Part 2 but still no happy stuff yet. This is the direct aftermath of Order 66 so lots of reference to the death of loved ones and murder. Also lots of discussion of the Jedi's compassion and kindness from people who have been recipients of said kindness and compassion.

This was not supposed to be as sad as it ended up. It was supposed to be more hopeful! And it is hopeful. It's just also a lot sadder than intended.

Title is once again from 'Flares' by The Script because it turns out I wasn't done with those vibes.

(also again with the formatting on this website, the dots create space please ignore them)


The Jedi Temple burns and all across Coruscant and all across the Galaxy, the column of smoke rising from the home of the Jedi can be seen if only you know where to look.

No fire-fighting services go to the Temple.

No first responders or emergency services are called to help.

Anyone who approaches is turned away.

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Rumours abound with the kind of speed that only comes from the sight of tragedy and the scent of scandal.

Fear spreads as no Jedi comes forward to reassure them, as no official shares news of what has happened.

And all across the Galaxy people remember the kindness of the Jedi and weep.

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In the murky area that marks the boundary between the mid-levels and Lower City, a Gran woman sees an adult Jedi stumbling along, bleeding, with a babe in their arms and a small child clinging to their robes, doing their best to keep out of sight. The child they are carrying is making small hiccupping noises, the kind that babies make when they can no longer cry. The older child is silent and tear-stained, face numb and expressionless. The adult soldiers on with grim determination, face etched with lines that give away the pain, tensing at every unexpected noise even as their movements get slower and they are clearly weakening by the moment.

The woman remembers the warm kindness of the Jedi Healers in the clinic on the lower streets that had saved her brother's life when she was younger and who had never so much as twitched in judgement at the spice withdrawal that had nearly killed him a second time when he was recovering.

She opens her door and ushers them inside. She has no medical skills and even if she did, she doubts she would know how to even start helping a Duros, but she digs out her medkit anyway and scrounges for something to give them, anything that might help.

It doesn't feel like anywhere near enough, but the Jedi thanks her profusely anyway.

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Somewhere west of the Jedi Temple a Mandalorian-in-exile, settled in Little Keldabe after his surviving family fled Death Watch and their brutal leader, skirts around a perimeter of clones in armour, looking for something he dares not identify. He gives them a wide berth. He spots a young teenager with what might be the stub of a Padawan braid, holding the hand of a small child and frantically shushing them as they try to hide from view.

They are only young, but the Mandalorian has no illusions that they will be spared the fate of their fellows if they are found.

He had been a foundling rescued from a natural disaster that devastated his homeworld three decades before the war started. The Senate had not lifted a finger.

The Jedi had sent as many Healers, teachers, and farmers as they could to help. They had directed the relief efforts and done everything they could to help as many as they could before they had to leave. The city that had been rubble when he left now stands almost equal to its former glory due in no small part to the efforts of the Jedi in those first weeks after the disaster.

He pulls up next to the children, get in, hurry. And with a reckless lack of hesitance that speaks to nothing more than complete desperation, the two fling themselves into the vehicle and make no complaints when he moves the blanket he keeps in the back seat to cover them before taking back off.

He will lie if he is stopped. There is nothing a child could do that would deserve any kind of death sentence, least of all ones from a culture whose core tenants emphasise compassion even in the face of adversity or opposition.

He can't save anyone else. And it isn't close to enough. But he will save these two.

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In the lower streets a petty criminal hiding from an arrest warrant sees two figures in Jedi robes supporting each other as they move as fast as they can. They are both injured. One is limping, the other's arm is hanging at a bad angle and has a worryingly large dark spot on their side. Both are covered in dust and dirt and the kind of scorch marks that give away blaster-fire.

He is under no misapprehension that he is any kind of good person, but whether you believe in the idea of honour among thieves or not, he is a firm proponent of the belief that you should help those who have helped you. And he remembers when the Jedi had come to his planet when he was young. He remembers how they had negotiated a ceasefire to the three-way gang war that had consumed his people. It is because of them that his planet knows peace. And he knows, deep in his bones, that if the war had continued, it would have killed him.

He curses himself as soon as he realises he's about to do something stupid and make himself a target, but he steps into the street and jerks his head for them to follow him as he leads the way to his hideout anyway.

He is not a good person, but that doesn't mean that he cannot do something to help. Even if it could get them all killed.

It isn't enough, and he will never be able to repay the people that saved his life without ever noticing. But he will still try.

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A Besalisk steps out of his diner and crosses his arms, frowning in upset as he stares at where the Jedi Temple burns. The two waitresses step up behind him. We don't know that they are dead, but he grieves anyway, not only for the Jedi that he knew, but also those that he didn't. Because he knows that they did not deserve this.

It is the droid that spots them first, but the human who points them out to the Besalisk. Half a dozen younglings that cannot be anything other than Jedi.

They flinch away when they see they are spotted, but he does his best to project reassurance and sincerity their way. There is nothing that he can do for his friends. But he will do what he can to help their family.

This way. He says, and ushers them into the back. Stay quiet and stay hidden, I'll turn away the Guard when they come.

He starts up the program he uses to make travel papers and IDs. They'll need them to get off-planet undetected. And he prepares to call in any favour he has to, to make sure that they get away from whoever is hunting them. Not to safety, because it is becoming clear there is no such thing for the Jedi, not now, not anymore, but away.

The droid waitress starts to fetch them food and drinks, the human waitress gets blankets and a medkit. There is nothing any of them can do to ease the loss of their entire people off the backs of these children. Nothing they can do will change their reality. There is nothing that will make this hurt better. But they can still try to help.

Even though it feels like they are doing next to nothing, it will have to be enough.

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There is a very old belief in the far-flung corners of the Galaxy, among freed slaves and strangers and the hopeless on the Outer Rim, held by those who had once been helped when they could not help themselves: pay it forward.

You do not always have the chance to repay the kindness a stranger has done you. You rarely will. But that does not mean that you cannot help someone else the way that you were helped.

A Jedi helps a lost child on a far-flung planet who might otherwise have died as a result of their circumstances. They grow to become a medic, who saves the life of a stranger on the street, who gives food to a starving slave, who lies to their Master about the runaway hidden under their bed, who helps a desperate traveller get off-planet, who distracts a bounty hunter looking for a fleeing spouse, who gives a free meal to a robbed mechanic, who lies to the Clonetroopers about the Jedi Padawan they are hunting.

A single act of thoughtless kindness and half a dozen people who would otherwise have died live to be kind to others.

The Jedi live by their vows, their duty, their compassion and kindness. Others do not know that, or they do not care. They simply remember a thoughtless act that nevertheless saved them with its kindness and through the actions of one, a thousand lives are saved.

