The calming hum of the hyperspacegenerator signified that they had escaped the system and were now safely travelling towards Alderaan. Solo was an excellent pilot nearly on par with Anakin and he had proven it. He also reminded Obi-Wan why he hated flying so much. He loathed it when someone else sat behind the controls especially when they were so reckless. Obi-Wan left Captain Solo in the cockpit. The pilot was still fine-tuning their hyperspace route which should take at least a few minutes. With the intention to rejoin Kenobi and Luke and to finally get some answers out of the old man he made his way deeper into the freighter.

Obi-Wan leaned against the doorway as he observed the people in the common room.

Chewbacca and the Artoo unit were playing Dejarik with the protocol droid giving more or less helpful advice.

Arfour had plugged into the ships computer and from the sound of it she flirted with the Millennium Falcon. Obi-Wan tried not to dwell on it.

Luke was training with a remote that was programmed to fire stinging shots. Where Kenobi had produced it from was a mystery. Obi-Wan frowned. This was an exercise for younglings who have yet to see their tenth birthday. Luke was old enough to be a senior Padawan who should have mastered the basics of Force-use years ago.

His arms folded he pinned Kenobi with an intense stare. Every other being would have turned away but his older self met the look unflinchingly. "I believe you owe me an explanation."

"I did promise I would give you some answers. But let's take that discussion somewhere else." Kenobi turned towards his student. "Luke keep up with your exercise this might take a while."

Luke looked confused but returned his focus back to the remote. The boy would have a lot of questions when they came back.

Kenobi led Obi-Wan deeper into the ship until they found a quiet corner in the cargo area.

They settled on crates and an awkward silence stretched between them. Where should they start? What did Obi-Wan miss?

Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose. Why did these things always happen to him? Why did he always have to be there when there was a shatter point in the Force? The re-emerging of the Sith, finding the Clone Army, the Battle of Geonosis, and now so shortly after being seated on the council the Force decided to drop him in the future. Somehow he got the feeling that whatever was going to happen he would be in the middle of that too.

"Where were you before ending up on Tatooine?" Kenobi asked carefully as if he too didn't really know where to start.

"I was on my way back to report to the council after the siege on Ryloth."

"It was Ahsoka's first mission as a squad leader, wasn't it?"

"Yes, and Anakin destroyed the majority of his fleet and ended up in an escape pod." Obi-Wan sighed. He still didn't want to know how he managed that one. Kenobi on the other hand had an amused halfsmile on his face, a smile of someone who remembered a half forgotten memory. It must have been years since the older man had recalled a memory such as this.

"So you missed about twenty-one years." Astonished Obi-Wan met the tired gaze of his counterpart. Two whole decades. What did happen to him to let him age so rapidly? Normally Jedi Masters in their mid-fifties didn't look that old.

"How am I ever supposed to go back?" He asked after a short silence.

Kenobi broke eye contact and whispered: "I'm not sure if there is even a going back. There is the theory that the flow of time just moves in one direction and that it wasn't you who did the travelling but that you were removed from the flow of time for two decades and re-entered it now. You might be stuck here for better or worse." But he had to go back. There was the Order and Anakin and Ahsoka and the little Nautolan girl he wanted to take as an apprentice when she would be old enough. He had responsibilities and people counting on him.

Trying to find a flaw in the theory Obi-Wan asked. "How did you come up with that idea so quickly?"

"I lived the last nineteen years as a hermit in the Tatooine desert. There isn't much else to do but to meditate or to contemplate the nature of the Force and the universe." So in a way Kenobi had been removed from time as well. And again an uncomfortable silence stretched between the two men.

For a moment both Jedi were lost in thought when Kenobi gave Obi-Wan a questioning look. "It could work."

The younger master raised his eyebrow. "What could work?"

"To pass you off as my son."

"What?" Now both of Obi-Wan's eyebrows disappeared in his hair.

"Or would you rather explain to everyone that you travelled through time?"

Oh yes that would be such a great idea. It had been hard enough for him to believe in time travel when he had the Force to verify the facts but normal people would think he was crazy.

