Chapter 2 – Ad'ika

Jango had been a slave for a year, and never before had he seen the pirates show remorse, but this time, they didn't bother Jango as he tended to Obi-Wan, who, as Jango had predicted, wasn't independently mobile for three almost four days.

"You have to eat, Wan," he told him, careful to start using that name to keep the pirates from getting wind of his real name.

Obi-Wan's lips thinned as he looked at the potions.

"They aren't even ration bars," Jango said, almost pleaded.

Obi-Wan's lips thinned further, and then he asked, "Is there any tea?"

Jango couldn't stop his expression morphing as he all but explained, "You're sixteen! Why the kark would you want tea!?"

Obi-Wan flinched back from him, and Jango fought himself, fought his temper.

Obi-Wan was so mature in so many ways, but very vulnerable in others.

Jango stood and swallowing past a growl, he said in as calm a voice as he could manage after watching a child under his care flinch away from him, "Eat the food, all of it and I'll be back."

It was an effort not to storm out of the room, the excess anger translating for a need for violence.

Jango's buir, Jaster Mereel, had had a temper too, always aimed well, considering he had been at war for as long as Jango could remember, but Jango himself had always been filled with need for revenge. A revenge that was independent of Jaster's influences.

It's what drove him.

Obi-Wan, whether because of his nature or simply the trauma, had internalized his suffering rather than turning it outward.

Still, Jango knew he would have to make an effort to not show his temper to the foundling.

The pirates didn't drink tea but they had stolen from people who did and had 'guests' who did as well. Jango found a small store of it and began looking for something decent.

He soon discovered he didn't know the difference between good tea and bantha dung, and settled on finding a tin that smelled pleasant but not like a woman's perfume. He also grabbed a large mug, a strainer that had been in the crate with tea, and set the kettle in the kitchenette boiling.

Jango did not attempt to brew the tea, if his ad'ika wanted tea he better know how to do it himself. He came back with his mission accomplished to find that Obi-Wan had indeed eaten, but looked rather green.

He was pushing the last bite around his plate, his implacable posture slumped from the wariness of the last few days. But he perked up when Jango sat the mug and full kettle on the table.

"Finish the food, Wan," Jango said, uncaring, well mostly, if Obi-Wan was upset with him, he wouldn't watch the boy waste away.

Obi-Wan ate the last bite, hardly chewing, swallowing with a grimace before looking to Jango for permission.

Jango gestured for him to go ahead and refrained from any comments, until he saw how kriffing orderly the boy went about it, almost lovingly. "Who taught you how to make tea?"

"You didn't bring a cup for yourself," Obi-Wan redirected softly.

Jango's teeth gritted, "I don't like it. It wasn't the Zygerrians, was it?"

Obi-Wan looked up at him sharply, the briefest flashes of strong emotions before it was swept away behind a mask, "No, it was my grand- my grandfather."

That took the bite out of Jango's ire, "You must miss him."

Obi-Wan merely nodded.

"Do you have family waiting for you?"

Obi-Wan finished pouring the water, setting the kettle gently down, the scent of awakening herbs and blossoms filling their tight cabin before he responded, "I don't know. Do you?"

Jango felt his gaze narrow on the boy who kept his gaze on the swirling tea leaves, knowing that he shouldn't keep it against Obi-Wan for wanting to keep his story closer to the chest.

Information was one way a person could hurt you, and Obi-Wan Kenobi had been hurt quite enough in his life.

"I suppose I do, though I imagine they think I'm dead along with the rest of my men."

Obi-Wan looked up at him with interest then, a question in his gaze that he didn't direct to his lips.

Jango answered anyway, "You already know that I'm a Mandalorian."

He nodded.

"My people and I call ourselves the True Mandalorians. We have been fighting a terrorist group known as Death Watch, who have been fighting for dominance over the Mandalore system for decades," Jango explained.

Obi-Wan frowned, "Is it separate from the Clan Wars?"

