Ben felt as though a hook had been attached inside his stomach, and yanked very hard, lifting him off his feet and pulling him into a kaleidoscope of color. Just as the whirling sensation became too much and Ben felt like he was about to throw up however, his feet slammed into something hard.
This was too much for his aged knees, and Ben collapsed to the floor, still clutching the teacup, which now was void of whatever power it had held previously.
Gingerly, Ben got to his feet. Judging by the sterile white walls and the injured person shuffling alongside a uniformed orderly, this seemed to be a hospital of some sort.
The old man from earlier had been conversing with the front desk, and as if sensing Ben's arrival, turned around. "Ah, there he is."
On cue, a man with short brown hair wearing a green uniform appeared and took hold of Ben's elbow. "Right this way, Mr. Kenobi."
By this point, Ben had just about had enough, Force or no Force. Since arriving on this strange world, he'd been shot at, frozen, tied up, and drugged with a truth serum. This orderly attempting to manhandle him was the final straw. Ben pulled his arm out of the man's grasp and thrust out his hand, telekinetically shoving the unfortunate nurse into the wall.
Before Ben could run however, his whole body stiffened, joints and muscles locking involuntarily. He grunted with surprise and frustration, then fell to the floor again. Out of the corner of Ben's eye, he could see the old man pocketing his knobbly stick as he helped the nurse to his feet.
"My apologies, Healer Trent. Mr. Kenobi here has had a very rough day and isn't quite in his right mind."
"No, no, it's alright, Professor Dumbledore. I've dealt with rowdy patients before, though none so skilled with wandless magic." Healer Trent pulled out his own stick (seriously, did everyone on this world have one of those?) and waved it in a wiggly pattern.
Ben's paralyzed body lifted off the floor and floated along through the hallways at the direction of the nurse. After a few minutes and a short lift ride, they arrived in a ward with several occupied beds. A wave of Trent's stick, and Ben was able to move again. By now, he'd calmed down enough to refrain from leaping out of the bed he'd been laid in and throttling the closest person, but Trent still left rather hastily.
Professor Dumbledore, as the Healer had referred to the old man, had followed them, and remained in the room, albeit at the far side. He appeared to be having a rather one-sided conversation with a blank-faced man propped up in his sleeping couch with colorful cushions.
Looking around, Ben noticed that this particular ward had much more personal touches than most medical facilities he'd had the misfortune of being confined to. The side table presumably belonging to the patient next to him was piled high with books that prominently featured the blond man's smiling face.
The man himself appeared to be intent on repeatedly scribbling an odd pattern on a piece of what Ben recognized as paper, using a colorful, if a little bedraggled, feather dipped in ink. Not for the first time, Ben wondered if he'd somehow ended up on a planet that was technologically primitive.
Ben's gaze had not gone unnoticed, as the man looked up at him. He waved cheerily and smiled, showing off a particularly shiny set of teeth. He then held up his paper and pointed at the scribbles proudly. They appeared to be letters spelling out "Gidleryo Lokcahrt."
Completely nonplussed, Ben waved back.
"I see you've met Gilderoy." Professor Dumbledore spoke up from Ben's other side- apparently he'd given up on trying to talk to the blank-faced man. "He was one of my employees, until he had a rather unfortunate accident involving a backfiring Memory Charm."
"Where am I?" Ben cut Dumbledore off. He was in no mood to continue this inane train of thought.
"We are in the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries." Dumbledore replied serenely, unaffected by the abrupt change in subject.
Ben closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. The years he'd spent on Tatooine had been lonely and full of heartache, but they'd been consistent. His recent misadventures however, were bringing a level of annoyance that he hasn't known since… Anakin. Nostalgia tinged with pain washes over Ben, and he shoves the memories back into the black hole they'd escaped from, opening his eyes.
Looking Dumbledore in the eye, Ben twitches his fingers, and speaks with the authority of the Force itself imbued into his words. "I do not need medical care. I am free to go."
To his disappointment, Dumbledore merely chuckles. "I'm afraid you'll find the Confundus Charm to be rather ineffectual on anyone who has learned Occlumency like myself. And in any case, the Healers will want to examine you for any lasting effects. Battling can be rather hard on an old man, take it from me, Master Kenobi."
"Thank you for your concern, but I-" Ben began acidly, but then stopped short. During the interrogation, he'd only described himself as a Jedi Knight. "What did you just call me?"
"Master Kenobi. I believe that was your rank within the Jedi Order, was it not? I took the liberty of perusing your memories earlier at the Ministry as a precaution to make sure the Veritaserum would hold." Dumbledore said matter-of-factly, as though he were commenting on the weather and not confessing to having read Ben's mind.
Ben stared at the man. Just what had the Force gotten him into?
"Ah, but we are getting off track. The Janus Thickey Ward is normally for long-term patients, but residents of this ward are permitted to have personal effects, in the hopes that it will speed their recovery." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he said this, and he took out Ben's lightsaber from his pocket, before tapping it lightly with his wooden stick. The Force swelled within it in the same way it had with the teacup that had brought Ben to this place, but only for a moment before going dormant. Dumbledore placed the lightsaber on the nightstand next to Ben's sleeping couch.
As if reading Ben's mind again, Dumbledore smiled. "Do not worry, Master Kenobi. Your lightsaber is still fully functional. Now, I must be going. There are urgent matters at Hogwarts that I must attend to, but I am confident we will be seeing each other again very soon, when you leave this place."
Dumbledore turned, and then vanished with a sharp CRACK that made Ben jump. For a few long moments, he stared at his lightsaber on the nightstand. Ben was reluctant to touch it, in case it whisked him away to somewhere else. He settled for levitating it before him, examining it through the Force.
As the old professor had said, it appeared to be in perfect working order. Whatever he'd done to it had not affected the internal mechanisms or the Pontite crystal within. That was good. In this strange new world, Ben could ill-afford to lose his lightsaber. Force knew he'd lectured this Padawan and his grand-Padawan enough about it over the years.
Oh, Anakin. His brother had been intruding on his thoughts a lot lately. Though that was only to be expected, since Ben had been traveling with Luke… The ache in Ben's heart sharpened into concern. With all that had been going on, he'd completely forgotten about Luke.
Even trapped in a hospital ward on a mysterious world, a Jedi Master in tune with the Force was a powerful ally indeed, and despite the curveballs that the Force had thrown at Ben recently, his trust in it had not waned. His lightsaber hovering before him, Ben closed his eyes and sank into meditation.
A/N: Sorry about the delay, I had the chapter mostly finished by Monday but I wasn't 100% happy with it, so I took an extra couple of days to polish it up. In the future, I'll probably stick to updating on Wednesdays, since I write these up on the weekends and having an extra couple of days to edit makes this feel less like a deadline or chore.