A man gives food to a beggar. Three generations, a hundred other strangers, and a thousand acts of kindness later, a dozen Jedi across the Galaxy are saved because those who have been helped by others wish only to pay it forward to those in need and remember stories of a Jedi that saved someone.

The Sith spread cruelty and desperation and an impossible, crippling, fear across the Galaxy. They seek to stamp out resistance and freedom and hope. But they cannot stop the compassion of a tiny act of kindness given to another because the giver had once received the same. Because the best, the only, way to traverse a cruel Galaxy thanks to the kindness of others, is to pay it forward in a thousand tiny ways.

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A Pantoran senator, urgently heading to the Jedi Temple to see what has happened, to see if she can help, tells her driver to pull over when she sees something move on one of the walkways, some instinct telling her to look closer. When she sees an unmoving Frenk surrounded by various younglings, none of whom can be older than a human eight, all in very familiar looking robes she takes a moment to breathe.

Riyo Chuchi has friends among the Jedi. She has been saved, protected by them, too. These are not them, and they are probably dead already. There is nothing she can do for them.

But she can help these younglings and the adult Jedi who may yet live. It is not enough, but that does not mean she cannot try.

She gets out of the speeder and walks towards them, unsure what to do next, and something large and metal comes flying towards her. She ducks and gasps before holding out her arms in the near-universal signal for peace among humanoids. Please she says I mean no harm. I only want to help.

The younglings stare at her with badly concealed suspicion and her heart breaks at the mistrust from a people that had always been so giving.

After a time, too much time, one of the smaller younglings steps forward, a near-human with pink skin and a tiny togruta clinging to her back. Can you help him? She asks, meaning the Frenk Jedi behind her.

I will try. Riyo promises, please, let me take you back to my apartments. They won't look there.

Riyo does not know which 'they' she means, does not know who led this attack, who set fire to the Temple. But she can see blaster marks on the Frenk, and more than one of the younglings holds themself as though they have a burn. Words spoken by the Chancellor and the increasingly popular whispers in the Senate ring in her head and she has a horrible suspicion about who is hunting these children.

The younglings all look at each other and some kind of silent conversation takes place before they slowly, hesitantly start to shuffle towards the open speeder door behind her. Riyo finds herself glad she chose a larger speeder with tinted windows and wonders if perhaps there isn't something to the idea that some cosmic power lends itself to helping the Jedi.

The youngling who spoke to her doesn't move, handing the togruta toddler to a young besalisk that towers over her despite hunching in on himself. What about my Master? She asks, and Riyo feels a pang of sorrow – she hadn't realised that Padawans were matched to Masters so young. Let me see, Riyo says, making no promises, doubting that he lives still. When she bends down and looks for his pulse, trying his neck where most humanoids have blood vessels close to the surface. She has to hide a wince. There is still a pulse, but it is so weak that she doesn't know if the Jedi Master will even wake again, let alone survive.

But she said she would try.

Help me move him. She says, signalling her driver to keep the other younglings in the back and get them to strap in so that they cannot see. She tucks herself under his armpit, the way she has seen the Clonetroopers help each other move. He is heavier than she expected, and dead weight. Shifting him reveals many more injuries than she had seen before, and she wonders how he had made it so far from the Temple with his charges. When she staggers to her feet, something wet makes the shoulder of her robes damp and she schools her face to give nothing away. The youngling slides under his other arm and props herself against his side to try and hold him up. She looks at Riyo with a knowing kind of fear. He's dying, isn't he? She says I can feel your resignation and I have felt others die before today.

I am going to try to help him, Riyo repeats and the youngling helps her strap him into the back of the speeder.

Her driver turns them back towards the Senate District, where she has apartments away from 500 Republica and Riyo carefully packs away all of her grief and fear so that she can try to help the younglings.

It is not enough. But it is all that she can do.

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In 500 Republica, the Senator for Chandrila offers warm cups of caf to three good Samaritans, keeping an ear on where her protocol droid is examining the injured Jedi Master they have brought her. She does not know why Master Windu had asked to be taken to her but doesn't need to look out of the window to make a good guess regardless.

They refuse and instead simply ask after his condition - it has not escaped anyone's notice that he is missing an arm, but Mon Mothma herself is far more concerned about the way he was smoking slightly when they arrived, and the tremors that continuously wrack his body.

I believe he will live, is all she says, not sharing any of her suspicions fuelled by information that Adi had once shared with her. She wonders whether he will regret that when he awakens and hears of the destruction of the Jedi Temple and, she fears, all of its inhabitants. Given how much the knowledge pains her, despite only knowing a few Jedi personally, and none as well as she had Adi, she has no doubt that Master Windu's grief will run deep.

What they're saying about the Jedi, is it true? The orange Twi'lek asks, her lekku twitching in a way that undoubtedly means something.

Mon closes her eyes, well aware of what kind of rumours are flying by now. Which part?

The yellow Twi'lek gasps and reaches out to grab his friend's hand. They're really all dead? She grips him back just as tightly, and their Nautolan friend's head-tails sway slightly in distress, as she undoubtedly picks up on the thick sorrow in the air.

I don't know. But the Temple has been burning for hours now and if any emergency services have approached, they have been turned away. Unspoken remains the fact that this is no accident and there is clearly a target on the Jedi. And there are six sentients and a medically-programmed protocol droid that know that the Master of the Order is as not as dead as could be presumed from having an arm cut off and flung from a height to plummet to the depths of Coruscant.

Master Windu saved my parents' lives during the campaign on Ryloth. The orange Twi'lek says, clenching the hand that she had had wrapped around the Jedi when the three students had stumbled onto Mon's landing pad. If I can give him the smallest aid by keeping my silence, then no sound will pass my lips.

My mother worked with Cham Syndulla's freedom fighters. Her friend admits. It would not be a stretch to think he saved her too.

The Jedi have only ever helped. The Nautolan says, should we not try to help them now in return?

Mon nods silently and takes the pad one of her aides gives her as the other leaves to take a comm call from a Senate number. I believe I do have the minutes of that meeting about relief fund distribution that you were asking about. She says, is this for a class, or just idle interest?

The three students exchange a look and immediately jump on the topic. Anyone who asks about their presence here will receive a true answer, just not a complete one.

It is not enough; she cannot possibly do more, not without endangering Master Windu now that he is here, but it feels like she has done too little. She can only pray that she is not the only one who wants to help.

It is not enough, but it is better than nothing.

