Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OCs and possibly some percentage of the plot.
They stayed in contact with the Corellian Jedi who welcomed the student and teacher as sometime visitors. Obi-Wan got to finesse his skills rather than simply teach Anakin, and Anakin got to have opponents who weren't his formidably skilled teacher.
Two years passed and Obi-Wan felt more comfortable in his skin, Anakin dated several people (including Aayla Secura during a two-month period of time during which Obi-Wan and Quin were on assignments in the same place), Cara finally learned how to not destroy parking droids when irritated and Shmi put up with all of them, which should have had her nominated for sainthood. Cara and Obi-Wan abused their connection to Padmé just enough to get an official-looking award made for Shmi's birthday one year saying just that. Shmi gave it pride of place on the mantelpiece to guilt trip them whenever she felt it necessary.
Anakin was seventeen when Padmé asked them both back to act as bodyguards for her while she negotiated a territorial dispute between Naboo and the Hutts on Tatooine. The Naboo presence had reached the point that the Hutts were actively losing ground on the planet, so some sort of treaty was warranted. However, it was the Hutts and no one put it past the collective of crime families to do something drastic, so Queen Amidala, who was to meet with Gardulla, Grakkus and Jabba over the division of the planet, wanted something more than her usual collection of exceedingly well-trained handmaidens.
When the twenty-two-year-old Padmé saw the seventeen-year-old Anakin face-to-face for the first time in several years she was struck by how much he'd grown up. She'd been peripherally aware through Shmi how Anakin's training was going, but the teenager was now tall, quite good-looking and seemed eminently serious and adult in how he held himself. He'd always been somewhat mature for his age, given his background, but his appearance recontextualised those occasional direct communications between them. Padmé shook herself. She had to be the dignified Queen of Naboo right now. "Anakin and Mr. Kenobi, I am pleased to see you again. You look well."
Obi-Wan shot his student a sharp look, and though Padmé couldn't know it, reminded Anakin through their training bond of Cara's rule about not until he was twenty. "You too," Anakin fumbled. "I mean, you look beautiful." He stopped, eyes wide. "I . . . um." He shot a look at Obi-Wan that seemed to be pleading for help.
"You look well as well, your Highness," Obi-Wan cut in smoothly, stepping forward. "I look forward to providing assistance with these negotiations."
Anakin nodded, his head looking vaguely like it was on a spring before trying to hide behind a man who was shorter than him. Padmé thought it was both hilarious and adorable. There was something very charming about someone who couldn't manage even a little artifice. His honest attraction was flattering, but more so because there were no manipulative undertones.
Still, he was just a teenager and she was over twenty she reminded herself. Even though the people of Naboo were more than willing to let slide a person's age dependant on their level of accomplishment and demonstrated maturity, they still maintained very strict social mores about what ages were appropriate for adult relationships, especially when there was an age gap of any significance.
She kept herself calm, professional and friendly, something that lasted right up until she asked him about one of his previous missions with Obi-Wan in order to help him calm down. Anakin wasn't a glib talker, he seemed to have no abilities with small talk, but he was a great storyteller and even an excellent teacher in his way. He was careful about explaining things in very clear and concrete terms, was able to demonstrate things about mechanics or piloting then talk someone through it step by step, and as he relaxed, Padmé was drawn in. His honest lack of artifice meant conversation didn't have to be watched in every step for pitfalls that might cause incident, and he was very honestly interested in things about her that were different from other people she'd talked to recently.
It wasn't that Anakin wasn't interested in her politics or Important Sociopolitical Issues, it was that he was more interested in music, racing, the training she'd done with her handmaids and topics that were about who Padmé was, not just Queen Amidala.
She did wish Obi-Wan would stop wandering past and muttering, "Twenty, Anakin," because it always made Anakin's eyes go wide and he'd be awkward for a few minutes before calming down again.
The negotiations eventually forced the Naboo to concessions regarding slaves and how openly they could assist slaves with escape. In order to keep the peace, Queen Amidala had to agree to scale back the Naboo operations. She was painfully aware of Anakin's building rage and Obi-Wan's grim resignation.
