Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In 960 ARR, a great change began overtaking the Galaxy.  It did not, in the way of such things, do so swiftly, or dramatically, but with a few small events that would grow in size to change the face of history.  For one Obi-Wan Kenobi, he barely noticed them starting, despite his connection to the Unifying Force that might have given him warning.

That, in all honesty, tried to give him warning.

However, he was 17 and had recently left Mandalore after a short stint as a guard to the daughter of one of the leaders of the Republic-approved but less popular New Mandalorian faction.  He had fallen in love with the land he saw there with a startling swiftness, and barely avoided letting those feelings be confused with feelings for his charge.  He did not want to risk his place among the Jedi by paying too much attention to news of Mandalore, so when alerts came up about the leading Haat’Mando’ad faction….

He ignored it.

<^>

Jango Fett did not intend to become a warlord, a conqueror, or an Empire-builder.

He just hated politics.

Well, he hated most politicians.

Especially the corrupt ones, although at least when he realized the people they ruled didn’t like them either, he felt better about shooting and or stabbing them.  Except someone had to be in charge, so he usually cast about for the least corrupt person with any degree of administrative skill, and put them in charge.  It worked out pretty well, until he returned home from a campaign circuit of the space just outside the Mandalorian space and was met by his Buir, the Mand’alor, with a severe frown on his face.

“Jango… why did tribute arrive from three different planets we don’t own?”

"UM," Jango said eloquently.  "Well, you see, what happened was…."

"I'm no longer sure I want to know," Jaster told him.  "Three isn’t that bad.  Don't let it happen again."

<^>

It happened again.

<^>

By 968 ARR, the Mandalorian Empire was established and expanding, albeit much slower than the previous version.  The Republic historians theorized that the Mandalorians had learned from past mistakes and were taking their time to shore up defenses and ensure that no war meant to crush them back down would succeed.  In fact, what little the spies sent could retrieve indicated that Mandalore was carefully building their home resources and medical and food supply lines constantly, but only adding a handful of planets to their ranks each year.  The military strategists surmised that the lack of any more detailed intelligence emerging from Mandalorian space was a sign of tight operational security and meant the Expansion was being driven by a highly intelligent and ruthless Warlord.  Attempts to learn more led only to firm but polite statements that the planets conquered now owed allegiance to one Jango Fett.  The politicians looked at the patterns, at the words of the historians and the strategists, and decided they must make an ally of this new Empire.  A Senator suggested they send a tribute, a sign of good faith.

But what to send?

It was in fact the brand new Chancellor who eventually took their decision to the Jedi Council.

Mandalore's ancient enemy the Jedi, a fixture of Republic justice, had to be a sore spot for them, he explained, ever so gently, ever so sadly.  To show the Republic meant no ill will, it would only be suiting to send them a Jedi as a sign of the Republic's peaceful intent.

A hostage, he said, but the Council knew he meant sacrifice.

Who then to choose?

"Well," the Chancellor said slowly, "Do any Jedi speak the language of the Mandalorians?"

There was but one.

Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Many protested.  Knight Kenobi was fresh from battle with a Sith, where his own master had been gravely wounded and not woken yet from his medical coma.  He was newly knighted, not ready for such a dangerous assignment. 

"If he can withstand a Sith Lord," the Chancellor said, "surely he can withstand a Mandalorian Warlord."

And so it was decided.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was a sacrifice on the altar of peace, sent away to Mandalore and the Warlord Jango Fett.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan did not cower before the man he’d been sent to.  He wouldn’t give the warlord the satisfaction of seeing a Jedi’s spirit broken, no matter what was done to his body.  He had no illusions that his care for Satine and the land she loved meant anything here.  Satine was from a faction that specifically eschewed physical violence (although he had some choice words for those of the New Mandalorians that thought they’d managed to remove all violence from their lives) and Jango Fett was notably not.   

“Let me get this straight,” said one of Fett’s aides.  “The Republic has decided that they don’t want us waging full scale war on them, so they’ve sent us a Jetii?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, tucking his hands into his sleeves to hide his nerves, before realizing he could have hidden weapons and that might seem threatening.   To cover, he raise one hand somewhat clumsily to gesture with his words, showing off bare wrist.  “The Senate decided it would be valuable to attempt to open with a show of good faith, and as the one thing they have that Mandalore does not is the Jedi… I was sent to you.”

“What does a Jedi do?” Fett asked, his voice through the vocoder of his helmet somewhat incredulous, looking up from the letter explaining everything in exacting legal detail.

“It depends on the Jedi,” Obi-Wan said, somewhat confused by the question.  “We aren’t a monolith.  My training is largely in negotiating peaceful resolutions to conflict, bringing justice where I may, and generally assisting those in need however I can.”

“Okay,” Fett said with a slow nod.  “You can help Myles handle the politics osik for me, that involves a lot of all of that.”

Wait, what?

<^>

Myles was so relieved he could cry.

He’d been the one shouldering all of the political trouble that landed on Jango, being the only one even remotely suited to it in the warband, but his training was in campaign logistics, not economics or politics.  He had no idea what to do with the tributes they kept getting sent, and Jaster had stopped helping clean up after his ad’s inadvertent empire after the tenth new planet.  Sure, he still considered them Mandalorian space as much as the planets themselves did, and would allow Jango to send verd’e to protect them, but he didn’t manage any of the details or flimsiwork.

Myles did, and he hated it.   But now the Jetii was here, and Jango was smart enough to realize that his training was superior to Myles’ in this arena, and Myles was free of it!  Well, after he got the Jetii settled.  He should probably stop calling his savior “the Jetii”.

“So I didn’t catch your name,” he said, after ensuring the man was seated comfortably at the wide desk he did the osik at.  “Sorry, I was sort of distracted by the whole ‘the Republic sent us a Jetii’ thing.”

“Obi-Wan,” the man said with a small smile.  “It’s a pleasure to work with you, Myles.”

“Don’t say that before you’ve seen the work,” Myles warned darkly as he pulled up the file from the desktop holoprojector with all the correspondence with their vassal planets.  Obi-Wan laughed, teeth flashing in dark humor.

“Oh, this is far nicer than I had expected.  Practically a picnic on Alderaan.”

Myles snorted at the sarcasm, and started to show him the organizational system he used.

<^>

“Verd’alor, I think I’m in love,” Myles announced.  Jango rolled his eyes and tossed the cleaning rag from where he’d finished cleaning his kit at his second.

“You are the most aromantic person I know,” Jango said.  “So unless you’re trying to win me that bet about if you’ll ever say the riduurok with your Z-6 rotary, I call osik on that.”

“Sheila, and our relationship, is none of your business,” Myles quipped back.  “But no, the new Jetii, Obi-Wan, he cleared half my queue for the month just since getting here.  He changed up the sorting filters, too, so that it’ll be easier to deal with what comes in new, and he drafted up an announcement you should look over, something to get the New Dar’manda to back off our shebs.”

“Ugh, New Mandalorians,” Jango said with a scowl he felt bone deep.  He hated dealing with them.  Fortunately they were usually Jas’buir’s problem, but they liked crawling up Jango’s ass about the whole ‘empire’ thing.  “Do you think it’ll work?”

“I mean, he mentioned he spent a year living with them and studying their culture, so I think it’ll work better than what we could do,” Myles said with a shrug.  “He said he can explain more about the draft he made, if you want, but if it works like he said it would, it’ll break their most annoying habits right off and soften the less annoying ones.”

“He may just want us to make peace with them because he likes them, if he spent a year there.  He’s only been here a week.”  Jango sighed.  The letter explaining what to do with the Jedi was confusing and flowery and in Basic , which he supposed was normal for the Republic, but it was his second language.  All he’d really caught was that the Republic thought he needed a Jetii for some reason, probably because they couldn’t wipe their own shebs without them.  Although, Myles was a sensible verd.  He wouldn’t exaggerate the Jetii’s value, and he seemed really pleased by Obi-Wan’s work.  

“I’ll think about it,” he allowed.  Myles grinned at him.

<^>

Obi-Wan was expecting the worst when Fett asked to see him in his office alone.  He’d been polite enough not to mention aloud the fact Obi-Wan was essentially chattel, not quite a slave since that was theoretically illegal in both Mandalorian and Republic space, but close enough.

Surely though, in private it would be different.

The only difference he could see so far was the fact Fett’s helmet was off this time.  The Warlord’s face was handsome, strong jaw and high cheekbones and intelligent eyes, but his Force Presence, now readable without the beskar helm, was weary and wary and frustrated.

“Explain this,” he said sharply, waving at a piece of flimsi Obi-Wan recognized.  Well, perhaps it was too much to ask.  He knew Satine had said the Haat’Mando’ad would never agree to peace with her people.

“It seemed unwise to allow a division to fester at home,” he said, hoping not to anger Fett.  “You’ve been very cautious with expanding, establishing supply lines and reenforcing the borders before attempting to move on another planet… this is just another reinforcement.” 

“Will it work?” Fett demanded, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “It’s in Basic, so the subtext isn’t as clear as it would be in Mando’a.”

“Mando’a doesn’t have subtext, it has text,” Obi-Wan said before realizing how insulting that could seem.  However, the Force was with him as mirth rippled off the Warlord.

“You’re not wrong,” Fett said.  “Will it work?”

“It should,” Obi-Wan said.

“Why?” Fett asked.  When Obi-Wan started to explain the rhetoric, he waved and clarified.  “Why are you helping us with them?  I understand you know them better, like them better.”

“I liked Satine and Ad'nau,” Obi-Wan clarified.  “As individuals.  I liked tiingilar.  I liked sunsets outside Sundari and the traditional handcrafts in the market.  I didn’t care much for the hypocrites who weaponized words while preaching disarmament.  Not that there’s anything wrong with either weaponized words or pacifism, but doing both is just insulting to those of us who specialize in fighting with our voices.”