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Corellia's senator leaves the sixth bar with no new information. It's been hours, and despite the efficiency of Coruscant's underworld information network, the only thing anyone seems to know for sure is that the Jedi Temple has been attacked and set aflame, that no emergency services have been sent to the Temple, and that the Jedi are dead. Garm Bel Iblis cannot claim closeness to any individual Jedi, but he remembers the days before the war, when small groups of Jedi initiates would be brought to the Senate by their minders and shown the seat of democracy. He remembers how carelessly thoughtful they were. How they had run to help his aide when she had been pushed by a Senator and dropped the datapads she was carrying, and how one of them had once run up to him and offered him a snack because you're upset and when I'm upset one of the Masters always gives me a snack because even if it doesn't stop you from being upset it still makes you feel better.

Those younglings had all lived in the Temple. Many younglings did. All of the Jedi Order's most vulnerable. And now, someone has attacked their home and slaughtered them in it. There is no justification for that.

He turns south-west, to go to the next bar and see if he can't find any more information there.

He's barely left the ring of light surrounding the bar when he hears movement. He draws his blaster – you cannot survive over a decade on the streets of Corellia without at least a little healthy paranoia, and it hasn't killed him yet.

There's a gasp and a stifled shh and when he moves closer, he stiffens. Four teenagers of different species and varying ages are huddled behind the large metal bins leaning against the entrance to the back alley. They are all wearing Jedi robes and three of them hold lightsabres, although they seem reluctant to light them.

Garm is not a stupid man. He immediately takes his finger off the trigger and holds his arms up and apart, I don't want to hurt you he says, trying to infuse his words with as much sincerity as he can. There's some speculation about whether the Jedi's force powers let them sense emotions or not. Most people agree that they can tell when they're being lied to. Garm isn't lying. He came to the underworld for information, but he is not the type of man that can abandon any teenager to the streets, let alone a group who have fled their home and act as though they are being hunted.

Why should we believe you? Asks the Ardennian, brandishing his lightsabre like he's trying to threaten Garm. The way he stands in front of two of the others, a Zabrak and a pale-skinned near-human that looks like they could be Palliduvan, with a wide stance and three of his arms spread wide to make him as large as possible, clues Garm in to the fact that he's terrified, full of bravado, and probably the oldest.

Garm slowly, deliberately, crouches down and does the one thing that his instincts are screaming at him not to do: he puts his blaster on the ground.

These are children, and from the glances he catches of braids on both the Ardennian and the Halaisi child, who is a human fifteen if she's a day, Padawans who have likely just lost their Masters in the attack. He will not harm them, not after the hell they must have been through. A hell they are still going through. He really hopes those rumours about the Jedi being psychically linked or something aren't true. If they are, these kids have a lot more problems than blaster grazes, smoke inhalation, and whichever kriffing bastards are hunting them.

Please, he tries, you don't have to trust me, but you should get off the streets before someone else notices you. He wracks his brain for something that might convince them to come with him, but anything that might have worked on him back in his younger days wouldn't work on them. He'd never escaped an attack on his family that presumably murdered them, and he'd certainly never been hunted for simply being himself. He sighs. Look, he says, praying that they won't get scared off, I know that you have no reason to trust me, but I have a safehouse a few levels away. There's food, if you're hungry, a medpack, a fresher, a bed. And I swear, I will swear on anything that you wish me to, that I will not reveal your presence to anyone without your permission. I swear that I will do everything I can to keep you safe there.

The Ardennian and the Halaisi exchange a glance and have a hurried whispered conversation. The Zabrak clutches her weapon like it's a lifeline as her gaze swings between her friends and Garm. It's only when she tenses that he realises that he's lost track of the last one. The Palliduvan is suddenly right beside him, and before Garm can do anything, he grabs his wrist. Leender, no! The Ardennian leaps forward to pull him away, but the younger boy simply lets go and steps back, cocking his head at Garm and trembling slightly. He'll help us. The boy says, we can trust him.

And just like that, the other three Padawans exchange a look, shrug, and stare at him expectantly. Garm stares back for a moment, dumbfounded, but gathers himself and his discarded blaster before ushering them along to the safehouse that his Senate staff don't know about.

He doesn't know why they trust him, and for the first time in years he has no plan to work off, but it will have to be enough. It feels like nothing, not justice, not even repayment.

But there is nothing else he can do. It will have to be enough.

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The senator for Naboo trembles as she watches the smoke rise from her husband's home. The home that the Chancellor's office had said he had returned to. Padmé, says her oldest friend, what can we do?

And Padmé inhales a shaky breath as she looks around at her handmaidens, her aides, her friends, who all stand with her now as she falls apart over a maybe. They are supportive, have always been supportive, and she would not have made it this far without them.

And abruptly she cannot stand it anymore. She straightens, the same steel in her spine as when she had saved her people and her planet almost sixteen years ago. She is Amidala. She will be Amidala until the day she dies. And there is a reason her people loved her. She had not crumbled when her people were under threat and will not crumble now. She has wasted hours already; she will not waste a moment more.

C-3PO, I need you to man the comms, do not come back unless there is an urgent message, she tells her trusty, but less-than-discreet droid.

She waits until he leaves, then calls up a map of the exterior of the Jedi Temple that Anakin had made her. It has all the secret exits and backdoors he knows about marked on it so that she could meet him there if there's ever an emergency. She's fairly certain this qualifies.

Yané, Saché, check these four exits, she tells them, indicating the four exits on the Southern side of the Temple. Take a medpack, money, and supplies. If you find anyone, help them however you can, whatever they need, but don't bring them back here. We don't know what happened, but it's been hours and no one's been sent to the Temple. Someone powerful is involved and I won't risk trying to bring anyone here. If you don't find anyone, start doing sweeps outward, wherever you think they may have gone.

She sends Rabé and Eirtaé to do the same for the six exits scattered along the North and West sides of the Temple and sends Ellé to check the lanes and walkways leading away from the main entrance in case someone managed to get lucky. Then she dismisses the map of the Temple and calls up a map of the wider Temple district. Anakin had shown her a dozen different places that were considered safe zones by the Jedi. She sends Dormé and Moteé to check them and see if anyone made it there and needs help.

Sabé steps forward without needing to be asked. You want me to check out the Senate District for any information that someone might have and to comm you if I spot Anakin, she says, knowing exactly what Padmé needs from her.

Padmé nods, shoulders dropping slightly, a tell her friends are too polite to acknowledge. I'll stay here. Just in case.

Her handmaidens scatter to their tasks. And Padmé settles in to wait. She should be going out and searching, but…

If Anakin survived, then he'll come to her. And she wouldn't be able to bear it if he came here and she wasn't home. So, she grabs a datapad to see if she can't slice any information from the Senate or emergency service systems.

