Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan’s knees buckled and he caught himself on the railing in front of him. He was gasping like he’d run a marathon; there was a bitter taste in his mouth, more than the tang of smog and artificial oxygen. Wind ruffled his hair. Pain radiated from the palm of his hand. His head was spinning. Something was wrong.

From nearby came the hubbub of music and conversation, intermingling with the wind, the ambient urban din, and a voice. A voice, speaking to him in words he couldn’t quite parse. A cold palm came to rest over Obi-Wan’s right hand. 

Obi-Wan pried open his eyes to discover that for some reason, of all people, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was looming over him. It was night, and they were alone on a balcony; the golden light from the building behind them cast oddly sinister shadows across the Chancellor’s face. 

“Your Excellency,” Obi-Wan said, masking his confusion. He had no idea what the Chancellor was doing here — or what he himself was doing here — or where here was, for that matter — but he wasn’t about to let the Chancellor know that. 

The Chancellor recoiled in shock. “Kenobi?”

Obi-Wan plastered on a baffled smile. “…Yes?”

The Chancellor’s eyes briefly went blank, then softened with grandfatherly concern. “Forgive me, Master Jedi. My eyes aren’t what they once were. I… stepped out just a moment ago for some fresh air, and couldn’t help but notice you collapsed against the railing. Are you quite alright?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said weakly. He cleared his throat and straightened his back and said, more convincingly, “Yes, your Excellency. I’m fine. I’m enjoying the… the view.” He looked out from the balcony. Thousands upon thousands of glittering skyscrapers stretched to the horizon, criss-crossed with lines of speeders. In the distance, one massive edifice rose above the rest, lights blinking at the tips of its five pointed spires. The Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan was on Coruscant. 

Huh. 

Last he recalled he was on the Negotiator, doing formwork; the Invasion of Kamino had been a shitshow on all levels, including bureaucratic. He’d been looking over Shaak Ti’s report as Cody made a joke about the latest military enhancement bill, and Obi-Wan… couldn’t remember what the punchline was.

“What is it that you have there?” the Chancellor asked, peering down at Obi-Wan’s right hand.

“Hm?” Obi-Wan followed the Chancellor’s gaze to the Sith Holocron he was holding. 

At least, that’s what Obi-Wan assumed the spiky, crystalline polyhedron pulsating with an ominous red glow was. One of the spikes was impaling his palm. In the force, Obi-Wan got the barest impression from the Holocron that his blood had satiated it. 

Oh dear, Obi-Wan thought.

“Just a… a Jedi artifact I was… examining,” he lied, hastily shoving his hand, and the Holocron, into his pocket. 

“Are you sure you’re quite alright?” the Chancellor asked.

“Never better.” There was a gust of wind. Obi-Wan didn’t bother to hide his shiver. “If you don’t mind, your Excellency, I’m going to head back to the… er…”

Obi-Wan gestured inside, where all the light and noise was coming from. He waited for the Chancellor to complete his sentence for him until well past the point of awkwardness. 

“…The event,” Obi-Wan finished lamely. 

“Of course,” the Chancellor agreed. “Ah — one thing, before you go. You said something intriguing during our earlier… conversation, and I was hoping you could remind me what it was.” 

Obi-Wan’s last conversation with the Chancellor had been a maybe six sentence exchange during which Obi-Wan politely accepted the Chancellor’s praise for discovering the Aqua Droids beneath Tipoca City during the Battle of Kamino. Obi-Wan had not said a single thing of substance. He had no idea what the Chancellor was talking about. “I simply reiterated that it is my duty as a Jedi to thwart the Sith and their schemes wherever they may be hidden.”  

The Chancellor pressed his mouth into a line. “Your memory is as sharp as ever, Master Jedi.”

“You’re welcome, your Excellency,” Obi-Wan said before bowing and fleeing one of the strangest conversations he’d ever had in his life as quickly as he could without outright running. The Chancellor’s gaze bored into the back of his head.

Inside, Obi-Wan found an opulent ballroom filled to the brim with all manner of sentient life. It must have been a gala of some kind. Obi-Wan even recognized a few senators in attendance. Obi-Wan ducked into a corner and pulled the holocron from his hand, hissing through his teeth. The wound in his palm was bleeding profusely now. The spikes — and Obi-Wan’s blood — were absorbed into the faces of the holocron as if they’d never been there. 

Oh dear, Obi-Wan thought again, more forcefully.

It was likely too late to undo the worst of the damage, whatever that damage was. Because it seemed that, for some Force-forsaken reason, Obi-Wan had activated a Sith Holocron. The situation was not good, to say the least, but Obi-Wan’s fear would do nothing but feed the dark side more than he already had, so he pocketed the holocron, clenched his fist, and took deep, calming breaths. It was a little more difficult than usual.

Obi-Wan stretched out his senses, searching for anyone he knew. To his relief, Anakin was at the other end of the hall. Obi-Wan almost missed him because his force signature was dimmer than usual — shielded, perhaps, not that Obi-Wan could imagine why. 

Obi-Wan wove through the crowd and found Anakin leaning against a wall, engaged in a lively conversation with Padmé Amidala in one of her signature ostentatious gowns. They were standing a little farther apart than usual. That was good. Maybe they’d finally sorted out the secret part of their secret relationship. 

When Anakin saw Obi-Wan he straightened and said, “There you are! I was wondering where you were hiding.”

But Obi-Wan was too distracted to respond, now that he could see Anakin properly. He couldn’t place why, but Anakin looked different . 

“Did you get a haircut?” he asked, frowning. 

Padmé tried to hold back a smile as Anakin rolled his eyes. “Good one, Master. Very original.”

Obi-Wan smiled along with them, though truthfully he had no clue what was so funny. “Yes, well. I’m very sorry to interrupt the two of you, but I was hoping I could have Anakin for a moment.”

“Uh-oh,” Anakin said. “What did I do this time?”

“Nothing that I’m aware of,” Obi-Wan replied, voice clipped. “I just need to speak with you. In private.”

The humor drained from Padmé and Anakin’s expressions, and they glanced at each other, concerned. Padme said to Anakin, “Why don’t we continue this conversation later.” Anakin nodded, and then, in a move that Obi-Wan found very audacious, Padmé gave Anakin a kiss on the cheek before gliding off, her gown fluttering behind her. Maybe he had spoken too soon about the two of them figuring out how to keep a secret. Anakin at least had the decency to look embarrassed about it.

Once Obi-Wan had herded Anakin into an abandoned hallway he extricated the holocron from his robes, held it out to Anakin pinched between his thumb and his index finger, and said, “I was hoping you might be able to tell me what this is.”

Anakin goggled. “That’s a Sith Holocron. What are you doing with a Sith Holocron? ”

“Good question,” Obi-Wan said grimly. 

“You mean, you don’t know?” 

“I’m afraid not.”

“You— you’re bleeding.”

“Well, that I do know.”

Anakin gaped. “Master. You can’t fall to the Dark Side. You’d be unstoppable.”

“I didn’t activate it on purpose, Anakin,” Obi-Wan protested. “Or at least, I don’t think I did.” Now he was frowning. He didn’t feel Dark. If he fell to the Dark Side and then forgot about it, did that count? 

Whatever face journey Obi-Wan was going on was not doing much to reassure Anakin. 

“If it helps, I’m just as confused as you are. I woke up standing outside, holding it, with no memory of how I’d gotten there. I’m not even quite sure what we’re doing here.”

“Padmé invited us,” Anakin said, like Obi-Wan was supposed to know that already.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Anakin took Obi-Wan’s arm and guided him down the hall. “Master, I hate to say it, but I think this is the worst mess you’ve ever gotten yourself into and I have no clue how to begin fixing it,” he remarked in a mild tone that belied his anxiety. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was doing formwork … ” Obi-Wan began.

“Be more specific,” Anakin said. “What was the date?” 

Obi-Wan gave Anakin the date. Anakin swore. 

“Not good?”

“That’s a month ago.”

“Lovely,” Obi-Wan said with a grimace. “I do hope I didn’t miss anything too important.”

“Nothing worth mentioning,” Anakin lied, radiating sadness. “I’m impressed with how well you’re taking this.”

“Panicking wouldn’t exactly help,” Obi-Wan said mildly. It was only as a result of decades of Jedi training and, frankly, a year spent running a kriffing war against the Sith that Obi-Wan was not currently having a meltdown over the fact that he exposed himself to a Sith Holocron and then forgotten why. 

Anakin found a ‘fresher and all but shoved Obi-Wan inside. “Wait here,” he said before swanning off for backup.

Now alone, Obi-Wan placed the Holocron — still pulsating with a blood-red glow — on the sink. A commlink in one of the pockets of his cloak began to beep, and he absently turned it off before pressing paper towels against his open wound. 

With little else to do as he staunched his bleeding, he took stock of himself in the mirror. He looked the same as always: hair cut short and beard trimmed, draped in cream Jedi robes and a new cloak. He hadn’t received any obviously disfiguring scars in the past month. He did feel an injury on his side, above his hip— a distant throbbing and the telltale sliminess of a bacta patch against his skin.

He twisted his hips to check his lightsaber out of a sense of thoroughness more than anything. It was different. Briefly neglecting his wound, Obi-Wan unclipped the ‘saber and examined it. The design was similar enough to that of the lightsaber Obi-Wan last remembered having, though unless Obi-Wan’s senses were deceiving him it was made of Beskar (how had that happened?) . And the crystal… for all that it felt like his, it was entirely unfamiliar to him. 

A lot could change in a month. The state of the War could be completely different. Entire relationships could have formed or been destroyed. People Obi-Wan cared about could have died. He hoped to the Force that no one was dead. 

Obi-Wan’s wound had pretty much stopped bleeding by the time Anakin’s muffled voice filtered through the door. 

“ …wouldn’t let something like that leave the Archives. But it’s not like Obi-Wan would’ve stolen it.”

“Under the influence of a Sith Holocron, there’s no telling what Obi-Wan would have done,” replied a deep, sonorous voice that made Obi-Wan’s stomach drop past his knees. “Many such artifacts have been known to exert a psychic influence over their victims, lowering their inhibitions and provoking unnatural feelings of obsession.”

“I love how you know that off the top of your head,” Anakin said.

Obi-Wan stiffened, his hand unconsciously going to his new lightsaber. 

The door hissed open and Anakin stepped into the ‘fresher, followed by Separatist Leader and Dark Lord of the Sith Count Dooku. Dooku was wearing a hideous mockery of Jedi Robes, and Obi-Wan wasn’t sure who he was trying to fool. They all knew Dooku hadn’t been a Jedi for a long, long time.

Sweet Force, they were on Coruscant. They were in the same building as the Chancellor. 

“The literature on the subject is fascinating,” Dooku told Anakin defensively. His gaze fell on Obi-Wan, and whatever he saw made his face go blank.

“Obi-Wan?” he asked, voice resonant with concern that seemed genuine. His eyes flicked down to where Obi-Wan’s hand was resting on his lightsaber, and he repeated, “Obi-Wan?”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, not taking his eyes off the Count, “please explain what Count Dooku is doing here.”

Obi-Wan was hoping Anakin would say something he could accept. Maybe Dooku had allied with the Jedi against his Sith Master. Maybe he was a Prisoner of War. Maybe he also had amnesia! Instead, Anakin’s brow furrowed and he said “He’s… here for the Gala?”

“I can see that,” Obi-Wan said. “I just don’t understand why no one’s arrested him.”

Count Dooku’s expression twisted in an impressive facsimile of confusion. 

“Neither of us have any idea what you’re talking about,” Anakin said. He felt sincere. Obi-Wan would have believed him if it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t be telling the truth. 

It was Dooku, wasn’t it? Dooku had given Obi-Wan the holocron. Dooku had— had manipulated him into activating it. Dooku had stolen his memories. And Dooku had done something to Anakin, such that he was on Dooku’s side. Anakin— not Anakin— 

Anakin didn’t feel dark. But — somehow, Dooku didn’t feel dark either. It was as if he’d never turned. An uncanny trick, but a trick nonetheless. 

Obi-Wan activated his lightsaber. Dooku stilled, but made no motion to draw his blade. 

“I don’t know what you’ve done to Anakin,” Obi-Wan said to Dooku, “And I don’t know what you’ve done to me , but it will not prevent me from doing my duty to the Republic and to the Jedi Order.” 

Anakin stepped between Dooku and Obi-Wan and said, “Okay, before we do something we’ll regret, why don’t we all take a deep breath and put down our lightsabers. Obi-Wan, it would be great if you’d stop threatening Master Dooku—”

“That’s not his name,” Obi-Wan hissed. “He has no right to call himself a Jedi. Not after what he’s done.”

“And what is that?” Dooku asked. “What is it that you think I’ve done?”

“You can’t be serious,” Obi-Wan all but laughed — but on Dooku and Anakin’s faces was confusion, disbelief, concern. “You can’t be serious,” Obi-Wan repeated.  

“A Sith Holocron is clouding your judgment.” Dooku said, palms outstretched. “Whatever it showed you is a lie, a ploy to drive you to the Dark Side. Search your feelings. I am not your enemy.” 

Obi-Wan shook his head, even as Dooku’s words rang with startling truth in the Force. “If you expect me to believe your lies then it is your judgment, not mine, that the Dark Side has clouded.” 

“Grandpadawan,” Dooku said with such pain that for a moment, Obi-Wan almost believed it was real. That was the worst part. 

Obi-Wan tightened his grip on his ‘saber. “Step away from Count Dooku,” he ordered Anakin.

“I can’t.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“Then don’t,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan realized he would have to arrest them both. 

He closed his eyes and allowed himself one moment of sadness. 

