Time and space notwithstanding, across the galaxy all conference rooms were identical. They had identically patterned carpeting, identical off-white paint, large, unwieldy tables and chairs that never seemed to be in the right place. The especially nice conference rooms had top-of-the-line holo disks that never worked properly and caf machines that no one knew how to operate. This particular conference room was a nice conference room, but its caf machine and holo disks had been pushed aside to accommodate trays of baked confections, plastiform stemware, and moderately-priced champagne.

"If it were not for our own Torin Karr," the uniformed man was saying, "we'd still be searching for leads, and some of us would even be dead. Here's to you, Torin!" The rest of the room echoed the sentiment. "I know I speak for the entire Bureau when I convey my deepest appreciation for your tireless efforts - and those of your entire team. And now, we can all go to bed!" At that, the crowded room bustled with laughter. The speaker smiled, and his champagne fizzed and sloshed as he raised it high. "To Ling Bolocant: May he give us names, dates, and some damn peace and quiet!"

"Here, here!" The gathered agents raised their glasses.

"And rot in prison!" added a low-ranking deputy.

"Ah," said the brass, shrugging his shoulders and taking a generous swing of bubbly, "that too."

The agents dug into the treats and drinks, and it didn't take long for the alcohol to turn the room into a lively, celebratory romp.

A latecomer snuck into the room and poured himself a glass. He hung to the edge of the room and sipped, meandering his way around the table to survey the buffet offerings. He picked out a small cream pastry and tested an edge with a wary expression.

"Good of you to show your mug here!" Torin Karr was all blond hair, blue eyes, and grins as he sidled up to the newcomer. "I was afraid you didn't see my invite." Karr slapped him on the back.

The dark-haired man dusted icing off his chin and shrugged. "This is your division, Karr, not mine." He discarded the remainder of his pastry and sipped at his champagne.

"And that means kriff-all. We wouldn't have gotten anywhere without your help. Deskwork really doesn't suit you, mate." Karr elbowed his colleague. The man only shrugged.

"Yeah, well." He lifted his right arm, which had a crutch secured around the forearm. "You know how it is." Karr scoffed.

"If you took better care of it, they'd let you out on the field again, you know."

"Maybe I like deskwork."

"You're not meant for deskwork."

"And why should I bother, when you're out there kicking enough ass to bring in the drinks for all of us?" The shorter man gestured to the jovial room. Karr rolled his eyes, and his friend smiled.

"Cody? What are you doing here?" The worried question came from a boy-faced agent who was even shorter than Cody himself.

Cody frowned at him. "Nice to see you too, Falter."

"Sorry," Falter apologized, rearranging his carefully-balanced tower of snacks so he could walk over to the pair. "I didn't mean it like that. I just thought you were still in your office - I sent someone up to see you just before I got here. If I had known..."

"I wasn't expecting anyone," Cody said, bewildered. "Who was it?"

"He was a Jedi," Falter explained.

"He?" Karr interrupted, face scrunched up in confusion. "I thought the only Jedi you knew was-"

"Did he have a name?" Cody cut him off.

"Yeah, he said you knew him - Kenobi?"

Cody closed his eyes. "Oh, chssk," he breathed.

"What?" asked the handsome field agent and tubby desk agent in perfect harmony.

Cody rubbed at his eyes. "Which Kenobi was it?"

"Which Kenobi?" parroted Falter.

"There are two Jedi with the name Kenobi," Cody explained impatiently, "an older one and a younger one. Which one was it?" When Falter's face remained a blank slate of confusion, Cody clarified, "Did he have a giant scar across his face?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," said Falter with some surprise.

"Course he did." Cody didn't sound enthused.

"How'd you know that?"

Karr was grinning again. Cody was fun when he was annoyed. "Old flame of yours?" he teased.

"Can it, Karr," Cody knocked back the rest of his champagne and set it aside. Karr took offense at this and spread his arms wide in protest as Cody stormed off.

"What, you can't let your boyfriend wait five minutes? I had a whole toast prepared!" the agent yelled at Cody's retreating back.

"You can give it to me later," Cody said without looking. Karr mocked surprise and laughed.

