Well, I'm back with the next chapter, and hoping for more reviews. It's
finally time for Obi-Wan to show up again! Enjoy!
I don't own Star Wars.but you already know that.
Chapter Three
Sammi had never hated funerals so passionately. As the Force-lit flames of the pyre consumed the body of yet another Jedi who had died fighting the Separatists, she tried to recall each sad occasion that she had attended over the last month since Geonosis and the beginnings of the Clone War. The harsh smells of the burning bodies, the eerie wailings of the victim's loved ones, the smears of leaping flames, and, worst, she thought, the grimy feeling of ashes in the air that never quite faded, formed a painful blur in her mind punctuated only by the emotional memory of Karina's Master's funeral, which had culminated in Karina attempting to throw herself onto the pyre and being forcibly restrained by Master Windu and several other older Jedi.
Karina was still, after nearly two weeks, sedated in the Healer's wing. Ray and Regan, however, came by Sammi's rooms every night, and the three of them would go visit their friend. Master Yoda, after seeing the young Padawan's stricken face relaxed for the first time since Geonosis, had decided to ease the girl quite slowly off of the drugs that aided her sleep, and her status as a Padawan had been thrown into doubt by the violence of her trauma.
Since the terrible news of the battle arrived at the Temple, Sammi hadn't seen or heard from Obi-Wan, who normally greeted Sammi and her friends when he returned from missions. His Padawan was similarly absent. When she questioned Master Amila, the crèche master looked puzzled and said that Obi- Wan had indeed returned to the Temple after the battle.
A sudden touch at her elbow pulled Sammi from her thoughts; she looked up from the tiled floor into Ray's now-saddened eyes. Regan, bronze hair pulled back from her neck in an unusually reserved style, stood behind him.
"How've things been?" Ray asked quietly.
Sammi shrugged. "You'd be amazed at the effect all this," she gestured to the mourning throng of Jedi, and the body on the pyre, "has on the little ones. They cry so easily now, and they're never into mischief anymore, even the harmless kind." She heaved a sigh. "I'm surprised at the effect its had on me."
Regan graced her with an encouraging smile and opened her mouth to speak when the three Padawans heard a wonderfully familiar voice from nearby.
"How are you, little ones?" Obi-Wan Kenobi said with a big smile that only barely managed to lighten the worry in his green-blue eyes.
"Master Obi-Wan!" Sammi grinned, then let him enfold her in a friendly hug. "We're fine," she said against his chest, "but how are you?"
He shook his head. "Oh, I'm fine, just worried. It's.well, Anakin's been even more unpredictable than usual lately. At first I though he'd had some sort of spat with Senator Amidala; he had the most painful crush on her, he has for years. He escorted her back to her home planet after Geonosis, but when he got back, he didn't say a word about her." And then.."
"There's more?" Regan interrupted.
"Oh, yes, there's more. For weeks before this whole mess he'd been worried about these dreams of his mother. I know he went to Tatooine, and I was sure he'd gone to find her, but he hasn't said another word about her since."
"That's really weird," Sammi said, for lack of anything better to add.
"And you heard about his arm, right?" Obi-Wan continued.
"They said he lost it in a duel," Regan explained. "The leader of the Separatists was a Jedi who turned to the Dark Side."
Obi-Wan ran his hands through shoulder-length gingery hair. "He won't talk about that, either. I just don't know what to do with him anymore. He has these mood swings, and sometimes he just lashes out at me for whatever I may happen to say." He gave a heavy sigh. "What can I do, if he won't talk to me?"
"We could try and talk with him, but I think he's been avoiding us," Ray suggested.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "He's been avoiding everybody! But try, if you do see him. Maybe you three can talk some sense into him, though I really wouldn't bet on it."
After the funeral, Sammi returned to the crèche to find a roomful of listless, melancholy initiates who clung weepy-eyed to her legs as soon as she entered.
Andra, a tiny girl with blue-black hair, quicksilver eyes, and pale white skin-a study in contrast, and if truth be told, Sammi's favorite child of the group-spoke for all of the babies. "Don't leave us anymore, or you won't come back," she pleaded.
Sammi looked at her, shocked at the depth of the initiates' fright. "Oh, darling," she began comfortingly, wrapping the child, and several others nearby, into a warm hug, "I'll always come back to you. I love you all too much to leave."