On the flight back to Theed she found herself closeted with the two Force-users and watched as Anakin came alive with strategic plans to allow the work of freeing slaves to continue. He was clever and creative and when paired with his teacher's keenly political mind they were a force to be reckoned with in implementing further plans. Anakin worked from the pragmatic on-the-ground end and Obi-Wan worked from the theoretical and political end. In short, Anakin handled tactics and Obi-Wan strategy.
When Obi-Wan took a break from helping with the plotting, Anakin and Padmé continued. Without his teacher there Anakin was a tad more uninhibited, and Padmé found herself in an even easier planning rapport with him. Before Obi-Wan's return they had finished with all the planning that could be done and they had moved to discussing other topics. Once again, Anakin's awkwardness was wholly gone as he eagerly talked about his interests and listened to hers. When they got off the ship, Padmé told Anakin that she wouldn't mind if he commed her directly himself.
Then she sternly reminded herself that he was seventeen and to not go there.
Anakin meanwhile had to sternly remind himself not only of the not-until-you're-twenty-Anakin rule, but also of the fact that sweet, kind, beautiful, interesting, clever, funny, witty Padmé was twenty-two-year-old Queen Amidala and therefore completely out of his league. Obi-Wan 'helped' by hovering and reminding him what certainly felt like every five minutes about the not-until-you're-twenty thing.
Also, watching them go back and forth about literature, politics, plays and other wordy stuff made Anakin just depressed, because Padmé was probably way more interested in Obi-Wan than she would be in Anakin and his only comfort was that Cara and Obi-Wan were A Thing.
One year passed and despite a near-nightly resolution to not be a dippy, sappy, moron in love, Anakin became a regular fixture at the palace in Theed, causing much havoc by breaking in to see Padmé, offering on his way out to show security where the latest holes were that he'd exploited to sneak in. Security had never been better around the palace, but it didn't stop them from being cranky when Sabé would walk into Padmé's bedroom in the morning to find Anakin asleep on the couch, one memorable time on Padmé's bed (he was on top of the covers and fully dressed and she was under them wearing a complete set of highly unsexy flannel pyjamas), and a few other memorable times both of them asleep on the same couch, both still fully dressed.
When Padmé turned twenty-three and Anakin turned eighteen, the Core age of majority, she left the role of monarch behind, but was placed in the role of Naboo senator by the next Queen. Padmé invited Anakin over to the lovely apartment that was provided as part of her annual recompense as a senator and seduced him, because she had given up on being nice and Anakin was now an adult.
The pair woke entwined together. Padmé smiled at Anakin and leaned in to kiss him.
"A-hem," said a voice very pointedly from the other side of the room.
Anakin closed his eyes and said. "Please no."
"Absolutely yes," Cara declared from where she had perched herself on a dresser.
Padmé turned to stare at Anakin's old teacher and pseudo-aunt. "How did you get in?"
"Hacked the door locks?" Anakin inquired.
"Nope," Cara said cheerfully. "I leave sneaky to you and Obi-Wan. I came in off the balcony."
Padmé's head whipped around to stare at the window of her bedroom, then back to stare at Cara. "We're on the fortieth floor," she said, gaping. "How?"
"I climbed," Cara said easily. "Sure, physically more difficult, but I'm not the sort that goes in for complicated when I can just climb stuff. And your security up here is a lot thinner on the balcony which, y'know, makes sense." Then she turned to Anakin. "What happened to the not-until-you're-twenty rule?"
Padmé shot Cara a dark look. "He's a legal adult and I happen to find him interesting and attractive."
Anakin looked between two out of the three most important women in his life and, perhaps somewhat unwisely said, "Cara, I know you're trying to protect me, but you can't think that Padmé's some sort of . . . paedophile predator or something."