“Hm,” Fett said, the Force singing with possibility and hope as the Warlord frowned deeply.  Obi-Wan had a feeling the Force would be very important in keeping an eye on his new keeper’s moods.  “You’re still using Myles’ desk?”

“So far,” Obi-Wan said.

“He needs it back, I’ll have one brought in here for you.”

“Thank you…” Obi-Wan paused, unsure, but followed the pull of the Force around him, “... Alor.”

<^>

Jango may not have liked New Mandalorians, at all, although he didn’t punch any of them in the face.  It was classless to strike an unarmed opponent, even if they really deserved it.  In fact, a good break on that knife of a nose may even improve “Minister” Almec’s appearance.  Ad'nau Kryze was far less obnoxious, even if something about the way his daughter Satine simpered at Jango’s Jedi grated.  His second daughter was much less distressing, mainly fucking off to watch the verd’e train.

Two weeks into the debates and Jango’s headache wouldn’t quit.  He didn’t technically need to be there, New Mandalorians were a Manda’yaim issue and that was Jas’buir’s territory.  Jango handled the verd’e and their patrols sweeps at the edges of Mandalorian space and the mission roster that brought in their off-world income.  But it was Jango’s Jedi that came up with the plan, and that meant Jango had to be there, and drink the pale excuse for shig that Almec brought, and play nice with the woman flirting with Obi-Wan, even if he was useless.

“My dear, are you feeling well?” Obi-Wan asked, and Jango snorted, looking to see where Satine was and if she looked as bad as he felt.  Perhaps it would cheer him up.  She wasn’t in the room.  No one was, as he and Obi-Wan had arrived early.

“Headache,” he said.  Obi-Wan frowned, and placed a cool hand on Jango’s forehead.  He startled a bit as he did so, pulling away only a fraction before Jango grabbed at his wrist to keep the soothing cool a moment longer.  He’d have to apologize later, but it felt so good.

“This isn’t good,” Obi-Wan muttered.  “You’ve been given poison.  I'm no healer, but I can help your body purge it.”

“What now?” Jango asked, dropping the wrist to put a hand to his com.  “In what?  The only thing I’ve had that isn’t cooked by the kitchens or myself is that nasty shig.”

“It’s not shig, it’s tea, but it is nasty,” Obi-Wan confirmed.  “That’s why I’ve been pretending to drink it without actually drinking it.  So has Jaster.  Only the New Mandalorians have been actually drinking it.  Hmm, now that I think of it, Satine wasn’t feeling well earlier either, and Ad'nau is good at hiding it, but he’s had a headache since he got here.”

“That shabuir Almec seems fine,” Jango pointed out.

“He does,” Obi-Wan agreed grimly.  “I think, my dear Verd’alor, that we may need to move to aggressive negotiations with Almec....”

“Does that mean I get to shoot him?” Jango asked hopefully.  Obi-Wan hummed.

“Yes, but you have to share with Ad'nau.  Almec was poisoning his daughters, too.”

“I can do that,” Jango promised.

<^>

Obi-Wan had never seen negotiations go faster than after Jango removed the person who didn’t actually want them to go through.  Ad'nau was much more reasonable than Almec, and once the word of Almec trying to take out his main political rival and frame the Haat’ade reached Sundari, the people had swiftly questioned all his previous legislation, including most of the items on Jaster’s ‘this must stop’ list.

All because Jango was willing to sit Ad'nau down, explain the plot with Obi-Wan’s help, and then offer the first shot to a man who by all rights should have been an enemy.  Ad'nau had passed, but requested that he and his daughters be permitted to watch the Mand’alor’s justice.  The death was clean enough even Satine couldn’t call it cruel, and her little sister Bo-Katan had promptly asked to be apprenticed to Jango afterwards.  Jango had turned her down, but pointed her at the older soldiers who trained new warriors.

All in all, it was terribly successful.

Chapter Text

The Senate hadn’t wanted to risk offending the Mandalorians by allowing the Jedi sacrifice they sent to be armed.  Obi-Wan had thought that was idiotic, the Mandalorians they were sending him to were far less likely to be upset by a weapon than the ones he’d apparently proven his value with when he was a teen.  When living in Sundari, he’d heard all about how vicious and barbaric they were, worshiping weapons as a part of their faith.  He had delicately not mentioned that a Jedi’s lightsaber was also a part of their faith, as close to a physical manifestation of their lives as could exist separate from their bodies.  The one time he’d been parted from his had been the most painfully distressing period of his life, and he wasn’t entirely sure that it was just because he’d been a child leading children in a war.

He certainly wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Not when he knew he could still call himself a Jedi.

He’d handed his saber’s casing to Chancellor Palpatine before boarding the ship, knowing in his heart the titanium and steel were as good as scrap metal to be melted down.  He’d let his dead-eyed stare at the man who so sweetly, so kindly, so apologetically sent him to death or worse cover for the absence of pain in the act.

The lightsaber is the heart of the Jedi, but the crystal is the heart of the lightsaber, and his was sewn into his robes over his heart, a steady thrum of energy.

The first thing he’d done on being given new clothes to wear was to remove the crystal and wrap it gently in wire he’d snitched from a weapons repair kit.  The things dotted the public spaces like medical kits, often right beside them, and some subtle use of the Force for timing had let him grab a small roll of insulated copper.  The rubberized coating he stripped, letting the soft metal conform more smoothly to the blue-green kyber, the Force helping him shape it securely into a pendant to wear.

He’d expected commentary on it, a glowing necklace was hard to hide, but aside from some curiosity swirling around his new companions’ Force presences, there were none.  Perhaps a few may have wanted to, but each time he thought he was going to have to explain it away (he had plans for that, a religious token, normally obscured from view, but the new clothes did not have as many layers… all perfectly true, in a way) Myles had shown up with a task for the asker.  People stopped looking like they wanted to ask.

It was strange, to admit to himself he felt touched by the Warlord’s second and his desire to protect Obi-Wan’s privacy.  He hadn’t expected to like any of the Mandalorians.  In fact, given the general rumors in Republic space about Fett and the stories he’d heard from the New Mandalorians, he had half expected to be gutted immediately, or perhaps tortured to death, or even taken for the Warlord’s pleasure, to be attacked at his dignity and soul in an attempt to ruin him for the Jedi, render him broken.

He liked to think the oath he’d made Qui-Gon all those years ago would hold, that he wouldn’t Fall, no matter what was done, but… none could know what they might do in such a case.  Quinlan had brought home stories that hurt to hear, poured out sorrows not his own from glimpses of memory picked up in the work of the Shadows.  Obi-Wan had held his friend through the tears and the pain, and would gladly do so a thousand times, but it did not mean he didn’t fear the thought of being forced in such a way.

Not that he feared the thought of Jango’s bed, oddly.  It might be Captive’s Syndrome setting in, but the man was… not unappealing.  Strong, unexpectedly kind, and quite handsome.  Not that Obi-Wan would do anything about that himself, he was too busy picking apart trade agreements between Jango’s vassal planets to have time to do more than appreciate the aesthetic improvement of working at a desk directly opposite his captor.  His kind, seemingly somewhat shy captor.  It was honestly a touch adorable to watch him debate asking a question, only seeing the ripples in the Force, as Jango never said a word while they worked.

He couldn’t even really get in trouble for “attachment” since this whole thing was his assignment, he thought bitterly.

Perhaps this whole thing was just as awkward for Jango.

If Obi-Wan had been handed a letter explaining that the giver of said letter was intended as a tribute, a sacrifice for him to do with what he would, a slave in all but name, he’d be quite offended.  Perhaps it was best Jango didn’t say anything about it, he must be seething, although he shielded himself quite well.

Regardless, Obi-Wan was feeling safer, now, a few months into his captivity.  He’d achieved objectively beneficial things, and perhaps was starting to realize that while bloodthirsty in battle, the Haat’mando’ad were playful and compassionate at home.  That sense of safety led him to contemplate being able to perhaps practice a kata to relax, to decide to build a new saber.

The parts were easy enough to source.  Lightsaber design was a closely guarded secret, but the only actual parts that were hard to obtain were the focusing crystals and the power packs, and he already had his crystal.  The power pack he found to use was slightly larger than he liked, less efficient than was advisable, and also had been stolen, whereas the rest of the materials Obi-Wan built from beskar Ad'nau had given him to experiment with, after they eventually agreed that the New Mandalorians would stop recycling previously crafted beskar into their construction.  

As it turned out, most Mandalorians felt about their beskar’gam the way he did about his crystal, and now he understood why they were so upset at the Sundari construction schemes.  His scraps had never been forged into armor, their energy pure and singing in the Force as his senses slid over them like a blade ringing off a shield, a strong contrast to the forged beskar’gam he was only now growing accustomed to living beside.  That buzzed, an echo like tinnitus as his senses felt for something not within reach.  The longer the beskar’gam was worn, the less his senses detected it or the person wearing it, as natural shielding soaked into the metal.

The new beskar was easy to work with, whereas he had no doubt forged beskar would actively fight him, as a kyber would an unmatched Jedi.  It sang in the Force as he used his finest control to craft the case, the activation button and power dial, the setting for the crystal and most of the internal parts.  He slivered off the copper wrap of his crystal’s pendant form to wire the power pack into place, taking only a second to lament the bulk that expanded his pommel inelegantly, then floated the crystal into place, the Force around him jubilant and warm it the rightness as his saber completed itself and fell into his waiting hands.

<^>

Jango didn’t know exactly why he was knocking on the Jedi’s door.  He had come to respect the other man, he was competent and intelligent and tireless in his assistance.  He also was devastatingly attractive and probably horrifically straight, considering the snatches of conversation he’d overheard between the Heir of Clan Kryze and the Jedi, discussing some shared past.  He would assume a shared present, except that Obi-Wan called everyone ‘my dear’ and had shown no sign of attempting to leave Jango’s side to go with the Kryzes after the negotiations were finally over.

