Chapter Text
Anakin had gotten punishment duty again this week, and this one couldn’t get gotten out of by a convenient summons from the Supreme Chancellor, no matter how weird and boring he was.
He really was keen on becoming a wizard, and his mom had always said he was special, but so far the first five months were the pits.
It probably would have been a lot better if the very cool, very experienced Qui-Gon Jinn could have trained him, instead of the only teacher who would have him, Obi-Wan.
Of course, that sith had killed Master Jinn and hadn’t killed Obi-Wan, and everyone treated that like a really big deal, so maybe Obi-Wan was better?
It was hard to tell, honestly, and Anakin just felt like he was drowning in rules. And they were all very different from the ones at home.
Well. His old home.
And he did have plenty of food and clothes and blankets and mechanics to work on, but he couldn’t help but to keep worrying about Mom.
But he felt her, every now and again. They had a bond. That’s what he figured out, and it was like the one Obi-Wan had formed with him on purpose, except obviously it wasn’t a training bond. It was obviously a mom bond. But Anakin could feel her, sometimes.
It was always a nice feeling.
Unlike punishment archive duty.
And here he was, not even fixing mechanics in the archive. He was stuck fixing data which wasn’t nearly as fun, he was discovering.
Anakin idly wondered if anyone would notice if he just snuck off.
And then he discovered that in fact, they did notice, and he got extra punishment duty for it.
He gave in.
Time to fix a bunch of tags and meta data, which meant he had to actually work on his reading skills in Basic (ugh), but at least there was someone he could ask when he didn’t understand the synopsis and why it didn’t fit with the tags.
Seven hours in and on the second day, he came across a title that transfixed him. He couldn’t even read the meta data. He went straight to the senior padawan archivist who was supervising him.
“Um, so… some of the stuff I’m fixing, it kinda looks interesting. Am I allowed to borrow it? Or, get a copy somehow? I promise not to read it during my punishment duty!”
“Sure thing, kiddo. You’re doing the history misfiles, and I know they’re way above your comprehension level, so let’s make it a long term loan, huh? That way you can wade through it at your own pace. Ten years sound good?” the Nautolan padawan grinned at him.
Anakin’s eyes went wide. “I can borrow a text for ten years?”
He was only nine after all. Probably. He was probably nine.
No, he was definitely nine, let’s go with that.
The Nautolan’s smile got wider, but never showed teeth. “Well, just this once. Padawans got to stick together, yeah?”
Anakin grinned for the first time… in a while. “Thanks Padawan Vin.”
“Call me Treack. Let’s get you your archival ‘pad and get that sorted so you can split the instant your punishment is up.”
“I should get in trouble more often,” Anakin mused out loud. “This is working out surprisingly well for me.”
Treack snorted in laughter, though quietly. “Kiddo, seriously. You are allowed to enter the Archives of your own free will and volition, anytime you’re not supposed to be somewhere else, and sith hells, it’s also a great place to hide, if you need it.”
“Really…” Anakin was thinking. “Lemme know if you got a mechanical failure. I’m super good at fixing things. Except metadata. Not that,” he corrected.
Treack gave him an assessing look. “I’ll keep that in mind, Padawan Skywalker. Let’s get your text.”
Obi-Wan seemed surprised that he was reading on an archival ‘pad, but Anakin just told him the truth; there’s some really interesting stuff in there, and that he was allowed to be there, and he signed out the text officially and everything.
“What are you reading?” his teacher asked.
“Misfiled history thing. I was retagging and fixing metadata. It was horrible.”
“Oh! How lovely! I also love reading history. Perhaps when you’re done with that, we should discuss it. I would love to hear what you think of it,” Obi-Wan said, and it was… like, there was no part of what his teacher said that implied he was in trouble, or mad at him, or had broken rules.
This was new. Anakin was going to take this new permissiveness for a spin and see how far he could ride it.
“If… I… have questions… can I ask you about it?” Anakin asked, absolutely ready to hedge his bets with at least four decent reasons why he might ask for such a favor.
Obi-Wan melted into a smile and knelt down in front of him! Like a slave!
Anakin clamped down on his panic and shoved it under the rug, like Mom had taught him.
“Oh, Anakin. Of course. I’d be delighted to answer your questions, if I can. And if I can’t, we can go discover the answers, together.”
Obi-Wan was smiling again. It was weird, but it did make his Force Presence unfold a little, which was nice, and he sent a nice wave of reassurance through their bond, and that was nice, too.
Time to test it. Time to see if he could break the streak of ‘nice’.
“Why do you like histories, Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked.