The dancer pointed at him, "I'm saying absolutely nothing of the sort. I'm worried that you'll throw your heart and soul into this and do something silly like get engaged before you've both gotten to know each other well enough as a couple and then it all ends in tears. She's older than you and frankly, given my bad influence and Obi-Wan's inability to not throw himself into the path of anything dangerous that comes along - don't think Quin didn't tell me about the thing with the gundarks - you've had two very bad role models for rational adult behaviour."
Padmé had actually heard some things about the unending saga of Cara and Obi-Wan from an oft-exasperated Shmi. "I would like to think that Anakin and I will have learned how to actually talk to each other by trying to avoid your bad example."
Cara's eyes narrowed at them both for a moment, then she said. "Fine, but if this all ends in tears I fully intend to recruit Obi-Wan to making sure appropriate vengeance is taken if you break his heart by accident. I take my job as overprotective auntie seriously."
She hopped off the chest, then with one final dire look walked out to the balcony and hopped over the edge. Padmé was off the bed in a moment, grabbing a robe to make herself decent as she stared at Cara bouncing her way down from balcony to balcony. Anakin joined her a moment later after pulling on his pants, shaking his head. "And she and Obi-Wan tell me I'm reckless."
"I thought she was a dancer," Padmé said still staring after her. "Is she a former Jedi as well?"
"No," Anakin replied, pulling Padmé back against him just because he could now. "But she was my first teacher in Force techniques." He paused. "And reading, swearing, piloting actual ships and ballroom dancing. Not much else that I find useful, though."
Padmé thought about the woman she'd sometimes chatted with. "That sounds just about right, actually."
The next three years Obi-Wan and Anakin began to develop a focus on requests or missions that took them into places where slavery was legal, explicitly or implicitly practised. Anakin began to make connections with slave freedom trails and people working to end slavery. Obi-Wan also, however, took Anakin on a few trips where he showed his student how to convince a slaver to give up slavery, not because it was wrong, but by showing ways to employ people or machines such that it cost less than maintaining slaves, and Anakin also took that lesson in expedience to heart.
Obi-Wan's reputation as a skilled and neutral party to assist with treaties, deals or contract talks grew as well.
Anakin was twenty and the pair were on Coruscant, now officially partners (still senior and junior) rather than teacher and student. They were there for talks with a few wealthy businessmen on the matter of funding for some education programs in the Outer Rim, an ambition Anakin had to make it easier for former slaves to perhaps form government or make their way in the wider galaxy. Anakin had started slowly making plans for a revolution on Tatooine, something Obi-Wan was helping with, but with a great deal of nervousness.
Cara was on Coruscant as well, her company touring once again. Obi-Wan had promised to finally take her to meet Dex, so that's where they were while Anakin was loitering sneakily around the landing pad Padmé's ship was coming in on. As the ship came in he felt a vague warning in the Force and found himself starting to move forward. When it landed the warning was a pressing intensity and Anakin was no longer just walking fast but found himself running, dodging past security, racing for the ship as the doors came down, the occupants leaving, and finally Cordé stepped out in her guise as the senator. Anakin knew how important every one of her handmaidens was to Padmé and he was hurtling out in a flying tackle that got the woman out of the way just as the bomb went off.
"Cordé!" shouted Padmé.
Anakin pulled himself up. "Are you okay?" he asked her. "I'm sorry about the tackle."
She grimaced a little, but said, "In a choice between a fireball and a sprained wrist and some bruising, I'll take the latter. Thank you, Anakin."
"Everyone else okay?" Anakin asked as he stood, helping Cordé to her feet.
"We're fine," Padmé assured him after a quick glance exchanged with her newest security chief, Typho.
And then Anakin spent literally hours playing security for his girlfriend, listening to politicians including the Chancellor himself flail about the assassination attempt but not actually do anything, not even dispatch some of the CorSec services to investigate. In a brief moment aside, Anakin even pulled one over. "There a chance you could just look into it without official permission? I mean, a bomb went off, it's not like foul play isn't really obvious here."
