Chapter Eleven: Moments of Rest


"Can you teach me how to do that?"

Obi-Wan speaks while pivoting, gracefully blocking Anakin's lightsaber with his two. Arms raised above his head, the below of the lightsabers reflected his flushed face. "Teach you what?"

Anakin shoves against the dual blades, grinning when his master is forced to step back and avoid a swipe. He dares to glance up, towards the observation deck of the dojo. "Whattcha talking about -" he dodges when Obi-Wan tries to lunge. "Obi-Wan!"

Obi-Wan shrugs, lazily twirling his dual blades around while the two circle each other. Somewhere during the fight he had abandoned his tunics, revealing a sculpted torso littered with puckered scars and tattoos. "You left an opening by becoming distracted."

"I was talking to my padawan!"

Ahsoka rolls her eyes at her bickering masters. They are a great team, but so dramatic. "Can you teach me Jar-Kai, Master Kenobi?"

"Don't you know the basics?" Anakin shouts while Obi-Wan tries to attack again. He jumps, neatly flipping over Obi-Wan.

"Yeah, but - "

Obi-Wan pivots while Anakin lands, smirking when they ended up pointing their respective lightsabers at each other's necks.

"I believe I win, my young Padawan."

Anakin disengages his lightsaber and runs a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. "You cheated."

"How, pray tell?" Obi-Wan murmurs in exhaustion, disengaging his own lightsabers.

"By - I deserve a re - "

"Masters!" Ahsoka groans, putting her head on the rail. "Jar-Kai?"

"I can show you some of the advanced forms now, Ahsoka," Master Kenobi calls, wiping a hand over his face. "That is, if you don't mind not doing a rematch, Anakin? I don't want to hurt your feelings?"

Ahsoka grins, scrambling down the observation deck stairs.

"You barely know than the advanced forms of Jar-Kai," Anakin mutters while watching his padawan pick an extra lightsaber from the rack.

"Yes, but how often do we get to teach anymore? Besides," Obi-Wan grins at the young man he had raised. "I rather enjoy stealing your padawan from time to time."

"Hey!"


The halls of the Temple are quiet at night. Mace walks down then slowly, feeling the quiet hum of hundreds of kyber crystals and pulse of several hundred individuals. It's a bit maddening, he has to admit, always feeling everyone's faint emotions.

No wonder so many Jedi relied on sleep aids - it was the only way to get a decent amount of rest.

But even with sleep aids and drowsy teas and meditation Mace has been finding it increasingly harder to sleep. Too many thoughts, too many whispers of the dead, too much work to do. He's been pacing the halls as of late, trying to tire himself out.

Tonight he weaves to the Room of a Thousand Fountains, welcoming it's humidity and quiet trickle of water. Plants brush against the bits of skin he has exposed, some leaving sticky residue on his skin.

"Who's there?" Mace calls cautiously when he sees a shadow against one of the walls, one hand drifting to his lightsaber. It's stupid, to be this tense - he's in the kriffing Room of a Thousand Fountains, for Sith's sakes - but these new habits of constantly being prepared for a threat makes is too deeply ingrained.

Quiet footsteps come closer, and a hand pushes some branches away. "Sorry, Master Windu."

Mace rolls his eyes, feeling his shoulders untense gradually. "Caleb - what are you doing awake? It's past curfew."

"Yeah but - " Caleb shrugs sheepishly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his robe. "I couldn't sleep. I wanted to walk around."

There's a part of him that wants to chastise the young Padawan, send him straight back to bed and resume his meditation walk - but Depa would hear how he treated her padawan, and he really doesn't want to listen to it.

Sighing, he murmurs, "Nightmares?"

Caleb nods, looking a bit tearful. "There's so much screaming - I thought someone dropping a crate above me was gunfire."

Mace frowns. He's seen the effect the war has had on the padawans - hell, he's seen the effect it has had on the entire Order. All of them - even the service droids - looked like energy deprived zombies.

"I'll make a deal with you, Caleb. I won't write you up for being out past curfew - but only if we agree to not tell Depa."

Caleb raises a sharp eyebrow - really, the kid was a bit too intelligent - and falls in step beside him. "You want to spend time with me, don't you? You're my grandmaster, after all."

"Padawan - don't make me change my mind."


If there's one thing he's learned, it's that a giggling Bant should be feared.

A giggling Bant armed with a holoprojector, Quinlan and Garen should have taught him to run away to Hoth.

Oh dear Force.

But he's Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he sets his tray down at the cafeteria table, only mildly suspicious when they click it off and continue to sputter.

"Obi-Wan," Garen Muln greets, rising from his seat and offering an embrace. "How's the front treating you?"

"Awful," Obi-Wan laughs, pulling his old friend close. "I've never liked Temple food more than I do now."

"Hate leads to the Dark Side," Quinlan says solemnly, though his serious expression lasts for half-a-click before he starts laughing. That gains a few looks, but most ignore the rambunctious group. Meals with friends are hard-pressed these days.

Obi-Wan lets out his own laugh, and takes a seat. "Quinlan - is Aayla feeling okay? I heard she was admitted to the Healing Halls?"

Quinlan swallows his noodles - which are actually live, slippery fish wriggling between his chopsticks - and flashes a small smile. "She was. One of the padawan's caught a nasty flu strain and is passing it to everyone in the Halls. Master Fisto hasn't left her side."

Obi-Wan nods, taking a drink from his Jawa juice. "You quarantined the Padawan, Bant?"

"Probably too late."

"Wonderful. I could be infected now and not notice. Start sneezing while giving orders. Infect a whole platoon in their sleep - Garen, why are you laughing?"

Garen shakes his head, trying to steady his breathing. "No reason?"

Obi-Wan sets down his chopsticks and narrows his eyes at the three giggling Jedi before him. "Does it have anything to do with the holoprojector you were staring at?"

"No?" Bant offers weakly, while Quinlan nods in affirmation.

"What does sleeping having anything to do with...kriff," he mutters when Quinlan drops the flimsi-paper on the table. A picture of Duchess Satine and himself stares back at him - a rather raunchy picture, taken while she was still on Coruscant after the Death Watch debacle. Obi-Wan is sitting on her apartment terrace chair, kissing Satine while she straddles him. The public may not know it's raunchy - the camera can't witness other things that were happening below the many layers of fabric.

The title reads cleverly: "Secrets of the Negotiator Exposed?"

"Damn it," Obi-Wan mutters, putting his head in his hands. "Please tell me that's the only photo?"

"Well…" Garen pulls out his portable datapad and does a quick search. "There's a picture of you two dancing at that gala a few weeks ago. Leaving the gala together. Oh, here's one of you leaving her apartment on Coruscant - actually, there are several. Someone snapped a picture of you guys on Sundari...making out. In a garden. And a library as twenty-year...and maybe - can you two keep your hands off of each other?"

"Thank the Force there's not a Kenobi-Kryze running around the Galaxy," Bant mutters with a shutter. "The sass on that one."

"Oh, but that hair would revival Master Qui-Gon's," Quinlan murmurs.

Obi-Wan doesn't comment, though he thinks to himself, Kryze-Kenobi. Korkie uses Kryze first.