The winding path to peace is always a worthy one, regardless of how many turns it takes.


The future, by its nature, can be changed.

- The Son, Ghosts of Mortis


It was not hard to find the throne room where Palpatine was holed up. The doors leading into it were the most lavish in the whole building— a feat, considering how gaudy the rest of the place was— and the air around it was oppressively still.

Obi-Wan couldn't feel the Sith's presence completely, but Anakin cocked his head. "He's in there," he said. "I can sense the sleemo."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Obi-Wan said.

"After you," Anakin said.

Together, they pushed the doors open and walked inside.

It was a huge throne room, probably built for whatever Neimodian had paid for this place; Neimodians didn't have kings, but they did love the illusion of power. Sprawling pillars, ornately decorated in gold and silver, wound throughout the room. There was a long red walkway leading up to a set of stairs. At the top of the stairs there was a throne— huge and towering.

Palpatine was sitting in it.

His face was smooth and oddly youthful, with a spark of intelligence in his eyes. A likeable young politician. But his eyes were already yellow.

There were magna-guards flanking him on two sides, but only the two. He didn't expect any kind of real threat.

When he saw them, he laughed wheezily. "Is this it?" he asked. "A fortune-telling child and some mutt of a woman? That's who they send to defeat the first real Sith in a thousand years?"

Obi-Wan looked at Anakin. "Which of us do you think should be more offended?" he asked.

"Me," Anakin said. "Definitely me. Or, well, my mom, I guess."

"Insipid Jedi fools," Palpatine said. "You natter on to hide your fear. Join me or be destroyed."

"I think I'd like a third option," Anakin said, then, almost offhandedly, "Oh, by the way. I'm not a Jedi."

Palpatine paused. "What—?"

"I'm the Chosen One," Anakin said. "And I'm here to kick your ass."

Simultaneously, Obi-Wan and Anakin lit their lightsabers. Blue and red. Side by side. Balance in the Force.

"We'll take him together," Obi-Wan said.

Anakin grinned— wild and mischievous and conspiratorial. "Together," he said, and Obi-Wan's smile automatically answered him.

They leapt forward as one. The droid guards were not difficult to get through, not with the Team focusing on getting through to the Sith, and nothing else. Together, like this, having been through the worst and come out the other side— well, Obi-Wan and Anakin were almost unstoppable.

They fought Palpatine.

Their lightsabers crashed against each other. He was strong, of course, and he played dirty. He shot lightning out of his hands, and seemed almost surprised when Obi-Wan caught it on his blade. He hissed, and brought down chunks of the ceiling with a pull of the Force, aiming to crush Obi-Wan and Anakin.

The floor splintered as duracrete slammed into it. The throne broke. Palpatine slashed his lightsaber out at Obi-Wan, who moved away so quickly that Palpatine instead scored the wall. Palpatine turned to try to attack again, but Anakin was there, forcing him back.

No matter where Palpatine tried to go, Obi-Wan and Anakin halted his movement, always stepping in where the other stepped away. It was harder than Obi-Wan had ever fought in his life— in any life. Sweat rolled down his face, his back. The air was getting thick with plaster dust and debris, as the room progressively took more and more of the brunt of the fight. Palpatine made a wild swing, and gouged another line in the wall. The Dark crackled unpleasantly about him.

"The two of you are not normal," Palpatine said, and began to circle. "Who are you?"

"That entirely depends on your point of view," Obi-Wan said, lazily swinging his lightsaber in one hand, twirling it, bringing it up. "In this case, if we're being dramatic, I suppose I could say— your doom."

If Palpatine had known anything at all about Obi-Wan and Anakin, he would have known something was up, because Anakin didn't chime in at all. He was still silent and out of view. As it was, Obi-Wan and Palpatine continued to circle each other.

"Your power…" Palpatine said, a greedy look on his face. "My new apprentice told me of your ability to see the future. Unparalleled. A power like that, and you needn't be anyone's underling. Tell me, do the Jedi appreciate you? Do they listen to you? You knew who I was for a long time, and you never told anyone."

"Sure they do," Obi-Wan said. "But I like to keep my secrets. It helps keep up the element of surprise."

It was at that instant that Anakin came up behind Palpatine and ignited his lightsaber, aiming straight for Palpatine's back. Palpatine sensed it coming at the last moment and turned to hit it away— but he took his attention off Obi-Wan in the process.

Obi-Wan's lightsaber stabbed through Palpatine at the same moment as Anakin's did. Front to back. A double killing blow.

They deactivated their sabers, and Palpatine crumpled to the floor.

"It's not…" Palpatine wheezed. "Supposed to happen like this."

Then, he died.

There was only a moment of warning in the Force, before Palpatine's body erupted into searing blue electricity, a wave of Force lightning like the explosion of a bomb. Lightning passed over them, around them, a final discharge of all the Dark and evil energy Palpatine had stored inside his heart.

