*Author's Note: Thank you so much everyone for all of the wonderful reviews! It's been fantastic to see people's responses. For those who have asked, I am a huge Obi Wan fan and I have no intention of torturing him and leaving him lonely and heartbroken. He just needs to get out of his own way first.

Thanks again for the fabulous responses! I love them and appreciate them SOO much. This is a longer chapter but again, I didn't want to short you all by cutting it someplace really early, so I thought I'd leave it in. Hopefully you enjoy!


"It was hours into the trip before Ben spoke. That was one thing about him that could be maddening or a blessing. He knew when he needed to be quiet. Sometimes whether you wanted him to be or not." I chuckle softly. "We arrived at my grandmother's estate after two stops for supplies. It was well after dark."

I rushed out of the speeder in a hurry to get to my grandmother's side. I saw Bing headed our direction, a blaster rifle in his hand. I shot him a cursory nod and greeting before rushing past him toward the homestead. "It's bad?" My voice was soft, my breath coming in gasps as I entered the homestead and rushed toward her room. I had known the second that I had seen Bing's face that I had allowed myself too much hope. My grandmother would surely die soon. When no answer came, I stopped short in the living area and turned around. Bing was nowhere to be found. "Bing? Bing!" I traced my steps back to the front door, anxious that I was being taken from my mission. I found Bing standing at the front door, blaster rifle slung casually over his shoulder. His arms were crossed over his chest and it was obvious that there would be no breeching of his homestead without permission.

"Chiara, who is this?" I couldn't help but smile at the rough gravel in his voice.

"He's a friend. His name is Ben." I slapped at Bing's shoulder and pushed him out of the way. "He came with me so I didn't have to travel alone." I saw Ben, silhouetted against the night, a teasing smile on his face.

"As I told you, friend." I could hear the amusement in his voice as he nodded Bing's direction.

"Yeah well. Since Chiara's dad died, I watch out for her." Bing practically growled, daring Ben to make a false move. "So while she sees her granny, you and I are going to have a talk."

"That sounds quite enlightening."

"Bing, you be nice to him. I'm going to see Grandma now."

"You go honey." Bing flexed his fists. Even though it had been a long time since he had been involved in the underground trading business, he still kept fit. "I've got this handled."

"Remember! I said be nice! He's a nice man Bing." As I turned to go back toward Grandmother's room, I could have sworn I heard something about finding out just how nice Ben was.

When I entered her room, I felt her calm soothing presence wash over me in a heartbeat. Though only in her early sixties, life on Tatooine had been difficult for my grandmother. She looked hundreds of years old with gnarled hands and gray hair. Today she looked much worse than even that. Her entire body seemed gray and it appeared she was made of fine soft flimsiplast that might tear at the slightest touch. I knelt next to her bed, the tears springing to my eyes. She appeared to be asleep, but I was worried that I had already missed my chance to say goodbye.

"Grandmother?" My voice was a soft whisper against her hair. "It's Chiara." I saw her chest rise a bit higher and her eyelids lifted in a painfully slow manner. "Grandmother?"

She turned to look at me, even the slightest movement a monumental task on her slender frame.

"Chiara? Is it really you?"

"Yes Grandmother. I'm here." I reached out and took her painfully thin hand in my grasp and stroked it with a soft gentle touch. "I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to get here."

She chuckled and smiled at me. "You have your own things going on my dear." I looked at her, my face puzzled. "Are you going to introduce me to the young man you brought?"

"What?" I turned to see if Ben had entered the room behind me. Finding no one there, I worried that she was hallucinating.

"The young man you have with you. I'd like to meet him."

"Grandmother…" I didn't know what to say. I hoped she didn't have the wrong impression of my relationship to Ben. "it's not like that…"

"Chiara." She squeezed my hand with a fraction of the strength I remembered from her. "Go get him."

I sighed and stood. I didn't want to spend my last moments with my grandmother arguing over a man. "Alright. I'll go."

I found him in the living area sitting on a chair. He was completely relaxed, his demeanor calm and cool as he rested against the back of the chair, one leg crossed over the other. Bing sat across from him, arms folded over his chest. His face held a decidedly unfriendly look. Despite Ben's demeanor, the room held an uncomfortable silence.

"Having a nice visit?"

"Oh quite pleasant yes." Ben smiled at me, his voice easy as he motioned toward Bing. "Your grandmother's companion is making me feel quite welcome." He turned his smile toward Bing to no response.

"My grandmother would like to see you." Bing rose swiftly to his feet and started toward the bedroom but I held a hand out. "Not you. Him." I jerked my head toward Ben and smiled as the calm exterior ruffled for a little more than just a moment.