The woman looked grim. "Our mandate's been changing," she said. "Now we need official permission to look into serious crimes and the Senator's been overruled since the Chancellor's asked for the Jedi to take the lead."
Obi-Wan had arrived, finally, asking, "But why the Jedi? Not that there aren't investigative arms to the Jedi, of course, but this doesn't really fall within their purview."
The woman looked between the pair, startled. "You're not Jedi?"
Anakin shook his head. "No, although Obi-Wan used to be. I'm just here because Typho wanted me for extra security, and Padmé's my girlfriend."
"Chancellor," Padmé was saying in tones of exasperation, "I don't need further security, certainly not Jedi security. I am quite safe with Messrs Skywalker and Kenobi."
And then the Jedi arrived. "Senator Amidala," Yoda spoke. "The attack on the landing platform . . . terrible. Seeing you alive brings warm feelings to my heart."
Obi-Wan took a deep breath, quietly releasing his still somewhat conflicted feelings about leaving the Jedi those years before into the Force. The action still caught him a sharp look from Mace Windu, and doubtless Yoda was quite aware as well. Obi-Wan simply hoped that at least Master Mundi was unaware as he had enough stress to be getting on with, without the depredations of an impromptu Council meeting.
Padmé was sufficiently sanguine to ask, "Do you have any idea who's behind this attack?"
"Our intelligence points to disgruntled spice miners on the moons of Naboo." Mace Windu was definite as he spoke, but Obi-Wan had his doubts. He and Anakin had participated in the negotiations with those same miners and the junior and senior partners exchanged sardonic looks over the matter.
"I think Count Dooku is behind it." Padmé stated firmly. She had decided ideas about Dooku's efforts in the Outer Rim of late and she was very clear in her opinions regarding declarations that Dooku being a former Jedi somehow meant he was above reproach.
Ki Adi-Mundi was the one who said it first. "He's a political idealist, not a murderer."
"You know, milady, Count Dooku was once a Jedi. He couldn't assassinate anyone: it's not in his character." Windu's addition to the conversation did not endear him to Padmé or Obi-Wan. Anakin, though less politically savvy, was nonetheless offended at their utter dismissal of Padmé's opinion.
Yoda, perhaps sensing the rising aggravation from the topic of Dooku changed the topic. "But, for certain Senator, in grave danger you are."
"Master Jedi…" Chancellor Palpatine interrupted the discussion. "May I suggest the senator be placed under the protection of your graces."
Senator Organa glanced at the pair who he knew were fully as capable as any Jedi and less politically fraught as a choice. "Do you really think that's a wise decision under these stressful times?"
"Chancellor," Padmé tried again, "if I may comment I do not believe-"
Palpatine spoke over her. "The situation is that serious. No, but I do, Senator. I realize all too well that additional security may be disruptive for you. Do it for me, milady, please. The thought of losing you… is unbearable."
"Perhaps Master Lashan and her padawan," Master Windu said. "They have done such protection work before."
The decision was made as Padmé was overruled.
The two Jedi arrived to find Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padmé and Cara all ensconced in the sitting room watching Riva Jedi Princess - or rather, Anakin and Cara were enthusiastically watching Riva Jedi Princess while Obi-Wan and Padmé made snide comments and chatted about the upcoming Rodian elections.
"Our presence here will be invisible, milady, I can assure you," Master Orla Lashan, a Korun like Master Windu, tried to assure Padmé.
"I don't need more security, I need answers," Padmé snapped. "I want to know who's trying to kill me."
Master Lashan seemed somewhat patronising as she said, "We're here to protect you, Senator, not to start an investigation."
"We'll do our best to find out who's trying to kill you, Padmé," Anakin declared.
Cara looked at Anakin darkly. "You will? And we? What we? I didn't hear Obi-Wan endorsing that."
"Why must you both put me in the middle?" Obi-Wan complained. "Cara, there is no need to be overprotective, I am capable of taking care of myself-"
Cara coughed into her hands, falsely, muttering, "Gundarks," as she did so.
Obi-Wan poked her. "And Anakin, we are not the authorities, I will not be party to such ill-advised activities."
