AN: So I am watching the Clone Wars which is why the fic, The Astute Panic of Mandalore was born, also more Mandos, crack, and Obi-Wan, and I am reading the Apprentice books which is why I am writing Return of the Father. Both fics get slow updates because I have yet to reach key plot developments yet, plus they aren't as serious as this fic. All the same, I appreciate any and all feedback. Much love to you all!

Chapter 27 - The Last Jedi

The tea was poured before Obi-Wan finally asked, "You didn't come back to bed last night."

Rey didn't look at him, "I know."

Obi-Wan exchanged a glance with Qui-Gon.

Qui-Gon had had a theory when Rey first moved to the Temple, that her almost everpresent happy demeanour came from her being happy. It was something Obi-Wan had come to appreciate because when she was upset she reverted to this quiet shadow of herself.

She became someone you might pass on the street and never notice. Within the first year of knowing her, Obi-Wan would have said that it was impossible for her to be like this, but the Obi-Wan who had lived with her for almost eight years now knew that this quieter Rey was probably who she had been on Tatooine.

Someone who was self-sufficient, slightly vicious when approached, and utterly alone. Since learning how to shield properly, when she got like this it was as if she could fold herself out of existence entirely.

If it was for the joint Padawan and Master bond between them, he wouldn't have been able to sense her at all.

"Okay," he said, "why didn't you come back last night?"

She sipped her tea, as if mulling the question over, then she said slowly, "Dreams. I couldn't sleep."

"Like the carrion nightmares?"

She looked to Qui-Gon, "You told him?"

Qui-Gon didn't back down, "You should have told him yourself the night it happened, Padawan."

She shook her head, "But-"

"I am not going to be hurt by nightmares," Obi-Wan told her firmly.

She glared at him, "You sure about that?"

"Yes," he stated, "I'm sure."

"Alright, I had a dream," there was fire in her hazel eyes, "that Dooku went to the Dark Side, chopped off my arm and that Council hated me. Then you and I were fighting, and you chopped off my other three limbs before you leaving me to burn to death on the edge of a river of lava."

Obi-Wan gaped at her, and he could feel Qui-Gon's shock as well.

And Rey must have timed it because Ahsoka came skipping in then, "Good morning Masters, Rey!"

"Good morning, Padawan Tano," Obi-Wan answered before saying to Rey, "I would never do that."

She put down her cup and rubbed her face, "I know, I know, I don't really think it was me, it just… it hurt. I went for a run in the city."

Ahsoka sat down between Rey and Qui-Gon.

Qui-Gon gave Rey a hard look even as he poured Ahsoka a cup of tea, "You know that Obi-Wan wouldn't do that."

"Do what?" Ahsoka asked.

And because no one wanted to share this particular tidbit with her, Obi-Wan gave Rey a look that said, quite clearly, this conversation was far from over.

There were truthfully very few perks in being a part of the High Jedi Council.

The respect it garnered was certainly one, as was being the chance to get to know almost every Knight in the Order. The down sides were quite more numerous, however, on the whole, Dooku rather liked it, as it allowed him an illusion of more control. He could help make actual change in the Order, not least because Council was finally willing to bend a little.

But today, he wasn't sure if bending would be enough.

"It is a Sith Shrine. Our Temple is on a Sith Shrine," Kit Fisto repeated.

It was a conversation they had been having over the course of these long weeks, ever since the Shadows and Sages had finalized their report.

Plo Koon folded his arms as he said, "We should move the Jedi elsewhere."

"And surrender our home on Coruscant?" Ki-Adi Mundi asked.

So far, Dooku had remained silent on the issue, one, because he knew how stubborn his fellow Council members could be -liked the to wear themselves down-, and two, because he knew what he was about to suggest was not going to go over well. "If only there was a world hospital toward the Jedi that could smoothly handle the influx of population."

They all looked at him.

Sifo-Dyas was fighting not to smile, "Serreno would certainly be a change."

Mace unfolded his legs and leaned forward, and said, in his typical contrary nature, "No."

Kit Fisto shook his head, but not, apparently, at Dooku, "It may be a very good thing, getting the Jedi away from the core worlds."

Plo Koon nodded, "Agreed, and I would rather have the Jedi centred away from the politicians if they go through with this war they have been alluding to with the Separatists."

"Of course, that wouldn't be a problem if it hadn't been due to certain acts on Serreno," Adi Gallia remarked coolly.

Dooku responded without sarcasm, "Every government should be challenged if it fails its people. That the Senate's response is to threaten civil war only highlights their corruptions. The Republic must stand for the betterment of the galaxy otherwise it does more harm than good. I may have one of the figures in the Separatists movement, but I wasn't the cause of it."

