Summary: New Hope went a bit more according to plan, until it didn't. The destruction of Alderaan pushes the Force to adjust its scales. Now back before the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan, Leia, Rex, Cody, and Appo will make several corrections and several more mistakes. Darth Vader turns early and the Order has to ask, will Princess Organa be their ruin or salvation? AU Time Travel.
KEYNotes/Warning: Okay, I've tried this before, but I'm starting with it so no bitching, either it's your cup of tea or it isn't. There is one main character death in the second chapter (no resurrection), Darth Vader is a villain, Palpatine is extra Sidious, Order 66 is completely abolished, and there will be no more time travelling or paradoxes after the first pull back.
Canon: Unless I contradict myself within this fic, I don't care what actual canon or fanon is.
Why?: Villains should be badass, Leia is a badass, sassy-Obi-Wan is best Obi-Wan, Imperial Clones ain't got enough love neither do the Rebel clones, and, finally, Save the Clones for love of tea!
Language Disability: Missing words, misspellings, please don't point out to me, I do the best I can with proof reads, and sometimes a beta but it's never going to be perfect, buy a book if that's what you want.
Timeline: I am aware that's not how the chips work, get over it, it's fanfiction.
"Regular folk don't understand. Sometimes in war, it's hard to be the one that survives."
-Commander Cody to Captain Rex, The Clone Wars.
Prologue
Appo, or rather Commander CC-1119 of the 501st Legion, or rather, of Vader's Fist knew he was due to be retired.
Past due really.
But Vader was sentimental, and Appo, Appo was good at his kriffing job. In another life, he might have been an ARC trooper, except that the 501st Legion had turned out to be such a… well, specialized, group, that they had needed someone with his skills to ensure their group stayed on course.
Rex had been made Captain of the Legion because the Kaminoans had wanted to find a reason, any reason, to decommission him. Appo hadn't allowed that to happen.
Course, it hadn't mattered in the end.
Rex had died anyway.
Died killing Tano.
Commander Ahsoka Tano.
One of so many dead Jetiise.
Bodies on the Temple floor, his brothers firing on his command.
Appo shoved it aside, like he shoved everything else aside.
He still served his General, he was always at his side just as Rex had once been.
There to see Genearl- no, Darth Vader's brilliance and his horror.
Some days, Appo thought he would go insane if he looked back. So he ran forward, always forward, no matter how the past haunted him.
No matter if he sat with the logic long enough to let it sink he was no better than a slave.
Less than probably.
At least, generally speaking, people thought of slaves as people having their freedoms and rights stripped from them. According to most, clones were already all they could ever be. Less than human, no better than droids.
But Appo didn't dwell on it. This was his fate, his personal beliefs didn't matter, and most days, it was easy to forget that he didn't have any to begin with.
He just did his absolute best.
And when his General executed people, it was never Appo who was decommissioned.
Something that grew ever easier as his vode dwindled, till it was just him, just him who refused to admit he needed to retire, till fighting and following orders was all he had because there was nothing and no one left to fight for, just orders to be obeyed.
That's why Darth Vader kept him around.
It was easy, easy, he repeated to himself, until karking Commander CC-2224 tapped his shoulder and said without preamble, "They have found and captured, General Obi-Wan Kenobi and Commander CT- 7567, Rex."
Appo knew his face revealed nothing, even as his heart seemed to forget its position.
When he continued to say nothing, Cody, who Appo hadn't seen in age as Appo sure as kriff didn't spend any time willingly at the Imperial Academy on Mandalore, said, "They are being escorted to Vader now. It's our last-" Cody cut himself off.
Last chance to say goodbye.
"We need to go, now," Cody continued.
Appo knew that if he did this, that if he saw Rex, if Rex had been fighting these last nineteen long years for the Rebellion, that everything would catch up to him.
But he didn't care.
He followed Cody without another word.
Cody had been invited to see the Empire's new weapon.
He really couldn't care less if he kriffing tried.
Knowing he was on board with the 501st for the time in an age, brought back unwelcome memories.
Still, he asked around to see if any of his brothers were onboard.