"Woah there, Cody, at least let me buy you dinner first!"

Cody raised his left hand, middle finger standing tall. Karr laughed harder and poured a second round for Falter and himself.

When Cody returned to his office, he was surprised to find the entire hallway abandoned. It wasn't like Kenobi to give up, and he couldn't imagine any Jedi leaving after only fifteen minutes. The Order itself was founded on the Jedis' collective sense of patience. Casting looks up and down the hall, the agent keyed open his door.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was sitting behind his desk, boots propped up beside his inbox, casually thumbing through classified mission reports. He looked up.

"Ah, Cody, good to see you – I was beginning to wonder where you were."

For a moment, Cody was frozen. Then,

"What the hell are you doing?" He marched over and moved to snatch the datapad from Obi-Wan's fingers, but the Jedi was too fast. He held the 'pad out of reach.

"I'm reading," the knight complained.

"That is for my eyes only," the SBI agent protested.

"I think I can handle it. Besides, I have a higher clearance than you," Obi-Wan waved him away. Cody glared while Obi-Wan continued to read. After a few moments, the Jedi handed the pad back to the SBI agent. "It's an interesting case. If you're looking for evidence of racketeering, I'd look into the wife's bank accounts. She wears extremely expensive clothing for the unemployed spouse of a disgraced, bankrupt senator."

Cody scrolled through the pictures and wondered how he'd missed it. Then he remembered how annoyed he was. He snapped the pad off and tossed it aside.

"What do you want, Kenobi?"

"What do I…" Obi-Wan looked thoroughly offended. "Yes, it's nice to see you too, Cody, it's only been two entire years. Is it so impossible that I just came by to say hello?"

Cody was unaffected. "Yes," he said. Obi-Wan scoffed. Cody crossed his arms.

"Last time you showed up at my office, you wanted me to falsify a report. The time before that, you needed me to get you into the Senate after hours. The time before that, you wanted me to spy for you. The time before that, it was because you needed someone to cover for you while you-"

"Alright, alright," Obi-Wan stopped him before he got too wound up. "Fair enough." He gave the clone a rotten look, but soon it faded and he said, "I don't need you to do anything this time."

"Oh really?" Cody's eyebrows floated on a wave of incredulity.

"I just want to ask you a few questions."

"There it is." The incredulity passed, and the clone's expression sank back down to its standard staidness. He shifted irritably on his crutch, aching leg causing him to wobble. "Can I have my chair back?" he grouched.

Obi-Wan stood and waited while the clone hobbled over to his desk. "You should have that fixed, you know," he watched the stiff movements of the prosthetic as Cody sat. "I know a great mechanic who could make that move a hell of a lot better."

Cody settled into his chair and set his crutch aside. "For the last time, I'm not letting a child operate on my leg, no matter how good a mechanic he is."

"He's nearly eighteen, now."

"Stars above, is he really?" Cody was genuinely taken off guard, and his wide brown eyes showed it.

"Apparently," Obi-Wan sympathized.

"Kriff me. We're getting old." He pulled himself up to his desk. Obi-Wan scoffed.

"I'm getting old - you're what, fourteen? Fifteen? And here you are giving Anakin a hard time." Obi-Wan teased. Cody sighed and grit his teeth, patience wearing thin.

"Was there something you wanted, Obi-Wan?" he asked, flipping through his paperwork.

Obi-Wan fiddled with a dusty brass plaque that hung off-kilter above a filing cabinet. For bravery and sacrifice in the line of duty.

"I'm in the middle of an investigation, and your name's come up, I was hoping you could help me out."

"My name?" Cody seemed surprised. "How so?"

"Two weeks ago, you accessed a particular database in the Jedi Archives I've been looking into." Obi-Wan carefully straightened the plaque and turned to face Cody. "It was actually Aola Tarkona's name that came up on the database," Obi-Wan clarified, "but she was halfway across the galaxy at the time, and the database can only be accessed here on Coruscant. She tells me she lent you her clearance codes, which explains the odd timeline, but doesn't explain why you spent three days scouring our archives. So," Obi-Wan spread his arms, "here I am to ask you: what's an SBI agent doing digging his nose into the Jedi Order's lightsaber registry?"

