Significant Brain Damage: On a slight pause as I do research by reading published books.
The Queen Does Not Need to Know: Complete.
Return of the Father: Complete.
The Kenobi Scandal: One chapter left!
The Making of Mavericks: In progress.
The Darkness Between the Stars: Actively in progress. My first non-time travel story :D
Chapter 17 - Transformed
Grandmaster Yoda's passing was the most public grieving ceremony in living memory.
For centuries, the Mystic Order of the Jedi were so secretive, so removed in bearing the idea that the rumours of their being emotionless, cold, and careless killers had laid under the surface of all the great legends.
The Galactic Civil War seemed only to prove such notions; for no matter how many Knights they lost, they did not grieve, not openly.
However, Grandmaster Yoda's funeral was anything but private.
The ceremony was done outside before dawn when most of the city was. Thousands of lightsabres raised to greet the sun, to greet a new age and to say goodbye to the old.
The other corps were represented as well.
The Defense Corps wore white cloaks over their army.
Yoda's enclosed pyre was lit as the sun crested above the Temple's highest spire.
The images were spread across the galaxy.
For two months, everyone who was a part of the Order wore white robes. Yoda's death was witnessed, whether they believed there was no death or whether Yoda had joined the Force did not matter so much as his absence and what that meant for them all.
The Republic was faced with a reality they had long ignored, the Jedi wasn't an organization or special forces proto-military group.
It was a people.
A culture.
A community stretched and connecting throughout the galaxy, representing a little of everyone.
Whose imprint on the galaxy ran deeper than most thought.
It was not just the Order who grieved the grandmaster, but near countless communities who stood by the Jedi in this loss.
The Wookies of Kashyyyk had what was perhaps the loudest 'ceremonies'.
In many ways, the galaxy's parting to the Grandmaster was less a funeral and more a celebration.
A celebration of all who had passed, of all that had been, and the future they had yet to tread.
The celebration became a movement, and the movement became a declaration.
The war was over and the new era would not be marked with revenge.
The mourning of Yoda was joined by the memorial of those Senators lost in the last true Separatist attack, then it became a memorial of all who were lost in the war.
"Did you know this would happen?" Obi-Wan asked alone on his balcony but for two ghosts.
"Hmmm," Yoda's ghost hummed, "Know? Hmmm, know I did not. Understood perhaps, when too late it was to call for help, when too late it was to turn back."
"Is Sidious truly so much more skilled than you?" Obi-Wan asked.
Yoda shook his translucent head, "Desperate he is, scared he is. Fear and anger, stronger in the Dark Side makes him."
"Then perhaps," Qui-Gon's ghost suggested, "you shouldn't have cornered an animal in its den?"
Yoda fell quiet for a long moment before he said, "Led me there, the Force did. My time it was." He looked at Obi-Wan, "See your past I do now, grateful I am, live through that I did not."
Obi-Wan closed his eyes, "You were all I had left. Luke was mine to protect but you were…"
"Home," Yoda supplied, "home I was to you, and return to me you always did. But though separated we were, though separated we are, regret not the life we lived."
Obi-Wan ran a hand over his stubble, and let out a long breath.
He felt Qui-Gon's presence wash over him, "Trust in the Force, Obi-Wan."
"You just told me the Force led Yoda to his untimely death."
Yoda laughed at this, "No, no, my youngling, quite timely it was. Old I was, one with the Force I am. No regrets do I have."
Qui-Gon spoke softly, "Obi-Wan, I cannot believe the Force wishes for Luke or you to come to harm, it brought you back to live. You have saved so many already."
"Mistakes I made," Yoda said, "a great many mistakes I made, but through Dooku and Mace are my mistakes transformed. Bright the future is, clear my hopes are. The trials ahead of you, wisdom and skill you have to overcome, Master Kenobi."
Obi-Wan took in a breath.
He, like Yoda, had made many mistakes.
Yet through Anakin and Luke, his mistakes were transformed.
Qui-Gon smiled at him, "Have faith in yourself, Obi-Wan."
Obi-Wan looked at him, "Master I…"
"Luke will be ready when the time comes, Obi-Wan." Qui-Gon's smile grew even as he faded back into the Force, his words lingering in Obi-Wan's mind.
In his heart.
"He's a Kenobi, after all."
Mace didn't need to see the three Skywalkers together to know that they were a family, but it was still funny to him that Anakin would risk his image escorting them here.
Even if it had been Mace who requested Padme meet him at the Temple.
He bowed his head first to Padme who gave a slight curtsy, baby Leia asleep in her arms, and by the Force, Mace thought the girl might be stronger than her father, before he met Anakin's blue gaze.
The young Knight was distracted, probably attempting not to stare at his daughter, whose slumbering visage was adorable even to Mace.