Orla Lashan looked bemused. Her padawan Shar Toth, a Zabrak with blue-dyed hair to match his tattoos said, "In any event, it is our duty as Jedi to determine the culprits."
"Our mandate, Padawan," Lashan said severely, "Is to protect the Senator."
"But why else do you think we were assigned to her if not to find the killer? Protection is a job for local security, not Jedi. It's overkill, Master; investigation is implied in our mandate." The Zabrak looked confused.
Obi-Wan sighed, because he understood both sides of this, but part of the reason the Jedi had been called despite Padmé's adequate protection was the reduced powers of the local policing forces.
Master Lashan shot the boy a dark look. "We will do exactly as the Council has instructed . . . and you will learn your place, young one."
"Perhaps with merely your presence, the mystery surrounding this threat will be revealed," Padmé said in some annoyance. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I will retire. Cara, would you like to join me?"
"Ooo, are we gonna play Marry, Kriff, Murder?" Cara asked eagerly. "I haven't been able to play that with anyone since Maté insisted that her new husband is too handsome to even think about anything else. I can't believe she's still in the honeymoon phase."
The two women vanished into the bedroom together. Obi-Wan stared. "Marry, Kriff, Murder?" He asked the air.
"It's a ... thing," Anakin said. "I think. You pick a bunch of people from a holonet show, around the office, whatever, and then you decide person by person which of those three options apply. It's a game."
"How uncivilised," Obi-Wan muttered.
Anakin rolled his eyes. "You're the one dating her."
They both sat back and watched the two Jedi try to put a holocam in Padmé's bedroom and then find out that Padmé wasn't going to let them watch her sleep.
Master Lashan huffed. "Honestly, we are here to protect her, she could be cooperative."
"Do you want a strange teenaged boy watching you sleep?" Obi-Wan asked. "No offence to you, Padawan Toth, but it's usually considered in poor taste for such things to be done."
The Korun master huffed. "At one time, Kenobi, you wouldn't have been so squeamish. Look at you, shiftlessly working for payment."
Anakin bristled and Obi-Wan could almost hear the snapped response over their bond, As opposed to the Jedi who are fully in the Senate's pocket, and sent the impression of a quick shake of the head to his junior partner.
The two Jedi settled in to be ready to move at a moment's notice and Anakin and Obi-Wan turned back to their planning.
A scream and the snap-hum of Cara's fans sent the two Jedi and two non-Jedi sprinting into the bedroom.
"Ew, ew, ew!" Cara was saying as she looked at the poisonous bugs she'd killed. Obi-Wan's head came up as he saw the traffic droid, saw it was being controlled by a figure outside the building and without thinking it through he dove out the window at it. Distantly he heard Cara shriek, "If you die I'm gonna kill you!"
Anakin was already racing out the door, heading for the nearest speeder stop, muttering about how Obi-Wan said that Anakin was impulsive and reckless.
"Senator, are you alright?" Master Lashan asked. "I thought I heard a lightsabre."
Cara cheerfully announced, "No lightsabres here, just me and my brand new phobia of creepy-crawlies."
Two of three bugs had been cleanly sliced in half by a narrower blade than a lightsabre, but nonetheless with the same cleanness and cautery you would get from a 'sabre. The third had been hit with a blaster. The Jedi stared at the two women suspiciously. Cara held out a blade in one hand, pressing a button making the knife glow with the same sort of tech that went into an electrostaff blade. Padmé showed the pair of blasters she had under her pillows.
"I am fully trained in marksmanship and self-defence," Padmé said mildly. "And Cara-"
"I'm Corellian and therefore certifiable," Cara said cheerfully. "Or that's what Obi-Wan says at least." She stood and headed over to a cupboard. "I'm going to start cleaning up this glass. Do either of you want to help?"