"Excuse me?" He raised an eyebrow. "Did you say that your grandmother would like to see me?"

"Yes."

He pursed his lips in a curious expression and nodded. I watched as he stood and smoothed his robes and then turned to Bing with a smile. "Now this is quite an interesting turn of events don't you think?"

"So you are him." Grandmother's voice was stronger now as Ben sat next to her bedside, his entire body a tableau of respect. When he had first entered the room, he had paused for just a moment and it appeared as if he had stumbled on an uneven piece of floor. I looked but noticed nothing that might have tripped him. He then smiled at my grandmother and greeted her warmly before taking his place next to her bed. I stood in the doorway wanting to give them privacy but at the same time wanting to be close by.

"Yes."

"She's a good girl."

Ben looked at me and smiled for a brief moment before he turned back to her. "Yes she is."

"You'll take care of her." It wasn't a question and he nodded in response, his face serious. I already knew that he was a man of his word. What his answer meant for my future made my heart pound in my chest and for one of those heartbeats, I couldn't breathe.

"Good." Grandmother heaved a large long sigh and her body fell still for a moment. I wondered in a panic if she had passed on, but Ben lifted a hand to calm me. "We are elnasha." Her words were barely a whisper, but both Ben and I heard them clearly. The word meant nothing to me, but Ben gave a sharp gasp. She turned then, opened her eyes and smiled at him. "You've heard of us."

"Yes. I mean…I have but I thought…"

"Legend. Rumor. Romantic tales following the Jedi exploits."

He chuckled. "Yes. All of the above."

"Whether we have always been such I do not know, but I have come to claim the name regardless. Stories of fancy they may have once been. The stories are now mine." Ben nodded in understanding. Her next words blew the wind out of the room for both Ben and myself. "Our family has always been Force sensitive. Exceptionally so. Our midichlorian counts are usually quite high. But we don't train or become Jedi." She looked at me. "You are Elnasha too. Though to be fair, I'm not completely sure that I could call myself such." A pause and a swallow. "You see, I studied under Master Yoda. Many years ago I was his padawan."

Her words knocked me completely off balance and I grasped the doorway for balance. At that moment I knew that she was, in all reality, already gone. Delusions had overtaken my sweet simple grandmother. But then I looked at Ben's face and saw him nod with a serious gaze and take her hand. He couldn't actually think…

"Grandmother!" They both turned to look at me and I noticed that the gray had been flushed from her cheeks by a light pink tone and she was struggling to sit up. Ben gently reached over and helped lift her to a more comfortable position supported by cushions and blankets.

"Chiara, there is much that you do not know." She looked at Ben and smiled. "It was best not to tell her. It kept her safe." Her eyes darkened with grief for the space of a moment. "Unlike her dear sweet brother." She lifted her gaze back to mine and I noted that Ben was still holding her hand gently in his grasp. "Come sit, child. There is much to share."

"That was when my grandmother shared her true history with me. It was the first time in my life that I actually saw the woman that was my grandmother. So many years lost. So much knowledge and information that she could have shared. Yet it was all lost upon her death."

"I was a youngling in the Jedi temple. Master Yoda took me on after his previous apprentice, Count Dooku, had been made a knight." She sighed softly and I noted once again that she seemed to be gaining strength as the story moved on. "I loved my studies. Though I did well in most areas, I excelled when it came to negotiation and politics." At this, Ben chuckled aloud. "It is not your favorite?" She asked. He shook his head vehemently and muttered something soft under his breath. "No? Most men want to be warriors anyway, whether they admit it or not. Fight the battle. Save the girl. It feeds something within their souls." Ben didn't say a word and that made my grandmother chuckle. "And that's perfectly alright young man. It takes all kinds to make the galaxy run. Without warriors…"

"There would be no war." I finished the sentence before I even realized the words were out of my mouth.

Ben looked at me, his face surprised. "Quite the contrary actually." His voice was sad. "Without warriors there would be no peace."

My grandmother nodded and I decided then that it was best to keep my mouth shut and just listen to the rest of her story.

"Master Yoda was a hard task master but he was loving too. I enjoyed being his apprentice. I loved learning the Jedi ways. Until I turned sixteen years old." She paused and a tremor ran through her body. "That was when I met Narvon. Narvon Arness." She turned to look at me.

"Grandfather."

She nodded and looked at Ben. His response was just as short and equally profound. "Jedi Knight." Another nod from Grandmother and my world began to spin. Nothing at all was what I had believed. The people that I had grown up with were nothing that I had imagined.