"Congratulations, Anakin, your daughter is quite beautiful," Mace said in a light tone.
Anakin's face broke into a smile and he gushed, "Thank you! She's the centre of our world-"
Then horror crossed Anakin's expression as he realized what he had just admitted to aloud.
Mace smirked.
Padme laughed.
Anakin gulped and asked, "Are you going to-"
Mace waved him to silence, "Nothings going to happen, Anakin, and you might as well marry her publicly. I don't know if you had noticed, but Obi-Wan was re-elected back on the Council and he's already broken all of our policies."
Anakin gaped at him.
Padme snickered at her lover's expense, "I couldn't find a babysitter last minute."
Mace nodded, "Your daughter will always be welcome here, and if you ever need a babysitter, the Temple creches would be more than happy to look after her until you business for the day is over. She could also stay the night or-"
"I will be raising my own child, Master Mace Windu," she said sharply.
He nodded, "Of course, that is always your choice, however, traditions are changing here and your youngling will not be the only one with a similar case."
Anakin asked cautiously, "So, there aren't going to be any repercussions for my… indiscretion?"
"No," Mace said, "however…"
Anakin tensed.
"I would ask a favour of you, Senator Skywalker."
Padme gazed at him knowingly, "A political favour, Master Windu?"
He nodded, "Yes."
Padme smiled, "Ah, a Jedi Knight finally speaking my language."
She seemed very pleased with this arrangement, and to Mace's eternal amusement, Anakin remained terribly confused.
Ahsoka was bent over laughing at Obi-Wan's retelling of Mace's manoeuvring of Anakin.
Luke didn't think it was that funny, after all, his birth father's stress about such a thing had led to destroying the galaxy, however, Luke couldn't stop the smile that grew from the sound of Ahsoka laughing.
"Are we going to be able to visit them soon?" Luke asked.
Obi-Wan nodded, "Yes, I've been tasked with helping the Council transition now that Mace has taken on the duties of Supreme Chancellor."
Luke thought it was pretty cool that it had been Padme, who had been the one to help Palpatine ascend to office, had also been the one to call a vote of no confidence to get him out of office.
Full circle and all that.
"Is Satine coming with us?" Luke asked.
"Yes, I am," she said, "Chakraborty has things handled here and my leaving him in charge should settle things in further."
"It's so weird to think I'm going to have a sister," Luke said.
"More like a niece at this point," Ahsoka remarked.
He shrugged, "Still, a bigger family than I had."
Ahsoka nodded, but before she could say anything else, Luke had a split second to feel the alert in the Force.
He pulled his lightsabre and caught the downward surge of two red lightsabres.
Asajj grinned at him as she bore down, he twisted out of the way.
He turned sabre ready, he glanced at his father who made no move to help, "What is this?"
Her smile brightened, "Your father hired me to assassinate you."
He had a half second to process that before she was at him.
She was fast.
But she wasn't as good as Obi-Wan.
He managed to get one of her sabres, but then there was another.
Feral wasn't as good as his brother, but as he didn't want to hurt them and they seemed like the assassination attempt was more than half feigned.
That Obi-Wan's paranoia had reached the point where Luke would actually believe him hiring assassinations, was probably not a good sign.
But Luke had taken Obi-Wan seriously throughout his training.
He wanted to be a Jedi.
He wanted to spare both Obi-Wan and Anakin from the burdens that had been placed on them.
He wanted to be the best version of himself he could.
Besides, Obi-Wan was right.
Despite what everyone else thought from watching his training, Obi-Wan was right.
Luke hadn't reached his limits yet.
The clashing of sabres was the distant ringing of chimes as he waited for his opening.
"Huh," Asajj said in a taunting tone, "Are you sure you're Kenobi's Padawan? I miss the bante-"
Luke Force pushed her, grabbing her remaining lightsabre from her hand as she was thrown back, Obi-Wan catching her before she was thrown into the wall at full speed.
Luke caught Feral's enraged renewal of blows with his sabre, but Feral wasn't that skilled. A kick to the Zabrak's gut as Luke Force ripped his sabre from his grip before holding his own orange sabre to the male's throat.
"By the stars, Luke," Ahsoka said, "that was…"
Luke grinned, her praise meaning the world to him.
Then Obi-Wan went into him for everything he had slipped on, every opening he had left.
After said lecture, Asajj shook her head, "Kenobi, if you ever wondered why Skywalker thought you were a pain in the ass, this would be why."
Luke smirked, "Bet Anakin couldn't beat you as quickly as I just did."
Asajj's own smirk twitched, "I suppose not, but that doesn't alter the fact that Kenobi is a pain in the ass."
Luke grinned, "He tries."
Obi-Wan shook his head, "What am I going to do with you?"
Ahsoka skipped up to Luke's side, that her legs had ever been injured was completely invisible in her gate lately, "Take us back to Coruscant where we can frustrate my Master."
