"This way," she said, leading him into the opposite direction of where she launched Emmett. They walked into the forest and Obi Wan saw that she was scowling.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Edward is insisting on listening in," she said tightly. "He forgets that I'm not fifteen any more." She grimaced and mumbled: "Shut up." Then she looked at Obi Wan and sighed. "I'm sorry, privacy doesn't seem to be an option. If I shut him out he says he's going to assume you hurt me and he'll come after us."

"Can you blame him?" he asked. "My behavior in the past has been—"

"Less then gentlemanly?" she offered.

"I was going to say 'that of a raging psychotic'."

She smiled and squeezed his hand without thinking. It sent a warm pulse up his arm. But then she frowned.

"It's intrusive."

"Perhaps, but I wouldn't let you go off alone with me either. Not after everything that I did." He stopped abruptly and turned toward her. "I suppose I should start there." He took a deep breath and shuddered. "You have no reason to, but I can only ask that you consider forgiving me for what I've done to you. What I did on Jiangyin…and everything before…was unconscionable. I will never forgive myself for it but I can promise you that it will never happen again."

Jessie backed away from him until she bumped into one of the hemlock trees.

"You're asking me for forgiveness?"

Obi Wan felt the sting of the rejection but couldn't deny that it was what he deserved.

"I didn't expect that you would but—"

"None of this would have happened if it weren't for me," she said, disbelieving. "If I'd just left you alone and hadn't gotten tangled up in your life. If I hadn't lied to you about the Jedi Order and gotten involved with you when I knew I was deceiving you into breaking your vows then you never would have gone off the deep end in the first place."

He grabbed her hands and pulled her up to his chest.

"You never lied to me," he said quietly. "I assumed, by the way that you lived, that the Order had changed, but you never told me that. You couldn't. I was so consumed by my anger, and not just my anger with you but with Anakin and everything that he did, that I couldn't see that before."

"But now you do?"

He nodded, studying her face. She still seemed totally unconvinced.

"I ran," she said. "I didn't tell you I was pregnant and I disappeared."

He nodded.

"Yes, you did." He tried to keep his voice even. "I'll admit, that didn't help my state of mind. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid you wouldn't go back to your own time, if you knew." She dropped her eyes to the ground. "And I was more afraid that you would go back even if you did." She shook her head and the words started spilling out in a gush. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I was so selfish—"

The anguish in her voice was painful to him. He pulled her into his arms, crushing her body to his, if only to get her to stop. He clutched her to him as she sobbed uncontrollably into his chest. It was a long time before she finally stopped.

"And what about my role in all of this?" he asked, stroking her hair. "Even if you had done everything that you did on purpose, that still doesn't excuse my behavior." He shook his head in disgust. "I have no excuse for it. I was angry, more so when you ran from me, but I can't begin to explain what happened to me when I saw you with that—that—" he felt the anger building up inside of him again and he choked it down.

Jessie pulled away from him, probably shrinking away from what terrified her most. He looked down at her, expecting to see the well-earned fear, but instead, there was wonder in her eyes.

"You—you did that because—because you saw me with Mal?"

"Was that his name?" he grumbled.

She tilted her head as she looked at him now.

"You were jealous of Mal?"

He gave a curt nod, the shame of his actions flooding him.

And then she laughed. His eyes shot to her face and she slapped her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle her inexplicable mirth but another giggle escaped.

"Mal? Seriously?" She started laughing in earnest. She laughed so hard that she bent in half. Obi Wan crossed his arms and tried to understand her intense reaction, only one thing made sense.

"You and he weren't involved?"

She shook her head and tried to catch her breath. It should have made him feel worse, it meant he'd attacked her for even less, but it made him feel oddly buoyant.

Jessie leaned back against a tree and brushed her hair away from her face. Her face was wet from tears of remorse and of laughter but at that moment she was joyful.

"It doesn't change what I did," Obi Wan insisted.

"No," she replied. "But I thought you did it because you hated me. Not because…."

And then it made sense. She had realized what he had never told her. He walked over to her and put both hands on either side of her. Her body went still as he put his face up close to hers.

"...because I went insane when I thought someone else had touched you?" She closed her eyes and shook her head. She was afraid to believe him. "Because I knew you couldn't possibly love me if you were with someone else so quickly after me?" She caught her breath. He trailed his lips along her jaw, up to her ear and whispered: "Because I believed you couldn't possibly love me even a fraction of the way I love you?"

She gasped out loud and he quickly found her lips with his own. He didn't want to give her any reason to doubt him. He wanted to infuse the truth of his words into her. She still shook her head in denial even as her arms wound around him and clung to him in desperation.

"I love you," he whispered over and over again as he kissed her lips, her neck, her face. "I'm sorry I never told you before."

He pushed his hands into her hair, buried his face in her neck.

"All I want is you," he whispered. "You and our family to be together."

He felt the fear streak through her like a lightening strike. Her body went stiff under his hands. He pulled away and looked at her face, mystified by what had changed. Her face was white and anguished.

"No," she whispered. "I can't."

He pulled away from her slowly, trying not to let the disappointment crush him but clearly it showed on his face. She reached out and pulled him close to her again.

"I want to," she said, "more then anything I want us to be a family." She closed her eyes. "But I won't risk it."

