Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Chrono calls at seven. Breakfast-appropriate food starts going out at seven-thirty. Mission calls start being sent out at eight-thirty. It’s the ideal padawan care schedule.¹

Obi-Wan tries to keep with it. He’s not been doing this for long – it’s been three years, stars, three years? Three. Less than ten percents of his time alive so far, more than a third of his padawan’s. Seventeen years between them, a whole other human. Seventeen. Obi-Wan’s seventeen years away from his own childhood. He’s a wall and a few rayshields away from his padawan’s. Anakin’s.

Obi-Wan could be poetic and a bit cruel and call what happened in Theed the death of his childhood. He can be a bit crueler, even, and argue back at himself that he’s never been a child. He’s born thirteen and twenty-five and twenty-eight. He’s born in a confined room, closing in on him, not a trap, traps are for things one wants to capture. Obi-Wan’s tried to fit himself into one of the chests in his old padawan bedroom once. He’s almost fit, then.

He closes his eyes. He chooses not to do any of that right now.

It’s been three years; the routine’s not new. It’s what was recommended – well, it’s what himself and his mind-healer have corralled him into. It’s always tricky, for a Jedi, dealing with the matter of the mind, as much he’s gathered from Bant’s kvetching. There are consequences, for not getting it right, and they’re at their core stubborn. It’s how they survived the universe at all. He still remembers the crèche story of the fish swimming against three tsunami in one night, to see the dawn.²

Out of his peers, Obi-Wan is perhaps the most hard-headed one. It’s what most people tell him. It’s what his mind-healer Nhạ Kì³ told him, verbatim. It’s startled him into a laugh. “Queer thing to tell your patient that,” he’s said.

“I’m laying the case out on the table,” Nhạ Kì’s said. “It’s a team effort, Knight Kenobi. If I could wave my hand and cure you of your ills in an instant, I would’ve of course done it. I might’ve done it to the whole universe. But philosophically it’s a shitty thing to do to people without their consent, and the fact of the matter is I physically can’t do miracles.”

Obi-Wan appreciates that initial talk. Nhạ Kì’s just as stubborn as him, all things considered; they’re a year his junior, and they shared some of the mechanics courses as padawan. They both skirt the line for midi-count indicator, they were both almost Corps-side (Nhạ Kì was candidate for Exploracorps, they’ve told Obi-Wan later on in the ‘treatment course’), they both barely made it through mechanics intact. Nhạ Kì decided on healer track as a logical choice instead of one born of passion; they just looked at the Knight rotation, saw that the Temple had nowhere near enough mind-healers, and took that up. It guaranteed their stay in the Temple, and it guaranteed they would get to help their peers.

Outside of their work, they don’t talk. Obi-Wan and Nhạ Kì aren’t friends. Obi-Wan doesn’t even know if they prefer tea over caf.

Nhạ Kì’s asked him what his goal was for mind-healing treatments. “Some people want to mitigate pain,” they’ve said. “Some people want to learn alternative ways to deal with it. Some people want better support to do what they’ve already figured out.”

Obi-Wan’s considered his words, as is his instinct. “I want to be functional,” he’s said. I’ve already been dealing with hurts, he didn’t say. I don’t think anyone in this Temple’s free of it. I’ve realised that, and sometimes it’s how I bear looking at anyone at all. He didn’t say, if I can’t do at least that right now, it might be yet another life on my conscience.

Nhạ Kì’s squinted at him a little bit. “Alright,” they’ve said, “we’ll need parameters.”

They’ve worked out the routine together. It is, at the core, about momentum, Nhạ Kì’s explained. It’s often the case with minds that need more stimulus to start adhering to things, but reliable stimulus can often be addictive stimulus. Momentum is what meditation builds. It’s what the seven forms’ kata build. The body can be taught independently of the mind, and one can rely on that to carry through even when the mind is indisposed.

Obi-Wan’s relied on routines to keep him going for a while. Three years. Nhạ Kì frequently asks him if his goal has changed. He’s always considered it, but ultimately he’s always said no. “I don’t want it to change, yet,” he’s been able to word it to his satisfaction, after the first few times the question was asked.

They’ve argued about it. Obi-Wan appreciates Nhạ Kì sticking to their words, about this being a team project. About him having final say over his own mind.

It’s another thing they’ve brought up repeatedly, the element of choice. “It’s in your head,” they’ve said in the first explanation, which has made Obi-Wan laugh again. “Okay, poor choice of word on my end, perhaps. But! some arguments are compulsive; your mind automatically brings them up whenever the matter crosses your mind. They can be recognized, and you have to remember that you don’t need to retread them every time. Because it’s a waste of time. Choose to open yourself to the Force, choose to give them away to the universe.” Choose to hold onto more important things.

Obi-Wan’s chosen routine, and the choice has been respected. He’s chosen, again and again, to give his own punishments away to the Force.

Alarm call at seven. Breakfast at seven-thirty. Mission hand-out at eight-thirty. Usually a day to organize things, if it’s an away mission. At least one class for his padawan a day, barring week-mark. Obi-Wan’s been assigned semi-frequent Senate duties – he ferries Anakin to and from the Chancellor’s office himself, when there’s a call. Breakfast together, dinner together, lunch depends. Fits saber practice and meditation where available.