He hadn't realized Appo was still serving in active duty, and it brought a surge of jealousy.
What Cody wouldn't give for it to be Kenobi who was the Sith and to still be serving at his General's side.
But that was a fool's wish.
Kenobi would have never fallen and if he had, it meant he would have been a traitor from the start-
Cody cut off his own thoughts, thoughts that grew ever more rebellious as age caught up to him, as the monotony of it all, at the death after death of his brothers, wore away a little more at the scraps of his soul.
He cleared his throat, needing a distraction from the joyous voice doing karking cartwheels in the back of his mind as he realized he had not killed Kenobi.
Kenobi had lived.
Until today.
But there was still enough time to- to what?
Beg for forgiveness?
As if what he and his kin had done could ever be forgiven.
No.
Whether some of them survived in body or not, the clones had died with the Jedi that day.
"How have the years been?" Cody asked his 501st brother.
Appo had his helmet off and his only answer was to give Cody a look.
A look that spoke of horror, and sorrow, and desperate, fruitless longing to find meaning in the meaningless.
They were just as disposable as droids in the end.
They came to the junction where the prisoners were waiting for their arrival.
Cody didn't have authority to stop a Sith's orders, he did, however, have the authority to take over prison escort duty.
His first glimpse of his general nearly buckled his knees.
Kenobi looked terrible, as old as Cody felt, but he was alive. His blue-grey eyes sparked with that same cunning assessment.
His accent even remained the same as he hailed them with a sharp tongue, "Ah, Commander Cody, quite the honour."
The brunette woman at his side, who looked almost absurdly like Senator Padme Amidala, though he knew she was Princess Leia Organa, stiffened, glaring at Cody with real hatred -and grudging respect.
Cody had trained most of the troops who routinely blew the rebels into stardust.
"Sir," Cody couldn't have stopped the address if he tried, nor the overwhelming relief that flowed out from him.
Kenobi must have felt it, because his expression softened, looking at him with true compassion that broke Cody more surely than being sliced in half would have.
An execution by lightsaber, he deserved. His General's sympathies, he did not.
Kenobi's voice was almost gentle as he said, "You really didn't think gravity would be the end of me, did you?"
Cody could have wept.
Commander Rex was far less sympathetic, "How's life on Mandalore, Ori'vod? How does it feel to still be licking boots?"
Cody's jaw ticked, "How's life as a rebel-rat, vod'ika? You're still fighting for something that was never worth saving?"
"Worked better than tyranny we have today," the Princess snapped at him with the same venom as General Skywalker or Commander Tano used.
"Commander Rex," Appo said, voice low, almost reverent.
Rex tilted his head, his beard a fuzzy snow white, "Appo'ika, long time no see. I hope you've enjoyed my position. Though I can't say I envy you. Not with that traitor using vode as literal meat shields. Although, I do suppose the years have changed us all."
Cody winced at that.
The Sith were not Jedi.
Of course, Pong Krell had taken Waxer, his own second, from Cody.
But then Krell hadn't been a Jedi at the end.
"Are you going to take us where we are going or do we need to find a room for this discussion?" Princess Leia Organa demanded.
"So eager to die?" Appo asked her.
"She has a point," Kenobi said peaceably, "Anakin never did have much of a patience."
"After all this time," Cody started, "you won't even speak with me?" He knew there was absolutely no justification for the hurt in his tone.
But he had spent the last nineteen years blaming himself for his General's death.
"Honestly, Commander," Kenobi said, "I can't handle this conversation, not without tea."
The Princess flashed a small smile, and kriff, she looked like Amidala.
Appo's com beeped, and he grimaced, "We have to go, Cody."
"Does Vader use your name?" Rex asked as the stormtroopers pushed them forward.
"No," Appo said, "He just calls me Commander."
"I don't get it, of all of us, you never loved him, why stay?" Rex pressed.
"Because he was all I had left. Him and our vode you left behind."
Cody suppressed a flinch at how easy Rex used that word, love.
Did he love his own general?
