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Chapter Text

Obi-Wan sighed, opening a single eye to see the now familiar presence of his master in front of him.

The force ghost was hovering there, waiting impatiently for Obi-Wan to give him his attention the way Qui-Gon was wont to do.

“Hello Qui-Gon.”

“You’ve become much better at meditating,” Qui-Gon noted. “I remember when you were young you struggled.”

Obi-Wan shrugged in acknowledgment, he had been a child, a teenager with too much energy who was still learning how to work through his emotions. He had learned, eventually. By the end of his apprenticeship he’d been capable in that, though it seemed Qui-Gon was less inclined to remember that Obi-Wan was not still the struggling thirteen year old he had once been.

“You were a bright child. So very… light. There was a reason Yoda did what he did, a reason he chose you.” 

Obi-Wan frowned, he knew now about the subtle strings that had been pulled to set him and Qui-Gon on their path together, but he certainly hadn’t known then. It had been a difficult to realize that the Grandmaster that he’d looked up to his entire life had used Obi-Wan like a piece on a dejarik board.

Obi-Wan knew the reasons now, could accept that Yoda was not perfect, and had loved Qui-Gon enough—had been attached—that risking and sacrificing Obi-Wan had been worth it to the older Master.

“You needed a responsibility, a tie to the Order.”

Qui-Gon tilted his head in the way that had often meant he thought Obi-Wan had missed the objective and needed to look deeper. It was a gesture Obi-Wan had been very familiar with. “I needed far more than that.”

Obi-Wan frowned, because Qui-Gon had that same look about him that he’d often worn just before he’d done something Obi-Wan considered deeply unwise.

“Master Yoda and I have been speaking. We believe we might have a plan.”

“A plan,” Obi-Wan repeated, he could feel a deep uneasiness building in his chest. “You and Yoda have come up with a plan. A plan for what?”

Qui-Gon just smiled. Obi-Wan knew this smile too. It was the I follow the will of the Force smile. The trust me, I know best smile—that didn’t actually mean that Qui-Gon knew best, just that he thought he did.

It had landed Obi-Wan in trouble more often than Obi-Wan could count, but Obi-Wan had never died, so Qui-Gon had always seemed to consider that a satisfactory result, no matter what else might have happened.

“When one becomes one with the Force there are… many things a person can do that would otherwise be impossible.”

Obi-Wan frowned, because that sounded ominous, and Obi-Wan felt a twinge of uneasy.

“What exactly is this plan?”

Qui-Gon smiled. “You saved me, Obi-Wan. Yoda and I think you can do it again.”

Obi-Wan didn’t know what plan Yoda and Qui-Gon had cooked up, but he suddenly knew, without a doubt, that he was once again just a piece on the dejarik board.

“You won’t know what’s going on, but you don’t need to worry. I’ll be there to keep you safe.”

Obi-Wan felt a moment of horror, and then the Force was screaming around him, swelling up around him like a wave, crashing around him, pulling him into it’s depths. He was drowning, drowning, drowning. 

He knew nothing at all.

-_-

Vader was on the bridge of his ship when it happened. 

For one blinding, terrifying moment, he felt the bond he shared with his old master vanish. The bond was fragile from Obi-Wan’s constant attempts to sever it, only strong enough to assure Vader that Obi-Wan was still alive, hiding somewhere out there in the galaxy.

And now it was gone.

It shouldn’t have mattered, if anything, it should have given him cause to rejoice. Yet Vader couldn’t feel anything like joy, all he felt was that old, familiar fear of losing his master rise up, followed by the now constant rage that had taken root in his soul.

Someone dared take his Master from him? His Master was his, even if only his to destroy.

Then, just as suddenly as the bond had disappeared, it was back.

Weak, fragile, and for the first time in years slips of emotion slipping through from the other side.

Vader froze, uncomprehending. 

His master—former master—had shields of kyber. And yet now Vader could sense him, fear, confusion, loss.

Vader felt a moment of hesitation, was this a trap? His former master was clever, too clever by half for Vader to consider anything less than dangerous.

But the bond was open. Vader was stronger than Anakin Skywalker had ever been, but he couldn’t resist.

He had barely nudged his way through the bond when Obi-Wan was latching on, fear and confusion and need pouring through.

Something was wrong. Strange. It was so clearly Obi-Wan. Vader would know the feel of Obi-Wan in his mind in any condition. Except there was something almost incoherent about the sense of Obi-Wan

It was a trap. It had to be.

Vader had never let that stop him before, and it wouldn’t stop him now. He had only grown more powerful since the last time he’d seen his Master.

