Who are you boy? the insidious voice snaked it's way into his mind, causing Ben to nearly buckle under the pressure of it.

It was nearly a physical effort to throw off that weight. Wouldn't you like to know? he sent back, infusing his mental-voice with a cocksureness that he did not feel. He was still reeling from seeing his father and aunt as newborns, now he had to have a mental toe to toe with the man who had worked hard to destroy his parents' lives.

Padme stopped next to him, avidly watching his face, not knowing the internal battle he was waging. "Ben?"

He ignored her question and blanketed all thoughts of their location from his mind. It made sense that he would be able to hear the call of the Emperor, his mother had been able to hear his voice from anywhere in the galaxy. But he didn't know the extent of the Emperor's control. It made him wish he could go forward enough and ask his mother what it had been like to be the Emperor's Hand. But had his interference already voided the Emperor's influence on his mother.

You are strong, young one. There is no need to be my enemy, came the silky reply.

Mental laughter rang through Ben's mind and out towards the Emperor. First Anakin, now you. What do I have to do, put up a holosign over my head? I'm not going to be your convert. He started to pull the Force around him, weaving it in a lattice of protection.

Ah, and advanced I see, came the lurid reply. Strange that the Jedi Masters would teach one so young so quickly.

Perhaps they realized they had scum like you growing in their backyard, Ben replied, hoping that he had gotten the Emperor appropriately riled.

A chilling laugh, shivered through his mind. You plot against me, young one? There was no missing the dubious nature of his tone. You seek to succeed where many have failed. Such pride is unbecoming a Jedi Knight.

Ben would not rise to the Emperor's bait. He had been pushed beyond petty jibes during the Yuuzhan Vong war. I'd like to call it an optimistic view on life. The Emperor pressed heavier on his mind, hoping to break through his barriers. Ben ground his teeth together as he strained against the pressure. No peeking, he sent out, then let go of the Force and let the Yuuzhan Vong poison running through his body take hold, making him a void in the Force.

It was as though someone had been holding him up and had abruptly let go. He staggered, crashing to his knees but managed to keep himself from further embarrassment, catching himself on one hand. Blood trickled down his nose and he used his free hand to whip it away. "Well, that wasn't fun."

"What happened?" Padme asked, helping him rise.

"Palpatine," he said tersely. "Where's Yoda and Obi-Wan?"

If she was scandalized by his informal address of two Jedi Masters, she didn't show it. She was too confused to. "In a conference with Bail. What would the Emperor want with you?" Her dark eyes burned into his own. "I promise you if you are some harm to my children or my husband, I'll kill you myself."

Maybe there was a little more of his mother in Padme then he initial believed. Closing his eyes, he gathered the Force back around him, pushed away the poison from his system. "There is no telling you how much I would do to ensure your children's safety Padme. But you are right, I'm keeping something from you. I wish I could tell you, but I can't." She wouldn't be able to sense the truth in him. "Know that Obi-Wan knows my secret and he trusts me."

"I'm sorry," she whispered and he could hear the strain of her present situation.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," he assured her, pulling gently away from her steady grip. He couldn't show his weakness, not when he had to guide everyone away from the future that would destroy them all. "I'm fine now thank you."

Sitting in his cell, Anakin fumed. It wasn't the infusing heat he'd felt during his battle with Obi-Wan but a slow brewing one. Confusion fueled his anger, giving it, a tedious burn. Ben had provided evidence that was irrefutable. Those lightsabers had been identical, from his very obvious craftsmanship, to the dents and dings he had picked up along the way. There was also no denying that if Ben hadn't intercepted his head-long run, he would have fallen into that river of lava.

Yet he struggled to admit the truth. Looking into the mirror of his cell, he tried to imagine himself with red hair and features dimmed by genetics. He was nearly two handspans taller then Ben, but Padme was diminutive. The red hair must have come from his son's wife, for neither Skywalker or Naberrie family carried such a distinct color.

Even if the young man was who he claimed to be, did it make any difference? Palpatine had shown him a power, a power over everything that he had once feared. The Jedi feared the dark side and especially the Sith, now he was fear. Would that change suddenly because he had found someone very much like himself?

If Ben really had come back through time it would have meant an extreme power and control in the Force. Something that not even his Sith Master would have contemplated. He had certainly stolen the saber out of his hand without so much of a bat of an eye. As the Chosen One, he should have been able to sense the strike Ben had used against him.

It was this mystery, more then any fear of actually being stopped, that had kept him from escaping. He had gotten the feeling from a brief communication with his Master that Palpatine wanted him to stay amongst the Jedi. Learning more about Ben would only help the Emperor sway the boy to the dark side.

Patience had never been one of his strong characteristics, but he would exercise it now. He would wait for the Jedi to come to him, pretend contrition, and work with whatever plan the Jedi and Ben were concocting. Palpatine had taught him enough to cloak his true intent. After all, the Emperor had been doing it for decades.

