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“I'm here to hand myself in for murder,” Obi-Wan says. The CSF agent manning the desk's eyebrows disappear entirely into her fringe as she gives Obi-Wan a very obvious once-over, taking in his Jedi robes and his frame that still looks too skinny from the muscle he lost during his convalescence.
“Are you drunk, son?”
“No,” Obi-Wan says, enunciating as clearly as he can. “I have a brain injury that affects my speech but I am perfectly aware of what I'm doing.”
“...Alright,” she says in the most unenthusiastic tone Obi-Wan has heard from someone not currently enslaved. “Do you have any weapons on you?”
“No,” Obi-Wan replies. “I left my saber at the Temple.” A beat later he says, “Wait! No! I have a knife in my right boot. Do you need to get it for me or do I take it out myself and hand it over?”
“You take it out yourself,” the officer says.
“That doesn't seem very safe,” Obi-Wan says, frowning. “I could take it out and stab you with it.”
“People turning themselves in don't usually want to stab anyone,” the officer replies.
“I could be tricking you,” Obi-Wan says.
“...I trust you, kid,” she says, sounding exhausted.
After a moment of fiddling in his boot, Obi-Wan places a very small knife on the counter.
“What's your name?” the officer says, turning on a pad.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says.
“Place of residence?”
“The Jedi Temple.”
“Age?”
“Thirteen.”
At this, the officer stops. “We can't interview minors without a guardian present.”
“What if I want to be interviewed without a guardian present?”
“Doesn't matter. It's still illegal.”
“But I killed someone. That's more illegal than interviewing a minor.”
“Do you want me to call a guardian for you?”
“I guess,” Obi-Wan says. “You could call one of the temple guards. They count, right?”
“Are they adults?”
“Yes.”
“Then sure.”
The officer makes the call, and the two of them sit in silence, the officer reading something on their pad, until a guard arrives. Obi-Wan was hoping that the rules against guards speaking would stop the guard from doing anything, but apparently there's some kind of exception in the CSF station, because the guard immediately says, “Padawan Kenobi?”
Obi-Wan doesn't recognise the voice, but probably quite a few people know his name who've never met him before, since everything has happened. “That's me.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“I'm trying to hand myself in for murder, but they won't let me without an adult present.”
The guard exchanges a look with the officer that Obi-Wan can only describe as ‘commiseration’, though he's not sure why they're commiserating. It's impressive that the guard is managing such clear emotion while still wearing a mask.
“Why didn't you call Master Jinn?”
“Because he thinks I didn't do it, and that would taint my testimony.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan sees the CSF officer mouth ‘taint my testimony’ to herself for some reason.
“I see,” the guard says. “The civilian authorities don't usually deal with Jedi crimes.”
“But I murdered someone.”
“Did you murder a fellow Jedi, or a civilian?”
“A fellow Jedi.”
“Then this sounds like an internal crime.”
“That sounds very corrupt,” Obi-Wan says. “Also, the Jedi don't believe me, so they're not going to be any help.”
The temple guard pauses, looks at the officer, and then says “Why don't we sit down properly and go through this with Officer Trimble?”
They go into an interrogation room, and no one puts Obi-Wan in handcuffs, even though there's clearly holes in the chair designed for them.
“So, kid, who did you murder?”
“Bruck Chun,” Obi-Wan says.
The officer frowns. “It says in our files that an inquiry cleared you of any responsibility in the death of Bruck Chun.”
“The inquiry was wrong.”
“Did they not have all the information?”
“They don't know what a Jedi can do. I could have saved him and I didn't, so that's murder.”
“How could you have saved him? It says here he slipped and fell off a waterfall.”
“I could have caught him with the Force or shifted his trajectory so he landed safely.”
“Master Jedi,” the officer says, turning to the guard, “are these abilities that Jedi possess?”
“Yes, but Padawan Kenobi is a child, and it’s unrealistic to expect him to be able to do that in such a fast-moving, stressful situation. He might be able to do it if he’s expecting it, but there were multiple factors taking his attention.”
The officer nods, and Obi-Wan has a terrible feeling that this won’t go his way.
“Did you push him?” she asks Obi-Wan.
“No.”
“Did you actively wish for his death and decide not to save him?”
“...Well, no, there wasn't really time for that.”
“Then I don’t see how you could have killed him. You’ve been cleared, kid. People generally don’t question it when they’re declared innocent.”
“But—”
“Kid. Obi-Wan. If you’re feeling misplaced guilt from witnessing an accident, the right thing to do is to contact your local medical professional to access services that can assist with recovering your mental health. The wrong thing to do is try to convince a police officer to put you in prison. Which we couldn’t do, by the way, because kids legally are not criminally responsible. Your brain hasn’t developed enough yet. Go home. Talk to a therapist. Pray, or whatever it is Jedi do. You’ll get through this.” The CSF officer delivers this speech in a monotone that indicates at least part of it was memorised by rote, which kind of ruins whatever comfort it was intended to bring.
“Thank you for your time, officer,” the temple guard says. “Padawan Kenobi, we should return to the Temple.”
Obi-Wan has no choice but to follow when the guard stands and walks out of the room. He can’t believe that this time he’s going to have to try actually speaking to a mental health professional about his mental health.