Never give up hope, no matter how dark things seem.
The Temple library was not a place where most Initiates spent their time voluntarily, and certainly not this deep into the archives, where the dust was thick and even Masters feared to tread.
So of course Obi-Wan showed up, bright-eyed, with ration bars in his pockets and a datapad ready in his hand.
All Masters were subjected every so often to the indignity that was Archive duty— a day where a group of unfortunate Masters were roped into helping out with the inventory of the books, flimsis, and datachips left to molder in the ancient depths of the Archive. There was too much work for even the small corps of Jedi who worked solely in the Archive, headed by Jocasta Nu. Thus, a rite of passage for all Jedi. At least all those who weren't smart enough to be off-planet or deadly injured when their turn on the inventory roster came up.
The luckier Masters with padawans at least had someone else to torture with them.
Qui-Gon made a very interesting face when he saw Obi-Wan, ranging from surprise to annoyance to finally a kind of resigned acceptance. He was standing with Master Tholme, so, of course, Quinlan, his padawan, was there too. There were other Masters and bored apprentices as well, scattered around and talking among themselves.
Quinlan brightened when he saw Obi-Wan. He had clearly been sulking about library duties. "Obi-Wan!" he said, and bounded forward, even under the disapproving glance of his Master. "What are you doing here? You should run while you still can, and I mean that."
Obi-Wan grinned. "I'm here to help Master Jinn with his archive work."
"That's only for padawans," Qui-Gon said.
"Actually, any willing student may help any master," Obi-Wan said. He'd checked. Of course, that rule was mostly for different circumstances, such as an elderly Master with no padawan who may need a little help getting around, or friends substituting for injured or sick apprentices. But he thought that his noble goal of annoying Qui-Gon into taking him on was a good enough excuse, and it wasn't forbidden.
"I don't need help," Qui-Gon said, and Tholme and Quinlan gave him disbelieving looks. No one turned down the option to do less work on these things.
"I could leave," Obi-Wan said. "If you're sure. You only have, what, a hundred shelves to clear today?"
Qui-Gon scowled, but there was more than a hint of resignation to it.
Tholme laughed. "You just have to be Kenobi," he said.
"You've heard of me," Obi-Wan said, with a pleased grin. Quinlan slung an arm around his shoulder and Obi-Wan, ensuring that his shields were rock-solid, elbowed him back. "I'm flattered, Master Tholme."
Tholme was one of Qui-Gon's oldest friends, so Obi-Wan had spent a fair amount of time with him as a padawan. He and Quinlan had spent more than a couple missions crowded into one tent while their masters shared the other, or running away from mercenaries in some forest or other while the other two got into trouble elsewhere.
"Possibly not in the ways you're thinking of," Master Tholme said, amused.
"Oh, I can imagine what you've heard," Obi-Wan said. "Master Jinn? Do you want my help today or not?"
Qui-Gon grumbled something.
"What was that, Qui?" Tholme said.
Qui-Gon glowered down at Obi-Wan. "What kind of Initiate wants to help with archiving, anyway?" he asked.
"I hunger to learn, Master," Obi-Wan said, with such a straight face that Qui-Gon clearly didn't know how to take it until Quinlan laughed.
The assembled Masters amounted to about a dozen; all there, Obi-Wan was pretty sure. True enough, Master Nu emerged from the main library door and eyed them all critically. "I'm sure you all want to be here," she said. There was an assembled series of grumbles. "Good. Today each master or each master/padawan pair is being assigned a section. You will, in its entirety, cross-reference the list of books that are supposed to be in that section, as well as make a list of the books that are."
She was having too much fun with this. To tell the truth, Obi-Wan was too. This duty had obviously been one of the first to be phased out when the war started, with all able bodies urgently needed elsewhere. A day spent among dusty tomes and no life-or-death situations sounded nice.
"Now, these sections haven't been properly catalogued in over a hundred years," Master Nu said. "So don't—" she glared at a pair of the younger masters— "Mess—" she looked directly at Qui-Gon— "Anything—" a padawan who was chewing gum— "Up."
With that ominous warning, she went around the room with a datapad for each Master, handing them out one by one.
