Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OCs and possibly some percentage of the plot.
Note: For those who care, yes, it's an Obi-Wan/OC 'ship. I said this was self-indulgent.
Qui-Gon was dead.
Qui-Gon was dead and Obi-Wan couldn't stand this any longer. The Jedi High Council were on their way to Naboo, he had been informed he would be knighted because he hadn't killed the Sith fast enough and he couldn't . . . just couldn't.
He couldn't meditate, he couldn't release his grief and anger into the Force, he didn't feel ready to be knighted and he didn't feel ready to face the stern, unbending grimness of Mace Windu or Yoda's deliberately cryptic statements that said everything and nothing.
The padawan wanted to scream.
Instead he left the palace of Naboo where he was being quartered for the moment and climbed out a window, racing along a rooftop, flipping off the edge of the roof to nearby trees and just letting the physical movement and acrobatics of the escape drown out the pounding emotions. With the strict focus on physicality he was able to reach past the mental block and into the Force, an unformed plea for some sort of help hurling itself into the energy that bound the universe.
Guidance surged out of the Force. Like a lodestone, a magnet, pulling him inexorably towards something in the city and Obi-Wan let it pull him until he found a woman digging out the primary entrance to a hospital. People were using the building to treat injuries, but the larger entrances were blocked and it was clearly awkward for the people going in and out on foot or on stretchers.
He watched her a moment, suddenly realising she was Force-sensitive, because in small bursts she was augmenting her strength as she moved the rubble of fallen art and what was once a significant overhang. Her presence was so small, however, that it seemed clear the whole of her Force capabilities had been put to augmenting herself physically. For a moment he reached for the Force to lift things with his mind. Then Obi-Wan remembered how it had felt to just start moving, to focus on something other than the pain and hurt and anger and fear. He joined her in moving things by hand, only minimally augmenting himself with the Force as she was.
A cracked large pillar on the ground before the doors was the biggest obstacle. For a moment she seemed to contemplate the concrete, but he spotted the heavy-duty forklift nearby. "We should be able to drag it just enough with that speeder to get it onto the lift," Obi-Wan suggested.
She startled, and Obi-Wan realised she'd been so distracted that she'd only been really peripherally aware of him as a non-threat. Now that he'd pulled her out of it, he could see that around her exhaustion was a haze of fear and anger. He knew then that she was there for the same reason he was. To wear down those emotions until exhaustion overwhelmed them. "I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi," he told her.
"Cara Mabban," she replied. "I think those loose wires could be jury-rigged to help drag the pieces."
They continued, physically moving things until muscles screamed, and then suddenly the door was free, the last rubble moved to the side. The people had already begun using the main door, but without any purpose to being there they were both in the way. By silent accord they started to walk away. She turned to him. "You look how I feel."
The words spilled out without any conscious intention to speak. "Who did you lose?"
"My parents seven years ago, but in this invasion? I don't know yet," she said. "But my nephew did something terrifyingly brave and stupid and he's nine years old and I was about to say or do things that I'd regret because I couldn't stop imagining him dead."
"My . . . well, legal guardian I suppose you could say," Obi-Wan said. "Practically my father and he . . ." Tears pricked his eyes, but he felt too tired to spend the effort on more grief.
"I'm sorry," she said. When she laid a hand on his arm, there was a flashpoint in the Force. Something that felt right and demanding and necessary surged from the point of contact. Like the comfort he would sometimes receive through his Force bond with Qui-Gon, but of a different character. Touching her, the Force between them told Obi-Wan that she was stronger in the Force than she had appeared, her shields were impressive and behind them she could probably feel the mixed emotions echoing through the Force all over Naboo. The grief, anger, relief and joy that were skirling around from all the events that had occurred in the invasion wore at him and tangled with his own feelings. He wanted to feel something clean, good and uncomplicated, and the Force spoke.
Obi-Wan kissed her.
There was the slightest hitch, not in rejection but more that she shifted her mental gears, and then he felt her kiss him back. The streets were mostly empty and no one seemed to pay them any mind. Somehow they wound up on the roof of a small shop, naked and pressed together, awareness shrunk down to the pleasure they both felt and the purely physical enjoyment between them.
The Force sang between them and he let it carry him away from the inner turmoil. When it was over, they lay curled together on the rooftop, and he was finally able to separate those dark feelings and release them into the Force. The pain of losing his master reduced to a dull ache and he could think again. They both just lay there, the steel walls of her shield lightening enough that he could feel the strength of her connection to the Force just a little. It also swelled in him, just a little, suggesting a rightness of a connection between them. No, not a rightness, not a sense of inevitable connection, more like . . . if he made the choice, if he deepened the connection it would be of benefit. It would not be an ill thing to dispense with the connection, just . . . they would fit well together in however they chose to continue.