Alarm call at seven. Obi-Wan’s always awake by six.

It’s more for Anakin than for him, really. Anakin’s taken a long time to adopt Temple schedule. He often woke at night and took naps inbetween classes when he’s just arrived. Obi-Wan’s tried to stay up through the night for Anakin, at first, but it… made him different. Worse. It put his body in a time when the act was necessary, a time without padawan or master or the Temple. The body could be taught independently of the mind, but they’re still, inevitably, linked.

Anakin’s wanted to come visit the hangars and the mechanic bays in the night, Obi-Wan remembers. He’s given his padawan permission, of course, with the condition of telling him beforehand. But it’s turned out to be rather unpredictable schedule-wise – Anakin never knew if he’d be able to sleep through the night, and he’s hesitated to wake Obi-Wan for permission when the desire’s struck him. In the end he’s learned to sleep at night before they’ve learned to solve that problem together.

Obi-Wan, of course, lets him have the full eight hours every night. It’s one of the few things he can do for Anakin. Not Padawan Skywalker, Jedi Knight-to-be, the kid who wants to become his own saviour. Just Anakin.

Obi-Wan’s always awake by six. He wakes Anakin up at seven. They try to meditate together for a bit. They go to the mess hall together at seven-thirty. They see if either Obi-Wan or both of them would be on away roster for the near future. They go on with their day.

Anakin’s alarm call is at seven. Obi-Wan’s always awake by six. He wakes at any hour between eleven the previous night and six the next day.

It’s four, and Obi-Wan’s awake.

He could be cruel, could berate himself, could ruin the day for Anakin before his padawan’s even awake for it.

He closes his eyes, counts his breath, and says the Code. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no passion, there is quiet. Serenity is where passion isn’t.

Where I hurt, is the passion. Where I need to be, is serenity.

The Force is. Death isn’t.

Here in the Force, my passion will be. In me, serenity.

He closes himself back again, the Force an arm’s length away, and goes do something.

They get a tentative mission call after breakfast.

Anakin eats— a lot. Of anything, really. He doesn’t seem to be allergic to anything; his initial labs when he just arrived have suggested a few common allergies, if his metabolism works normally, but he’s had a history of eating all of those things before he’s even got regular medical care. Apparently he’s just… automatically purged the allergens, in a sense. Pulled the food he eats apart, on a molecular level, and made them something his body could digest.

It’s one thing Obi-Wan doesn’t have to worry about, so he’s grateful for as much. It also means meal time’s usually quiet for them. Anakin was chipper and brash and a ball of supercondensed energy even when he’s just arrived, and Obi-Wan has the inkling he’s always been that way. It’s not… optimism, not as Obi-Wan’s known it. Anakin just has the Force-given ability to hold nothing but what’s currently capturing his interest in mind, perpetually.⁴ It’s not passion – it isn’t enduring as Obi-Wan knows passion to be. It’s something Obi-Wan’s sometimes wished he could do, with the same ease. But great as his padawan’s access to the Force is, he still has to think about doing something as complex as rewriting his food as he eats it, and he simply wouldn’t refuse to try new food, there’s no chance. So they usually eat their meal in silence.

Anakin’s asked to learn how to do something like that without thinking, once. Obi-Wan’s had to hold back his laughter as he explained to Anakin that stars, nobody in the Temple has even heard of doing what he does before, let alone had a curiculum for how to do it well. His padawan has seemed dejected, until Obi-Wan redirected his train of thought for a bit. “It is, in any case, a good thing to pay attention to what you’re eating,” he’s said. “I always feel it lets me appreciate the meal. You’ll get a chance to help in the kitchen soon, you’ll see the way it’s run, so you can have the food you have – Master Drallig has always said it’s the most perfect machine in the Temple. And,” he’s smiled as he told Anakin, “it’s helped me keep a mission together before. Taking care to understand what I was eating.”

Obi-Wan’s never intended to share these things with Anakin. He’s… never intended to take Anakin on as padawan, until he did. Three years and a handful of months before, he didn’t want to share anything with Anakin, not really. He didn’t know Anakin existed.

He shared the story of the time he almost ruined a diplomatic dinner over a sip of broth with Anakin that evening, because, ultimately, sharing isn’t a matter of want.

He’s figured out, in the end, the way Anakin looks at other tables in the Hall sometimes, while they have breakfast. At groups of initiates trying their best to all fit on the same bench, at masters and padawan nudging each others awake, at people poking gentle fun at their friends’ taste in breakfast food. He hasn’t managed that by himself; it’s taken the two months of Reeft and Quinlan being back at the Temple at the same time, interrupting Obi-Wan and Anakin’s quiet breakfast by being staunchly and loudly not morning people, while a way more chipper Aayla stole anything with lemon flavour from all of their plates. Anakin’s been annoyed by Aayla nabbing bites from his share, and Aayla, being Aayla, has found that immensely entertaining. They’ve agreed on trading bites back and forth by the end of the first breakfast at the same table, a comprehensive plan hashed out by Aayla on the spot, and by the end of the first month they’ve become fast friends. Anakin’s asked after Aayla, Reeft, and Quinlan after the break ended for them.