It doesn't feel like enough. But she has faith in her husband. So, she waits.

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It is easy to be kind to someone you know. To see them face cruelty or difficulty or even just misfortune and know that they do not deserve it and reach out to help them.

It's a lot more difficult to be kind to a stranger. Because that is what it comes down to, really. What the kindness of the Jedi is. It is the kindness of strangers.

If you see someone struggling on the street, someone begging in the corner. You cannot know their circumstances, you don't know what kind of person they are, whether it is bad luck or karma that left them where they are. It's very easy to think they did something to deserve it. Because isn't that how the Galaxy works? Bad things happen to bad people and if they get hurt or they die then it is as a result of their actions. It's because they had some flaw, or they did something bad that ended up biting them back. Good people get happy endings and good fortune, and they never suffer and die pointlessly, and no one hurts them, and they don't get killed for no reason. If someone is attacked or ends up losing everything then they must have done something to deserve it. Right?

It's easy to judge someone by the circumstances they're in and a lot harder to acknowledge that sometimes bad things just happen to good people. Sometimes someone's done it deliberately, just to hurt them. But sometimes it's just life.

Helping a stranger is rarely easy. But kindness? Kindness is always simple. And the kindness of strangers is the most simple and memorable kindness of all.

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Chieftain Wullffwarro keeps an eye on the bobbing lights carried by the Clonetroopers below as they check the ranks of the dead. He doesn't know what changed, why they turned on the Jedi, but he knows that they cannot trust them. It is just as well that they will not think to look in the trees. The remains of his squadron are checking their injuries and taking the opportunity to eat. The human or near-human woman that had identified herself as Jedi Master Luminara Unduli when he and his fighters had torn apart the Clonetroopers trying to kill her and helped her to run, sits in their midst silently, legs crossed and eyes closed. One of his honour-siblings has informed him that she is meditating, but Wullffwarro suspects that she is taking the opportunity to mourn. Their comm-tech had accidentally intercepted a message to the 41st Legion informing them that the Jedi Temple had fallen and that they were to keep hunting Jedi Masters Yoda and Unduli.

He holds a ration bar that is safe for humans out to the silent woman and waits patiently for her to gather herself and take it.

Master Yoda lives still. She says, taking the food and slowly starting to eat. Wullffwarro would prefer it if she ate faster but understands the lack of appetite – if he had received news that Awrathakka had burned with its inhabitants, he too would lack an appetite.

How do you know? One of his fighters asks.

I would have felt it if he died. She says there is so much death in the galaxy, so many of my Jedi brothers and sisters have fallen that the Force weeps with grief and I cannot tell if any of them live still. But Master Yoda helped raise nearly every Jedi in the Order. We – I – would know if he was dead. Especially when we are on the same planet. She finishes the ration bar and silently accepts another given to her by Wullffwarro's clan-sister.

Should we search for him? He asks her, running through calculations on the safest way to do that without being spotted. The Defender of the Home Tree deserves all the help they can give him. He's been helping the Wookiees of Kashyyyk since before Wullffwarro's parents were born. The least they can do is help him now. They would have to leave some people behind with her. But if they use the arching limbs and try to go tree to tree as much as they can, they will lessen their chances of being caught dramatically.

No. She says Master Yoda is extremely capable. We would only endanger him by looking. We might lead the Troopers straight to him. She takes a drink from the canteen that she carries on her belt. Our best bet is to retreat to one of the cities and lie low there. The Troopers are unlikely to be able to differentiate you from each other. It will be a good hiding place. She pauses, and retrieves her lightsabre from where she had set it aside and attaches it to her belt. I myself need to get off-planet. I stick out here and if I don't want to be found, I need to head somewhere I can blend in. She quiets for a moment, something sombre to her face. And I would like to look for any survivors.

We will help as much as we are able, Luminara-Unduli. Wullffwarro says. He and his squadron all salute her with their fists on their hearts. And you will be remembered as a friend to the Wookiees, for fighting here alongside us and defending our home. We weep with you for your lost siblings. Thank you for all you have done.

Master Unduli sucks in a trembling breath before smiling at them, with tears glistening in her eyes. I will never forget your kindness, Chief Wullffwarro. Thank you for everything you have done for me and will do for me until I leave. May the Force be with you in all of your future endeavours.

It is not enough, Wullffwarro knows. She has lost nearly everything. But he will do all he can for her, regardless. They all will. They can do no less.

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Three younglings from a small farming village twelve klicks west of Jiaozi are playing Jedi and pirates at the edge of the jungle when one of them notices movement. The youngest runs for help while the two eldest, armed with a broken rake and a broom handle respectively, brandish their weapons and demand who goes there.

There is a flicker of a deeper, more purple blue than the local flora and then a woman's accented voice speaks. Please, I don't want to cause any trouble, I was just looking for a place to rest. I didn't realise I was so close to the village.

The younglings glance at each other. They know that strangers can be dangerous. But their parents had always taught them to help people in need. And these days the only outworlders were Separatist and Republic troops. And this woman didn't sound like a droid.

There is a quick, fierce, whispered debate about who is going to go and poke the metaphorical rancor, before the younger child huffs and brandishes their broom handle. Do you need help? We have medical supplies at home. They perk up and we grow sillum!

The hidden woman exhales shakily. Any help you are willing to give would be much appreciated, but I'm afraid I cannot accept. I do not wish to bring danger upon you.

By this point several of the village elders have arrived. The decision to help is an easy one. After all, everyone knows about the Jedi and bounty hunters that helped protect Akira from pirates a few years ago. And everyone in the sillum farming business knows at least one person who was in the village at the time.

Of course, they weren't expecting a Jedi to be the stranger in need of help. Not that it changes their decision.

The only Kyuzo elder present helps the blue-skinned Twi'lek to her feet and encourages her to lean on him as they head back to the village. Two of the others go ahead to get some medical supplies ready for her blaster injuries and to spread the word about what has happened. The knowledge of the Clonetrooper's betrayal is shocking indeed, and the other farming communities need to be warned in case they come knocking, looking for a Jedi.

The Jedi Knight, who eventually introduces herself only as Aayla, protests their help when they insist after they have treated her wounds. But the village elders are stubborn and refuse to consider abandoning her.

They have hidey holes in their houses after all, just in case. And when the Clonetroopers come looking, they'll hide her in one of them.

It is the least they can do for someone who would bleed for the safety of others. Even if it is not enough.

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A Sullustan pilot in Plateau City, employed by several of the local Kallerans to export their goods off-world, sees a young human boy with a Jedi braid stumble out of the woods at the edge of the industrial spaceport on the outskirts of the city, constantly glancing over his shoulder as though looking for something or scared of someone.