Yes, he did. Kenobi was Ori'vod, he was Jango Fett, what Jango Fett should have been and had never lived up to. Kenobi had been there, had fought and lost with them. Kenobi had always tried his best to keep them as safe as he could.
Skywalker, as wild as he could be, had been on the frontlines too. His stagedies had been ineffective on large scale, yet, for specific missions, the 501st had been unstoppable and more had survived than not.
Though, in Cody's opinion, and frankly everyone else's seeing as Kenobi had been assigned to the Jedi High Council so he could lead a third of the GAR, was and had always been the better stagiest.
As they entered the viewing room of the Death Star, Cody was so wrapped up in his own internal anxieties that it took a minute for him to realize what planet the Emperor's new weapon was pointed at.
All the blood drained from his face as on autopilot he stood at attention.
The Empire was going to destroy Alderaan.
Alderaan.
The planet that had been one of less than ten planets that had tried to fight for clone rights, protested the war without withholding aid, without demonizing him and his brothers for following orders.
He couldn't look at his general who had looked on him with sympathy.
There would be no sympathy for the Empire after this.
No, Cody realized, the death of Alderaan would be the beginning of the end for the Empire. The galaxy would fight for revenge, for the idea of Alderaan. A planet whose name was known in the furthest reaches of the outer rim.
A New Republic would be built on ash, in a galaxy made up of systems that feared each other and could not trust.
Cody saw it all, he saw the Empire's fall, a new government even more divided and corrupted than the old, and what came next would be an even uglier form of the Empire.
If Alderaan had defeated the Empire, systems would come together.
The Empire destroying Alderaan would make people rise up against the Emperor.
Fight, not for hope, but fight for the freedom to run away.
But as always, Cody was nothing but a cog, a bystander.
Nothing but a number to the bitter end.
Ben couldn't explain why it mattered so much to him to feel Cody's relief at his survival.
It had seemed, at the end of the war, he had lost everything. Not only Anakin and the Jedi, but Cody, his men, who he saw as friends and family. So few people had understood the weight of the war, of how much of it Ben himself had been in charge of.
But Cody had been there with him through all of it.
So yes, it was gratifying to know that Cody hadn't chosen to give the order to kill him. Although, in part, it was even worse because Ben wished with all his might that when he had discovered Kamino, he wished he had at least tried to free them.
The Separatists could have left the Republic, maybe it would have made the Senate actually care about its remaining citizens.
Given a second chance…
But that was over.
Vader would kill him.
He had failed Padme. Leia wouldn't survive now that she was revealed as a Rebel and without Ben there to stop Luke, Luke would join the Imperial Academy.
Vader and the Emperor would find him.
Ben had failed in everything.
The Force, drowned in darkness as it was, reached out to him as if to say, Have hope.
Ben sighed, eying what was left of his Padawan.
Qui-Gon would have been disappointed with both of them.
He felt Vader's gaze on him, completely obtuse to the fact that he was in the same room as his daughter.
Anakin Skywalker would have told him he fell to the Dark to save Padme; fell for love. But no, Anakin had fallen because Ben hadn't kept him safe from Palpatine, because Anakin had always equated power with freedom.
To be the Chosen One was to be the strongest and most free being in the galaxy who could take and do anything he wanted. After living on Tatooine for so long, he recognized the Huttese aspect of Anakin's cultural understanding of the world.
Not something Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi had understood, but what Master Qui-Gon Jinn would have.
Ben knew that Palpatine had enslaved Anakin now more surely than he had ever known before.
He was distracted from Vader, from his own inner monologue by Cody, Appo, and Rex's complete horror in the Force.
His gaze went out the windows.
Alderaan.
Why were his fellow veterans afraid of Alderaan?
Then he remembered where he was.
Were they planning a military strike against Alderaan?
That was stupid. Alderaan might have Rebel sympathizes, but they weren't a military threat because there were no weapons there. It was an Imperial planet, to attack it would only draw more to the Rebel cause.
Then a man in grey turned to look at him with a smug smirk and Ben understood the clones' dread.
Tarkin.