"Promise?" the little girl demanded, and Sammi could only agree.
"I promise."
"You know," a cheerful voice from above stated, "you shouldn't make promises to these imps; they have ways of making you keep them."
The little ones were as good as gone. "ObiObiObi!" was the general consensus, from what Sammi could understand. She grinned, as lost to the older Master's charm as the babies, as Obi-Wan scooped up one squirming form after another, delivering kisses, hair tousles, and, at the general demanding of the babies, his "present," a handful of toy lightsabers, easy- to-grip handles attached to a rod of floppy, clear plastic with flashing blue or green lights inside.
Sammi groaned as she offered Obi-Wan a seat. "Obi-Wan, it's not even Festival Week; you don't have to get them presents."
"It's my apology for me not visiting enough," he explained with a wink, and Sammi couldn't help but be amused as Criat, the little initiate who loathed broccoli, and Andra scooped up two of them and began to duel. Sammi stood up worriedly at her first glimpse of the wild swinging.
Obi-Wan pulled her back into her chair. "Don't worry, they're extremely soft; as long as you keep an eye on them, no one will get hurt." Indeed, the little initiates had settled into rather peaceful sparring; it looked as though the dark-haired girl and the bouncy human boy would both grow into very talented swordsmen.
As Sammi and Obi-Wan settled back down to watch the childish battle, the hiss of the opening door startled Padawan, Knight, and initiates alike.
"Master?" a tight voice spoke into the sudden silence.
"Obi-Wan moved swiftly to his feet. "Anakin? Is something the matter?"
The taller young man stepped into the room. "No, Master Yoda said you wanted to talk to me." His voice was smooth, almost alluring, as it had always sounded to Sammi, but something else, elusive and dark, touched it now. From where Sammi sat, his bright blue eyes looked as light-filled as always, but then Anakin's intent look swept the room, glancing over the children and the long-haired Knight, and, for a moment, meeting Sammi's gaze.
She was nothing less than overwhelmed by the emotions that raged in his eyes now, nothing to which she could put a name, but encompassing everything from rage to love to grief, and so powerful that, for a moment, she just gaped. Anakin broke eye contact with her, almost boredly.
Obi-Wan walked over to the blonde man. "Yes, I was hoping you'd be willing to sit down and have a conversation with me." His voice, to Sammi, sounded almost pleading, but it obviously sounded different to Anakin.
"I'm not really interested in sharing my feelings with you, Master," he rejoined curtly, almost rudely.
As she listened to the budding argument, Sammi's eyes traveled from Anakin's glowering face to his arm, a golden robotic replica of a real hand. She wondered why he hadn't replaced the missing limb with a more realistic prosthetic. Pride, maybe? Or a mark of something he had gained- or lost?-in that battle?
"Anakin, please," Obi-Wan began, but the younger man spun on his heel and stalked off, lip curled.
The Knight collapsed back into his chair, and the initiates resumed their war, blissfully, childishly unaware of what had just passed before them.
"See what I mean by mood swings?" he commented dryly, bitterly, and Sammi could only nod.
She decided to offer her opinion. "When the little ones are very upset, or worried, about something, they get like that, you know."
"If he won't talk, I can't figure out what's wrong, Sammi," Obi-Wan observed wryly.
She snorted. "If I get the chance to talk with him, I will, but if he's in that kind of mood.." She trailed off.
"Believe me, I understand," Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. With a sudden change in his own mood, he stood up, turned to the initiates, grinned cheerfully, and bid them farewell, sliding smoothly out the door.
Rask, a chubby Rodian boy, sidled up to Sammi, who was still sprawled in the chair where Obi-Wan had left her. "Obi's Padawan angry," he noted. Maybe, Sammi realized, the initiates were more aware than she realized.
She held out her arms, and Rask climbed into her lap. Rodians, like human babies, had a distinct, though not unpleasant smell. While human little ones always smelled vaguely milky-sweet, the Rodian baby had a muskier scent, reminiscent of cedar shavings. Sammi inhaled deeply, letting the boy cuddle against her chest before responding to him.
"Yes, but I don't know why," she said, answering what Rask's next question would have been before he could voice it.
"Maybe he's sad," the tiny child offered, startling Sammi into nearly dropping him. Master Yoda's oft-quoted phrase-"truly wonderful, the mind of a child is"-leapt immediately to her mind.