"Oh." Cody seemed only mildly surprised. "I thought I put it all in my report. Are they finally looking into that?"

Given a week to prepare, this would never have crossed Obi-Wan's mind as a possible response. A moment passed in nonplussed silence. "Looking into what?" the Jedi asked.

"Into the black market sales," Cody replied, guileless. "I submitted my initial report months ago. When I didn't hear anything, I submitted a supplemental, a few weeks ago. It should've had my name on it."

"I'm- I'm sorry," Obi-Wan put out a hand, eyes shut as he tried to comprehend. "Black market sales. Of lightsabers?"

"Yes," Cody insisted. "I've been working on it for years."

For years? "What?" Obi-Wan didn't know what else to say. The Jedi and the clone stared at each other.

"That's… that's not what you're looking into, is it?" Cody seemed almost as confused as Obi-Wan.

"Perhaps we'd ought to start over," Obi-Wan said. "I'm investigating a museum heist from last week. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Museum heist…?" The man semed taken off guard. "I'm talking about Illegal lightsaber sales." He dug around his desk for a datachip, which he hurriedly fit into his datapad. "I've been chasing after this lead for nearly six years – I can't believe they didn't tell you about it."

Obi-Wan's eyebrows shot skyward. "Six years?" Cody was focused on his datapad.

"Yes. I saw this image for the first time on Geonosis. Some drunk at a bar was trying to impress his buddies about having sold real lightsabers." Cody was scrolling, tapping, searching. "I started searching for more information on the day I got this job, followed by five years of bugger all. I'd begun to think I'd gone mad, that it was some stress hallucination or maybe just… well, just Geonosis." For Cody, that was reason enough. "But then I finally found it again, buried in the half-deleted caches of the holonet." He flipped his datapad around to show Obi-Wan.

Against a plain white background, plastiform stands displayed three ignited lightsabers. Each of them was white-hot and limned in livid red.

"Those are real." Cody's voice was low and serious.

Obi-Wan said nothing, but took the datapad so he could look closer. He couldn't help it when his breath caught. He hadn't seen a red lightsaber in over a decade. His scar, long healed, stung like a frayed nerve. The right side of his face winced.

"Are you sure this color is real, though?"

"Not entirely, but that, color and all, is the exact image I saw that day. I'd stake my life on it. Did you see that symbol, in the back?"

"What?"

"Behind the sabers. In the corner, there." Cody reached over and tapped the image, and Obi-Wan realized that there was a dark background peeking out from where the white studio sheet had fallen away. "There's a symbol here. Hard to see on the image, I had it retouched," Cody flipped through some more images until he came to a brightened, magnified view of the symbol. "Do you recognize that?"

It was still blurry, but there was a definite symbol there: a circle within a larger circle, their edges set against right each other to create a large crescent shape. Within the hollow center was a teardrop shape flanked by two pairs of twisted spikes. Was it a seal? A coat of arms, maybe? It scratched some memory in Obi-Wan's brain, but he couldn't place it.

"No," he said.

"Damn," Cody was disappointed. "I've been trying to hunt it down for ages." He took his datapad back and stared at the image for a while, gnawing at the inside of his lip. Obi-Wan knew Cody had been placed on administrative duty ever since the injury that took his leg, and that he still walked with a crutch or cane rather than service his prosthetic to keep it in field-ready condition. Is this what he'd been working on the whole time?

"Are they stolen?" the Jedi asked eventually, drawing the agent from his reverie. "Is that what you needed into the database for?"

Cody gave an expressive shrug. "I have no idea. As soon as I knew there was something to know, that I wasn't crazy and hadn't imagined the whole thing, I wrote up a report and sent it on to your council. I didn't think of looking into it myself until I got no response. I thought maybe they didn't believe me, that if I kept digging…" Cody shrugged. "Aola cought wind as to what I was working on and gave me her codes, told me to look into it. I did. I found a match on one of the sabers. Same hilt, same size and everything."

"Really?" Obi-Wan was shocked. "Was it stolen?"