As dangerous to the enemy as he was to his own troops.
"I really should have kicked you into the lava," Ben should have done it to Vader too, "On Citadel."
Tarkin sneered but before he could get a word in edgewise, Leia steam rolled over him.
She had her father in temperament yet with her mother's poise.
It was actually rather frightening.
"Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought onboard."
Tarkin did his best to keep up, "Charming to the last. You don't know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate your life."
"I'm surprised you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself," Leia said and Ben couldn't suppress the mirth at her sarcasm.
"Princess Leia, before your execution, you will join me at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now."
Ben felt the breath leave his body and he looked at Vader who said nothing, did nothing. He opened himself up to the Force, and through the Cosmic Force, he found only the confirmation of his dread.
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
"Not after we demonstrate the power of this battle station-"
"Really, Darth, this, this is how far you'll go? Padme might have been forgiving about the Tuskens, but Alderaan? I don't know why I continue to believe that you are more than you are."
Vader's breath hissed out, "That's because you know nothing, and understand even less, old man."
Ben raised a brow at him, "What's there to understand? You are Palpatine's slave."
The Force groaned at Vader's power, so did parts of the bridge, as he boasted, "I'm a Master now, while you wasted away in the desert, accomplishing nothing. I'm glad you survived. There are few punishments I could have chosen worse than exile on Tatooine."
Leia snorted.
Vader turned on her, and Ben marvelled that staring into that stubborn and beautiful face, that he didn't recognize her as his own, as Padme's.
Anakin Skywalker was truly dead.
Rex wasn't sure how he had missed it, Princess Leia Organa was a Skywalker.
She had to be. Rex had spent far too much time in both Skywalker and Padme's company to not see it. In her sass, in her stubbornness, in her sheer lack of fear in the face of certain death.
And his general was still an idiot, because he didn't see what was right in front of him.
Rex exchanged a look with Appo who was staring at the Princess as well, his mouth slightly agape.
They both had been ringside for Skywalker and Padme's 'get togethers'. Why Skywalker ever thought that General Kenobi didn't know just exposed how socially dumb General Skywalker had been.
In the military, he had been an honour to serve. Rex had even counted him as a dear friend once. But he always got so caught up in his own inner emotional drama he could never truly account for anyone else.
It had once been a funny quirk, part of what he and 501st loved about him.
Until he fell, and the Jedi's rule of no attachment was painfully illustrated for them all. He showed them all just how dangerous a Force sensitive could be if corrupted by personal greed and attachment.
"Enough of this," Tarkin snapped at the Princess and Vader.
The Princess, who was every bit her father's daughter, ignored Tarkin to turn her nose up at Vader who, compared to her and Kenobi, was a veritable giant and said, "Heel, boy."
Rex shook his head, kriffing Skywalkers.
Tarkin, wisely, ignored her remark even as Vader clenched his fists, "Princess you can either reveal where the Rebel base is or Alderaan will be no more."
All of Leia's bluster left her as tried to argue with the man.
But Rex remembered Tarkin.
Whatever the most horrible option was, Tarkin would choose it.
At least Princess Leia had the sense to lie.
What followed didn't feel real to him as they watched an entire planet, one that represented peace, opportunity, and aid to everyone in the galaxy, be destroyed at the whim of a madman.
It was like re-seeing his brothers march on everything they had fought to protect.
It was like watching hope die.
Rex put out a hand as he helped steady the Princess.
Kenobi, even with the Force suppression cuffs, was so affected that he fainted.
Cody, good old Cody who had served the Empire for two decades, dropped to his knees as he caught one of the last Jedi in his arms.
Appo tried to stop him, because to try to help Kenobi now, directly under the nose of Darth Vader was a death warrant.
Appo touched the small of Rex's back, all vode were tactile with each other, they were human and they were the only family they had. The Long-Necks certainly give any reassurance or affection. So it was a happenstance, as Appo grabbed Cody's shoulder that the five of them, Kenobi, Cody, Appo, Rex, and General Skywalker's daughter, were touching when darkness engulfed them.