Padawan Toth joined in with the cleanup while his master made innumerable calls to various people. It was an hour later that Obi-Wan and Anakin came back with a dart of an unusual design that Master Lashan confiscated immediately, sending her padawan to the Temple to investigate where it was from. Obi-Wan shook his head at Anakin when the younger man started to protest, then held up a finger when Lashan's back was turned to him, telling Anakin to just wait.
Cara as a matter of form and because she never wanted anyone to accuse her of being a mature adult cheerfully whined about not getting to drag Obi-Wan into bed with her before flouncing off to the hotel room she was sharing with two other dancers. She also told Obi-Wan very seriously that if he needed a third for backup he'd better call her instead of Master Lashan because she was reasonably sure the woman would refuse to help on the principle that she had decided that all non-Jedi were morally bankrupt.
"I thought you didn't want any adventures in your life," Obi-Wan said after they'd shared a ridiculously overdone kiss goodbye in no small part to make Anakin squirm and make sounds like a cat gagging on a hairball (the hypocrite - he and Padmé were ridiculously affectionate).
Cara sighed. "I don't, but I'm selfish enough to want to keep you safe. If it gets that bad . . ."
"If it gets that bad I doubt I'll have the opportunity," Obi-Wan told her, "But I shall keep it in mind. You should get some rest, you have a show tomorrow. If I can make it I will, but I refuse to be held accountable for anything I do if that dance partner of yours tries to seduce me again."
"This is about that time he spilled tea all over you, isn't it?"
"That was very expensive tea and I had been looking forward to it very much," Obi-Wan groused.
Once Cara had left, Obi-Wan was able to assure Anakin that he had taken a holo or two of the dart and that he had an informant who would likely be able to tell him where it came from.
While the Jedi at the Temple couldn't find out where the dart was from, the toxin on it unknown to the Jedi database, Obi-Wan consulted Dex and the research library for the University of Coruscant and located Kamino.
He left Padmé to Anakin's more-than-adequate protection and set off to that Kamino place.
The Jedi were informed by Palpatine that someone somewhere had somehow tipped off security forces that the assassin had come from Kamino. The Jedi said that their totally complete database had no record of any Kamino and was Palpatine sure that was a proper name of a place and not a code or a person?
Jocasta Nu was enraged when she was contacted by the archivists of three different major collections, each of which provided her with information on Kamino. She pored over her systems finding missing files and removed data and tore through the ranks of those who were supposed to handle Temple security. Meanwhile, Master Lashan was dispatched to Kamino.
Coincidentally, Obi-Wan was attacked by some pirates and forced off course on his way to Kamino, thus delaying him just enough to arrive at the same time as the Jedi. For the sake of the information, he played along when asked whether he too was a Jedi and thus followed along in Master Lashan's wake.
While the singleminded Lashan practically tore through the base where the clones were being trained, Obi-Wan was wholly distracted by the presence of so many young men and boys who were only numbers to their trainers, who had been raised to see themselves as being 'for the Jedi'. He asked questions of the young men, picking up some horrifying implications about 'decommissioning' and 'reeducation' and was only pulled away by the Force practically dragging him outside to rescue Master Lashan from Jango Fett.
Then she effectively dragged him after her, and Obi-Wan vaguely wondered if she had forgotten that she didn't have a padawan with her but someone who had actually reached the rank of knight.
Anakin was left to try to support Padmé in her efforts to stay and vote against the Military Creation Act, but somehow, and he and Padmé couldn't quite figure out how, they wound up sent off to Naboo with Master Lashan's padawan disconsolately following them. Eventually the two young men got into a discussion of lightsabre techniques, the aggravations of masters who couldn't just answer questions and a complex debate both insisted was philosophical about the colours of lightsabres. Padmé decided they were probably just deciding which were cooler, but also knew better than to challenge the boys' position that it was a totally philosophical thing. And she did mean boys because the combination of the two had reduced their respective mental ages right back down to about fourteen for the pair of them.
Anakin and Padmé both completely ignored the advice they were given that Padmé should go to the well-known properties of the Naberrie family out in the country, and instead Anakin set Padmé up in Cara's part of the house while he and Shar had a boys' night in discussing lightsabres and other fighting techniques.