He could handle anything his master might think to do.

-_-

Obi-Wan shivered as he slipped into an empty alleyway. 

Ever since he’d woken up a few days ago, on the desert planet of Tatooine, with no clue how he’d gotten there—he’d gone to sleep in the cuddle pile in the creche and woken in the desert—everything had been strange. He’d been running and hiding from what felt like everyone and everything. 

The Force seemed to be trying to tell him something, but he didn’t understand what it was trying to say. Normally he’d go to his creche master or Master Yoda, but neither of them were available.

He wanted to be back at the temple, safe with his clan mates, where he could hide away from the darkness of his dreams in the soft warmth of the cuddle pile.

Everything was wrong. Strange, confusing, dark. And there was no one for Obi-Wan to turn to.

“You must hurry, Obi-Wan.”

Except for the ghost that was haunting him. 

“I am hurrying,” Obi-Wan told him quietly. Feeling silly for talking to a ghost he didn’t think anyone else saw.

Obi-Wan did not like the ghost, no matter how kindly the ghost smiled. Obi-Wan knew, somehow, that the ghost was behind Obi-Wan’s situation. He didn’t know how he knew that, he just knew.

Obi-Wan had tried to escape the ghost at first, but there was very little he could do to run from a ghost that could apparently appear anywhere it pleased.

So for now Obi-Wan was following it’s directions as long as it led him in the back direction. He just had to make it to Coruscant, surely one of the masters would know how to get rid of the ghost.

And the darkness. They’d know what to do about that. The whole galaxy felt dark, but worse, there was a darkness in his mind, tugging at him constantly, trying to wrap itself around him, like a hug but wrong. 

He scurried down another street, feeling strangely exposed despite the large cloak he’d found to wrap around himself.

“Halt.”

Obi-Wan froze as two men in white armor entered the street ahead of him. 

The need to run was almost overpowering, a fear he didn’t fully understand screaming through him. He froze where he stood eyeing the blasters in their hands warily, knowing somehow that these two would shoot him.

He wanted to go back to the Temple. 

One of the armored figures moved closer to him, hands on his blaster. “Take off the cloak.”

Obi-Wan bit his lip, trying to build up his courage as he slipped the cloak off him. The first armored figure grasped the cloak, looking at it carefully as though it might tell him something important.

The other raised a comm to their helmet. “There’s only a child, Lord Vader.”

The one holding the cloak looked up. “The cloak belongs to a traitor.”

Obi-Wan felt his eyes widen at that. “I found it! It’s not mine.”

The one who had been speaking into the comm was listening to something, before nodding and putting the comm away. “Come with us, Lord Vader wants to see you.”

Obi-Wan glanced around, hoping the ghost was around. He may not like the ghost, but at least the ghost was somewhat familiar.

The ghost wasn’t there. Go figure.

He tried to remember what his classes had taught him about talking to Lords. He was pretty sure he was supposed to bow, but there were so many different types of bows and he was only an initiate, not even a senior initiate yet. He didn’t know all the bows yet.

The darkness seemed to be growing stronger and he shivered, the cold seemed to be burrowing into his skin.. “Can I have the cloak back?” he asked, tentatively.

The figure holding the cloak froze, turning and Obi-Wan could feel his incredulousness in the Force. 

“It’s cold,” he explained earnestly. “I want to make a good impression on the Lord, and I won’t if I’m shaking.” If he made a good impression, then maybe this Lord would help him get home back to the temple.

“Keep moving.”

Obi-Wan was smart enough to recognize that as a no.

He followed behind the two figures, noting that the regular civilians ducked their heads and scurried to the sides of the street.

He’d always known that the Temple was not like the rest of the galaxy, that it was safe and warm, but what he’d heard of the rest of the galaxy hadn’t sound like this. It hadn’t sounded like anything he’d seen so far.

He hadn’t thought the galaxy was this dark.

He could see a figure up ahead, tall and imposing, covered completely in black armor.

Obi-Wan shivered, slowing down. He didn’t think he wanted to get closer.

The tug in his mind, the darkness, it was a person.

“Keep moving.” One of the white armored figures nudged him, and Obi-Wan stumbled a little, he could hear his own breathing, too loud as it echoed in his ears.

The figure in black was striding forwards and Obi-Wan found his feet freezing, terror freezing his limbs.

If Obi-Wan thought his own breathing had been loud, it was drowned out by the mechanical click and hiss of this figure’s perfectly even breathing.

The escort that had taken his cloak held it out. “Lord Vader, we’ve brought the child.”