Obi-Wan, while not being the most talkative person for the last… however many years, tries to keep up a commentary while Anakin eats his breakfast. Obi-Wan doesn’t mind; he can’t, and beside, it’s not that big of a task. He supplements his halting chatters with trading bits of the meal between him and Anakin, as well. He looks up how some foods are made, to add to his experience from his own time helping in the mess hall. He does it at Anakin’s behest, right at the table, trying to point out the logic route of research, how to find the right keyword, how to tell sensationalized nonsense from credible truths. Their breakfast is still quiet, and their dinner even more so, taken in their quarter, but they share the meal. Anakin seems to agree with the way it plays out, at least.

The first year of their partnership was a year of catching up. Of mistakes, innocent ones, cruel ones, vicious ones. Of funny ones as well. Of Obi-Wan realising that he simply does not have the energy to be the idealised teacher, all knowing, at a respectful distance. He’s tried anyway, and he’s failed. He looks to the way Anakin seems to just pick up the parts that sustain him and go, and tries to do the same. The first year of their partnership was the year they saw each other’s face the most. Obi-Wan and Nhạ Kì have built a plan to get Obi-Wan to mission-worthy parameters, sometimes down the start of their work, and a few months into the second year after Theed he started getting away missions again. Very few of them had to do with combat – he understands why – and the majority of them did not carry him or his padawan away from the Temple for longer than a week.

Once upon a time, Obi-Wan’s thought of such arrangements as a punishment. Now…. he’s not sure.

Anakin does, sometimes. He’s imagined the Jedi life a bit differently, for sure. His first idea of a Jedi formed when the entire hundred-and-ninety-odd-centimeters of Qui-Gon Jinn descended onto the sand dunes of Tatooine, deceptively flat in the range of human vision, with his saber blazing and his form perfect. When Obi-Wan, an apprentice, joined the fight. Talking to politicians and laypeople and trying to get them to listen seems like busywork, compared to swinging a sword.

Obi-Wan’s still trying to find a way to explain it all to Anakin, even now. Once you have enough practice, swinging a saber can just be a matter of momentum, he doesn’t say to his padawan. If fighting is momentum, then talking is anything but. In swordfighting, you only have the sword. In talking, you have the unfathomable void of the other person, staring at you. You have a million sabers, only a handful of which the correct ones to use. He doesn’t say, I’ve always chosen the wrong weapons to use, I think. All the skills in the world cannot save you from bad choices you made before you learn them. He doesn’t say, to me, talking’s the same as fighting, a thousand times over. He doesn’t say, Your teacher’s got not a single clue what he’s doing, Anakin. I’d rather take on the saber and lose to it most days.

He doesn’t say, When I killed the Sith apprentice, I truly felt like we were only separated by a few flaps of a butterfly’s wings. We were not meaningfully different people, right then. He doesn’t say, I don’t like the person who held that sword. I don’t like the person who held my late Master as he died. He can’t tell Anakin, I’m still him, and as long as I’m still him, I can help no one with a lightsaber.

What he told Anakin that’s somewhat stuck for both of them was, “Honestly, I appreciate a bit of time for a good sleep. It’s usually not so easy to get the time to nap, on away missions.”

He wasn’t lying; he does appreciate the opportunity for sleep.

They’ve eased into a more regular master-padawan pair’s schedule, by this time of their third year. The Temple has done its best to accommodate their circumstances, but they need the hands, and Obi-Wan, truthfully, needs the work. His mind needs the objective, his body needs the routine. And besides, nothing makes Anakin happier than flying a ship. He doesn’t get to, yet, but he can be distracted by assigning navigation and a bit of competition with the navcom. Obi-Wan has to thank Garen for the tip.

It’s not so unusual for them to be called away on a day’s notice, now. It’s actually a bit more noticeable, when they’re in the tentative roster.

“Tentative?” Anakin mulls over the words. “What’s that mean?”

Anakin has a… blunt wield of questions. It’s endearing, as much as it gives Obi-Wan a headache sometimes, trying to narrow them down to what his padawan’s actually asking for. This specific variation of the question Obi-Wan’s got plenty of practice in, however. “It means you’ll still get to finish at least your first class of the day,” he tells Anakin, as gently as possible, possibly because it’ll make his padawan exaggerate his own reaction, for effect.

“Noooooooo,” Anakin laments, melting dramatically onto the mess hall table they’ve chosen. “Can I skip? Can we just… go? It’s not like I’ll need to know what old man wrote what poem to be a pilot.”

“They aren’t all just some old men,” Obi-Wan corrects him, more out of habits than anything. This is an old dance by this point. Anakin’s found the idea of being a Jedi Ace captivating immediately, rivaled only by saberwork, and Obi-Wan can only caution him against holding onto his imagined future so closely so many times without being taken the wrong way. Yet one more item to figure out on his neverending to-do list. “I don’t recall the curriculum very clearly, and it might be revised by now, but isn’t this time of the course when Songs of Winds were taught? Those are Whill-written, I found them fascinating when I learned about them.”

Anakin turns his head so his face’s hidden in the crook of his arm. “I’m still at Twenty-twenty-twenty,” he says, sullenly.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan says. He’s forgotten; they don’t talk enough about the classes Anakin doesn’t enjoy. It’s no excuse – he’s been updated on Anakin’s progress directly by masters who lead those classes. “Well, that is a text that merits some careful consideration. It was taught to me earlier in my life, but it took me a long time to fully get it as well. The work wasn’t finished, in fact, until I was eighteen.”