All he would have to do is prey on their hopes.

Obi-Wan heaved a sigh as Bail exited the conference room and dropped into one of the comfortable chairs lining the conference room. Master Yoda stood at the other end of the table, hunched over on his gimmer stick, looking as warn and tired as Obi-Wan felt. There was so much to be done, but all his energy had been sucked from him. Qui-Gon had been two decades older then Obi-Wan when he'd been killed, but it had seemed his old Master had an everlasting fountain of energy.

"Speak about young Jade we must," Yoda mewlled into his thoughts.

Yes, there was much to speak about Ben. There was an incredibly large debt he owed the boy; first for stopping Anakin's near fatal plummet, second for managing to stop that heart-wrenching battle. He had recovered a great deal physically from that battle, but mentally...he could not get past what Anakin had become. He was meant to help Ben bring Anakin back to the light, yet his own anger flared so easily when he thought of what his former apprentice had participated in. Beyond his superficial anger there was a deeper one, at himself, for not seeing Anakin's downfall before, for not preparing his boy for his destiny.

Then there was Ben himself. There was no doubt in Obi-Wan's mind the amount of suffering the young Jedi had been through. Had Ben come to deal with that pain or had he just pushed it aside for what must be done.

Obi-Wan had lost Anakin because the Clone Wars had forced him to push aside his apprentice for what had to be done. Betrayal had warred so readily against his own self-derision and anger. He had been caught between two evils; neglecting the threat against the galaxy and neglecting Anakin. As usual he had taken the path of the unifying then the individual. Had he learned nothing from Qui-Gon?

Of course, during the wars, he had felt he had all the time necessary to help Anakin bring balance. All he had to do was hurtle the one obstacle of a full-scale war and he could be free for his former apprentice. Strange how retrospect changes the path of time.

"Be here, he should not," Yoda broke into his reverie once again.

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Ben marching unyielding into the room. "We need to talk," he announced and plopped into one of the conference chairs. Obi-Wan mused briefly that Qui-Gon would have liked Ben Skywalker's obvious ignorance to authority. "I received a little mental visit from Emperor Palpatine."

"Sense your arrival, we did," Yoda affirmed.

"So you know who I am?" Ben asked, eyes wide with wonder. Master Yoda bobbed his head, his heavy eyes watching the apprentice thoughtfully. "Stars and skies, I thought I was going to have to consent to a blood test. I appreciate you not forcing your mind into mine, though even if you had I don't think it would have been as bracing as Palpatine's visit."

Obi-Wan frowned. "Why is that?"

"My mother. Part of the history I had to skip in my rehearsal to you. Palpatine took her from her family when she was a small child, gave her a remedial knowledge of the Force, and trained her as an assassin. There were others, but I believe she was the most effective because she could hear the Emperor's voice from anywhere in the galaxy. A trait, I've apparently inherited," Ben elucidated. "Which complicates things."

Yoda hobbled closer to Ben, his stick clanging against the wood of the conference table with a staccato beat. "Reveal our location, did you?"

At Ben's age, Obi-Wan would have balked at such a sharp tone coming from the wizened Jedi Master, but Ben just shook his head unfazed. "No, I used a technique I'm aware of that disconnects me from the Force. It put me out of Palpatine's reach." For a moment fatigue weighed on the young scarred features before Ben forced determination on his face. "I don't know how long my mental shields will keep him out. He imprinted a command into my mother's mind before he died and that clung to her for five years before she killed my father's clone."

Obi-Wan exchanged a glance with Yoda, but whatever the aged Jedi Master was thinking could not be deciphered in his large green eyes. Ben was a compilation of absent years. What would happen when Ben did change the future? It was a question Obi-Wan felt he could not ignore. The boy could very well erase his very existence. And then weren't they all back in the same impossible, doomed situation.

"Precarious our situation is, help this your technique would," Yoda mused. "Though incomplete is your training."

Ben frowned. "My training is no longer an importance. It is Anakin we must focus on."

"No!" Obi-Wan exclaimed. When both Yoda and Ben turned to him questioningly, he swallowed. Such outbursts were so uncharacteristic of him. Perhaps Ben had already instigated the changes in him that he had mentioned. "It is a danger to leave an apprentice untrained."

"I will not waste valuable time," Ben interjected heatedly, showing a flash of unexpected anger.

Obi-Wan, however, was not about to back down from this. He felt very strongly that Ben's training should not slacken. "I do not see it as a waste."

"Understand not Master Obi-Wan does, Young Skywalker. Revealed your secret should be,"

Yoda admonished the youth gently.

Impatience tinged Obi-Wan's answers. "I know he's from the future Master Yoda."

Ben shook his head, locking gazes with Yoda for an inexorable time. "It's not that Obi-Wan," the boy admitted finally. He took a shuddering breath and released it in a slow hiss. "I'm dying."

Breath rushed out of Obi-Wan and he blinked at Ben. "You're dying?"