They simply lay there for a while, entwined and letting peace finally wash over them after the harrowing day. Cara spoke first. "At least I'm no longer going to shake my nephew and scream at him for risking death. He was right in the end, I suppose, but I was so caught up in being terrified about everything I couldn't see straight."
"Qui-Gon was killed in front of me and I just couldn't get a handle on anything," Obi-Wan responded. "I think I might even be able to deal with the aftermath."
She sat up, smiling at him sadly, and then the smile fell away. He felt a brief spike of fear in the Force, her shields strengthening to such as degree that if he hadn't been looking at her he wouldn't have been able to tell she existed. Cara reached out a hand, wrapping it around his padawan braid. "You're a Jedi. I hadn't even noticed."
He could tell she was rapidly withdrawing, and even though Jedi were to eschew attachments, he couldn't let her do it. Both the mystery of why someone would be frightened of a Jedi and his wish to remain friends if nothing else spurred him. "Why are you frightened?"
"Because the Jedi see it as their duty to regulate all the Force users in the galaxy. Because there are Force users like me who are not darksiders and do not want to be Jedi. Because I don't want to be a curiosity for the Jedi." There was more that she wasn't telling, but that she was saying this at all was an act of trust, that much he could feel screaming down the Force at him. It was difficult to do so, however, because she had retreated from him. Her face was blank and cold and something about her made him think of the Zabrak Sith for some reason he couldn't understand. He had to trust her, but he didn't like trusting when his instincts suggested there was danger.
Obi-Wan made a choice.
"I will not tell anyone about you, or at least, not about you being a Force user if you do not wish it." He pressed his sincerity forward to her.
"I'll even forgive you in the case of a life-or-death emergency," Cara offered with a very forced smile. He could tell she was frightened. Fear seemed a powerful drive in her. "I . . ." She tilted her head and laugh that seemed half a sob escaped. He felt the steel shutters of her concealing shields rise leaving only a more standard shielding such that any Force sensitive of any real power needed. He was momentarily surprised at the strength behind them, certainly enough to have been brought to the Temple on Coruscant, and he wondered why she hadn't been. She reached with the Force, illuminating the lightest of bonds already established between them. "You see that? I guess I'll have to trust it for now." Her voice was brittle and a little angry.
An outside prodding of the Force told both of them they had to go their separate ways. "Perhaps I'll manage to see you again," he said. "And thank you." They silently dressed and climbed back down off the roof.
"The Force light your path," she said abruptly.
It wasn't the farewell he was used to, but the meaning was there and Obi-Wan could guess the formula of response. "And yours."
Then they both walked off in separate directions.
No one knew who had flown the ship that had blown up the control ship of the Trade Federation's invasion fleet. Whoever the pilot was, he or she hadn't stayed around for accolades, to help with anything or to do anything. In the aftermath everyone was too busy recovering from the invasion, fixing infrastructure, talking to Jedi who were pretending they weren't grieving the loss of their own to even think about looking.
But it had been a couple months, and Padmé wanted to know. She wanted to know in her role as the Queen, because valour deserves reward, and because a gifted pilot like that should be placed in a role to benefit Naboo if possible. Padmé wanted to know for herself because not knowing was making her crazy.
She was ranting to her R2 droid about it, because a droid who couldn't actually specifically talk back often made a great listener, when the droid beeped urgently and popped out a lens on his head, projecting something. Padmé stopped pacing around and dropped to her knees in front of the droid. "What was that? Could you play it again?"
He whistled and the little scene replayed. Much of it was an image from atop the ship with only audio indicating that it wasn't simply a still shot. The sound of the cockpit depressurising, then the sound of someone climbing a ladder, the R2's lens had turned at that point, but only quickly enough to spot a woman with straggly brown hair literally dragging the short, helmeted pilot out of the cockpit and presumably to the ground.
"Ow! You're hurting me!"
That was a boy's voice. The pilot wasn't a very short adult, he was a child.
The woman seemingly let go, staggering back into the droid's view, albeit barely. "I . . . Shmi! Take him home. Please. I . . . I have to . . . I can't-"
Another brown-haired woman approached from the side, reaching out to the boy and gently walking him away. There was a brief glimpse of bright blond hair before they vanished amid the chaos in the hangar following the battle.
Who were they? What were they doing there? This had not answered her questions properly, had only added to the questions, and the only good thing about it was that at least there was a chance she might find out some of the answers.
Padmé called in her handmaidens to have them discreetly investigate. Shmi could not be that common a name.