Ka’ra, he was glad they were over.

The abuses of Sundari were no more, and for only the price of Jango and Jaster both swearing to never call on New Mandalorians to fight.  As if they would, unskilled hands in battle were deadly to both sides.  He would more than happily take their medics, but there were verd'e aplenty who would be better suited to war.

Perhaps that was why he was here, to thank Obi-Wan.

Yes, that made sense.

It had nothing to do with wanting to goad him into discussing whatever his newest project was, and letting the man’s voice soothe him while also educating him in a way reading reports never did.  It had nothing to do with the way light tangled in his burnished hair, like the sun itself wanted to hold him close.

Nope.  He was here to thank him.

And had been a while.

Jango knew the Jedi was in, he’d checked with the MSE droids that cleaned these quarters, Obi-Wan had gone in his rooms and not come out.  He had no reason not to answer the door, had never ignored a knock before, always prompt and dutiful and reliable and perfect.

Perhaps something had happened to him?

Treachery… not from Ad'nau, Jango had to grudgingly admit the man was alright, if raised with too much fear for a second Dral’han… considering he grew up in the shadows of the scars, it made sense, though.  No, not the Kryzes, but perhaps one of their fellows who objected to their decency and sense finally overtaking Almec's reactionary fearmongering for power.

Tensing, Jango called a warning, then pressed in the override key to the door, meant for emergency situations only.  It was an emergency, he was sure, although he didn’t know what to expect specifically.

Inside… was not at all what he would have expected if pressed to say.

Obi-Wan was floating, his legs folded under him in a serene pose while his head stayed where it normally was, slightly below Jango’s own.  Metal parts floated around him, bobbing like asteroids and shifting, twisting themselves into new shapes.  The shine of new beskar was unmistakable, reflecting the light off that pretty pendant everyone was curious about but no one was willing to risk Myles’ wrath over by asking about.  It glowed the teal of healing, or perhaps a perfect blend of duty green and reliability blue.  The light washed Obi-Wan’s pale skin, leaving him looking celestial and untouchable.

The parts slotted together into a hilt, the crystal’s light encased away, and the hilt landed in Obi-Wan’s hand.  The weight of the power pack in the pommel was clearly misjudged, and a small frown crossed his lips before he opened his eyes, dropping down onto the ground in a ready stance, blue blade springing forth before recognition crossed his features and the blade vanished.

“What….” Jango had no idea what he was asking.  What was that, what were you doing, how and why and a million other questions.

“My apologies, Verd’alor,” Obi-Wan said, falling into a deep bow that exposed the back of his neck.  Jango wanted to lay a hand on it, to guide the proud Jedi upwards, to pull him into a kov'nyn, but he refrained, as the tension in Obi-Wan’s back made it clear such an advance would be unwanted.

“A jetii’kad?” Jango finally asked.

“Elek, Alor.”  Obi-Wan stood, holding the saber-hilt awkwardly in front of him, thumb far from the activation buttons.  “Our negotiations caused me to miss having it, so I rebuilt it.  I should have asked first.”

“What about the negotiations had you building a Jetii’kad?” Jango asked, concerned.  If anyone had given his Jedi offence, he would….

“The discussion of beskar’gam,” Obi-Wan said, ending any murderous thoughts that might have followed.  “A Jedi’s saber is his life, in much the same ways beskar’gam is yours.  I thought I could go without, for the sake of diplomacy, but….”

But it was excruciating, his face said.  It was like missing a limb, Jango’s own memories of the few times he’d been without his armor said.  It was torture not deserved, to deny the Jedi his sword.

“That power pack isn’t what you normally use,” he observed.  Obi-Wan nodded.  “What model is normally used?”

There was hesitancy, but Obi-Wan bowed his head.  “A diatium power cell is standard, Alor.”

Expensive, Jango thought, but worth it.

<^>

A week after the Incident, as Obi-Wan had decided to think about it, he still had not been told to hand over his saber, which stayed tucked in his belt.  Unlike the crystal, no curious stares and aborted questions followed, and he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or guilty for having traded knowledge of the inner workings of a sacred and vital tool of his people for the ability to carry his own.

He spotted a small box on Jango’s desk one morning, before work.  Jango had stayed well after he had, and would likely be late to arrive.

The box was labeled with one of the nicer brands that sourced diatium products.

Heart in his throat, Obi-Wan reached out for it, slipping it open to retrieve the precious power cell.

He couldn’t let this be studied or reverse engineered for flaws that could be used to harm his family.  He couldn’t.  Even if they killed him for it, he couldn’t go down without a fight.

He put the box in his desk and said nothing.

Neither did Jango, when he finally arrived.  Hopefully he’d intercepted it in time.

<^>

Jango was cranky.  Lack of sleep would do that, especially when it was caused by being unsure how to give a gift to one who had aided him so faithfully.  He arrived at the office shortly before mid-meal, only to find the issue plaguing him resolved.  The power cell he’d left on his desk was gone, and Obi-Wan particularly cheerful.

Good.

His gift had been accepted.

Chapter Text

Anakin had been furious when Obi-Wan took him aside and explained that the Senate had decided to send him to Mandalore, and Anakin could not come with him.  Not about the not coming with, although he would have been if Obi-Wan hadn’t been very careful to explain why it was all happening.  Anakin understood that families weren’t always sold together.  Not that Obi-Wan said specifically that he was being sold, the Jedi didn’t seem to realize what they were, which had been a rude shock after letting them take out his chip and promise him freedom when they weren’t even Free themselves.  

No, Anakin was mad at Chancellor Whats-His-Face for pretending to be nice and then selling Obi-Wan away from Anakin.  And at the Council, even if he understood how dangerous it could be to stand up to Depur.  But Obi-Wan had defended Anakin when the Council said that Qui-Gon being injured meant Anakin couldn’t stay there, and Obi-Wan wanted Anakin to find ways of being angry that didn’t make things float, or break, and Anakin understood why.

He couldn’t defend Anakin any more, so Anakin had to defend himself.

That meant being quiet, not being seen, not being noticed.

He stayed in Obi-Wan’s quarters, sleeping in the bed that smelled of books and tea and spicy sweetness.  He read on the datapads Obi-Wan had gotten for him before being sold.  He didn’t go to classes, Obi-Wan hadn’t set those up yet for him, and he didn’t want to go where he wasn’t supposed to be, not without Obi-Wan to help get him out of trouble.  He didn’t really need them anyways, he had unfiltered Holonet access and the notes Obi-Wan had made about what sorts of things he needed to learn.  He could look things up himself.

He was eating soup with noodles that he’d learned to make from a video, and studying a diagram of the insides of a nexu, since “galactic biology” was on the list and nexus looked wizard, when the door opened.  Anakin panicked a bit, just a bit, and hit the intruder with the pillow on the couch, tossed with a flick of Force.  The intruder toppled inward, the door closing behind them as they scrambled back up with the aid of a cane, and- 

It was Qui-Gon.

“Oh, sorry about that,” Anakin said.  “I didn’t realize it was you.  What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” Qui-Gon said with a dry tone.  “I was in the Healing Halls for far too long if that’s been changed.”

“Oh.  I thought Obi-Wan lived here.”

“He does, did,” Qui-Gon said.  “And now you will.  Where is Obi-Wan?  Has he been taking good care of you?”

“He was sold to Mandalore,” Anakin said bitterly.  Then he took a breath through his nose and blew out through his mouth, like Obi-Wan had shown him.  It helped, even if Anakin didn’t quite understand what he was supposed to be doing with the Force.  “But I’m still his Padawan.”

Qui-Gon’s face took on a strange shape, like he was having gut trouble or something, then he did the in and out breath, and smiled brightly.

“My dear Anakin, he can hardly call you his Padawan if he isn’t going to actually teach you.  If Obi-Wan has gone to Mandalore, and left you here, you will need a different Master.”

Anakin screwed up his face.  “No.  No I don’t.  I have the plan he wrote, I have the holonet, I can teach myself until he gets free and comes to get me.  And when he comes to get me, I’m gonna make sure he knows it’s not okay, the way the Chancellor treated him, and we’re gonna escape, because we don’t have chips and we’re gonna be Free.”

“Anakin, you ARE free,” Qui-Gon said condescendingly.  “Now come here so I can put a Padawan braid in your hair.  It’s very important, it shows everyone our relationship as Master and Padawan, which is proof of your place in the Jedi.”

“I have a braid,” Anakin said, pulling the short braid Obi-Wan had done out from his head so it could be seen better.  It wasn’t long, Ani’s hair had never been terribly long, it was hard to keep clean on Tatooine.  Now that he was in the temple with their weird water-showers, he might grow it out, but that would take time.

“Obi-Wan is far too young and irresponsible to raise a Padawan,” Qui-Gon snapped.

“He’s better than YOU!” Anakin yelled back, grabbing his datapad and storming off into Obi-Wan’s room, slamming the door.

“That’s it, you are grounded young man!”

“Where would I even go?” Anakin grumbled.  Whatever, he had astronavigation to learn next on his schedule.

<^>

Qui-Gon wasn't sure exactly what had happened to make the sunshine bright boy he'd saved on Tatooine so angry, so surly and closed off.  He'd thought Anakin was pleased to be his next Padawan.  But something had, and now he had a growling, muttering, door slamming child in his quarters, for all he hardly saw him outside his room.  If it weren’t for the steady loss of food supplies in the kitchen and the occasional sound of language practices, he would worry Anakin had died.

At least since the last time he'd tried to give Anakin a proper braid the pranks had stopped.  Cold showers that suddenly ran scalding were not enjoyable. 

Consequently, he wasn't in much of a mood to handle a call from the Chancellor.

