ii. Obi-Wan

He'd been 15 the first time. Qui-Gon had wrapped a strong arm around his shoulder and helped Master Che explain it to him. They'd shown him pictures of the tumor in his neck. "We can fight this," Qui-Gon had promised. That day had been the first in a grueling 17 months of specialists and surgeries, Qui-Gon dragging him to medcenters all over the core worlds. The memory that stood out most vividly was trying not to cry in the mirror as he watched Qui-Gon struggle with his padawan braid. His hair had fallen out in chunks until there wasn't enough left for even his master's deft fingers to plait – but not for lack of trying. Qui-Gon had always been there, from the first day through every appointment and every treatment afterwards.

When it was over, remission felt like it would last forever. Qui-Gon had taken him out for his first drink. His master hadn't cared that he was underage, and when he heard the occasion, their old friend Dex hadn't either. The Jawa Juice had made his throat burn, but they'd clinked their glasses a lot. Obi-Wan's fight had been his, too.

Last summer, Qui-Gon hadn't been there to squeeze his shoulder when a routine scan had turned up more cancer in the lymph nodes in his neck, underarms, and thighs. The most absurd part was how normal it felt. The endless appointments, waiting rooms, healing crystals, and droids with needles for hands all blurred into an endless pattern; he'd been through it all before. But everything had seemed more daunting now without his master beside him. It wasn't just a fight, it was a battle, and he was the general faced with all the tough decisions.

The prognosis was…well, bad. They weren't very hopeful about a cure, but they told him he might stop it from spreading—maybe for years to come—if it responded well to medication.

"And if not?" Obi-Wan's voice was mechanical, numb.

"Let's take one step at a time."

Telling Anakin had never even seemed like an option. He barely knew how to react himself, so how was he supposed to add Anakin's complicated emotionality into the mix? It was hard to hide what the medications did to him—his thinning hair, the nausea, the anemia that made him feel faint when he tried to keep up with Anakin in the dojo—but he made excuses. He was fortunate to have caring friends – Bant, Siri, Garen – who were there to help, sometimes before he'd even asked.

He had taken Vokara Che by surprise the day he strode into her office demanding to be un-grounded. Anakin's first training mission was only a few days away. "I have no interest in sitting around the Temple waiting to die," he reasoned, lightheaded indifference in his tone.

"Kenobi, your immune system is severely weakened," Master Che reminded him.

"Does it matter?" he persisted.

"It matters. You have time ahead of you to spend with your friends and your padawan. I won't watch you gamble it away by catching some flu virus on Werrn."

Obi-Wan shrugged as if he didn't care.

"No." She leaned in over her desk and regarded him carefully. "Are you taking this seriously?"

"Of course, Master," said Obi-Wan, frowning. He tucked his datapad under his arm and bowed before he turned to leave. Che found herself sorely wishing Qui-Gon Jinn were there.

Anakin looked so crestfallen when Obi-Wan told him that Siri would be chaperoning him on Werrn that Obi-Wan almost caved and told him at least part of the truth. But he convinced himself that it was better this way.

Siri had finally spoken up then. "Obi, I know you think that this is selfless, but-"

"I don't," Obi-Wan interrupted. "I know how selfish it is."

Siri gave him a puzzled look.

"It's horrible, right? I'm pretending I'm really going to be here for him, be here to cut his braid when he's knighted. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like pretending because he still believes it."

"Obi-Wan,"

"I promised Qui, didn't I? I swore that I would train him!" Obi-Wan's voice wavered in frustration, gripping the railing of the platform until his knuckles were white.

"Your master didn't know this was going to happen," Siri admonished gently. "What do you think he'd say to you now?"

"The Force will provide a solution," they groaned in unison. Obi-Wan finally smiled.

"I'm just worried about both of you. You won't be able to hide forever," Siri pointed out.

"Oh believe me, I know."


There was a difference between being aware of the inevitable and actually facing it. There was no more hiding when Obi-Wan awoke in the Halls of Healing. It took him a few minutes to remember how he had gotten there.

"Kenobi, listen," Master Che handed him a piece of flimsiplast.

She explained that there was a new growth on the inside of his skull, putting pressure on the left temporal lobe. It was spreading fast, and they had exhausted their treatment options.

Obi-Wan studied the Master Healer's face, but it was unreadable. "What does that mean for me?"

"In most cases, the seizures are preventable with a simple Force-healing technique. We can teach you how to do it at home. However, as the pressure on your brain increases you might begin to experience memory, speech or vision problems…" Che sighed. "I'm so sorry, Obi-Wan. I have to advise you to consider shifting towards palliative treatment."