Anakin’s lightsaber flew from Anakin’s belt into Obi-Wan’s hand and ignited with a snap-hiss , and then Obi-Wan had blue blades pointed at Anakin and Dooku’s throats. 

An overwhelming force slammed into Obi-Wan’s chest and sent him flying back through the air. Obi-Wan had enough time to register Anakin’s guilt before he crashed into a wall and everything went black. 

Obi-Wan sensed as soon as he awoke that he was in the Temple. He was safe. Thank the Force.

He blinked open his eyes and found himself sitting up in bed in the Halls of Healing. When he tried to shift, his wrists wouldn’t move —  they’d cuffed him to the bed. 

Obi-Wan was still absorbing this fact when Vokara Che stepped into the room.

“Master Che,” Obi-Wan rasped.

“Obi-Wan,” she said warmly. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” he said, not really trying to convince her it was true. He tested the restraints again, “I assume this has to do with the Sith Holocron?”

Master Che’s smile became strained. “That would be correct.” 

Obi-Wan would never enjoy being in the Halls of Healing, but at least it wasn’t a torture chamber on Serenno.

“Have I fallen?” Obi-Wan asked, quite seriously.

“If you have, you’re hiding it remarkably well.”

Obi-Wan exhaled a long, relieved breath. “Where’s Anakin?”

“He’s here in the Temple, safe.”

“And what of Count Dooku?”

Master Che’s face fell. “Master Dooku is also in the Temple.”

“Master Dooku,” Obi-Wan repeated in dismay.

Gingerly, Master Che said, “Obi-Wan, it appears that the Sith Holocron has— altered your perception of Master Dooku.”

“He’s a Sith."

“He’s a Jedi,” said Master Che. “He’s your Grandmaster. Search your feelings.”

Obi-Wan did. He sensed no darkness in the Temple; he sensed no deception in his surroundings, or in Master Che. 

“You don’t understand,” Obi-Wan said, struggling to understand it himself. “I have seen him do such terrible things. All of us have. He is an enemy of the Republic, of the Jedi, of the light itself!”

Vokara paused. Perhaps she sensed the truth in Obi-Wan’s words. “Except, he’s not. The Holocron—“

“That, we can agree on,” Obi-Wan said. Again he tried to shift, but the cuffs stopped him. “If Dooku has clouded the minds of the Jedi, he must be stopped. We must stop him. The fate of the galaxy depends upon it.”

“Master Kenobi, you know I can’t release you from the Halls. Not in the condition you’re in.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you’ve had a brush with a dark Holocron that is manipulating your thoughts.”

Something terrible dawned on Obi-Wan. “How do I know you’re not working with him?”

Now, Master Che was truly alarmed. “I’ve been your mind healer for five years, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan paused. Because it felt true. And yet—

“No,” he said. “That’s a lie. I’ve never had a mind healer in my life.”

“Why don’t you get some rest,” Master Che said, pained. “We’re going to run a few tests, see if there’s anything—“

“You have to let me out of here.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“If you really are a Jedi,” Obi-Wan said despite how wrong he knew the words to be, distress mounting, “you have to help me. If Dooku is allowed to complete his plans, it could shift the War in his favor!”

“What war?” 

“What war?” Obi-Wan parroted in disbelief, voice pitched, which probably was not helping his case. “The Clone War! The War against the Separatists — against Dooku!”

Master Che palmed a hypo and approached the bed, presumably because it was standard procedure to sedate patients in the midst of a paranoid breakdown — or possibly because she was an agent of the Sith. 

They must not have expected him to be cognizant enough to release his restraints with the Force, because doing so was child’s play. He sprung out of bed and threw himself into the corner opposite Master Che. 

“Obi-Wan!” 

Obi-Wan eyed the door. He’d have to make a run for it. He swept out with the Force and shoved the bed at Master Che, then lunged for the door right as Qui-Gon Jinn barged into the room. 

Obi-Wan stopped and stared. 

Qui-Gon. He was here, in the flesh, living and breathing, and it wasn’t possible—

“Master Jinn!” Master Che cried, not out of shock at his miraculous resurrection, but warningly, like Obi-Wan was the most startling thing in the room. 

“Calm yourself, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said. Though his voice was even, Obi-Wan felt his anxiety through the bond between them that hadn’t existed for ten years. “You’re safe. You’re in the Temple—”

“You died,” Obi-Wan choked out. 

Qui-Gon’s face went sheet fucking white. 

“ You died,” Obi-Wan repeated. “I held you in my arms and felt the life drain out of you. I watched the body burn—“

“Padawan, listen to me,” Qui-Gon commanded, voice trembling. “You cannot let your visions overwhelm you. Focus on the here and now. Reach out with your senses. Feel the world around you, feel the Force, feel my presence.” The Qui-Gon that couldn’t be Qui-Gon touched Obi-Wan’s shoulders, and when Obi-Wan jerked away Qui-Gon clutched him tighter.

“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said. “I am here.”

Obi-Wan stretched out his senses and felt the truth of it. He felt Qui-Gon, burning bright in the Force, alive . This was real.

That wasn’t possible.

But it was real.

Obi-Wan fell, like a youngling, into his Master’s arms. Qui-Gon let him cling, perhaps unsure what else to do; he had never really mastered physical affection. When Qui-Gon awkwardly patted Obi-Wan on the back, Obi-Wan let out a wet laugh, because it was such a Qui-Gon thing to do. It was really him. 

“Master,” Obi-Wan gasped out. There were tears running down his cheeks.

“I’m here,” Qui-Gon murmured. 

Slowly, Obi-Wan withdrew from Qui-Gon’s embrace. He studied his old master — older, now, than he’d ever been in reality. There were lines on his face that hadn’t been there before, and his hair was more silver than brown. But it was still him. He was alive. And that simply wasn’t possible.

“Something is wrong,” Obi-Wan said, addressing Qui-Gon and Master Che. Master Che, his mind healer; Dooku, a Jedi; Qui-Gon, alive. All these things true in the here and now — but not true to Obi-Wan. 

“Oh,” he said, as the pieces fell into place and he finally understood exactly what had happened to him: “I’m in an alternate universe.”

Obi-Wan’s conclusion was not actually as out there as one might initially think. 

There were records of Jedi moving between different universes or times going back thousands of years. Obi-Wan had written a paper on the subject as a padawan: it was a simple fact that on very rare occasions, the Force thinned the walls of reality and things slipped through. Thus, Obi-Wan’s hypothesis was that the Sith Holocron had taken his spirit from his home reality and transplanted it into the body of an entirely different Obi-Wan in an entirely different galaxy: one where Qui-Gon was alive and Dooku was a Jedi, and where there was no War.

Qui-Gon was the only one who believed Obi-Wan without hesitation. Master Che didn’t buy it until she’d examined his mind thoroughly, concluding that he was not under the active influence of the Dark, and that he surely wasn’t Obi-Wan when his shielding was so weak (evidently, the other Obi-Wan’s mind was impenetrable). Then Obi-Wan suffered through examinations by two other healers and a lengthy round of interrogation by half the Jedi Council, because apparently when a Jedi Master and High Councilor said he’d been replaced by an alternate version of himself after activating a Sith Holocron, people tended to have questions.

Throughout this process, Obi-Wan shared about his own galaxy, and in turn learned a little about the galaxy where he had found himself. Galactic history seemed to have passed identically in the two realities up until the Vote of No Confidence against Chancellor Valorum during the Naboo Crisis, which had never occurred here. Palpatine had only been Chancellor for some three years. After that moment the differences grew and grew until modern day, where the Separatists were a fringe political movement and there was no Clone War. The Jedi were at peace. Sure, the Sith were out there — they’d emerged during the Invasion of Naboo, the same as back home — but for one reason or another they had failed to accrue the power and influence they’d gained in Obi-Wan’s galaxy. It was amazing. 

Obi-Wan’s awe was matched only by the horror of the Council and the Healers at the mere idea of the Jedi Order going to war — a Jedi Order more alike than not to their own. Obi-Wan couldn’t blame them. He shared all he could about how the Clone Wars had come about in case it proved useful. The Council might have been grateful under their nausea. Mace looked like he was about to have a coronary. 

Everyone’s most pressing concern, though, was the Holocron. It had not come from the Archives; no one on the Council had seen it before. Where Obi-Wan had gotten it was anyone’s guess, including Obi-Wan’s. Master Nu, he was told, had been tasked with examining the Holocron and figuring out how to send Obi-Wan back to his galaxy. Because for as wonderful and light as this place was, it wasn’t his, and he had a War to fight. 

Yoda made the final determination.

“Light, I sense within you.” Master Yoda said, perched in his councilor’s chair, hands resting on his gimmer stick. “Bright light. Familiar light. But different, nonetheless. Obi-Wan, you are — but our Obi-Wan, you are not.”

The other Councilors present nodded in assent. 

“Thank you, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan said. 

“A danger to the Temple, you are not. A Jedi, you are. Welcome here, you will be.” Yoda smiled. “Rest from your battles. Find peace. A child of the Temple, you are, and your home, this is.” 

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan was released with instructions to stay within the vicinity of the Temple and a strong recommendation from Master Che that he attend his regular mind healing session later that week. Not that he planned to listen. He’d been doing fine without a Mind Healer for thirty-six years and didn’t see a reason to change his habits now.

Obi-Wan had no idea where his quarters were, so he had Qui-Gon lead him there. For much of the walk Obi-Wan was quiet, half from exhaustion and half because he was too busy marveling at the Temple. Physically, the War had not touched the Temple, but in the Force, the very air shimmered with Light in a way it hadn’t since Geonosis. Maybe earlier. 

“You’re acting like a tourist,” Qui-Gon remarked as Obi-Wan gawked, his cane tapping on the ground beside him. Qui-Gon was taking the whole Two Obi-Wans thing in stride, so much so that it wasn’t clear if he got that Obi-Wan wasn’t the padawan he had raised.

“Sorry,” Obi-Wan said. “It’s just that the Temple is so different. It’s so…” 

“Peaceful,” Qui-Gon finished, something strange in his voice. “Light.”

“Yes, exactly.” 

A juvenile part of Obi-Wan had always thought that, had Qui-Gon survived Naboo, the War never would have happened. It was odd to be in a place where that was the case. 

“In your galaxy, the fighting itself…” For whatever reason, Qui-Gon was reluctant, almost afraid to ask his question. “Has there been bloodshed in the Temple?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “No. Force-willing, there never will be.” 

From Qui-Gon, relief. But also confusion — like he’d expected one more step at the bottom of a stair where there was none. He had envisioned the worst. 

Obi-Wan took it as a judgment. Of course Qui-Gon was judging; Qui-Gon would have been the loudest conscientious objector in the Order if he’d lived long enough to see Geonosis. 

Obi-Wan feared that Qui-Gon would take one more look at him — surely far dimmer and more burdened than his peacetime counterpart, as much a soldier as he was a Jedi — and turn away in disgust. It wouldn’t be the first time Qui-Gon had given up on him.

“There was no other way,” Obi-Wan tried to explain. “The Sith and the Republic were going to go to war with or without the Jedi’s involvement, and without us the Sith would have surely won. We could not sit by and watch them conquer the Galaxy, even if fighting means we cannot live up to our ideals as we should.”

“I don’t envy your situation,” Qui-Gon said placidly.

Obi-Wan side-eyed him. “I thought you’d be ranting about how my galaxy’s Jedi are betraying themselves by now.”

“I mean, you are definitely doing that,” Qui-Gon said. “But I sense that you already understand that, quite a bit more intimately than I ever will. Who would I be to lecture you from afar about something you’ve learned first-hand?”

It was, all in all, a shockingly emotionally mature thing to say. 

“Are you sure you’re Qui-Gon?” Obi-Wan asked. 

Qui-Gon gave a brief smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Then, haltingly, he began, “Obi-Wan, I know you’re not… not precisely the man I know. But you ever need to talk about anything at all, I am here for you. You are still my padawan, and. And I am your master.” The words meant everything to Obi-Wan, even if they weren’t quite true. Obi-Wan had missed Qui-Gon so much, stilted attempts at emotional honesty and all.

Obi-Wan’s quarters were warmer than a sane person would ever keep a room, and full of plants. As soon as Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon stepped inside, Anakin stood from where he had been sitting on the couch, coiled with tension. All of his anxiety dissolved once he laid eyes on Obi-Wan.

“Master!” he cried.

The differences were suddenly obvious. This Anakin’s hair was indeed shorter, closer to a padawan cut. He was missing the scar across his eye that Ventress had given him. And his Force signature was muted compared to that of Obi-Wan’s Anakin. But one thing was the same: Obi-Wan was, for whatever reason, Anakin’s master. Curious. Surely, since Qui-Gon had survived Naboo, he should have been Anakin’s master. Something to ask about later.

“Anakin—” Obi-Wan began.

“I’m so sorry I shoved you into a wall,” Anakin said. “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, but you, you weren’t listening, and I—”

“It’s fine, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. He supposed it had been for the best, or else he might have hurt Anakin — and Dooku, who really was a Jedi here. “But—”

“But you’re back to normal now, right?” 

Oh dear. Obi-Wan turned to Qui-Gon. “You didn’t tell him?”

Qui-Gon winced. “I… thought it was best that he see for himself.”

“See what?” Anakin asked, glancing between them with mounting dread.

Qui-Gon winced some more. 

“See what?”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said in his most practiced Gentle Master voice. “I’m not the Obi-Wan Kenobi you know. I’m from another universe.”

Anakin went blank.

Qui-Gon cut in, “Sometimes, through the Force, the gaps between realities—”

“I know,” Anakin said, gazing at Obi-Wan, crestfallen. “You made me take that class on the Force and Space-Time phenomena. Remember?”