"Ah, Master Jedi, I'm glad to see you up and about," Chancellor Palpatine said.

"Yes, it was quite a relief to me as well," Qui-Gon agreed.

"Might I speak with Young Anakin?"

"I'm sorry, but he’s grounded at the moment."  Qui-Gon sighed.  "He's… not adapting smoothly to temple life."

"Ah, no worries, I know how it can be.  Children need a firm hand.  If you ever need a moment’s reprieve, I would be glad to watch him.  I had many young cousins when I was younger."

"I believe I can handle it, I have raised Padawans before.  But thank you," Qui-Gon said with a nod.  The Chancellor returned the gesture, and he hung up.

Perhaps it was time to approach Anakin again about his braid.  The boy had been in limbo for over two months since Obi-Wan had accepted an assignment without Anakin.

<^>

Jango was, admittedly, not the best at reading people who didn’t want their feelings known, but he liked to think that after two months sitting across from Obi-Wan, he’d gotten a feel for the Jedi’s body language.  Today, that body language seemed off, hurting or sad.

“Are you feeling well?” he asked.  “If you need a baar’ur I can call one.  Oh, a baar’ur is-”

“A medic, I know,” Obi-Wan said with a wave.  “And no thank you, it’s nothing a medic could treat.  It’s just….”

He paused, in that way he had, weighing, measuring the words behind his teeth, finding just the right ones.  It reminded Jango of Arla and her sniper rifle, the intensely focused patience of a waiting warrior.  And it was hot as all kriff when Obi-Wan did it.

 “It’s been over two months, closer to three, since I was at the Temple,” Obi-Wan settled on.

“Homesick?” Jango asked.  As useful as it was to have a Jedi on his staff - he took back everything he’d ever said about the Senate being too dependent on them - he wouldn’t begrudge the man if he wanted to go home, see his family again.  He wondered if Jedi had siblings, but didn’t know how to ask.

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” Obi-Wan assured him.  “I don’t think I’ve spent more than a month or two at the Temple at any one time since I was an Initiate.  My Master was very active and we were often away on missions, since it’s usually not wise to leave an unattended Padawan behind.”

“But…,” Jango said, encouraging the other man to open up.  Obi-Wan sighed.

“But I left my Padawan unattended,” he said ruefully.  “I didn’t have much choice, since I didn’t know you’d be so kind as to give me such safe and easy work.”

Jango snorted at that, the Jedi had been working twice as hard as any verd, and on a battlefield even Jango knew was just as deadly as a war front, even if he couldn’t call himself adept in that arena.

“Master Jinn should have gotten out of the bacta by now, he’ll watch over Ani,” Obi-Wan said, seeming not to dignify Jango’s snort with a comment.  “Not necessarily my first choice, but I suppose he didn’t manage to get me killed and I was much more trouble than Anakin is.”

“Anakin is your ad?” Jango asked, somewhat surprised.  He’d heard Jedi didn’t take on foundlings until they were much older, and Obi-Wan had called himself a Jet’verd, not a Jet'ba'ji.

“Yes, my Padawan,” Obi-Wan said with a besotted look that only new parents could really pull off.  “He’s brilliant.  In the Battle of Naboo, he stole a fighter and helped take down the blockade.  He’s so good with machines and droids, and he’s so curious about everything.  He picks up languages like it’s nothing, it seems, and he’s just the best Padawan anyone could want.  The Council must have been half blind not to see it.”

Jango decided then and there that the only thing hotter than a highly competent and gorgeous warrior capable of keeping the assholes and pacifists off his back was one who also clearly loved his adorable ad’ika.

However, something vaguely upsetting had flicked across the besotted look, and it made Jango’s chest rumble strangely.  He wanted to find the source of that worry and strangle it, then chase the last of the fear from Obi-Wan’s brow with sweet kisses and reassurances that no harm would befall his aliit while Jango yet lived.  That would be incredibly inappropriate, though, as Verd’alor, he could never make the first move.  Even giving him the power cell had been a bit bold, although he hoped Obi-Wan had seen he didn’t mean it to form obligation between them, only to express gratitude.

“It will be fine,” Obi-Wan said, more to himself than anything, perhaps too low to normally be heard, if it weren’t for the way Jango’s whole being focused on the beautiful Jedi whenever he was in sight.  “Anakin is strong, and Master Jinn won’t let him be abandoned.”

Jango made a quick note to go talk to Myles and Arla later.

<^>

“Okay, verd’e, we all clear on the plan?” Arla asked as their ship left hyperspace over Coruscanta.  There were rumbles of agreement, but it never hurt to repeat yourself, especially when taking a strike team into the heart of the Jetii’yaim.  They couldn’t afford fuckups here, which is why she was leading the team.

“We go down in the atmoship, land on a public pad just outside the Temple but several levels down.  We can’t be spotted here, so use full stealth as we enter the lower levels of the Jetii’yaim.  Uurlaar, you’ll take point.”

Their recon specialist nodded sharply, flicking a hood up over the tall buy’ce shaped to protect their montrals.

“Sapin,” Arla continued, getting the intense gold eyes of their slicer on her in an instant.  “You’re gonna get us in and keep the security off our backs.”

“Ruusan, once we’re in, you step up with Uurlaar and you two will find us the right quarters.  You have Jango’s list of details and navigation markers, yes?”

“Elek, alor!” the human woman replied.  “It’s rather… extensive.”

“My brother has a massive crush,” Arla explained.  “It’d be adorable if his respect for the consent of the chain of command weren’t bordering on obsessive.  But this is good for us.  Him adopting the Jedi means we have a fair bit of intel about the layout in there.  Speaking of which, we’re gonna need to grab all his things, too, since like haran are we giving him back now.   V'khordath, Aden, you two are going to be doing that.  Clothes, datapads, knicknacks, any snacks in his rooms, all of it.”

“It will be done, Alor,” V'khordath swore, hand tapping the gold dragon picked out over his left chestplate.

“You get the big things, I’ll pack the small ones,” Aden suggested, their black armor a spot of shadow even in the well lit ship.  “Who’s getting the ad’ika?”

“Aay’han,” Arla said firmly.  “She has buir energy.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.  They landed, gave a nod to the pilot, and swept out silently.  The path through the temple was easy enough, sticking to stairwells rather than the killbox of lifts, up to the massive garden Obi-Wan had waxed eloquently about.  (Jango’s notes on that conversation were full of aborted ideas to recreate it on Manda’yaim.  Arla was gonna die of the cuteness.)  Past the massive garden it was a corridor and then three left turns, since the Jedi had said his quarters had a window onto the garden.  It was early on Coruscanta, so they managed to avoid being seen until they stepped into the apartment.

“What is this?” asked an older Jetti, rising from a complex seated position that made Arla’s hips hurt just looking at it.

“Are these Obi-Wan’s rooms?” she demanded.

“No,” the Jetii lied.  “Obi-Wan moved out when he was knighted, as is usual.  It’s just me and my Padawan here.”

“I’m not your Padawan!” shouted a child, who stepped into the room, fists balled up in rage as fluffy blond hair bobbed about their head like one of those feathery pink flowers that grew on Naboo.  “I’m Obi-Wan’s and he’s mine, and you can’t change that .”

Oh no, Arla thought, they’re adorable.

“You’re Obi’s ad?” Aay’han asked.  The child nodded stiffly.  “He missed you.  We’re here to take you back to Manda’yaim.”

The child seemed torn on that.  The elder Jetii wasn’t.

“You will be taking Anakin nowhere,” they said firmly, a hand coming up in a gesture of halting.  “You will return home and not return again.”

“Sure will be goin’ home,” Aden agreed from the kitchen, already packing tea supplies up.  “Don’t plan to come back neither.  Hey Ad’ika, you got any favorite snacks you want at the top of the box?”

“I said, you will leave this place,” the Jet’ba’ji said again, the hand waving more purposefully.

“Man, Obi’ka’s room is depressing,” V’khordath announced, walking out with two big duffles and a backpack.  “This is everything, and it’s mostly stuff for the ad’s education.”

“Hey, I need that!” the child protested.  “I gotta learn real good while Obi-Wan is gone so I can make him proud when he comes back!”

“You’re a good ad,” Aay’han said, stepping up to reach out for the child’s shoulder.  Whatever she was going to say next was lost in a yelp as the ad bit down hard on the fabric of her kom’rk between thumb and forefinger.

“Hey, no biting my verd, ad’ika,” Arla reprimanded, grabbing the child under the armpits to lift them away from Aay’han.  “She needs her hands if she’s gonna make good on that promise to teach Obi-Wan cubi’kad.”

“ You will release my Padawan, ” the Jetii thundered, shaking every loose object in the room.  Arla sighed as Aay’han spun low then popped up inside the Jetii’s guard, slapping a palm into their chin hard enough to make teeth clack audibly.

“I can’t fault protecting an ad, but if we don’t bring Anakin back with us, Obi-Wan will make the sad face again, and I’ll have to scrape my brother off the floor of whatever tavern he drowns his pain in,” she told the now-unconscious body in her verd’s arms.  “Besides, it’s not right to leave an ad without their buir too long.  Come, now, ad’ika, we need to get you back to Obi-Wan, he missed you terribly.”

“What do I do with this one?” Aay’han asked.  Arla shrugged.

“Bring that one too.  If they were caring for Obi-Wan’s child then they may be family too.  Buir or ba’buir maybe?”

<^>

On the flight to Mandalore, Anakin learned three things.  Firstly, the Republic were idiots if they thought anyone in Arla’s family would mistreat Obi-Wan.  Secondly, that Obi-Wan must have figured that out, since he was super smart and good at understanding people, hence the team sent to collect him and their things.  And Master Jinn, he guessed.  Thirdly, Mandalorians liked adopting children who bit them, but were at least better than Master Jinn at listening when he said he was Obi-Wan’s and only Obi-Wan’s.

