KEYnote: No one is returning to the future, no one else is being brought into the past, the Ones have been chosen. Thank you so much to the people still reviewing.

Obi-Wan is 39 years old.

Ahsoka is 19 years old.

Cody is 15 years old.

Rex is 14 years old.

Bail is 49 years old.

Breha is 31 years old.

Padme is 28 years old.

Luke is back in his 23 year old body on Mortis, but has lived 26 years now, (18 BBY).

Leia is 23 (4 ABY), in her 23 year old body on Mortis, (18 BBY).

Anakin is in his 24 year old body, courtesy of Lukakin occupying it for 3 years since 21 BBY, but Anakin is 29 years old in 18 BBY (Courtesy of Mortis 7-8 year time morph).

Jyn Erso is 3 years old.

AN: See, simple, right? ;)

Chapter 22 - Searching for Balance

Everyone truly struggling with the plotline wasn't paying close enough to the dream/visions sequences that were a major part of my characters' development and foreshadowed Act II. None of the characters have forgotten anything from those visions they were in.

The Son and the Daughter are not human, I didn't write them with human reasoning, hence why their motives and 'solutions' are really out there.

Anakin Skywalker's spirit has been in the dying body of the Father on Mortis since nearly killing himself in Chapter 1. Because this is Mortis, time moves differently there, and Anakin has been keeping the peace between the Son and Daughter for seven nearly eight years.

Luke Skywalker's spirit has been in his Father's body since the Force yoinked him from the future in Return of the Jedi. He has been in the past for three years (Late 21 BBY - Late 18 BBY).

Leia Organa remained spirit and body in Return of the Jedi on Endor, she was in contact with that splinter reality Luke was making while she slept that night. Less than a day passes before she too gets yoinked to Mortis (4ABY - transported back to Late 18 BBY).

The Force itself messed with Luke and Anakin at the start of this fanfiction, but it is the Son and Daughter working together that gave Anakin, Luke, and Leia their physical bodies and whole spirits back on Mortis. In my story, Mortis functions similarly to the World Between, it is a place that exists outside of space and time, thus side-stepping any paradoxes. The timeline that you are reading may erase all others but Leia and Luke will still exist, memories intact, because they stepped out of reality.

So let the games begin.

Mortis - General Luke Skywalker - 18 BBY

"You've been in the past for three years, fighting in the Clone Wars, for three years?" she asked sceptically.

"Yes," Luke said in turn, "And I've been in our father's body, which has been weird on so many levels, until I woke up here with you beside me."

Leia shook her head, her eyes flashing, "Please don't call him that. Anakin Skywalker didn't turn traitor in a day, Luke. Bail is my father."

It was Luke's turn to shake his head, "I've met our mother, Leia. Padme Amidala did not fall in love with an evil man. And Anakin was a slave from Tatooine, by the time he was taken in by the Jedi Temple, well, there were cultural differences that the Jedi culture wasn't exactly ready to deal with."

"You think that his past justifies what he did?" she asked harshly, "You think that because he was once a decent enough person that undoes all the bad things he did-"

He cut her off, really not wanting to get her worked up about this, "No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying he didn't start out evil, and I know that because of all the people who loved him. Padme, Obi-Wan, Rex-"

"Rex?" Leia interrupted, he could practically see the wheels turning in her head. "He was the Captain of the 501st Legion," she said more to herself than him. "How far along is the war now?"

"We are in 18 BBY," Luke answered.

Leia paled, "The war ended in 19 BBY." Her voice grew sharper, "Has the Empire-?"

"No," he said, smiling, "the war is basically over. The Separatists droids are down and the Jedi have pulled back from the Outer Rim and neutral territories."

Her brow furrowed, "What did you do?"

Luke made a helpless gesture, "I mean, I as Anakin Skywalker kind of bluffed my way through. I didn't really know the history of this era, just the results. The whole situation of the Republic buying the clones to fight in a civil war really threw me, and for the Jedi to go along with it…" he shook his head. "Well, I know you said we were rebuilding the Republic. But Leia, we need to do better than that."

She looked at him for a long moment, then pulled him into a hug, "I love you, brother."

His heart twisted, it was the first time she had said those words to him, and he hugged her close, realizing that he had given up on hope of ever seeing her again.

As she probably had when he surrendered himself to Darth Vader and Palpatine.

He rested his cheek on her hair, "I'm sorry for leaving you on Endor. I don't think you are right about Anakin, but you were right about Darth Vader. He fell too far."

She squeezed him, and pulled back to look at him, "Is Anakin dead?"

Luke nodded, "When I came here, I felt his life force pass mine. Apparently I, he, was dead for three minutes before I woke up."

"And the Emperor?"

He sighed, "I've been training. I was scared to reveal him because I didn't know if he was the only one behind it all. Honestly, there's just so much that I didn't know or understand. But I knew he was a Sith Lord who apparently survived thousands of Jedi, and probably a few Sith. So I took every opportunity to train. I was going to try and assassinate him this week actually, but I was brought here."

"Where is here?"

He looked around, reaching out with the Force and the answer was…

"Wow," he breathed. He knew that the Force was always around him, he knew it, but here… he closed his eyes, cutting out the star strewn night, the land around them that was a dark shadow where nothing living seemed to grow.

But with his eyes closed, he knew this planet was far from lifeless.