He doesn't know what to do. He's never met a Jedi, and this one's still a baby and apparently terrified to boot. He wants to help – he's heard the gossip going around, about how the Jedi got rid of the Separatists and then insisted on camping in the fields to not impose on the locals. He knows to take it with a grain of salt, given the Kalleran culture of individualism and the resulting poor opinions of outsiders, but even reading between the lines he gets a good impression. Unfortunately, the chances of one random human baby Jedi understanding Sullustese is basically zero. And any charades will be noticed, which the baby Jedi is clearly trying to avoid.

Except… his ship's due to leave in two hours and it's large enough that he'll believably not notice a stowaway. And he did just overhear someone say that it looks like those Clonetroopers are coming back.

He starts shouting at the nearest dock worker, flailing the datapad with his permissions on it, and insisting that he should leave early because he doesn't want to deal with the Clonetroopers. The ploy works and the dock worker starts loudly trying to calm him down and insists that he's sure the Clonetroopers aren't going to bother checking his ship, they probably just ran out of supplies or something.

He slowly starts to herd the dock worker towards the offices, leaving his cargo hold open, the ship's position ensuring that no one can see if anyone's going in or out aside from himself and the employee that he's currently haranguing and distracting. When he comes back, without the (unneeded) permission to leave two hours early, the baby Jedi is nowhere to be seen, but he notes the melting snow on the ramp that hadn't been there before with a small smile.

When the Clonetroopers come around five minutes before his departure window and try to insist on searching his ship, he lies his jowls off about how impossible it is that anyone snuck on board and how he would have noticed if anyone had smuggled their way into his cargo hold and how he hasn't seen any humans around, let alone a baby Jedi. They might mean well, he doesn't know. But the baby Jedi was scared enough that he isn't taking any chances.

It doesn't feel like enough, and everyone knows that baby Jedi usually come as part of a pair with a Jedi Master, not running scared on their own, and this one may never realise that he did what he did on purpose, in order to help. But it's all he has. This, and politely pretending not to notice when the kid sneaks off when they land on Corellia.

It doesn't feel like enough, but he did what he could.

.

.

The senator of Alderaan's hands are still trembling and his cheeks are wet as his ship leaves Coruscant. He strides along the hallways to the cockpit giving orders as though his people cannot see through the façade, and they ignore his shock and grief as though they do not feel the same. Hopefully we'll be able to intercept a few Jedi before they walk into this catastrophe he says, as though his shock is not slowly turning to rage as he thinks about the young Padawan gunned down in front of him and the similar fates that the all the younglings that had lived in the Temple probably share. He strides into the cockpit with his aides and the ship's captain like he isn't currently imagining a thousand terrible deaths for the Jedi, betrayed by those they considered their own, and like he isn't desperately worried for the fates of his friends: Mace, Yoda, Jocasta Nu, Healer Che, Bant, Anakin, Ki Adi, Ahsoka, Luminara, Obi Wan.

When the first few hours pass with no response, Bail takes to pacing in the cockpit, apologising to the pilots as he does so. He isn't sure which is worse: the silence, the idea that Jedi may be avoiding contact with his ship out of suspicion, or the idea that the silence is because there are no Jedi left alive to get in contact.

When he manages to make contact with Master Yoda, he takes his first deep breath in what feels like an eternity. When he hears from Obi Wan right after they've picked up the diminutive Grandmaster, he lets out a quiet sigh of relief. He doesn't think about Mace, Jocasta, Healer Che, Bant, Anakin, any of the Jedi he knew who were on Coruscant.

He makes a silent prayer for the safety of Ki Adi, Ahsoka, Luminara, and the other Jedi who were away from the Temple when the attack started. The Jedi who were likely surrounded by their Clonetroopers when the ambush happened. It feels more like a plea.

When Obi Wan asks if they've heard from anybody else, Bail cannot look at him as Master Yoda answers. He clenches his jaw briefly before telling him about the Temple.

There is still hope in Obi Wan's tone when he asks if there's been any contact from the Temple. Bail watches him as Yoda tells him about the coded message that he hadn't understood before. As he tells him that the only message from the Temple is a trap for survivors. He knows what Obi Wan is going to say before he does. As much as he agrees, something in him still protests at the idea of his two friends, who so narrowly survived their own attacks, willingly going into a trap for the sake of others. But he says nothing. Because they are right, and he agrees. He just wishes it wasn't true.

When the message about the special Senate session comes through, for a brief moment Bail wants nothing more than to ignore it. But despite his own words, he knows it is not a trap, and more than that, that it is the best chance Obi Wan and Yoda have to get into the Temple. So, he says nothing. He wishes them luck, the best way he knows how, may the Force be with you, and goes to the Senate. He joins Padmé in her pod, knowing that she too was close to the Jedi – or one Jedi, anyway.

He almost immediately wishes he hadn't.

He did all he could, but it wasn't enough. He didn't save anybody – Yoda and Obi Wan saved themselves – and now, he does not know if he can help anybody else. He will still try. He will always try.

He just prays that it will be enough.

.

.

As a whole, Neimoidians have no love for the Jedi. Too many of them have worked with the Trade Federation, or rely on them, to remain unaffected by their opinions. But Jedi High General Plo Koon is different somehow. And he has always been kind to the children.

So, when they accidentally see him hiding from the Clonetroopers, and when they hear the Clonetroopers talking about the 'traitor Jedi' they keep their mouths shut and look the other way.

When the image of the Jedi Temple in flames is broadcast carelessly across the holonet, as though it has not stood for twice as long as the Republic has existed, they bite their tongues and accidentally leave secure gateways open behind them.

When a Clonetrooper tries to hijack command of the ports and the Port Authority refuses them and fights back when they refuse to take 'no' for an answer, they ignore it. And when they see the declared dead Jedi Master Koon sneak onto a cargo ship headed towards the Mid Rim for food imports, they turn around and walk away.

The tension between the Jedi General and the men formerly under his command is no business of theirs. And they certainly aren't going to go around poking their noses into why someone at the top of the casualty list is sneaking around, sabotaging Clone communications, and altogether looking remarkably lively for someone supposed to be dead. It's none of their business after all.

It will have to be enough for the kind Kel Dor. Their abilities to help while maintaining plausible deniability do have their limits, and they cannot go against the Trade Federation without consequence.

.

Quinlan Vos jumps out of the window and down into the alley. He shuts it behind him and breathes heavily, taking a moment to catch his breath. He's never been so thankful for the run-and-hide training that had been drilled into him when he'd first decided to become a Shadow.