"Risk what?"

"If I hurt you, or Qui or Paddy…" she shook her head. "You know why I was created. I'm a weapon. And even if the Emperor is dead someone may still have my files, or someone could stumble across them and activate me. One day I could turn on you or my babies…." Her voice broke. "I didn't just bring them here to protect them from you. I brought them here to protect them from me."

"Ahhh," Obi Wan said, his relief evident, and she was startled by his reaction.

He pulled back and opened one of the pouches on his belt.

"Someone does have your files," he said, and he handed it to her. "You do."

She stared at the pad blankly.

"It's everything I could find," he said gently. "Palpatine did intend for you to be his weapon, but not in the way that you think."

She still didn't move, and only continued to stare at the pad.

"He had you created initially to find out if Leia was Anakin's offspring and nothing more. But after a few weeks he did make one modification." She flinched but he continued. "It was an experiment, he didn't know if it would work but if it did, you would be unimaginably useful to him."

She still hadn't moved and he began to worry.

"What did he do to me?"

"He designed you to absorb the abilities of those around you."

Her eyes flickered up to him.

"His hope was that you would take on the strongest characteristics of those you faced and use their own abilities against them."

"That's why I can hear Edward," she whispered. "And River's dreams and Starbuck's stubbornness….."

Obi Wan nodded.

"He intended to raise you himself. He wanted your unwavering loyalty because he knew you would be as dangerous to him as anyone else. So you see, there is no switch, no dormant order or code like there was with the clone army. You were to be raised as one of his loyal subjects from the very beginning."

Jess still stared at the pad and slowly shook her head.

"That's not the only alteration he made, was it?"

Obi Wan cringed this time.

"No. Unlike the clone army you can reproduce. From what I can tell, he intended—"

"He intended to raise me as some pseudo daughter and then have me bare his children." Her voice was toneless.

The idea left Obi Wan feeling sick so he could only imagine what it meant to her. So he shifted the conversation away from it.

"But you see, this means you don't have to run from the people you love any more, Jessie. You are not going to wake up one day and slit my throat because someone has activated you."

She lifted her eyes up to his again, a spark of hope in them.

"How do I know you didn't make this all up?"

He shook the pad in his hand.

"Look for yourself," he insisted. "And then ask Leia, or Luke or Han if I fabricated any of it."

"They're here?"

He nodded.

"How else could I have found you? They also helped me get all of the information. We had to negotiate with quite a few Empire-friendly contingencies to retrieve all it."

"Negotiate?"

"Mostly with lightsabers and blasters," he conceded.

She slowly reached out and took the pad from his hand. She leaned back against the tree and flipped through all the information he'd gathered. The sun was starting to set, the dim light filtering through the canopy of trees. Obi Wan watched as the speckles of light slowly crossed over her face as she read. He reached out to feel what she was feeling. Barely a glimmer of hope started to build up inside her but it was there.

Finally, she let her arm drop to her side, and the pad fell out of her hand. She looked stunned.

"So I'm not going to kill everyone I love?"

He smiled and put his hands on the sides of her face.

"No," he said.

"That's—that's good to know," she said, still looking shell shocked.

Obi Wan laughed and pulled her into his arms again. He felt awash with relief. He pulled away and looked into her eyes.

"Marry me," he said.

Her eyes lost the unfocused look in them and her eyebrows dipped in confusion.

"What?"

"I want you to marry me."

"No," she said, aghast.

Obi Wan's jaw dropped and then he groaned.

"You are really horrific on my ego," he said.

"You're only asking because of what Alice saw," she sighed. "Not everything she sees comes true."

"Alice saw us getting married?"

"She didn't tell you?"

He shook his head. Now he was confused.

"Why would that make her so happy?"

Jessie chuckled.

"We must let her plan it. Nothing makes Alice happier then planning a party." Then she shook her head and broke away from him. "But even if what she saw does come true it won't happen for years. Qui and Paddy and the new one were teenagers in her vision." Then she paused. "But you and I didn't look that much older…"

But then she stopped when she saw that Obi Wan had gone as still as a statue.

"The new one?" he said.

"Oh," Jessie mumbled, her hand going instinctively to her stomach. "I didn't tell you about him, did I?"

"Him?"

Jessie bit her lip.

"I saw him in the vision. He looks just like you," she said quietly.

He reached out slowly and put his hand over hers on her stomach.

"May I?" he asked in a strangely strangled voice.

Jessie nodded and he dropped to his knees in front of her. He carefully lifted her shirt and put his ear to her skin. There was nothing to hear or feel yet but he let out a long, beautiful sigh. Then he took her hands and tugged her down on her knees next to him.

"Marry me," he begged. "All the lights in the universe went out for me; all of them except for you. I can't imagine a life without you. I want to be with you and our children." He knew how much he was asking. How could she go from living in fear of him to living with him in so short a time? "You don't have to be scared…. "

She took his face in her hands.

"I am scared," she whispered. "But not of you."

She kissed him until he had to finally pull away just to catch his breath.

"So yes, then?" he asked.

She smiled and she let out a weepy laugh.

"Yes."

Author's Note: The next chapter will be the last. An epilogue really. Let me know what you think.