"She was looking at you," Qui-Gon muttered to Tholme, who snorted.
"So?" Obi-Wan said.
"You can stay, I suppose," Qui-Gon said. "But it doesn't mean anything."
Obi-Wan lifted a book— a real, paper book, shoved in next to a pile of flimsis— and sneezed. "Found it," he told Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon, lifting him up to the top of the shelf with the Force, checked off an item on the list.
"Best bring it down here," he said. "It should have been on the other shelf."
Obi-Wan let Qui-Gon gently float him back to the ground. He presented the book proudly.
"You have dust on your nose," Qui-Gon said, but he smiled, then tried to hide it. "Just put it on the table for now." The table was taken up with other misshelved things, books and holocrons and papers.
Obi-Wan did, stacking it neatly among the others. He took a look at Qui-Gon's new list of the unexpected items they'd found so far. "I think this one was supposed to go in Quinlan's section," he said, and sneezed again.
"You can read Qui-Gon's writing?" Tholme asked, emerging around a shelf with Quinlan in tow. "This is a rare gift indeed."
"It's not that bad," Obi-Wan said, loyally.
"It is," Tholme said.
It really was.
Obi-Wan had learned how to read it as a self-defense mechanism only about halfway through his apprenticeship. It had been about as difficult as learning another language. He felt he had an unfair advantage in this, but then again anyone who put up with Qui-Gon Jinn for that long deserved a reward.
"I am right here," Qui-Gon said. "Why are you?"
"We're taking a break," Quinlan said, hopping up onto a thin strip of the table that wasn't taken up by books. "This is the worst."
"Being a Jedi isn't all flashing laser swords and saving the damsels, Quinlan," Obi-Wan said, but when Quinlan cleared off a space for him to sit too he did, and grinned at him.
Tholme and Qui-Gon took the more sensible option of a chair each. Qui-Gon's hair was tied up into a bun, dark-turning-grey hair escaping here and there. He looked tired, but he had relaxed a little, had even made a few jokes while he and Obi-Wan were working.
"What's the strangest thing you two have found so far?" Obi-Wan asked, swinging his legs.
Quinlan made a face.
"An old ration kit," Tholme said. "It did not hold up well over a hundred years."
"What did you find?" Quinlan asked.
Obi-Wan grinned and reached behind him— he passed over a holonovel written in Ryl.
"What does it say?" Quinlan asked, already smirking in anticipation of the joke.
"It's a dirty novel," Obi-Wan said, and leaned over to whisper the title in Quinlan's ear. Quinlan barked out an ugly, startled laugh, and clapped a hand over his mouth.
"That is not in the Jedi archives!" he said.
"It is," Obi-Wan said. "I suppose it's educational."
"I don't think either of you are old enough to be learning that lesson," Tholme said. He used the Force and tugged the book out of Quinlan's hand, landing securely in his. He flipped through it. "Stars," he said. "That is educational."
"Tholme!" Qui-Gon said, and managed to take it out of his hand and toss the holobook across the room just in time for Master Nu to come in and catch it with a very unimpressed expression.
"I'm glad to know you're all working hard," she sniffed.
"Merely taking a break, Master Nu," Tholme said, cowed.
"Hmm," Master Nu said.
Obi-Wan leaned around Quinlan and waved cheerily at her. "Hello, Master Nu!"
"Obi-Wan," Nu said, suddenly smiling.
"You look lovely as ever," Obi-Wan said.
"Old flatterer," Nu said. "How are you? Did you finish your astronavigation essay?"
"Yes, thank you," Obi-Wan said. "Those resources you gave me on the Arkanis Sector were very helpful."
"Good," Nu said, and gave an appraising look to Qui-Gon. She seemed to find him lacking in some way. She looked back at Obi-Wan. "I didn't know you would be here today— have you been taken as an apprentice?"
"Not yet, Master Nu," Obi-Wan said. He was treasuring the look on Qui-Gon's face.
"Hmm," said Nu, disapprovingly.
"You two… know each other?" Qui-Gon said, which was a dumb enough question that everyone gave him the same unimpressed look at the same time.
"Obi-Wan has been a regular lately," Master Nu said. "At this rate I think he'll audit the whole Senate someday."