"No," Cody replied, eyebrows high and calmly framing a six-year panic. "No, your registry claims it was destroyed ten years ago."

"Ten years…" Obi-Wan's mind was reeling. It felt as though he'd tripped on a pebble and fallen headfirst into a wormhole. He felt in himself the same alarm and confusion Cody had been nursing for years.

"Exactly," the clone said, as if reading his mind.

"If… if it says it was destroyed," Obi-Wan began struggling to wrap his mind around the information dancing around inside of his skull, "but it's being… being sold, then the ones that we know have been stolen…" he looked at Cody, and Cody's expression encouraged him to reach the inevitable conclusion of his logic. "But that's ridiculous," Obi-Wan interrupted himself. "Stolen sabers are cut up for kyber. Lightsabers as weapons are all but useless to non-Jedi. They're next to impossible to handle if you don't have Force-sensitivi–" He trailed off suddenly, and his face went slack. The answer was written on Cody's face before it reached his own comprehension. He felt nauseous.

"Oh, Force," Obi-Wan said, and was unable to say more. The silence was deafening.

"Look," Cody said, as someone who'd had weeks and months to ponder the implications. "I don't know how this all works. I don't know sabers, I certainly don't know Sith. But if this is… them-"

"There should only be two, they would never deign to steal weapons they can make themselves." Obi-Wan insisted, unwilling to consider what Cody was proposing. "What do they need these sabers for? These can't be Sith."

"Well they may be something like it," the clone warned.

"You said you forwarded this information to the Council," Obi-Wan diverted suddenly. "They should have responded - hell, at the mere implication of darksiders, they should be crawling all over this, interrogating you. When did you send it? To whom? Master Windu should know by now."

Cody shrugged helplessly. "I'm part of the SBI, Kenobi. I don't have access to Mace Windu or the High Council. Senate hierarchy dictates I go through the proper channels, which in this case is the Council of Reconciliation. Below senior Senators and the Chancellor himself, they're our only intermediary to the Order."

Obi-Wan had little direct experience with the Council of Reconciliation, but his skin was crawling with memories of Finis Valorum's distrust of them. Even Mace Windu made no secret of how he avoided their political entanglements.

"Who?" Obi-Wan asked again.

"Master Uldor Sarat," Cody told him. "He's the de facto liason for the Bureau."

"Send me a copy of your report," Obi-Wan demanded, heading toward the door. "I'm going to deliver it to Mace myself."

When Obi-Wan requested a meeting, Mace Windu braced himself for an hour of complaints and petitions to return to the field in Hutt Space. But then Obi-Wan came into his office and carefully shut the door behind him, and an entirely new feeling took its place. Obi-Wan didn't complain. He said as little as possible to preface what he'd found, handed the Master of the Order a datapad, and waited while he read.

It was a short and simple report. Mace stared at it for a full five minutes in silence before he said, "When did you get this?"

"Today," Obi-Wan replied immediately. He'd been staring at Mace in silence the entire time, waiting for the master to speak first. "He says he submitted it to Master Sarat almost a month ago."

Mace's dark eyes looked up at Obi-Wan. "Uldor Sarat?" he asked.

"Yes."

Mace grunted, and looked back down at the datapad, expression unreadable. He scrolled up the report and looked Cody's name. "He got all this through Aola Tarkona, did he?"

Obi-Wan gave a shrug. "She's the one who directed me to him." Then, with veiled chagrin, added, "He didn't seem to find anything remiss about a Jedi lending codes to an SBI agent."

"Hmm," Mace mused quietly, as if to himself. "I'll have to have a chat with her about that." There was a rueful burr in his voice that made Obi-Wan wonder how many such chats they'd had before. Mace continued scrolling through the report. Pictures. Places. That strange, crest-like symbol.

"You think this is tied to your museum case," the master said at length, not looking up at Obi-Wan.

"It could be," the knight admitted. "It's certainly worth investigating. Even if it wasn't a darksider who stole the saber, if there is some darksider or… or Sith," the word came out like vinegar, "waiting on the other side of a sale, it's something to look into. It's something we haveto look into."