This felt like… well, like a convergence of the Force. As if he was in the Force's very heart.

"Luke?" Leia called to him, "Where are we?"

He opened his eyes, searching her, a slight ripple in the Force around her that now he was paying attention to he could sense. But Leia showed no signs of pain.

"Forceland?" he ventured and stepped back from her, "Honestly, I don't know but the Force is active here."

He finally spotted her arm. "You're hurt," he accused, taking her other hand and pulling her toward some rocks to sit on.

"I'm fine," she said, "really, I am. Where were you before you were brought here? Do you think someone brought us here, or was it some mystical crap with your powers?"

"Probably the Force," he said, pushing her hands down. "Did you get this from trying to take the base on Endor?" he asked as he parted the rip in her sleeve to see the damage. She had been skimmed by a blaster shot, the skin was burned. The graze was just deep enough that the wound was oozing some. She would be okay if it was treated, though she would have probably been scarred.

"Yes, Han and I…" her voice trailed off.

"I was on Serreno," he offered as he laid his hand over the wound, she flinched only the tiniest bit.

"What were you doing on Serreno during the Clone Wars, Luke?" she asked in a tone that clearly illustrated that the wrong twin had been sent into the past. Leia would have had a clue as to what she was doing.

He let his life spill slightly into her aura, hers somehow more familiar to him than his own, and the wound closed over without strain and without any scarring on her.

"How?" she breathed.

He grinned, "Force healing."

She blinked at him, "Thank you, I didn't know- Back to the conversation, what were you doing on Serreno?"

"You know," he said lightly, "negotiations. Obi-Wan took me as a Padawan in this time. He got to 're-train' me because I pretended to have amnesia."

She glared at him, "Setting aside how clever that was, I know damn well that the Count of Serreno was Count Dooku who was a Sith Lord."

"See, I didn't know that until I talked to him on Mon Cala."

"Mon Cala?"

He nodded, "I met Prince, King now, Lee-Char and Captain Ackbar. I was sent in with Obi-Wan and we brokered a peace treaty, both between the natives and the Separatist and Republic interests."

She grinned at him, "I told you that you would have made a good Prince of Alderaan. Especially, as you keep trying to distract me. What were you doing on Serreno?"

"And you would have made a terrible moisture farmer, you have less patience than I do. I wanted to learn more about Palpatine and Dooku, the Emperor's current apprentice, wants him dead almost as much as we do. He was pretty closed lipped, but I think I know enough that if I got the surprise advantage on Palpatine I could win."

"And how did you win Dooku's trust?" she asked, tugging him down to sit beside her.

"I won a duel against Master Dooku and his apprentice, Asajj Ventress."

Her brown eyes were bright in the starlight as they widened to almost comical proportions, "You won a duel against Darth Tyrannus and his Assassin?"

He grinned, more pleased with her praise than he would have been if those words came from a thousand others, "I did. It wasn't really that hard. Darth Vader was better, and I'm told I don't fight like a conventional Jedi which threw Dooku. He's old school."

He thought of Yoda, both the Yoda of his original time and this one.

She touched his cheek, "Luke, what is it?"

"Just… sometimes, well, I believe the Jedi could be more than they are. And I'm realizing that the Yoda who was broken, was a better teacher to me than this one who sits in the centre of a vast Order. But how can that be? I mean, Yoda died, Obi-Wan died, and the legacy of the Jedi would have been left with me who had a pitiful three months of training. How can I even think that Master Yoda was better in our reality?"

"Oh, Luke, the Jedi were blindsided in this time. Of course, you can see their faults when you know the trap they are walking into. The Yoda you knew understood what the Jedi, no, what the galaxy, stood to lose. The Jedi Order fell in a single standard day. Those who remained were scattered to the winds and then hunted down. That's why Obi-Wan stayed with you, not just to protect you, but because he was one of the most well known and visible Jedi Generals of the Republic. He was a fugitive."

"I never heard of any bounty on a General Kenobi," Luke said in turn.

"If there had been an active bounty on him then the galaxy would have known that a war hero from the Republic had survived. Palpatine did a very good job of nearly erasing the Jedi from known history.

"The Jedi were always secretive, even people who had met Jedi likely didn't learn as much as you might think. My father was an exception because he had close friends among the Order. But most politicians of like mind were silenced, even Papa never spoke of the Jedi publicly."

"Well he couldn't have if he was protecting you," Luke said, "I still don't understand how you were kept safe. Vader didn't even recognize you when he-"

"Tortured me," she supplied coldy. "That's probably because he's a self-centred stunted tauntaun."

Luke laughed.

She smiled at him, "Papa told me my father had been a Jedi, that the marriage between him and my mother was a well kept secret."

Such a well kept secret that Obi-Wan hadn't even known, Luke thought. "Did Bail tell you he died in the war?"

"Yes, he did," she said without resentment.

Luke gaped at her, "And you didn't- He lied to-"

"He was protecting me, Luke. If Papa had told me Vader was my father, that he betrayed everything and everyone who ever loved him, everything the Jedi were supposed to stand for… I would have been devastated. And I wouldn't have been able to restrain my reaction to him if I ever had to deal with him face to face. Which, considering what Vader did to me, that white lie saved my life."