Anakin looks up at him in surprise, and then squints his eyes. “You’re messing with me. No way something everyone around here can recite from memory took you years to get.”

Obi-Wan laughs. “No, no I’m not.” He offers his sincerity to Anakin in the Force, and as usual, his padawan takes it to examine with a ginger touch. “Would you like to know what took me so long to get?”

Anakin nods.

“Twenty-twenty-twenty is a love poem,” Obi-Wan says.⁵

Anakin furrows his brows, and then his expression stretches into genuine delight. “No!”

Obi-Wan can’t help laughing. “Just think about it,” he says. “If you reserve one breath for every line, for a human it’d take around one heartbeat. When you’ve learned it by heart, you can actually increase your own heartbeat by reciting the poem faster. The wave-like structure—”

“—is meant to induce this in a performance, yes, Prof Kirie has mentioned,” Anakin cuts him off mid-way. Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow at him, until he remembers and sheepishly sits up properly. “Sorry, Obi-Wan. It’s just— who? Who was it?”

“Who might you be asking about, now?” Obi-Wan says, serenely.

“The—” Anakin sweeps his arms animatedly. “The person! It’s gotta be something, right? For you to realise that!”

Obi-Wan smiles. “Well, who says it was a person? What if it was a particularly beautiful city? Or, perhaps, a glittering ocean’s twilight. Or just a rather fetching flimsy book—”

“No, stop,” Anakin immediately lays his head onto the table again. “Please, spare me.” He crosses his arms so he can pillow his head on them. From Obi-Wan’s seat, he looks like a particularly blond sea urchin. “I just… I thought Jedi don’t do that stuff?”

Obi-Wan mulls the question over. “Well, I can tell you, there are texts longer than the distance from here to Serenno on the matter,” he tells Anakin. “If there’s something Jedi definitely love, it’s arguing over philosophy. It was Master Jinn’s entire career, to be honest.”

He pauses when he catches Anakin’s look towards him. He sighs.

“How about this: go to your class,” he says, “and I’ll tell you after, as a job-well-done present. I’ll keep you updated on the mission as well. Maybe we’ll get a confirmation for the mission before your second morning class.”

He honest-to-Force startles a little bit at the speed Anakin pushes a hand towards him. “Promise?”

He laughs, shaking his head slightly. “My words bind me,” he says, and catches Anakin’s small, sand-scratched hand in his. There’s machine oil in the creases between his fingers; he was up for a bit last night, then. At Anakin’s questioning gaze, he smiles. “I read that oath in a novel when I was your age. I think it’s wizard.” He laughs again when Anakin scrunches up his face at the slang, and releases the hand he’s holding. “Go to your class.”

Anakin nods, gathers his plates and utensils, and goes put them in the wash-cart. Obi-Wan looks after his silhouette, darting inbetween tables, plates leaving his hands to float a few heads above him instead. His padawan’s yet managed to learn how to slow down. He looks after Anakin until he disappears from the mess hall.

He goes down to Mission Communications after breakfast. Tentative roster means he has choices, and he’d like to know what he’s choosing.

“It’s just a ferry mission, no worries⁶,” the Knight sitting MisCom for the morning tells him. Obi-Wan recognises her; Dyat Lowa⁷, she’s ran missions with Garen before. A Jedi Ace herself. She’s getting acquainted with her new prosthetics, last he’s heard. She rolls her eyes at Obi-Wan’s look. “Quit it, the port’s working fine. Your padawan was mugging around when I was down at bay 8 fixing it, I remember. Clever bugger – he clocked the dampener destabilizing the connection. You wanna give him a tour to Jedha?”

“I’m thinking about it,” Obi-Wan says, and busies himself with reading the dossier to keep from trying to find a way to not keep eye contact with Lowa. “He’s never been, but then he’s not really a fan of just any old city. The youth, they fancy the glamour of hypermetropolis, you see.”

Lowa looks like she’s trying very hard to not flick him in the forehead. “Disrespecting your elder, Kenobi? You might find your starfighter engine’s dampener destabilizing some important connections tomorrow.”

“I treat people over thirty with pure reverence and worship,” Obi-Wan says, and then breaks into a grin at Lowa’s put-upon roll of her eyes. “No, thank you for keeping an eye on him, Knight Lowa. I feel he leaves me deep in the dust when it comes to mechanics, sometimes.”

“You’re something, Kenobi. He’s a padawan, is he not? My responsibility, as is yours.” Lowa twirls a stylus in her hand. “He’s gunning for Ace track? Spends a lot of his time ‘round our crew.”

“Well, right now, he’s eleven.”

Lowa tilts her head. “You know what, that’s wise. But, you know how it is.” She sighs. “You’re braver than me, taking him on like that. I’m still sorting myself out even now.”

Obi-Wan frowns. “I wouldn’t call it bravery.” Dutiful, maybe. He didn’t know before, but he really has always been carried by momentum.

“Don’t discredit yourself. You’re always too deep in your own head, the most old-man fifteen-year-old in the galaxy when I first saw your scrawny behind. Well, you taking it?”