One month later she had her answer of who they were, and she made her way to the house accompanied by Captain Panaka in her guise as a handmaiden of the Queen. When they arrived at the home, the door was answered by the second woman from the holo who had been identified as Shmi Skywalker. "Can I help you?" she asked, an air of calm surrounding her.
"I hope so," Padmé said. "My name is Padmé and I am one of the handmaidens of Queen Amidala. We are here because of a holo taken by a droid from one of the ships that fought the Trade Federation."
The other woman, Cara Mabban, popped up behind Mistress Skywalker and made a face. "Some days I hate everything," she said. "I'll go get Anakin, and then I'm going to go-"
"Absolutely nowhere," Shmi told her. "You will pretend that you are a civilised person." Mabban made a dismissive noise but vanished into the house. Shmi shook her head. "Please come in and ignore the fact that I sometimes feel as though I have two children rather than a son and sister-in-law."
They were soon settled in the small but comfortable living room, drinking tea while Anakin chattered about droids, school, podracing, the planet he and his mother had lived on until recently and how wizard Cara was. Cara was making a tremendous production out of doing things in the kitchen, clearly and actively avoiding participating in any discussions while Shmi moderated the whole situation with an aplomb and skill Padmé envied down to her bones. Finally Shmi pinned Cara with a look and the woman reluctantly settled down. A second sharp look and whatever she had been about to do was replaced with effortlessly graceful posture and a queenly bearing.
Cara looked at her a moment, then said, "I'm with the Royal Ballet Company here in Theed. If I couldn't do this I wouldn't have a job. Keep in mind that I've traded up any other civilised skills for the ability to counterfeit them as long as I keep quiet."
"That's actually very reassuring," Padmé told her. "I was about to feel even more inadequate." She turned to them. "I'm sure you've gathered that I'm here about Anakin's remarkable performance in the Blockade battle. The Queen wishes to know, firstly, how you were there at that time to help as you did, and also to honour Anakin for his actions which saved so many lives."
The dancer's hands clenched into fists a moment before she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Shmi glanced over a moment, then said. "We were there because we had been fleeing the droids as many others did. Cara was remarkable in her determination at keeping us safe. But it was luck," she said. "Or perhaps, if you give more credence to the Jedi, the work of the Force. Either way, it was not a consciously chosen direction."
"Really not," muttered Cara. She looked up, "But I suppose in the interest of full disclosure, as I'm not a native Nabooian, and my father was a Corellian freighter captain, I do have a tendency to head to where the ships are for safety."
Shmi smoothly cut in then. "As far as honouring Anakin, while I appreciate you desire to do so, I also wish him to continue to be an ordinary child. Were you to give him a public ceremony he would become a celebrity."
Anakin was frowning and opened his mouth to say something. Cara raised a finger, slipped out the door and came back a moment later with a datapad in hand. She tapped a few items on the screen, then handed it to the boy. "Read those articles, then imagine how you'd feel about people writing them about you. That's why you don't want to be really famous before you're old enough to find a bolthole and hide from the world."
Obediently the boy started reading. Soon he was making faces. "Why would you wanna know whether a pilot is having a baby with anyone?"
"That's a question I'll never be able to answer, but people do and lot of reporters follow people around trying to stir up trouble or catch someone doing something embarrassing," Cara told him. "Then everyone knows about it and you spend all your time being worried that you might drop some sauce on your shirt and everyone will say you're drunk because of it."
Padmé winced, because she was well aware of the troubles that came with being in the public eye, including those of not being able to enjoy some street food from a vendor because the next day the news would be full of articles deliberately misinterpreting the images. "I see," she said. "Then perhaps we can reach an accommodation? Anakin is a hero of Naboo and his efforts should be acknowledged. Might we put a sealed commendation report into the records regarding his destruction of the control ship, to be unsealed upon his legal majority? As well as a small awards ceremony, limited to only the Queen, one of her handmaidens, a guard and your family?" The statement had to be made. The boy was a hero and deserved to be acknowledged as such, but his aunt and mother were also right. It was hard being in the public eye, and he was so young.
Shmi smiled. "I believe that such an accommodation would be acceptable."
Anakin's aunt made a face. "Ani, I love you, but I just can't deal with it."
He sighed. "I know. But you're being all hypocritical again."
"That's my motto. Do as I say, never do as I do." She looked at Shmi. "Can I go back to being an uncivilised Corellian again, please?"
Rolling her eyes, Shmi waved the other woman off. What followed started as simply planning for a ceremony, morphed into advice from the older woman to the girl-Queen in disguise about handling people with tact and grace. Anakin attached himself to Captain Panaka to ask a hundred questions about ships, engines and whether he could see R2-D2 again, and when Padmé overheard and said that they could see if it were possible, she was dragged upstairs by the enthusiastic boy to see his various mechanical projects.