The first movement that came to Sammi's mind was to ruffle the boy's hair and agree. The first part failed right off, as the Rodian was a bit short on hair to tousle, but she quicky squeezed his shoulder before speaking.
"You may be right," Sammi concurred. "In fact, I bet you are!" Rask gave what passed for a brilliant grin on a Rodian's tight-pinched mouth, scurried off the girl's lap, scooped up one of the unclaimed toy sabers- flashing green to match his skin-and joined the ongoing battle.
When Regan and Ray appeared at Sammi's door that night, the pale-haired girl shared with them everything that had happened that day in the creche, with an especially long description of the way Anakin had acted.
"-And his eyes," she exclaimed, "you know how they always had that depth to them?" Ray rolled his own warm brown eyes at this statement, groaning audibly when his sister answered in the affirmative. He grew serious when Sammi continued, though.
"They're still deep, but they're so.." She broke off. "I can't even think of a word."
"Blue?" Regan offered with a impish grin.
Sammi gave a brief laugh. "I was thinking more like poignant, or passionate, or something. It was like I could read them, there was so much there."
"So there's something bothering him? Really bothering him?" Ray suggested.
Sammi tilted her head. "That's what Rask said," she recalled.
Regan looked confused. 'Rask? That little Rodian boy?"
"The very same," Sammi nodded. "Actually, Obi-Wan knows that something is wrong, he just can't figure out what."
Regan rested her head on her knee for a moment, looking dejected. "I have no idea.how could any of us? So much happened on Geonosis that even the Council doesn't know about!"
Ray shrugged. "We could go ask him."
"If he's in the same mood he was in this morning, he'd probably bite our heads off," Sammi pointed out. The three sat in companionable silence for a moment, thinking, until Ray spoke up.
"Let's go talk to Obi-Wan. He won't mind having a visitor, and, if nothing else, he can tell us more about Geonosis."
"He might not even be there," Regan pointed out.
"Well, we can go see, can't we?" Ray argued.
Sammi had been gazing out the window during the twins' exchange, suddenly smiling to herself. "It sounds like a bad holovid, you know. 'Mystery at the Jedi Temple.'"
All three Padawans laughed, but, as if in unspoken agreement, stood and turned towards the door.
"So let's solve it," Ray said with a shrug.
I don't own Star Wars.but you already know that.
Chapter Three
Sammi had never hated funerals so passionately. As the Force-lit flames of the pyre consumed the body of yet another Jedi who had died fighting the Separatists, she tried to recall each sad occasion that she had attended over the last month since Geonosis and the beginnings of the Clone War. The harsh smells of the burning bodies, the eerie wailings of the victim's loved ones, the smears of leaping flames, and, worst, she thought, the grimy feeling of ashes in the air that never quite faded, formed a painful blur in her mind punctuated only by the emotional memory of Karina's Master's funeral, which had culminated in Karina attempting to throw herself onto the pyre and being forcibly restrained by Master Windu and several other older Jedi.
Karina was still, after nearly two weeks, sedated in the Healer's wing. Ray and Regan, however, came by Sammi's rooms every night, and the three of them would go visit their friend. Master Yoda, after seeing the young Padawan's stricken face relaxed for the first time since Geonosis, had decided to ease the girl quite slowly off of the drugs that aided her sleep, and her status as a Padawan had been thrown into doubt by the violence of her trauma.
Since the terrible news of the battle arrived at the Temple, Sammi hadn't seen or heard from Obi-Wan, who normally greeted Sammi and her friends when he returned from missions. His Padawan was similarly absent. When she questioned Master Amila, the crèche master looked puzzled and said that Obi- Wan had indeed returned to the Temple after the battle.
A sudden touch at her elbow pulled Sammi from her thoughts; she looked up from the tiled floor into Ray's now-saddened eyes. Regan, bronze hair pulled back from her neck in an unusually reserved style, stood behind him.
"How've things been?" Ray asked quietly.
Sammi shrugged. "You'd be amazed at the effect all this," she gestured to the mourning throng of Jedi, and the body on the pyre, "has on the little ones. They cry so easily now, and they're never into mischief anymore, even the harmless kind." She heaved a sigh. "I'm surprised at the effect its had on me."
Regan graced her with an encouraging smile and opened her mouth to speak when the three Padawans heard a wonderfully familiar voice from nearby.