Obi-Wan swallowed hard. They had dangled the possibility of years before his eyes, but suddenly he was looking at weeks. "There's nothing else – no experimental meds that might be worth a go?"

"We can keep you comfortable."

Obi-Wan inhaled slowly, imagining Qui-Gon beside him. Imagining a strong arm at his back, never allowing him to lose faith. "We've fought so long, we can't just…" Qui-Gon wouldn't have wanted him to give up.

"This is not giving up, young on," Master Che corrected him. "It is simply a change in perspective. I advised Master Jinn not to use that type of 'fighting' metaphor with you, but you know how seldom he deigned to listen."

Qui-Gon, listen? Force forbid. Obi-Wan smiled. "It helped me."

"But it makes this part harder," said Che gently.

Anakin, it was discovered, had spent the night in the dark waiting room, and had refused to leave with Siri and Ferus in the morning. He would not budge until the healers agreed to let him see his master.

"It's time," Che warned Obi-Wan before she let the padawan in. "He deserves a chance to prepare."

Obi-Wan nodded in defeat.


The Living Force was amplified in the gardens more than anywhere else in the Temple. Obi-Wan made his way there as soon as the healers released him and sat down beside Anakin in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Obi-Wan had never had the same affinity for the Living Force as his master or his padawan, preferring the contemplative study of the Unifying Force, but here even he could feel it pulsing around him like a heartbeat. Its calm power, bubbling in the stream and flowing through the foliage gave him the strength to begin.

"Anakin." They were practiced words and they came out stiffly. "What did the healers tell you about what happened two nights ago?"

"That you had a sez—a seizure."

"Right. Well, they found out that it was caused by a tumor that's growing right here." Obi-Wan indicated behind his left ear. Anakin reached up to touch the spot, and Obi-Wan let him. "You can't feel it from the outside."

"Does it hurt?"

"No. But someday it might affect my ability to do certain things." Obi-Wan watched Anakin mull that over. The kid seemed mostly calm, a little bit curious. Obi-Wan took a deep breath for the next part.

"I am growing closer to the Force, Anakin. I will have to return to it soon."

Anakin blinked as if in a bright light, mouth hanging open. "Is that the same as dying?"

Obi-Wan might have reminded him that to a Jedi there is no death, but he wanted to make sure that Anakin understood. Che had warned him that euphemizing could confuse some children. "Yes."

"Why?" Anakin demanded.

"Because eventually the illness is going to make my body stop working."

Anakin pondered that for a moment, and came up with a solution. "The healers can make it better, that's their job!"

"No they can't." Obi-Wan shut his eyes for a long moment. "I'm going to tell them I don't want any more medicine to try and make it better, because the side effects—"

"What?!"

"Anakin," Obi-Wan breathed, fighting to remain in control of his voice. "It wouldn't make any difference. I want to make the most of—No, Anakin, listen!"

Anakin yanked his hand out of Obi-Wan's grip and scrambled to his feet with a look of betrayal.

"There will be plenty of people to take care of you when I'm gone. You will still be a Jedi. I don't want you to worry about any of that," Obi-Wan explained, trying to steer the conversation back.

"You can't leave!" yelled Anakin, taking a step back.

"Sit down!" Obi-Wan hadn't meant to snap, but at least it startled Anakin into obeying. Obi-Wan reached into his pocket and leaned forward.

"Put out your hand, young one."

Anakin looked wary.

"I was going to leave this to be passed along on your thirteenth birthday," said Obi-Wan. "But you'll have another master then. I won't take the ritual away from you two."

Anakin was surprised to feel warmth radiating from the object that Obi-Wan placed in his palm. It was smooth and black and streaked with crimson – Anakin recognized it immediately. His river stone.

"B-but this is yours."

"And now I am passing it on to you."

"You should keep it. It's special because it's from him," said Anakin, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. He still held his arm out, looking from the stone to Obi-Wan's face in confusion.

"Anakin," said Obi-Wan patiently. He had thought long and hard about how he would connect this to what the stone had taught him on Phindar years ago. "Our memories are the most important things we have. Sometimes people come and go from our lives, but—"

"I don't want this," Anakin declared, dropping the stone into Obi-Wan's lap as he stood again. "I don't want another master, I don't want you to die!"

"Anakin—"

"No!"

He was surprised to see Anakin so angry—so attached. A horrible thought struck him. If Anakin had formed such a volatile attachment to his master in their short time together, the Council would have even more reason to discourage his training. What if they sent Anakin away? What if no other Jedi stepped forward to train him? Obi-Wan retrieved the stone and held it out again. "This is sudden, I know, and I'm sorry for—"

"I don't want your dumb rock! I hate you!"