Jango's attention sharpened on him, the pirates had been careful to keep him well away from any holo devices or generally unsupervised while at any stops, so he hadn't been able to find out any information about his people or system. So, he asked, "Clan Wars?"

Obi-Wan nodded, "I heard a lot of the visiting politicians talking about it, even a lot of the merchants and slavers. Since Mandalore is at the heart of a major hyperlane cross-routes, the civil war is disrupting trade. They say the longer the war goes on the less of Mandalore there will be left."

"Which clans?" Jango demanded.

Obi-Wan lifted the strainer from the tea, putting it gently on his cleared plate before wrapping his fingers around the mug, "From what I understood, all of them. It's a bloodbath. The Republic Senate washed their hands of it because they didn't know who to throw in with. I think the Senators hope they kill each other off so they can take Mandalore for themselves. They say only the Jedi really stand a chance of-"

"The Jetii are evil, Obi-Wan," Jango snapped, "If they get involved they will only make everything worse."

Obi-Wan's hands tightened on the mug and he looked down at his tea as if reprimanded and mumbled, "The Jedi are peacekeepers."

Jango laughed derisively, "Jahaatir, lies. The Jedi are the reason I am a slave today, the reason my men are dead, the reason Mandalore has been swept into a Clan War."

The boy sipped his tea, and Jango noted the trembling in his arms, maybe he could massage Obi-Wan's shoulder's tonight before bed to help with the muscle soreness. The trembling was concerning because Jango would have sworn he was almost fully recovered.

But his ad'ika's voice was steady when he asked, "How is it the Jedi's fault?"

"Because they backed Death Watch. We were this close, Wan," Jango held his fingers a centimeter apart, "this close to ending it all, but the Jetii had to stick their noses in it." He couldn't keep the sorrow and bitterness out of his voice, "And now my people are at war and I'm not even there to lead them."

"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan said.

Jango smiled at him. "Don't apologize, it isn't your fault. Besides. I might not have killed them all, but I made them pay for what they did."

Obi-Wan stilled, "Pay how?"

Jango smirked, leaning forward slightly, "I killed them. For my men they murdered because they failed to do their research, because they hypocrites who are just as bloodthirsty as anyone else in this karking galaxy to support those ori'dush, evil doers, who slaughter innocents for sport and conquest, I sent six of those so called Knights straight to hell."

Big blue eyes blinked at him, "How?"

Jango smiled slowly, "I strangled them to death with my bare hands. Neither the karking light-swords nor all the magic in the galaxy could have saved them. Dooku stopped me in the end, but I saw it on his face. I might have been the one to lose my men, my freedom, maybe even the war, but that proud bastard learned that he could fail too, that the Jetii aren't better than the rest of us."

Obi-Wan was speechless with awe.

oOo

Ex-Jedi Initiate, Obi-Wan Kenobi was going to be sick.

He had been a slave for a year and had seen more terrible things, experienced more terrible things than he could ever have imagined.

But every single time, he thought he couldn't be shocked anymore, he was all proven wrong.

Yes, he knew Jedi could die, could be killed.

But for one man to kill six Jedi Knights?

Six?

With his bare hands!?

Obi-Wan was truly horrified and terrified.

He had come to like Jango Fett a great deal. Sure, Obi-Wan knew to be wary of Mandalorians, it was something they were warned about as they got older because some Mandalorian warriors had been known to hunt Jedi or pick fights with them for sport. Obi-Wan was also extra wary of any 'old enemies of the Jedi Order' since meeting the Zygerrians, but he hadn't been afraid of Jango.

Until now.

But Obi-Wan was having a hard time making sense of the information thrown at him.

On one hand, Jango Fett was fellow slave and prisoner who had been taking care of him with great dedication and kindness like no one had shown him since leaving the Temple, and on the other hand, Jango Fett was a warrior and apparent warlord, who had, if he was to be believed, fighting against terrorists and had murdered six Jedi single handedly.

Well, more like with both hands, but by himself being the point.