"But when I told you…"

"When you told me he was our birth father, I was more worried about you doing something stupid, like sacrificing yourself; which you did," she met his gaze directly. "But you were a Skywalker too, and even if Darth Vader was our genetic father, if that meant that I could claim you as my brother, my twin, then that isn't all bad."

"I love you too," was all he could think to say, "you being my sister was the best thing that ever happened to me."

She squeezed his hand, "Papa told me that no one must ever learn who my birth parents were. That he didn't know if I was Force sensitive or not, which he must have suspected, but if anyone ever found out that I was Force sensitive that I could be killed or worse. Vader could have made me an Inquisitor."

"Inquisitor? And you told me you didn't have powers," he said, feeling as though he had been misled.

"He told me this not months before he and Mama died with Alderaan. It never sunk in, not really. And when I met you, and you were so publicly claiming to be a Jedi in training, to being a Skywalker… I was glad it wasn't me. I don't want that kind of power, Luke, it scares me."

Worry filled Luke, "I scare you?"

"No!" she exclaimed, squeezing both his hands, and unlike Anakin's metal arm, Luke could feel the warmth of her hands in both of his, even the mechanical one.

"Luke," Leia chided, "I believe in you. I trust you more than I trust myself. You are good, and whole, and everything that the galaxy should aspire to be."

He ducked his head, "I'm not that great."

"You're not perfect, no one is, but the core of who you are is light."

He looked at her, "I see the same in you, sister."

She smiled at him sadly, "I try, that's how Papa raised me. But inside," she touched her heart, "Sometimes, I just want to rage against the galaxy that gluttoned itself and bowed to tyrants. To those who turned a blind eye to every evil around them. I don't want to be a Jedi, because the morality of the galaxy should never have rested with the Jedi Order, the galaxy should not have fallen with ten thousand Knights of some archaic religion."

Luke had never thought of it like that. Though he understood her distaste of less than ten thousand Force users deciding the fates of trillions throughout the galaxy. So he asked gently, "And you think that learning to be a Jedi will take away from who you are? That you can't be both a politician, a general, a rebel, and a Jedi?"

"In the Republic?" she asked, "No, I couldn't have been all those things. If you and I had been born in this time and we had become Jedi, we wouldn't have had parents, not our birth parents or adoptive parents. We would have lived in the Temple on Coruscant. As twins, they would have taught us not to depend on each other. And Jedi cannot hold political seats. I wouldn't have been me if I had been a Jedi."

Luke nodded, "It was different for me. I was… well, I was bored and lonely. I had friends, but none of them understood me. I think the closest person I had was Old Ben, who understood me in ways I didn't even understand myself. I think I would have liked to be trained early because I know the Force was always with me. It was always a part of my life.

"I remember doing odd things as a child, 'unexplainable' things. Even if they were small, like reaching a wrench from under a shelving unit. But my Uncle and Aunt would always react badly to it if they caught me at it. I never had the opportunity to speak with Ben about it because Uncle Owen hated him."

It made his feelings for the old man more complex than they should have been. Luke had always loved the old mentor. Memories he had long meditated on since starting his Jedi training, Luke now knew as an adult that Ben had always been on the edges of his life, and had saved his life more than once from Tuskins and other perils that only settlers in the wilderness of the desert could understand.

And Uncle Owen's despising of Old Ben had driven a wedge between both relationships, allowing neither man to truly be the father that Luke had wished for all his life.

"You've thought of something," Leia said.

"I didn't really grieve for my Uncle and Aunt when they died. People die in the desert and I did what most farmers do, I let it fuel my resentment, my impatience. And though I know that they loved me, and I loved them, they both always made it clear that I wasn't their son. I was Anakin Skywalker's son. I was Shmi Skywalker's grandson."

"And our grandmother was only Uncle Owen's stepmother, from what I could tell, they were no close. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru met our father once, and whatever they saw or knew about him, I think they were afraid of him. It coloured everything they taught me.

"'Don't be like your father, Luke.' 'You're father was a good for nothing,' and 'He left his mother behind, don't you dare abandon your family like he did.' Anytime I acted out or complained about tending the harvest, whenever I begged to leave to get an education for myself, Uncle Owen would disappear with some version of, 'just like his father.'"

Luke sighed, "They told me he died, but there was this unspoken current to the way they spoke about him that he could have just as likely abandoned me to travel the galaxy as have actually died. Uncle Owen always spoke about him with such disdain, but then I think he blamed his own father's death on Grandmother Shmi, as Owen put it, 'getting herself kidnapped' by Tuskens."

"Our grandmother was kidnapped by Tusken raiders?" Leia asked.

He nodded.

"How is that her fault?"

"In Owen's eyes, she wasn't from the desert, she was a freed slave. Grandfather Lars bought her and he lost his leg trying to rescue her, he died a few months after having failed to save her."

"And your Uncle resented you for that?" she asked.

He looked down at their joint hands, "You're the first person I've ever talked to this about. Uncle Owen wasn't a cruel man, of course, he didn't blame me for anything. But I wasn't content, Leia, I never was. I never wanted to be a moisture farmer and the only reason I stayed as long as I did was because my Uncle and Aunt had no one else. Uncle Owen knew that only my sense of family kept me from not finding work as a pilot, because even in the dust fields of nowhere, I had proven myself to be a talented pilot. I could have found work in the city easily enough.