He liked them.  And the armor was pretty wizard.

Obi-Wan had good taste.

Chapter Text

“So, Buir… I may have done something… stupid?”

Jaster sighed.  “Jango, you are my ad, my precious son, my heir, but the day that surprises me, you kick me off the throne and toss me out to pasture with the rest of the half-dead nerfs.”

“Ouch, Buir,” Jango laughed.  At least he was self aware enough to find that funny.  “Ah, it’s about Obi-Wan’s ad, Anakin.”

“You kidnapped a Jet’ad, didn’t you?” Jaster asked.

“Is it kidnapping if we bring him to his buir?” Jango asked, then shook his head.  “I sent Arla to do it, but she said there was an older Jetii with him and they ended up having to take him too.  His name is Qui-Gon Jinn?”

Jaster sighed.  “You’re collecting an entire aliit, there ad’ika.  That’s Obi-Wan’s Jet’buir.”

Jango boggled for a moment.  “How do you know that?”

“I actually talk to him, ad.  It helps that unlike you, I’m not spending the whole time fantasizing about renaming constellations after his freckles.”

“Hey!  You’re not wrong, but hey!”  Jango eventually let the mock offence fade, then gave Jaster the pleading tooka-eyed look that didn’t stop being devastating after he grew up.  “Can you talk to him again, find out what we’ll need to be sure his buir and ad are happy here?”

Jaster sighed, but nodded.

<^>

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure why the Mand’alor was suddenly so interested in his Lineage, but his questions never strayed to strategic weaknesses, so Obi-Wan was happy to share harmless stories.  How he’d longed for Master Jinn to take him as Padawan, the joy he’d felt on Bandomeer when he had finally been accepted, funny anecdotes about all the various life forms Master Jinn brought home that ended up biting or poisoning Obi-Wan when his control of the Living Force wasn’t strong enough to keep them calm.

At certain points, he felt the Mand’alor was digging for something, so he offered up the darkness he seemed to be seeking, but not enough to threaten the Order.  Xanatos and how Master Jin had loved him so fiercely but lost him to the Dark anyways, the arguments about which actions would protect the most people.  He didn’t discuss Melida-Daan, not specifically.  He’d mentioned the tactics he’d learned then in a different conversation, slipped up and had to explain why he knew how guerrilla teams operate, why he still trained with hand to hand and blasters, even though he hated the inelegance of a blaster.

Hopefully it was enough to sate the interest of the leader he had to rely on now.

“Well, I think I’ve heard enough,” Jaster said eventually.  “Clearly this man should not be allowed to remain near you and your ad’ika.  When they arrive we will remove him swiftly so you never have to face your abuser again.”

“When they what, wait, abuser? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mand’alor!”

“Jango didn’t mention he sent a team to recover your Jet’ad, did he?” Jaster asked with a sigh.  “Of course not.  Well, he did.  It isn’t right to separate a child from the one raising them for too long.  Of course, your dar’buir had to go make himself trouble, so he’s on the ship now too.  They’ll be on Manda’yaim in a day.”

It stung to hear Qui-Gon called his dar’buir, to be reminded how he was thrown away, but Obi-Wan kept his face even and calm.

“And when he arrives, you said something about removing him?”

“Yes.  From your description, and the things you’ve very clearly talked around, that man should have had his kneecap privileges revoked long ago.  I’ll take care of that personally, never fear.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Obi-Wan said with a sigh.  “As the supposed victim here, I don’t suppose I could argue mercy?”

“Not a total pardon, not for crimes against children in his care,” Jaster said warningly.  “But perhaps a punishment that’s not fatal could be arranged.  Something to let him properly consider the depth of his crimes.  Perhaps string him up by his ankles and let him think over his choices until he passes out from the blood rush.”

“That would be a diverting exercise in using the Force to keep his blood running correctly against the flow of gravity,” Obi-Wan allowed.  “Not unlike the common method of correcting unruly Padawans by having them do meditating handstands.”

“Do… do you do that with your ad’ika?” Jaster asked, concern swirling as thickly as the beskar he wore allowed.

“Oh no, I don’t think that would help Anakin as much as it helped me,” Obi-Wan said.  “I’d probably assign him to meditate while he cleaned up whatever mess he’d made.  That way he has to actually pay attention to the consequences of his actions, not just for himself but for others as well.”

<^>

Qui-Gon had mostly missed their arrival, only vaguely registering Anakin’s supernova of joyous energy in the force and the frayed ends of the Padawan bond with Obi-Wan fluttering loose now that they weren’t pulled so far apart as to make it impossible to untie cleanly.

What he mainly registered was a sturdy wall of metal grabbing him roughly and growling in his ear.  He was sure what was said was quite bad, but he’d never had the flair for languages Obi-Wan did, he mainly got by on traveler-level language skills and the Living Force allowing him to get the gist of what was meant.

He couldn’t do that now, since the Wall felt like nothing much, a well shielded mind and a general sense of responsibility and honor.

The Wall dragged him off to what he assumed was a prison.  He reflected on what Anakin had said, over a month ago.  That Obi-Wan was sold to Mandalore.  He’d assumed Anakin was simply processing abandonment through a story that would be familiar, that Obi-Wan had gone to Mandalore, either to visit his friends there or even on a mission.  Either way, it was no excuse to have left the child he’d claimed as Padawan behind.  But given Qui-Gon’s own captor seemed to be Mandalorian, maybe there was more to it than that.

“You are exceptionally lucky that Ob’ika is a better man than I am,” growled the Wall, finally in Basic.

“Easy, Myles,” ordered another voice, and Qui-Gon lifted his head to look at the source.  The armor was red and black, with yellow and green accents around the insignia.  He recalled that design from their assignment to Kryze and the New Mandalorians.  Jaster Mereel’s clan.

“Elek, Mand’alor,” the Wall, Myles, said.

“Mandolor, what am I doing here?” Qui-Gon asked.

“Your pronunciation is awful,” Myles grumbled.  “How you raised Ob’ika, I will never know.”

“You stand here because you got between a child and their parent,” Mereel said gravely.  “And only because Obi-Wan Kenobi has argued for your life.  Were it up to the verde who have come to love and respect him here, you wouldn’t still stand.  Instead, though, your former child has asked for mercy, and you will be… permitted to reflect upon your actions.”

He said something in the Mandalorian language, and Myles grabbed Qui-Gon by the ankles, strapping him securely to a set of wall shackles, inverted as if in a handstand.  Then the two left.

Qui-Gon wasted no time on anger or indignation, they served him not, and his energy was best used to keep the blood flow of his body regular.  It was why Yoda always liked assigning handstands, enforcing a sense of oneness with the Force, lest one get light headed and embarrass oneself by tipping over. 

As he always did when Yoda handed out the handstand punishments, his mind drifted to meditate on what had brought him here.  It started perhaps on Naboo, with Obi-Wan standing over him, saber drawn and locked in battle with the Sith.  Or perhaps before then, when he’d found Anakin on Tatooine.  He’d been so happy to find such a bright presence, someone so gifted, so full of potential.  Obi-Wan had seemed happy too, even as he sassed back over Qui-Gon’s tendency to adopt helpless creatures.

When had he stopped being happy?

In the Council chambers, when Qui-Gon announced his desire to train Anakin.

That made no sense, Obi-Wan had been wanting to take his trials.  Hadn’t he?  He had asked about it, even just before Naboo went so terribly sideways.  Qui-Gon hadn’t thought him ready then, but defeating the Sith was surely proof he’d been ready.

Except the Sith came after telling the Council to knight him.

Oh dear, things had gotten terribly out of order.

No wonder Obi-Wan had told the Mandalorians… whatever he told them about Qui-Gon that resulted in this.  Not that he thought Obi-Wan knew about it, the whole thing had an air of secret executions.  Things would likely not get better when Anakin was done telling them his version of the past two months.

He’d been so incredibly angry with Qui-Gon.  It didn’t make sense, really, he’d freed Anakin, brought him to be a Jedi, which was something Anakin said he wanted.

Unless he’d just wanted to be freed, and this was how he saw that happening.  It’s not like Qui-Gon had tried all that hard to free anyone except Ani, and that, he had to admit, was for incredibly selfish reasons.

He was such a failure as a Jedi.

The darkness that swirled around him at that thought almost made him vomit.  Only the Living Force buoying his spirit - as it kept the blood from pooling in his skull - kept it at bay.  The slick, dark cold that never failed to remind him viscerally of Xan, of his bright boy, so twisted by the end.  That pain had been why he’d resisted a Padawan, why he’d tried to redirect Obi-Wan to more suitable Masters, ones who wouldn’t fail him as Qui had failed Xan.

Only he’d still ended up with Obi, and he’d still fucked him up.

It was a good thing he wasn’t going to train Anakin.  Obi-Wan, for all the damage Qui-Gon could now see he’d done, had been clearer eyed than he, had done the right thing, taking Anakin’s training braid while Qui-Gon recovered from the fight that would have killed him, if not for the Padawan he’d so long refused to see the value of.

“You still alive, Jetii?” came a voice from the hall.  Not Myles or the Mand’alor, but clearly modulated through a helmet, the androgynous sound of the vocoder adding to the disdain of the words.

“Yes,” he said.  “Although I could use some water.  And a Mind Healer, if one is to be had.  I seem to have kriffed up rather badly.”

<^>

Feemor startled, looking at his com.  It wasn’t the time for his usual temple check in, and there shouldn’t be any other reason for someone to call an Outer Rim Watchman.  He called people, not the other way around.  He looked at the caller’s identifier.

Qui-Gon Jinn.

Kriff.

He slapped the com over to take a message and decided to listen to that once he finished his patrol and could get nice and drunk at the Temple.  Only another couple months.  Master Jinn could wait that long, given he’d made Fee wait, what, how many years? Twelve, thirteen?