In the end, the upshot that was most meaningful to Padmé was the comm addresses she exchanged with the Skywalker-Mabban household. She couldn't see them personally, but it was nice to talk to someone who was wholly outside the political sphere and was interested in something other than politicking. Her conversations with Shmi about people and how to handle them were wonderful and essential. Padmé learned more about how those outside the educated classes thought from Shmi than anything else, and it helped her to lead her people better.
Even Cara Mabban, who was sharp-tongued and angry a lot was also something like Padmé's inner voice of anger at those who refused to discuss rationally, who wouldn't compromise, who misused or misunderstood the democratic system she loved. A minute of talking with the woman while waiting for Anakin or Shmi to come on the comm was often just as good a catharsis as ranting to Sabé for a half hour and then screaming into a pillow for another ten minutes. Padmé even told Cara that once.
"Really?" she said musingly, and then proceeded to give Padmé a thorough education in swearing in Corellian. Subsequently Padmé had deeply impressed the guards to the Corellian ambassador with her grasp of cursing after a passing speeder had managed to create blowback in a puddle and soak the clothing she had worn for formal presentation to the ambassador, which had done immense good for Naboo relations with that system.
Those infrequent comms with Anakin Skywalker were something else again. He was mature for his age of nine and was interested in nearly everything but politics. However, he was smart enough to listen to her and follow what she was saying if she talked about it, though he preferred to talk about the various races he'd been to or in.
It was through Anakin she came to understand slavery because Shmi avoided speaking of it, but Anakin was young enough not to filter his experiences. It was also through those conversations that she was made aware of the possibilities of helping the slaves of Tatooine.
"We went on a school trip today to the glassmakers," Anakin commented. "It was pretty, but I don't think it was as nice as the glass they make on Tatooine."
Padmé pursed her lips as she thought. "Why not as nice? Was it just the designs or colours, or something else?"
Anakin shrugged. "They couldn't seem to get it any thinner, but I never saw the glassmakers on Tatooine have that trouble, and the glass spinners don't seem to be something that's even possible here. I think it might be the chemical composition of the sand they're using on Naboo."
They talked for a while longer about the Tatooine glassmaking traditions, and then signed off. The next day Queen Amidala authorized a very small fact-finding mission to go to the desert planet and investigate both the sand and the glass native to the planet.
When they came back the glassmaker had pleaded for a royal grant to learn the Tatooine techniques and bring over some artisans to teach on Naboo, as well as a trade deal for Tatooine sand. The security officer had agreed that it would be possible to build a secure space on the planet in order to warehouse and ship both sand and glass. The Jedi knight who had accompanied them both had said that, yes, he would be delighted to assist in quietly freeing slaves and setting up a means of either employing them or helping them escape their masters.
Before the news reached the broadcasters of Naboo's new trade with Tatooine, Padmé had told Shmi and Anakin about her intentions. "I cannot help all the slaves, but I hope to help at least some."
Shmi had taken a trembling breath and closed her eyes, looking as though a weight of some kind was lifted. Anakin just glowed, smiling at her and saying she was wizard.
Cara was rehearsing the newest ballet added to the company's collection when she spotted the man watching through the window in the studio door. It was a good thing she used this sort of thing to be in a partial Force meditation or else she might have missed a step and broken something. It took a great deal of focus to keep herself on point for the rest of the rehearsal.
Stepping into the hall afterwards, she took a deep breath. "Obi-Wan, this is a surprise."
He smiled. "Well, you're not actually that hard to track down. Congratulations on the recent promotion."
"Is this your boyfriend?" demanded Maté, her best friend in the company. "Because if you have been concealing having a devastatingly gorgeous boyfriend from me I will do something drastic."
Obi-Wan blushed. Cara sighed. "Maté, I've told you before, I have given up on romance forever. I hate everyone."
"No you don't!" Maté said cheerfully. "Also, if you don't want him, make sure to send him my way." She grinned flirtatiously at the Jedi. "I will show you a Very. Good. Time." In spite of herself Cara laughed. "See, madeya laugh! Now go experience this thing we call fun!"
Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at her, holding out an arm in a somewhat chivalrous fashion. She sighed and took his arm, letting him walk her out of the building. Once they were outside, in a park at a distance from other people, he told her, "I'm actually here about a project Queen Amidala wants to put into place to help the slaves on Tatooine."
At that Cara smiled. She had been helping Anakin with his nightmares, fears and memories of slavery, but Padmé's news had given Anakin something of a breakthrough. "I was glad to hear about the effort. Even if it only helps a small number of people, it's still better than the nothing that went before." They were walking side by side, no longer arm in arm, and she caught sight of him absently circling his left wrist with his fingers, the motion she recalled doing herself after a recent removal of shackles. She felt the Force bubble up in her skin, and the words came out before she had a chance to stop herself. "I see there really couldn't be anyone better than you."