"So, naturally, my Uncle kept me from the cities as much as he could. He did everything he could to guilt me into staying, refusing to hire help to keep me busy. He always made it clear that he and Aunt Beru were the only family I had."

"But then Obi-Wan told you that Anakin Skywalker was much more than some backwaters absentee smuggler," Leia supplied.

Luke looked at her, "It was like being handed my freedom. And coming from Ben of all people. I hadn't seen him in a few years, but he felt like family to me. At that point, Uncle Owen had lied to me about my father, which ought to be criminal on Tatooine considering the place fathers occupy in our cultures. Ben had just told me that my father had been the finest pilot in the galaxy, and a war hero to boot. The Jedi part meant very little to me other than him being a noble warrior. I wanted to be like my father and the cool glowy weapon that my father had held in his own hands had felt like-"

Had felt like his destiny was calling him.

Leia nodded, "You chose to follow Ben on the errand I sent for him and-"

"Nope," Luke cut her off, "I went with guilt. I hadn't even said goodbye to my Uncle and Aunt, I couldn't just disappear on them. And despite your message, it seemed all so much bigger than me. I felt inadequate. All of Uncle Owen's words came back to me. I was a moisture farmer, I owed them everything, and I could never be my father who was some mythical great knight and Republic wartime pilot. I wanted a father, but I wasn't ready to save the entire galaxy."

"But I thought you always wanted to join the Rebellion?"

"I did, but as a pilot, not a wizard. 'Course, my options dried up when the Empire killed my Aunt and Uncle and Ben pointed out that if I stayed, I would be dead too."

"Probably you would have ended up worse than dead," Leia said with a wince, "Vader would have found you and he could have hardly failed to connect a Luke Skywalker living on his mother's, Shmi Skywalker's old home in proximity to the old wizard, Ben Kenobi."

Luke shook his head, "You know, after getting to know the younger Obi-Wan, I think that was his way of being cheeky."

"What do you mean?" Leia asked.

"Well, apparently Anakin hates sand."

She stared at him, "But he's from Tatooine."

He nodded, "Which is probably why he hated it, and if I'm to believe how dramatic everyone says he was, it fits him to be angry at not the scorching suns but the sand."

Again, Luke wished he could actually meet their father to rib him about that.

"Anyway, as dramatic as Anakin was, Obi-Wan is really sarcastic and has the most peculiar sense of humour."

Leia smiled, "That fits the stories Papa used to tell of him."

"So what better 'screw you' is there than hiding in plain sight? Obi-Wan changes his first name, and though Kenobi isn't a common name, most people on Tatooine, especially out in the deeper deserts, didn't care about the Republic, much less the Galactic Empire."

"Nobody was going to connect a fugitive Kenobi and a hermit?"

Luke shrugged, "Farmers are usually hermits, one way or another. And Skywalker was already a known name, even if Vader knew his mother didn't have any more children, that name wouldn't have made any ripples in the area. Which means no reports to the cities, no eyebrows raised at the name either Kenobi or Skywalker."

"But Vader himself would have known if he had gone to Tatooine at any point in those nineteen years," Leia said slowly, then raised her brows, "But he hates sand."

Luke grinned, "But he hates sand."

"Obi-Wan is a kriffing asshole," she said, "I respect him even more now."

They laughed.

Luke, still smiling, turned her palms up, "Leia, you don't have to be scared of the Force. You don't have to be a Jedi to wield it, to hear it, either.."

Her smile fell away, "I don't want to be a Sith."

Luke sighed, "What's with everyone thinking that's the only two options. You said yourself that you're not a Jedi, yet you found me on Bespin with the Force."

"Because you're my twin brother."

"Yes, in flesh and within the Force. Now come on, Paramour of Tenacity, be brave." he lifted a pebble off the ground without looking, letting it float gently down into her hand as softly as a downy feather rather than a stone, "The Force is present here, it's easier to use it than to ignore it."

"Luke, I don't think this is a good idea."

"Why?"

"Because we should be finding ways to get off this planet, or to discover what planet we are on."

"For once in our existence, the galaxy isn't on fire. We don't need to be anywhere. Besides, Obi-Wan is here," he said, feeling that Force wanted them to stay put, to wait, and Luke had learned to listen to that sense whenever it came because most of the time the Force was trying to pull him in a thousand directions.

"What do you mean he's here?"

"I mean on world," he said, "Come on, Leia. Just for a few hours can we set aside wars and lineage and celebrate being together? Celebrate that against all odds and whatever it is that is happening to us and the galaxy, that we found each other again? This is one of the few times we have been able to speak to each other in length without running for our lives or plotting impossible attacks against an Empire a billion times bigger than us."

She pressed her lips together, "You think teaching me to be a Jedi knight is setting aside responsibility?"

"Leia, I'm not even sure I am a Jedi Knight, apparently it takes decades of training, I have three years. I just want to show you the Force, I want you to see what I can of the world when I close my eyes."

She sighed, "Alright, wizard, show me your tricks."

He felt joy zing through him, "You can feel me, right?"

Leia nodded.

"Alright, well, imagine you have a lens focused on me, then picture the stone in our hands, let your focus extend, it is as much a part of the Force as I am."

"The stone is not a Jedi."

On this planet, place, plain, whatever it was, Luke actually thought the stone might be more a part of the Force than the entire Jedi Order was, but he left that alone. "Force sensitives are just that, sensitive to the Force, able to communicate with it actively, but none-Force sensitives are as much a part of the Force as we are, they are just neutral. Which is why it is easier for a Force sensitive to effect the Force in or around something that is otherwise neutral."