It was the forbidden ‘why’ question. Why anything was the absolutely wrong question to ask at any point in time, Mom had said, unless they were entirely alone.
Obi-Wan’s eyes lit up, and his Force Presence unfolded even more. Oh. Wow. That was distracting. It was like… really pretty.
“Shall I make us some tea and a snack and we can sit down and discuss it? There isn’t just one reason I like histories. There are so many!”
Anakin smiled at him. Just a little smile. It was hard not to, with his Force Presence looking so pretty. “Yeah. Wizard,” Anakin added, feeling maybe just a tiny bit better about things.
It turned out that Obi-Wan liked history because it was nicer than the present, sometimes, which… fair. It was the same reason that Anakin liked to be covered in grease and working on a project, because then he didn’t have to deal with… stuff.
Obi-Wan also liked that histories taught him secret stuff about a group of people, because even if he was reading about something that happened a thousand years ago, some of that pain, and joy, lived on in the people of today, even if they couldn’t remember the details. It was a magic thing, and it just worked.
Anakin was absolutely down to learn about secret stuff, and magic stuff, so this also seemed like a good reason to read histories.
And finally, Obi-Wan liked histories because sometimes in the secrets he would find really big secrets that were happening all over again in the present, but it was like people didn’t realize, because they didn’t remember, or didn’t know their own histories, but if you knew all the secrets, then you could encourage the good stuff and avoid the bad stuff.
Which was exactly what Anakin was considering might be most useful about the text he borrowed from the Archives.
And he told Obi-Wan that, because it seemed like that might be okay.
“Anakin, did the Force tell you to borrow that book?”
Anakin wondered what the right answer was. “Maybe?” he hedged.
Obi-Wan smiled, so it must have been the right answer. “Well, let’s just make sure you get your homework done early each night so you can have a bit of time to read and discuss, if you like, in the evenings, before our last meditation, yes?”
The meditations sucked, but everything else sounded good. Anakin nodded and for once didn’t get in trouble for not giving a verbal answer.
The questions came almost immediately, but Anakin was determined to at least make it through the first two screens before he asked. He didn’t want to make any notes in the document, just in case they weren’t quite as private as he was told they’d be.
Data rarely went away, even if it was misfiled.
“Master,” he began, trying out the title which had so confused him and freaked him out at first, before he’d figured out how weird wizards were. But the first two pages… there were questions, sure, but the first two screens did kind of help with that.
Obi-Wan dragged his eyes away from his own datapad. “Yes, my dear?”
Anakin paused at that, blinked, and then continued on. “The main character, it’s like he’s writing in a private diary or something, you know?”
Anakin had learned about private diaries in the last five months, along with a lot of other strange and useless things. Well, maybe not so useless, now.
“Oh, how interesting. That makes it possibly a memoir, or an autobiography. Someone writing a history of a life, except the life is their own,” Obi-Wan added.
Anakin perked up. “Yeah, right. Like that. So, he was a slave, and then he wasn’t a slave, and then he got really old and stuff, and looking back, he wished he’d had mind healing. Is that normal? To get mind healing when you were a slave, and then you weren’t a slave anymore?”
“Oh, yes, quite common. It’s required, here in the Temple.”
Anakin scowled at him. “Well, then, where’s my mind healer hiding?”
Obi-Wan blinked at him, and his Force Presence disappeared, and their bond shut tight. It was like he was a Force Null or something. “Anakin, were you ever enslaved?”
Anakin gave him a look, because that was the dumbest thing anyone had ever asked him. “Yeah! Like, my whole life, until Master Jinn won me. Mom’s still a slave. All of my friends are still slaves.”
Obi-Wan put his hand over his mouth and his datapad slipped softly onto his lap. “Oh, Force. Anakin, I’m… I never knew. I’m so sorry.”
Anakin’s eyebrows rose as he watched Obi-Wan start to cry.
“I… uh… it’s okay, Master.”
Obi-Wan gasped. “Please don’t call me that.”
Anakin shrugged. It was fine. He figured that out. He wasn’t a baby, he could figure things out.
Then Obi-Wan took a deep breath. “Right. Up. Get your boots on. You can bring your archive ‘pad if you like.”
Obi-Wan himself almost sprinted to his room and came back with his boots on, typing on his comm link.
“Where are we going?” Anakin asked, confused, but for once not exactly wary.
“The Healing Halls. I want them to scan you for a chip, and then yes, absolutely, you will have your very own mind healer. I think I shall, as well.”
Anakin shrugged, then thought about it as they walked quickly down the corridor. “Why do you need mind healer, Ma-- um, Obi-Wan?”