"If I have to," Obi-Wan said, in a far sunnier voice than he felt.
Master Nu tucked the holobook under her arm. "I was going to see if anyone could pick up another section, but I see you boys are all busy in here. I'd better be going— sometimes I think the masters get more incompetent every year."
Self-preservation, probably, to avoid being asked back, which Obi-Wan did not say aloud.
She gave them all a bow, and swept off to find someone else to terrorize.
"You saved us!" Quinlan said, shaking his shoulder. "Obi-Wan Kenobi, hero of the galaxy." He was teasing, of course, but it gave Obi-Wan an unexpected pang of sadness. "Now if only you could find us something to eat— I'm starving."
Obi-Wan grinned. "Quinlan Vos," he said. "Do you have a friend who can see the future for nothing?" And he pulled the ration bars out of his pocket.
Even Qui-Gon looked impressed. Master Tholme clapped.
"Obi," Bant said, trotting to keep up with Obi-Wan, who was returning from the salles. "You missed Galactic Poli today!"
"I was helping out down in the Archives," Obi-Wan said, slightly guiltily. "Did I miss anything?"
"Peace Treaty 101," she said, and Obi-Wan almost laughed.
"I think I can catch up," he said. "What's up, Bant?"
"Um," Bant said.
"Oh, dear," Obi-Wan said. "This can't be good."
"I know that you think," Bant said, and flushed coral. "I mean, I know that you saw that Master Jinn is going to take you as a padawan, and you're not going to have to leave the Temple. But, um, we want to have a birthday party for you. We were gonna keep it a secret, but, well, it's really hard to keep those from you these days."
A birthday party, but really a goodbye party, just in case. Obi-Wan couldn't begrudge his friends their lack of faith. He hadn't gotten to say goodbye to so many people. A proper farewell could mean a lot.
"All right," he said. "Sure. But you'd better set it for the day before my birthday."
Bant rolled her eyes. "Obi-Wan, it's not like just because you're aged out they're going to send you away as soon as you turn thirteen—" she paled. "Oh, no, did you get your reassignment orders, already?"
"What?" Obi-Wan said. "No. Not yet. Don't worry, Bant. It'll be fine— if you want to have a party, go ahead. I know Reeft loves excuses to eat desserts anyway."
"Okay," Bant said, and reached over to hug him. "You won't regret it. It'll be a lot of fun."
Obi-Wan smiled back, and squeezed an arm around her. All of these children were so scared of not being chosen— for their friends, and for themselves most of all. They wondered if they would be cast out too. It made his heart hurt.
"Obi-Wan?" Bant asked.
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay? You've seemed different lately."
"Maybe I'm growing up," Obi-Wan said. She gave him an unimpressed look. "I'm fine, Bantling. Like I said, we're all gonna be fine."
"Somehow, that doesn't reassure me," Bant said.
She knew him very well, after all. They continued down the hallway, arm in arm.
Obi-Wan returned to Galactic Politics the next day with only slight trepidation. It would be inaccurate to say he was avoiding Master Sey, just that he was kind of… making sure he didn't run into her. He was already doing the same with Bruck, and a handful of other painful memories. What was one more?
Of course Obi-Wan ran into Bruck in the doorway of the classroom, because if the Force didn't hate him it at least had a sense of humor.
"Oh, sorry," Obi-Wan said.
"My bad," Bruck muttered, scooting all the way around him in the doorway. Making sure their skin didn't touch, Obi-Wan realized. Bruck's face was always unusually pale, but it was even more so now, which meant that the dark circles under his eyes now were more prominent.
"Are you okay?" Obi-Wan blurted.
Bruck startled. "I'm fine, leave me alone," he said brusquely. Then he paused. Hesitated a moment, as if unsure if he was going to open his mouth or not. "Um, do your visions always come true?"
Obi-Wan flinched. "No," he said. "Not always, Bruck."
Someone cleared their throat behind them. "Ex-cuse me," an Initiate complained, and Obi-Wan and Bruck scattered to their opposite ends of the classroom, like they had been caught doing something wrong.
Obi-Wan tried to go for his now customary seat in the back, but Reeft caught him by the elbow and hauled him up. "Come sit with me today," he said. "I need some help with my notes."