"Because we aren't neutral?" she asked sceptically.

He gave her a look, "Leia, do you consider yourself to be a neutral person?"

She held his gaze for a long moment before smirking, "Not hardly."

"Okay, then take your energy and change the inert Force around the pebble to move the pebble."

"Just like that?"

"You set your own limits," he challenged.

She met his challenge with raising not the pebble in their hands, but the larger stones they were sitting on.

And something widened between, a connection, a loop, and Luke wasn't sure whose strength, whose concentration they were using to lift the stones.

But whatever was happening, felt right, as the Force balanced between them.

Mortis 18 BBY - General and Master Obi-Wan Kenobi

Flying to this supposed Mortis, had been, from the start of the Ghost of Master Qui-Gon Jinn showing up to flying the entire 7th Sky Corps, minus the two Star Destroyers headed to the Core with freed slaves, to Mortis, had been, well, an exercise for manually piloting ships that did not recognize 'white-directionless-mysterious-substance' as acceptable flying conditions. But as they were fully staffed, the ships stayed in the air.

The Force bless the clones.

Obi-Wan had never imagined he would ever see his Master on this side of the grave.

That they had just entered the atmosphere of a planet that seemed to almost scream and sing with the Force, but not quite masking the presence of Anakin and Luke.

"Master, does this place feel weird to you?" Ahsoka asked.

"Padawan, I'm pretty sure you have a magical bird sitting on your shoulder, my old Master's ghost visited us to tell us to come here, Anakin was possessed by his time travelling son, and Anakin who would presumably be dead, isn't. What about this isn't weird?"

The bird, who Ahsoka had long ago named Morai, tweeted happily.

Satine took his hand, "They are going to be okay."

Obi-Wan held onto her hand like a lifeline, he hadn't imagined he would be able to keep his purpose and be able to be with Satine. That this new life came with its multitude of challenges, seemed entirely worth it.

He understood why Anakin had married Padme, it just saddened him that Anakin hadn't trusted him with that secret. Of course, he wouldn't have been happy with his Padawan's choice nor encouraged it, but he wouldn't have ruined Anakin's dreams with that secret either.

"I hope so, but Qui-Gon made it sound urgent," he said.
"Are those rocks suspended?" Boil asked, as they descended to the planet.

"The readings said this place had a normal gravitational pull," Rex said.

"It's the Force," Ahsoka said with some awe, "This planet is alive with it."

"It is possible for supposable inanimate objects to be Force sensitive," Obi-Wan said.

His youngest Padawan looked up at him, "Really?"

"All things are a part of the Force, Padawan, in some sense, all things are living, just different points of experience."

Ahsoka gave him a half smile that said clearly, she both heard him and didn't accept that as a complete answer.

Satine laughed, "Obi-Wan hated when Qui-Gon used to talk like that too, Ahsoka."

And as the sun rose over the barren earth they landed on, plants began to grow like spring on fast forward.

Driodbait made a sound of distress, "That's it, everything I was ever taught about physics is a lie."

"It's possible we aren't even in reality anymore but within the Force. Perhaps it is not physics that is a lie but this piece of the galaxy we find ourselves in, if it is, in fact, a part of our galaxy at all," Not Obi-Wan, Not Ahsoka said.

Everyone turned to look at Marshall Commander Cody Kenobi.

"Huh," Ahsoka said, and gave her Master a look, "I guess you really did adopt the clones as your Padawans after all."

Obi-Wan sighed, but his attention snagged on a thought even as they continued to walk in the direction that he knew to be Anakin. This close to both the Skywalkers with the heightened awareness of the Force, telling them apart was easy.

Luke was a sun, burning peacefully in the distance. Anakin was a wildfire raging ever higher with his anxiety.

But still, Obi-Wan paused, "Ahsoka, when we catch up to Anakin, have you given any thought to-"

"Who's going to complete my training?" she completed for him, "You are, unless you want-"

"No," he said, cutting her off. "I thought from the first time I met you that you were going to be my next Padawan. I regret not fighting Yoda on making that official. Anakin would have likely have been a mentor to you anyway given how often we work together, but he was not ready for the responsibility of another's education."

"I learned a lot from, Anakin," she said, "But we both relied on you more than each other."

He smiled at her, "I will see you Knighted, Ahsoka Tano, and whether we are a part of the Order officially or not is irrelevant. I was a Member of the High Council and I am a Master, you will be no less a Knight than any other."

She grinned, then her expression fell, "I don't want Anakin to take it as a rejection."

"And if he does, that will be a lesson for him to overcome," Obi-Wan said.

"You realize if he isn't Luke any more than he isn't technically a Padawan anymore, right?" she remarked.

"Padawan mine, once a Padawan, always a Padawan."

"I couldn't agree more, Padawan Kenobi," Qui-Gon's Ghost said.

Obi-Wan jumped, a well of emotions being disturbed at the ghostly visage walking beside him.

Satine shook her shoulders like a bird settling her feathers, "Master Jinn, I would appreciate you not scaring the daylights out of me."

"My apologies, my dear, I meant only to inform you that you are headed in the right direction," Qui-Gon told them.

"Is Anakin alright?" Rex asked.