Obi-Wan laughed.
Leia fit in the curve of Luke's arms like she always belonged, their Force signatures near blurring together in Obi-Wan's mindseye.
Maybe their spirits were still twins despite the distance of years between them.
The sight made Obi-Wan's chest burn.
"Are you alright, Sir?" Cody asked quietly beside him.
Obi-Wan nodded, "Sometimes, I used to think what would have happened if I had just pressed Anakin on his relationship with Padme. If I had just crossed boundaries and have been more family than mentor, if things would have been different."
Watching Anakin talk animatedly with Luke, filled with joy and happiness with his loving family all around him; Obi-Wan knew that things would have been different.
Luke passed Leia to Ahsoka who cooed at the youngling who immediately reached for one of her montrols.
Cody put a hand on his shoulder, "It wouldn't have been like this. The Sith didn't need Anakin to be successful."
Obi-Wan knew that he was right. Darth Vader had been able to hunt down the remaining of the Jedi, but truly, it had been Order 66 and Palpatine that had brought them down.
"Besides," Cody said, "this time you and I and all my brothers have a chance to start our own families now too."
As if Satine had heard Cody from across the room, she looked up from where she sat beside Padme and held her hand out to him.
He smiled, and stepped all the way into the room to take his place beside his wife.
When baby Leia was placed in his arms, Obi-Wan gently brushed a finger down her cheek. A few months older now, she didn't look as helpless as she had when he had last seen her in person. No, already her strong personality was shining through as she fought her blanket.
Obi-Wan helped her by allowing her arms freedom but wrapping the blanket under her arms instead.
She quieted, looking up at him with intense concentration. He let his senses open, reaching out to her within the Force.
Just like Luke, she shone so brightly, the purest brightest point in all the galaxy. Babies' emotional ranges weren't terribly complicated, but what he received from her was a deep sense contentment, of safety and belonging.
Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you are my only hope.
Obi-Wan glanced up at Anakin who looked happier than he had ever seen him before.
Obi-Wan turned his gaze back down to the babe in his arms and stroked her cheek again, "I don't think this is what you intended when you asked for my help, Princess."
She made a small sound, small hand finding his finger and squeezing with all the strength she could muster.
It made him smile.
Satine lady her arm over his to trace her hand over Leia's head. "You saved us all, Obi-Wan, that's more than anyone could have asked for."
Obi-Wan kissed Satine's cheek.
He had been unsure about whether or not he wanted a baby of his own, but he knew then that if they did have a child together, he would love that child as much as he loved Luke and Leia.
Yoda's death affected Dooku more than he thought it would have.
Yet, in the events that followed, Dooku saw the song that the Force had orchestrated.
Everything, absolutely everything Dooku had hoped the Jedi would become was coming to pass.
Pity, it had taken a civil war to bring about such a change.
Yet Dooku was content with the part he had played in all this. In the months that followed Yoda's death, he began to look beyond the stars he knew.
What else was there in the universe?
How much time did he have left to see it?
Grievous barged into the hanger that they were using a makeshift hideout.
The Separatist movement had succeeded where all the plans of the Sith lay demolished. Any planet who wanted to leave the Republic, now run by Master Windu, was free to do so with reasonable cause.
Somehow, Anakin Skywalker had caught scent of the plans and skeleton of the Death Star.
Which the GAR had blown to dust.
"Master!" Grievous exclaimed, "the Jedi have found us."
Dooku let go of his efforts to hide himself within the Force, opening up to find…
The very bright lights of Kenobi and Skywalker along with their Padawans.
"Kill them," Dooku said.
"Sir, please, we must run-"
"There will be no running this time," he said, "Go."
Dooku understood he was sentencing the cyborg to death, he also knew that the creature he had been would have preferred death to what had been done to him.
Dooku waited for Grievous to leave, before making his way to the hanger's roof.
It was unlikely that his Jedi grand and great-padawans would kill him, but in the off chance they did.
He wished to die beneath the open sky and flickering star light.
Dooku waited, gazing upward as he felt the shifting tides of the Force.
It was neither the Master nor Knight who found him in the end, it was the two Padawans.
He turned to them reaching for his own sabre lazily as the two Padawans lit their own sabre.
Dooku raised his brows, "There's a colour I have not seen before, Young Kenobi."
"Providing novelty," Padawan Ahsoka Tano said lightly, "it's what we do."
Padawan Luke Kenobi said nothing, just watching him closely.
Dooku could feel his focus within the Force, the boy was so powerful.
He lit his red sabre as Ahsoka charged him.
She was skilled, but he had trained Asajj for too long to be thrown off by a double assault of sabres.
Fending her off wasn't precisely easy, but the favour of this duel shifted as Luke joined it.
Bleeding Soresu.