"How are you, little ones?" Obi-Wan Kenobi said with a big smile that only barely managed to lighten the worry in his green-blue eyes.
"Master Obi-Wan!" Sammi grinned, then let him enfold her in a friendly hug. "We're fine," she said against his chest, "but how are you?"
He shook his head. "Oh, I'm fine, just worried. It's.well, Anakin's been even more unpredictable than usual lately. At first I though he'd had some sort of spat with Senator Amidala; he had the most painful crush on her, he has for years. He escorted her back to her home planet after Geonosis, but when he got back, he didn't say a word about her." And then.."
"There's more?" Regan interrupted.
"Oh, yes, there's more. For weeks before this whole mess he'd been worried about these dreams of his mother. I know he went to Tatooine, and I was sure he'd gone to find her, but he hasn't said another word about her since."
"That's really weird," Sammi said, for lack of anything better to add.
"And you heard about his arm, right?" Obi-Wan continued.
"They said he lost it in a duel," Regan explained. "The leader of the Separatists was a Jedi who turned to the Dark Side."
Obi-Wan ran his hands through shoulder-length gingery hair. "He won't talk about that, either. I just don't know what to do with him anymore. He has these mood swings, and sometimes he just lashes out at me for whatever I may happen to say." He gave a heavy sigh. "What can I do, if he won't talk to me?"
"We could try and talk with him, but I think he's been avoiding us," Ray suggested.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "He's been avoiding everybody! But try, if you do see him. Maybe you three can talk some sense into him, though I really wouldn't bet on it."
After the funeral, Sammi returned to the crèche to find a roomful of listless, melancholy initiates who clung weepy-eyed to her legs as soon as she entered.
Andra, a tiny girl with blue-black hair, quicksilver eyes, and pale white skin-a study in contrast, and if truth be told, Sammi's favorite child of the group-spoke for all of the babies. "Don't leave us anymore, or you won't come back," she pleaded.
Sammi looked at her, shocked at the depth of the initiates' fright. "Oh, darling," she began comfortingly, wrapping the child, and several others nearby, into a warm hug, "I'll always come back to you. I love you all too much to leave."
"Promise?" the little girl demanded, and Sammi could only agree.
"I promise."
"You know," a cheerful voice from above stated, "you shouldn't make promises to these imps; they have ways of making you keep them."
The little ones were as good as gone. "ObiObiObi!" was the general consensus, from what Sammi could understand. She grinned, as lost to the older Master's charm as the babies, as Obi-Wan scooped up one squirming form after another, delivering kisses, hair tousles, and, at the general demanding of the babies, his "present," a handful of toy lightsabers, easy- to-grip handles attached to a rod of floppy, clear plastic with flashing blue or green lights inside.
Sammi groaned as she offered Obi-Wan a seat. "Obi-Wan, it's not even Festival Week; you don't have to get them presents."
"It's my apology for me not visiting enough," he explained with a wink, and Sammi couldn't help but be amused as Criat, the little initiate who loathed broccoli, and Andra scooped up two of them and began to duel. Sammi stood up worriedly at her first glimpse of the wild swinging.
Obi-Wan pulled her back into her chair. "Don't worry, they're extremely soft; as long as you keep an eye on them, no one will get hurt." Indeed, the little initiates had settled into rather peaceful sparring; it looked as though the dark-haired girl and the bouncy human boy would both grow into very talented swordsmen.
As Sammi and Obi-Wan settled back down to watch the childish battle, the hiss of the opening door startled Padawan, Knight, and initiates alike.
"Master?" a tight voice spoke into the sudden silence.
"Obi-Wan moved swiftly to his feet. "Anakin? Is something the matter?"
The taller young man stepped into the room. "No, Master Yoda said you wanted to talk to me." His voice was smooth, almost alluring, as it had always sounded to Sammi, but something else, elusive and dark, touched it now. From where Sammi sat, his bright blue eyes looked as light-filled as always, but then Anakin's intent look swept the room, glancing over the children and the long-haired Knight, and, for a moment, meeting Sammi's gaze.
She was nothing less than overwhelmed by the emotions that raged in his eyes now, nothing to which she could put a name, but encompassing everything from rage to love to grief, and so powerful that, for a moment, she just gaped. Anakin broke eye contact with her, almost boredly.
Obi-Wan walked over to the blonde man. "Yes, I was hoping you'd be willing to sit down and have a conversation with me." His voice, to Sammi, sounded almost pleading, but it obviously sounded different to Anakin.