Stoically, Ben nodded. "I was poisoned by the Yuuzhan Vong a month before I made the journey here. A venom that they must have been breeding to use against those Force-sensitives who they could identify early and prohibit from ever becoming Jedi. I fought my way out of a sticky situation but was poisoned. When the Force began to show me visions of the past, I realized what I had to do. To be able to come back through time, it had to be sure that I would not remain in this time."

Obi-Wan's mouth went dry. He had only known Ben Skywalker for the space of a few days, but he had brought him a hope for Anakin that he had despaired of before. There was also enough of his old Master and his former apprentice in the boy to remind Obi-Wan of the better times he'd had with both Qui-Gon and Anakin. Ben had been his connection to Anakin, a link that Obi-Wan had yet to dare travel.

"You must complete the training," Yoda said after an interminable pause.

Those oceanic eyes became lidded. "There is no purpose to it Master Yoda. I have all I'll ever need." He opened his eyes and gazed at Obi-Wan. "And if we can bring Anakin back, then the galaxy will have the slim chance of surviving the Yuuzhan Vong infiltration."

"Reason there always are, make matters worse you could untrained," Yoda continued to argue.

Obi-Wan shook his head, unable to accept this fate for one so young. "There must be a way to heal you of this ailment."

"There isn't, I tried the only cure I knew of but it did not work. My mother was dying of a similar disease when she carried me. It was only the Force that kept her alive long enough to carry me to term. By the time to birth me came, she was so close to death that my father often wondered why the Force didn't take us then. But the disease hadn't reached me yet. As a last ditch effort, my father tried to fight the spread of the infection, as I was born we healed her, my father and I."

"You tried a similar method on yourself?" Obi-Wan ventured. Finally the layers of security Ben had wrapped around himself were beginning to peel.

"I did as my father had described," Ben assured, then shook his head dispelling whatever thoughts clouded his mind. He cocked his sly grin. "Obviously it didn't work." Leaning back against his chair, Ben eyed them both. "I'll make a deal. I'll continue my training if you don't tell Anakin my current predicament."

"Anakin is incredibly powerful, he'll be able to sense it," Obi-Wan cautioned.

Ben shook his head with finality. "Not if I don't want him to. Hiding myself has become like breathing.."

"Yoda sensed it," Obi-Wan said, pursuing the matter. Perhaps if Anakin knew the consequences of his choices he'd be disinclined to continue his dark path.

"My father is an infant, I have to take his place as Anakin's link to the good side. If he knows I'm dying the future will seem helpless," Ben countered. He then leveled a steely gaze on Yoda. "That's the deal. Take it or leave it."

"Bargain, I do not. Accept your conditions I will," Yoda said gravely. "Your training we'll begin soon."

A quick rejection flitted on Obi-Wan's tongue, waiting to be released. There was a part of him that wanted to try again, to apprentice someone who didn't have a terrible burden of prophecy set upon his shoulders. But he knew that he still had Anakin to deal with, his fallen friend. He needed to focus his efforts on saving Anakin, not on indulging his need to be redeemed through Anakin's future grandson.

"I need to see Anakin," he murmured, mainly to himself but loud enough for Yoda and Ben.

"That's a priority. The faster we bring Anakin back and rid him of the seeds of Darth Vader, the quicker we can go after Palpatine," Ben agreed. "But killing the Sith alone will not be enough."

A nostalgic smile tugged at the corners of Obi-Wan's mouth. Watching Ben take over was very much like watching Qui-Gon Jinn defy the Council. Only this time, Obi-Wan saw the reasons for Ben's radical changes. Some of it rocked him to the core, ramming against the very code he had lived by. He wondered what Yoda's response to this would be.

"A long standing tradition you hope to change. Objections expect you should," Yoda warned Ben after the young Jedi delineated his plan.

Ben snorted and rolled his eyes with a dramatic flare. "Because your interpretation of the Code has served so well. You've isolated yourselves from the galaxy. People fear what they do not understand, clearly you should have seen that if presented with the opportunity many citizens would not care what happened of the Jedi."

"Unavoidable this was," Yoda said. "Protected from the threat of the Dark Side we needed to be." Humorlessly, Ben cocked an eyebrow at Yoda. The wizened Jedi Master sigh. "Agree with you I do. Expand the Jedi need."

"I suggest we find a safe house, a place the Jedi would go to if endangered. A place Anakin hopefully hasn't alerted Palpatine too," Ben said, lacing his hands in front of him. "Once we start gathering the Jedi, I'll have to teach them to void themselves from the Force. We don't want to alert Palpatine of our location before we're ready to face him."

"And if we can't bring Anakin back?" Obi-Wan asked, his heart sinking at the very possibility that he would be forced to face his fallen apprentice yet again.

The boy shrugged. "Then I'll have to do what my father could not."

"What was that?"

"Kill the man responsible for giving him life."