Obi-Wan did a quick calculation. He was thirty-three minus the twenty-one he had missed would have made him eleven or twelve during the Siege of Ryloth. So where had he been eleven years before that? When he remembered he groaned.

"Let's say I went with your story, that would mean I would have been conceived shortly after the Naboo Crisis." Somehow that gave the story a bit more plausibility. Back then he certainly had the right mind-set to commit such a transgression of the code. As a matter of fact he did try to find solace in a woman's arms when he had been back on Coruscant. Finding sexual release wasn't forbidden per se, just discouraged, as it was an instinct most beings had but to have a committed long-term relationship or Force forbid to sire a child was a guaranty for a swift kick out of the Jedi Order. "No one would even question my name since there are a lot of cultures were it is common to name a son after his father. It might work."

Kenobi had a barely visible smile on his face. "You grew up with your mother on Coruscant and were never tested. She died sometime during the Clone Wars and after the fall of the republic you found me on Tatooine where I taught you the ways of the Force. You left in your early twenties to travel the galaxy and only now wanted to check on me."

And just like that Obi-Wan got a background, a story he could easily fill with details from his past and they wouldn't seem to far out of place. He did a lot of travelling in his twenties.

But why would he need such a background story in the first place? He probably could just pose as another Force sensitive like thousands of others across the galaxy. Or he could just ask the council to verify his story through the Force. So why would Kenobi risk his standing in the Jedi Order like that? Keeping his questions to himself Obi-Wan decided to humour the old master.

"Now that I have a believable background I need to know what happened during the last twenty years."

Kenobi looked pained and the look in his eyes was that of a nearly broken man. He sighed deeply before he answered Obi-Wan's question. "About three years after Geonosis the republic fell. Anakin killed Dooku and we thought the end of the war was finally within reach but it turned out that Palpatine was the Sith Master and using his apprentice Dooku he played both sides of the war."

Obi-Wan felt more ill with each word Kenobi uttered. All that bloodshed was Palpatine's fault and Obi-Wan had allowed Anakin to cultivate a friendship with a damn Sith Master.

"Like a puppetmaster he pulled the strings moving his pieces into place right where he needed them. And we Jedi in our arrogance and naivety actually believed we had some measure of control in this war. We followed the Sith Lord blindly and made the instalment of the empire even easier. Now Palpatine declared himself Emperor."

"Why didn't the Jedi prevent the rise of this empire?" He barely dared to ask.

"We would have but we were betrayed by our own troops, the clones shot us in the back. The entire war was merely a means to separate and isolate us from each other. It was the perfect trap. And Palpatine's new apprentice Darth Vader took an entire legion of clone troopers into the temple. It was slaughter. They spared no one, even the younglings were cut down where they stood." The old man took a deep breath his eyes suspiciously wet and yet dry as if he had no tears left and now more then ever Obi-Wan could see the weight that laid on the old man's shoulders. "Today there are barely more than a handful of Jedi left in the galaxy. We are all but extinct."

"But there are ten thousand Jedi Knights. We couldn't have been eradicated so completely. We can't be extinct." Obi-Wan was pleading now. The Jedi were his family. They couldn't be gone. "What about Anakin? If anybody could have pulled through it's him. There have to be more Jedi who survived."

"I only know of Master Yoda and myself." He said with a finality and unimaginable sadness in his voice as he rose from his crate, his bones cracking and joints protesting. Obi-Wan clenched his hands to prevent them from shaking.

"I am so sorry." Kenobi apologized and laid his hand reassuringly on Obi-Wan's shoulder before he returned to his apprentice leaving his younger self to his thoughts.

It took a few minutes to sink in. The Force offered no comfort as it felt darker than ever in his life. It only verified what Kenobi had told him. Now that he was alone he finally suffered the breakdown that had been in the making since he found out that he had landed in the future.

Obi-Wan was shaking, his shoulders slumped forward as he pressed himself into a corner between the crates. He was crying, weeping for his lost family and the only coherent thought that went through his mind was that Anakin his brother in all but blood was gone. He, Obi-Wan, had allowed that Sith to go near his apprentice. He had enabled Palpatine to lure Anakin in and to stab him in the back and now he couldn't go back, return to his own time to save him.