Rex had been Force thrown and caught before, had seen so many impossible things done with the Force, but he had never felt it before.
For a moment, he felt the entire galaxy, understood why the Jedi had spoken so reverently of the Force.
Because it was a living thing, something that lived in all of them, connected all of them.
His vode as much as the Princess and Kenobi.
There is no death, only the Force.
"Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la," he spoke into that darkness, that light, to that being that was timeless and present, that made him feel the presence of all the people he had lost, of the people of Alderaan who he would never forget. Not even in death.
Life would go on, he would go on, he would always be a part of the fabric of reality and Rex found peace in that. He did not fight against the power that embraced and welcomed him.
Not gone, merely marching far away.
Chapter 1 - Don't Call Me Master
Leia woke up feeling as if she had fallen from the stars.
She was so disoriented that she heard the voices first before she could see past the white glare.
"Vod, are you alright?"
"Who the kriff is she?"
"How did you get a human female in here?"
"How did you even meet her?"
"Where are we?"
"What day is it?"
"How old are we?"
"What kind of stupid question is that?"
Leia shut her eyes as she remembered Alderaan before the beautiful dream she had had.
Exhaustion hit her and she shut her eyes hoping to fall back asleep.
She was going to be executed anyway. What did it matter?
Regretfully, Leia couldn't fall back asleep.
Not when she seemed to be in a bunk bed surrendered by identical youthful men in Mandalorian blacks.
Rex was freaking out.
Wolffe was staring at him in concern with two good eyes, as were Ponds and Bly and Gregor and…
Holy kriffing Force, what in the hells was going on?
Cody was breathing heavily beside him.
Appo was curled up in the far end of his bunk.
Princess Leia was here too, in Rex's old bunk somehow, this whole scenario was just… really weird.
Alpha-17 came over to him and shook him, the low warning in his tone, "CT-7567, you will be decommissioned if you don't calm down."
"Why?" this from Leia who had finally sat up, all his vode turned to look at her.
If they were all still on Kamino, that meant she was the first human female they had ever met in person.
Talk about setting a high bar for the opposite gender.
Please, protect her, Bail Organa's last words to him, Rex sat beside Leia, his frame hiding her from the view of the one camera that was off except during training drills, supposedly. Still better safe than sorry.
His brain was telling him this wasn't a dream and that thought was more than Rex could handle at that exact moment.
Alpha-17 stared down at the Princess, "Because, he's blonde."
Leia turned to appraise Rex and she said nonplussed, rubbing her fingers through his buzz cut, "I like it, it makes for a good contrast."
Rex flushed, running his own hand over his head, no longer bald and he was longer old.
"Who are you?" Alpha-17 asked.
Leia's shoulders straightened despite how she had to sit forward a tad to not hit her head on the upper bunk in these coffin bunks they had, "I am Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan."
His vode gaped at her.
"How did you get here?" Ponds demanded.
Leia looked to Rex, then Cody, then Appo who was sitting up but still shaking slightly, and she answered tentatively, "The Force?"
Alpha-17's expression instantly smoothed out to professional neutral, "You're a Jedi?"
Rex shook his head, "No, she's just a powerful Force Sensitive."
Leia looked at him, startled, "No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are," Cody and Appo said in unison.
She frowned at both of them.
"Can someone explain what the Kriff is going on?" this from Monnk who rarely spoke without purpose.
Cody shook his head, "Why are we all here?" He glanced at the crono on the wall four hours before dinner. It was weird not just to see all his brothers again but to see them so young and unscared. "Don't we have somewhere to be?"
"Two days of mandatory rest," Alpha-17 said, their mentor for all the top officers, "Followed by two more days of limited activity. The Kaminoans came up with some hormone regulating chips so we don't get as 'impulsive' as Jango."
Cody grabbed Alpha-17 by the collar of his blacks and shook him, "They haven't chipped us yet?"
"Let go of me!" Alpha-17 exclaimed.
Cody shook him, "Have they done the surgery yet!?"
Alpha-17 tried to break his hold.