Eventually, Mace looked up. Filtered through the heavy blinds in his office, the midday light caught on the determined lines in his brow and cast them in shadow. "Look into it," he ordered. "Ask master Sarat about it – quietly."

Obi-Wan's somber expression matched that of his superior. "Quietly how?"

"You are to tell no one about this report, including Master Sarat. Play dumb, tie it to your case, but look into it all the same."

Obi-Wan's frown deepened. "You… don't want to look into it yourself?" the younger man asked, baffled. Mace set the report aside and crossed his legs, hands wrapped around the arms of his chair as if he was presiding over Council.

"Uldor Sarat is a grey Jedi sitting on a grey Council, and if he received this report and didn't tell me about it, I can assume he has ulterior motives that I won't appreciate. If he gets wind that I found out about it, he'll hide whatever he's doing and we won't be able to move forward. Therefore, I can't be involved. So," Mace concluded, now drawing his hands up to steeple his fingers in front of his nose, "you're going to play dumb and keep poking around."

Obi-Wan was having vivid, horrible flashbacks to his days working on the Committee for Galactic Commerce, and his even more disastrous stint on the War Council. Had he really ended up here again, acting as Mace Windu's dog? "But…in the Senate?" he pressed.

Mace doubted Obi-Wan could hear the panic in his own voice, but he was sick of hearing it every time the word "senate" passed either of their lips.

"Yes, Obi-Wan," he said, as if to a child. "That is where Master Sarat works, after all."

"But… I'm… I can't," Obi-Wan insisted. "I can't go back there. You've told me that yourself."

"Six years ago I did, yes, when things were still fresh," Mace said, unmoved. "But times change. People change. This city has an incredibly short memory."

"Assassinations aren't easily forgotten," Obi-Wan insisted.

"Committees are," Mace countered. He waited for Obi-Wan's retort. When none came, he added, "You're good at working with politicians, though I know you hate it." Stare unblinking, he added, "Jedi aren't meant to know hatred. It's time you got over yours."

Obi-Wan set his jaw and looked away. He wished vehemently to say something clever and snippish, but the words never came.

Mace absorbed his triumph stoically, as he did all things. "Continue your investigation," he instructed. "Keep Cody in the loop and see if he can help you. Find out what Sarat knows - but keep this report between us. As far as anyone knows, you're just a washed up knight working a third-rate investigation. Let Sarat keep thinking that."

Working desperately to swallow his pride along with his fear, Obi-Wan nodded. "Of course, Master." Silence overtook the room, and Obi-Wan translated it as his dismissal. He stood, making no effort to straighten his messy robes or his hair, and turned to the door.

Just as Obi-Wan was at the door, Mace took pity.

"You're not a washed up knight, Kenobi," the master said, softer than he'd planned to. "I'm not asking you to do any of this because you are, I'm asking you to do this because you are one of the very few people I know I can trust." The Jedi met each others' eyes, guards abandoned for an instant. In that fleeting fractal, Obi-Wan was unsettled to find that he understood the weight in Mace's eyes as well as he understood his own reflection. The moment passed, and the Korun's expression returned to its familiar adamantine cast. "Now get back to work."

Returning to the Senate was like returning to his childhood home in all the wrong ways. Just as Qui-Gon's old apartments made him feel protected and welcome, sheltered like a child, the Senate brought back memories of Obi-Wan's younger soul. Memories of mistakes, of vulnerability, of fear and sweat and anger. He was a Jedi, and should have been able to let it go. But the feeling choked him like noxious fumes. He breathed deeply and sighed hard in an attempt to rid his chest of the feeling, but there remained a darkness, the living memory of the man who still lurked these halls.

"Greetings, master Jedi." The sweet voice of a protocol droid greeted him as soon as the lift doors opened. It stood straight-backed at broad receptionists' counter, its polished chrome skin shimmering in the calm light. "How can I assist you?"

Obi-Wan didn't respond immediately, distracted by his surroundings. The receiving lobby for the executive offices was a small and plush oval, serviced by a single lift, which opened opposite the receptionists' desk and a hidden set of hallways. The entire thing was cushioned by lush carpets and wall tapestries. Obi-Wan had seen the carpets many times during Finis' long terms, as a boy nipping at Qui-Gon's heels and as a man serving in the Senate. They had always appeared in his memory as tones of steel and grey. The new administration had reupholstered everything in stifling russet.