The dark figure ignored the soldier, and Obi-Wan knew, somehow, that behind his mask that Lord Vader was staring at him.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath before bowing the same way he would to one of the Masters in the temple. “Lord Vader.”

The figure didn’t answer, even as Obi-Wan straightened. Obi-Wan kept his head down, trying to peek up through his eyelashes as subtly as he could. “What’s your name?”

Obi-Wan swallowed. “Obi-Wan Kenobi, sir.”

There was a spike of undefinable emotion in the Force. It was dark, Obi-Wan could tell that much, almost foreign. A wanting, a need that had twisted unrecognizably.

Beside him one of the armored soldiers stiffened. 

The Force rang with a dozen different warnings, none of which Obi-Wan could understand.

“How did you come to be here, Obi-wan?”

“I don’t know, sir. I was in the Jedi Temple, and then I woke up—”

The world twisted around him, the Force screaming, screaming, screaming, and Obi-Wan was FALLING, water coming closer and closer, everyone he knew dead, dying, cast in shadows that hid them from even themselves, the light was being extinguished all at once—

A blaster was coming up and Obi-Wan moved before he even recognized what his body was doing, diving for the ground. Blaster fire passed just above his head and he could feel the heat of him, he rolled, but there was no more blaster fire. He poked his head up to see both white-armored soldiers hanging in the air, their hands around their throats.

Lord Vader had a hand up in front of him, as though he was choking an invisible neck, he was radiating hatred, menace pouring off of him.

Obi-Wan’s gaze turned back to the two soldiers, the Force around them fading in and out as they choked though they were—

“STOP!” he screamed, turning back to Lord Vader, all of his own terror fading away, these men were going to die if Obi-Wan didn’t do something. “Stop, you’re going to kill them!”

Lord Vader’s hand didn’t drop, but the choking sounds stopped as Lord Vader’s head turned to look at him.

“They tried to kill you.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth, but the words got caught in his throat. They… they had. It had all gone so fast, but that was what had happened. It had almost gotten lost, mixed with Vader’s reaction to his almost death and the… the what had that been a vision? A memory?

It didn’t matter. These men weren’t supposed to die. They weren’t.

“Don’t kill them, please.”

The whole world seemed to freeze, Vader staring at him and Obi-Wan staring back into that black mask.

Vader turned back to the two soldiers still hanging in mid air. “No one is to touch Obi-Wan Kenobi, he is now my charge and is exempt from any previous orders you may have received.” 

Obi-Wan frowned, the Force was twisting around Vader again, dark and strange, moving from him to twist around the two soldiers. Obi-Wan didn’t understand.

Force, he wanted to go home.

Lord Vader’s hand dropped to his side and the two men fell to the ground.

Obi-Wan’s feet moved without his permission, and he ran to one of the men, reaching out carefully to help the man up.

The man had torn his helmet off as he gagged onto the ground. Obi-Wan grabbed the cloak that had fallen, offering the edge of it so the man could wipe at his face.

The man looked up at him, staring at him as though he’d never seen anything like Obi-Wan before, a spark of life entering dark brown eyes. His face twisted in what looked like pain, the scar around his eye catching Obi-Wan’s attention, important, like so many things that Obi-Wan didn’t understand. “Are you okay, sir?” he asked quietly.

“General.” The word came out a strangled whisper, as the soldier grabbed at Obi-Wan’s hand where he held the cloak. “You’re alive.”

Obi-Wan frowned, the title the man had given him slipping across his skin like a familiar weight. He turned back to Lord Vader. “He’s confused, I think he needs a healer. You must have hurt him.”

Obi-Wan glanced at the second soldier, a man that must have been the first soldier’s brother for how similar they looked, who was staring at Obi-Wan with wide eyes.

“Are you okay?” Obi-Wan asked the man.

“Leave us,” Vader commanded, before the man could answer. “Ensure that everyone knows that Obi-Wan is not to be harmed.”

Obi-Wan protested. “They need a healer.”

Vader waved a hand at the two men. “You heard him, see yourselves to a medic.”

Both men stiffened, nodding curtly, giving Obi-Wan a final glance before they moved away.

A pang of grief hit Obi-Wan and he didn’t know why, as he watched the two leave.

Once they were gone he turned back to Lord Vader, the man who had saved Obi-Wan’s life by almost killing two men, who had claimed Obi-Wan as his charge.

The terror was sinking back into his bones.

“I want to go home,” Obi-Wan whispered. “I don’t know how I got here, but I just want to go back to the Temple.”

