AN: Alright, some of you guys asked for it, so here it is. Based on From Grace, I Fall and From Darkness, I Rise, and the as of yet named sequel, this will be a collection of one-shots that cover varying perspectives of different chapters, or scenes that fill in time gaps, or anything else that you guys want to see or know more about. Just let me know in the comments what you want, and I'll get it done. These should be a fair bit shorter than my usual chapter length, so I should be able to get them out daily and/or in between chapters of the next story I'm writing. Really, this is just giving me some time to come up with a format I like for the next part. It's tricky.

This one's brought to you by BenArchive, over on ao3. Thanks man. You're the greatest!

Reflections

They called him Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Sithkiller. The Legendary Padawan. The Bane of the Dark Side. There were so many other names for the boy, it was difficult to remember them all, especially when new ones popped up every day when the Padawans gathered around and discussed the boy, his deeds so great, he was Knighted without undergoing the Trials, his fight so spectacular that it was on the datapad of every initiate in the Temple, a page out of a story so heroic that younglings ran about with sticks as they acted out that fateful fight on Naboo. To the Masters, the implications of that fight were dire and disturbing, an undercurrent of something in the Force, far off and nondescript that they couldn't sense, a feeling of something terribly wrong that was just out of reach, like the electric, heavy feeling in the air before a storm.

But to the younger Knights that served as Kenobi's peers, to the Padawans that aspired to his example, to the younglings and initiates that dreamt of becoming the student of a legend, it was all fun and games, the far-reaching implications lost in favor of a story of heroism, of good that triumphed over evil, of a tale that harkened back to the height of the Jedi's power in the Old Republic, when the mighty warriors of the Force had destroyed the evil Sith Lords once and for all. It was a good thing that the young knight in question was a quiet, studious, humble lad, if not a bit defiant like his Master had been, or such praise might get to his head.

But to Obi-Wan...to Obi-Wan, the feeling the Masters felt in the distant wasn't just some far off warning. It was very real, very present, and very close, gripping him with a feeling of cold that seemed to freeze him down to his bones, and Mace Windu had felt it, seen it in the boy's mind, and knew it to be the Dark Side. How this Padawan had felt the Dark Side so strongly when the Masters could not was beyond him. On the surface, there was nothing exceptional about Obi-Wan Kenobi besides the strength of his determination. He was dedicated, steadfast, a terribly hard worker, but his Master Qui-Gon had never said the boy was particularly...gifted. Not like the nine year old Force nexus he had found on Tatooine, the young Anakin Skywalker, who now, against the Council's prior judgement, was being trained as a Jedi, Padawan to Qui-Gon Jinn when Obi-Wan had been Knighted.

Perhaps because of his ordeal, Obi-Wan had ventured into Sith Space to look for the missing Sith Master, a task that took him across the galaxy on a mission that lasted over a year and saw him return with accusations against Count Dooku, a former Jedi Master that had left to study the Force on his own when the politics of the Republic became too disagreeable to him. Dooku was the Sith Lord, Tyranus, Kenobi had said, but nobody believed it. Mace didn't want to believe it. Dooku was an old man, and had been with the Jedi most of his life. If he was Sith, the Jedi would know. His old Master, Yoda, would know, but nobody sensed anything. Nobody but Obi-Wan.

After a year of the Council sitting deadlocked, unable to agree on a course of action or a solution, unable to confirm Kenobi's suspicions, but unwilling to outright deny them, the Jedi Masters finally moved to take action against the ancient enemy of the Jedi that had been absent for the better part of two years, to do something to investigate the dark presence they sensed approaching. There was no better Jedi to send than Obi-Wan Kenobi, if for nothing else, to ease his fears about Dooku. Mace had gone himself to prepare Obi-Wan for the mission in the best way he knew how: preparing for the worst.