Anakin stumbled a few steps back before he turned and ran. This time Obi-Wan let him. He put his head between his knees and let the tears come.


It was late when Obi-Wan returned to their quarters, but Anakin's light was still on. He knocked and a sniffly voice said, "Please go away, Master."' Obi-Wan did.

Obi-Wan remembered the constancy of Qui-Gon's smile, always honest but never despondent when he had gone through treatment the first time. Qui-Gon had never allowed him to lose heart, and if he had doubts or worries of his own, Obi-Wan never sensed them. He had assumed Qui-Gon's faith was such that he simply trusted the Force to guide them out of the nightmare that had become their lives. But could there have been moments, hidden behind closed doors and shaking hands, when his old master had felt exactly like this?

They didn't speak about what had happened in the gardens for several days. Obi-Wan shut the cupboards a little too loudly. Anakin fell further and further behind in his lessons.

But time wasn't waiting for them to clear the air. Even though some of the nasty side effects from his earlier treatments faded, Obi-Wan found that his balance was affected and katas that once came easily to him became difficult to perform. He began to catch himself forgetting things, and learned to recognize the look of confusion on Anakin's face that meant he'd just asked the same question twice.

Obi-Wan learned to recognize the lightheaded feeling that preceded a seizure, and with some trial and error he learned to put himself in a trance to prevent it. If he didn't do it exactly right, he would end up with a migraine afterwards. One day it was so bad that Obi-Wan couldn't stand up or keep anything down, and once again he had to ask Siri to take Anakin to 'saber practice.

Anakin was sweating through his tunic by the time Ferus pushed him off his feet. He landed softly on the padded dojo floor, but before he could coordinate a counterattack, he found a training saber hovering above his throat for the third time in a row.

"Surrender!"

Anakin growled and summoned his own training saber back into his hand. Anakin could keep up when they did drills or when Siri tested their skills individually, but fighting a real match against Ferus always reminded him of how far behind he was, which stung.

"Hey!" barked Ferus smugly. "Surrender, I won!" Anakin kicked him in the shin. "You can't do that, you're dead! Cheater!"

Ferus's training saber made contact with Anakin's shoulder. The zap made Anakin yelp, more out of surprise than pain. "Ow! Solah! Ferus!" Anakin ignited his own saber and swung for Ferus's legs, leaving a scorch mark across the calf of his leggings. He rolled up onto his knees and took another swing for good measure while Ferus shrieked.

"Padawans!" snapped Siri Tachi, who was apparently under the delusion that she could leave her young charges alone for sixty seconds to speak to Master Fisto. She pieced together what happened amid shouting and pointing.

"Are either of you hurt?"

"No, Master Tachi."

"Then go shower off and gather your things. We're done for today."

Obi-Wan appeared looking like he had just woken up. He heard what had happened, then all but herded Anakin back to their quarters and sat him down sternly.

"Anakin, is this how you repay Master Tachi for doing us a favor?"

Anakin sighed. "I know, it's just Ferus. If he wasn't so stuck up all the time-" Anakin was deeply rooted in the Living Force, but no amount of intuition could make up for the sheer fact that Ferus had learned to grip a saber hilt before he could toddle.

"Focus, Anakin," Obi-Wan snapped. "This is about you, not Ferus. Training 'saber or not, you have to respect your weapon and your opponent at all times. I know I've taught you that."

"What was I supposed to do, let him keep beating me?"

"Yes, and learn from him if you can. That's what a Jedi does."

"It isn't fair—"

"Did you listen to anything I just said?" Obi-Wan demanded. It came out like anger, but truthfully it was fear that was rising in Obi-Wan as Anakin continued to protest.

Obi-Wan drew in a breath. "Anakin, come sit with me."

Obi-Wan led Anakin to the meditation cushions beside the bay window in their living area. Outside, light from the nocturnal city made the hazy clouds glow blue. Obi-Wan shut his eyes and centered on his breathing as he'd done so many times before.

It wasn't long before Anakin started to get fidgety, and Obi-Wan was right there to guide him.

"What is the third tenet of the Jedi Code?" he asked without opening his eyes.

"There is no passion, there is serenity," Anakin recited.

"Search your feelings, Anakin, and tell me why you provoked Ferus this afternoon."

"I was angry," said Anakin immediately.

"Why? He'd done nothing wrong."

Anakin bristled. He hated when Obi-Wan asked questions as if he already knew all the answers. "I was angry that he kept beating me in 'saber class. But it's only 'cause he has more practice."