Vader didn’t answer, walking slowly around Obi-Wan, observing him. “There is no temple, Obi-Wan. The Jedi and their Temple has Fallen.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to protest, he’d been there just days ago, everything had been fine.

Except, deep in his chest he could feel that grief, that grief he hadn’t been able to explain, as though some part of him had known that the Jedi were gone.

His eyes burned with tears. Now that he could recognize the grief, it was almost impossible to contain it.

“What is going to happen to me, now?” Were they going to kill him, like they’d killed all the other younglings strewn across the ground, blaster fire and the signs of a lightsaber through their chest, council chambers littered with younglings. He blinked the strange images away, a tear slipping free from his eyelashes to streak down his cheek.

Vader froze. “This time, it will be me who will take care of you.”

This time?

Obi-Wan didn’t think he wanted this dark figure, radiating hatred, anger, fear—so much fear—to take care of him.

He wanted to run. To return to the isolated desert of Tatooine and fade away, to become another memory for the sands to strip away.

“You must stay, Obi-Wan. This is the plan.” The words echoed in his mind, familiar and foreign.

Obi-Wan didn’t like this plan. Didn’t understand this plan. Why could no one so much as ask him if he was willing.

Why was he always a dejarik piece to be sacrificed?

Obi-Wan swallowed down a sob, his own thoughts didn’t make sense to him anymore.

Vader was circling him again. “You have the presence of another on you. Someone I haven’t sensed in a long time.”

“I don’t… I don’t know what you mean.”

Vader didn’t seem to hear his answer, still circling slowly, footsteps heavy and loud, each step a demand to be seen and heard.

“Qui-Gon Jinn.”

The name meant something, everything seemed to mean something though, and Obi-Wan was just lost.

The Force was building around him, neither dark nor light, just power.

The ghost from earlier appeared between Obi-Wan and Vader.

“Let me go, Anakin. You don’t know what power you are—”

Vader interrupted the ghost easily. “It was you who did this. I can sense your touch on him, yours and Yoda’s.”

“I will protect him, Anakin. I won’t let you hurt him.”

Vader scoffed. “You will protect him? You’re nothing more than a relic of a bygone age, a ghost with no power.”

Obi-Wan shivered, remembered drowning, the ghost staring down at him with that smile that meant ‘I follow the will of the Force’ that said ‘trust me, I know best’, and Obi-Wan had only ever been a sacrifice for other people’s happiness, had always been the price that was paid for someone else’ attachment. That hadn’t changed.

“You don’t understand the power I wield, the dark will never provide you such power.”

“You think what you did was light?” Vader’s voice had not changed in intonation, but the sense of vengeful glee still slipped into the tones of the words. 

Vader stepped forward, hand coming up into that same claw-like gesture of before. “You’re a fool, Qui-Gon Jinn. How should I thank you, for giving me back what was mine, for making him so perfectly vulnerable?”

“You will not hurt—” The ghost’s words cut out, hands going to his neck, eyes widening in shock.

Obi-Wan felt his own mouth fall open. He didn’t think that a ghost could be strangled.

He stepped back again, wanting to put as much distance between him and both ghost and monster.

“It would be a mercy to extinguish you, to wipe you from existence. But then you wouldn’t see the consequences of what you’ve done.” Vader stepped forward, the ghost struggling against air as though trying to flee. “You never deserved Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn. And now you will never have him again. You gave him to me twenty years ago, and you’ve given him to me again. Obi-Wan Kenobi is mine.”

Obi-Wan took another step back, he wanted to run, but there could be no escape from a man who could contain even a ghost.

He just wanted to go home. 

Except, if what Vader had said earlier was true, there was no home, not for him.

The ghost was still choking. He was not cut off from air, Obi-Wan realized, but somehow from the very Force that he was a part of.

“You will exist, but as nothing more than a specter, Qui-Gon Jinn.” Vader waved his hand, and the ghost vanished immediately

Obi-Wan took a fourth step back as Lord Vader turned toward him.

“Come, Obi-Wan.” Vader turned away. “You’ll have much to learn, if you’re to stay by my side. There is much to do, you and I.”

Obi-Wan hesitated, but there did not seem to be much choice. He stepped forward, stumbling a little over his feet as he went.

Lord Vader’s hand caught his arm, keeping him from falling before pulling him close so that Obi-Wan was carefully positioned against his side it was a position Obi-Wan had seen Masters and Padawans take in the temple, but it brought none of the comfort he’d always imagine the position would bring.