But Cody had over two decades of training on Alpha-17 now, so it was Alpha-17 who ended up slammed into the wall with an angry Cody screaming in his face, "Answer me!"
"No! Kriff! What the hell is wrong with you!? They told us the surgery is tomorrow. They are starting from oldest to youngest. That's why we've been bunking together so they can monitor our aggression and anxiety levels."
Cody let him go and sank to the sterile floor, shaking as badly as Appo had been.
"Something I didn't think was at all necessary until this moment," Alpha-17 muttered.
Appo's voice was hollow, he was still now, as if all the emotion had been suddenly drained out of him, "They aren't for our hormones, they are slave chips."
Ponds scuffed, "Slave chips? Our entire lives have been nothing but training us to be loyal what was the point of that if-"
Appo looked up at him, "Not exploding chips, not a threat. It goes at the base of our brains, it- they turn us into bio-droids."
Cody covered his face with his hands, "I would rather be decommissioned than live through this again."
"Again?" Fox demanded.
Rex rubbed his face, he was with Cody on this one.
Death before chip.
Death before seeing any chip be used on his vode again.
"Rex," Leia said slowly, "are all the major officers from the GAR in this… dorm?"
"Yes," the word echoed down the longer hall, some vode that Rex didn't even remember.
Leia smiled, "You go into surgery tomorrow?"
"Yes," Pond said, crossing his arms, immediately suspicious at her tone.
Rex thought he was perfectly right for that feeling because that was a 'Senator Padme Amidala is going to cause a riot' tone.
Leia smiled, "So your brothers listen to you?"
Alpha-17 arched an eyebrow at her, "That would be the idea, Princess."
Her smile turned predatory, "In essence, if you all tell your brothers that the chips are slave chips, would that be enough to organize a demonstration of civil disobedience?"
Rex smiled, hope blooming in his chest, "You're officially my favorite Skywalker."
Appo snorted, "Amidala, that was an Amidala statement. 'Civil disobedience' my sheb, it will start a riot."
Rex smirked at his Imperial brother, "It will start a rebellion."
Appo rolled his eyes.
"What's the date?" Cody asked suddenly.
Alpha-17 answered and it was like watching the light come back to Cody as he said, "Kenobi will be here in a month or two."
Bly asked, "Hold up, are you four claiming to be what? Psychic? Time travellers?"
Rex grinned at him, "The Force works in mysterious ways."
Ben woke up in the arms of his Padawan.
A part of his being sighed in happiness, he had joined with the Force and the Force had granted him a moment to speak to Anakin, not Vader.
Ben's fist came up and he punched the brat in the nose.
Not hard enough to break, but hard enough that Anakin reeled back and Ben rolled to his feet, fists raised.
He didn't reach for his lightsaber.
Anakin was holding his hand to his feet, "What the hell is wrong with you!?"
Ben laughed.
He let his shields go for the first time in decades and opened himself wide to the Force, the light pouring into his being.
It felt so good. It was intoxicating. It brought tears to his eyes and the next thing he knew he was back on the ground of the transport they were on, sobbing what was left of his heart out.
Anakin didn't approach him.
But another presence wrapped his arms around Ben. He could feel Qui-Gon as if he were more than a ghost, and maybe he was. He knew that Force ghosts could interact with the physical world. But Ben, for all the mediation he had done with his old Master had been unable to interact with him fully lest he expose himself, and therefore Luke, to the Sith.
-You're not dead, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon said, brushing back his hair. -The Force has balanced the scales.
"Haven't I done enough?" Ben asked, his voice ragged, "Have I not done enough damage? Have I not failed you enough?" He straightened to meet Qui-Gon's slightly transparent gaze, "When will it be enough!? I have nothing left to give!"
Qui-Gon cupped his face and this time his touch was less physical, more a brush of wind, -You are not dead, Padawan mine. And you have not failed. It was I who failed, it was your elders who failed.
Ben looked over Qui-Gon's shoulder to Anakin's terrified gaze at the sight of his Master having a complete mental breakdown and talking to thin air, for he could tell that Anakin couldn't see Qui-Gon.