Once upon a time, Obi-Wan would have denied any possibility that the Jedi could be on the wrong side of anything, but even discounting Xanatos, Obi-Wan had seen another side of the Senate.

The Benevolent Senate that Obi-Wan had been raised to believe was the upholders of democracy, justice, and peace in the galaxy.

But he had seen another side of the Senate on Zygerria, true, a few hundred Senators wasn't the sum total of the Senate of over ten thousand seats, but Zygerria was in the distant Outer Rim. Despite Zygerria's policies that protected politicians to keep commerce flowing while they fulfilled their fantasies and perversions, Obi-Wan had surmised from watching deals made, from conversations overheard, that what he had seen was a small portion of the criminality of the Senate.

There aren't many Coruscanti slaves, but there are many slaves on Coruscant.

Yes, Obi-Wan knew that the Senate was corrupted, therefore, it was only logical to assume that not all the missions the Jedi were sent to complete on Senate commands weren't free of corruption either.

Except, until just now, Obi-Wan hadn't exactly focused on that horrific truth when there was so much else to occupy his nightmares.

But Jango Fett had just admitted to murdering his kin and Obi-Wan needed to determine how much of a threat Fett was to him.

He had said Dooku had caught him in the end. Had Master Dooku, Grandmaster Yoda's once Padawan, enslaved another person?

When he finally spoke, his voice wasn't his own, "You hate them then? The Jedi?"

"Hate is too mild a word," Jango said dryly.

Obi-Wan fought not to swallow, sipping his cooling tea to hide his discomfort. He tried controlling his breath by reminding himself that he had never planned to tell Jango or anybody else that he had been raised at the Jedi Temple, that he was, in fact, a Force Sensitive.

Force Sensitives sold for a lot on the black market, and any Force Sensitive tied to the Jedi doubly so, it's why he wore this collar, because they wanted to hurt him, to dictate his life, to ensure that the secrets he witnessed at the sides of traitorous politicians who stole the good faith and funds from their people never saw the light of the Coruscanti Sun.

Obi-Wan had used every lesson he had ever had, his every bit of cunning, to erase himself from attention from the senators, to play dumb, to never mention the Jedi, to fake his accent at times, to make it seem as if the Zygerrians were lying about his being a Jedi Padawan.

He had been the one to cut his own lock of hair that they had inappropriately braided to mark him as a Padawan.

The Zygerrian had made him hurt for his refusal to play along, but the Senators had short attention spans and the collar made it impossible for Obi-Wan to prove himself a Force Sensitive one way or another.

He had also refused to give them his name.

No name, no Force, and apparently, as they seemed unable to contact Xanatos, a few months ago, they had finally given up trying to convince others he was a Force sensitive, much less a Jedi. Finally, the Zygerria had begun treating him like just another slave, valued only for his youth, health, and Coruscanti origin.

Because of the latter, he had still been made to serve the Senators, but Obi-Wan had stopped cursing that bit of his fate, instead committing names and faces and conversations to memory.

If he ever got back to his people in one piece, even if he didn't have the Force, he wouldn't be made useless to them. And it was this thought that helped ease Obi-Wan's tension around Jango.

Jango wouldn't find out what the Zygerrians hadn't, and while Obi-Wan wasn't happy with Jango killing Jedi, he could maybe understand hate even if he had been raised to be ever wary of it.

Xanatos was the ultimate example of why hate and selfishness was so dangerous to give into for a Force user.

"This was last year," Jango said as Obi-Wan continued to say nothing, "I've been with these pirates ever since. I would have found a way off by now, but there are a lot of them, and being pirates, we spend a lot of time travelling through empty space. I warn you; life as a pirate is not as exciting as it sounds."

Obi-Wan couldn't tell if Jango had a poor sense of humour or if he was just this rusty talking to another person. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan smiled at his effort, at the man's obvious concern for his well-being.