Sifo-Dyas nodded, "My chief worry is what we are doing to ourselves if we remain. We can only imagine what the long exposure to a Sith energy convergence has been doing to generations of Jedi. We know the stones of the Temple itself have been touched and Rey is not the only one who has shown signs of this affecting their visions. And choosing Serreno would be a statement to the Republic. Kit is right, the galaxy believes that Jedi are bais to the core worlds, and while we may be allies of the Senate, we represent more than that."

"We should bring it to a vote," Depa suggested, "as to whether or not we should consider building another Temple. We need to be at the Senate in-" she stopped herself, frowning at the empty chairs, "Where are Masters Piell, Allie, and Tinn?"

No one in the room had forgotten their absence, but in the last two hours or so, they had forgotten their tardiness.

Mace pulled back a panel on his chair to try redialling them.

The three council members were on Kamino, attempting, again, to slow the cloners from reproducing further clones for a not large, yet still sizable army.

Someone picked up.

A holographic image came of Tinn sprawled on the ground with a metallic foot squeezing down on his head, Even Piell hung limply in one of the thing's four arms, on his other side, he held Stas Allie by the throat. In the creature's two other hands, it held lightsabers.

It laughed at them in a rough voice before coughing, "Jedi, how nice of you to join us."

Dooku's heart had nearly frozen in his chest.

Three Council members, three, and this cyborg had caught them. It should have been impossible, but there were those even among the Council who were too confident to react in time to a surprise attack.

"What do you want?" Mace asked, Yoda was a statue to his side.

"For you to see the fate of the Jedi," it said to them, rotating its mechanical hands, cutting Saesee Tinn through the back, and bisecting Even Piell.

Galia and Mundi bit back sounds of pain as the Council members either lurched to their feet or grew evermore still.

Dooku himself stood, slowly, deliberately, standing before the image of the creature that would be destroyed for its crimes, "Who are you?"

"Sith-" Stas Allie managed in a choking breath as the mechanical talons squeezed down harder.

"I am General Grievous, of the Separatist Army."

Dooku's mind spun, this was a ploy, a ploy to get the Jedi involved in the growing war that they should have had no part in.

This creature, Grievous, had to be a part of the Republic, or at least hired by someone who would benefit from the war. Systems who were trying to legally separate would not have dared attack the Jedi for fear that the Jedi would grow unsympathetic to their plight.

"I am Count Dooku of Serreno, what is it you seek by attacking Jedi Masters?"

Coughing laughter, "Freedom from the likes of you." The snap of Gallia's neck rang through the room as the hologram clicked off.

There was a long silence.

"Time for mourning, have we not," Yoda said gravely.

"Who do we send?" Dooku asked, fully ready to go himself.

"I'll go," Depa said.

"Along with Mor and Ventress," Mace allowed, "Though I fear it will be too late to intersect him."

"The Senate is starting their session," Yarael Poof said, "They will confront us. Use this pain against us. They will announce to the galaxy what we have yet to tell our own, there is no time."

"We will not be pushed to openly grieve," Mace countered.

"They will expect us to acknowledge merit to their war claims," Sifo-Dyas said.

"No," Dooku stated, "this we must label as an internal affair. We will not be forced to war to avenge three of our own."

"Against war, we must side," Yoda said firmly.

Mace sighed, again typing into his chair, he made a recording to be sent to every member of the Order.

"Three Council members, Masters Saesee Tiin, Even Piell, and Stass Allie have been assassinated on a mission. The individual has identified himself as a lightsaber wielding cyborg going by the name General Grievous. Wherever you may be, keep your wits about you. There is a chance that the Jedi are being targeted to further inflame galactic war. We will not honour our fallen by allowing ourselves to become instruments of war. The Jedi remain loyal to the Force above all else. May the Force be with you."

Dooku sighed, knowing that what would follow this attack would define or break the Order.

oOo

Apparently, the Chancellor had not expected the Council to take such an active stance on the attack.

Dooku stood on the Serenno platform, Sifo-Dyas at his side while Plo, Kit, Yoda and Mace stood on a Jedi designated platform.

Chancellor Sheev droned on and left his finale to be the assassination of the three Council members on Kamino.

Sifo-Dyas exchanged a look with Dooku, how had he known?

Of course, if it had been the first they had heard of the attack, they might have been too distracted to answer that question. As it was, when the Jedi platform came to the centre of the stadium, Mace's calm words were not what the galaxy had been anticipating.