“Don’t worry, Obi-Wan. Now that I’ve found you again, no one will hurt you. No one will take you from me, not again.”

Obi-Wan believed him.

He just wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

Chapter Text

“Here’s your cloak, sir.”

Obi-Wan stared at the fabric and the man who was offering it to him. He’d said it was a traitor’s cloak, and he’d tried to kill Obi-Wan, but now he was staring at Obi-Wan with a look that scared Obi-Wan. Not that the look was mean, it was just… heavy.

Everything seemed so heavy. The way this strange soldier stared at him. The weight of Lord Vader’s hand when he rested it on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. The whispers of the Ghost that was drifting after Lord Vader as though trapped there, so much less than he’d been before. Obi-Wan hadn’t thought that there could be ghosts who were barely even ghosts.

“It’s not actually mine, I found it.” He took it anyways, it was cold here in space, and the cloak was warm. “I’m not a traitor,” he added, because it felt important to remind them all.

“I know sir.”

“I’m not a sir, either. I’m just Obi-Wan.”

The man twitched at that, looking momentarily pained, even as that emotion disappeared quickly. “Yes, sir.”

Obi-Wan scowled up at the soldier.

Lord Vader was there, then, striding up with those powerful, menacing steps that made Obi-Wan want to hide, coming up behind him and resting a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. It was heavy, so heavy. The soldier bowed his head, stepping back, Obi-Wan found himself wanting to reach for him. He did not know this man, but he wished he would stay and not leave him alone with this figure made of fury. It was almost as though the soldier knew what he wanted, because he put his helmet on and moved so that he was only a few feet behind Lord Vader, like an escort.

Lord Vader ignored him, his focus entirely on Obi-Wan. “Come, Obi-Wan, we’ll be docking with the Executor soon.”

“What’s the Executor?” His voice came out small, smaller than when he’d spoken to the strange soldier.

“My flagship.” Vader answered, hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder guiding him through the halls of this ship—and it already seemed so big, he couldn’t imagine how big a ship must be to be a flagship.

He had so many questions, but he bit them all down. Vader wasn’t at all like Clan Master Alaan, who was kind and soft in the Force, who would crouch down from his tall height to answer questions, who had never, ever made Obi-Wan feel afraid.

There were so many soldiers, following behind them. Obi-Wan didn’t like how most of them felt in the Force. Malice and boredom and death and an ugly sort of disinterest.

His soldier—not his soldier, he corrected himself, not sure why he wanted to claim the man when the man had tried to kill him—didn’t feel that way. He felt like… he felt like death, same as the others, but there was an aching well of grief that felt like the black holes that Obi-Wan had been learning about in class.

The soldier stayed close, so close. Obi-Wan found his gaze shifting back to watch the man. He was wearing his helmet, but Obi-Wan could still picture his face, the sharp scar that circled his eyes, and the heavy weight in his eyes as he looked at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan wrapped the cloak around him tighter.

Vader stopped suddenly, helmet turning to look at Obi-Wan and then shifting slowly to look at Obi-Wan’s soldier.

“You aren’t needed here, CC-2224,” Lord Vader said, voice somehow colder, despite the fact that the vocoder in his helmet kept his words almost terrifyingly monotone.

Obi-Wan shivered, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all. His soldier had a name. He had to. And it wasn’t that.

His soldier, however, didn’t seem to care.

And he didn’t seem to be afraid, either.

Obi-Wan was afraid, so, so afraid. For himself. For this soldier.

“He needs an escort, sir.” CC-2224—he hated the name, he needed something more, something that was his—was standing so straight Obi-Wan wondered if it hurt. “People will try to hurt him.”

Lord Vader seemed to freeze, and Obi-Wan curled in on himself. “Why?” he whispered. “I didn’t do anything.”

Neither the soldier nor the Lord answered him. Vader felt cold and furious again. But maybe he always felt that way. His presence seemed to wrap around Obi-Wan even tighter and he shivered. It was cold, so cold. He wrapped the cloak tighter, but it didn’t seem to help. “No one would dare.”

CC-2224 didn’t so much as move. “The Emperor will want him dead. Rebels will want to steal him from you.”

There was the steady rasp and hiss of Lord Vader’s breathing, no different from before and yet it was. “Anyone who touches him will die.”

“If they get close enough to touch him, it’ll already be too late.” CC-2224 was still calm, like a rock unmoved by the water that crashed around him. “I would never let anything touch him.”

“You tried to kill him.”

Obi-Wan shivered, remembering the heat of blaster bolts just above him.