“Call me Teacher, or… Baji.”
“What’s Baji?” Anakin asked, wondering how many languages Obi-Wan knew that he didn’t.
“It’s… an affectionate form of Teacher, in Mando’a, the language of Mandalorians.”
Hmm. Baji. Baji. Baji Obi-Wan. Baji Obi.
Baji Obi had a really nice ring to it.
“So why do you need a mind healer, Baji?”
“Oh, probably lots of reasons. I was also enslaved a few times, though only briefly, and you know I never did get mind healing after that, which now that I think of it… that wasn’t good. I deserved better than that. But the number one reason at present is that if Qui-Gon Jinn were still alive right now, I’d be hard pressed not to punch him in the face and then spit on him.”
“Oooo, that’s why you locked down tight and look like a Force Null. It’s okay, Baji, I don’t mind if you get mad.”
Obi-Wan looked over at him and huffed a little, and smiled a little, but it seemed sad, like the way Mom always smiled at him. “I never want you to have to deal with any of my negative emotions, dear one.”
Anakin pushed the button for the lift. “Yeah, but it’s weird when you just shut down. I can’t feel you anymore, and it’s like… it’s like I’m colder.”
Obi-Wan pulled him into a gentle hug and sighed. It was easy to put his arms around Obi-Wan, though, and just hold on tight. And then he could feel Obi-Wan again. Not his Force Presence, which was so nice, but the bond was back open. And oooooo, Obi-Wan was super pissed. Like, e chu ta levels of pissed!
“Let me know if it’s too much for you, my dear. I don’t want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you.”
The lift door opened and Obi-Wan let go of him, but once they were inside, Anakin inched over until Obi-Wan opened his arms again, and well, maybe Anakin flung himself at him, but you know, no one was around to see it, so did it happen?
No, no it did not.
“Can I ask another question?”
“It’s what you do, it’s who you are,” Obi-Wan said. “Ask away, my dear padawan.”
“So, do I really havta spend time with the Supreme Chancellor?”
“Not if you don’t want to,” Obi-Wan said with surprising… firmness. “I was against it from the start, and if you don’t want to, that’s final.”
“Really? Then I don’t wanna.”
“Done and done,” Obi-Wan said.
“Is he really a good person? Because he reminds me a lot of a Hutt Major Domo.”
“In what way?”
Anakin thought about it. “Like, he smiles when he’s not really smiling, you know? Not like a sad smile, where it shows through, but like, when he’s hiding something that’s got nothing to do with smiling, but he’s still smiling?”
“Hmm. Interesting. Anything else?”
Anakin snorted. “I got loads of things. He’s promised me stuff I’m pretty sure you don’t want me doing. And we’ve done stuff I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be happy about.”
“You won’t get in trouble for any of that, Anakin, but I would like to know what you mean, specifically.”
“Well, he got us tickets for a pod racing thing in three more weeks, but it’s on Couruscant, and you said that was illegal here, and I thought you meant that it didn’t occur here, but I guess it really does. But I see why it’s illegal - there’s nowhere to podrace around here that would be safe. And he served me brandy last week, and told me not to tell you. He tells me not to tell you lots of things, and he absolutely knows I was a slave, because he talked about how you wouldn’t understand and so I shouldn’t tell you.”
Oooo, Obi-Wan was getting even more pissed.
“Uh, I’m still not going to get in trouble for this, right?” Anakin checked.
“Absolutely not, darling, absolutely not.”
The lift dinged and they got out on the right level and kept walking quickly.
“Also he’s just kind of icky. I mean, and he’s clearly trying to be fun and stuff, and I didn’t want to be mean or anything, but his jokes aren’t that funny, and he really doesn’t like the Jedi Order. I mean, he thinks I’m okay, but only because I wasn’t raised here. But he’s mean about you guys. It’s nothing big he says, but it’s like how a shaglorda talks about the slaves who annoy them, you know? Just little mean things, finding fault even when you’ve done something perfectly and exactly as they said, but then suddenly they pretend they didn’t say that, you know? Stupid stuff. But the stupid stuff can get you killed, so be careful around him.”
“I shall, indeed,” Obi-Wan said, while typing on his commlink again. And it was one of the tiny ones, so that was not easy.
“Yeah. Yeah. He feels very much like a shaglorda.” Anakin nodded to himself, wondering why he didn’t see it before. “Never trust the shaglorda.”
“Translation for shaglorda, please?” Obi-Wan asked.