If this was a second chance, Ben realized suddenly that he didn't want it. Not after everything. Not after feeling Alderaan parish. Ben was on the brink of hyperventilating. His eyes filled back up with tears as he looked up at his uncorrupted Padawan, his brother. The boy he loved more than any other in this world.
"I can't, Master, I can't. Not again," he said to his long dead Master. "Luke, Leia… but not this, I cannot face this again. I was not ready and I am less ready now."
He couldn't train Anakin again, it was weakness, it was attachment, it was hate, it was fear, it was pain.
Qui-Gon shifted back into his line of sight, -Shhh, Obi-Wan, Padawan mine, shhh. I know, even his Master's voice sounded thick with emotion, I know, and I am sorry. I rushed ahead of you in that duel. I went about everything with Anakin all wrong and you paid the price for that. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to you both. But know that if we had left Anakin on Tatooine, he would have fallen into Sith hands sooner than he did. Be at peace to know you gave him a decade of freedom, a decade of friendship and light and be at peace. You gave him the freedom of choices.
"But you're asking me to do it again!" Ben yelled at Qui-Gon, his voice breaking and he didn't care.
Alderaan.
As if a million voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Force help him, he was going to be sick.
-Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon chided gently, listen to me, listen to the Force. Anakin's path is his own now. It is too late for your words to change him at this time, only he has the power to change his path now.
That was certainly true.
Anakin had been Knighted far too early for Ben's liking, but his Padawan had made it quite clear that any 'wisdom' Ben might have offered him would not be heeded. So he had let him go, knowing that holding on would have only caused more damage between them.
-Yes, Qui-Gon agreed, -it would have.
"So what do you want from me?" Ben demanded, "If not for him, then why me?"
-Did you not lose your people as well, Padawan, the Jedi, your men?
"I'm not strong enough to kill Palpatine. Yoda-"
-Hush, Qui-Gon silenced him, -reach out with your feelings. Your charge waits for you. Your men wait for you. Where you lead, the Jedi will follow.
Ben pulled back from Qui-Gon and scoffed, "You must be joking."
-Padawan, you are not dead. The game has changed, the Force has reshuffled the deck.
Ben did reach out into the galaxy with his senses, and found… Leia.
He shut his eyes and let out a long sigh, "The Force cheated."
Qui-Gon's slightly transparent smile was brilliant and his voice far too smug -I told you I was acting with the will of the Force.
Ben sighed and held out his hand to Anakin, "Give me your credits."
"Excuse me!?" Anakin asked, "You faint out of nowhere! Wake up and punch me! Start crying, then babbling to the air. Then ask for my credits!?"
Ben didn't ask again, just pulled on the Force and Anakin's small credit-bag landed in his hand.
"HEY!" Anakin yelled, indignant and angry because of his confusion.
A part of Ben thought he should do something about that, but the Force was pulling him toward Leia.
Toward Rex.
Toward Appo and Cody and all the GAR.
It was not a call he could or wanted to refuse.
Ben's voice was tight as he said, "Report to the Council, tell them I'll be back after I run an errand in the Outer Rim."
Anakin gaped at him, "You're not taking me with you!?"
"No," Obi-Wan said, glancing at the stops of the turbo-train. He could take a Jedi vessel, but he didn't want to be tracked. He didn't want Palpatine to have any hint of what he was about to do.
Anakin's panic was a sharp thing, drawing his attention back to the boy who still wore a padawan braid, "Is- is this because I said you were the worst? I didn't mean it, Obi-Wan. I know that you're not a slaver, and you've never treated me like- I'm sorry, please don't be angry."
Ah, Ben suddenly remembered this day, the long tense ride back to the Temple after Anakin had lost his temper about Ben reeling him back during a mission. Pulling him back from accidentally killing a man.
Right! I know, I have to obey my 'Master'. I'm not as 'misbehaving' as you treat me. I may never have been an initiate, but in my old life, I was well trained in following orders, 'Master'.
That word.
It was the first time Ben had realized that part of Anakin's recement toward him was that word alone, that he saw Ben not as a father figure like he claimed, not a brother, or mentor, or teacher, or friend.