Yeah, he’d wait.

<^>

“Br. Vorpan says you’ve been doing well,” Jaster said, eyeing Qui-Gon Jinn.  The man looked better now, less drawn out, less like someone had hollowed him out from the inside and set a droid to doing his work in his skin.

“It will be a lifetime before I can even begin to make amends,” Qui-Gon said with a sigh.  “But the Jedi way is not one of shirking duty nor delaying the painful.  I will spend every second of it working to understand and mitigate the damage I did.”

“She tells me you still call your first ad after every session.”

“Feemor has the right to ignore me,” Qui-Gon said carefully.  “And he can and does send my calls to the recordings.  From there if he wishes to erase them he can, easily, without having to hear me.  But I need to say the words, to let him know I understand now, what I did wrong, even if he refuses me.”

“You’re going to stop that,” Jaster said with a scowl.  “We’ve talked about this, Jinn.  Children are not therapy striils.  You get one more call to explain there won’t be more calls unless he calls you, and then you stop.”

“Yes, Mand’alor.”

“Your Mando’a is improving,” Jaster commented.  “At this point, I don’t know that keeping you in the compound is the best way for you to move forward, and it’s awkward keeping Ob’ika and An’ika from seeing you.”

“I understand.  Obi-Wan was kinder than he needed to be in arguing for mercy.  I wish I could claim credit for that, but he’s always been selfless.  Compulsively so.”

Jaster nodded, that lined up.  It was why he’d been sure to take Jango aside for a refresher on letting any subordinates who may want a relationship approach first, lest the power imbalance be abused.  Even without the title of Verd’alor, if Jango had implied he required Obi-Wan’s comfort, the man would say yes without thinking about his own needs, the same way he handled every other need he saw.

“What do you think of working off your penance elsewhere?” Jaster asked.  “The scars of the Dral’han still linger, and Obi-Wan said you are skilled with living things, plants and animals.”

“If you would allow that, I would be most grateful to be allowed to attempt to bring some balance to my actions.  All is one in the Force, and damage done elsewhere may not be able to be healed directly, but healing done to one is healing that affects all.”

<^>

It was pure irony, Qui-Gon reflected, that while he had ‘saved’ Obi-Wan from the AgriCorps (not that there was anything wrong with AgriCorps or any of the service corps for that matter, although Obi-Wan had certainly acted like it was a terrible fate), his own salvation came from…. Well, something similar.

“Oya Jetii!” called his supervisor, waving at the latest rack of drought-resistant seedlings ready to be planted.  Qui-God wiped sweat from his brow and laid his hands over the rack, sending his mind across the Living Force, filling each precious pot with life energy and strength.  They would weather the rough winds of Mandalore, sink their roots deep to the bedrock aquifers, grow strong and hale and mighty.  In time, their strength would help protect new plants to come.

The Living Force always finds a way.

“Jate,” his supervisor commented as the rack was rolled away to be planted.  Approval rolled off them in a thick soft sheet, like moss underfoot.  “Here, drink some water, you’ll need it.”

“Vor entye,” Qui-Gon said with a salute of the canteen passed to him.

“No debt,” the supervisor said.  Qui-Gon smiled a small smile.  There would always be debt.  But at least now he was in a place to start paying it down, and that made all the difference.

Chapter Text

In the span of the day he had between Mand’alor Mereel telling him Jango had sent a strike team to capture his Padawan and Master, and the ship actually touching down, Obi-Wan experienced the full range of human emotion.  Fear, firstly, for his bright, wonderful Padawan to be trapped in the same chattel state he himself was in. Guilt, that there was a part of him that thought perhaps he didn't dislike said state as much as he should.  Humiliation, that Master Jinn would see how the Senate had thrown him away the same way Master Jinn had.  Anger at the whole situation.  Joy at the thought of seeing his student again, and a lesser joy, mixed with worry, at the thought of seeing his Master.  Or rather, at not seeing him, since Jaster had been very firm that they would be kept apart.

At least it wasn’t Ani being used as leverage like that.

He passed the emotions that didn’t serve him into the Force, thanking each one for the wisdom they imparted about his situation and his own mind before firmly laying them aside.  No emotion was without purpose, after all.  One simply couldn’t let them lay around one's mind like stray datapads on a desk, getting in the way.

Centering himself, he stepped out onto the landing platform’s waiting area, watching the Aran’irud class fighter touch down.  The gangway opened, and before he really knew what was happening, he had an armful of excited Padawan and was falling backwards.  He reached for the Force to catch himself, but before he could, an armored hand braced his back.

He blinked at Jango, who had slipped up beside him without his noticing.  Obi-Wan gave an embarrassed nod of thanks, then turned to looking over his Padawan and reaching down their fledgeling bond.  It was remarkably strong, given the short time they’d had to maintain it before such a long separation.  Anakin’s Force presence set down roots, hard, and Obi-Wan could only meet them with the joy and love he’d craved from Qui-Gon and never quite earned.

Are you alright, my dearest Padawan? Obi-Wan asked across the bond.  Anakin purred like a happy tooka in his arms, headbutting into his chest.

I’m good.  I stayed out of trouble and I did a bunch of my schoolwork, and I didn’t let Jinn take out your braid, even though he tried.

No doubt he thought he could better protect you, Obi-Wan said with a mental chuckle.  Ironically, Jinn had served no protection against a Mandalorian strike team, but Obi-Wan was fairly sure he could leverage Myles’ need to never do politics again to protect Anakin.  Even with being captives, he was better suited to defend his Padawan than his own Master had ever been at defending him. Never fear, my dear.  I am here now, and we are together, and the Force is with us.

“I know, Obi-Wan,” Anakin said out loud.  “I like the Mandalorians.  Their armor is so wizard, and Arla said she’d teach me how to wear it if you said it was okay, and Aden gave me lots of snacks whenever I asked for them, and Aay’han said I was good at self defense and she wants to teach me more, but only if you say it’s okay, and V'khordath started teaching me Mando’a and hand-sign, and Uurlaar does knife tricks but she won’t teach me until I’m older because my hands aren’t big enough yet, and Ruusan is almost as pretty as Padme, but Padme is the prettiest, so it’s not like that’s a bad thing.”

“You may rely on the Force for many things, Padawan,” Obi-Wan laughed, “but you do still require air.  Take a deep breath, and you can tell me more in our rooms.”

Said rooms were actually rather nice, considering, well, everything.  They consisted of a single open space with a line of kitchen cabinets at the back with a conservator, nanowave stove, thermopad, and sink, and a sunken seating area in the middle with a table that could be removed to form a less-structured space.  On the left of the room were doors into the refresher and his bunk, which was large enough to accommodate the both of them, assuming Anakin didn’t mind sharing.  Based on the way he still clung to Obi-Wan, that seemed likely.  Another door connected the bunk to the refresher directly, which was nice for middle of the night trips.

“These are nice rooms,” Anakin said, after Obi-Wan had shown him where everything was.

“Yes, these are about what a Knight back at the Temple would have, except for the sunken seating,” Obi-Wan agreed.  “That’s called a karyai, well, the whole room would be, except this apartment has the kitchen in here too, and usually the karyai is separate from the kitchen.”

Anakin let him chatter to ease his nerves, soaking up the information gladly.  He was such a good kid.  Obi-Wan vowed internally to protect him from the worst of whatever was to come, although he doubted Jango would harm a child.  It just didn’t seem his way.

<^>

“Hey Ob’ika,” Arla said the next morning.  Obi-Wan blinked at her.  His morning tea hadn’t kicked in yet, even if it was the terribly over-caffeinated cassius stuff Myles preferred and not his own preference for the milder tarine blend.

“Ah, I see I caught you before caff,” she said, running a hand through her short gold-brown hair sheepishly.  Distantly Obi-Wan wondered at genetics, since it was terribly different from Jango’s thick black curls.  Thinking about Jango’s hair before he’d fully woken up was a bad idea, though, so he simply stepped back to allow her entry.

“So, my brother is an idiot,” she announced, flopping down into the pile of cushions Anakin had insisted on filling the sunken karyai with the night before.  Thankfully Obi-Wan had been able to relocate him to the bunk before his Padawan’s spine permanently deformed into a helix, but he hadn’t picked up the pillows yet, either.

“Hm,” Obi-Wan said diplomatically.

“Don’t worry, buir yelled at him about it already,” she said with a wave of her hand.  “He likes you, he won’t let Myles overwork you.”

“Ni shuk meh kyrayc,” Obi-Wan said wryly.  I’m no good dead.   Not exactly the usual wording of the phrase, but it captured what he meant, even if applied to himself and not another.

“Exactly,” Arla laughed.  “So don’t worry about going into the office today, just catch up with An’ika and take care of yourself, too.”

“I will.  Thank you.  For…” his words fled him, his training and eloquence disappearing in the light of a people who would take such care with him, even when he existed less as a person and more as a thing, legally.  “Just, for everything.  You’ve all been so kind to me, so much better than I’d hoped to get when I was sent here, and I know you’ll be the same with Ani.  He just… he’ll need extra care and caution, as he settles from a second large change in just a few months, and I’m so grateful to be given the chance to provide it.  Thank you, really.”

“N’entye, Ob’ika,” Arla said solemnly.  “Seriously, we’d have to be some kind of dar’manda demagolkase to prevent a child from reuniting with his parent, or to stop said parent from taking all the time needed to care for the kid and not run themselves into the ground.”

Obi-Wan shrugged.  Maybe Captives Syndrome had finally snapped him, or maybe the Republic really had been entirely wrong about the Mandalorian Empire.  Or just about Jango, since it was his silence about the letter that preserved most people’s belief that Obi-Wan had simply been assigned like any other mission.  Either way, nobody here treated him like he was lesser, and he appreciated it.