Falling, falling. He hit the water and all he knew was pain and confusion. They’d never hurt him. They were trying to kill him. Stars in the sky blinking out, one by one, and then all at once. All he wanted to do was blink out with them.

He felt a sob building in his throat, and he choked on it, trying not to make a sound.

Vader’s hand tightened on his shoulder, and it didn’t hurt, it was just heavy, like Vader didn’t know how to be anything else.

“So did you,” CC-2224 said, voice quiet and deadly.

It felt like there was no air in the ship, no sound, just the echo of an accusation that the Force whispered was true, true, true.

“I hate you!” The words were screamed, ripping into him like a vibroblade. There was smoke in his lungs and burns against his skin, but that was nothing. Nothing compared to the devastation so large that he couldn’t breathe through it.

He stumbled back, trying to pull himself away from this dark creature. So full of hatred and fear and someday he was going to kill Obi-Wan. He would do the same thing he did to the two soldiers, the same thing he did to the ghost. His fingers would clench as the air left Obi-Wan’s lungs, until Obi-Wan wasn’t.

Lord Vader turned towards him, hand already reaching out to pull him back to his side, the Force twisting in displeasure around him.

Obi-Wan didn’t even think, he ran.

There were surprised shouts, the men in the gray uniforms jumping in surprise as he darted through them. A few, near the end, made grasping motions for him, but Obi-Wan slipped through them, and he didn’t think he’d ever moved this fast before.

He didn’t know where he was going, turning down hallways, running desperately. The Force whispered and tugged at him, just like it had back at the temple, playing hide and find with the other initiates, guiding him through hallways.

He could feel rage. So much rage, and knew it was Lord Vader. He could feel the rage trying to wrap around him, trying to root him in place and pull him back.

There was so much noise, in the hallways, in his head, and he couldn’t make sense of any of it.

“Please,” he whispered, air tight in his lungs. “Force,” he begged. He was sobbing. He couldn’t run if he was sobbing. “Help me.”

He could hear the thud of boots, echoing through the hallways, the noise surrounding him as though they were everywhere at once.

He twisted, turning in circles, round and round, trying to find a way out even as his eyes blurred strangely, making it hard to see.

Fear leads to anger. Master Yoda’s voice seemed to echo in his head, and Obi-Wan felt another sob jerk out of him. He didn’t know how to not be afraid.

There was a vent, he realized, and he scrambled for it, fingers trembling as he tried to pull it loose.

It didn’t move. The sound of boots pounding against the durasteel of the ship, louder and louder.

“Please,” he begged, pulling desperately. “Please, please, please.”

The vent jerked beneath his hands, and he fell backward head bouncing against the floor of the ship.

He struggled up, dropping the grate onto the floor.

The vent was small and dark and Obi-Wan didn’t know where he was going, but that didn’t matter. He crawled, needing to be far away from where anyone could touch him.

Lord Vader was too big, so were CC-2224 and all the other soldiers.

They couldn’t hurt him—couldn’t kill him, and they’d all tried to kill him, they all wanted him dead—if they couldn’t touch him.

He didn’t know when he stopped, just knew that at some point he was curled into a ball, the metal cold beneath him, and he was shaking.

There was still rage that wasn’t his, twisting around him and trying to pull him back to wherever Vader was. He pulled desperately at the Force, at the warmth he remembered from the temple. “I’m scared,” he whispered.

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate. It was Master Yoda’s voice in his head again.

It didn’t help. It didn’t tell him how to stop being afraid. He closed his eyes, trying to breathe slowly the way Clan Master Alaan had taught him. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend the old wookie master was there, soft and soothing the way he was when Obi-Wan woke up screaming from nightmares, letting Obi-Wan dig his hands into his thick fur and hold on tight.

He pressed his fingers against the floor beneath him, one by one, counting slowly, over and over until his breathing had slowed down. 

Another hitched sob escaped him.

He kept his eyes closed, picturing Clan Master Alaan counting with him, Bant’s hands in his and their feet in the water, Luminara’s soft breathing as they cuddled together in the clan piles, Quinlan laughing as he pushed Obi-Wan into the pool before jumping in after him, Reeft stealing food from his plate with a large grin, Garen’s arm around his shoulder as they planned pranks.

They were dead, his mind whispered. He didn’t know how, or why, or when, but he knew it was true.

The grief threatened to drown him.

Obi-Wan ignored that, wrapping the memories around him. The rage, dark and cold and terrifying, felt further away, as though it couldn’t reach him as easily with their love wrapped around him, even if only from his memories.