He doesn't know what's going on. Well, that's not entirely true. He knows that thousands of his Jedi siblings have died all across the Galaxy, betrayed by their Troopers. He knows that Fyodor, who was the reason he was here, was one of them. He knows that the Jedi Temple is burning, there are holoscreens broadcasting a live feed of the fire on every other street corner. And he knows that he is not the only Force User on Ord Mantell. He was here hunting Asajj Ventress, after all.

He doesn't know if any of his family have survived the betrayal of the Clone Troopers. He doesn't know if Aayla, if Tholme, if any of his friends are still alive. There are too many broken bonds in his head to identify any that are intact. He doesn't know why this has happened or if Ventress has any more information than he does. And he doesn't know if the 159th Attack Battalion will recognise him as a Jedi. He really doesn't have many options.

Of course, that's when he senses someone rushing down the street adjacent to his alley, trying to run but trying to act like they're not. He closes his eyes to focus for a moment. They are strong in the Force, not quite Light, but nowhere near as Dark as could be expected from a former Sith Acolyte.

He waits, counts down, and right as she rushes past the entrance to the alley, Quinlan grabs Ventress, drags her in, and presses them both against the wall. Shh, he hisses in her ear, covering the vocoder of her helmet. He moves his other arm in front of them both and projects nothing-to-see-here as hard as he can. It's been a while since he had to focus on a notice-me-not suggestion this strong, but he can't take the risk that they will be found.

He tenses and feels Ventress hold her breath as two Troopers peer into the alley. One of them steps in, close enough to touch them, and shines a torch down to the dead end. Nothing here he says she must have gone onto the roofs. They leave.

Quinlan counts. Twenty, thirty, forty. When he gets to a hundred and there's no sign of any Troopers nearby, he lets go of the woman in his arms and sighs in relief. We don't have long before another patrol comes by. We need to get off-planet.

Ventress opens the front of her helmet and stares at him suspiciously. Why did you help me, Jedi?

In any other situation Quinlan would probably wince at how easily she'd identified him as a Jedi. His job depends on people not realising that, after all. But he had just used a pretty powerful Force suggestion to hide them from the Troopers, and Ventress has proved to be anything but stupid. He raises an eyebrow, then closes his eyes and extends his senses towards the spaceport, trying to get an idea of the best path to take from here.

I would have left you to get caught. The Dathomiri woman says casually. There's a twinge to her words, like they're not quite true, but Quinlan doesn't have the freedom to try and unravel them. He was sent here to hunt her, but circumstances have changed, and danger can make for strange bedfellows.

I know. He says, instead. But that's not the Jedi way. I don't suppose you have transport off this rock?

She scowls at him. Do you think I'd still be here with a Jedi cruiser in orbit and no credits to my name if I did?

Quinlan rolls his eyes. Then we're going to need a ride.

We? She says scornfully what makes you think there's any kind of we?

Quinlan barely manages to stop himself from rolling his eyes again. In case you hadn't noticed, we're both being hunted. Working together and hiding our lightsabres, we double our chances of survival. They're looking for one, maybe two, Force Users on their own, not a couple seeking passage to greener pastures. Have you never heard the saying 'a common enemy makes friends of the greatest foes'?

I thought Jedi were above working with Sith. And what do you mean maybe? Aren't they your men?

Quinlan raises an eyebrow. You're not nearly Dark enough to be a Sith Acolyte. I'm pretty sure the information that I've been working with is wildly outdated. There's no way you've worked with Dooku in at least a year. And they're not my men. The 159th are- were Knight Lazensky's men. I don't know if any of them knew I was on-planet before all this happened.

Ventress looks away, before shutting her helmet again. Dooku and I parted ways the better part of two years ago when he tried to kill me. Quinlan politely ignores the conflicting emotions surrounding her words. Knight Lazensky? She prods when he doesn't respond to her first statement.

Quinlan shuts his eyes. Dead. He replies shortly. Keep your 'sabres hidden.

I haven't agreed to work with you yet. She says, stepping away from him.

Right now, we're outnumbered, outgunned, and we have a common enemy. My people have been murdered, and you are clearly also on their list. Do you really want to try and do this alone?

He can't see it, but he's almost certain that she's scowling. Fine! She snaps lead the way.

She's not his family, she's not even a friend. But it's enough, for now, that he isn't alone in the universe, and has someone on his side, however temporary it may be.

.

When a group of Wroonian and human locals find the injured Tholothian Jedi Master on their way back from the capital, it does not take much to convince them to help her. After all, everyone knows that the Jedi are kind to everyone without hesitation. Can they do any less in return?

They take her back to the village that they live in and help her treat her injuries – her own knowledge of medicine is far superior to any of theirs. As she works she tells them what she knows, which really isn't much. Just that a little over two Saleucami days ago, a little under one and a half by Galactic Core standards, her men had tried to kill her and that thousands of her fellow Jedi across the galaxy have been killed in that time.

The entire village council agrees unanimously that they should help her, even the grumpy Weequay that hates everyone and disagrees with everything and is only on the council because no one had managed to argue with her when she just kept turning up.

They all know the risks. They make plans to send their children to relatives in other communities and excuses so that more vulnerable members of their village might have reason to head elsewhere. Unfortunately, they don't do it fast enough.

The morning after they take in Jedi Master Stass Allie and start making plans to help her however they can whilst keeping their people safe, the news about the attempted coup of the Jedi spreads. Most of them refuse to believe it, but a handful of people do, and two of them are on the village council. They start fighting about what to do, the only thing stopping the Jedi Master from offering to leave is the fact that she is unconscious with the sleep of bone-deep exhaustion.

They have yet to come to a consensus when the company of Clonetroopers arrive. They start dragging people out of houses, accusing them of harbouring a traitor, saying they tracked the Jedi Traitor to the village. Master Allie tries to give herself up to save the villagers. It is only the begging of the local wisewoman that stops her. She ignores even that when someone gives up the fact that she is in the village and the Clones threaten to kill one person for every minute that she continues to hide.

The second she shows herself they start shooting indiscriminately. Not just at her, but at the villagers they have lined up outside in the main square. She defends them at the expense of herself, and before the first bolt hits she's already shouting for them all to run. It takes seven hits to down her, all but one landing when she'd overextended herself to protect others. It does not save the village. A little less than half of the men had gathered the locals in the main square. The rest were spread around the village in small groups. The moment they hear that the Jedi Master has revealed herself, they open fire. Harbouring a traitor is treason and punishable by death in kind.