Even if Jango Fett, who had been playing nursemaid, might very well strangle him to death if he ever learned that Obi-Wan too was a Jetii, decided to put aside his doubts and trust the Mandalorian as much as he was able within the bounds of this new life.

"I will curb my disappointment," Obi-Wan said with foe regretfulness, "Pirating always seemed like the most glamorous of professions."

Jango chuckled, "You'll be okay, ad'ika." And reached forward to ruffle Obi-Wan's hair, not like a pet, but like the way a few of the Masters and older Padawans Obi-Wan had grown up with.

Like they were family.

That bit of connection, of humanity, warmed Obi-Wan more than the tea.

oOo

Jango found Obi-Wan very hard to gage, especially for a sixteen year old. He was very self-contained, very controlled, but even still, Jango's heart lightened at seeing the brightness return to the boy's blue-grey eyes.

He didn't want to ruin the moment, but he also didn't want to keep claiming the kid as his own without Obi-Wan being aware. It was the Way of the Mandalorian, not just to take children in, but to return them home if need be.

So he ventured, deciding to go the long way around, "So, you said you had a brother?"

"Biologically?" he asked, "Only the one that I know of. But I never knew him well. On Coruscant, however, I grew up with a lot of brothers and sisters."

Jango's heart tightened, kriff, it felt selfish to be upset that the boy did have a family, though he knew it would be no less an honour to return this bright, warrior heart to his home. "And your parents?"

Obi-Wan shook his head, "I don't know them, I was raised in an orphanage that doubled as a school. I do want to go back, to see my teachers again, but I'm too old to go back to stay really. Sixteen is legal age."

Jango felt his chest puff up, a surge of guilty joy surging through him, "You are still a minor."

Obi-Wan raised a brow at him, "Sixteen is legal on Mandalore too."

"True," Jango conceded, admittedly worried how small the boy was for his age. "But you're never too old for family. Come on, now, you need to get some rest."

"All I have been doing is resting. Aren't there like jobs for us to do?"

"No, and I know it was necessary for your scheme to get off Zygerria, and I am very impressed by it and by you but don't offer those scum anything freely."

"But-"

"No buts," Jango declared, "Bed, now."

Obi-Wan shook his head, downed the rest of his tea, and then stood on his own strength and went to the refresher.

Jango cleaned up and made the bunk for Obi-Wan, before laying out his own mat. He sat it near the door to be the first line of defense if any of the pirates got drunk and did something stupid.

Obi-Wan came back out, he hesitated as he looked at the bunk and Jango who was already seated on the mat.

Jango pointed a finger at him, "Bed."

"But I'm feeling better, you don't have to keep-"

"Kenobi, bed, now."

Obi-Wan sighed, "Fine, good night, Dad."

Despite the obvious sarcasm, Jango couldn't stop the wide grin that appeared on his face before he corrected, "It's pronounced, Buir, to you, ner ad'ika."

He raised both pale brows at him this time, "What does ner ad'ika mean?"

"It's Mandalorian for my son, Obi-Wan."

The boy's cheeks went slightly pink, and he climbed into bed without another word.

Knowing he had pushed it, and not caring all that much, Jango was grinning when he reached to flick off the lights.

Jango didn't know if everything would work out, but he did know that Obi-Wan was the single best thing to cross his horizon since his enslavement, and maybe, if he were honest, the best thing to happen to him since before meeting Jaster Mereel.

So instead of thinking of his people setting each other a flame, of the Clan Wars, a civil war no doubt decimating the system he called home, the people he had sworn to protect; he thought instead of how he might come to deserve the title of buir to his ad'ika.

As they both settled, Obi-Wan asked into the dark, "Jango?"

"Hmm?"

"How do I say thank you in Mandalorian?"

"Vor entye, it literally means 'I accept a debt' but you owe me no debts," Jango answered.

"Vor entye," Obi-Wan said anyway.

"Ner ijaa," Jango replied, "It was my honour, ad'ika."

oOo

AN: Thoughts, hawks, or feedback, pretty please?