"Panicked," Qui-Gon said, "But the danger for him lies in his future of deeds yet done."

"Basic," Hardcase snapped at the ghost, "Speak in Dasic."

Obi-Wan, who was familiar, despite the time that had passed, with Qui-Gon's mildest expressions, caught the almost smile the ghost directed at Hardcase.

"His daughter is going to try to kill him, her reasoning is not unsound, however, Anakin's true death may put things off balance," he looked at Obi-Wan. "Anakin is no longer the young man you last knew, but neither is he wholly ready to bring peace within himself and his children. Such a thing is the work of a lifetime, not a day."

"Still weird to think Anakin has two kids that are adults," Ahsoka remarked. "What was his daughter's name again?"

"Leia," Cody supplied, "Luke said his twin sister is named Leia."

"Let me guess, she's an extremely powerful Force sensitive, isn't she?" Ahsoka asked flatly.

"Naturally," Qui-Gon said, "Or she wouldn't have been taken by the Daughter and the Son."

"Great, Padme Amidala with Jedi powers, this is going to end well," Fives lamented.

"She has her father's temperament," Qui-Gon informed them cheerfully. "But she is untrained in the ways of the Force, for either good or ill."

Obi-Wan could feel the migraine forming behind his eyes, "The Daughter and the Son are not Leia and Luke."

"No, they are manifestations of the Force, the Son, the Daughter, and the Father are the Ones. Anakin has already replaced the Father. It remains to be seen whether the Son and the Daughter, who are not wholly mortal, or the twins will go on. But I warn you, Obi-Wan, Leia and Luke respect you, Anakin has yet to earn their trust. But they will need Anakin to balance the Darkness."

"Um, why are they dealing with the Dark Side at all?" Ahsoka asked.

"It is their nature," Qui-Gon said.

Obi-Wan frowned, "You told me to follow the Light."

"I told you to listen to the Living Force. For Ahsoka, and Luke the Light are adequate, it will keep them sane, for Anakin and Leia, their paths are not as clear. If Anakin survives this day, he will be the only one who can guide Leia in the ways of the Force. Anakin is the only Jedi who will have an equal understanding of the Light and the Dark."

"And if he doesn't survive?" Satine asked the ghost.

"Then Leia and Luke must die with their father," Qui-Gon said in that removed tone that Obi-Wan had always dreaded hearing, "it is the nature of the Ones. Only between the three, the Light, the Dark, and the Grey can there be true balance."

"No," Rex said.

Qui-Gon looked at the Major, "You do not understand the ways of the Force."

"I don't need to," Rex said unflinchingly, "Luke is a person, Anakin is a person, and so would their Leia. They are more than weights on a scale, they are people. If you are truly asking us to kill the survivors of a family fraud, then I am going to find some mystical way to bring you back to life and kill you instead." Then after an extremely belatedly, Rex tacked on, "Sir."

Obi-Wan hid a smile behind a hand. Rex was truly a Skywalker.

"I can feel you smirking, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon warned, "But the fallout-"

"Do not ask this of me, Master," Obi-Wan interrupted, not wanting to hear it as he pressed forward. If he failed the galaxy would be lost.

That had been a burden Qui-Gon had saddled him at the dawn of his knighting the eve of his Master's death.

Obi-Wan, promise me you will train the boy. He...is the Chosen One...he will bring balance. Train him.

It was a fate Obi-Wan could never escape, and if Anakin failed, then it would be Obi-Wan's fault, because no matter how hard he had tried, at his best, he would never be Qui-Gon Jinn. Those were shoes he could never fill.

Something Anakin had never failed to point out to him.

A sad look overcame the ghost's features, "I know I ask too much of you, Padawan, I always have, and I am sorry for it. Because without me, without my actions we would not be in this mess, but it is the nature of the Ones, that without all three parts the minds of the others will shatter, decay, and they will become unrecognisable to what or who they might have been."

"So what are you asking me to do, Master? I trained Anakin as you asked."

A look of such regret crossed his Master's face then, "Obi-Wan, I am truly sorry. You were ready to be a Knight but-"

"Not ready for a Padawan," Obi-Wan completed, "I am well aware of that. And if you warnings are anything to go by then my shortcomings doomed Anakin. So what is it you ask of me now, Master Jinn? What bit of wisdom have you come to impart?"

Qui-Gon reached out a hand, but let it fall, because, despite his presence, he was still a dead man. "Only that it is not too late. You are a better man than I was, and the Skywalkers need you still. May the Force be with you."

"And with you, Master," Obi-Wan said as Qui-Gon disappeared.

Satine exchanged a look with Cody.

"What?" Obi-Wan asked them both.

"Nothing," they said in unison.

Obi-Wan would have protested this, but then he heard a voice calling to him, "Obi-Wan!"

He spun to face Anakin darting toward him.

Satine let go of his hand as Anakin almost crashed into him as he wrapped him in a hug. Obi-Wan hugged him back just as fiercely.

Anakin pulled back, "By the Force, Master, have I missed you."

"Anakin?" Ahsoka asked, "Is that really you?"

"Who else would it be, Snips?"

Her face lit up, "You called me Snips!"

"Haven't I always?" He released Obi-Wan to wrap the Togruta in a bear hug. Stepping back from her, he asked, "And what took you guys so long?"

