Notes: I don't know much specifics about the Clone War so I'll be making most of it up... But this is an AU, so what I make up is true...so ha! Now enjoy!

Chapter 31
Jabiim

Vader huddled under an inconveniently narrow overhang and glared. There were a lot of ways a planet could be completely opposite to Tatooine. An icy frozen planet would oppose Tatooine's oppressive heat. A lush green planet would oppose Tatooine's dead sandy wastes. An oceanic planet would oppose Tatooine's lack of water. And a planet where it rained all the time would oppose Tatooine's dry, rainless climate.

Jabiim was the last of these. It rained all the time, pretty much everyday. According to the data file he'd read, there was an average of seven days where the sun shined without any clouds to veil it. Every other day in its slightly longer than Standard year it rained. It rained, just as it was raining right now.

Funny how rain used to fascinate him. He could stare at it for hours on end. The very idea that water could fall from the sky blew his mind. Not even Dooku could make him hate rain. But Jabiim could.

And to think, I wanted to come out here, Vader grumbled to himself in disgust. I wanted to come out here just to spend time with my old buddy Obi-Wan. What was I thinking?

"How's the weather?" Obi-Wan asked, stepping out of the command center and crowding Vader closer to the edge of the tiny overhang.

"Oh it's just great!" Vader sighed, drowning the statement in sarcasm.

"Ah yes, another beautiful day on Jabiim." Obi-Wan nodded gravely. "Aren't you glad that you're here to enjoy it with me?"

"Yes," Vader huffed.

It was still quite amazing to him that the Council had cleared him for this. Though he was very glad that they had. Almost a year had gone by since then, and some days he still had trouble believing it.

Less than a week after that 'appointment' the two of them had gone before the Council once more. He'd stood in the back of the chamber and watched as the Jedi Council promoted Obi-Wan, made him a Jedi Master like them. And then they had added, just before the two of them were to leave, that they would both be shipped out to the Outer Rim at the end of the month.

Initially he'd been all but useless. On their first deployment Vader had been forced to stay behind the lines most of the time, he'd still been far too clumsy with his saber to be of any help. It had been frustrating and embarrassing, but he used the time it gave him to keep practicing. And so when they moved to the next system, he was more useful.

System after system, battle after battle, the months had bled by. He'd witnessed countless horrors, waves of battle droids storming over civilian settlements, clone troopers dying in the hundreds, missiles raining from the sky like water, continuous explosions that could deafen or drive to madness, and devastated wastelands. And the worst part was there was no end in sight.

But Obi-Wan stood firm through all of it and Vader was determined to be right there backing him up. If Obi-Wan could take it, then so could he. If a Jedi Master, raised in the safe, happy confines of the Jedi Temple, could stand this, then he, a desert rat runaway slave who rarely had luck smile on him, could stand it too.

"Well, I've got a patrol to supervise. Why don't you go inside? Dry off, warm up, harass someone." Obi-Wan teasingly suggested.

"Yes sir, General Kenobi, sir!" Vader smirked, giving a mocking salute. "I'll get right on it, sir!"

"Get going Padawan!" Obi-Wan snorted, lightly smacking Vader in the arm. "And enough with that 'General Kenobi' garbage."

"Yes sir!" Vader grinned, giving another little teasing salute.

Sighing wearily, Obi-Wan pulled his hood up and bravely marched out of into the rain. Vader leaned against the wall and watched him go until he vanished from sight. A few minutes after that, he decided to do as he was told and wandered inside.

The command center for the Republic forces was a prefabricated building thrown up as quickly as possible to give them all a nice dry place to control battles, make plans, or just relax in off time. Aside from the infirmary, conference rooms, and monitoring stations, there were lounges; large ones for clone troops and a few smaller ones for the Jedi commanders. Vader angled for one of the Jedi lounges.

It was a small bare room, just a few chairs, a table, a data terminal, a couch, and a preserver with some simple drinks and things inside. As usual it was almost entirely empty. Most Jedi on Jabiim where either busy working or getting some rest in their quarters. Today, there was only a shockingly young Padawan present.

Vader would've been surprised if the kid was more than ten years old. The Padawan was a boy and human and a bit on the small side. He was curled up on the couch and it looked like he was doing homework. Vader couldn't help but wonder who's bright idea it was to bring a child this young out here to this hellish mud-hole.

Curious to see what the kid was working on, Vader wandered over to peek at the datapad he was working so intently on. Sure enough, it was homework. Specifically, it was foreign language assignment. While Jedi weren't necessarily required to speak extra languages, they had to at least understand a good portion of a language or two and being fluent in it was encouraged. The language the boy was studying was Huttese. And he was quite terrible at it.