“Once he’s settled in, you should bring him by the bajur’veeray, the instructors would be happy to let him take lessons with the others his age.  You can talk with the other buire and he can make some friends,” Arla offered.  “You can even borrow a section of the salle for teaching him… whatever it is Jetiise teach their kids.  I bet he’d be adorable with a little tiny Jetii’kad.”

“He would be, but he doesn’t have a lightsaber yet, and unless he robbed Master Drallig while I was away, I doubt he has a training saber in what you packed,” Obi-Wan pointed out.  “We hadn’t gone to Illum for his kyber yet when the Senate decided….  Well. We didn’t get a chance for him to find his crystal.”

“The shiny glowing thing nobody was supposed to ask you about?” Arla asked.  

Obi-Wan quirked an eyebrow.  It was strange how far he’d come, from worrying relentlessly about Jango knowing what power cell was standard, to openly discussing the far more important crystal.  

“Myles just said don’t upset you by being nosy.  But being nosy is part of my charm,” Arla said with a wink.

“I can’t argue that, my dear.  But yes, the ‘shiny glowing thing’ was a kyber crystal.  Without one, he cannot have a saber of his own, and the training blades are all kept under strict guard.”

“Ah, like a verd’goten!” Arla said happily.  “Of course.  When does he need to do that? I’ll be sure Myles knows to get it on your schedule.”

“Um,” Obi-Wan said.  “As soon as we have time?  But Illum is a sacred site, I couldn’t land there in a Mandalorian craft.  Maybe Jedha, that’s interfaith, but are you sure about this?”

“Your ad’ika needs his saber,” Arla said slowly.  “Jango said… well, it just seems really important.  I’ll make sure it happens.  Jedha, we can clear you a transport there and back in… make it a tenday.”

“Thank you, Arla.”

<^>

Anakin wasn’t sure what to think of Jedha.  On one hand, sand, yuck.  On the other, it was almost pleasantly like home, which was good and weird, since home was… complicated.

He was sure he did like the Temple there.  It wasn’t like the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.  The Jedi temple felt cold, and not just because it was on a planet with only one sun.  Manda’yaim only had one sun, and it was plenty warm.  Technically Jedha was colder than Coruscant, but the Temple felt like a warm hug or a cup of tzai after a hard day.  

The guardians there were super nice and helpful when Obi-Wan explained that they were looking for Anakin’s kyber crystal, showing him where the tunnel was.  He was nervous about going alone, but Guardian Chirrut said everything would be okay as long as he remembered he was one with the Force and the Force is with him.  It sounded a lot like What Mom used to say, about how Ar-Amu is with all her children, and loves them all very deeply, even when they get lost.

Anakin was pretty sure he’d gotten lost.

He hadn’t been paying attention, Guardian Baze had told them it was best not to try to keep track of where the tunnels went.  Something about the heart of kyber protecting itself and then something about geometry and going insane.  Regardless, Anakin had let his mind wander, as his feet did, his hand trailing along the wall, sometimes touching rough sandstone and sometimes smooth crystal, but nothing made him feel like he should grab it.

“I am the red bird, I am his son,” Anakin sang to himself, hearing the echoes bounce back, a chorus like the ones at night in the Slave Quarters, the sounds echoing out of every corner, a rebellion that couldn’t be tracked as the sound bounced and carried.  “I am the red bird’s child.  I am a red bird, I am his daughter, and like the flame, I am wild wild wild wild WILD!”

The sound bounced back from a hundred angles, like every crystal in the tunnel was singing along with him.

“I am the red bird!  I am his son!  I am the  red bird's child!” Anakin sang in delight, dancing down the tunnel to the chorus of the crystals joining him.  “I am a red bird, the boldest song you've ever heard, join in the dance, and make it wild, wild, wild!”

To see a person dance around

A fire is not so strange

But fire dances round the limbs

Of this uncommon sage!

That… wasn’t what he’d sung.  But it fit too well with the song he’d grown up singing not to feel right.  He followed the voice where it called to him from a small side passage.

Be brave enough to burn

And you'll be brave enough to fly!

Join your sibling Solace as

We light the morning sky!

Anakin found his feet moving faster, his body surging forward to chase the sound and the feeling that grew in his heart from it.  The still, dusty air of the tunnels whipped past his face like he was podracing again, his heart was thudding in time to the song and he could taste the promise of what was to come, bright and vivid on his lips.

Wonders of the water air and

Earth are all the same

You'll never know a wonder

Like the wonders of the flame!

Anakin stumbled.  That was a bold promise the voice made.  Ar-Amu was of the water, life giving and loving.  Lukka the Storm was of the air, freedom and death in equal measure, offering truth and justice to those who had nowhere else to get it.  Leia the Krayt was of the earth, the unchained one whose strength and freedom inspired all.  He wasn’t sure who was of the flame, but anyone claiming to offer more than Ar-Amu and Lukka and Leia was overselling their wares.

Freely fly as what you are

And never walk in shame!

You must not fear to blister

If you'd live a life in flame!

The promise of that freedom was tempting, it felt right, it felt good, but Anakin pulled back as the Force struck out at him in a vision.  Heat lashed at him like a whip, salty tears stung at eyes that had long grown used to refusing to let them fall, to let them waste water.  His arms and legs shook with a pain he’d never known as a heartbreak he couldn’t identify crashed over him with no context for the suffering he endured.

Solace, Sorrow, round and round

Siblings burn the morning down

Oh.  Oh now, now he remembered.  He’d not been told these stories yet, he’d been too young.  Too much risk he’d go chasing the tales and end up dead.  But he had listened anyway, pretending to sleep while Grandmother Jira told the older ones, the ones who’d shifted, become physically adults.  The fire belonged to the Truth Givers, who had wisdom but no pity, freedom but no compassion.  The ones who traded things away, giving what you needed to survive but at the cost of who you were.

Jira told the older ones about them, because everyone came to a point when they had to leave behind who they had been if they wanted to keep moving forwards.  Younger ones were supposed to be protected from those choices, hidden from the Depur who liked to force those choices early.  When that failed, then Jira would take their broken bodies, broken souls, and teach them how to reach for Solace and Sorrow, the Truth Givers to see if their truth would be strong enough to carry on.

Anakin was good at not being noticed, so he’d never had to make that choice, that trade.

He had to make it now.

He could, he knew, turn around now.  The stone under his feet promised to guide him true and give him back to Obi-Wan unharmed but empty handed.  Obi-Wan would forgive him, he was sure.  The Mandalorians would let the two of them stay together, he would still be Obi-Wan’s and Obi-Wan would still be his, but it wouldn’t be what it could be.

He could push on, grab the crystal he could feel in front of him, but when he came back out he wouldn’t be little Ani anymore, his mother’s raindrop.  He’d be Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Padawan.  He knew that was its own form of chain, he’d seen that firsthand, even if everything had turned out okay.  There were a hundred thousand ways to be a slave, and this was the choice he was looking at. 

He stepped forward.

<^>

Obi-Wan was quiet.  When Anakin had emerged from the tunnels beneath the Temple, a smooth orb clutched in his hands and blisters up his arms to the elbows, it had taken every ounce of self restraint not to cry all over his Padawan.  Arla had put a broad hand on his back, an echo of her brother’s response to Anakin tackling him, and guided the two of them back to the ship.  Obi-Wan couldn’t even find it in himself to be upset at the careful preventing of his escape, although it did imply Jango had discussed Obi-Wan’s status with family at least.

On the flight home - oh and it was strange that his rooms in Jango’s compound had become ‘home’ - he guided Anakin in crafting his saber, although the shape of the crystal threw him a bit.

“It’s a krayt pearl,” Anakin explained quietly one night, cuddled close in Obi-Wan’s bunk against the cold of hyperspace.  “The Spirits of Tatooine were with me, and gave me the thing I needed.”

“I just hope we can find a way to properly anchor it without throwing off the balance,” Obi-Wan admitted.  “The… pearl, is rather larger than most kyber.”

“It’s not all kyber,” Anakin explained, tossing the orb up and separating it like he might a saber casing.  Inside dark crystals glittered like stars, shifting with yellow, orange, red, and sparks of blue. The largest was pointed on both ends, deep orange playing with a green that reminded him of heat lightning.

“It’s beautiful,” Obi-Wan said.  “You’re going to be amazing, Padawan-mine.”

<^>

“Um, Anakin… your saber doesn’t feel upset or anything does it?”

“No, Buir, why?”

Obi-Wan ignored the improper title in favor of staring at the blade, the core of which was a rich crimson sheathed in a corona of honey shades flecked with barely there sparks of green.

“It shouldn’t matter,” Obi-Wan said with a shake of his head.  The saber was red, sure, but it wasn’t that distinct scarlet-vermilion of a fallen Jedi, or screaming like the Sith’s saber, and Anakin had built it under his watchful eye.  There had been no chance it had been bled or darkened.  The saber, like his Padawan, was just different, not bad.

Chapter Text

Aside from a brief moment of utter shock at his Padawan’s saber color, Obi-Wan felt more settled in the weeks following their trip to Jedha than he had in years.  He helped avert problems in the making, taught Anakin how to feel the Force and the basics of the First Form, and basked in the casual affection of the Haat’ade.

“Widen your stance, Padawan,” he instructed, and nudged the tip of Anakin’s blade upward with his own.

“Elek, Buir.”

“You know that’s not my title, right?” Obi-Wan asked wryly.

“You’re raising him, aren’t you?” Jango asked from the next salle lane over, where he was practicing with a bes’kad.

“Yes, but it’s not quite the same,” Obi-Wan started to explain, when Ani cut in with his ‘helpful’ voice.

“Obi-Wan is probably just being nice since I’m missing Mom and he’s really careful not to try to replace her.  Most of the Padawans get to the Temple really early, like as babies, which is why they almost didn’t want to take me, they thought it’d be too hard on me to give her up since I remember her.”