"You know," Ahsoka said with a flopping hand motion, "civil war, toppling slave empires, starting rebellions."

Anakin's brows shot up, "The Sepies weren't enough trouble?"

"Oh, no, the droids are down. The Separatists are bankrupt and armyless."

"That's great news!" Anakin enthused, "An easy victory for the Republic then. Dooku must love prison."

"Actually, Dooku has yet to be caught," Obi-Wan said, thinking of his Master's Master who had changed tactics so dramatically at the slightest reasonability of Luke with the Mon Calamari.

"What!?" Anakin exclaimed, "Why not?"

"Because when the IBC and Trading Federation were completely slaughtered by an unknown party, the Republic's economy went under along with the Separatist armies, though the Outer Rims are doing fine. As are the Jedi Corps," Satine explained.

As if noticing her for the first time, Anakin looked at her with wide eyes, "Duchess? What are you doing here?"

"Obi-Wan and I are getting married."

Obi-Wan dearly wished he had a hologram recorder in that moment, but no matter, he would always remember the look of pure shock that overcame Anakin's face, his jaw slackening.

"Nice to be consulted about such arrangements," Obi-Wan said mildly to Satine, his now fiance, Anakin still gaping at them.

Obi-Wan tore his gaze away from Anakin to look into the most beloved face in his life, the one who had captured his heart with her fire, with her Mandalorian steel, and her unwavering belief that the galaxy could be a better place than it was. Her words were just for him, when she said, "You were mine, Obi-Wan, the moment you left the Order, my love."

"What?" Anakin squeaked.

Satine and he turned to look at the shell shocked young Knight, who looked as if he had been caught between the eyes by the solid wrap of a durasteel pipe.

"Oh, that reminds me," Obi-Wan said, then lashed his hand out to cuff his old Padawan on the side of the head.

"Ow!" Anakin exclaimed, rubbing the spot, "What in the Dune Sea hells was that for?"

"For not inviting me to your wedding."

He paled some, "Um, you know-"

"Everyone knows about you and Padme," Cody said.

"Talk about the relationship issues you are going to have when we get back to reality," Cutup muttered.

"The Council-" Anakin started.

"That's irrelevant, Sir," Rex said, "General Luke Skywalker already left the Order on your behalf."

"Whoa, whoa, you all know about Luke too?"

"Old news," Hevy said.

"He's been in you for the last three years," Ahsoka said.

"Excuse me?" Anakin asked.

"Luke's spirit ended up in your body," Obi-Wan told him.

Anakin's eyes went wider, "You mentioned someone was running around in my body. Like I was in the Father's form. How could you not have noticed it wasn't me?"

Several clones answered in unison with varying phrases of, "We noticed."

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka grinned at the perturbed look on Anakin's face.

"Was he that bad?"

Ahsoka snorted, Obi-Wan almost choked on a laugh, and the clones sniggered.

"What? What's so funny?" Anakin asked.

"Luke pretended to have amnesia, which might have worked as a cover if he wasn't almost your opposite in all things," Obi-Wan explained.

"He's a great general like you, that wasn't different," Rex said.

"Except for Luke having more experience in the military in galactic warfare than any of the Jedi seemed to," Cody remarked.

Obi-Wan knew that was a reserved statement, of what he could figure from what his men would say of Luke, is that he had not been a Temple raised Jedi and had been fighting an Empire in his future on the losing, yet moral, side of a galactic rebellion. Something that Luke seemed to have reimagined in the past to surprising fallouts.

Ahsoka was grinning at Anakin, "Luke liked the archives, meditating, and had barely any interest in learning how to use a lightsaber. He prefers using telekinesis in battle."

"And blasters," Appo added, "He shoots as well Senator Amidala."

A riot of emotions overcame Anakin's expression, but finally, he settled on a proud smile. "So I suppose this is Luke's lightsaber then?" he asked, unclipping and handing the saber hilt to Obi-Wan. "I thought it was Qui-Gon's at first, but I never thought you would alter it."

Obi-Wan took the offered hilt and passed Anakin back his own that Luke had given to him in the Council room.

"Thank you, Master," Anakin said with a breath of relief as he took back his own lightsaber almost as warmly as he had welcomed Obi-Wan and Ahsoka.

As if he had been without a lightsaber for far too long.

"Luke made this," Obi-Wan said, turning on Luke's lightsaber, it was perfectly balanced. And Obi-Wan was honoured at the homage in the hilt's design to be both reflective of his own blade and his Master's. "He took Qui-Gon's kyber crystals, but he designed this hilt himself."

Ahsoka's smile was bright, "It's green like mine."

Anakin shook his head, "Obi-Wan, why was Luke wearing your robes?"

"He didn't like yours," Ahsoka said, "He left your armour under a bunch of your 'projects' in your room. I think it offended him for some reason."

Anakin frowned, but shaking his head, he said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to be this distracted. We need to get to the twins before the Son and the Daughter do. I swear, they've cracked."

"Cracked?" Rex asked, "Qui-Gon said they weren't wholly mortal."

Anakin looked at him, "Captain Rex, you met Qui-Gon?"

"His ghost," Satine supplied.

"Major Rex Skywalker," Cody corrected Anakin a moment later.

Anakin blinked, "Skywalker?"

"The clone troopers got brought into the Jedi Service Corps," Obi-Wan explained briefly, "They've started registering themselves with full names."