Obi-Wan bowed. “I’m afraid not.”

“Do you even know me?” Anakin asked, cloaked in suspicion.

“Of course I do,” Obi-Wan said. “You’re Anakin Skywalker, my padawan. I’ve known you since you were a boy.”

Obi-Wan smiled at Anakin. Anakin just kind of stared. 

“Anakin,” Qui-Gon cut in, “I know you’re in the middle of moving to your own quarters, but would you be alright staying with Master Kenobi until the Holocron gets sorted?”

“How long is that going to be?” Anakin asked. 

“A few days, maybe,” Qui-Gon said. Obi-Wan did not point out that this was a generously conservative estimate.

Anakin’s discomfort rang through the Force. He, unlike Qui-Gon, was acutely aware that Obi-Wan was not the man he knew. “We’ll manage.” 

Qui-Gon excused himself, citing a desire to meditate on the day’s events which was probably only partially an excuse to get out of an uncomfortable social situation. He gave Obi-Wan a parting shoulder pat and a tight smile, then left. 

“You don’t have your own quarters?” Obi-Wan asked Anakin, lacking anything better to say.

“Well, up until this week I was a padawan, so…” 

Obi-Wan blinked, seeing Anakin’s shorter haircut in a new light. It was no wonder, then, that Anakin was so aloof with Obi-Wan — he’d been knighted and lost his Master in a handful of days. Obi-Wan knew how painful of an experience that was. 

“Congratulations,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m sorry that your Master can’t be here right now to celebrate your achievement.” 

“Me too,” Anakin said.

An awkward silence fell. 

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “I should get some sleep.”

“Right,” Anakin said. 

“I’ll… go do that.” 

The first thing Obi-Wan did after stepping into his room was turn down the thermostat. The room had been furnished by someone with Obi-Wan’s taste in decor who, for whatever reason, had decided he needed five or six woosha plants and a full wall of password-protected filing cabinets. Anakin had placed Obi-Wan’s lightsaber on his bedside table and laid his cloak across the bed. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with the lightsaber, since it wasn’t his, but the cloak he threw over a chair for tomorrow. 

To Obi-Wan’s relief, the other Obi-Wan’s closet was virtually identical to his own (save for a storage crate shoved into the back that resembled a GAR-issue armor case), so finding a set of sleep clothes was easy. In the ‘fresher, Obi-Wan rebandaged and reapplied bacta to the Holocron wound on his palm and the mystery wound in his side. Upon inspection, it appeared that a blaster bolt had clipped him above the hip, leaving him with an unpleasant but largely superficial blasterburn that couldn’t be more than a day old. 

Obi-Wan examined himself in the mirror. Now that he knew to look, he saw on his skin the marks of a different life than the one he’d lived. His callouses weren’t quite the same. All the little scars he’d picked up over the years in stupid ways were different, and his war wounds were gone. In their place were new scars. A long-faded slug graze at his temple. An electrowhip burn around his bicep. Across Obi-Wan’s collarbone there was a solid line of white, raised flesh that surely was an old lightsaber wound. A shiver went down Obi-Wan’s spine as he traced the scar: it ran from his left shoulder, straight across his collarbone at a slight upward angle, then arched around his right shoulder, cut across his back between his neck and his shoulderblades, and circled back to the start. A complete circuit. Sai Cha.

Obi-Wan didn’t sleep well. His dreams were full of fire and death — lava, burning suns, corpses littering the floor of the Temple, overwhelming grief. When he woke up he was as exhausted as he’d been when he went to bed. 

He planted himself on his meditation mat and cast himself to the Force. He searched for answers about the dreams — about the scar — about the Holocron — and came up with nothing. Headed in the direction of his wit’s end, he meditated on what to do with the other Obi-Wan’s lightsaber and was told in no uncertain terms that it was his lightsaber, and that it wanted him to use it as much as a lightsaber could want anything. 

Obi-Wan threw on his cloak and set about making tea. Anakin was nowhere to be found, likely still asleep. While Obi-Wan was waiting for the tea to steep, his hand slipped into his cloak pocket and his fingers brushed against a commlink, the one he’d turned off at the Gala. He turned it on and it immediately began to ring. Puzzled, Obi-Wan hit accept call and was prompted to enter a passcode that he did not know. He sighed and turned the comm off again. Whoever was trying to contact him would have to wait.

Obi-Wan was sitting at the counter with his tea Anakin emerged from his room.

“Master— Master Kenobi,” Anakin said. “You’re awake.”

“I usually am at this hour,” Obi-Wan said blandly. “Tea?”

“I’ll pass,” Anakin said, eyeing the exit.

“I was thinking,” Obi-Wan said, forging ahead, because this may not have been his Anakin but it was Anakin, and Obi-Wan wanted to get to know him, “I don’t know anything about your Jedi Temple. It might be quite different from my own. Perhaps you could give me a tour?” 

Anakin squinted at Obi-Wan. 

“Never mind,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m sure you’re busy—”

“Not really,” Anakin said. “I guess I can show you around if you’d like. Since you’re gonna… be here.”

The tour of the Temple turned out to be unnecessary. Everything was laid out exactly as it was back home. As a tour guide, Anakin wasn’t uniquely enthusiastic or knowledgeable. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan enjoyed the tour. Every so often they would pass by a Jedi who had died in Obi-Wan’s world, and Obi-Wan would do a double take and then resist the urge to stare. 

With significant prodding, Obi-Wan got Anakin to talk a little about himself. Quickly, it became clear that this Anakin’s past and his own’s were not quite as similar as Obi-Wan had assumed: Anakin had been freed from slavery and brought to the Temple when he was five years old. That was some four years before the Naboo Crisis. Obi-Wan’s galaxy and the galaxy where he currently resided had diverged earlier than he’d thought, if they had ever been the same at all. 

“Obi-Wan and Master Qui-Gon were the ones to free me and Mom,” Anakin explained as he showed off the refectory, which was the same here as it was back home. “Obi-Wan hadn’t even been knighted yet. Mom says they would have taken us anywhere in the galaxy, but she insisted on going with them to the Jedi Temple. I think she wanted me to be a Jedi from the moment she knew it was possible. She’s always wanted what’s best for me. She’s amazing.” 

“You’re in contact with her?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Yeah,” Anakin said. “I mean, we talk every so often. She’s pretty busy. She does a lot of abolitionist work.”

“My,” Obi-Wan said. He had never met Anakin’s mother. As far as he knew, in his universe, she was still a slave on Tatooine, and he was suddenly ashamed of that fact. 

Anakin was taken aback when Obi-Wan shared that his Anakin had joined the Temple at nine. “I thought they didn’t let in Initiates that old.”

“They usually don’t. You were a special case.”

“How’s that?” Anakin asked.

“You — you were… Never mind,” Obi-Wan said, even as he made sense of why this galaxy’s Anakin was so much dimmer in the Force. He’d assumed it was shielding. Evidently not. 

Obi-Wan wasn’t Qui-Gon; he’d never been quite sure that Anakin was the Chosen One. But in this place, he definitely wasn’t. Maybe there wasn’t a Prophecy at all. Maybe that was for the best. This Anakin didn’t have the weight on his shoulders that Obi-Wan’s did. He didn’t have the role of Chosen One to live up to, and he had four fewer years in slavery to move beyond. 

The way this Anakin interacted with the other Jedi, it was clear that he was a part of the Temple community in a way Obi-Wan’s Anakin wasn’t. Anakin had always struggled to make connections in the Temple; now, every so often they would run into one of his friends, and Obi-Wan would have the sincere pleasure of playing awkward third wheel as Anakin engaged them in the kind of dense, pithy conversations that only people who’d known each other their whole lives could have.

As Anakin showed Obi-Wan around the Salles, Quinlan Vos waylaid them. 

“Obi-Wan!” he said warmly. “I’d heard you were in the Halls—”

“This isn’t Obi-Wan,” Anakin snapped, before Obi-Wan himself could politely explain that he was from an alternate universe.

Quinlan frowned.

“There was a mishap with a holocron,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m from an alternate universe.”

“Huh,” Quinlan said. “How alternate?”

“So far? Fairly similar.”

“Did you write my Advanced Astronav final for me?”

“Naturally,” Obi-Wan replied. 

“Hey, you’re still Obi-Wan!” Quinlan cried. 

“Is Aayla around?” Anakin asked. Then he abandoned Obi-Wan to go interrupt Aayla’s warm-up stretches. 

Quinlan took Obi-Wan’s plight in stride, bombarding him with increasingly invasive questions about his timeline that Obi-Wan did his best to answer. This Quinlan was close to Obi-Wan’s own: Tholme’s padawan, Aayla Secura’s Master, Obi-Wan’s friend. Psychometric, Jedi Shadow, rule-breaker. Gregarious, charming, morbid, and — above all — competitive. 

“How about a spar?” Quinlan asked. 

“I couldn’t,” Obi-Wan demurred, though in his heart he’d already said yes. The banter was part of the fun. 

“Come on. I wanna see how your stuff compares to the regular Obi-Wan. Or are you just scared that you won’t measure up? Maybe I should call you Obi-Two.”

“Don’t call me Obi-Two.”

“Okay, Obi-Two.”

“Quinlan.”

“Hey, Aayla! Anakin!” Quinlan hollered. Anakin and Aayla were at the other end of the room practicing some wild Ataru kickflip. “Me and Obi-Wan are gonna spar!” 

Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine.” 

While Obi-Wan and Quinlan warmed up, Anakin and Aayla sat in the stands and talked. What Obi-Wan was pretty sure had originally been light conversation had turned serious, if the tension threaded through Anakin’s Force signature was any indication. And considering the way Anakin and Aayla kept glancing at him, Obi-Wan could guess what they were talking about. 

Quinlan and Obi-Wan took their places across from each other and bowed. Obi-Wan unclipped his lightsaber. Despite everything, it fit perfectly in his hand. 

“Best of three?” Quinlan asked.

Obi-Wan switched on his ‘saber and raised it above his head in a Soresu salute. “I only need one match to beat you,” he said, grinning. Obi-Wan’s skill with Soresu was unparalleled amongst his peers: this new Quinlan wouldn’t have any idea what had hit him. 

Quinlan won.

“Solah,” Obi-Wan panted, staring crosseyed in disbelief at the tip of Quinlan’s blade, which was almost touching his nose. What just happened? 

“Well, I can tell you one thing that’s different about you,” Quinlan said, breathlessly, as he deactivated his lightsaber. “Your Soresu’s not as good.”

“I’m the Soresu master,” Obi-Wan protested. 

“Not around here, you’re not, Obi-Two,” Quinlan said. 

Obi-Wan let Quinlan pull him to his feet before clutching his side with one hand. He had truthfully forgotten about the blasterburn up until halfway through the spar, when it had started bothering him. Not that the injury excused his loss. 

Aayla and Anakin were clapping; Quinlan gave them an exaggerated bow. Obi-Wan smiled and waved like he hadn’t just gotten his ass kicked. 

Quinlan procured two bottles of water and chucked one at Obi-Wan’s head. Obi-Wan caught it with one hand. As Obi-Wan drank the water and nursed his bruised ego, and his healing injury, he wondered how this world’s Obi-Wan possibly had better Soresu than him. In fact, why did this world’s Obi-Wan know Soresu in the first place? Obi-Wan had only picked up Soresu because Qui-Gon’s death revealed to him Ataru’s glaring defensive flaws. 

“Why do I specialize in Soresu here?” Obi-Wan asked. 

Quinlan shrugged. “Beats me. You just sort of started. I think it was after your vision. You took to it like a fish to water — I forget that you spent most of your apprenticeship learning Ataru.” Quinlan looked him up and down. “Why do you specialize in Soresu?”

“My vision?” Obi-Wan asked in lieu of an answer.

“Towards the end of your apprenticeship,” Quinlan said. “You had a really intense vision. Hit you right out of nowhere. You were in the Halls for a week.”

Obi-Wan had experienced no such vision; he hadn’t had any visions since he was a child. 

“Best of three?” Anakin suggested from the stands. He and Aayla were getting bored.

“I don’t think so, Anakin,” Obi-Wan called back, wincing. 

“You sure you haven’t had enough punishment?” Quinlan asked Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. Then there was a twinge of pain from his blasterburn and he groaned, clutching his side.

“You okay?” Quinlan asked. Anakin and Aayla came over, concerned.

“Sorry,” Obi-wan said. “It’s this damn blasterburn.”

“What blasterburn?” Anakin asked.

Thus, Obi-Wan’s tour of the Temple concluded in the Halls of Healing. 

See, Obi-Wan had no clue where the blasterburn came from, but that was to be expected under the circumstances. The problem — and something that had not occurred to Obi-Wan until he saw the alarm on Anakin’s face in the Salles— was that no one else had any clue where it came from, either. The other Obi-Wan had been hiding his injuries. 

Obi-Wan was mostly bemused by his other self’s idiocy. Anakin was pissed. With both Obi-Wans, though he could only take it out on one.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he hissed for the fifth or sixth time, after Master Che stepped out of the room for more salve. She was displeased about the burn but said that it was healing up nicely, which came as no surprise to Obi-Wan; he knew how to dress a wound.

“Anakin, I assumed you already knew about it,” Obi-Wan replied testily. “Forgive me for believing that your Master is capable of communicating with others about his physical well-being.”

“You’re the one that decided to go sparring with a chunk burnt out of your side.”

It was the kind of argument they’d gotten into a million times. The rhythms of it were soothing.

“I forgot about it. Honestly. It doesn’t hurt that much—”

Anakin rolled his eyes.

“— and I wasn’t living here when this body was injured. It slipped my mind.”