"If you wish to meet with his Excellency the Supreme Chancellor, I'm afraid he is out of his office at the moment, though I would be pleased to schedule a meeting-"

"I'm not here to see Chancellor Palpatine," Obi-Wan interrupted. "I'm actually here to see Master Uldor Sarat of the Council of Reconciliation."

The droids circuits whirred as it processed this new information. It paused a moment to access its databanks and looked up at him. "Master Sarat is in a meeting at the moment, but should be available shortly. Please, have a seat, and I will let him know that you are waiting."

"Of course, thank you."

Obi-Wan sat in one of uncomfortably plush chairs and waited in silence. Normally, he would use such an opportunity to meditate, relax and clear his mind, but it was difficult in his place. Even beyond his own bad memories, there was an oppressive quality to the air that could not be attributed to the dark upholstery alone. Obi-Wan closed his eyes, fighting against his own heartbeat which he could feel beating faster the longer he sat still. His blood pressure was mounting, veins rising from his wrists and hands as if the blood were trying to find a place to go, a way to escape, to get out.

"Obi-Wan?" said a voice, and he looked up. "Obi-Wan Kenobi, it is you!"

Obi-Wan blinked at the woman, and blinked again before her smile and glowing beauty clicked in his memory. "Padme?" he said, too astonished to realize how she'd made the oppression flee. His face split into a wide grin and he stood to greet her. "Your Majesty," he dipped his head, but she laughed.

"I haven't been that in several years," she let him take her hand in greeting. She was a little taller than he remembered, but still petite. She'd replaced the practical uniform of a handmaiden for more opulent gowns, but he had no doubt she was hiding a trick or two up the voluptuous velvet sleeves. Her shoulders carried the same determined mold as he remembered, but her face was older now, her smile more ready, her stance more sure. "It's Senator now," she told him.

"Really? That's wonderful, I had no idea."

"And I had no idea you still lived on Coruscant. When I started my term last year, I thought I might run into you, but no such luck." Her smile never faltered, but his did. How many things had he missed in his years away? Anakin grown, Qui-Gon in cassocks, Aola a consular, Cody slaving away on some years-long project, and Padme, a senator? He was brought out of the abstraction when she unexpectedly reached out and touched the short-cropped edge of hair at his temple.

"No more hiding your scar, I see," she grinned. "I like it. And a beard, too. You really do look your uncle."

Obi-Wan laughed, and let her again draw him out of his dark musings. "Yes, so I've been told," he said. "It's good to see you again, Padme."

"You as well," she said through a smile. Then, for the first time that day, she frowned. "What on earth are you doing here? Back for more service?"

"No," the Jedi answered a little too fast. "No, unrelated business, actually. The man, or rather, the master I'm after happens to sit on the Council of Reconciliation."

"Ah," Padme nodded knowingly. "A hard bunch to get a hold of."

Obi-Wan snorted softly. "Unfortunately. And what about you?"

"The same, actually, though I'm after a Master who's a woman, so I doubt it's just the same. She's helping me request Jedi assistance for a matter on Naboo. Or, she was supposed to," Padme said diplomatically, eyelids fluttering in cheery irritation. "That was two months ago."

"Why didn't you contact the High Council directly?" Obi-Wan asked her. "They know you, you've been an invaluable ally, surely they would understand."

"For better or worse, I am a senator and cannot leverage any of the powers I relinquished as Queen," she told him. "I'm bound by protocol to go through this council," she accompanied the word with a look of distaste toward the hidden hall that led to the floor full of executive offices. "Though I've found their sense of timeliness severely lacking in the past."

"Spoken like a career politician," Obi-Wan said, without a shred of mockery. She looked at him expecting to find a joke, but found only a fond smile. "You've grown into an accomplished diplomat, I see."

"Are you saying I wasn't when we first met?" she asked, feigning offense.

"When we met, you were chucking bombs into bunkers, it's a fairly different thing," he defended.

"I seem to remember a bit of diplomacy," she countered.