Obi-Wan nearly stumbled, his eyes wide as he realised she had noticed the old tic. He swallowed and said, "I . . . don't know if you're right."
The blast shutters she kept up as her shielding somehow seemed to thin before him, although he didn't think she'd actually done so, it was just that there was something in the Force granting him a limited bypass of her shields. He couldn't tell if it was him, the Force, her or some combination of all three. But he could feel her disquiet and fear. She was struggling, and he could feel her releasing it into the Force, but the fear built up behind the release at about the same rate, not letting her achieve any sort of calm.
Once, when he was very young, one of the masters had done it for him. A sort of demonstration of the technique of releasing an emotion. He put a hand on hers and started to help her drain it off and for a moment it was working. Then like a reflex new shields sprang up overtop the durasteel. These were like a labyrinth of metal spikes and razor wire, twisting and writhing, designed to cut up anyone who ventured too close. She pulled herself away, "Don't!"
Something here was so very wrong, he knew. "Alright. I won't. I'm sorry."
"Just . . . I can't. You . . . you shouldn't got into someone's head like that without permission," she snapped, fury colouring her words. "Just leave me alone!"
She left at almost a run, and Obi-Wan let her. He watched her go, and was certain of two things. He'd seen a flash of gold in her eyes, and that whatever she was, despite her eyes, a dark Force user was not it.
Cara arrived back home, slamming the door to her upstairs apartment behind her, flopping down onto her bed a moment later and screaming into her pillow. What was she doing? She was spending time with a Jedi. The Jedi who could decide unilaterally that she was a kriffin' darksider and have her summarily executed because they were the official legal handlers of Force-type issues. And she was freaking out at him just because he was trying to help, and that wasn't at all suspicious and he'd probably come down here and find her panicking and then he'd know and -
"Anakin will be back from his music lessons soon," Shmi said. "I assume you don't want to try teaching him in this mood."
Cara raised her hand in a rude gesture at the woman, then flopped onto her back ignoring the waves of, oh, very mature emanating from Shmi. "You should have picked someone else to teach him," she said. Starting the now-familiar argument.
Shmi rolled her eyes as it was not a serious statement but a comforting habit. "You're upset," she said.
"I ran into the Jedi I told you about today," Cara told her. "The one I have a Force . . . thing with. I . . . we were talking and I panicked and he tried to help me bleed off the excess and because I wasn't ready I got . . ." she trailed off and waved a hand expressively.
"You keep saying that you need to meditate and deal with your darker memories," Shmi said. Her eyes went vague in that way that indicated she was reaching to what she called the Underneath and Cara called the Force. "You know that you must and you still avoid it. Perhaps you need to talk to the Jedi and your thing." Her eyes focused sharply. "I will have Anakin meditate and do those lifting exercises you set him yesterday and you are going to talk to the Jedi."
Cara sulked her way out of the house and followed the Force all the way to the palace. Then she snuck around everyone using the Force and broke into his room. When she climbed in the window she was still sulking, visibly, and he was sitting, facing her and holding his lightsabre. He blinked at her, staring. "What are you doing here?"
"Apologising," she grumbled. "And my sister-in-law made me."
He stared at her a moment. "I didn't think I'd ever see anyone older than fifteen sulk like that."
She suppressed the flash of annoyance, because she'd brought this on herself and if she could just grow up . . . she shook her head to try to shake the distractions away. "I . . . I need . . . at least I think I need your help," Cara told him.
He stood, leading the way to a couch, and gestured for her to sit. "I thought the Force had showed me something like that-"
"I know I'm volatile," Cara said. "It's just . . . hard. It's hard to think about, nevermind talk about, and . . ." Obi-Wan watched as she suddenly seemed bathed in the Force, the power limning every inch of her, a flash of light that drained away just as suddenly. "The Force is saying I can trust you. Please," she said, and he could feel her pulsing fear. "Please, I can't . . . I don't want to have to run and . . ."
He reached for the Force himself, feeling the Unifying Force almost leap to him, telling him that he could trust her, that he could let himself keep her secrets. "I will not tell anyone," he said. "Please tell me."
"I . . . I can give you the outline," she told him, "But I don't know if I'll manage more detail. It's . . . hard." Obi-Wan nodded. She took a shaking breath. "I was born on Corellia and my father was a freighter captain and my mother ran the accounts on the business. We travelled all the time I was a small child. I'm fairly sure that's why the Jedi never found me. I know my midichlorian count is unusually high, even for the Jedi. When I was old enough to start school my mother and I settled back on Corellia and Dad kept working to support us. I took up ballet and I just knew that was what I wanted." She smiled reminiscently. "I never wanted to be a Jedi. Lots of kids do, after all."