Paired with Ahsoka's more offensive techniques they made a formidable pair.
"You both take after your Masters," he said in an even tone, pulling on the Force to help him.
He was able to take the floor out beneath Ahsoka, leaving just Luke Kenobi as she plunged into the high ceilinged hanger below.
There was no ripple in the Force, meaning the Togruta would be back with them shortly, so he pressed the attack, dispensing of any game playing.
Dooku was done with this galaxy, he was ready to explore the unknown regions.
To leave and never come back, he had done all he could for the Republic and the Order.
However, Luke proved the most formidable training.
"How much training do you have?" Dooku asked, the boy was incredibly quick and as the duel continued, he seemed to visibly improve somehow.
"Two years or so," Luke said, not out of breath at all.
Dooku twisted his blade in a way that should have taken the boy's hand off, but Luke was impossibly fast.
Two years?
He was better than Skywalker.
"What has Obi-Wan been teaching you?" Dooku asked even as he watched the boy with the pink sabre improve with every motion.
Was he…
"How to survive," Luke answered, switching to the offensive with a cross between Ataru and… Makashi?
Was he learning Dooku's as they fought?
Ahsoka came flipping back out of the hole that he had thrown her through, perfectly unarmed.
That single moment of distraction was his downfall.
Luke Kenobi sliced his sabre just above his grip, the blow back of which threw him rolling across the curved roof.
The weight of someone digging their knee into his kidney as they stopped his moment was on him before he could regain his bearings.
His arms were wrenched behind as Ahsoka cuffed him with Force dampening cuffs.
He was yanked back on his knees, looking up at Kenobi's son in astonishment.
After so many years at war, and it was two Padawans who defeated him?
One Padawan who was only two years into his training.
He sneered up at the boy, "Kenobi-"
The butt of the hilt met his skull.
And he knew no more.
Obi-Wan was watching from the sidelines as Anakin duelled General Grievous.
"Hey, Master, are you going to help?" he called.
Obi-Wan smirked, "I am helping, Anakin, I'm ensuring he doesn't run away."
"I feel like we should have brought tea," Cody lamented.
Obi-Wan sighed, "Your right, of course. Oh, and Cody, I wanted to discuss your joining the Council."
Cody shook his head, "No, my home is on Mandalore now."
Obi-Wan nodded, many of the Sky Corps and 501st had joined the Defense Corps, however, quite a few of the clones from other battalions had applied, and been granted, citizenship on Mandalore.
"How's the lady with the sniper rifle?"
Cody was wearing his helmet, but Obi-Wan knew his Commander was blushing nonetheless.
"Some assistance?" Anakin called.
Cody pulled his blaster and shot thrice into Grievous's exposed back. So focused on Anakin, Grievous didn't have time to defend himself.
Cody's aim was so precise that all three shots hit the single exposed spot Anakin had put in the cyborg's back plating.
Anakin through himself to the side as Grievous explored.
Cody turned back to Obi-Wan casually, continuing the discussion as if nothing had happened, "She upgraded my blaster."
Obi-Wan couldn't help but laugh at Anakin's exacerbated soot covered face.
"Oh, there are lazy Masters are," Ahsoka's voice called, "Really, Master is now the time to be tinkering with droids."
Anakin sprang to his feet, "We just killed General Grievous, what have you achieved, Snips?"
She grinned widely, her canines showing as Luke came up behind her, a large cloaked figure flung over his shoulder.
"Oh nothing," she snipped, "we just defeated and apprehended Count Dooku."
Obi-Wan and Cody laughed at Anakin's dumbfounded expression.
Obi-Wan went to take Dooku from Luke and said to his son, "I am so proud of you, Luke."
Ahsoka knelt before her Master in the Hall of Knighthood.
It was a bittersweet moment. She would be the first Knight in hundreds of years whose ascension to Knighthood Master Yoda would have no part at the Temple.
Yet as Anakin cut her Padawan beads, she felt as if her life was just beginning.
Luke, she felt had done more to defeat Dooku than she had though, he remained a Padawan.
When she remarked on this to him, he had simply shrugged, "I'm still learning a lot of the theoretical stuff. Don't worry about me, you earned this and I already think you're one of the best Jedi Knights in the Order."
His words had made her feel… warm.
As she stood, she caught Rex's gaze who grinned at her, one of her lightsabres raised in his hand.
She smiled and bowed her head to him, for the first time since her Padawanship, she was truly and wholeheartedly looking forward to the future.
AN: Thoughts, wishes, or feedback? One more chapter left!
The Darkness Between the Stars: Is my first non-time travel fic, (La gasp!), about an alternate reality where Sifo-Dyas survives his encounter with Dooku and the butterfly effect that has on the Clone Wars and more particular Obi-Wan who will leave the Jedi Order if it means stopping a Civil War ;D