"Doing homework?" Vader asked politely.

The boy flinched. It seemed he'd been so focused on his work that he hadn't even sensed that he wasn't alone. "Yes," he answered, peering up to see who had interrupted his solitude.

"Do you enjoy studying Huttese?" Vader inquired, though he was certain the answer would be no.

"Not really," the Padawan sighed hesitantly. "I'm not very good at it."

"Mm-hm," Vader nodded. "Would you like any help with that?"

"You'd help me?" The boy asked eagerly.

"Sure," Vader grinned faintly, "no problem." He edged around the back of the couch and took a seat next to the kid. "Here, let me see that."

The Padawan happily handed over the datapad, though his eyes grew quite round when he saw Vader's right hand. "Your…hand." He squeaked.

"Does it bother you?" Vader asked as he scrolled through the kid's assignment.

"Not…not really," the kid swallowed. "Does it hurt?"

"It used to when I first got it," Vader shrugged. "But now there are days when I almost forget that it isn't my real hand."

"Oh," the kid fidgeted. "So how did I do?"

"Well," Vader sighed, glancing up from the 'pad. "I can follow most of your answers, but numbers five, seven, twelve, and twenty…I'm not sure what you meant to say there."

The Padawan cringed but took his datapad back and examined the indicated questions. He gave the answers he meant to say in Basic and then Vader guided him through some more coherent translations. And once that was done, he went back through all the other answers and helped him with his grammar and phrasing. It took a few hours, but Vader didn't mind. The kid, Zett Jukassa, was fun to work with and the time just flew by…

Obi-Wan fought back a sigh as he sat in the cramped confines of the Republic walker behind some of the clone troopers that controlled it. The large machine slogged through the mud flats north of the city where the Republic forces were concentrated. Supervising patrols was the worst – well, second worst – thing he had to do on a quiet battle front. The worst was sitting in trenches waiting for action.

But it was a necessary evil. He was a Jedi Master and a General and it was his duty to oversee his troops. And he always did his duty.

So far, the Separatist presence in this system was all but gone. There were a few scattered pockets of battle droids hiding out in the more remote mountainous regions, but with their numbers so small they weren't that much of a threat. The bounty hunters and mercenaries on the Separatist payroll were more of a problem, and they roamed the countryside with almost total freedom.

Scanning the scanner plot over a clone's shoulder, Obi-Wan made note of another patrol several miles to the west, headed by Master Unill. Master Unill had arrived on Jabiim less than a month before and Obi-Wan had yet to say more than a passing greeting to the other Jedi. All he really knew of the man was that he'd brought his very young Padawan to the system, though the boy remained behind at the command center or the barracks.

Obi-Wan looked away to check another display, a chronometer to see how much longer he would be out here, he sensed something disturbing. There was a warning chime and a set of blinking alert messages on the screen he'd been looking at barely a few seconds previous. But he didn't have to look at that display to know what had happened. Master Unill's command had come under fire. And Master Unill was dead.

I hope his Padawan isn't alone right now… Obi-Wan mentally sighed as he directed his walker to go and investigate.

While Zett was busy drafting a special report about his experiences so far near a battlefield that would be shared with his classmates, Vader lounged on the couch. During the last hour, Vader had gone over all of Zett's Huttese homework with the Padawan. Or, at least all of the homework that he hadn't already sent in for grading. And just a few minutes ago, Vader had agreed to help proofread a draft of Zett's report once he finished writing it.

Ah, I'm such a softy… Vader sighed to himself. Look at me, twenty years old, a trained Force-user, deadly with a lightsaber, and I'm helping a kid with his homework.

Upon reflection, Vader realized, his life bordered on ludicrous. He was born a slave. While a slave, he won a race that, by all logic, a human, let alone a human child, could not win, not to mention survive. Then he'd been bought by a Fallen Jedi turned Sith and dragged into a world of suffering and Darkness. And then he'd run away to become a reluctant Jedi Padawan, hiding among the real thing with most of them none the wiser to his true nature. And now…oddly…he wasn't quite so reluctant.

Oh Obi-Wan…where are you? Vader wondered, glancing at the chronometer hanging on the wall. Is his patrol over yet? He tried to remember how long the usual scheduled patrol runs went, but came up empty. Hmm, can't be too much longer, Vader decided, settling deeper into the old couch.

Back when he'd first met Obi-Wan, he'd been convinced that the Jedi was incredibly dull and not all that bright. Really, what smart Jedi would willingly spend time around a person that all his training said was dangerous and untrustworthy? And a man who never cracked a genuine smile, drank tea, and meditated all the time couldn't possibly be fun or interesting.