There were things prodding at his mind, the strange… dreams, memories, visions that he didn’t know, but that he felt deep inside as though they were true.

He didn’t want them to be true. He didn’t want to think about them.

So he didn’t, focusing only on his memories.

He didn’t know how long he stayed there, before a whirl and beep caught his attention. He froze, twisting as well as he could in the vent.

There was a black mouse droid, shifting back and forth. It seemed to know he was looking at it, because it let out another little beep.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered, a deep dread filling him. Vader and Obi-Wan’s soldier and all the other soldiers in white couldn’t touch him, were too big to be able to follow him..

The droid just beeped at him again, doing that same shift back and forth as before.

The Force twisted around him but Obi-Wan didn’t know what it meant.

A sudden hum and then the metal a few inches away from his head started melting and peeling back.

He cried out, unable to stop the terror that raced through him. He tried to crawl backward but the droid was in the way. It was a lightsaber and it was red. Red like the stories that the padawans would tell when they were trying to scare the initiates, red like the history lessons that the masters didn’t like to spend time on, red like the lightsabers he’d sometimes seen in his nightmares.

The lightsaber disappeared, and then it was behind him, cutting through the metal there as well.

The droid made an unhappy beep, pushing closer to Obi-Wan as though it was afraid it might be cut through as well.

Obi-Wan tried to crawl forward again, maybe if he moved fast enough he would be able to—

The whole metal wall was ripped away and Obi-Wan screamed, the Force wrapping around him and pulling, sliding him across the floor until he came to a sudden stop, black, heavy boots in front of him.

He made himself as small as possible, fists clenched in fear. There was almost no movement around him, and Obi-Wan slowly, carefully looked up. Lord Vader was there, and Obi-Wan’s soldier, as well as more soldiers in white.

Lord Vader’s lightsaber was still ignited, a dark, brilliant red. Obi-Wan shied away from it, even as he was unable to tear his gaze away.

“Not even the younglings, survived.” The words were broken, as broken as the bodies that were strewn over the floor. Younglings, their eyes open in terror and betrayal. Who could do such a thing? Who could see these children, young and innocent and cut them down?

They were just younglings. And now they’d never have a chance to be anything else.

It was screaming. A strange, tinny sound that he heard more in his chest than he did his ears, radiating through his heart and pulling him out of the sharp vision of dead younglings.

Then the screaming was gone, or at least muted, as the lightsaber disengaged.

“Obi-Wan,” the voice was low and heavy, always in that measured monotone. “That was foolish.”

Obi-Wan’s breath was coming uneven again, but he forced himself to sit up, to look up at his… he didn’t know what the man was. His captor? His protector? His guardian?

The man had promised, had promised that he was going to take care of Obi-Wan, that no one would ever hurt him again.

The man who Obi-Wan knew had tried to kill him, even if he didn’t understand how or why or when.

Maybe… maybe it was how he’d woken up outside of the temple with a ghost following him. Maybe it was how the Lord had found him.

It still didn’t make sense, none of it did. How he’d ended up in a desert. How Lord Vader had blamed the ghost.

“You’re going to kill me.” His voice caught on the last word. He wished he wasn’t trembling.

The hallway was silent for a long moment. “I won’t let you die, Obi-Wan. Not at anyone’s hand. Most certainly not at mine.”

There was the quiet pace of feet, and then his soldier was crouching next to him, helmet removed once again and eyes full of an unquenchable fire. “If he tried to kill you, I’d kill him.”

Obi-Wan blinked at him. “He’d kill you.”

His soldier nodded, at ease as though he thought protecting Obi-Wan was worth the price.

It didn’t make any sense.

“You tried to kill me.”

His soldier nodded again, and then continued in immediate contradiction. “I won’t hurt you. I will never let anything hurt you. You’re my General.”

Obi-Wan just stared at him, because he was an initiate, an initiate who didn’t even have a clan anymore, didn’t have any other Jedi. He couldn’t be a General.

He could feel Lord Vader’s displeasure still, but somehow the fear that ravaged the Force had only grown stronger, more suffocating. Obi-Wan had frightened him. This terrifying figure, and Obi-Wan frightened him. “CC-2224 was right. You need an escort. He will be your guard, he will create a squad to protect you.”

“That’s not his name.” The words snapped out of him, angry and echoing loudly through the hallway.

Obi-Wan didn’t know who was more surprised, himself, Vader, his soldier, or the men in white who lined the hallway.

This time it was Vader who crouched, though it seemed a stiff, unnatural movement. There was something… dangerous, curious in his voice. “And do you know what his name is?”