"I was enamored the moment I saw him. He was tall and strong and brave. He excelled in all of the areas that I was lacking. We were a good pair. He loved being a warrior." At this her eyes twinkled at Ben. "Although Jedi never want war or battle, Narvon enjoyed the taste of battle. He would never provoke it. Don't get me wrong. But something about battle made him live a little…bigger." Ben nodded and his eyes conveyed an understanding beyond the conversation. "I loved watching him practice his lightsaber duels. All of the padawans did. He was good at what he did. It was rare for him to have a practice alone. Many would come out to watch the ease with which he handled his lightsaber." Another nod from Ben.

"I fell in love with him without knowing that he already knew who I was. Years later he shared with me that he had been trying to impress me at all of those practices. We fought our attraction as much as we could, both of us calling upon the Force to pull us apart. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't break it. We were deeply in love. I wanted to marry him. He loved being a Jedi and knew that it would mean the end. I loved it too, but something inside Narvon needed to be a Jedi. There was no chance that he would choose to leave the Order. It made things very difficult for us." She stopped and lifted a hand from Ben's grasp to wipe a tear from her cheek. "We wasted so many years being worried about what the Jedi would think. We tried so hard to stay away from each other. I think in the end that it only pushed us together with more passion." She lifted a hand to Ben's cheek and I noticed then that there was a trace of wetness in his eyes. "It's alright now. Everything will be alright."

He nodded once and sighed. "The Force has much to teach me."

"You must be willing to learn."

Another short nod and then he pressed her hand. "Go on."

"We fought it for as long as we could and one day we finally gave in to the attraction." She lowered her eyes. "We weren't married but at that point but I wanted him so much that it didn't matter. I would have done anything to have him." A long quivering sigh left my grandmother's chest and I watched her lip tremble. "And I did."

"It took only a few weeks for me to realize that I was pregnant. Narvon's dream of being the perfect Jedi was destroyed in a moment of passion. He knew then that he had failed, but his joy in being a father was undiminished. He remained torn for the rest of his life. He married me the day that I told him we were going to have a child. We continued to keep it a secret. I did not share it with Master Yoda when I approached him although I'm sure he had some idea. I left the Order the following day and came back to Tatooine."

"You were alone?" My voice was shocked and I felt anger that my grandfather would leave her alone to raise their child.

"Yes. It was a choice I made. He had a job. No. It was more than that, a vision. A dream. I couldn't take that from him. I loved him too much to ask him to leave it for me."

"So you lived alone. Here. On Tatooine. And he let you."

She turned to me and her eyes were alive with emotion. "He cared for me. He visited every moment that he could. He sent money and gifts when he received them in payment for his service. He saw your father many times before he died. It was his path and I could not follow it with him. I needed to follow my own. And that path my dear, led me to you." She lifted a hand to stroke my face. "And he loved me and your father very much. We came to rival the Jedi in his soul. It was a difficult life for him, having two such deep passionate loves at opposite ends of each other."

"What? I always believed that Father had never known him. That he had died before Father was born!"

"Your father never knew that the man who came to try and take him to Jedi training was his father. I kept that secret from your father." She sighed as another tear swept down her cheek. "So many secrets. So many things I should have done differently." She looked at Ben. "But we can't change that now can we?" He shook his head as emotion overtook his features.

"We can only learn from our mistakes." His voice was soft and he did not meet her gaze.

"Yes." She sighed and held his hand in a tight grip. "And learn we must." She smiled when she found him watching her intently. "Since my paralytic episode, I have had much time to sit and listen to The Force. The movements these days are powerful. Tinged with darkness all around, yet concentration can give peace and clarity of vision." Ben nodded once again with that understanding that was beginning to annoy me. This was, after all, my grandmother. She didn't belong to him. He wasn't even supposed to come with me! Why was she spending all of her time with this…this stranger? I stood softly and moved to the doorway as my mind worked over all of the things I had just heard. My entire childhood had been a lie. Everything that I had based my thoughts on, my entire family unit, nothing was as it seemed. It felt as if I were standing on the side of a very slippery slope and struggling just to stand upright. My thoughts were brought back to the moment with my grandmother's next words.

"The Force has been speaking to me young Obi Wan." I bit my lip to stifle a gasp. It was the first time that his true name had been spoken between us. He looked up at me and I noticed that his eyes twinkled with a sad smile. His attention was drawn back to my grandmother as she spoke again. "I have been awaiting your arrival. You have much to learn Padawan."