"That's true. There will always be opponents who are more experienced than you. When you're a knight someday, how will you cope with that?"

"When I'm a knight I'll train every day and I'll be the strongest."

"No." came Obi-Wan's sharp reply. Passing on these lessons was more urgent now than ever - they were the only legacy that Obi-Wan could leave him. "You could master every lightsaber form known to the Jedi and still there would be battles you could not win. How do you think the Code would tell us to respond to them?"

"Not…not with passion? Which means not doing stuff just because you're angry or sad."

"It's okay to feel angry or sad, Anakin. Listen to what your emotions are trying to tell you, but don't blindly accept them as truth. Acting without passion means we accept the truth instead of trying to change what we cannot control."

"Easy for you to say," Anakin grumbled. He stopped short of mentioning that for nine years of his life he had been denied control of pretty much anything. Obi-Wan couldn't possibly understand. Anger was how you stayed alive on Tatooine.

"Perhaps," said Obi-Wan in a small voice.

Anakin gulped as he realized that Obi-Wan probably did know that that felt like, in a different way.

He opened his eyes. "Master, are you really never going to get well again?"

"No, Anakin. My illness has no cure. I am going to rejoin the Force."

"I want you to always be with me," Anakin protested.

Obi-Wan flinched before he met Anakin's gaze, suddenly vulnerable. "Anakin, I won't be. I'm dying. I need to know that you're going to be okay."

It was too much to ask from the ten-year-old and Obi-Wan knew it.

"I'm sorry," he backtracked, reassuring rather than seeking to be reassured. He squeezed both Anakin's hands in his. "I'm so sorry for all of this."


Anakin will decide later that the following weeks felt like running down a hill. As the ground grows steeper, steps become smaller, quicker, tipping forwards as you can't stop and gravity takes control. To Obi-Wan, it felt less like running and more like crumbling, a shore left a little smaller by each retreating wave.

Obi-Wan tried to find the words to express this feeling to Master Che as he sat in her office, looking listless. He had rejected her suggestion that he see a Mind Healer, but he needed something.

"You have to ask yourself what you want to accomplish with your time," Master Che prompted him.

Obi-Wan considered that for a long moment before sitting up straighter.

"I want to take Anakin off-world. Someday he's planning to travel to every the star in the galaxy." Obi-Wan stated this childish goal as if it were completely reasonable. "But I only want to show him a few, while I still can."

"It will be taxing on your health," the Master Healer warned. "And I'll want to review each mission first – no underdeveloped worlds without proper med facilities or infectious disease hazards."

Obi-Wan smiled, knowing that was her way of saying yes.

Che filled out the paperwork to rescind his medical suspension, and the Council cleared the Kenobi-Skywalker team for duty again. Obi-Wan suspected it was no coincidence that the first mission the Council assigned them took them back to Werrn. They spent a pleasant fortnight overseeing some planetary council elections and exploring Werrn's quaint little seaside towns, simply spending time together as if they had left their problems behind at the Temple.

When they were planetside again, Bant Eerin took to dropping by with food as an excuse to check on him. Obi-Wan tried not to mind, especially when it was takeout from Dex's Diner. Obi-Wan was inordinately fond of Dex's. It was truly just a greasy undercity burger joint, but in his mind it surpassed all other greasy undercity burger joints.

Obi-Wan tried to hand Bant a couple of credits but she shook her head. "Dex said this one was on him, pal," she smiled.

"Force, does the whole galaxy know?" Obi-Wan rolled his eyes.

A stormy look crossed Anakin's face. These days the slightest reference to Obi-Wan's illness could reduce him to angry tears. Obi-Wan had tried to revisit the topic several times since that night, but to no avail.

Bant knew this, and when Obi-Wan left the room she whispered urgently, "Anakin, you're hurting him. He needs to feel able talk about this."

Anakin didn't even respond. He pushed his chair back noisily, marched to his room and didn't come out for the rest of the evening. And that frightened Obi-Wan even if the Code said it shouldn't. Let it go, let the Force flow over you like a stream and float it away.

Next they flew to Ragoon 6 while the planet's unique fruit trees were in bloom, under some pretense involving a territory dispute that needed Jedi presence. They delivered a shipment of emergency rations to an Outer Rim territory suffering from famine, and made time to explore the planet's breathtaking canyons and hot springs. Anakin gasped in wonder as they watched a geyser erupt, and Obi-Wan put an arm around his shoulder. He hoped the padawan would remember the good times they spent as much as the bad.

But just as Obi-Wan let down his guard, the inevitable happened. It started as a dry cough, then a slight fever. Che grimly recommended a laundry list of tests and heavy-duty antibiotic pills, knowing that it was essential to nip this in the bud.