"On the matter of the three Masters who were killed in this attack, it remains uncertain whether or not the creature responsible was an agent of the Separatist movement. And the Order remains firmly against galactic war."

Sheev smiled at him, "Yet you will fight against this General, will you not?"

Sifo-Dyas spoke softly to Dooku, "I'm glad that we can publicly despise him now."

And indeed, the look Mace gave the Chancellor was openly hostile as he said, "The Jedi will hold the individuals responsible for this crime, not entire systems that are asking for fair trade that could support their populations."

"But you will be fighting against a Separatist," Sheev pressed.

Plo Koon spoke up then, "The Jedi are willing to fight against those who believe that clone soldiers is anything short of slavery."

"The Republic needs an army," the Chancellor retorted, "And if the Jedi will not protect us-"

"The Jedi will not support any system using clones or military droids," Mace interjected, there were some gasps among the crowd as the Jedi stopped pretending they knew how to play politics. Mace was about as subtle as a hammer when it came down to it. "The Order remains adamant that civil war is not the way."

"The Jedi Order belongs under command of the Republic Senate," Chancellor Sheev said, waving Mace off as if he were a buzzing fly.

Mace, while a senior member of the Jedi Council, had a particularly nasty temper once inflamed. Even as the platform retracted from the centre, his voice filled the stadium, "The Jedi Order remains loyal to the Force, we will not betray our beliefs to fulfil some warmongering attempt to squeeze out authoritarian power and wealth from a suffering galaxy."

Chancellor Sheev Palpatine laughed at them, "The Jedi Order will remain loyal to the Republic, as it has for thousands of years."

Dooku smiled as he felt the tangible shift in the Force. Even Sheev must have realized he misspoken even as his laughter was picked up by others in the Senate.

Dooku, Sifo-Dyas, and Qui-Gon had been trying to get the Jedi to break from its dogged loyalty to the Republic for decades. But finally, Mace and Yoda seemed to have been shown enough evidence that the times had changed, the Republic was no longer what it had once been.

Even at this distance, Dooku could see the hurt pride of Mace and Yoda.

Pride was rarely a good thing, but in this instance, their hurt pride would be used for a beneficial end.

Across the Senate stadium, Dooku met Sheev's gaze and smirked.

Check, you bastard.

Qui-Gon was certain whatever mission they were about to be sent on was going to be low priority, and wasn't even sure if the Council had remembered the scheduled meeting.

Sure enough, when he and Rey were admitted entrance, no one, not even Yoda, was seated among the Council as they argued.

Mor and Asajj had already been sent to Kamino with Depa.

"The clones number at two hundred thousand troops, and more growing by the day," Sifo-Dyas was saying.

"Would Mandalore take them in?" Kit asked, "Considering their relation to Jango Fett."

"The clones are of little concern if we-" Dooku began only for Rey to speak up.

"No!"

Everyone turned to her, Qui-Gon almost staggered at the press of her in the Force as she threw open her shields. Her presence rivalled all in the room. Her expression was raw, filled with hurt disappointment as she stared at Dooku.

"They are sentients!" she yelled at him.

Dooku stared at her, Rey had never raised her voice at him, not ever. He looked to Qui-Gon for a clue, but Qui-Gon had no answer for what had triggered this emotional response in Rey. She had been sombre all day, this rush of energy was jarring.

She went on, "The Clone Wars matter. This could break the Republic and you say the clones don't matter? They are people, living beings forced to fight for what will be an Empire!"

Qui-Gon felt his brows raise, that was quite the leap, wasn't it?

Dooku, however, seemed more distressed with having his grandpadawan so furious with him rather than the content of her words.

"Rey, please, I did not mean to imply-" he tried to soothe.

"I heard you and you don't know what your mistakes could lead to," she said, looking as if she were on the brink of tears. Shaking her head, she turned and sprinted from the room.

Dooku gave Qui-Gon shocked eyes, but he could only turn and follow after his wayward Padawan.

Rey never lost her temper at the Council, least of all Dooku whose approval she sometimes sought more than Qui-Gon's.

With her shields open, she was easy to follow, and she didn't hide, going straight to his own rooms.

By the time he caught up to her, she was cross legged sitting at the end of his bed.

"Padawan?" he asked cautiously, sitting in front of her. "What is the meaning of this reaction? Surely you realize that you took my Master's words out of context."

She shook her head, "You don't understand."

"What don't I understand."

"You will think I'm insane." She raised her knees to her chest, hugging herself, "I think I'm crazy. I thought I could ignore it, I thought… but the Clone Wars happened." She looked at him, her eyes wild, "You don't know what danger the Jedi are in."

"Then explain it to me."