It felt like a trap.

“I… I don’t know,” he whispered. “I just… it’s wrong. He has a name.”

“I’m a good soldier,” CC-2224 said. “Good soldiers don’t need names.”

Obi-Wan glared at him. “You deserve one.” He turned to Vader, a wave of sudden, unexpected anger pushing through him, some sort of truth hitting him when he didn’t know where it came from. “He deserves his name. You took it from him. You took it from him.” He lashed out, fists and feet trying to hurt this monster who had stolen so many people lives, and would steal their souls as well.

Vader’s hand snapped out, catching his arm and dragging him up, a sudden rage crashing through the Force, crashing through Obi-Wan almost as painful as the fingers digging into his skin. “You know nothing, you—“

And then his soldier was stepping between them, Vader’s grip was unbreakable, but his soldier had a blaster to Vader’s chest. 

They were all frozen there, before a tiny, pained whimper slipped pass his lips and Vader was suddenly letting go of him like he was on fire.

Obi-Wan stumbled back and suddenly another of the white soldiers was there. Obi-Wan knew, somehow, that it was the same soldier that had been with his soldier when they’d found him—and maybe this man was his soldier too, but it was too confusing, and he didn’t know what to think—the one that had tried to kill him and had gotten choked.

The soldier’s hand was on his shoulder, pulling him back carefully so that he was pressed against the soldier’s armor as though it would protect him.

Some of the other white soldiers were shifting between him and Lord Vader, though there were equally as many moving behind him, as though afraid he would run again.

“I told you, I won’t let anyone touch him or hurt him,” his soldier’s voice was cold and angry. “Not even you.”

“He’s mine.” The words were an ugly snarl and Obi-Wan quailed at them.

It was silent for a moment, and then his soldier nodded. “He is.” Obi-Wan shivered at that acknowledgment, not liking it. He wasn’t anybody’s. “He’s yours. You can protect him from the rest of the galaxy. And we’ll help you protect him.” His soldier’s voice went as dark as Lord Vader’s could so often be. “But he’s ours too. And we’ll protect him from you.”

The whole hallway was silent except for Lord Vader’s breathing.

The soldier behind him was still holding him protectively. His soldier was still in front of him, his blaster pressed against Lord Vader’s chest.

Finally, Lord Vader nodded, and Obi-Wan knew somehow that he’d just seen the impossible. That no one else could have ever done what his soldier had just done. That no one else could have made this Lord Vader stand down. “If he ever gets hurt on your watch. You’ll die, slowly and painfully.”

His soldier slowly nodded. “The same is true if you hurt him.” It felt like some sort of agreement because all of the soldiers seemed to ease, at least a little bit.

“Give him back.”

His soldier moved to the side, the rest of the soldiers in white followed his lead and Vader crossed the hallway quickly. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but shrink back, and Vader hesitated a moment before finishing the moment anyways, resting a hand on his shoulder. Heavy, possessive, controlling.

“We boarded the Executor while you were in the vents. You will have the room next to me.” He started moving, pulling Obi-Wan along with him.

It was as though nothing had ever happened, as though Obi-Wan had not run, as though his soldier had not threatened Lord Vader, as though nothing had happened at all. As though now that Obi-Wan was back at Lord Vader’s side, nothing else mattered.

Obi-Wan trembled. Everything was moving so fast, and he didn’t know, anymore, what was going on. The fear from earlier, that they were going to kill him, that they were going to hurt him, that they didn’t want to do any of those things, that they would kill each other, that they’d kill anyone who hurt him, that he belonged to them—to Lord Vader, to these soldiers—all of that fear twisted through him. 

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Yoda’s voice beat against his mind, over and over.

It didn’t help.

He was afraid, still so afraid. But he followed Lord Vader, feeling his soldiers fall in around them.

He paused, considering that. Not them.

His soldiers had fallen in around him.

“What’s going to happen now?” Obi-Wan asked, as quietly as he could.

“You will have time to settle in before we start your training.”

“Training?” Obi-Wan asked, voice timid despite himself. The memory of that red blade, with the kyber screaming inside of it echoed through his mind.

“You will be my apprentice.”

Obi-Wan had dreamed of being taken as a padawan, of being someone’s apprentice. He didn’t think he wanted it anymore. “I don’t want that.”

Sharp anger. “You don’t have a choice, Obi-Wan. You could have been the greatest Jedi to ever live.” It felt strangely true. Obi-Wan didn’t know what to think about that. There was silence, as though Vader was ruminating on what to say. “And now I will ensure you become the greatest Sith.”