Obi-Wan's immune system was completely stripped of its defenses, and the pneumonia settled in his chest all too easily. Both lungs became heavily congested until the healers had no choice but to admit him overnight. Overnight turned into a few days, then a week as things weren't improving. Anakin was a tempest. He refused to visit the Halls of Healing or even hear it spoken of; he got into fights during lessons that Bant chose not to tell Obi-Wan about.

Obi-Wan recognized the expression on Healer Ardelle's face as she and a padawan healer studied an x-ray of his chest. "This doesn't look good," he observed, his breath fogging up the oxygen mask.

"This doesn't look good," Ardelle agreed. "But all will be as the Force wills."

The urgency of the situation was clear to Obi-Wan. "Healer," he rasped. "There's someone that I need to talk to."


"Wish to speak with me, I sensed you might, Knight Kenobi."

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan felt as if he ought to stand and bow to the grandmaster, but that was out of the question. A padawan healer had helped him dress and travel from his bed to a chair, and just that short journey had worn him out. "The healers believe, well…it seems I will not be able to see my padawan through to knighthood."

"Sorry to learn this, we all were," Yoda nodded.

"I swore that I would train him. My master feared that no other Jedi would be willing to do it."

"Doubt the wisdom of the Council so, few Jedi do," he said with a twinkle in his eye. The grandmaster was only teasing, but the words sent a jolt of fear through Obi-Wan. How could he ask a fellow Jedi to defy the Council for him? Yet he had no choice. He could not let Qui-Gon down.

"Master Qui-Gon believed that it was essential for Anakin to become a Jedi," Obi-Wan pressed. "And I still believe that. Is there no one else who would take him on?"

"Approve of the training, we did not. Still do not. Dangerous, the boy is."

Obi-Wan felt his heart turn to lead, sinking, hopeless. He would fail even at this. He hoped that Qui-Gon would forgive him.

"First to bring this to my attention, you are not," Yoda continued. "Come forward already, Knights Muln, Reeft and Eerin all have. If your wish, it is, the council will approve Knight Eerin to complete Skywalker's training."

A gush of affection welled up in Obi-Wan's chest. Garen, Bant, Reeft. His closest friends, each willing to rearrange their plans, put their ambitions on hold for his and Anakin's sakes. "Thank you, Master," he managed though his throat felt oddly constricted.

"Troubling you, something else is, hmm?"

"No, Grandmaster," Obi-Wan lied.

Yoda simply waited.

Obi-Wan felt like a youngling again, back under Yoda's stern but benevolent gaze as he stuttered through his recitation of the day's lesson. "I am afraid sometimes. I know that is not our way," he confessed.

"And what is it that you fear?"

From the very beginning, Jedi learn not to fear the end. From its nameless, faceless power they were made, and to it they must return, anonymous energy. But something primal within him still wanted to be Obi-Wan, Jedi Knight from Stewjon, padawan to Qui-Gon and master to Anakin. He did not feel ready to give himself fully to the Force. He wasn't sure how to admit this cardinal sin out loud.

"Persuade you to despair, your instincts would, and yet despair, you must not," the grandmaster instructed him. "Trust in the Force, young Kenobi. Trust that when this fear, you come to face, ready, you will be."

"What if I am ready and…and…"

"And ready, Padawan Skywalker is not?"

Obi-Wan swallowed hard.

"Understand our ways, Skywalker yet does not."

"Master, I've tried to explain as much as I can."

"Then do not explain. Show him, you must," said Yoda with a nod. "Forget you must not, that the Force is with you, young Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan bowed his head as he pondered that advice, wondering if he'd ever get to use it. It had been nine days, and Anakin still had not come to visit.

Yoda gave him a reassuring pat on the hand before he took his leave.


Bant dropped by daily, mumbling awkward apologies on Anakin's behalf.

"He's been asking about you a lot. I think he's realized that ignoring it isn't going to change reality. He'll come around, any day now…"

"You can't force him, Bant. It's okay, really," Obi-Wan insisted, although he was growing anxious.

But Bant decided she could and would force Anakin to accompany her when Obi-Wan took an unexpected turn. One hour he was awake and in good spirits, the next he was in acute respiratory distress. All the healers could do was give steroids and turn his oxygen up as high as it could go while he fought for his life.

Bant ran straight to the lesson halls, pulling Anakin out of his geography class.

"I mean it this time, Anakin. He needs you to be brave right now, can you do that?"

She expected Anakin to argue, but he must have noticed the seriousness in her tone. Anakin followed in stunned silence.