“Oh, uh… yeah, the, you know. The person who owns the slaves. Or, like the highest ranking one in the household that owns slaves.” Then Anakin thought about it for a moment. “You’re not a slave are you? I mean, like, as a Jedi?”
He was not going to learn to be a wizard just to be a wizard slave. No. The guy who wrote the memoir-diary-thing talked about enslaving the body and enslaving the mind.
Regular shaglordas enslave the body, but Mom had always said they can never enslave the mind.
Sith enslave the mind. That’s what Memoir Guy said.
Kriff no.
“No, darling. I’m not a slave. The Jedi are very much against slavery, and we have an entire branch who focus on freeing slaves and hunting Sith.”
Anakin looked at him in wonder. “I wanna do that!” he said, just a little loud as they passed the threshold of the Halls of Healing. “Sorry,” he whispered immediately.
Obi-Wan looked at him, and a new feeling flooded down their bond.
Baji was proud of him. And probably not for the volume control thing.
Anakin grinned up at him. “Can I learn to do that? Can we do that?”
“Absolutely,” Obi-Wan said.
“Knight Kenobi, Padawan Skywalker, right this way,” a droid said, and guided them into a room. “Your healer is unavailable, but the replacement healer will be right with you.”
“Thank you,” they both chorused.
Obi-Wan responded to something on his commlink, but only using text, and Anakin went back to his archival ‘pad, but he just reread the first two pages, because his language teacher said that it was helpful to do that whenever he had time.
And you know, it was easier to read the second time through.
“Master Che, is there a problem?” Obi-Wan said, startled.
Master Che, whoever she was, beyond a blue Twi’lek, sighed. “The problem is Andrenian Flu and your healer, along with so many others, have it. I’m it. What happened? I don’t see blood.”
“I have just discovered this evening that my padawan spent his entire life, up until six months ago, as a Hutt slave.”
Master Che’s eyes widened. “We will have words, very shortly,” she said to Baji Obi, and then she turned to Anakin. “Padawan Skywalker, do you know if you have a slave chip?”
Anakin nodded and pointed to his left leg, just below the knee.
Baji was pissed again, but at least Anakin knew it wasn’t about him.
“Alright. I’m going to remove that for you. I also want to give you a full body check. That means that I’ll leave for a moment so you can take your clothes and your boots off. You can keep your underwear on, and I’ll give you a long tunic to wear. When I remove your slave chip, I’ll use a device for that, and then we’ll put bacta on it. When I scan you, my hands will hover over your body, but I won’t touch you unless I need to do something to help you. If that happens, I’ll let you know first, and your Teacher will be in the room with you the whole time. Everything I need to do, I’ll tell you about it first, alright?”
Anakin nodded.
“Please pile your clothes neatly on the table over there,” Master Che instructed, pulling out a pale blue tunic and putting it on the bed, which she patted. “Hop up here when you’re done, and tug on your bond with your teacher when you’re ready. We’ll be waiting just outside.”
Anakin nodded and Obi-Wan leaned in and down to kiss the top of his head.
He did as he was bid and left his archival ‘pad on the top of his clothes. They came back in the room almost immediately.
It really was a relief to get the slave chip out, and he got extra bacta, a whole box of patches for the place where his foot got broken when he was little, and both he and Obi-Wan got scheduled for mind healing appointments the next day, but with different healers.
And then Master Che said he had dark influence in him and that certainly hadn’t been there when he got his first medical appointment, back when he was first accepted in the Temple, after the Battle of Naboo.
“Is that a Sith thing?” Anakin asked, his eyes darting between Master Che and his Baji. “Sith can do that, right?”
“Yes, and dark siders, too. This is very concerning. Have you even been out of the Temple in the last five months?” Master Che asked.
Anakin looked at Obi-Wan. “Yup!” he said.
“Well, I want a complete list of every adult you’ve been with for more than five minutes. Teachers, anyone. Especially if they’ve been left unsupervised with you. I’m checking them all. Knight Kenobi, I want that list by the morning.”
“There’s one person you won’t be able to check, unless we engineer a meeting on the sly, which… now there’s an idea that has merit,” Obi-Wan said, holding his elbow in his hand, while the other stroked his chin. He was feeling better, and kind of… crafty? He was definitely scheming. Anakin liked this side of him.
“Who?” Master Che demanded tersely.
“The Supreme Chancellor of the Republic,” Baji Obi whispered.
Master Che did that thing that adults did sometimes, where they turn their head really slowly, and even though Anakin couldn’t feel her emotions, he just knew she was also pissed.
“Whose bright idea was it to leave a nine year old vulnerable Jedi padawan with a seventy year old scheming politician?!” she hissed.