The stubborn Jedi had taken a beating from the Korun Master, and though Kenobi's friends had considered the lesson needlessly harsh, Mace had done what he did because something did seem wrong. Because Obi-Wan's evidence was good, his reasoning sound, and the story he had put forth to the Council about Dooku's true nature had been frightening in its implications. It was very likely that someone had been manipulating Obi-Wan, that his time in Sith Space had put him in contact with the Dark Side, that his frightful trial on Naboo had him jumping at shadows, and his evidence was a long list of very convenient coincidences. And when the Force was involved, unrelated coincidences just didn't happen. There was something to what Obi-Wan was claiming, and Mace was going to do everything in his power to see to it that, if Dooku was Sith, Obi-Wan could cut him down.

If Mace was hard on the young Knight, it was because he believed in him, because he sensed great things from the first Jedi to kill a Sith in a thousand years, because his expectations for what he would become were great. In Obi-Wan, there was a great deal of defiance, and he and Mace clashed, loudly and often, a sign of a man that was both passionate about what he believed, and would stand by what he knew to be right. He was...rough, true, but with time and tempering, Mace saw Obi-Wan Kenobi as rising not just to the rank of Jedi Master, but to sitting beside the greatest of the Order on the Council. He was young and defiant, but followed the Code so strictly that he was often heard muttering it under his breath in times when he sought peace. Qui-Gon never made it on the Council because of his disregard of the Code, but Obi-Wan would, and it would be a breath of fresh air. The Council would benefit from a fresh, young perspective.

And then came Serenno.

Obi-Wan had seemed hesitant, uncertain in his final communication, and it was enough to send four Jedi, one exceptionally skilled Master among them, to meet Kenobi on Serenno and bring Dooku in. The fact that Obi-Wan made it out of what must have been a very tense meeting gave Mace the hope he needed to see Dooku returned to Coruscant for a proper interrogation by Grandmaster Yoda, and five Jedi should easily be able to accomplish such a task. After all, if he was Sith, he had let Obi-Wan go when he was almost certainly accused. Destroying his cover by killing Jedi was clearly not a part of his plan, if something sinister was afoot.

They had called him Sithkiller. Legend. But on that day, the Jedi called him by new names.

Martyr. The Fallen Hero. The Lost Knight. Anything, anything to keep his name from touching Jedi lips, as if it were cursed, as if saying it would invite bad things upon the Jedi, his very name a way to summon the Sith to exact their revenge.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was dead, along with the four Jedi that had been sent to their fate on Serenno.

"Master Windu." Mace quickly looked up from his place on the comfortable seat in the small, peaceful private quarters belonging to the tiny Jedi that sat before him. "Troubled, you are."

"Isn't everyone?" he asked softly, looking down at his hands in his lap. It had only been two weeks since Dooku had disappeared. Two weeks since the Jedi stormed Serenno by force, as they should have done from the beginning. Two weeks since they had witnessed the horrors within the magnificent palace on a planet that was far too beautiful for something so gruesome to occur.

"Your fault, this is not, Mace," Yoda said softly. They have had this conversation before. Many times.

"Isn't it?" Master Windu spat back, far harsher than intended. Emotions weren't denied to Jedi completely, they weren't droids. They were just expected to master them, to let things go when it was time, but for Master Windu, it wasn't time. He was grieving, yes, but above all else was the undercurrent of remorse he felt. He had done this. He had been responsible for coordinating Kenobi's missions, he had called four other Jedi in to help him when something clearly felt wrong and demanded the attention of the most powerful Masters in the Order on the off-chance that Kenobi had been right all along.

"Five Jedi are dead because of me," he said quietly, picking at his fingernails to avoid having to look at Yoda. He shamed the Grandmaster, or should have. "I sent them to their deaths, me." He scoffed. "Bring Dooku in, I told him. How could I have been so stupid..."

"Faith, you had, in his abilities," Yoda said, pointing his stick at the other Master. "Believed in Obi-Wan, you did."