Obi-Wan let himself be dragged to the front of the classroom, more because he was touched at the sentiment than anything else. Bant and Garen boxed him in by sitting on both sides, so he couldn't flee— overall, a good tactical operation. Obi-Wan looked down. He could still cut through the floor, he reassured himself.
Master Sey was slightly late, and when she walked in she looked a little frazzled. Obi-Wan forced himself not to wince— she looked a lot like Bruck.
"Good morning, Initiates," she said, and turned on the holoprojector while they chorused a greeting back at her.
Every day they started their lecture with a perusal of the latest news from the wider Republic, a way to get the younglings engaged with current events but also to familiarize them with how to get important news quickly.
Today they were greeted with a litany of different senatorial affairs, various alliances and a few interesting new scientific surveys going on. And then there was the news— Apon 7 Devolves Into Civil War.
Sey and Bruck were both staring at him. If he was right about this, what else could he be right about? The thought flashed visibly over their faces.
"Hey!" Garen, ever-loyal, said. "Obi-Wan predicted that already! Good job, Obi-Wan!"
Obi-Wan put his face on the desk. "Thanks, Garen."
"My Master's friends with him," Quinlan said. "I'm sure I could get access to his quarters somehow."
"Do not," Obi-Wan said.
"What would we even do once we were in there?" Bant asked thoughtfully. "I mean, we could try clear-wrap over the bedroom door, but I feel like a Jedi Master would be able to sense it before he ran into it."
It was Obi-Wan's birthday party, in the corner of the refectory after regular eating times, so that they could take up a full table and a half and not get yelled at. It was also, Obi-Wan was discovering, quickly turning into an I Hate Qui-Gon Jinn Club.
"Regular Initiate pranks wouldn't work anyway," Obi-Wan said.
"Too well-trained?" Luminara guessed. Like Quinlan, she was a little older and already a padawan, but it seemed she still hadn't sloughed off the shine of a new apprenticeship.
"Nope," Obi-Wan said, and managed to keep his straight face for about a minute before he cracked with a smile. "The Masters were Initiates once too— who do you think passed the pranking traditions down to us?"
Apparently none of them had ever contemplated the reality of the venerable Jedi Masters once being children. Horrified silence reigned for a moment.
"We could just put dye in the shower head," Obi-Wan said, going back to his cake. "He has long hair— I bet it takes a while to wash. Long enough for color to get in there." Or at least Anakin's had. The dye had stayed for a week and even through a fight with Ventress, who had been so perplexed she'd more or less ceded the fight.
Obi-Wan's friends erupted with laughter.
They had put a lot of heart into this little party; punch and cake and slightly sad hugs from everyone. They all thought he was going off into the Corps. Bant was stuck to his side like a burr, Reeft on the other and Garen reaching over him to pat Obi-Wan's shoulder. Obi-Wan had never realized it before, but they had to have planned this party in the original timeline too. He'd just gotten shipped out before they could.
"I can't believe he still hasn't taken you," Bant said. "He'd be lucky to have you."
"Hear hear!" Quinlan said, and rammed his cup of punch against Obi-Wan's. "You're not worried at all?"
"No," Obi-Wan said. "All is as the Force wills."
"Boo!" Luminara said, and threw a napkin at him.
Obi-Wan was fending off more napkin attacks when Quinlan and Luminara suddenly glared at something that they could see from their side of the table. Curious, Obi-Wan stretched his senses out— and grinned.
"Master Jinn!" he said. "Why don't you join us? At least take a slice of cake."
He turned around and saw Qui-Gon trying to retreat out the door he'd only just come through. Qui-Gon stopped and tried to pretend like he hadn't just been trying to flee from a group of younglings.
"That's all right," he said. "I just remembered something I had to do."
The glares from all sides of the table intensified; even though the others didn't want him there, his refusing the invitation was unconscionably worse in their mind. Obi-Wan pretended not to notice.
"There's plenty," Obi-Wan said, and Qui-Gon, unable to think of a way out, and pinned under their ire, slunk over.