Shmi eventually let herself be driven upstairs where she warned Padmé that the droids would be in there first thing in the morning to recharge and that she was fairly certain it was because they enjoyed the shriek of surprise they got from Cara every time they did it.
Padmé tripped over Artoo the next morning and watched bemused as he squabbled with Threepio over who got the good charging outlet first. She was joined by Shmi who wanted a quiet breakfast and to not have to listen to the boys talk endlessly about 'sabres and explosions. Or rather, Anakin was talking about explosions and Shar was being envious that he and his master hardly ever got to blow things up.
A few days passed in which Anakin and Padmé visited with the Naberries who asked him several times when he was going to propose, Padmé hijacked Shar into helping her with paperwork and Shmi hijacked the padawan into helping with her anti-slavery initiatives and Anakin did all the formal paperwork for his and Obi-Wan's slave education project that he normally fobbed off on Obi-Wan.
Then they got a comm from Master Lashan asking them to forward a message to the Temple about Jango Fett, a clone army on Geonosis and then there was blaster fire and Obi-Wan shouting in the background.
Following the mess of near-execution, slave armies (making Anakin so furious Obi-Wan had to basically physically restrain him venting his spleen at Yoda) and excitement that had ended in Padmé proposing to Anakin and Anakin insisting that the Force was telling him to say yes (who was Obi-Wan to say otherwise, really?) Obi-Wan was finally able to at least sit down to talk on the comm with Cara.
"-and then Count Dooku tried to tell me that the Sith lord is on Coruscant."
Cara frowned, tilting her head. "Y'know, that makes sense."
The way she said it woke Obi-Wan up from the comfortably relaxed state of mind he'd been in, chatting with Cara just to talk with her. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I always thought the constant undercurrent of the dark side on Coruscant was just basic human misery with some darksiders amplifying for the power boost. But," she straightened a moment, reaching out physically as she usually did - one of the things that so much denoted her lack of formal training was the way she couldn't visualise and had to use gestures - her fingers plucking at the air. "No, now that I'm really looking - I don't normally y'know - it's too . . . deliberate."
Obi-Wan's breath hissed through his teeth. "So there is very likely a Sith on Coruscant, in the senate."
She hummed, her fingers playing in the air a moment, then she paled so dramatically that it was visible even on the blue projection of the comm unit. Her hands fisted, slammed down and Obi-Wan could tell that she had brought her shields up as high as they would go. He felt the bond between them blocked by her formidable defences. "I'm not coming back here," she said shakily. "I think they saw me. I have one last performance tomorrow and then I'm absolutely not coming back to Coruscant." Cara looked at him, bleakly. "I don't think anyone who doesn't touch the dark could see him," she said. "He has it wrapped around himself in a very . . . it's clever. I think I've seen the technique in Moonslayer's book, but I'd have to look into that. Whoever it is, they're strong. Very very strong and I wouldn't even think of trying to look closer than I have, which was really only enough to confirm he's there."
"Do not put yourself at risk, Cara," Obi-Wan said. "It is more than enough to know that there is someone."
She smiled weakly, holding out a hand in a gesture that seemed to suggest she was cupping the side of his face as generated by the comm at her end. The bond between them remained blocked, but Obi-Wan couldn't blame her for the caution. "I'll take a look at the book once I'm home. See if there's a potential workaround."
"I shall have to head to Coruscant myself," Obi-Wan told her. "The Council wants a report and I cannot in good conscience not grant them that much."
But while Cara was researching the book and discovering that the way the Sith master was hiding was openly visible to darksiders, but invisible to anyone who did not use the dark side of the Force, Obi-Wan and Anakin found themselves cajoled, pushed, and eventually emotionally blackmailed. Chancellor Sheev Palpatine was . . . quite something. Anakin would have cackled at seeing someone finally talk circles around The Negotiator if it weren't for the fact that the man had somehow conned them both into taking co-command over a battalion of the slave-soldiers that had been produced on the orders of a rogue Jedi.