Once the Clonetroopers of the 91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps confirm the death of the Jedi traitor and a brief observation suggests that those who harboured her are all dead, they use some starter fuel scrounged from a local's speeder bike to set a fire to consume the village, and all of the bodies in it.

Nearly a century later there will be no settlement on that spot, but it will have a memorial to Jedi Master and Healer Stass Allie and the villagers who tried to help her, erected by the survivors of the attack that remember how, despite already being injured, the Jedi Master had still tried her best to save those who had offered her help.

The story of the village on Saleucami will go like this: they tried to save her when she needed them, and she tried to save them in return. It was not enough. But they tried, nevertheless.

.

.

.

The Jedi Temple burns and all across Coruscant and all across the Galaxy the news is broadcast that the Jedi are traitors and the threat of them has been eliminated.

In the Senate Rotunda, up on high, liberty dies with thunderous applause.

Below, the people cry.

In the underworld, the lower streets, the middle levels.

The Jedi were always unfailingly kind.

And all across the Galaxy, people remember.

.

.

.

Death permeates the air of the Jedi Temple as two Jedi Masters slowly move through the halls of their home littered with the still-cooling bodies of their murdered kin.

Slaughtered Masters, fallen Knights, and dead Senior Padawans all tell a haunting story of trying to delay the intruders, an attempt to buy time for others to run. Worse are the slain bodies of the younglings. It isn't difficult to imagine what had happened. The younglings would have been told to hide and run when they saw the opportunity. The way most of them lie in groups tells its own story. Jedi do not leave each other behind unless they have absolutely no choice, and often not even then. The younglings would have tried to stay together. It is a gamble that may have saved them in other circumstances.

But the worst part is yet to come. Because not all of the Jedi were killed by blaster bolts. Some of them, many of them, were killed by the blade of a lightsabre.

And it gives a whole new meaning to the thick feeling of betrayal sinking into the walls. Because either the Sith Master finally came out of hiding to attack the Temple personally, or…

…or one of their own had turned to the Dark Side and helped murder them all.

Who? Is the only question that they can ask. Who could have done this? Who could have turned on their own family in such a way? Who could have betrayed us like this? Who could have been so willing to slaughter everyone, even the younglings?

They have not yet found the bodies of any of their lineage. Mace and Cin and Anakin and Feemor and Nim and Shayera and Gwenith were all in the Temple last they knew. Neither of them quite know whether it is better or worse that they haven't found their bodies.

They pause outside the crèche but do not go in. There are bodies littered around the entrance, Clone and Jedi alike. By unspoken agreement they reach out with the Force to see if there is any life inside. There is not. They sense only the lingering traces of confused terror and pain from those too young to understand what is happening. Perhaps it is cowardice, but neither of them can bear to go in and find the bodies of murdered crèchelings. Knowing that they cannot properly bury any of their kin, that they cannot hold the proper rites, is hard enough. Finding the younglings is worse. To find the bodies of slaughtered crèchelings in their cradles, in a place that has only ever brought peace and joy and Light, would be a horror far beyond anything else either of them have ever seen. So after they check with the Force to see if there is anyone, even one babe, still alive and find nothing, they move on without opening the door. There are many what-ifs that will haunt them both. This is not one of them. To see that carnage would be far worse than anything they could imagine.

They make their way to where the holomessage is being broadcast from the security centre. Master Yoda slows, stopping to check each body as he goes past. They know that none of them are alive. They keep their senses open anyway, just in case.

But where Master Obi Wan cannot bear to mark the dead, cannot bear to see the faces of his friends, family, colleagues in the bodies on the floor, Master Yoda takes care to mark them all in his memory. They will make a list, later, of all those they could not save, nearly ten thousand Jedi strong, based on the broken bonds that once linked them to each other and weighed against a casualty list written by the Clonetroopers, sliced from the military databanks.

But for now, Master Yoda marks the dead and Master Obi Wan tries not to see the faces of the bodies he passes as he goes to the security centre to disarm the trap summoning his surviving family to their doom, and send a message warning them of what has happened.

He tries not to think about how many Jedi they may be too late to save. He does not think about what it means that not all of the bodies are in the hallways and entrances and that there are scorch marks even in here.

.

This is Master Obi Wan Kenobi.

I regret to report…

…in time a new hope will emerge.

.

May the Force be with you…

…always.

.

And they turn to leave. To flee and hide and hope. Except…

Obi Wan has to know. He does not need Yoda's warning that he will only find pain in the security recordings. He needs to know what happened to Feemor, to Bant, to Anakin. He needs to know how they died. His brother, his dearest friend, and the boy he raised from childhood. They were all in the Temple when it happened. Many of his loved ones were. But the fates of those three will haunt him if he doesn't know. He knows they are dead. But he needs to know how.

He does not regret it. But the pain is greater than he could have imagined.

Because Anakin is the one who killed Bant and Feemor. Anakin is the one who walked these halls with an army and slaughtered the people who raised him. Anakin is the one who murdered younglings.

Obi Wan is almost glad that he hadn't dared enter the crèche now. How could Anakin have done this?

He tries to deny the very evidence before his eyes, but the Force does not lie as it whispers its pain around him and Master Yoda's sorrow seeps into the air.

When the Chancellor – the Sith Lord – praises him for his actions and names him Lord Vader, Obi Wan turns off the recording, unable to watch any more.

.

They must destroy the Sith. This they both know. But…

How can Obi Wan kill the boy that he raised as a brother, as a son? How can he kill his own Padawan?

And yet…

He is not strong enough to kill the Sith Master. Neither of them are.

.

A tiny shatterpoint starts to tremble between them both, unnoticed by either of them.

Over in the Senate District, in Mon Mothma's apartments, Jedi Master Mace Windu starts to stir.

.

Send me to kill the Sith Master, Obi Wan almost says, Anakin is like my brother, I cannot do it.

Except…

.

The shatterpoint trembles faster: it will either vanish or explode into a supernova, and it all hinges on this conversation.

.

Can you do it? Obi Wan asks instead. The Sith Master is powerful. You saw the recordings. Mace, Kit, Agen, and Saesee all left to face him, and none of them returned. Do you truly believe you can defeat him where they failed? Can you survive where they didn't? Now? Injured as we both are by the deaths of our family?

Have me do what, would you? Yoda asks him evenly, knowing that his Great-Grandpadawan is right, but not knowing what else they can do. Destroy the Sith, we must.

Obi Wan closes his eyes and reaches into the Force for answers. Weeping, it gives them to him.

Regroup. He says. We must regroup. There are still Jedi alive and we are stronger together.

And Darth Vader? Yoda asks.