Obi-Wan smiled wryly. "The lightsabres are so wizard," he said, amused.
Cara nodded. "But I didn't want that. I wanted to dance and I intended to do whatever I had to to get there. When I was sixteen I finally landed a scholarship at the Coruscant Dance Academy."
"Impressive," he said, meaning it. It was the most exclusive and well-regarded ballet school in the galaxy.
"Dad and Mom made plans. He was going to switch his runs to be centred on Coruscant and they would get a place rented there so that I could see them on weekends and holidays with minimal trouble. We were on our way to Coruscant to be there a month before school to get me settled into the area, to learn a few things about local restaurants and all that . . ." She choked on her words because the memory still burned like fire.
He said nothing, but moved a hand a little closer. Cara didn't look, but grabbed his hand, hanging on, hoping to ground herself. After a moment she continued. "We were halfway there when the ship dropped in above us. We got booted out of hyperspace and he clamped onto our ship. Dad kept a few things on-board to bargain with pirates. It had worked before. He was legitimate, but he kept a little spice and a few other valuable things to bribe them to go away. He didn't. He killed . . ." Her breath caught on the sob. Her hand tightened on his to the point of causing pain, but Obi-Wan just used the Force to dull it and soothe his hand. A moment later her grip ease a little and she continued. "He killed them both and stripped everything valuable and dragged me onto his ship and put me in restraints in his hold. Then he blew up Dad's ship and told me he had decided that I was his new apprentice."
He had known there was a dark Force user in this, but it was still shocking. All the worse because she had been doing nothing to gain the attention of a dark Force user, had been in no situation where he should have noticed her. "How did he know?" Obi-Wan asked.
Cara smiled bitterly at him. "I was completely untrained," she said. "I'm given to understand I was a bit of a beacon." He felt her shields moving. They didn't go down, they simply expanded outward until he was inside of them with her. At first he saw nothing particularly interesting, and then he realised her shields had been layered. Behind her shutters were normal shields, concealing her true power as most Jedi did. Then those expanded outward and he saw the bright light of her, marred by patchy shadows. If this, no doubt without the shadows, had been her Force presence at the time it was no wonder the darksider had come for her. But it also explained those shields that made her seem like a null, like someone who had only enough midichlorians to survive and no more.
Then the shields pulled inwards and she vanished from his Force vision besides those hints that seemed to be slipping through to him alone. She shivered. "I was his new apprentice," she repeated, "And I was scared and so I went along with things because I didn't know what he wanted and I didn't want to be hurt or killed." She looked up. "I'd never thought I had anything like Jedi powers," Cara said. "So when he first started trying to get me to lift things with my mind I had no idea what to do. Of all the things he made me do, the only thing that I could understand was the katas. That was like learning choreography. Step left, turn this way, move a hand that way, I could understand that, even if I didn't really put it together with actual fighting at first."
Obi-Wan listened, trying to imagine it. He'd been faced with Xanatos du Crion, with other darksiders and with the Sith that had killed Qui-Gon, but this was different, because she hadn't understood what was happening or why. Her constant fear made so much more sense, because even though she now understood, it wouldn't help the chaotic sense that this had happened without reason. He gently rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, trying to help ground her in the present.
"I was scared and angry and it wasn't until the day that he had his lightsabre at my throat that I managed to reach the Force at all. It was instinct, and obviously the dark side, but it was the first time I ever thought it was even possible for me to do any of those things," she said, her voice distant and lost in the memories. "The thing is, he was so pleased by it that it got me worried. I still only accessed the Force through the dark side, but every time I did it made him . . . cheerful," she snorted a little at her choice of words, "and I was finally starting to come out of shock, and I knew that if he wanted something it couldn't be good. But I just wanted to be able to get away, and it seemed like the only way I'd be able to."
What flashed through Obi-Wan's mind was the old Jedi wisdom that falling was a choice, and Master Yoda's insistence that no one could come back from the dark side. But this was not a choice. Not with her ignorance of other options, not when she couldn't know what the darkness would do to her and with her only other option seeming to be death. And if anyone had the potential to return from the dark side, it was someone who didn't want the power to begin with, had only wanted it so as to be able to stop using it.
Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
"I didn't know what I'd lost of myself until he brought in that thug and let him attack me. He wasn't a good person, he meant to hurt me, I can't regret the specific final blow that killed him, but it wasn't . . . I made him scream. And for a moment I liked it."
There was so much shame and anger and fear roiling in her, he had to ask. "May I?" gently using the strange Force connection between them to let her see his desire to help her let the feelings go into the Force. This time he had her conscious awareness and the effort worked. Cara sagged against him.