The pair returned to Naboo for what was only a flying visit. Anakin pulled Padmé aside, insisting that she ask whether the current queen of Naboo would be willing to declare the clones legally people within the Naboo system. "I know there are probably some sort of limits because of the Republic, but Naboo is its own system," Anakin said pleadingly. "This can't . . . there has to be a way to make that legal within this system. I know that you'll campaign for Republic citizenship," he said, "But the member systems can do something even when we both know that Ryloth won't and neither will a bunch of other planets and systems that don't care or even just let slavery happen."
Shmi stood behind her son on this. "I know you wish to change the laws, Padmé, and it is right. But these men deserve freedom. Even if they can only find it on Naboo, they should have that chance."
While the Skywalkers were petitioning to convince Naboo's monarch to ensure that a clone on Naboo had as many rights as could be achieved, Obi-Wan was closeted with Cara, going carefully over the book of Sith writings from which Cara had derived so much of her training. "You see," she said, showing Obi-Wan the page, "This relies very heavily on fact that light Force users avoid even touching the dark side of the Force. It uses that avoidance like . . . like a notice-me-not mind trick. You avoid touching or reaching for it, so your avoidance causes you to detour around it and not see whatever's being hidden."
The book was ancient, made of genuine paper, not even flimsi and Cara kept it in a stasis container. It also radiated the dark side of the Force, the other reason Cara kept it in a special metal-lined case designed to block the Force. Despite its origins and the genuinely dangerous techniques in it, Obi-Wan felt positively reverent for the chance to touch a historical artifact of this age and interest. "I do wish I could bring this to the Temple," he said regretfully. "The opportunity to learn more about the techniques of the Sith would be invaluable, especially given that we must find whoever this Sith is that Count Dooku has allied himself with."
Cara pulled out a pad and handed to him. "I knew you would. I've scanned every page of the book. I expect you to not let this get into the hands of random darksiders who might actually use it." She smiled wryly, "And I included a description of every technique I've managed to flip around in there as well."
She gave a startled squawk as Obi-Wan decided that complex Force techniques and ancient works of scholarly interest were an even bigger turn-on than Cara demonstrating intriguing postures under the pretense of maintaining her flexibility.
"Don't laugh at me," he muttered as he tugged her towards the bedroom. "You were exactly the same when I found that 500-year-old holo of a ballet performance on Corellia."
"You make a good point," she replied, "But that means you don't get to laugh at me about it either anymore."
"Agreed," Obi-Wan said.
"Did the two of you just agree not to make fun of each other for being nerds?" Anakin asked incredulously.
The couple broke apart and Cara said, "I rarely regret no longer being vaguely evil, but you're makin' me regret it, Anakin."
"We need to ship back out," Anakin said by way of apology, "And that means that you don't have time to do . . . things," he waved a hand vaguely at them, "That I don't want to think about either of you doing."
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "As an adult in an adult relationship with Senator Amidala is there a chance you might consider acting as an adult the rest of the time?"
Cara blinked at him a moment. "Obi-Wan, I want you to imagine Qui-Gon and Tahl naked in bed together and Qui-Gon licking her-"
Obi-Wan made a scandalised noise. "Why?" He demanded, looking pained.
"Because if you're reacting like that to your dad and his girlfriend, you don't get to actively make fun of someone for being that way about the parental-type figures in his life. Granted I was the fun aunt and sometimes mean teacher, but it's really the same thing. It's funny, I'll laugh at him, but I wouldn't mock him." She looked at Anakin, "Unless you keep making fun of my nerd."
"Done," Anakin replied hastily before he was forced to think about an imaginary grandfather figure in an amorous clinch with an imaginary grandmother figure. "We have to go."
Note: Yes, when Cara bounces between 'he' and 'they' talking about the mystery Sith it's deliberate. She's unconsciously picked up on it being male, but isn't really consciously aware of that and is defaulting to 'they' because there's no actual evidence of sex/gender.