Obi-Wan takes another look at the dossier. It’s, as Lowa said, a ferry mission. For a starship, curious enough. The Temple’s held onto a few artifact freighters for a while; they were, as one might call it, old. Old Republic, old. They were used in the brief attempt at mining kyber the ancient Order orchestrated, and, as one might assume, they’ve seen bloodshed. It wasn’t something the Order’s even thought about doing again in the history of the current Republic.

“What did this one do, to make the artificers send it away?” He asks. He knows a few artificers; they have very creative ways to argue around the attachment clause. Jedi see the good in every bit or garbage is their motto.

Lowa waves her hand. “Eh, it just needs a purge, if I recall. The Archive’s finally done with all of them, so they’re now released to recycle, but this one’s a bit… stubborn.” She taps her stylus’ cap end on the table. “Eyaran said a few of them held very strong Force echoes, but this one’s kinda somethin’ else. It’s like it refuses to be purged.”

Obi-Wan raises a brow. “Half-way to being Knighted already, this thing.”

Lowa shudders. “You’re jinxing it.” She glares at Obi-Wan when he dares to project doubt at her. “No, the Force-damned thing has saber scorch marks inside. It’s fit to peel off its own frame already, but those, those’ve stayed clear as glass. It’s got something going on with it for sure.”

“You’ve seen the marks yourself?”

“Yeah. I’ve been inside. Felt like a broom closet, for all of its eighty-meter length. Like something’s closing its maw over me. Thing needs some peace, not a buncha artificers poking at it, and I’ll tell you, I’d rather it takes that peace all the way over in Jedha.”

“I won’t argue with that,” Obi-Wan says. He re-reads the dossier for the fifth time. “Well, it’ll be under stasis to keep it from disintegrating on the way, so it surely won’t be anyone’s problem.” He grins. “Are we really putting it in a different, bigger freighter?”

“You go devising a stasis field in the vacuum of space,” Lowa pouts. “It’s rigged for a two-person crew with droid assistance, so you and your padawan can run this solo, if you take the mission.”

Obi-Wan puts the dossier down. “I’ll talk to Anakin first. He’d love to see an Old Republic ship up close, I’d guess. I entrust the tentative yes with you.” He winks. “Must be tough competition for this mission right now.”

Lowa grins back at him. “Oh, absolutely. Masters and padawan crawling all over each other to snatch a ferry. Go catch the kid, Kenobi, it’s about time.”

“Yes,” Anakin says the moment Obi-Wan’s done saying the word ship. At the chastising look he dishes out, his padawan bows his head. “Sorry, Obi-Wan. I think, uh, we should take the mission.”

“This has nothing to do with your afternoon class being cultural etiquettes, I’d assume,” Obi-Wan leans back against the wall. He’s caught Anakin walking out of the lesson hall as the first morning class’ just ended. He’s easy to spot, among the younger initiates; Obi-Wan needed not to consult the bond to find him. It feels like he’s always been fortunate, in a sense, on that front.

“Well, yeah, kinda,” Anakin says, using the same tone Obi-Wan himself would use when he says yes and no. “I don’t mind it, Prof En lets me walk around while practicing. But, like! An Old Republic ship! You ask me and then want me to say no?”

I’m not sure how vast your interest in spacecrafts is, Obi-Wan wants to say, but he settles with, “It’s currently barely a ship, honestly.”

“I bet I can make it one again.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Obi-Wan laughs. “You’d make it three times of a ship, even. But no, our mission is not to restore it. We’re just bringing it to Jedha for further archival work. It’s… a bit of a casework, I’ve been informed.”

“What’s that mean?” Anakin asks, and then at Obi-Wan nudging tilt of the head, he pulls out his datapad and actually reads the dossier. He skims all of the mission parameters part, as expected, but when his eyes scan the cargo assessment part Obi-Wan can tell that he’s actually taking all of it in. “Huh, yeah… it’s barely holding onto itself. Everything’s still in, but it’s like it’s… Rotting? Is it a Force thing?”

“It seems the case, yes,” Obi-Wan says. He lowers his voice, as well as bows down a bit, to talk closer to Anakin’s ear, “The rumors are that it’s haunted.”

Anakin shrieks out a laugh and dashes forward. “You’re messing with me! No way!”

“It’s true, padawan mine!” Obi-Wan raises his arms, also laughing now, and lengthens his steps, making himself gangly. “You’re in the most haunted establishment in Coruscant! We’re haunted here, young man!”

They chase each other all the way back to their quarter, where Anakin collapses laughing onto the sofa without even taking off his boots. Obi-Wan nudges him on his way over to the hot plate to make tea and assess the state of leftover from the latest week, and he grumbles but sits up to toe his boots off.

“At the rack, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says as he pulls out the boxes they have on hand. “We can finish up the nuna, we have enough ingredients for a from-scratch sauce, or we can try and re-fry the fish, if you’d like.”

Anakin, sufficiently distracted from groaning by the prospect of making food, deposits his boots at the correct spot on the rack. He skips into their small kitchen; Obi-Wan hands him the tin of tea. He dutifully pulls out the cups they usually use and the tea infuser. “Can we have both? Oh, yeah, this means we’re taking the mission, right?”