"And deception," Obi-Wan reminded.

"The two go hand in hand," Padme said immediately.

"Do they?"

"Negotiations often require a measure of deception, you know that."

"And if your opponent finds you out?"

"Well," Padme smoothed her luscious aegean robes and looked up, tilting her chin so she looked like a queen again. "That, I find, is when the aggressive negotiations start." She paused. "Though I try, when I can, to avoid chucking bombs."

Obi-Wan broke character and laughed. "You'll do well here," he praised. She beamed.

"I wonder where that droid has gone," Padme craned her neck to peer at the receptionist desk, which was empty.

"To notify our good Council members, I hope," Obi-Wan looked with her. "She said they were in a meeting."

"Hmm," Padme hummed, and took a seat. "They always seem to be in meetings."

"Not unlike senators, or so I hear." Obi-Wan took the chair next to her and relaxed into it.

"You have no idea."

The two fell into conversation as if they'd never parted, years drifting away like smoke as they talked of families and teachers, travels and elections, projects, missions, mutual friends. Before long, the sun had crested its daytime peak and was now blaring hot through the transparisteel tube of the lift. Obi-Wan squinted into it, and then looked back at the receptionists desk.

"Force, is it that late? What on earth is taking so long?"

"Oh, it's always something," Padme lamented. Obi-Wan stood.

"No Jedi would take this long without a good reason - no Jedi that I know." He approached the desk and peered left and right into the darkened hallways behind its decorated backdrop. "Excuse me? Anyone?" he called. No response.

"I can't stay here all day. Besides," he glanced back at Padme, "you may want to avoid chucking bombs, but I have no reason to play nice with these people. They're my people, or at least they ought to be." He stepped around the receptionist desk and marched down the hall, looking at door plaques to find the offices he was looking for.

"Now hold on," Padme held her skirts up to jog after him. "If you're going to make a nuisance of yourself, you might as well help me while you're at it."

"Good, you can look indignant for me." He waved her over and continued on. She followed him down the hallway past empty rooms after empty rooms. They encountered a few service droids, an intern who didn't know better, and two senators too wrapped up in their conversation to notice them.

"There," Padme pointed, and Obi-Wan saw the chrome protocol droid from before waiting patiently outside of a conference room. Though the door was opaque, one side of the room had windows to it, and Obi-Wan peered inside. He hissed in a breath and darted around a corner so he wouldn't be seen. Padme looked at him, and then at the room, and back at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Get down before they see you," he muttered.

"What?"

"Just get down."

She joined him around to the darkened corner and peered with him around the edge. "Who is that?" she asked him.

"Master Sarat," Obi-Wan said, "And Master Kzaansk, and Master Teera."

"Master Teera's who I'm here to see,"

Obi-Wan didn't react. "They're with Mas Amedda. And a Pyke," he said.

"A Pyke?" Even Padme knew to be surprised. She looked between Obi-Wan and the other Jedi. "A Pyke as in the Syndicate Pykes?"

"Yes, this one is named Rodsu Ter'rek, the youngest son of the head of the Pyke Syndicate. I spent a year and a half investigating his movements."

"What?" Padme tried to sneak her head back around the corner so she could gawk. "Well, then, what the hell is he doing here?"

"I don't know," Obi-Wan said. "Nothing good." Padme glanced back at him.

"The syndicate deals in spice, don't they?"

"The syndicate does. Rodsu dabbles." She didn't like his tone.

"In informing Republic agents, I hope you're about to say," Padme watched the Jedi's expression.

"In weapons dealing and black market sales," Obi-Wan corrected. Padme said nothing. "Three separate agencies have captured him and tried to flip him, but somehow, he always walks free, which is why my investigations never got anywhere." Obi-Wan was beginning to get worked up, seeing the writing on the wall. "But if he has friends in high places," he squinted at the assembled masters and politicians, "high, high places, it would certainly explain a lot."

"Obi-Wan," Padme reminded, trying to maintain reason, "you're suggesting that three Jedi Masters and the speaker of the Senate are trading favors with a known-"

"Down," Obi-Wan hissed, and pulled her around the corner. He waited, feeling rather than seeing how Master Sarat had begun to look out the window, no doubt searching for the unseen audience he'd sensed. "We'd best talk about this elsewhere," he said. "Do you have an office here on Coruscant?"