"Well, that'll hold a minute," she said, a little dryly. "I should finish before I lose my nerve."
"If you feel you can," he tried to sound reassuring.
Cara shifted a little, and Obi-Wan let her. "I knew I had to figure out how the Jedi worked with the Force then," she said. "Because the whole thing with you people is that you don't hear about Jedi torturing hired killers. There had to be some other point of access. Oddly enough, what saved me was that book of his."
"Book?" Obi-Wan asked, curious.
The chuckle was rough, but genuine. "He had found a book of Sith Force techniques," she explained. "He wasn't that bright, but he was convinced that he had found The Holy Text Of Sithitude. Or something. He insisted he was a Sith lord."
Have seen the recent reappearance of a potential Sith Obi-Wan was a little less sanguine, but Cara shook her head at him. "No, seriously. I killed him during my escape. Either he wasn't actually Sith or he was terrible at it. He was evil, don't get me wrong, but there was no depth." Her eyes unfocused a moment as she thought of something, then shrugged and continued. "The thing is, the book talked about the Jedi, about the light side of the Force and described something of how Jedi work with it. I don't know how accurate it actually might be, but it was enough to give me a direction. I was even able to . . . invert a few techniques in the book."
"I am impressed," Obi-Wan told her, and he was again. He was concerned, her background was a horrifyingly potential liability, the fact that she was picking up on his concern sparked that constant overlay of anger she'd carried both previous times they'd met and Obi-Wan hastily yanked his mind back in a gauche way to break the cycle that was about to spin out of control of his worries and her anger about them.
She pulled away abruptly, balling herself up on the sofa. "I killed him, got away and spent a year trying to pull myself together. Then I cheated and used the Force to carry me through auditions for the ballet. I've been trying to keep it together ever since." She looked at him pleadingly. "I . . . there's one thing I learned and when I do it right it helps, but I thought maybe, if you could help me I might . . . I could maybe stop being so . . . awful."
"I couldn't agree to that until I understood what you wish my help with," Obi-Wan cautioned.
She straightened up and her whole demeanour shifted. She suddenly took on the appearance of one of his teachers at the Temple. It was sudden, and a bit disconcerting. "One of the important facets of being a Sith is maintaining a constant level of anger or hatred, underneath everything. Without that you have limitations in getting at the dark side. The Sith meditate as the Jedi do, but theirs is focused on inhabiting specific memories. You try to find memories that make you angry, say, and then force yourself into reliving them as closely as possible to keep the feeling fresh."
As much as the insight was appreciated, this wasn't a comforting suggestion thus far.
She poked him in response to the thought. "But, if I can, after reliving the memory, pull myself back enough to look at it from a distance, I can look it over until I'm able to be . . . dispassionate about it. Calm. Rational. It's about looking at it until the associated emotions don't reappear just because I think about it. Then I can file it away quietly and it stops being a trigger point."
He could see the advantage, but, "It would be all too easy to lose yourself in the feelings," Obi-Wan said.
Cara rolled her eyes. "That would be where you would come in," she explained. "I don't do it because of that, but if you were willing to try to pull me back when I can't, to . . . to make me get some distance, it could work."
Obi-Wan thought about it. It was true that what she was asking could have benefit, but that sort of closeness in the Force, it was a risk. It pushed close to the boundaries of acceptable behaviour by the Code. He then thought to the words he spoke to himself when faced with decisions that seemed to cross the line. What would Master Jinn do?
Perhaps his old master had been a rebel within the Order and perhaps the Council would not agree, but in the end the person Obi-Wan had to answer to most was himself and his own conscience. "I agree to this," he told her.
So they arranged themselves on the floor, entering meditation together, and then she walked him into her mind. She had visualised it as a Corellian freighter. Parts of it were in good repair, but outside of the cockpit at the front of the ship it gradually became more and more of a mess. Wiring spilling out onto the floor, sparking, panels ripped away and the engine at the back making terrible noises with alarms flashing in all directions.
After a moment of simply looking at the mess, she seemed to make a decision and turned to some of the wiring, reaching her hands in.
The memory felt real. As though it were happening in that moment. Together they lived every moment.
Casta Fentan saw the proximity alarm go off and was thrown around as the ship was abruptly forced out of hyperspace. Her father struggling to bring the ship under control.
"Bran!"
Her mother and father hastily consulting on how to deal with the pirate. Prepping the cache of spice and money for just such occasions to bribe the attacker into leaving them alone.