Obi-Wan smiles. “Yes, and yes. Careful now.” He waits until Anakin’s done fist-pumping in excitement, cups still held in both hands, before he reminds his padawan, “You know our duty this evening.”

Anakin freezes in place, and then his eyes go wide. “Oh, no.” He drops his arms – Obi-Wan hisses lightly at the arc the cups are swung in – and groans. “Can we beg off? Just this time? He knows all about it by now, why do we even have to come by?”

Obi-Wan tuts as he reaches over to put the kettle on. “Well, what do you think it is about, padawan?” He waves Anakin over to the dinner table, then turns to face him.

“Being polite,” Anakin grumbles.

Obi-Wan sighs. Out of the myriads of arguments they’ve had pertaining to this, it seems Anakin’s taken on only one thread. He turns the topic over in his head, hoping, as he always does, for the perfect opening to fall out of one corner, but conversations with his padawan have never been that easy, and they’re not going to start now.

“That is one of the reasons, yes,” he says. “And, in your opinion, why the politeness?”

Anakin throws up his arms. “How would I know! The polite thing would be to let us do our job, wouldn’t it? All of the sign-ups and write-ups I understand, but making us see him before we go anywhere, that’s just… it’s like nobody trusts us.”

“Oh, Anakin.” Obi-Wan takes a deep breath. He comes and sits down, face-to-face with his padawan. “I… It’s not about trust. Grandmaster Yoda trusts in the Force before all, and so do we. It is… I would say, the reverse. The lack of doubt. All is as the Force wills it.” He puts his hands together in front of him. “There’s no point in doubting us, there has never been.”

Anakin scrunches up his brows, but to Obi-Wan’s relief, he is engaging with the thought. “Then… why the check-up at all? If not to test us?”

The universe tests us enough, Obi-Wan doesn’t say, all of us. His ribcage feels so small all of a sudden, the reminder of something crawling its way up to his throat inside it. He resolutely opens it to the Force, leaving the sentiment to find its way out. “Well, padawan,” he says, “why would someone do something?”

Anakin squints his eyes at him in annoyance, until Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow and projects his entire lack of irony at him. “I don’t know,” he huffs, “’cause they want to?”

Obi-Wan tilts his head at that answer. “Well, there you go. Is it so unimaginable that our lineage Grandmaster wants to check in on his grandpadawan before they fly out?”

Anakin mulls it over, and then heaves a sigh and props his chin up on a hand. “I guess not,” he says. “He’s got a funny way of checking in.”

Obi-Wan is close to heaving a sigh of his own, but more in relief than anything. “That, my dear padawan, is just a Yoda thing,” he says, earning himself a laugh. “May we all age so gracefully.”

Anakin laughs. “What? Five apples tall and talking in riddles all day?”

“Padawan, you’re talking about our Grandmaster,” Obi-Wan glares at him, then at Anakin’s abashed glance to the side, he starts grinning. “And your own teacher, in the far future. I’ll be just as tall and even worse with riddles, just you wait and see.”

“Gods, no, spare me,” Anakin drops his head onto the table dramatically. “You’ll be talking in puns all day.”

“I can start now, for the extra practice,” Obi-Wan says, and Anakin laughs and makes to swat at him, just as the kettle starts boiling.

They share lunch – Obi-Wan puts Anakin to the task of sending the confirmation to Mission Communications, with Anakin groaning through the whole thing – and then they chart up what business needs done and what can be left until after the mission. Obi-Wan lets Anakin go alert his teachers and get his courseload for the trip on his own, while he takes a minute to meditate.

Obi-Wan still accompanies Anakin on his meditations, but the truth is he and Anakin do it in almost perfect polar opposite ways. Meditation for Obi-Wan is sightless; he’s never had much of a visual imagination. It is everything else, everywhere else – like following an echo, dimming every senses, forgetting every limb until only the one that lets the Force in remains. It is something he has to find and concentrate on using, as he shores up his shields, pulls mental drawers open and sorts through folders after folders. It’ll never be effortless, but he’s used to the work. Anakin, on the other hand… he is so open, and it’s a struggle to narrow his target. The only thing that’s worked reliably so far for him is to meditate while working on something mechanical, let the fiddling ground him. Put a dam in the middle of the flow and let the Force trickle in through the sides.

“It’s boring, though,” Anakin’s protested, once. Obi-Wan’s been just as helpless at figuring out a way through with his padawan then as he is now, and his only defense that came across was, “Yes, it is boring, but it’s necessary.” He’s compared it to showering, and then, after Anakin replied that he liked showering, to sweeping the sand out of one’s house.

Obi-Wan’s style of meditation means if he does it to his liking then he won’t be able to spare a mind to help Anakin, so he tries to catch up with it while Anakin’s not around. He’s always preferred someone to count the time for him, however; he often forgets the time when he’s deep enough in. He opens his eyes to Anakin’s face in front of him, only a hair’s breadth away.

It does startle him – it’s sometimes hard to pinpoint where Anakin is in the Force, with how immense his padawan’s access is – but he’s had ample practice keeping it off his body language.

“It’s rude to walk right across your elder’s face, padawan,” he says, and smiles as he startles Anakin instead. His padawan drops onto the pillow across from his, on the floor of their living room. Obi-Wan frowns at his boots still being on, again. “Twice in one day? Are you growing old before me?”