“It slipped your mind,” Anakin parroted. “Where did it even come from?”

“I would love to tell you, except that it was already there when I woke up. Do you really have no idea where it came from?” Based on the age of the wound, the other Obi-Wan had to have gotten it the same day as the Gala. “Was there not a mission, or a fight, or—”

“No, there wasn’t. There’s nothing.”

“Where was I?”

“I don’t know! I spent most of the day hungo— uh, meditating.”

“Anakin.”

“It was the day after my Knighting party, okay? And then I was packing, and then I had Padmé’s thing in the evening. When Obi-Wan wasn’t in the apartment I assumed he was, I don’t know, busy!”

“Evidently he was.”

“I mean doing normal things! Meditating or reading or something! Not getting shot!”

“Perhaps he was in the Salles?” Obi-Wan offered, though no Temple training droid would ever use the kind of high-power blasterbolt that had injured him. 

“No way,” Anakin said. He was a churning sea of confusion. With that confusion came fear, and anger. 

A nearby tray of medical implements shook, metal clattering against metal. The lights flickered.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. 

The clattering stopped. Anakin froze, guilty.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said again, more softly, “I am very sorry that your Master hid this from you. It was a foolish thing to do. But I am just as surprised as you are.”

“That’s the problem,” Anakin said. “If Obi-Wan were here, he could explain himself. But he’s not.”

With that, Anakin fled. Obi-Wan suspected that he wouldn’t be seeing much of his padawan for the foreseeable future. 

Before the door closed behind Anakin, Vokara Che stepped into the room holding a tin of salve, craning her neck down the hall to watch him storm away. 

“Hm,” Master Che said. “Should I expect you at your next mind healing appointment, or are you going to pretend that never happened for the rest of your life?”

Obi-Wan ran a hand across his face. 

Master Che ordered Obi-Wan to take it easy for the next few days, as if he had planned to do anything but. He considered returning to his quarters, but he wanted to give Anakin whatever space he needed. But where could he go, if not to his quarters? 

Rest from your battles, Yoda had told him. Find peace. With that thought, Obi-Wan went to the gardens. 

The gardens were the same as always: verdant and tranquil, a swirling font of the Living Force, abundant with greenery and running water. Being there always made immersing himself in the currents of the Force as easy as breathing. In this universe, it was even easier. Everything was so light, so effortless, so perfect. Too perfect. Uncomfortably so. Like a bed so soft you sank into it, when Obi-Wan was used to resting in hard places.

Obi-Wan could not shake the feeling that the calm around him was nothing more than the calm between battles, which was of course really tension. He half-expected that any second now the universe would turn on its head and reveal its rotten underbelly, because that was the story of Obi-Wan’s life. Then again, this wasn’t Obi-Wan’s life — he was merely borrowing someone else’s. The only thing that was out of place here was him. 

Obi-Wan’s feet took him, as they always did when he was troubled and uncertain, to Qui-Gon’s grove. 

It had been Qui-Gon’s favored meditation spot in the Gardens for as long as Obi-Wan remembered: a small clearing full of golden light by a bubbling fountain, populated with ferns and broad-leaved tropical plants. After the Battle of Naboo, they’d erected a stone statue of Qui-Gon there. Obi-Wan liked to visit it sometimes. 

When Obi-Wan reached the grove, the statue was gone. The air left Obi-Wan’s lungs when he discovered that a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood Qui-Gon Jinn had taken its place. Then he remembered that Qui-Gon wasn’t dead. 

Qui-Gon was kneeling in meditation, his cane laid out next to him. He opened his eyes when he sensed Obi-Wan arrive.

“Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan said uncertainly. 

“Hi, Master Obi-Wan!” said Ahsoka Tano, who was kneeling next to Qui-Gon.

Obi-Wan gaped at Ahsoka. Ahsoka squinted back.

Qui-Gon cleared his throat. “Obi-Wan, this is my padawan, Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka, Obi-Wan is…”

“Oh, yeah,” Ahsoka said. “Are you really from an alternate universe?”

“I am,” Obi-Wan said weakly. “I’m sorry, you — you’re Qui-Gon’s padawan?” 

“He just said that,” Ahsoka said. 

“Obi-Wan comes from a universe where everyone’s a bit slow,” Qui-Gon said.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes.

Qui-Gon and Ahsoka. The diplomatic incidents they caused together must have been something to behold. 

“Ahsoka,” Qui-Gon said, “I think we’ve meditated enough. Why don’t you go get something to eat?” 

Qui-Gon had barely finished his sentence before Ahsoka was gone, calling farewell behind her. She was so carefree without the War to burden her. That, at least, was as it should have been.

“You took another padawan,” Obi-Wan said. “You took Ahsoka as your padawan.”

“You know, my Obi-Wan had the exact same reaction when he found out,” Qui-Gon remarked. 

“What… how…”

“How does anyone ever get a padawan? The Force guided us together,” he said fondly. “…There may have been a nexu involved. I take it you know her?”

“She’s Anakin’s student.”

Qui-Gon stared into the middle distance. Perhaps he, too, was envisioning diplomatic incidents. “Isn’t he a little young to have a padawan?”

“There were extenuating circumstances,” Obi-Wan said, by which he meant the War. “And Master Yoda meddles.”

“That must be true in every universe. Come, sit. Unless you want to keep standing there looking lost.”

Obi-Wan sat down next to Qui-Gon in the grass. He opened his mouth to speak but realized that he didn’t know how to talk to Qui-Gon anymore. It had been too long. 

“How are you, Master?” he asked. 

“I’m fine, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said. “Is… is there a reason you wanted to talk?”

“No. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to find you here. Well. I suppose I was, but I wasn’t expecting to talk.” When Qui-Gon’s brow furrowed, Obi-Wan continued, “They put up a statue of you here, as a memorial.”

“Did they really?” Qui-Gon asked. “I’m not that remarkable.”

“The Council would disagree. But no. It was because you were the first Jedi killed by a Sith in a millenia.”

“…Oh.”

 “It was the Invasion of Naboo,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “We were helping to free the planet from the Trade Federation, and then the Sith appeared. We confronted it. It killed you. And I killed it. The Council retroactively deemed it my Trials.”

“I see,” Qui-Gon said, disquieted. “Well. I suppose you’ll be relieved to learn that the Sith on Naboo didn’t quite manage to kill me, here.” Qui-Gon absently placed a hand over his abdomen. “Though it did give us all quite a scare.”

The idea that it had been such a close call here was unfathomable to Obi-Wan. Where had he gone wrong that his Qui-Gon had died, and this one had lived? 

“You were knighted after my death, then?” Qui-Gon asked. “I can’t imagine. That must have been very difficult.”

“It was,” Obi-Wan said. “It all happened so fast. I lost you, and then in the blink of an eye I was a knight with a padawan.”

“You mean Anakin?” Qui-Gon asked. Obi-Wan nodded. “So soon after your knighting?”

“I promised I would. You… your last words to me, you asked me to train him.”

Qui-Gon stared. 

“You’d planned to be his master.” The bitterness in Obi-Wan’s voice surprised even him. “The only reason you ever nominated me for knighthood was so you could train him instead.”

“That’s terrible,” Qui-Gon said. “I’m sorry.” 

Obi-Wan swallowed around the brand new lump in his throat. “You… you had your reasons. And my life is better for having Anakin in it. Even if I never made a very good Master.”

Qui-Gon shook his head. “I don’t believe that’s true. You were a better Master to Anakin than I or anyone could have ever been.” 

“But you don’t know that,” Obi-Wan said. “You don’t know me. Maybe here things are different, but I wasn’t ready to raise a padawan. I wasn’t ready for any of it. You must look at me and see a failure. A soldier who lost every battle that mattered most.”

Qui-Gon placed a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. Through their bond Obi-Wan felt a surge of affection; what’s more, of acceptance.

“Mostly, I see my padawan,” Qui-Gon said. 

That evening, Obi-Wan visited Jocasta Nu in the Archives. To his disappointment, progress with the Holocron was slow going, and it would take much longer before she would have any concrete ideas about how it worked, how to operate it, and so forth.

“What I can tell you,” Master Nu said, “is that the Holocron bears a striking resemblance to a Jedi Memory Core.”

A Memory Core was a kind of Jedi Holocron that was used to store memories. An activated Holocron would take a partial or full scan of a user’s memories and store a copy which others could then view. They were a powerful teaching tool, but few Jedi had the skill to make them. And their function was also, it seemed to Obi-Wan, completely beside the point.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “We’re dealing with cross-dimensional transportation, not memory storage.”

“I agree entirely. Then again, it is a Sith Holocron. Perhaps it has some function to steal or alter its victim’s memories…”

A jolt of alarm went through Obi-Wan. “Master, I assure you that my memories are real.”

“I believe you, Master Jedi,” Master Nu said. “Or, rather, our Temple’s finest Healers and Masters believe you, and I believe them. Either way, it seems quite obvious that it isn’t a memory core. I suspect it was disguised as one to conceal its true purpose, which leaves us with the problem of uncovering that purpose. It will be difficult. I expect you’ll be here for at least another week, likely longer.” 

“That’s alright,” Obi-Wan said. Anxious as he was to get back to the War, he wasn’t going to turn down more vacation time with his dead loved ones.

Master Nu nodded. “I’ve conscripted Master Dooku —” Obi-Wan suppressed a flinch “ — to help me comb through the literature on Holocrons and to contribute his expertise on the subject, and … you mentioned that it absorbed your blood?”

Obi-Wan nodded.

“In that case, I may ask Knight Ventress to reach out to the Nightsisters; whoever created the Holocron may have drawn on Nightsister Blood Magick techniques.”

“I’m sorry, the Nightsisters, helping the Jedi?” Obi-Wan asked, not even bothering at this point to question that Ventress (to his delight) was a Jedi here. 

Master Nu hummed. “The Jedi Order recently re-established relations with the Nightsisters, in no small part thanks to the efforts of Knight Ventress, and, well, you .”

“I see,” Obi-Wan said, though he didn’t see at all. 

Master Nu was amused enough by Obi-Wan’s reaction to explain that his alternate self was, for lack of better description, the Temple Qui-Gon. He was a staunch advocate for forming more robust relationships with other Force-using sects, as well as a proponent of allowing for more flexible master-padawan relationships, abolishing age restrictions, and allowing non-Force sensitives to join the Order. All of which seemed silly to Obi-Wan, who saw no reason to mess with thousands of years of Jedi tradition. But his alternate self had written a number of influential reformist essays good enough to interest the rest of the Jedi Council, and the Order at large. 

“But I digress,” Master Nu said. “It would help a great deal if you could determine where you — your other self, that is — got the Holocron..”

“I’ll do my best,” Obi-Wan said. He even had an idea of where to start. He had come to himself with a mysterious Holocron and a mysterious blasterburn. The two were likely connected; answers about the one might lead to answers about the other. 

Before Obi-Wan left the Archives, there was something he’d been putting off doing that needed to be done. Obi-Wan went to an information terminal and looked up Kamino.

The planet was there, as it should have been, in the Temple Records. There was no evidence that the files had ever been erased, nor was there any evidence that Sifo-Dyas or anyone else had ordered an army from the Kaminoans. The clones did not exist. How… sad. For all that the creation of the clones never should have happened in the first place, Obi-Wan’s galaxy was better for having them in it. 

As wonderful as this universe was, it wasn’t Obi-Wan’s. In a strange way being here made him homesick. He missed his Anakin, his Ahsoka, his Jedi Order, and all of his friends beyond it; he missed his men. He thought of Cody’s joke, and wondered if he’d ever hear the second half.

Chapter Text

“But a Jedi without the Force is not a Jedi at all,” Obi-Wan insisted. 

Qui-Gon calmly sipped his tea. It was late the next morning, and he had broken out the nice Sapir for Obi-Wan’s visit to his quarters. “Is it our ability to use the Force that makes us Jedi, or is it our relationship to it? Our culture, our community, our traditions within the Force?”

“I’m not saying that the ability to use the Force is the only thing that makes a Jedi a Jedi, but it’s pretty damned important.”

“So if a Jedi were to lose the ability to touch the Force, he would cease to be a Jedi?”

“Of course not!”

“Then, by your own admission, a Jedi can be a Jedi without Force sensitivity.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Obi-Wan had forgotten how debating his old Master made him want to tear his hair out. 

He had not come to Qui-Gon’s quarters for rigorous ideological discourse. He’d gone to ask Qui-Gon if he knew anything about the other Obi-Wan’s whereabouts the day of the Gala, when he’d gotten his blasterburn, and Qui-Gon had roped him into tea. Only after they were both seated with steaming mugs of Sapir had Qui-Gon admitted to knowing nothing of Obi-Wan’s whereabouts. Not that Obi-Wan minded. Being in Qui-Gon’s apartment again… it wasn’t quite as Obi-Wan remembered, but there were some things — the vast collection of plants, the faded meditation mat by the windows. the clay bowl on the table filled with smooth river stones — that made Obi-Wan ache with homesickness. The scent of the place alone, so indescribably Qui-Gon, could have made him cry. He hadn’t realized he’d forgotten it.

Their conversation had taken a turn for the worse when Obi-Wan mentioned offhand that he’d spent most of last night reading his other self’s reformist essays. The essays were interesting, for all that Obi-Wan disagreed with them. They were oddly preoccupied with the decline of Jedi influence since the Ruusan Reformation, Jedi entanglement in Republic politics, and the sovereignty and survival of Jedi culture. Obi-Wan had attended enough troop positioning meetings to agree that the Jedi were stretched thin, but his other self’s investment in increasing the strength, influence, and population of the Jedi Order went well beyond practicality in a way that was almost… nationalist? That was not the right word. For one, Jedi was not a nationality. And for all that his other self catastrophized about The Destruction of The Jedi Way of Life, his solution was to depart from tradition, not to retreat further into it. Obi-Wan would call it pragmatism if his other self’s ideas weren’t also quixotic to the extreme. 