The airlock was blown open and a man with a nasty grin and a lit red lightsabre walked in and ignored any attempts to talk to him. He killed the elder Fentans without a care, then grabbed the cowering teenaged girl, placed binders on her and dragged her into his ship. He left her tied up in a small room for what felt like hours, then pulled her out so she could watch the destruction of the ship she had thought of as being part of her home for her whole life.
"I've always wanted an apprentice," he told her. "I am Darth Moonslayer and I claim you as mine." He dragged her back to the cell, threw her in and said, "Tomorrow your training starts."
Her mind started to spin in place, losing her grip and herself in the memory, and Obi-Wan tugged gently at Cara, pulling her out with a gently placed, Darth Moonslayer? Really?
The memory froze and she stood up from where she had fallen. Still sixteen, but the binders fell away. Now they were both in the memory, standing side by side. Cara gave him a tremulous smile. "I said he thought too much of himself."
"It does seem even more melodramatic than a Sith usually is," Obi-Wan said with a small smile. "Now, let's go back to the beginning and try to work through this, shall we?"
They did just that, stopping every time things became too much, working through every could have and should have Cara had. There was the guilt that she had done nothing to help, though at that time there had been nothing she could have done. The grief over the loss of her parents had sometimes kept her from remembering other things like her father's favourite way of making caf and how her mother hummed in the kitchen.
During a quick break, Obi-Wan asked her curiously, "Why do you not go by your birth name?"
"Because I was so afraid, but by now . . . by now it's been established who I am," she said. "I don't . . . I don't feel like Casta Fentan anymore. Casta Fentan was a dark force user, was an innocent teenager, I'm not either of those things and I can't become the latter again and I don't want to be the former anymore if I can help it." She smiled wryly, "Also, other darksiders know me as Casta. If they found me here . . ."
They turned back to the work of dealing with the memory. Her fear that it would happen again drove her to hide even though the man who went by Moonslayer was now dead - another memory had flashed by for a moment of a red lightsabre slicing off his head, then cutting straight through the chest in the reverse of the first move, and a last slice, still within the same motion, cutting through again, this time through the stomach. It had been thorough and overkill, and then she'd sent the body out the airlock and shot him with the ship's blasters for good measure.
"Maybe the next time?" Obi-wan suggested gently.
She shook herself. "I keep trying to recall that he's actually dead and can't get me," she admitted.
"Then perhaps we should next stabilise that thought for you, so that it is settled that you do not need to fear him any more." He had been planning to suggest they end the session with her first memory of her time with the darksider, but perhaps this last one would help as well. He knew what it was like to know you were safe and yet still have a creeping fear you would be taken.
And suddenly they were in his memories. That awful time with Xanatos du Crion. And when he was lost, Cara pulled him out and walked him through. What could he have done differently? What had he done right? What had been done wrong? What was his fault and what was not? When his memory finished playing out, when he had seen it all with fresh eyes and distance, she helped him slot it away into the small closet in his room at the Temple. He recalled everything, but the emotions had been dulled in their immediacy.
They both opened their eyes at the same time, back in the real world. Both of them thought to their respective memories and sighed as the pain, fear and anger was gone. It was remembered, clearly, but that feeling that something might shatter or snap if it was discussed was gone. Cara smiled. "Thank you."
Obi-Wan's eyes were wide as he thought through what had happened. He had learned how to release his feelings into the Force, yes. He could achieve clarity of thought, but for the first time the nagging need to make sure he let go of his feelings about that one moment with Master Jinn's former padawan wasn't there, because the feelings weren't surging out of control. He could recall it all clearly, but remembering didn't bring it all back again. He smiled back. "No, thank you. I . . . this is a remarkable technique."
She blushed. "I learned how to get rid of the feelings long enough that I'd be able to regain some equilibrium, but I knew I needed to . . . to make them not a weak point." There was a flash of self-loathing again, but it felt a little less. Just a little.
"I will be leaving for the Temple tomorrow," Obi-Wan admitted. "But perhaps I might visit you again if I have the opportunity?"
Any and all of the softness she had been displaying dried up then, a sardonic defensive twist to her lips making it clear that Cara's defences were returning to normal. "That would be nice. A trade then? Making it equal? You see my vulnerable spots and I see yours?"
Feeling more serene than he had before the experience of the evening, it was effortless to put the face of the Jedi Knight back on and say, "I would not say that help makes one less equal than another, but if you wish it so, then yes, a trade."
She hissed in annoyance. "Jedi. Fine. Yes." She grabbed a nearby datapad and punched in a few things. "My comm. Call me next time."
Then she was out the window, sneaking back out. Obi-Wan laughed when he heard the uproar in her wake. She had deliberately let the guards see her, just out of a sense of pique with the world. Then he sighed and went to calm everyone down because it would do no one any good for the palace to be in an uproar.