"We've been taking our ranking Jedi surnames," Appo elaborated.

Anakin grinned, "So you're Sergeant Appo Skywalker?"

Appo remained straight faced as he said, "No, Sir. Captain Appo Tano, Sir."

The seriousness of his tone was somewhat undermined by Ahsoka and Appo exchanging a fist bump.

Anakin smiled at them, but his smile fell as he went back to the problem at hand, "To answer you, Major Skywalker, no, the Son and Daughter are not wholly mortal nor are they at all human except in appearance. But I have been with them for eight years and in this last one, they have changed, degraded in ways I don't have words for. They brought Luke and Leia to this place to kill them."

"Why?" Satine asked.

"Because they think by killing them that they can take their place and I will love them."

Obi-Wan could only stare.

"So they are insane," Satine said.

Obi-Wan reached out to the training bond between himself and Luke and gave a hard tug.

There was an answering tug a split second later. Obi-Wan hadn't been able to communicate words through their bond like had been able to at times with Ahsoka and Anakin, but he felt that his intention was clear enough.

Come back to me, Padawan.

Obi-Wan looked up at the Star Destroyers, if they stayed here then…

"We have to go find them," Anakin said.

Obi-Wan shook his head, "Luke will have an easier time finding us, then us finding them."

"But he could be hurt!" Anakin exclaimed.

"Calm down, Anakin," Obi-Wan said words with painful familiarity, it wasn't something he had ever really needed to say to Luke. "He's fine."

"How can you know that?" Anakin asked.

Something more came through the bond, and Obi-Wan glimpsed an image through the Force. He saw the young woman he had seen in a dream-vision he had where he had spoken to first Anakin, then Leia and Bail in the halls of Alderaan.

Luke was with his sister, Princess Leia Organa, they were safe and headed in their direction.

"He's on his way here, if we just wait-"

Anakin cut him off, "You don't understand what dangers there are here."

"Luke is my Padawan learner," Obi-Wan said, "I can sense him through our bond. Yes, I can quite believe that there are dangers here, but the Force is stronger here for everyone. Luke is skilled enough to protect himself and his sister. We won't help them by running after them and leaving the Sky Corps defenceless-"

"There are two deities hunting them," Anakin said, taking an angry step toward him. "I will not leave my children defenceless."

Anakin is no longer the young man you last knew, but neither is he wholly ready to bring peace within himself and his children, Qui-Gon's came back to him.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan cautioned, "trust him, trust me, Luke can make it back to us. But I don't think we should leave our men, who have no ability to wield the Force-"

"You're right, and we can't allow the Son to get onto any of these transports and out into the wider galaxy. He's worse than any Sith and he's a shapeshifter."

"Brilliant," Satine cursed.

Obi-Wan spared her smirk even as his mind spun, weighing their priorities.

The Son and Daughter were trying to kill Luke and Leia, and Qui-Gon had warned that if Luke, Leia, or Anakin died that they would be in trouble on a galactic scale.

But Qui-Gon hadn't stressed that the twins were in danger, no, he said Anakin was the one in danger.

He had said that Leia was going to try to kill Anakin.

Obi-Wan did not think telling Anakin this would help in any way shape or form. But he also knew that he couldn't stop Anakin from running off.

Such powers had never been Obi-Wan's, and he couldn't leave just Ahsoka with the Corps. Ahsoka was powerful and an officer, but he couldn't put that on her.

Obi-Wan sighed, "Ahsoka, Rex, Domino Squad, go with Anakin, I'll stay behind and wait for Luke and Leia to get here on their own." And then he placed a hand to his lips as if thinking, but really he was just covering his mouth as he spoke so low that only Ahsoka, with Togruta enhanced senses, could have heard him, "Keep Leia away from Anakin."

Ahsoka gave a silent gesture that she had heard Obi-Wan before she morphed the slight gesture into a wave goodbye to Appo. It was a silent language that Anakin might have been able to read if he had been looking for it.

But Anakin hadn't been looking for it.

That was a relief in some ways and yet Anakin's familiar impatience filled Obi-Wan with trepidation as he watched two of his Padawans walk off into the unknown.

This was all going to fall on trust.

Trusting that Anakin wasn't going to blow this up, which had nearly resulted in Anakin's permanent demise the last time, trusting that if they did run into trouble that Ahsoka might be able to mediate the situation, trusting that Luke really would and was going to make it back to Obi-Wan's side in one piece.

He tried to centre himself as anxiety threatened to collapse his connection to the Force even as he rushed about him as if he were standing barefoot on a livewire.

"Trust them, Obi-Wan, you trained them well," Satine said.

Obi-Wan met her gaze, and for once he didn't shelve his worry, didn't bury like he had to in front of the Jedi Council for years. "But what if I didn't teach them what they most needed to overcome? What if I failed them?"

"Obi-Wan, you have failed no one. You cannot control the future," she said.

"Sir," Cody spoke up, "Neither you nor they are alone." He put a hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder, "Trust that together there is nothing we cannot overcome."

Obi-Wan felt a chime ring through the world, as if here in the centre of the convergence of the Force, those words, that these actions would manifest into reality.

And it gave Obi-Wan hope that together they truly could pull the galaxy out of the darkness it had been descending into.

AN: Thoughts, reactions, mourning doves, or feedback, pretty please?