"I'm not really interested in sharing my feelings with you, Master," he rejoined curtly, almost rudely.
As she listened to the budding argument, Sammi's eyes traveled from Anakin's glowering face to his arm, a golden robotic replica of a real hand. She wondered why he hadn't replaced the missing limb with a more realistic prosthetic. Pride, maybe? Or a mark of something he had gained- or lost?-in that battle?
"Anakin, please," Obi-Wan began, but the younger man spun on his heel and stalked off, lip curled.
The Knight collapsed back into his chair, and the initiates resumed their war, blissfully, childishly unaware of what had just passed before them.
"See what I mean by mood swings?" he commented dryly, bitterly, and Sammi could only nod.
She decided to offer her opinion. "When the little ones are very upset, or worried, about something, they get like that, you know."
"If he won't talk, I can't figure out what's wrong, Sammi," Obi-Wan observed wryly.
She snorted. "If I get the chance to talk with him, I will, but if he's in that kind of mood.." She trailed off.
"Believe me, I understand," Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. With a sudden change in his own mood, he stood up, turned to the initiates, grinned cheerfully, and bid them farewell, sliding smoothly out the door.
Rask, a chubby Rodian boy, sidled up to Sammi, who was still sprawled in the chair where Obi-Wan had left her. "Obi's Padawan angry," he noted. Maybe, Sammi realized, the initiates were more aware than she realized.
She held out her arms, and Rask climbed into her lap. Rodians, like human babies, had a distinct, though not unpleasant smell. While human little ones always smelled vaguely milky-sweet, the Rodian baby had a muskier scent, reminiscent of cedar shavings. Sammi inhaled deeply, letting the boy cuddle against her chest before responding to him.
"Yes, but I don't know why," she said, answering what Rask's next question would have been before he could voice it.
"Maybe he's sad," the tiny child offered, startling Sammi into nearly dropping him. Master Yoda's oft-quoted phrase-"truly wonderful, the mind of a child is"-leapt immediately to her mind.
The first movement that came to Sammi's mind was to ruffle the boy's hair and agree. The first part failed right off, as the Rodian was a bit short on hair to tousle, but she quicky squeezed his shoulder before speaking.
"You may be right," Sammi concurred. "In fact, I bet you are!" Rask gave what passed for a brilliant grin on a Rodian's tight-pinched mouth, scurried off the girl's lap, scooped up one of the unclaimed toy sabers- flashing green to match his skin-and joined the ongoing battle.
When Regan and Ray appeared at Sammi's door that night, the pale-haired girl shared with them everything that had happened that day in the creche, with an especially long description of the way Anakin had acted.
"-And his eyes," she exclaimed, "you know how they always had that depth to them?" Ray rolled his own warm brown eyes at this statement, groaning audibly when his sister answered in the affirmative. He grew serious when Sammi continued, though.
"They're still deep, but they're so.." She broke off. "I can't even think of a word."
"Blue?" Regan offered with a impish grin.
Sammi gave a brief laugh. "I was thinking more like poignant, or passionate, or something. It was like I could read them, there was so much there."
"So there's something bothering him? Really bothering him?" Ray suggested.
Sammi tilted her head. "That's what Rask said," she recalled.
Regan looked confused. 'Rask? That little Rodian boy?"
"The very same," Sammi nodded. "Actually, Obi-Wan knows that something is wrong, he just can't figure out what."
Regan rested her head on her knee for a moment, looking dejected. "I have no idea.how could any of us? So much happened on Geonosis that even the Council doesn't know about!"
Ray shrugged. "We could go ask him."
"If he's in the same mood he was in this morning, he'd probably bite our heads off," Sammi pointed out. The three sat in companionable silence for a moment, thinking, until Ray spoke up.
"Let's go talk to Obi-Wan. He won't mind having a visitor, and, if nothing else, he can tell us more about Geonosis."
"He might not even be there," Regan pointed out.
"Well, we can go see, can't we?" Ray argued.
Sammi had been gazing out the window during the twins' exchange, suddenly smiling to herself. "It sounds like a bad holovid, you know. 'Mystery at the Jedi Temple.'"
All three Padawans laughed, but, as if in unspoken agreement, stood and turned towards the door.
"So let's solve it," Ray said with a shrug.