He felt so ignorant, so stupid. It hurt so much like his heart had been ripped from his chest.

They were all gone, his family massacred by the Sith. He had lost everything to the Sith, his master, the woman he loved, the boy he raised, his apprentice, his brother, his son. He wanted to make Palpatine suffer, to hurt him, to cut him in two like he did with Darth Maul. No, he wanted to gut him and slowly dissect him. Anything to drown his pain. What he felt was beyond anger. Never in his life had he felt such pure, ice cold hatred. Like liquid oxygen it froze up his entrails.

The Dark Side of the Force extended its seductive ribbons trying to entrap him, to pull him into its black depths. A shiver travelled down his spine and Obi-Wan came to his senses. He took a deep breath and made a mental step away from the dark abyss he had nearly jumped into. Falling to the Dark Side would have been a great way to remember Anakin and the Jedi, Obi-Wan berated himself. He made another step back. He needed to get his emotional turmoil under control. The tears still flowing down his cheeks. He needed to touch the Light Side, to work through his feelings, he needed it's comfort.

Slowly he came out of his corner between the crates and sat down for a proper meditation. Brushing away his tears with his sleeve he prepared himself for some long hours.

It took Obi-Wan the better part of the day to sort through the grief, the pain, the anger, the Hate. When he finally emerged from the cargo hold and returned to the common room the Falcon was already nearing its destination. He wasn't feeling any better but at least he wasn't in immediate danger to Fall.

Luke was training with the remote again under Kenobi's supervision. The droids had started another game against the Wookie and Han Solo was grumbling under his breath something about luck, tricks and ancient religions. The younger Jedi master leaned against the wall next to Kenobi.

"Out of curiosity, how long exactly have you been training him?" Obi-Wan raised his eyebrow in question.

The wizened Jedi master looked grateful for the change of topic. "I started with his training today." And he had such a instinctive grasp on the Force that he could already feel it flowing through him. Obi-Wan hadn't seen such raw talent since he had been introduced to Anakin.

Focusing on Obi-Wan Luke lost his concentration for a second and promptly missed a blaster bolt that hit him in the rear.

It would have been funny if the Force hadn't screamed that moment. Obi-Wan's laugh stuck in his throat as he suddenly had problems to get enough air to simply breathe. His heart clenched in pain and if he hadn't been leaning against the wall he would have lost his balance. Billions of voices silenced, the terrified echoes of their screams lingered for a moment within the Force before they too disappeared. He had been fighting on more planets and had been in more battles than he cared to remember and death had become a constant companion in his life but never for as long as that war had been going on had Obi-Wan felt such a massive loss of life or the agony that pulsed through the Force.

Kenobi too had lost his balance and now Luke stood next to his Master looking concerned. Something terrible had happened.

Obi-Wan had to sit down and with his head between his knees he tried to get his erratic breathing under control and to regain his bearing.

When he looked up again he met Luke's concerned and enquiring gaze.

"I guess it's time for an introduction." Kenobi gesticulated in Obi-Wan's direction. "This is Obi-Wan Kenobi the younger." Obi-Wan took the offered hand. It was really disturbing to think that now everybody would think he was his own son or even better Kenobi's clone. Which in a way he was. But pondering on that just brought forth a splitting headache.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi meet Luke Skywalker." Oh no, Anakin you did not-

And then with a smirk Kenobi added: "He's Anakin's son, you know."

He did...

Before his brain had the chance to process that lovely piece of information the computer announced that they were coming in on Alderaan.

And the ship came out of hyperspace right into an asteroid field. Only Solo's manoeuvres saved them from getting smashed to pieces and now he had to hunt down what seemed to be an imperial starfighter, another reckless manoeuvre.

Reckless. Why did all pilots have to be so reckless? Now this one landed them in a tractor beam.

AN: OK for those of you who read the first version of chapter 2, you'll probably have noticed that the chapter is now completely different. I wasn't happy with the narration in version 1. But I have to thank potterfanforever for your reviews. Those gave me the inspiration to rewrite this chapter. So thank you very much and I hope for more constructive criticism.