Obi-Wan braced himself down on one knee, his head bowed against the pressure, Force wrapped around himself in defense. He looked over and saw Anakin in a similar position.

The throne room, already on its last legs, started to collapse in on itself. The ceiling fell in, the walls not far to follow. Obi-Wan raised his hands and lifted up with the Force, holding off the onslaught of duracrete and stone.

The world settled.

Obi-Wan lifted his head. The throne room had collapsed almost totally, leaving the pillars standing, half-crumbled, against open sky. When he looked up, the sky was blue, with the sun starting to poke through the fog and illuminate the hills around them.

The rest of the castle didn't seem to be suffering the same problems with structural integrity, standing, if a little wobbly, against the rockface.

In the air, there were ships— Republic ships. Bail had come through. The droids around the front of the Temple had ceased firing, no more tinny sounds of blaster shots.

And Obi-Wan could sense Jedi, in the air, on the ground, far back at the Temple on Coruscant.

Obi-Wan laughed.

He looked over. Anakin was all right too, dusty and exhausted-looking, but smiling. He saluted at Obi-Wan. Then his nose started to trickle, just a drip of blood.

"Wha—?" Shmi asked, reaching a gentle hand up to her face to wipe it away. She blinked at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan smiled tiredly back at her.

"I think," said Shmi, faintly, "That I am going to take a nap."

"That sounds like a good idea," Obi-Wan said. He lay back for a moment and watched the blue of the sky. The Sith was dead. Count Dooku had helped them do it. So had Bruck Chun. And Xanatos. And the Trade Federation would very soon be trying to make their deals from prison.

Obi-Wan chuckled again, this time only to himself, and fell asleep.


The Council was giving him Looks. Mace looked like he had a headache, but to be honest that was his default expression when he was around Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan stood with his hands neatly behind his back, with a completely guileless expression.

"To recap your report, Padawan Kenobi," Ki-Adi-Mundi said, "You can't tell us what happened after you left your master in the palace, because you were possessed… by a Force ghost."

"A concise recounting, Master," Obi-Wan said. Qui-Gon kicked him on the ankle, but either the Council didn't notice Obi-Wan's sass or decided to ignore it.

"The Council has never seen a Force ghost in person, much less two of them," Mace said. "Speaking of which, we cannot contact the woman— Shmi Freetaa." That was the name Shmi had given the first responders, and Obi-Wan saw no reason to say otherwise.

Shmi had gone with Jango once more, when all was said and done. Obi-Wan had information for her— places she could relocate, Naboo or Alderaan or Chandrilla— but she had already chosen. She went to Mandalore.

"Not everyone on Mandalore is a commando," Jango had told Obi-Wan, with a laugh, when Obi-Wan had given them a dubious look. "We need farmers and weavers and electricians too."

Obi-Wan had given them his comm number, as well as the private stash of money he'd been building for Shmi's relocation. That, of course, was separate from the bill the Council had been given for Jango's services— the bill that was, possibly, why they were so irritated at the moment.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Obi-Wan told the Council. "But I don't think I can help you sort this out any more than what I've already told you."

"I examined the woman myself," Qui-Gon said. "She does not have nearly enough Force ability to pull off what we saw from the footage of the throne room. Not to mention that my padawan, though talented, is no Jedi Master. No one but the very best could have done this feat— we all saw it."

The footage had, more or less, survived, which was kind of unfortunate. But at least there was no sound, and it worked in Obi-Wan's favor in the end. He was using a completely different lightsaber form, and fighting like a fully-grown adult, not a padawan. Not to mention fighting side-by-side with Anakin with more years of experience in partnership than Obi-Wan's current body had been alive.

"Very powerful, these ghosts must have been," Yoda said. "Yes. Tell me, what did you feel from the ghost possessing you, Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

Obi-Wan paused. He hadn't been expecting the question. "Sadness," he decided on. "And— loneliness. But mostly, determination. To end the line of the Sith. To bring balance to the galaxy."

"And you let this ghost in?" Plo Koon asked.

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan said.

"Shmi said much the same thing," Qui-Gon said. "That she felt a presence, that only after it asked permission did it go after Palpatine." He met eyes with the Council. "I have always suspected that Force ghosts are real. This is only confirmation. But to know that they emerged for this event— well, it is a little disturbing. It means that killing the Sith lord was a matter of great importance, not only to the galaxy, but to the Force."

"Feel, you do, that the battle would have been lost without their interference?" Yoda asked.

"Yes," Obi-Wan said.

"This is intuition?" Mace asked.

"No, Masters," Obi-Wan said. "Certainty."