The essays begged the question: what was this galaxy’s Obi-Wan so worried about? It wasn’t as if he was the one locked in a struggle against the most powerful Sith in millennia.

“Even if one does not need the Force to be a Jedi, one surely needs the Force to become a Jedi,” Obi-Wan tried. “An initiate without the Force would struggle to find belonging among their peers, and to find a Master willing to train them.”

“Only if we cannot let go of the false notion that innate talent is what makes a Jedi great, rather than determination, discipline, and wisdom. After all, there are many great Jedi who are not especially strong in the Force.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “But they do have it. And without it, there would still be certain things an initiate would be unable to do, or that it would be unsafe for them to learn. Like lightsaber combat — the risks of wielding a lightsaber without the Force are well-documented. How could a non-Force sensitive become an effective Jedi Knight?” 

“A fine question for our healers and consulars, our scholars and artists and ascetics,” Qui-Gon said. “The Jedi are more than warriors. We are a religious order, a way of life, and — above all — a community. To forget that is a dangerous thing.”

“Then how are we to decide who becomes a Jedi, if not by their Force sensitivity? Are we to take in any child that’s brought to us, until the crèche is overflowing and a Jedi with the Force is rarer than one without? If not, by what criteria do we choose our initiates? Is there any criteria that would be fair?” 

Qui-Gon grimaced and leaned back in his chair. “There are logistical problems,” he admitted. “There’s a reason these ideas are considered transgressive, though they are catching on. I sympathize with many of the concerns you’ve raised.” 

Obi-Wan frowned. “But you’ve been arguing with me for twenty minutes.”

“Usually, the sides are reversed.” Qui-Gon’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “How could I resist the opportunity to use your own arguments against you?” 

Obi-Wan groaned and put his head in his hands, even as Qui-Gon laughed at him. Then, Obi-Wan couldn’t help it: he laughed, too. 

“Why does your Obi-Wan care so much about reform anyway?” Obi-Wan asked.

Qui-Gon’s smile dimmed. “You became interested in the subject when you were twenty-one. After your Vision.” 

“Quinlan mentioned it,” Obi-Wan said. “It must have been some vision.”

“It was,” Qui-Gon said quietly. 

“What did I see?”

“You never said much, but I… I have some ideas.” He looked strangely at Obi-Wan, then gazed into his tea. “I do know that you saw a boy, gifted with the Force, enslaved on Tatooine.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan breathed. 

“Yes. The very night they released you from the Halls I caught you sneaking off to a transport to the Outer Rim. Somehow, you persuaded me to help you instead of dragging you back to the Temple. Ultimately it was for the better, but Force knows what I was thinking going along with it, when…”

“When… what?” 

“After the Vision,” he said slowly, “you had something of a break with reality. You became… unreasonable, and you said and did many disturbing things. There was a full day when you were convinced you were trapped in an illusion created by someone named Vader.” Qui-Gon cast Obi-Wan a sideways glance, gauging his reaction to the name. Whatever he was searching for, he didn’t find it: he cleared his throat and continued, “You recovered, of course. But you were never quite the same.”

Obi-Wan, sensing that this was a painful subject for Qui-Gon, let it drop.

The other Obi-Wan had seen Anakin, plus something that motivated him to learn Soresu… perhaps he’d had a vision about the Invasion of Naboo, or something like it? Then again, Obi-Wan had no clue where the reform essays or “Vader” fit into that, so perhaps not. It didn’t really matter. The details of a vision from fifteen years ago were irrelevant to Obi-Wan’s situation.

Ahsoka emerged from her room with the hurriedness of someone late for her classes. 

“Morning, Master, morning, Master Obi-Wan,” she said, speeding by.

“Ahsoka, before you go,” Obi-Wan said, “you wouldn’t happen to know where I was two days ago, would you?”

Ahsoka stopped in the doorway and blinked at Obi-Wan. “Why would I know that?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Obi-Wan said. It had been worth a shot.

Obi-Wan’s project for the day was to figure out where he’d been when he’d gotten his blasterburn. Anakin didn’t know. Qui-Gon didn’t know. Nor did Ahsoka, for that matter, not that he’d expected her to. He’d already asked a number of his fellow Councilors and other acquaintances, with no success. 

“If you want to figure out where you were,” Ahsoka suggested, “why not check the security recordings?”

“An astute suggestion, young one,” Obi-Wan said. “Unfortunately, to access the security recordings, one must have a seat on the Jedi Council.”

“Are you… not a Councilor in your universe?”

“No, I am,” Obi-Wan said defensively. Qui-Gon hid a smile behind his hand; Obi-Wan glared. “But I can’t imagine that the Council’s access codes are the same here as they are back home.”

Ahsoka tilted her head. “Have you tried them?”

Obi-Wan inputted his Council’s codes into the security terminal. The terminal beeped in approval, granting Obi-Wan access to the Temple’s entire security system. 

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said. 

Obi-Wan resolved to abuse his Council codes as much as possible for as long as he was here. 

Per the security recordings, in the twilight of morning, a hooded figure stepped out of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s quarters. This must have been Obi-Wan’s alternate self, though his figure was much bulkier than Obi-Wan’s — armor? Unlikely. Obi-Wan hated wearing armor. He would never don it except when absolutely necessary. 

The figure wound through the Temple, deep into the lower bowels of the building without being seen, before disappearing into one of the Temple’s many hidden passageways. Obi-Wan swore under his breath and scanned forward until the figure reemerged from the secret tunnel that evening. By this point — Obi-Wan checked the tape — Anakin had already departed for Padmé’s gala. The figure returned to Obi-Wan’s quarters; shortly thereafter, who but Obi-Wan’s alternate self stepped back into the hall, dressed in the clothes Obi-Wan had been wearing when he’d awoken in this universe.

There were no cameras in Obi-Wan’s or anyone else’s personal quarters in the Temple, which was overall a good thing, but right now Obi-Wan wasn’t happy about it. 

Obi-Wan rubbed his forehead. His other self could have gone anywhere. That particular tunnel let out in the thick of the undercity — tracing a person’s steps down there was damn near impossible. Unless…

“No,” Quinlan said thirty minutes later.

“Just one little touch,” Obi-Wan tried.

“No.”  

“You’ll be fine. My life isn’t that bad.”

“Aren’t you a soldier in an intergalactic civil war?”

Obi-Wan winced. “I might remind you that you are also a soldier in an intergalactic civil war, and it hasn’t driven you insane quite yet.”

Quinlan shook his head. “It may be your mind, but it’s my Obi-Wan’s body. And he has been very, very clear that I should never use my psychometry on him.”

“I understand that your Obi-Wan is a private person…”

“That’s not it,” Quinlan said. 

Obi-Wan blinked. “It’s not?”

“It’s a little more altruistic than that,” Quinlan said, before explaining that this galaxy’s Obi-Wan was under the obviously misguided impression that touching him would drive any psychometric mad with horrible dark visions. Quinlan could not be persuaded that this was preposterous. Honestly. The worst thing that had ever happened to Obi-Wan’s other self was that his Master had almost died once. Oh, and he’d had a vision. First world problems much?

That wasn’t quite fair. The way Qui-Gon told it, Obi-Wan’s other self actually had been driven near-mad by the vision from his apprenticeship: perhaps his paranoid attitude towards psychometry was a lingering effect of that. It would be wrong to judge him for his mental health struggles. 

Yet judge Obi-Wan did. His life had been so much harder than his other self’s, and he was perfectly mentally healthy. It was one thing at which Obi-Wan had succeeded while his other self had failed. 

Obi-Wan paused outside of his quarters. Once he sensed that Anakin was elsewhere, he stepped inside to regroup. 

His next move was uncertain. Well, he was going to meditate. After that… he didn’t fancy spending an afternoon canvassing the undercity for that most elusive prey, the unidentifiable hooded figure, but he didn’t have any better ideas. Maybe…

The Force blared in warning. 

Obi-Wan ignited his ‘saber and blocked a barrage of stun bolts. Four Commando Droids emerged from behind the furniture and copious foliage. Two maintained cover fire while the other two drew electrostun rods and attacked.

Obi-Wan sank into Soresu. His body was a whirlwind, his blade an impenetrable wall of light. He patiently blocked blow after blow, bolt after bolt, relying on his experience fighting Commando Droids to identify the moment to strike. When one of the Commando Droids overreached with its stun rod, he darted forward and bisected it. 

Even as the lights in the droid’s eyes were flickering off, Obi-Wan was back on defense: its twin let loose a vicious flurry of blows. Volleys of stunners flew Obi-Wan’s way. Anyone less than a Soresu master surely would have been felled already by such an overwhelming assault. The wound in Obi-Wan’s palm ached, as did the one in his side. He was forced one step back. Then another. His back hit the wall. Or, rather, the door.

Obi-Wan ducked out of the way of an electrorod strike and slammed his hand on the door controls. The door hissed open. Just in time: Obi-Wan raised his blade to block a powerful overhead strike that forced him into the wide open hallway. 

While Obi-Wan parried the rapid-fire attacks from the droid that was pressing him back, the two firing stunners came scuttling out of Obi-Wan’s quarters like spiders. One climbed up the wall and maintained fire while the other drew an electrostun rod and circled behind Obi-Wan.

There were two padawans standing down the hall, watching the fight with slack jaws.

“Sound the alarms!” Obi-Wan roared as he fought off a barrage of lightning-fast blows from both sides, not to mention the stun bolts. “There are droids in the Temple!” Obi-Wan deflected one droid’s attack, unbalancing it, then lobbed its head off. He turned and slammed the other droid into the wall with the Force. It crashed prone to the ground before Obi-Wan leapt through the air and plunged his ‘saber through its chest. 

“Holy shit,” one of the padawans said. 

“Go!” Obi-Wan commanded them, and this time it sank in — the padawans ran off.

The last Commando Droid ditched its blaster and drew an electrostaff, then jumped at Obi-Wan. He rolled out of the way to avoid its plunging strike, and barely got his feet back under him in time to raise his lightsaber and block its next blow. 

The sudden motion sent pain stabbing through Obi-Wan’s side. He winced; his defense faltered. The Droid broke through an uncharacteristically weak Soresu block and Obi-Wan jumped back as its electrostaff nearly connected with his stomach. Then, silent and unceasing, the Droid swept toward his legs. He dodged again. 

“You should watch where you swing that thing,” Obi-Wan quipped. The Commando Droid ignored him.  

Fighting droids was no fun. What was the point of an opponent you couldn’t flirt with?

Obi-Wan released his physical pain into the Force. His ‘saber sang in his hand. He parried the Droid’s next blows, then at last his patience was rewarded with an opening: he slashed its electrostaff in two. Before it recovered, his blade cleaved it apart. It fell in pieces to the ground.

Obi-Wan stood in the middle of the scrap pile, catching his breath. The warning in the Force had yet to subside. Why…

The Archives, the Force whispered. 

Obi-Wan ran. 

By the time he reached the Archives, the Temple was on high alert and the Archives were locked down. He used the Council’s codes to get in, then followed the sounds of fighting until he stumbled upon Asajj Ventress going toe-to-toe with her own set of droids in a sea of spare parts. These droids weren’t using stunners: they were shooting to kill.

Obi-Wan stared. Had someone reprogrammed the droids to… but Ventress’s lightsabers were gold. She was on his side.

Ventress, Light. Was she even still Ventress?

“Don’t just stand there looking pretty, Kenobi!” Ventress shouted before doing a showy flip over the droids, which put that question to bed. 

“As if I’d let you have all the fun,” Obi-Wan replied with a grin, and then he was back in the fray. 

The remaining droids were fierce, but were no match for two skilled Jedi Knights. Obi-Wan and Ventress made quick work them. Fighting alongside her was as thrilling as Obi-Wan had always imagined. By the end of the fight, they both were mainly showing off: Ventress had a way of bringing out that side of him in life-or-death situations. 

“You were fabulous against them, darling,” Ventress said once the last droid had been scrapped.

“Thank you, my dear,” Obi-Wan preened, deactivating his ‘saber and pushing the fringe out of his face. “You were a fair hand yourself.”

“Flatterer,” Ventress said. “You fight them like you do it every day.”

“Well, not quite every day.” Obi-Wan frowned. Only now that the battle was over did he puzzle over the fact that it had occurred in the first place. 

“You know what they are, then?”

“They’re Commando Droids. Where I’m from, they fight for the Separatists, but…”

“The Separatists, you say?” asked a voice that had Obi-Wan igniting his lightsaber and falling into a Soresu guard. Count Dooku himself had emerged from the stacks. Obi-Wan opened his mouth to ask the Count how he and his droids had gotten into the Temple, then Dooku’s Jedi robes and pinched expression reminded him where he was. 

Obi-Wan’s ‘saber hilt fell to his side and he bowed sheepishly. Now, he saw that Dooku was accompanied by Master Nu, and that both were a little beat up.

“Yes. The Confederacy of Independent Systems,” Obi-Wan repeated, avoiding Dooku’s gaze. “But the Confederacy doesn’t exist in this universe. I don’t understand what their droids are doing attacking the Temple.”

“It seems they were looking for this,” Master Nu said, before opening a gloved hand and holding out the Sith Holocron. 

The Council held an emergency session to debrief Obi-Wan and the rest as soon as it was clear that the danger had passed. The Force buzzed with what the Council described as “concern,” which Obi-Wan identified as fear. The Jedi Temple had been attacked by unknown agents. Such a thing was unfathomable — it was the worst thing to happen to the Jedi Order in a decade. Obi-Wan was almost jealous.