Anakin looks at him in question, but then follows his gaze down to the boots, on their carpet. “Ugh, we’re going to Yoda’s quarter now anyway,” he rolls his eyes, but at Obi-Wan’s glare, he stands up, puts the datapads he’s collected from his classes onto the dinner table, and goes stand at the door. “Were you meditating the whole time? Since I went get my homework?”

“I have,” Obi-Wan says, and stands up. “I enjoy the work.”

“That’s honestly scary,” Anakin comments. He makes a face when Obi-Wan glares at him again. “You’re so boring, but like, it’s kinda cool too.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” Obi-Wan says as he goes and grabs his robe from his room. “And if you pay me a better one, I might get your robe for you.”

“If I walk across the carpet my boots will leave so much mud.”

“I may make you pull one out of your closet only using the Force, padawan.”

Anakin crosses his arms and actually tries it. “Augh,” he grumbles, “’s that what those weird hooks on the hangers are for?” He rolls his eyes at Obi-Wan’s smug face. “Your tea’s leagues better than Grandmaster Yoda’s, teacher.”

“Acceptable.” Obi-Wan stops by Anakin’s room to get a robe from the closet. “Now, if you try some more to make an actual compliment, I’ll let you off scrubbing the carpet when we come home after the mission.”

Obi-Wan cannot tell his padawan that he doesn’t enjoy seeing Grandmaster Yoda before going on a mission either. Since taking on training Anakin, he’s realised there are many things he’d give his padawan right away, if only he asks for it, if only it makes them anew and without their circumstances for even a second. This is perhaps the one thing he knows he cannot give.

It is, by all means, the simplest matter in the galaxy: he and Qui-Gon have done this exact same thing before their last mission.

He’s actively brought this up with Nhạ Kì, almost as soon as they’ve set out to narrow down what functional meant to him. It has, ultimately, meant being able to take care of Anakin. It has meant a month-long trial and then a six-month course of neuroblocker, three months of sleep aid, learning to rely on physical cues more, learning to stop feeling like an old man when he writes notes and well-trodden internal arguments down in a flimsy journal, learning to choose, and choose, and choose, to give to the Force. Learning to automatically reply to his mind calling back how it has turned out every time with the crushing grip that cuts off the spring of thought.

The mission that took Qui-Gon from the world was the same mission that gave Anakin Obi-Wan and he learns, even now, to detangle the two things. It starts with not linking them in Anakin’s mind in the first place. So he doesn’t tell Anakin.

He doesn’t tell Yoda, either; it has never felt necessary to tell Yoda things. All matters eventually reach Yoda’s ears, and what he told Anakin was the truth: the Grandmaster likes to greet his visitors with the lecture locked and loaded. It’s simply a Yoda thing, to be a bit of a wisearse at all time. It keeps him young and spry.

The first time they did pre-mission visit after Obi-Wan took on Anakin, Yoda has greeted them at the door, instead of just opening the door for them as usual. He has, somehow, dragged in an atrocious bar counter that managed to be too tall to reach for all three of them, with even taller high chairs, and as they all struggled to settle themselves with some dignity intact, he’s wryly commented, “a child’s path to mighty man, I tread again, today,” and Obi-Wan has told Anakin, “He’s calling us babies,” and Anakin has been so offended he let go of his grip on the chair leg and fell onto the floor. They’ve suffered the swamp cookies, and then they’ve meditated together.

Yoda’s let them go with his version of a blessing, and he’s searched for something in Obi-Wan, and he’s been resigned. Obi-Wan’s never so thrilled to face that, again and again, even if that resignation is not his to bear.

They usually don’t even speak about the mission, when he makes the visit. There’s no point; Yoda knows the details, and he rarely offers insight unless asked for. He usually saves his time for poking at Anakin’s shields in meditation, as retaliation for trailing droid bits in his swamp.

“Away from the Temple for a time, you two will be,” he says, this time, while Anakin frowns and stops whatever it is he’s been doing to the beatmapper between his hands. Yoda nudges at a particular spot on Anakin’s shields without moving his attention away from the conversation.

Obi-Wan raises a brow. “A week from here to Jedha on such a vessel, yes. And then a week only, hopefully, to witness and aid in cleansing the cargo, then another week back.”

Yoda looks at him intently, and then looks down to the swamp seed crackers in the plate between them. “Kyber mining, I did not witness, in my time,” he says.

“Hm?⁸” Obi-Wan’s surprised. He tries to mask it, on instinct, but lets go when he sees Yoda’s eyes spark with mirth. “Oh, well. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing?”

“Bad, not. Good, not. Truth, it is.” Yoda folds his gnarled hands under his robe sleeves. “Like a stream, trickle away, let the world, padawan,” he directs this at Anakin. “Like water, on a waterfowl poured,” he chuckles.

“’m not a,” Anakin mumbles, annoyed, and Obi-Wan sighs and closes his eyes to sink into the Force for a second. Reaches out with his Force limb and holds onto Anakin’s own Force limb and pulls them both deeper into the Force. It’s always a bit overwhelming, leading Anakin in meditation like that; Anakin lets in so much, and his shields aren’t built to keep everything out – he’s freaked out when Obi-Wan’s first extended his shields to shelter him, for a while. The cacophony of the Force seems to be where Anakin is most at home.