"...yes." Windu covered his face with his hand. "I can still see the bodies," he said, pained and breathless. "Every time I close my eyes, I see them, I smell what it was like in that room. I failed Obi-Wan, and my failure led him to death and...dismemberment, the desecration of his body..." He hissed in his frustration and gripped his knees tightly, his fingers digging into his skin so hard he was certain that his dark skin would be visibly bruised. "I should have gone with him. As the one in charge of his missions, I should have been there, if for nothing else, to get that...snake Dooku!" he spat.

"Difficult, your task was, Master Windu," Yoda said. "The best you could, you did."

"And it still wasn't enough." Mace sighed deeply, the room silent, save for the soft ringing of the singing stones in the fountain he kept, a calming thing that was doing nothing for the guilt-ridden Korun. "I should have listened to him. I should have known to listen. He felt the Dark Side the way none of us could. If anyone had the right instincts about the Sith, it was him."

Yoda slowly nodded. "Darkness, there is, just beyond reach," he said, soft and solemn. "Sense it, we cannot, but in time, reveal itself, it will. Patient, we must be."

"It's Dooku," Mace growled, almost on reflex, and he winced as soon as he said it. "It's...difficult to sit here and do nothing. It's one thing to have dead Jedi on our hands, but the Sith-"

"Difficult, the Jedi Way is," Yoda quickly interrupted. "In pain, all of us are, for Obi-Wan. For Sar Labooda. For the others we have lost. For Dooku, fallen to the Dark Side. Try us, these times will. Tested, will be the strength of the Jedi. Worse, will Sith evil do in the future."

Mace nodded and was silent, his hands slowly wringing together in his guilt. "Obi-Wan deserved so much better," he finally said. "I had such high hopes for him. Maybe if I wasn't so hard on him, he would have trusted me more." He hissed as he shook his head. "I just hope he didn't suffer for long. Nobody deserves that."

Yoda smiled gently. "Similar, you two were. Stubborn."

"Yes, perhaps..." He ran a hand over his bald head and at last looked up, gazing out the window that overlooked the courtyard where funeral pyres burned just days before for their fallen brothers. "I saw Qui-Gon the other day. He still isn't talking."

"Pain, there was, between Obi-Wan and him," Yoda quietly explained. "Hope, he had, to soothe that pain. Gone, that is now. Recover from this, he may not. Loved his student, Qui-Gon did, though difficult, their relationship had become."

"His Master killed his student," Mace said softly, shaking his head in dismay. "I can't imagine anything worse. He suffered two very personal losses." He sighed deeply. "They're losses we all share. I think recovery will be difficult for all of us, not just him. Obi-Wan's death is more than just a single loss, it's a herald of things to come. The Sith are back, Master Yoda. We knew it on Naboo, but there has been no sign of them in years. So many of us had hopes that was the only one."

Yoda grunted and closed his eyes in concentration, his ears pulled back as he touched the Force. "Darkness, there is," he said softly. "Closer than before. Greater meaning, has Obi-Wan's death. Effect the Jedi, this will, for a long time. In shadows, now falls our destiny."

"So what do we do?"

"Study, we must," Yoda said firmly. "Learn from Obi-Wan, we still can. The datablock, recovered from Dromund Kaas, we have." Yoda jabbed his stick into Mace's chest. "And your fault, this is not."

"Keep telling me that and maybe one day, I'll believe it," Mace mumbled as he stood. "I've taken up enough of your time, Master Yoda. Thank you for seeing me."

"Better, do you feel?"

"...no. I will, but not yet. The fact of the matter was that Obi-Wan was my responsibility, and now he is dead. I'll carry that with me when I make decisions in the future." He bowed deeply. "Goodnight, Master." Mace turned to leave, but stopped when he felt the Force tug at him, and he turned to face the tiny Master, a kind smile on his face.

"Same time tomorrow, we shall meet?" Yoda asked softly, like he had asked the Korun every single day since they had started meeting like this, every day since they had seen the mangled bodies of their brothers and sisters on Serenno, every single day since Mace had felt he failed, not just Obi-Wan, but the Jedi Order.

A small smile came to Mace's otherwise cold face. "Same time tomorrow, Master Yoda. See you in the morning."