"We're celebrating Obi-Wan's birthday," Bant said, pointedly, as Obi-Wan cut him a piece of cake. "He ages out tomorrow."
Qui-Gon paused, hands outstretched to take the plate that Obi-Wan was handing him. "Oh," he said. "So soon?"
"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan said.
"Well," Qui-Gon said, and cringed under Quinlan's intensifying glare. Obi-Wan shoved the plate of cake into his hands. "That is a shame. Ah… really no one has taken you yet?"
"No, Master," Obi-Wan said. He was enjoying this too much. The combined angry stares of five younglings seemed to make Qui-Gon Jinn more afraid than any number of lightsaber duels, wars, and angry rampaging beasts.
"Oh," Qui-Gon said again, and something like regret passed through his eyes. "Well, I'm sorry, Obi-Wan. I really am. I wish you good luck— May the Force be with you."
With that, he turned and walked away. It was really more like an escape.
Obi-Wan found himself both disappointed and pretty pleased. He hadn't really thought that Qui-Gon would choose him this time, for a myriad of reasons. But it would have been a little nice.
On the other hand, the fact that he'd made such an impression this time around was flattering— Qui-Gon was half-tempted to take another padawan. Obi-Wan hadn't thought he'd ever be able to do that, not without seeing Xanatos first and coming to terms with all that had happened there.
"Kriff him," Quinlan said. "Tonight, I buy hair dye. It can't be that hard to find."
"When do you ship out, anyway?" Luminara asked.
"Tomorrow morning," Obi-Wan said, and he was already ready for the chorus of groans and protests that followed.
"That's it," Garen said, standing up and starting to roll up his sleeves. "I'm going to go fight Master Jinn—" Reeft and Obi-Wan yanked him back down, laughing. Garen was just trying to cheer him up, as he always did.
"Stop it," Obi-Wan said, playfully wrestling Garen back into his seat. "You are all too kind to me."
"No we're not," Bant said fiercely. "We're only giving you what you deserve, unlike that…"
Quinlan suggested a variety of words, most of which weren't polite in mixed company.
"… I was gonna say laserbrain," Bant said.
"Oh, well, that works too," Quinlan said.
Idly, Obi-Wan wondered if he would actually have to stop five teenagers from trying their level best to beat up a Jedi Master. Things were leaning that way.
Obi-Wan shouldn't find that idea nearly so funny as he did.
Obi-Wan had endured a pile-on of slightly teary hugs, goodbyes, and one marriage proposal— Quinlan, who dramatically claimed that they couldn't possibly kick Obi-Wan out if he was married to a Jedi— and the party had disbanded.
As if on a prespoken agreement, the others had let Bant have Obi-Wan all to herself as she walked him back to his room. Bant was Obi-Wan's best friend, the first one who always believed him and who always stuck up for him. He missed her.
"You should keep an eye on Bruck while I'm gone," Obi-Wan said, as they traveled companionably down the hall together.
She gave him a look through her left eye, which in Mon Cala meant she was wondering when exactly his brain had started to overheat. "Keep an eye on him?" she asked. "For what?"
"Hasn't he seemed different lately?" Obi-Wan said. "Just make sure he's all right until I get back."
She eyed him again. "All right."
"I'll miss you," Obi-Wan said, to soften the blow.
Bant turned and threw her arms around him. "I'll miss you too, Obi-Wan," she said. Her skin was smooth and a little damp, childhood softness that would dry a little as she aged and she got used to being off-planet, without her temperature controls, for long periods of time.
There was a chirp. Bant released him and Obi-Wan dug in the pockets of his Initiate's whites, and emerged with his datapad.
"What is it?" Bant said.
"My assignment," Obi-Wan said, trying to fight off a completely inappropriate smile. "Agri-Corps. I leave tomorrow morning."
"Hmm," Bant said, looking over his shoulder at the alert. "You knew this a long time ago." Obi-Wan shrugged. "Only until you get back, you say?"
"Until I get back," Obi-Wan said.
"Okay," Bant said. "Then I won't say goodbye." They were in front of his door— she turned and hugged him once more. "May the Force be with you, Obi."
"May the Force be with you, Bantling."
Chapter header from TCW - 5X20 The Wrong Jedi