No, in Anakin's mind, in Anakin's heart; Obi-Wan was nothing but a slaver.
He hadn't said a word about it then, knowing that part of the reason that Anakin had lashed out was because he had known he was in the wrong on that mission, because he was scared.
Ben has always been his villain, the one Anakin blamed. Never himself, no personal accountability, just evil old Kenobi trying to be perfect.
Perfect.
Ben was many things, both then and presently, perfect wasn't one of them.
And he had let all those insults pass because Ben had enough self-hatred in himself to feel like he deserved Anakin's wrath.
"Please, Master Obi-W-"
"Don't call me that," Ben said harshly. There was literally nothing he could do at this point that would be worse than before. So this time, Ben stood up for himself.
Anakin flinched, "Mast-"
"Don't, Anakin, don't. Don't ever call me that again if that's how you view it. If Master to you means not guardian and teacher then don't use it. If what it means to you is that I have some ownership over you, that you are not responsible for your own fate then don't call me Master. If you do not want to be a Jedi then do not believe I would force you down this path, do not think that I would love you less," his voice cracked, because even after Alderaan, he still loved Anakin. He always would. He had loved the pieces of Anakin left behind, the goodness and light he and Padme had gifted to their children.
Ben continued, "I would not love you less for choosing a different path. But do not call me Master if any part of you believes that you are not free to live your life as you wish it."
Anakin frowned at him, "The Jedi don't love. You taught me that."
Ben couldn't help the gasp that slipped from his lips, nor the tears that came back with a vengeance. Anakin could not have hurt him more if he had stabbed him through the heart. Ben maybe had never said the words out loud before, but surely his actions had spoken for him. All the times they had saved each other, all those times he had made excuses for him, taken ridicule from the Council so they wouldn't be separated, and turned a blind eye to his affair with Padme.
Nineteen years he had spent guarding Anakin's son, nineteen years of solitude with nothing but his grief and a ghost for company in the perialless sands for love of his fallen Padawan.
He believed in Luke and he believed in Leia, but Ben had never been as optimistic as Yoda, never believed there was much left to save. He hadn't looked after Luke for the galaxy, he'd done it for Anakin and Padme and for Luke himself.
He felt Qui-Gon place a hand on his shoulder and hardly heard his old Master's apology, -I'm sorry, Obi-Wan.
Anakin's face was a wash of horror as he felt Ben's emotions heavy in the air around them, "I'm sorry, Obi-Wan," Anakin said in a rush, reaching out a hand, "I didn't mean- Please, don't be angry."
Ben pulled the emergency break, the turbo-train came to a screeching halt as the doors opened upwards. "I'm not angry, Anakin." The boy's face eased, like it always did when Ben forgave him. But truthfully, Ben would never trust Anakin again, not after what he had lived through and witnessed. So his parting words brought renewed tension to his young Padawan, "I'm disappointed."
Ben Kenobi let himself fall into rushing tides of Coruscanti traffic.
He was home, his brother and sisters, Jedi and Clone alike sparkled like kyber in the caverns of Ilum, and yet, Anakin's words burned like a hot brand.
The Jedi do not love. You taught me that.
Ben had two decades to meditate over his own failings and he wished that Anakin were right, wished that he couldn't feel love because maybe then he wouldn't feel so broken, so completely defeated.
The Force called to him, and Ben remembered that there were others who needed him, who wanted his help, who didn't see him as the villain.
From my point of view, the Jedi are evil.
Ben had failed, made more mistakes than most, but he wasn't evil. He followed the Light, and the Force had brought him, them, back for a reason.
He had to have faith in the Force.
I am one with the Force and the Force with me.
He had to hope.
The war wasn't over, technically it hadn't even begun yet.
If he was lucky, he might get a moment in the near future to even enjoy a decent cup of his favourite Alderaanian tea.
That, at least, was something to look forward to.
Keynote: Not how the chips work or when they were put in. I know and I don't care.
AN: Thoughts about the chapter and story? Please review if you enjoyed?