This was before he'd seen the oh-so-proper-and-dignified Jedi do things like leap out of high-rise windows on Coruscant or fall into insanely dangerous Gundark nests on distant, unpopulated worlds. This was before he'd watched him spar with several different highly respected Jedi and hold his own for an impressive amount of time, even win sometimes. And this was before he'd learned of Obi-Wan's infamous 'misspent youth' while recuperating on Naboo.

Obi-Wan is interesting, Vader smirked. You just have to dig your way through the bland exterior to find him. The smirk faded. And with my patience, or lack thereof, I was lucky to ever get so far.

He couldn't say when he consciously started liking the Jedi. He certainly couldn't say why. All he knew for certain was that by the time of Geonosis, he was willing to sacrifice a great deal to save Obi-Wan's life. And he had yet to regret what he'd done from that moment on. He didn't even regret losing his hand.

Actually, I'm probably better off with losing my hand, than keeping it, Vader mused as he studied the golden contraption that replaced his natural hand. Yes it's ugly and hard to use, but it's great for punching! He mentally cackled to himself.

And a side-effect of his injury was his closer relationship with Obi-Wan. His clumsiness due to his mechanical prosthetic had made him temporarily more dependant on the Jedi and forced the both of them to work much more closely together. Instead of simply existing in the same room and exchanging the bare minimum of words necessary for communication, they actually had real conversations.

They talked about real things, more than just Jedi training or how the war was going. Things were more relaxed, almost casual, when they interacted. And then, the fourth system they were deployed to during the war, he'd gotten Obi-Wan to laugh.

Before, Whenever Obi-Wan laughed or smiled, which was a rare thing to begin with, it had been strained, forced. There was always a clear a trace of some gray emotion, sadness, grief, despair, perhaps even bitterness. The Jedi had always been weighed down by something, a dark memory or perhaps an agonizing loss.

At the time, he hadn't understood. Now he was pretty sure he knew the reason for Obi-Wan's lack of humor. Even after all those years, he'd been haunted by the loss of his own Master. Why that loss had weighed so heavily on him for so long, Vader really didn't know. He thought about asking a few times, but he never had because he couldn't find any moment that seemed appropriate for that kind of question.

He also hadn't found the proper opportunity to reveal anything further about himself. He was really starting to get sick of going by 'Vader' as it tended to remind him of his brief but painful time under Dooku. And it was really, really starting to bother him that Obi-Wan knew as little about him as the next Jedi. It almost seemed like he didn't trust the older man the way he withheld information like his real name or his planet of origin. And he did trust Obi-Wan. He just…he just couldn't find the right time combined with enough nerve to sit down and spill some of his guts.

I'll do it when the war ends, he reminded himself, at the very latest. As soon as that bastard Sidious is taken down, I'll tell him everything. And then I'll tell Padmé. And then–

His thoughts abruptly chopped off at that point as he felt something disturbing ripple through the Force. A Jedi had died. And whoever it was had been nearby, on-planet.

The first time he'd felt a Jedi die had been on Geonosis. Most of the force sent to rescue Obi-Wan had fallen under the overwhelming waves of battle droids. But at the time he'd been too focused on the fighting and too high on adrenalin to really be effected. The next time, though, he'd really felt it.

The best way to describe it was a ripple in an otherwise smooth pond. The first impression, the first feeling the wave brought you was pain. And then when is passed by, there was an emptiness, a feeling of loss. If you didn't know who had passed on, it was merely disconcerting, like a rush of cold air. If you did know who had died, it was infinitely worse. And from a few of the Padawans he'd been around that had been unlucky enough to lose their Master and become 'Orphaned', he could guess that loss was exponentially worse.

Vader glanced over at Zett to see how the Padawan was taking it and swallowed a curse. The boy was as white as a sheet, his eyes glazed and unseeing, and he clutched the datapad so hard it shook and his knuckles bleached whiter than his face. Such a strong reaction meant only one thing: Zett was an Orphan now.

Sighing, he reached over and carefully pried the 'pad out of the boy's hands, saved the file, turned it off, and set it aside. Then he scooted over so there was no space left between them on the couch and gently gripped the boy's shoulders. And then he whispered into the Padawan's ear: "It's alright to cry if you need to."

It was only later, after the tears had drained all the energy out of the kid and left him unconscious, did Vader learn just how bad it was. Little Zett Jukassa hadn't been ten years old like he'd guessed. He'd only been eight.