Obi-Wan’s taken a page out of his own mind’s corralling, and asked Anakin what he wanted to do with his shields. Anakin’s built his shields to be— a machine. A continuous procession of the Force. In a sense, akin to Yoda’s metaphorical waterfowl; his shields slow the flow, part it, redirect it, let it pass through him harmlessly. It is still an unimaginably immense surface contact with the Force that’d turn the stomach of about any average Force sensitive.

Yoda lends Obi-Wan a hand when he resurfaces from helping Anakin. “Strong, he is, in the Force,” the Grandmaster says. “The water, the Force is. The Force’s torrent, your padawan is.”

Obi-Wan rubs his eyes. “I’m afloat,” he says. “I’m learning to swim.”

“That, I doubt not. A duckling, you are, as well.” Yoda’s eyes twinkle. Obi-Wan huffs a laugh.

“I humbly receive your compliment, Grandmaster.”

Yoda harrumph. “Do your best, you will, on this mission.” He picks up a seed cracker with the Force and waves it at Obi-Wan, who simply stares at it. “Kyber mining, before my time, it was. Consequences, it has led to.”

Obi-Wan makes an expression. “I well recall the lessons, Master. What’s this— oh.”

Stars, their cargo is old, huh.

“A bridge, in your mind, it finally forms,” Yoda chortles. “Older than myself, that freighter is. Relic, they call it. Relic, they call me not, even now.”

Not where you can hear it, Obi-Wan thinks. Yoda whacks him in the arm. “Ow! Sorry, Master.”

“On the present matter, put your mind, grandpadawan. Kyber freighters, seen bloodshed, they have. With them, still, their hunger, some carry. A ship, you’re bringing. A creature, in the Force.”

Obi-Wan parses through the words, and ends up with a furrow of his brows. “A… creature? I… don’t get it, Master.”

“A heartbeat, a shape, the Force recognises not. A change, it does. A desire, it does. In the Force, your emotions, you put, do you not?”

“Yes, but— what does this have to do with the ship?” Obi-Wan coughs a laugh. “Don’t tell me you really think it’s haunted?”

He earns himself another whack on the arm for that. “Twist my words, do not,” Yoda grumbles. “A creature, I see in the Force. Feed it, you must not.”

“What? You’re asking to let something starve?”

Obi-Wan startles at Anakin’s voice. His padawan’s leveling Yoda with a glare; he’s risen from meditation at some point while the adults were talking. His hands are curled into fists on the table.

Yoda looks over from Obi-Wan to him. “Twist my words, you must not, padawan,” he says, calmly.

“What else can that mean?” Anakin snaps out. Obi-Wan puts a hand on his shoulder.

“We were talking about the ship, Anakin. No-one’s starving anyone.”

“A creature, free, its own food, it will find,” Yoda says. “Feed it, you must not; starve it, I do not ask you to. Plenty, it has had. Yourself, let eaten, you must not.”

Anakin’s face has done something rather interesting. “What?”

Obi-Wan sighs. “I feel this will not be clear until we’ve seen the cargo. Come, padawan.” He pushes at Anakin until he stands up. “Creature or not, it will be in stasis, and neither Anakin nor I will be changing that. Better not.” He stares at Anakin until he gets a nod. “And it is not a creature. It’ll keep, it’s kept so far. A week won’t do a millimeter of a dent on it.⁹”

Yoda stands up as well to see them to the door. “Compassion, the heart of the Jedi, it is,” he says to Anakin, holding him and Obi-Wan back for a moment longer. “To separate it from indulgence, a lifelong lesson, it is. Learn well, you must.”

“Yes, Grandmaster,” Anakin says, at Obi-Wan’s nudge. Yoda only nods.

Anakin seems to be in a mood for the rest of the day – they come by the hangar where the freighter’s being loaded up, but can’t come too close with the grumpy artificers holding the perimeter. Anakin’s eye linger on the rusty panelling of the thing until Obi-Wan calls it on trying to get a read on it in the Force; it feels like the rest of the ships in the hangar, in its own context. Old, with a clinging sense of the violence it’s seen, but… nothing to shed light on what Yoda’s said.

When they arrive back at their quarter, Obi-Wan parks Anakin down at the living room low table again. “Padawan, you must either give whatever you’re holding onto to the Force, or tell me.”

Anakin scowls, but Obi-Wan can sense him pushing his anger and doubt out into the Force. “I don’t understand any of that,” he says, sullenly.

Obi-Wan sighs, and sits down as well. He scrubs at his face. “Neither do I, but you’ve heard our Grandmaster, it’s an ongoing pursuit.” He nudges at Anakin again to release his newly-build-up annoyance. “We will do it together. If I figure it out before you, I will teach you.”

Anakin flops down face-up onto their floor. “Thanks, Obi-Wan.”

“Don’t lay down there, you just walked all over that spot in your boots this morning. Go put your coursework in your go bag. Do you care to go with me to Dex’s for dinner?”

And just like that, Anakin’s on his feet and moving. Obi-Wan can do nothing but laugh and shake his head as he goes and makes them both some tea.