with more exuberance than technique. That was all he'd heard. That was all.

Garen was looking at him intently, concern clear in his eyes.

Obi-Wan breathed, trying to calm his racing heart. Fine wasn't going to cut it this time, so he went for some disarming partial honesty. "I'm a little disoriented, Garen," he said. "It's strange being back, after..."

He let the words trail off, knowing that Garen would fill the gap with whatever he thought most likely. Garen's hand tightened on Obi-Wan's shoulder before he took it back. "I get that. Just take it slow, okay?"

Obi-Wan nodded, and the rest of their walk to the refectory was quiet. No strange feelings or disorienting visions, just the ever-present splitting headache.