Based on the accounts of Masters Nu and Dooku, and of Knight Ventress, the Commando Droids had infiltrated the Archives to steal the Sith Holocron. Only when the research team caught them in the act had the fighting begun. Obi-Wan provided the other piece of the puzzle: that he had simultaneously been ambushed by droids using stunners. They likely aimed to steal him away along with the Holocron, though for what purpose no one could say. 

Obi-Wan did have suggestions to that effect. After all, in his universe, Commando Droids were agents of the Separatists, who of course were led by the Sith. And even in this universe, the Sith had allied themselves with the Trade Federation and their droid armies during the Invasion of Naboo. Unless the Trade Federation and the Techno Union had randomly gotten into the business of breaking into the Jedi Temple all on their own, it stood to reason that these Droids were agents of the Sith. 

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or worried that this universe’s Sith wanted to kidnap him. The Council had settled on the latter. Clearly, the Sith knew about the Holocron. How? Did they know that Obi-Wan was from another universe? What did they want? What if Obi-Wan was not the only interloper from another universe running around the Galaxy — worse, what if the Sith wished to use the Holocron for an evil scheme, perhaps to expand their reach across realities? Or what if the reason they knew about the Holocron was because somehow, Obi-Wan’s other self had gotten it from them?

One genuine drawback of the Sith being a nothing of a threat in this universe was that none of the Jedi knew anything about them, which made drawing conclusions difficult.

“Until we know more about the situation,” Mace told Obi-Wan, “the Council has no choice but to confine you to the Temple for your own safety, Master Kenobi.”

“Very well,” Obi-Wan said. He was standing in a perfect, straight-backed, entirely un-Jedi-like parade rest. Surely the Council saw how out of place he was, though no one had so much as looked at him strangely. Maybe they were being polite. “However, there is one matter I’d meant to investigate outside the Temple…” 

Obi-Wan explained about his alternate self sneaking off to the undercity. The Council took this information seriously and vowed to put someone on the task of determining the alternate Obi-Wan’s whereabouts, however long it might take. Honestly, thank the Force that Obi-Wan wouldn’t have to search the undercity for clues himself.

After the Council meeting, it was once again back to the Halls of Healing — Obi-Wan’s third trip in as many days. Master Che did not hesitate to chew him out about fighting droids, despite the fact that he’d been acting in self-defense. Obi-Wan was getting sick of seeing her face.

“Don’t the Jedi have other healers?” Obi-Wan groused.

“Sometimes Bant Eerin covers for me,” Master Che replied serenely. “If I tell you to take it easy, are you going to listen this time?”

As a courtesy, Obi-Wan tried to contact Anakin and notify him about the kidnapping attempt, but Anakin refused to answer his comm. Qui-Gon, on the other hand, answered his comm close to the second Obi-Wan called, and the two of them spoke at length about the day’s events: the droids, the holocron, and the other Obi-Wan’s mysterious secret passageway escapade. Qui-Gon knew nothing about any of it. The best he could offer was reminiscence about how his Obi-Wan often snuck out of the Temple as a Padawan (this was a trans-universal constant). Still, it was nice to talk over the problem with him.

Obi-Wan would never get used to this place.

It was late in the day when Obi-Wan made it back to his quarters, exhausted.

The apartment was still a mess from the fight earlier in the day. At the center of the maelstrom of overturned furniture and the other Obi-Wan’s poor murdered plants, Anakin was pulling on his boots.

Uh oh.

“What the hell did you do to me and Obi-Wan’s quarters?” Anakin demanded without missing a beat. 

Obi-Wan sighed. “Battle droids broke into the Temple and attacked me.”

“What.”

“I’m fine, obviously, but—”

Anakin stood and examined Obi-Wan for injuries. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Obi-Wan said. “Master Che just finished looking me over.” 

“You’re not lying this time?”

“I wasn’t lying last time."

“How did battle droids get into the Temple?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did they attack you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that droids attacked you?”

“I believe it was you, Anakin, who deliberately ignored my many attempts to call you and tell you just that.” 

Anakin opened his mouth to retort but lost steam as he realized that Obi-Wan was right. “Never mind,” he muttered, then he moved past Obi-Wan to leave. “I have a… I’m going out.” He was wearing what were probably the nicest tunics he owned, and there was product in his hair. Ah. A date.

Obi-Wan bit back a wry remark, and… actually, you know what? It had been a long day. Obi-Wan was in an alternate universe where nothing he said would have long-term effects on his interpersonal relationships. Why keep up the charade?

“I take it that you and Senator Amidala are an item here, too?”

The lights flickered. 

“No!” Anakin protested. “I— I mean— what are you talking about?”

“You must realize that the two of you are not subtle. If you want to keep your mutual involvement secret, you’ll have to be more careful.”

Anakin floundered, then at last his arms dropped to his sides and he gaped at Obi-Wan, emotions roiling beneath the surface. “You know.” 

“Yes, I know,” Obi-Wan said. “Everyone with a working set of eyes who’s ever been within fifty yards of you and Padmé knows.”

“Not Master Obi-Wan. He can’t know. He would have —”

“Gone to the Council? Had you censured? Disowned you as his Padawan?”

Anakin shook his head. “He would have said something to me.”

“ I haven’t said anything to my Anakin.”

“But my Obi-Wan—”

“Are we really so different?” Obi-Wan asked. “If your Master is anything like me, perhaps he’s kept quiet because he hopes that one day, you’ll trust him enough to tell him the truth.”

Anakin swallowed. His vulnerability became obvious. “You think he doesn’t mind?”

Oh dear. Obi-Wan ran a hand over his hair. “Anakin, I can’t say that I don’t have my reservations about your relationship with Padmé, but I… I trust you to make your own decisions. Padmé is a wonderful person, and whatever lies between you hasn’t gotten in the way of your duties to the Order, and as long as it stays that way… ” 

Obi-Wan struggled for words. These were complicated feelings that he had meditated on extensively but never articulated.

“… She makes you happy. I could never begrudge you that. In times like these, we need happiness where we can find it.” 

“Oh,” Anakin said.

In this Anakin’s galaxy, ‘times like these’ were times of peace, not of adversity. In that way, Obi-Wan and his other self really were nothing alike.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Well, I don’t know how your Master feels. Once this whole mess is through, perhaps you should ask him.”

As Anakin stared at Obi-Wan, an understanding dawned within him. The warmth of trust blossomed through their bond. 

“Yeah,” Anakin said, hesitant but sincere. “Maybe I should.” 

“Give Padmé my regards,” Obi-Wan said gently.

Anakin nodded stiffly to Obi-Wan and turned to leave, but lingered in the doorway. “You… you haven’t figured out where Obi-Wan’s blaster burn came from, have you?”

Obi-Wan winced. “Not unless you happen to know why he snuck out of the Temple through a hidden passageway.”

Anakin’s face twisted. “He snuck out? Like a Padawan?”

“Like a Padawan,” Obi-Wan confirmed wearily.

Anakin stood there for a minute, steadily growing more and more upset. “I have no idea why he did that.”

“I thought you might say that.”

“And you don’t know why he did it, either, which means it’s not some normal, universal Obi-Wan thing I just don’t know about.” 

“Usually when I want to leave the Temple I use the front door,” Obi-Wan agreed.

“What was he thinking?” Anakin asked despairingly.

“That is the question. I’ve spent all day running around the Temple, interrogating everyone who might know something of your Master’s whereabouts, and no one could tell me a thing.”

“Not even Master Dooku?”

“Um,” Obi-Wan said. He’d been avoiding Dooku. “I haven’t asked him.” 

“Really? But — oh. Oh. Right.” 

“…Do you think he might know something?” 

“Master Dooku has all sorts of dirt on Obi-Wan,” Anakin declared. Then he must’ve sensed Obi-Wan’s agitation because he added, “I made that sound worse than it is. I just mean that Obi-Wan really trusts him.” 

“I see,” Obi-Wan said lightly. 

“Actually, Master Dooku told me that he was the last person Obi-Wan talked to. The last person he really talked to, anyway. I don’t think the politicians count.”

As a defensive measure, Obi-Wan retorted, “Unless they’re from Naboo.”

Anakin covered his face with his hands. “Okay. I’m gonna go. I know Master Dooku is your sworn enemy or whatever, but you should talk to him. And let me know what he says.”

Obi-Wan was left alone in his other self’s quarters with the sinking understanding that Anakin was right: if he wanted answers, he would have to go through Dooku.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan released his anxieties into the Force, then rapped on the door. He was the picture of a perfect Jedi, down to the shine of his boots and the last crease of his robes. He was holding a very expensive bottle of Chandrillan merlot. 

The door slid open. 

Now that Obi-Wan knew to look, he saw that this version of Dooku was quite different from his own: his face was softer, his eyes warmer, and his presence in the Force was Light. Shadowed compared to any other Jedi, but compared to the Sith that he could have been, he was a blazing inferno in the Force. 

“Master Kenobi,” he said uncertainly, expression blank.

“I owe you an apology, Master Jedi,” Obi-Wan said. “From the moment I came here, I have treated you as if you were the Dooku of my Galaxy: a Lord of the Sith and the leader of a coalition of planets waging bloody civil war against the Republic and the Jedi Order. I have threatened you, shunned you, and ignored your attempts to reason with me. I have done all this even though you are not the man who has done those terrible things; even though you are innocent. My behavior has been disgraceful. I know that you’re a completely different person from my Dooku. It’s time that I acted like it. Going forward, I will treat you with the respect and decency that you deserve. I’m sorry it has taken this long.”

Obi-Wan bowed, then held out the bottle of wine to Dooku. 

Over the course of Obi-Wan’s lovely speech, the confusion had faded from Dooku’s assessing gaze. Dooku peered at the bottle, then at Obi-Wan. “I take it that there’s something you need?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Obi-Wan said.

Dooku quirked an eyebrow. 

Obi-Wan sighed. “Anakin said you might be able to help me determine where the Holocron came from.”

Dooku scrutinized Obi-Wan. At last, he said, “Why don’t you give me a game of Dejarik, and then I’ll tell you what I can.” 

Dejarik? With Dooku? “I’m not sure…”

“I insist. My Grandpadawan is a frequent opponent of mine, and I would like to find out how you compare. We can even open the wine.”

Obi-Wan swallowed. “Very well, Master. If you insist.”

Dooku took the bottle of merlot off of Obi-Wan’s hands and retreated to the kitchenette to pour it. His apartment lacked the obvious aristocratic trappings that Obi-Wan had expected, but there were subtle touches of finery and a number of Serennian heirlooms that pointed at Dooku’s wealth and status. An old bookshelf was crammed with tomes about the Dark side and various esoteric Force practices, which Obi-Wan was trying not to find worrisome. By the window stood a small round mahogany table and two chairs. It was a perfect place to play Dejarik. All that was missing was the board. 

Dooku turned from the counter holding two glasses of wine. His gaze fell first on Obi-Wan, dithering in the middle of the room, then on the barren mahogany table. He blinked, dumbfounded. Then, with a sigh, he set the wine glasses down and retrieved the Dejarik board himself. 

Dooku sat down and set the board without a word. Obi-Wan silently took the seat opposite him. 

The silence was broken as Dooku made the first move and asked, “Were you planning on properly introducing yourself?”

“I didn’t realize I had to,” Obi-Wan said.

“You are an interloper here. All I know about you is that your name is Obi-Wan Kenobi and that you’re afraid of me,” Dooku said. When Obi-Wan opened his mouth to protest, Dooku waved a hand. “Oh, don’t deny it. Under the circumstances I can hardly blame you. But given that you look at me and see a Sith, I must assume that you have led an altogether different life from my grandpadawan, whose body you’ve stolen.” Again, Obi-Wan opened his mouth, and Dooku shushed him. “I know it wasn’t your fault! My, you’re much more sensitive than your elder counterpart—”

“Elder?” Obi-Wan said, at last getting a word in edgewise. “He’s older by a month.”

“Hm,” Dooku said. “Your move, by the way.”

It had been Obi-Wan’s turn for about forty-seven seconds. He pursed his lips and made his opening move.

“You do have Dejarik in your galaxy,” Dooku said.

“Yes, we have Dejarik.”

“Just checking,” Dooku said lightly. “I would hate to have an unfair advantage.” 

“How sporting of you,” Obi-Wan drawled.

Perhaps Dooku sensed Obi-Wan’s discomfort; his eyes softened, and he laid his hands flat on the table. “You will have to forgive my prying,” he said tenderly — tenderly! Count Dooku, tender! “It isn’t every day that one meets a traveler from a different universe, let alone another version of one’s own grandpadawan. However difficult it may be for you to fathom, in this galaxy I am your grandmaster. I could never mean Obi-Wan Kenobi any harm.”

Which is why you burned a hole out of my femur on Geonosis, Obi-Wan almost said. But he owed this Dooku some grace. Had that not been the whole point of his apology from five minutes ago?

Obi-Wan sighed. “My life isn’t that different from your Obi-Wan’s. Except for the War, and…” 

“Tell me about that,” Dooku said. “How did your War come about? I must admit, I’m terribly curious.”

Of course he was. “It’s a long story.”

“Ah,” Dooku said. His lip twitched, eyes shining with mischief, and for the first time Obi-Wan wondered if this was where Qui-Gon had gotten it. “You’ll have to summarize, then, or else you won’t have finished by the time I’ve beaten you.”