They both know that as long as Anakin is alive and stands opposed to them, their chances of getting caught are that much bigger. He was their family. Obi Wan's Padawan. Any contingencies they already had, he will know. They are things that all Jedi are taught young. Things shared down their lineages.

Obi Wan closes his eyes. They both know the truth. Obi Wan has the best chance at finding him now. And Yoda is the one with the most connections to their fellow Jedi. He is the one that helped raise them all, after all.

The boy you trained, gone he is says Master Yoda, full of sorrow. And Obi Wan shuts his eyes in despair.

He thinks about pleading that he doesn't know where Anakin – Vader – has gone. But he has always been good at finding things - a lost planet, an army that shouldn't exist, answers long forgotten and dead men. He knows how to find him. You will be safe, Master? He asks instead.

To Senator Organa, I will go. He says and a visit, I will pay, to your friend. Not finished, on Coruscant, I am. Things to do here, the Force tells me, I still have.

Do not linger long. I fear there is still much danger here. Obi Wan says. He bows. May the Force be with you, Master.

Master Yoda looks up at him. And with you, always, Obi Wan.

.

Master Windu feels the fabric of reality tremble as a choice is made and set in stone.

.

And the shatterpoint explodes

.

.

.

In another world, a similar one, Obi Wan begs Master Yoda not to send him after Anakin but goes anyway.

In that world, Master Yoda attempts to kill the Sith Lord and fails, gaining injuries that will mark him for the rest of his life, both physical and emotional.

In this world, Master Yoda breathes in sorrow and breathes out grief. He still sends Obi Wan after Anakin. But in this world, it is because he knows that Obi Wan is their best chance of finding him and stopping him.

In this world, Master Yoda finds a Knight and two crèchelings on his way to 500 Republica and is found in turn by an injured Knight and Padawan who escaped the archives as he travels to the Senate District.

In this world, he senses the Master of the Order in the same building when he goes to Senator Organa for help getting off-planet and follows the Force whispering guidance so quiet he can barely hear it in a detour through the outskirts of the Senate District and Little Keldabe where he finds a fast-fading Jedi Knight, most of a Crèche Clan, and a Padawan and youngling who fled the Temple.

In this world, he goes to Obi Wan's friend Dex for help getting clearances so that Senator Organa's ship can get off-planet with the scattered, injured Jedi without suspicion.

In this world, when he gets there, he finds half a dozen Initiates hiding in the backroom and a Senator accompanied by four Padawans attempting to barter for papers.

In this world, Master Yoda listens to the Force's near-silent whispers and finds twenty-five Jedi that escaped the Temple and a dozen people that decided to help strangers in need rather than turning them over to the Guard.

In this world, the seeds of Rebellion sprout a little earlier.

.

Obi Wan still follows his Padawan's wife to Mustafar. Her husband still attacks her.

In this world, Obi Wan still fights the boy he had raised, the brother he loves. He still has the high ground and he still screams his love at a Sith that spews only hatred in return. In this life, Obi Wan still cannot bear to be the one to strike the monster wearing Anakin Skywalker's face down for good, but he braces himself to do so anyway.

In this world he does not walk away because he cannot kill the child he raised.

In this world he is forced to leave Vader dying on a Mustafar lava bank anyway, because Senator Amidala is pregnant and dying and Obi Wan is, has always been, a Jedi first.

.

.

There is a world where Luke and Leia, children of a monster and the Senator that loved him blindly, were born on a deserted medical station with no one but two grieving Masters, a pair of loyal droids, and a saddened Senator to watch.

This is not that world.

In this world they are born on a medical station that is treating a dozen other patients, helped into the world by a droid but watched over by over half a dozen Jedi who all feel their brightness in the Force and call it hope.

.

.

.

In one world hope is the twin children of a dead woman and nightmare.

In this world the injured survivors of a genocide, smuggled onto a Senator's ship and treated on a medical station that is all but forgotten, hold hands and reach into the Force to welcome their two newest family members and the Force sings.

And all across the Galaxy, all at once, the surviving Jedi feel the Force reverberating with a single, beautiful message: you are not alone. There is hope.

.

.

And hope is enough.


The alternate titles for this fic are Pay it Forward and The Kindness of Strangers which once again should let you know exactly what I was thinking when I was writing it.

And now we have our point of divergence: Yoda does not go off to fight the Emperor, and as a consequence there is a tiny flap of a butterfly's wings and things start to change...

It's also very important to me that you know that aside from Mon, Bail, and debateably Quinlan, none of the people in this fic actually know the people they are helping beyond the fact that they are Jedi and in need of help. Quinlan is debateably on the list because arguably studying someone in order to hunt them down across the Galaxy and arrest them is a kind of knowing but also he's never actually met Asajj in person prior to this.

That list of names that is mentioned as being part of Yoda's lineage/Obi Wan's extended lineage are part from canon, part from Legends, and partly made up. Yes, I know that Mace being Yoda's Padawan in canon is one of those nebulously true facts and that in Legends he's part of a completely different lineage, but I don't care.

If anyone was wondering, yes, I did watch that part of RotS about twelve times to try and get this right and yes that bit about the younglings is a headcanon I've had ever since the first time I watched it.

Also some worldbuilding notes that may or may not come up later:
A 'human 8' or 'human 15' etc is the species equivalent of that level of growth/maturity and is used as a kind of Galactic shorthand for ages in a very human-centric Galaxy.
Jedi younglings stay in their Crèche Clans (between 5 and 15 younglings of various ages) from when they come to the Temple (on average around a human 2 or 3, but it's not uncommon that actual babies are given to the Temple, they just don't join any Clans until they reach that age) until a human 7 or 8, at which point they are placed in Initiate Clans (between 6 and 12 younglings) with others of approximately the same 'age'. They do everything in these Clans, and sometimes are grouped with another Clan for activities like 'sabre practice (but never in groups of more than 20 younglings at once). At around a human 11 or 12 the Initiate Clans are sent on their Gathering to Ilum and once they have had their 'sabres for at least a year they are eligible to be Padawans. Most Initiates are taken as Padawans between around a human 12 and a human 15 but some are taken later. Padawans on average train for about 10-15 years before being Knighted, but some take siginificantly longer and its not uncommon for a Jedi to be a Padawan for 20 years. Most get Knighted at the human equivalent of their mid-twenties but obviously there are species that mature at a faster or slower rate so the average age they get Knighted can be higher or lower accordingly. Padawans become Senior Padawans after passing certain trials in their apprenticeship, but these aren't formal trials like the Knighting Trials, more like a mix of experiences and knowledge/ability. This is normally about halfway into their Padawanship and generally happens around a human 20 to 22ish, but has been known to happen as early as a human 17 in rare cases.