That earned him some unease. The Council all knew about Obi-Wan's prescient abilities by now, and they knew that he was rarely if ever wrong. No one wanted to think about what could have happened if Palpatine had succeeded in his deception. A Sith at the heart of the Senate. Obi-Wan sometimes could think of little else.

Yoda nodded and tapped his gimer stick. "Done well, you have, Obi-Wan. Done well, Qui-Gon. Free, the galaxy is."

Obi-Wan smiled before he could remind himself to be stern in front of the Council. Yoda's eyes twinkled.

"We'll forget about what you pulled with the scouting mission," Mace said, looking at Qui-Gon. "And some of the more dubiously legal parts of your mission. And yes, we will even pay the bounty hunter. Just— make sure the two of you don't cause any more trouble for a little while."

"Mace," Qui-Gon said reprovingly. "You shouldn't ask for miracles."


Qui-Gon still walked a little tenderly. The wound to his side almost completely on the mend, but Obi-Wan could see it still twinged every now and then. Obi-Wan had been studying pain relief lately in his Healer's classes.

Tahl had a bit of a limp too; she'd taken a blaster bolt to the leg outside the facility. But Bant had patched her up— quite deftly, if Tahl's bragging was anything to go by.

"Perfect range of motion," Tahl said, stretching her leg out from the couch, back in, then out again. "Beautiful. No Healer could have done better."

"Master," Bant said, embarrassed but pleased. The Kenobi/Jinn quarters were more than a little full today— a good feeling.

"I only have to tell the truth," Tahl said. "My padawan, a prodigy."

"Stooop," Bant complained, giggling.

"Your padawan?" Qui-Gon said. "Mine's a genius, a Sith-killer—"

"Oh, it doesn't count if he's got outside help," Dooku said. "My padawan, on the other hand, gets by on raw talent alone."

Dooku had taken Bruck as a padawan, very shortly after they'd fought together on Cato Neimoidia. They made for a slightly alarming but very effective team.

Apparently— Obi-Wan found out secondhand due to being unconscious in some rubble— they had done pretty well holding out against both the droid army and Darth Inimic until backup arrived. Inimic had been captured, but only after Dooku cut off her sword-bearing arm. She was being kept, under very high guard, in the cells.

Xanatos had somehow escaped in the confusion. Obi-Wan couldn't say he was too sorry about that.

The various padawans left their masters to bicker good-naturedly, retreating to the balcony just outside the living room. Various plants were scattered around the railings, pathetic life-forms of Qui-Gon's. Coruscant sprawled in the distance, hover traffic and smoggy air and various holo-advertisements playing on billboards far away.

"Did you really get possessed by a Force ghost?" Bruck asked.

"Yep," Obi-Wan said. Everything he had told the Council was true— from a certain point of view.

"Cool," Bant said.

Obi-Wan grinned.

Bruck's hair, very recently cut, shone in the light, his braid shorter than Obi-Wan's for now. Bant's own beads were polished to a shine. They would both be good padawans. They were set to meet some of the others for dinner that night; Quinlan and Luminara and Garen and Reeft. Obi-Wan was looking forward to it.

"I can't believe that was my first mission," Bant said. "Sith, sneaking away from the Council, a droid army…"

"You did well," Obi-Wan said.

"Because of you," Bruck said.

"What?"

"The mission only went so well because of the things you've done," Bruck said. "You taught me the moves I used to be able to survive Master Sey for as long as I did. You're the one who encouraged Bant to go into Healing so she could help her Master, it turns out the exact Healer specialization you've been going for is what could save your Master's life—"

"Not to mention you made friends with Xanatos and Master Dooku, two people who ended up helping us even though they totally shouldn't," Bant said. "We could go on."

"Please don't," Obi-Wan said good-naturedly, leaning his arms onto the ledge overlooking the cityscape.

"Not even the Masters know how much you really did, do they?" Bant asked. "No one ever really will."

"I didn't do so much as you think," Obi-Wan said. "Really, it was the Force. I just moved pieces around." The corners of his mouth twitched. "Always in motion, the future is. Even for me."

And, truly, much of it had been an accident. He'd done these things because they felt like the right thing to do, or because he wanted to prevent just a little of the future suffering he'd lived through.

He didn't know why the Force had brought him back here. But it was still working, in him, through him, throughout the galaxy. The Force had hurt during the Clone Wars, hurt during the Purge. It was happy now.

Eventually Bant and Bruck went back inside. Obi-Wan lingered a moment longer.

Laughter and talking floated in from the apartment. The plants smelled fresh and green.

Anakin had said he was ready to rest. Obi-Wan didn't think he was there yet. But maybe he could take a little break.

Obi-Wan went back inside, at peace.


Chapter header from TCW - 1X11 Dooku Captured

That's the last chapter, folks! Thanks for following along, and thanks to everyone who commented! :)