To be fair, Dooku’s arrogance was not wholly unplaced. He was very good at Dejarik — better than Obi-Wan, for that matter. They both had cerebral playstyles: Obi-Wan favored patience, defending until the perfect opportunity arose to unleash a devastating attack. Dooku, by contrast, maneuvered his pieces with the same calculated aggression with which he commanded his armies. Tactics that had devastated countless worlds were reduced to the size of a Dejarik board. This made Dooku much more predictable than he otherwise would have been, giving Obi-Wan the edge he needed to keep them locked in a bitter stalemate.

Obi-Wan had time to tell Dooku about the War in all of its terrible glory before their game was over, and then he had more time after that to describe the other ways that their galaxies differed. Dooku was fascinated with it: the War, the Separatists, the Clones, the Sith, and himself. He drank up every sordid detail of the political situation, and demonstrated a morbid fixation on the War’s worst atrocities. His curiosity was purely, detachedly intellectual. Obi-Wan told him that he’d cut off Anakin’s arm and he asked if Anakin was happy about it.

“All I’m saying is that in this Galaxy, the boy is terribly fond of machines,” Dooku said. “Are you certain that your Dooku wasn’t doing him a favor, giving him a cybernetic limb?”

Obi-Wan put a hand on his face and admitted, “He tinkers with it constantly.”

None of it moved Dooku. His strongest reaction was to Qui-Gon’s death: he bowed his head, then offered Obi-Wan his condolences, radiating pity. Not grief. Just pity.

The game went on. Dooku and Obi-Wan whittled down each other’s forces, but neither gained significant leverage. 

“You’re holding out remarkably well,” Dooku admitted, stroking his chin as he examined the board. 

“Well, this may be our first game of Dejarik, but I know a thing or two about conducting a campaign against you.”

Dooku smiled devilishly. “You haven’t beaten your Dooku yet.”

“Not yet. I don’t suppose you would be willing to provide any advice? Insights into your own tactics?” Obi-Wan asked, only half joking. “We are at War.”

Dooku laughed, low and full. “Perhaps after the game.”

It was strange: Dooku was so much like the Count, yet in the Light he was different. Not ruthless, but pragmatic. Not cunning, but clever. Not haughty, but… well, he was still haughty, but it was easier to forgive. For all his flaws, he shone with kindness, happiness, goodness, and it transformed him. How amazing it was, to play Dejarik with a man who had died, not in body, but in soul. His survival was no less a miracle than Qui-Gon’s. 

Maybe it was the steady supply of wine talking, but Obi-Wan was warming up to him. 

Obi-Wan was attempting to articulate how bonkers it was that Ahsoka was Qui-Gon’s padawan when Dooku said, “Qui-Gon’s lineage is enough of a disaster in this galaxy; without my mentorship, I shudder to imagine the bad habits he passed down to you and Anakin.”

“I don’t follow,” Obi-Wan said.

“Since your Dooku did not train Qui-Gon —”

“He did, though.”

Dooku stared blankly at Obi-Wan. “You told me that your Dooku is a Sith.”

“He was a Jedi first.” Had Obi-Wan not clarified that? “He left the Order many years ago.”

“Oh,” Dooku said.

“I’m not clear on the details — I never knew you before you fell — but as I understand it, you had grown disillusioned with the Republic, and with the Jedi for serving it. I’ve always wondered if Qui-Gon’s death was what pushed you over the edge… but even so, you joined the Sith knowing that they had killed him. Whatever ideals may have driven you to Darkness, in Darkness you have betrayed them.”

As Obi-Wan spoke, Dooku’s face became drawn. For a long while after, he was silent. 

“It seems that our galaxies are not quite as different as you’ve led me to believe,” he said at last. 

“How so?”

“There was a time when I seriously considered leaving the Order,” Dooku said. “I had grown to believe that the Jedi’s entanglement in politics had ruined them. I resented the Senate, the Council… everyone, really. Everyone. I believed that the Jedi feared their power, and so could not enact meaningful change in the Galaxy. I thought that if I were not shackled to them, then perhaps I could better wield my own power — my political power, as well as my power in the Force. And I wanted to wield my power. … I suppose I was traveling down a dark, lonely path.” Dooku lapsed into thought. “How many Jedi have I killed?”

“Personally? One or two. Your armies have slaughtered…. many hundreds more.”

“I see,” Dooku said, pained, and Obi-Wan sensed within him a new feeling: guilt. “I don’t suppose it would mean anything that I’m terribly sorry.”

”It means something,” Obi-Wan said softly. “If I may ask, what stopped you from leaving?”

“You did,” Dooku said.

For no good reason, Obi-Wan’s heart sank.

“I still don’t quite understand why — it wasn’t Qui-Gon’s idea — but when he was a senior padawan, my grandpadawan sought out my mentorship. He shared many of my criticisms of the Order: its blindness to the rampant corruption of the Senate, its strict adherence to tired old dogmas, its distance from those it was meant to serve. Yet his faith in the Jedi did not waver. His commitment to fixing the Order’s flaws — to ensuring that the Order is the force of good it is meant to be — it threw into question all I had come to believe about the Jedi, and about myself. Above all…” Dooku’s voice thickened. “You reminded me that the Temple is my home. The Jedi are my family: Qui-Gon, and Anakin, and all our lineage, and so many others. You are my family. So long as you live, the Order must be worth something.” 

Dooku cleared his throat. 

“It’s astounding, what difference one person can make in the universe,” he said. 

“It is,” Obi-Wan replied. The words tasted like ash in his mouth. 

The game continued in uneasy silence. They remained locked in a stalemate until at last, Obi-Wan spotted his opening. Dooku was pressing an aggressive attack, but in doing so he had left his Kintan Strider — his most valuable piece — completely vulnerable. 

Obi-Wan took the Kintan Strider, holding back a smirk. “You’ve overplayed your hand, Dooku.”

Dooku assessed the board, expression carefully neutral. Distantly, Obi-Wan sensed his surprise.

“You asked about my tactics earlier. Well, it seems that there is one thing my grandpadawan has learned which you have not: how to identify your true enemy.” Dooku moved his most powerful remaining piece through the opening that attacking the Kintan Strider had created and into the heart of Obi-Wan’s territory, critically compromising his position. Obi-Wan had been tricked: by taking the Kintan Strider, all he had done was maneuver himself into Dooku’s trap. 

Obi-Wan examined the board, but the longer he searched for an out, the clearer one thing became: he’d lost. He may as well have lost the moment he’d agreed to play. 

Dooku gave him a tight smile. “Thank you for the game. You were a most excellent opponent.”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan weakly replied.

Dooku cleared the board and clasped his hands. “Now, tell me: what is it that you wanted to know?”

“Right,” Obi-Wan said. He released his emotions into the Force. That didn’t quite do it, so he reached for the wine. “Anakin said that you were the last person to speak with your Obi-Wan before I took his place.”

Dooku’s mouth twitched. “I believe what Anakin meant was that I was the last Jedi to speak to you. You spent some time afterward mingling with various politicians. The last I glimpsed you, the Chancellor —“ 

“So Anakin isn’t a pedant. I get that. Did Obi-Wan say anything to you? Perhaps concerning his whereabouts?”

Dooku shook his head. “Our conversation was short. I observed that he was late, and he explained that he’d lost track of time taking care of some personal business of his. At the time I thought nothing of it. We spoke briefly about Anakin’s knighting, and I advised him about adjusting to life without a student. He was putting a good face on it, but he was stressed — he had been for some time. I’d assumed it was to do with Anakin, but… now, I worry that he was under the Sith Holocron’s influence for longer than any of us would like to believe.”

“I certainly hope not,” Obi-Wan said. “For what it’s worth, I suspect that your Obi-Wan acquired the Holocron the day of the Gala.”

Obi-Wan explained about the blasterburn and the secret passageway, and his theory about their connection to the Holocron. Dooku reacted to the news of the other Obi-Wan sneaking out with considerably less surprise than everyone else Obi-Wan had told. It was as if he’d already known. 

Interesting.

“Anakin says that you know more about Obi-Wan than most anyone,” Obi-Wan concluded, scrutinizing every twitch in Dooku’s expression. “Is anything — anything at all — that may point to the source of his blasterburn?” 

Dooku peered into his wineglass as if divining from it, lost in thought. Obi-Wan sensed that he wasn’t plumbing his memory for something useful: he was debating whether or not to share it.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Obi-Wan said.

Dooku chuckled humorlessly. “You understand that I am reluctant to break my grandpadawan’s confidence.”

“If you want him back, you may have to.”

“Yes. I suppose I may.” 

“You wouldn’t be breaking his confidence, from a certain point of view,” Obi-Wan pointed out, “since he and I are both Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Dooku set down his wine. “Alright,” he said heavily. “You already know that Obi-Wan snuck out of the Temple.”

Obi-Wan nodded.

“Obi-Wan has regularly made secret excursions out of the Temple for the past fifteen years.”

Obi-Wan sat up straight in his chair. “What? Why?”

“The precise nature of his exploits is unclear to me. I believe that I am the only Jedi who knows of them.”

“Is he doing something dark?” Obi-Wan asked, and even before Dooku replied, he knew it had been a stupid question. 

“No,” Dooku said. “Of that much I am certain. His intentions have never been anything but good. Even — as I suspect is the case with the Holocron — when they lead him astray.”

As Obi-Wan processed this strange new information, Dooku procured a slip of flimsi, jotted something down, and slid it across the table. On it was written an address in Little Keldabe, Coruscant’s largest Mandalorian neighborhood of all places.

“To find the answers you seek, I suggest that you start here.”

Obi-Wan’s other self, habitually sneaking to Little Keldabe for mysterious but doubtlessly noble reasons, and the only person he’d told was Dooku. Obi-Wan couldn’t help it: “Of everyone he could have confided in, he chose you?”

“It wasn’t exactly a choice,” Dooku admitted. “I only know any of this because I once found him in what might be described as a compromising position.”

“I can’t say I like the sound of that,” Obi-Wan said.

“My Obi-Wan felt the same way. Believe it or not, you did not trust me until many years after we first met. Qui-Gon’s influence, perhaps… but it was deeper than that. I don’t know why. You’ve never had any reason to doubt me.” 

“Until now,” Obi-Wan said.

“Until now,” Dooku agreed.

“And you’re not going to explain why he regularly sneaks out of the Temple without telling anyone.”

Dooku held his hands up plaintively, palms open. 

“Is he rescuing orphans from mineshafts?” Obi-Wan said dryly. 

Dooku did not dignify that with a response.

Obi-Wan sighed, pocketed the paper, and stood to leave. “Thank you for your help.”

Dooku stood after him. “Notify me if you learn anything about the Holocron. It’s camouflaging itself as a Memory Core, and getting it to reveal its true nature has proven to be a challenge. Hopefully, the Nightsisters will have useful information for Asajj, but they’ve yet to respond to her request for assistance.”

Obi-Wan and Dooku exchanged parting bows. Before Obi-Wan made his final escape, Dooku placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“Obi-Wan,” he said, “if this evening has made one thing clear, it is that our galaxies are more alike than they are different. I see a great deal of my grandpadawan in you, and knowing that I’ve hurt you — I regret it, more than words can describe. That pain cannot be undone. But, for however long you may be here, if you have need of me, my door will always be open. I am always happy to play more Dejarik.“

Obi-Wan gazed at Dooku for a long time. “Yes, Grandmaster.”

Obi-Wan was wallowing. This was a bad habit from his youth that he had never shaken. He should have been meditating. He was going to meditate. But for now, he was slouched on the sofa down to his undertunic, feet on the caff table, wallowing. He was still a bit tipsy: another one of Dooku’s crimes.

What crimes? Being a good person? Loving his grandpadawan? Obi-Wan might as well have resented Qui-Gon for being alive, or Anakin for being raised a Jedi. And maybe Obi-Wan did resent them, just a bit, but Qui-Gon and Anakin had not saved themselves any more than Dooku had. That was aaaaall Obi-Wan. The other Obi-Wan. Not the one moping about it. 

Obi-Wan wanted to go home. His life wasn’t perfect, but it was his. He longed to return to the Negotiator (he missed the Negotiator) and tell Cody about the crazy couple of days he’d had. Cody would listen to every word without balking, and then he’d make a dry remark that cut through the spectacle of the situation, right down to the solid golden core of bullshit underneath. 

Obi-Wan was still maudlin when Anakin returned. 

“Hello,” Obi-Wan said half-heartedly. “How’s Padmé?”

Anakin paused in the middle of haphazardly kicking off his boots. “This is so weird,” he said. “Padmé’s good! We got dinner at some fancy restaurant. I told her about the whole multidimensional transposition thing and she said to let her know if there was anything she could do to help.”

“That’s good.” 

“She’s the best,” Anakin agreed. He sat on the couch next to Obi-Wan. “She’s the smartest, bravest, kindest, most beautiful, most amazing woman in the galaxy. Is it okay that I’m telling you this? Is this too weird?”

“I don’t mind.” 

“Thank the Force,” Anakin said. Despite the whole Code issue, Obi-Wan found Anakin sweet. He reminded Obi-Wan of how he’d been about Satine. 

How was Satine in this galaxy? Obi-Wan would have to find out. He supposed it had to be a good sign that no one had mentioned Mandalore being embroiled in another civil war. Unless everyone was inexplicably pretending that she didn’t exist.

Who was Obi-Wan kidding? Satine was probably doing great! He was going to look her up on the Holonet and discover that Mandalore was prospering and Death Watch had been wiped out in a freak disintegrator accident.

“It’s nice to be able to talk about her,” Anakin continued. “You know, sometimes, I — I look at her, and I think that I could be happy for the rest of my life, just being with her. Like as long as we’ve got each other, we’ll be okay. I think I love her. And I know it’s only been a few weeks, but —”

“A few weeks?”