Padme's apartments were as clean and inviting as she was. Their dark conversation was incongruous with their surroundings. The thick transparisteel windows muffled the sound of the skycars outside and insulated their frantic discussion.

"We have to tell someone about this," Padme said, sitting on a long couch as Obi-Wan stalked around the edge of the sitting room, scanning the corners of the ceiling and edges of the carpet for bumps or tears, looking for shadows of recording devices hidden in the sconces. He'd already checked her comm, her holo, her lights, her sink, for Force's sake. He'd found nothing, but here he was, still pacing, one hand worrying the hem of his tabard, the other scrubbing his beard.

"No, we can't," the Jedi insisted. "No one can know. No one. I'll look into this personally."

Padme seemed disturbed by the suggestion. "Shouldn't you at least tell your Order? The High Council?"

"No," Obi-Wan repeated, "and neither should you. This is more complicated than you realize. I knew I couldn't trust Sarat, but the others are a surprise."

"You… you knew you couldn't trust another Jedi?" Padme was unsettled. "Why?"

Obi-Wan looked at her. Do as Padme says, Ben had told him years and years ago. His elder self expressed complete trust in the woman who sat before him. Obi-Wan knew, more certainly than he knew anything, that it would be the same for him.

"Perhaps I'd better start at the beginning. Could you lock your door?"

Explaining took less time than he'd expected. He reviewed what he knew of the Pykes and what he'd gone through since returning to Coruscant, his mission, its twists and turns. He skimmed over Mace Windu's thoughts on Uldor Sarat, but only because he knew Mace liked keeping his cards close to his chest. It was only when Obi-Wan tried explaining the lightsaber thefts and Cody's discovery of a black trade that Padme finally spoke.

"Wait, what's that?" Obi-Wan had been scrolling through his datapad to show her the highlights of his reports.

"What's what?"

She reached over him to scroll back through his files. She paused on the image from Cody's report, the crest-like emblem taken from the photo of black-trade lightsabers.

"That," she said. "I've seen that before."

Obi-Wan turned bodily to look at her, whole being needing to know. "Where?" he demanded.

"That's why I'm here," Padme explained. "That's why I needed to request Jedi assistance on Naboo. The Gungans have been sending us reports of new criminal activity in our planet's core, and that's the emblem they've found. And that's not all," she said. Obi-Wan stayed silent. There was more? "Naboo's not the only one. I know of at least one other planet that's identified this symbol before."

"And who is that? I need to speak to them."

"Well of course," Padme shrugged, "I'm surprised you haven't already."

"No," Mace Windu told him, and shoved the application for travel authorization back across to the knight. "I can't approve this." Obi-Wan, standing across from the Master of the Order's desk, blinked.

"What?"

"I wish I could, and you're right, you need to follow up on this. Unfortunately," Mace spread his hands, "I can't. You're under probation, you're not allowed to leave Coruscant for any official business."

Something about Mace's tone caught in Obi-Wan's ear. He hesitated before he said, "Official business."

"You know," Mace said, as if he hadn't heard the man, "I keep hearing these rumors that Ben Kenobi and his apprentice are taking personal leave to Alderaan. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"I could certainly find out," Obi-Wan said congenially.

"You've accrued quite a bit of personal leave yourself, after all these years. Maybe you should follow your uncle's example and rest once in a while."

"You know me," Obi-Wan grinned, solid determination hiding behind his boyish dimples. "I'm always working, master."

A/N: So uh, hey guys. Listen. I said earlier this year that I was planning on finishing Reprise IV (and by extension, the Reprise AU as a whole) by the end of 2018, but… I don't think that's going to happen. Quite frankly, I don't know when I'm going to have time to write the next chapter. I'm in my final semester of grad school and I am absolutely drowning in deadlines and huge projects and job applications that I am scrambling to finish on time. So. I'm going to keep writing, and I'll finish this thing eventually, but… it may take a while. Sorry about that. I'll try to write when I can.