She closed her eyes, "I thought I could, it wouldn't matter if I said nothing, I know too little. I don't know how it happened, how any of it happened, but -but I remember the stories, stories that don't exist here."

Qui-Gon was, too say the least, extremely confused. He tried to feel, to sense the direction of Rey's thoughts.

But all he could feel was her shame and panic. He also felt Obi-Wan hesitating by the still open doorway, and Qui-Gon sent a silent thought for him to remain where he was. As close as they were, Rey sometimes liked to sugar-coat things for Obi-Wan's sake. At the end of the day, however, she was Qui-Gon's Padawan, and she respected that he was her Master.

"Speak, Padawan, I do not believe you are insane," he stated, even if the Force itself was humming around her like an agitated hive of bees. Something was at the precipice of changing.

She bit her lip, and then her words burst out of her, "I'm not from Tatooine."

Qui-Gon froze, dread filling his gut. He couldn't take another Xanatos story, if she was about to tell him that she was really from some wealthy planet, or even lived the majority of her life on Naboo and had been lying about her background as a scavenger, he was going to lose a part of his heart.

He had trusted Rey with everything, given her the full faith that Obi-Wan had taught him to have in his Padawans again.

"I'm from Jakku."

Qui-Gon's thoughts stumbled over themselves as he tried to recall a system by that name. His thoughts recalled a desert planet he knew only from a memorized list he had learned as a youngling. It was smaller than Tatooine, less important, and if possible, a less hospitable landscape of sand dunes.

"Why hide that?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Because I can't explain how I got to Tatooine," she said. "Months before you showed on a broken Nubian ship, I woke in a shallow cave on Tatooine when the last thing I could remember was going to sleep in my shelter on Jakku."

Months before his arrival… why did that strike a chord in him? Hadn't something happened all those years ago.

"Rey, I still don't understand why you couldn't have shared this with us before or what it has to do with the Clone Wars."

She held herself very still as she said, "Because I wasn't just left on a different planet, I was left in a different timeline. Master Jinn, I am from sixty-six years in the future. For me, the Republic fell decades ago, for me, the Clone Wars were fact and the Jedi were little more than a myth."

Qui-Gon stared at her, speechless, then remembered the disturbance in the Force that he had felt months before meeting Rey.

He had been meditating at the time, and the Force had sung to him. It was part of the reason why when he met her, he had known she was meant to join them.

Obi-Wan felt Rey's words like gears clicking into place. Finally, an explanation for all the times Rey had fallen quiet at some unknown trigger and all those times she had cut herself off mid-sentence. She was a time traveller.

And the Force itself had brought her back.

Sure, did it sound crazy? Absolutely, but if one had seen the Council's reactions, or even Qui-Gon's reaction to the Great Disturbance, all those years ago, very little would seem impossible.

After all, the Force was limitless.

Obi-Wan remained outside the door, Rey having yet to sense him, her own emotions gripping her to distraction.

Qui-Gon said soothingly, "I believe you, Rey. I believe the Force led you to where you were meant to be. But may I ask why it is the idea of these Clone Wars that finally persuaded you to confide in me?"

"I don't know much, I just know that the Clone Wars took place in these years. It led to the fall of the Republic, and in its place rose an Empire."

Obi-Wan's blood went cold, that did not sound good.

"And where were the Jedi in all of this?" their Master asked her.

"I don't know how it happened, I literally do not know any of the details. I only know that the last Jedi was a Knight named Luke Skywalker who fought in the Rebellion that overthrew the Galactic Empire."

"Well, the Jedi are a secretive lot. I suppose this explains why you didn't know anything about the Order."

"Master, I think the Jedi Order fell with the Republic," she said, almost too softly for Obi-Wan to hear.

"Rey, I really don't see how that is possible. Jedi knights do not just appear out of nothing, your time displacement aside, this Knight Skywalker must have been trained by the Order. After all, he was the only Jedi you knew of," Qui-Gon reasoned.

"No, Master Jinn, Luke wasn't the only Jedi I knew of, he was known as the last Jedi."

Obi-Wan pressed himself back against the wall, his legs going weak as he recalled the look on Rey's face when they had first told her there were ten thousand Jedi in the galaxy.

He put a hand over his heart.

She had looked at him as if Qui-Gon had told her their family, their entire people, had died.

The Jedi Order fell with the Republic.

He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to believe, but he believed in Rey. Trusted her with his life.

He pressed his hand harder to his chest as if he could keep his heart from breaking.

The last Jedi.

That cursed soul, if the Jedi perished, Obi-Wan could only hope he fell with them.

AN: Thoughts, reactions, or feedback?