Anakin’s cheeks flushed. “I mean, we first met during the Invasion of Naboo, but I was barely a padawan then. We reconnected during, uh… my last mission. Which went great. It went so great that Obi-Wan decided I was ready to be a Knight. Hey, how are you?” Anakin asked. “You seem a little…”

Obi-Wan was lying like a sack of tubers on the couch. “I’m alright.”

“That was even less convincing than usual.”

“I take it that that’s another thing your Master is better at? Lying?”

Anakin’s eyebrows furrowed.

Obi-Wan sighed. “It’s hard, being here. Everyone is better off. If they’re dead in my world, they’re alive here. If they’re Dark in my world, they’re Light here. And everyone is happier. You’re happier, Anakin. And it’s all because of me.”  

“And that’s a bad thing because…?” 

Obi-Wan gazed plaintively at Anakin. “Am I some kind of trans-dimensional Ubermensch here? Am I perfect?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Anakin said. “My Obi-Wan is way better than you.”

“Anakin.”

“You asked! It’s not my fault you’re not the greatest Jedi in the Order!”

Obi-Wan sighed and sank back into the sofa. He missed his Anakin, who at least would have insulted him with an undercurrent of affection. “I know you dislike me, but that doesn’t mean you have to rub it in.” 

“I don’t dislike you,” Anakin said in a small voice.

“Yes you do. You’ve disliked me from the moment I came here.”

“I don’t, I — I just — I’m sorry. You’re not terrible , you're just — you're different, and I’m biased. I’m biased! Who wouldn’t be biased toward their Master? Just because you’re kind of a smarmy, uptight dick sometimes doesn’t mean that your life doesn’t have value! So what if you’re not perfect? Most people aren’t perfect. I’m not.”

“But your Master is. He saved Qui-Gon and Dooku, he rescued you from slavery, he singlehandedly sparked a reformist movement, he’s better at Dejarik and Soresu — Soresu! That doesn’t even make any sense! Why would he be better at Soresu?”

“Practice?” Anakin tried. 

“I practiced,” Obi-Wan lamented. “I practiced every day for ten straight years so that no Sith would ever kill me like they killed Qui-Gon. Your Master picked Soresu up on a whim , and somehow he’s the better one. He’s better at everything. The longer I spend here, the more I sense that the only reason my Galaxy is worse than yours is because I’m not as good as him.”

“That sucks,” Anakin said.

“Yes. It does.”

An awkward silence fell.

“I mean, you’re better at some things. You haven’t been secretly messing around with Sith Holocrons, for one.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “True.”

“And you were honest with me about Padmé,” Anakin said. “You’re not sneaking out of the Temple or hiding your injuries. You… you’re not hiding anything from me. That means a lot. So my Master isn’t perfect, actually. And — hey. Surely not everything that’s different is because of him.”

“I suppose not.” Anakin’s words were the reality check that Obi-Wan had needed. In his misguided despair, he had lost sight of the fact that his other self had flaws, namely all the lying and suspicious behavior, plus the mental health problems that Anakin had neglected to mention. Moreover, it was the height of narcissism to assume that everything that was different in this galaxy had to be because of him. He was only one person. “No, you’re right,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Not everything. I don’t see how I could have prevented the War or the creation of the Clones. The vote of No Confidence against Valorum… I wasn’t very politically savvy at twenty-five. And then, it can’t possibly be my fault that there’s no Prophecy.”

Anakin snickered. “You have a Prophecy?”

“More like you have a Prophecy, Anakin.”

“Me?”

“I won’t bore you with the details, but in my Galaxy there’s this Prophecy, and Qui-Gon was convinced that it was about you,” Obi-Wan explained. There was no harm in indulging Anakin’s curiosity, since none of this applied to him. “The Chosen One  — that’s you — that is, the other you — or at least that’s what Qui-Gon thought — is a singularly powerful Jedi, conceived by the midichlorians themselves and destined to bring balance to the Force. I don’t even know if I believe any of this, but you — I mean, the other you — he is extraordinarily strong in the Force, so sometimes I wonder… You don’t have anything like that in this Galaxy, do you? You’re not secretly the Chosen One?”

Obi-Wan glanced over to Anakin, whose eyes were bugging out of his head. 

“No,” Anakin said after a very long silence. “I… I think I would know if I were… that.”

“Fair enough.” 

“How… how powerful is the Chosen One meant to be, exactly?” Anakin asked weakly.

“You’re more powerful than Master Yoda.”

“Right.”

“Don’t be jealous. My Anakin has always struggled to control his power. I almost wonder if you’re better off without it.”

“Right,” Anakin said. “Right. Because I’ve never struggled to control anything. Cool. Um, if I wanted to learn more about the Prophecy…”

“I fear you’re in the wrong galaxy for that,” Obi-Wan said. “Otherwise I’d suggest the Archives.”

“Right. Okay.” 

“Oh — I almost forgot! You wanted to hear about Dooku.”

“Maybe later.” Anakin gathered up his boots from opposite ends of the room. “I have to, I, uh… I left my lightsaber at Padmé’s.”

Obi-Wan frowned at him. “Your lightsaber is your life, Anakin, you really should be more careful—”

Anakin rushed out of the apartment. 

So, Anakin’s talent for losing his lightsaber was a transuniversal constant. At least this time he knew where it was. 

That night, Obi-Wan dreamt of the passageway through which his other self had snuck out of the Temple. In the dream, he overflowed with grief. The Temple was silent: a silence not of tranquility, but of death. Something terrible had happened. The entrance to the passageway was open, and in the way that you know things in dreams without being told, Obi-Wan knew that the passageway had been used an escape route. And in the way that you know things in dreams before they happen, Obi-Wan knew that he was going to find the remains of those who had been caught there before he saw their bodies. 

Obi-Wan didn’t get much sleep.

The next morning, after a few cups of tea and a much-needed meditation session, Obi-Wan came up with a plan. In the light of day, he recognized that his other self making regular clandestine trips beyond the Temple walls under the nose of everyone except Count Dooku was completely insane. This must have been what he had been doing when he’d snuck out of the Temple; wherever he went, that must have been where the blasterburn and the Holocron came from. So Obi-Wan needed to check out the address that Dooku had given him. And it had to be Obi-Wan, because he had sworn to keep what Master Dooku had told him a secret. To further complicate things, the Council had confined Obi-Wan to the Temple for his protection.

Anakin was nowhere to be found, so Obi-Wan left a note explaining where he’d gone in case something happened. Then he made like his other self and snuck out. Albeit through a different passageway.

Small mercies: Coruscant was laid out exactly as it was meant to be. The address in Little Keldabe corresponded to an unassuming door in an alleyway so narrow that Obi-Wan almost overlooked it, sandwiched between a laundromat and a Tiingilar joint. Even after Obi-Wan triple-checked Dooku’s instructions, he could not shake the impression that he was in the wrong place. That was probably the point. He didn’t have the key — Dooku hadn’t warned him he’d need a key — so instead he used his middling slicing skills to bypass the lock, then stepped into a dark, open room. The overhead lights thunked on. Then, Obi-Wan found himself in a run down garage, just large enough to accommodate the ship parked inside.

Obi-Wan pulled down his hood and gawked. The ship was a small, single-pilot freighter that had been fitted with a custom weapons array: the kind of ship bounty hunters preferred. It had the weathering and built up grime of a well-used ship, and the carbon scoring on the hull indicated that it had seen some action. ‘A project,’ Anakin might have called it. ‘It’s got character,’ he may have said. For Obi-Wan, the words that came to mind were ‘dinky rustbucket.’

The sides were emblazoned NEGOTIATOR II.

“Oh, ha ha,” Obi-Wan said.

Inside, the ship was tidy and austere, yet still cozy. There was a small cargo hold containing a shockingly robust arsenal of uncivilized weaponry, and a smaller cabin containing a cot and yet another fucking woosha plant. It was unlikely that this garage was where the Holocron and blasterburn had come from; Obi-Wan’s other self must have taken the ship somewhere else. 

Thank the Force, the navigation computer in the cockpit kept a log of recent landing coordinates — including from the day of the Gala. The other Obi-Wan had stayed on Coruscant. He had gone to the Works.

“What were you doing out there?” Obi-Wan asked himself, hunched over the navigation console and squinting at the coords. The Works was Coruscant’s old manufacturing district: miles and miles of flat-roofed, smoke-spitting factories, now mostly abandoned and crumbling into disrepair, stretching off into the horizon. The only sentients who willingly set foot there were the desperate and the insane. Which had Obi-Wan’s other self been? 

The coordinates provided no deeper answers. There were thousands of factories in the Works; the other Obi-Wan could have gone to any of them, or perhaps none at all. With no other options, Obi-Wan reached out to the Force for guidance. The Force told him to duck.

Obi-Wan dropped into a crouch as two darts whistled over his head. He ignited his lightsaber, whirled around, and had the wind knocked out of him as a heavy figure plowed into him, jetpack roaring. 

The assailant slammed Obi-Wan against the console, and Obi-Wan brought down his lightsaber only for the blade to deflect off of the assailant’s shiny metal armor with a shower of sparks. Pinned down, Obi-Wan gazed up into the impassive visor of a Mandalorian. A Mandalorian clad in silver and blue beskar’gam. A Mandalorian that Obi-Wan had seen before.

“Got you, Jetii,” spat Jango Fett. Because Jango Fett was alive, and Obi-Wan‘s other self had somehow pissed him off. 

Solving the mystery of why he was fighting Jango Fett would come later. First, Obi-Wan had to win. 

Fett was distracted patting Obi-Wan down — searching for something? — and so didn’t notice that Obi-Wan had a solid grip on him until Obi-Wan had flipped him over his head and flung him through the windshield.

Glass shattered everywhere. Obi-Wan mentally apologized to his other self for the damage, but his other self was the one who had started this mess in the first place so he wasn’t actually that sorry. He reignited his blade and leapt after Fett.

Fett fired a volley of stunners at Obi-Wan, which Obi-Wan deflected with his ‘saber. Stunners. Fett wanted him alive. It was the droids all over again. 

In Obi-Wan’s galaxy, Fett had been hired by the Sith before. What if this universe was no different?

Obi-Wan landed on his feet, both hands on his ‘saber hilt in perfect Soresu form, parrying every shot. As Fett kept up with the stunners, he raised one of his gauntlets and a cable shot out at Obi-Wan. Fett had used this trick when they’d fought on Kamino: the cable had ensnared Obi-Wan’s wrists and incapacitated him. He wouldn’t fall for it again. It had been embarrassing enough the first time.

Obi-Wan pulled his sword hand out of the way before the cable wrapped around his off wrist. Then, with all of his might, he gripped the cable and yanked .

Fett, still attached to the cable and taken by surprise, fell forward. 

Obi-Wan severed the cable connecting them with his ‘saber and rushed his opponent, deflecting every stunner sent his way. Fett had barely gotten upright by the time Obi-Wan was on top of him; Obi-Wan slashed Fett’s pistol in two. His blade flowed into a Sai Cha. 

Just like the first time, Obi-Wan thought, and then he was overcome with a revulsion so sudden and so violent that he halted his swing entirely, inches from severing Fett’s neck. 

Fett punched him in the face.

Obi-Wan stumbled back, clutching his nose. There was a pinch in his shoulder before Fett knocked his ‘saber out of his hand. Between one moment and the next, Fett pinned him against the garage wall, pressing his forearm into Obi-Wan’s neck. 

Fett held a commlink in front of Obi-Wan’s face: the passcode-locked commlink that should have been in Obi-Wan’s cloak. 

“Where did you get this commlink?” Fett demanded. “What did you do to Ben?”

Obi-Wan choked out the only reply he could think of: “Who’s Ben?”

“Wrong answer.” Fett applied more choking pressure to Obi-Wan’s windpipe and pulled back his fist.

With a Jedi technique, Obi-Wan broke Fett’s hold and parried the punch with an outward block. Fett threw another punch at Obi-Wan’s head, and then Obi-Wan was fistfighting a man wearing head to toe beskar. 

“Could we please — discuss this — like civilized — people?” Obi-Wan panted, a bit lightheaded, as he and Fett exchanged blows. He was pretty sure his nose was bleeding.

At last, Obi-Wan threw an uppercut that connected with Fett’s chin, and followed it up with a kick square in the middle of Fett’s chest. Fett stumbled back, granting Obi-Wan the opening he would need to summon his ‘saber and make Fett surrender.

Obi-Wan held out his hand, but his ‘saber didn’t come. It kept slipping out of his grasp in the Force. It was…

“Oh, good,” said Fett. “The sedative’s working.”

Obi-Wan very intelligently looked down and discovered the tranquilizer dart sticking out of his shoulder. Oh.

The world began to spin. Fett reached up to remove his helmet, because he knew as well as Obi-Wan that the fight was over. A tranquilizer, and Obi-Wan hadn’t even noticed until it was too late to purge the sedative from his veins. This was the kind of thing armor would protect against with ease; this was the exact reason Cody was always telling him to wear it. 

Cody’s never going to let me live this down, Obi-Wan thought, and then his legs buckled beneath him and he crashed to the ground.

His vision blurred. Above his head, a familiar face swam into view, scowling down at him. 

“I hate to admit it, Cody,” Obi-Wan slurred, “but you’ve got a point about the armor.”

Cody froze. His face went slack. “Ben?” 

Always concerned, that Cody. Good man, that Cody. He cared a great deal too much for his own good. 

“Cody. Cody,” Obi-Wan murmured. His eyes slipped shut. “Call for medevac…”

The last thing Obi-Wan heard before he sank into unconsciousness was Cody’s voice, crying out, “Ben?”