Oh yeah, she was pissed.
“I think he’s a secret sith,” Anakin threw in. No one asked him, but it was probably true.
“I was outvoted by the Council, who and I quote, ‘Saw No Harm’,” Baji Obi said.
“I see seven different kinds of harm!!” Master Che hissed, and Anakin grinned, watching the both of them. This was definitely high quality entertainment.
“Excellent. Let’s do recap this conversation when the Master of the Order shows up. Before this, I only had credible fears that he was grooming Anakin, though this wasn’t exactly the end to which I thought the grooming tended, I’ll be honest.”
Then Master Che looked back over at him, her eyes wide again. “Oh… shit.” Then her hand slapped over her mouth. “Please forgive me, Padawan Skywalker, that was unaccountably rude of me. Let’s bring the focus back to you, little one. Now, I can remove all that dark influence right now, slowly and gently. It won’t hurt, but it will very likely make you very queasy and you may need to vomit.” Then she turned her head. “Knight Kenobi, you’re on bucket duty. It’s in that cabinet.”
“Bucket duty. On it,” Baji said.
“When I’m all finished,” she said, looking at Anakin, her voice going just a little softer again, like it always did when she talked to him, “I’ll heal your stomach upset, and then you’ll probably be hungry in a little bit, and you should eat as much as you want, but no sugar this late at night, alright?”
Anakin nodded.
“I’ll stand to the side. It’s okay if you have to move around.”
And then she closed her eyes and it didn’t feel like anything at first, Anakin just felt… like, a little calmer, and a little happier, and he was thinking about Obi-Wan, who was holding a bucket for him, just for him, and he’d gotten a little cloth and wetted it and everything, and the damp cloth was all for him, all that water, and Anakin couldn’t help but think that Obi-Wan really was very nice to him, and maybe he’d been unfair about being so… snippy, like, all the time.
Yeah.
Yeah he’d probably been really unfair to Obi-Wan.
“I’m sorry I’ve been snippy, Baji. You’re really a nice person.”
Obi-Wan gave him that funny, lopsided smile and sent a wave of affection through their bond, which was nice, but that’s when his stomach tied itself in knots and he groaned.
And there went latemeal.
Anakin couldn’t help but cry because it was just so awful, and even though the healer had said he could have more to eat, that had never happened before, and he wasn’t going to be able to eat, and he was going to go to bed hungry, and now he was crying and wasting water, in addition to all the water and food his was yerking up and it was all so horrible.
But then his panic eased, and Baji Obi was crooning to him that everything was going to be alright now, and that he was safe, and that it was okay. One hand on the bucket which Anakin was clutching hard, and one hand rubbing his back.
Baji wiped his mouth with that nice wet rag, but then he was heaving again, but nothing was left to come up.
Ugh. Totally disgusting. And a horrible waste.
“I’m sorry I wasted all the food and water, Baji,” Anakin whispered, feeling physically wiped.
“Not wasted at all,” Obi-Wan said, kissing the top of his head. “There’s plenty of food, my darling, and plenty of water. Why don’t I order some sandwiches and fruit and those crispy fried bugs you like? Hmm? And lots of nutrient water. We could both use to drink a bit more of that, I think. Perhaps I’ll have a dispenser installed, what do you think? I could even splurge and get rid of a few of the plants. That would free up some room, wouldn’t it?”
“You do have a lot of plants. I thought you liked them?” Anakin said, relinquishing his hold on the bucket, which stank.
Obi-Wan gave him a kind of a funny look. “Actually, I’m not fond of plants at all.”
Anakin looked at him like he was insane, because he was. “Well, then, get rid of all of them! Duh!”
Obi-Wan looked like he was chewing on that thought. “You know… I think I might. You’ll not be in classes for a while. Perhaps a week or two, or even more, yes?”
“O-kay!” Anakin said, with a grin.
“We’ll have plenty of other things to do, my dearest one. But that can begin in the morning, yes?”
“Right on, Baji Obi,” Anakin said before he was handed a little cup of water which he sipped slowly and gratefully.
Master Che was talking and stuff, but Anakin was really tired, and he’d kinda fell asleep on Obi-Wan’s shoulder before he was nudged to get up and put his clothes on, but he was kind of out of it, and Baji had to help him, and then carried him back. There were a lot of adults talking and stuff, but Anakin couldn’t care less.
He did surface when food was put right under his nose, and he ate both sandwiches, both pieces of fruit, and drank two packs of nutrient water and ate all his bugs like a good little boy (very good for you, that’s what Mom always said) and then he was zonked again and didn’t wake until morning.