“As babies?” Jango asked, horror rippling off him like the sweat that Obi-Wan was not tracking the progress of down his neck.

“Many Force sensitives present as infants or toddlers,” Obi-Wan said with a shrug.  “Not every parent can or wants to raise a child whose tantrums can destroy rooms, or whose moods are directly affected by the emotional state of everyone in the village.  I was brought to the temple after a wandering Knight stopped my parents from drowning me in an attempt to purge the evil spirits from their home.”

“What?!?” Jango yelped.  Anakin pressed up against Obi-Wan’s leg.

“That’s why I’m glad the Jedi took you in, and Master Qui-Gon took me off Tatooine, so we could be together and the Mando’ade can be our family instead,” Anakin said.  “Although I do miss Mom.  I hope Watto hasn’t sold her to pay off his gambling debts.  I was always the one who helped him not owe so much but I’m not there now to make the cards and dice lucky for him anymore.  At least she doesn’t belong to Gardulla the Hutt anymore, Gardulla was mean.”

“What do you mean sold her?” Obi-Wan asked.  Anakin looked confused.

“Master Qui-Gon couldn’t get Watto to bet both of us on the podrace, Watto always says Toydarians don’t bet everything, so he just won me.  Mom is still Watto’s slave.”  He tilted his head.  “I thought he told you?”

“He most certainly did not tell me you’d been a slave, or that your mother was still a slave.  He knows I would have had… strong feelings about that,” Obi-Wan said stiffly, tugging the collar of his shirt where the old scars of Bandomeer suddenly started itching.  “I think we’ve had enough saber practice today, Padawan.  I for one would appreciate a chance to meditate on what I’ve learned today.”

Anakin nodded sagely.  “Arla said meditating helps the information stick.  Can I go do cooldown exercises with Baji Gi’s class?”

Obi-Wan nodded assent and dropped into the folded seat position, only instead of sinking into a Force meditation, he put his face in his hands and wept.  After a moment, a warm hand settled on his upper back and a cool, damp cloth was offered.

“Thank-” Obi-Wan sniffled inelegantly as he realized who the hand and cloth had to be coming from, even though he could barely see through the tears still flowing.  “Vor'e, ner Alor.”

“You do realize you don’t have to be so formal with me, right?” Jango asked, cleaning snot from Obi-Wan’s face gently.  “Not that I don’t enjoy hearing you speak Mando’a, but I think we’re at the point you can call me Jango if you feel like it.”

“And if I like calling you ner Alor?” Obi-Wan teased, but he instantly regretted it when Jango’s Force presence clenched up suddenly.  For all he projected constantly, it wasn’t always easy to tell where Obi-Wan had misstepped with the verd’alor.  Apologies usually made it worse, though, so instead of attempting that, he just moved on.  “I must look quite the state.  Hardly a dignified Jedi to sob in the salles like a youngling.”

“You’ve just learned something horrifying about your child’s past.  I think I prefer seeing your compassion for him to the cold apathy one expects from dignified Jetii,” Jango said gently, carding fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair.  It was finally growing out from that damned padawan cut, and he indulged in leaning into the touch.  It would go away soon enough, once Jango learned the real reasons for his tears.

“You’re better to me than I deserve, Jango,” Obi-Wan sighed.  “But my tears were less for Anakin’s past than his present.  I know one can survive enslavement, overcome the scars it leaves.  But like they say on Bandomeer, there are a hundred thousand ways to be a slave, and I….”

Another sob ripped through him, and he let Jango hold him close, body heat and the spicy woodsmoke scent of Jango’s skin warming the cold dark spot gathering in his gut.

“I made him call me Master, I am a horrible person.  How is he still willing to talk to me?  Nobody should be willing to talk to me,” Obi-Wan cried, shaking as Jango’s arms only tightened against the storm of his distress, the other man’s Force presence enveloping him in a sense of belonging and purpose, a thrum like a war chant or the sound of drums rising through him and shaking off the miring muck of despair that had threatened to drag him under.

<X>

“Buir, I’m going to Tatooine,” Jango announced.  Jaster sighed and gave him a Look.  Jango didn’t let it phase him, not with the cold patch on his shirt from Obi-Wan’s still-drying tears reminding him why he was making this choice.  “And I need you to assign Jinn another few years of penance-farming.”

“Why?” Jaster asked.  It covered a number of possible questions, all of which he wanted answers to, most likely.  Luckily, Jango could answer most of them with one fact.

“When he won Anakin in a bet , he left An’ika’s mother still enslaved.”

“On Tatooine?”

“On Tatooine.”

“At least you have a competent seneschal now.  I was starting to worry about Myles, working outside his expertise was going to give him a complex or something, you know,” Jaster sighed.  “I’ll give Jinn another decade.  K’oyaci, ner ad.”

“Ni yaimpar parjir,” Jango swore, one fist over his heart, although without his armor on the move lacked the depth it should have.

As he prepared the campaign, he didn’t let himself forget his purpose.  It wouldn’t be vengeance just to glass the planet and move on, no matter how badly he wanted to erase any trace of the place An’ika had suffered.  No, he had to move carefully, specifically.  He couldn’t afford to be sloppy, not when Obi-Wan watched him with wide, wary eyes and silently provided dossiers on what information there was to be had about Tatooine, most of it likely gained directly from Anakin, based on the inclusion of notes about things like Jira making the best sweets and ranking the Mos Espa junk yards in order of preference.

He had been glad to hold Obi-Wan, happy the man accepted his support, and more than a little flustered by the very subtle flirting he wasn’t sure if he should respond to, but if he never had to see Obi-Wan cry again it would be too soon.  This mission, for all that it was the first where he set out intending to conquer a planet, would be the most bloodless mission he could pull off.  Only the slaver scum would die, this he swore to himself, and to the the light he saw slowly returning to Obi-Wan’s eyes.

<X>

The Dral’ne Cuyan took orbit over Tatooine six months to the day after Anakin had left.  Obi-Wan counted, wanting to be sure he knew his Padawan’s Freedom Date, since some careful questioning had revealed that his Padawan didn’t know his own Life Day.  Apparently even Hutts left children under five with their mothers, even if they sold the parents separately, so it was common practice to hide exactly how old a child might be, to keep that safety a bit longer.

“First, we take Mos Espa,” Jango announced to the small landing party.  Obi-Wan was glad his request to join had been granted.  They needed a secure base before they could finish freeing this world.  “We dig in, we get information, we finish the job.  Iviin.  Ijaat.  Mavruni.”

Speed, honor, freedom.  Obi-Wan could agree to all of that willingly, his heart unburdened by questions of loyalty or the tense power dynamic that sat between him and where he felt called to be by Jango’s side.  His voice was not the only one that raised in the cheer of ‘Oya!’ but he still felt it when Jango noticed he’d joined in the call, the Force sparking around him as the feeling of battle drums rose through Jango’s Force presence.

<X>

Their first stop was the Toydarian, Watto.  They had the most information on him, and they needed to free An’ika’s buir first.  Jango had taken great pleasure in watching Obi-Wan pin the slaver to a wall with ferocity, batting aside protestations that Watto did his best by the Skywalkers with his razor sharp words.  Shmi herself had been very willing to let the baar'ur scan for and remove her chip, although she insisted on being awake for the surgery.  Obi-Wan stepped into the back room where they’d set up for it and reached a hand towards Shmi’s brow.

“Mother, may I sing for you?” he whispered, the hand not reaching to her pulling down the neck of his robes to show a scar Jango had only seen once before.

“Where is my depur?” she asked.

“Alive, if you want to be depuskalta,” Obi-Wan said vaguely.  “But unable to hurt you again.  Mind tricks might not work on Toydarians, but lightsabers are another matter.”

“You may sing,” she said, and that was that.  The chip and explosives were removed swiftly from over her liver, and afterwards she sat up and stared at Jango with eyes that burned with the righteous fire of the manda.

“Are you just here for me, or do you plan on adding Tatooine to your holdings, Warlord?”

“I never intended to add anyone to anything,” Jango admitted, honesty the only possible path with those eyes on him.  “But I didn’t come here to take half measures.  If you would have your vengeance, I would be your sword, as would any warrior in my company.  Revolution is what I offer, and an army to back it up, if you choose to take it.”

“There is rain in the desert,” Shmi said, with a wide and violent smile, “and it wears beskar.  I will take you to the Slave Quarter, and we will be free.”

<X>

Mos Espa fell in under a day.  Although she could barely stand, even with the help of the redhead in robes and his gifts, Shmi sat proud and tall at the head of her table, repurposed as a council of war.  Jira and the other elders provided lists, masters who needed to be killed first off, to prevent news spreading or the deaths of their slaves if they suspected revolt.  Myles, the broad-shouldered Mandalorian in orange, black, and blue, took the lists and formed them into orders for the squads filtering into the city, issuing commands through his helmet com line.  Children acted as runners to take instructions and warnings to the slaves that couldn’t join them in the Quarter.  The Warlord spoke to his people in their own language, and weapons were distributed by the older children, arming all those who wished to fight.

It took seven hours to finalize the entire plan, get the Mandalorians in place, and arm every slave in the city capable of holding a blaster safely.

It took three to kill all the small slave holders, those with only one or two slaves.

Breaching Gardulla’s palace was harder, but four hours after the attack began, the redhead returned with the Warlord draped over his shoulders.  The brown robes that had covered him were cut and burnt, falling away from armor of pale green and teal as he laid the body on her table, summoning a medic with a shout.

<X>

“Idiot took a vibroblade to the neck,” Obi-Wan growled.  

Jango could feel both his hands elsewhere, helping unlatch his chest plate and pauldrons, but there was also the pressure of a warm hand on his neck where the aforementioned blade had come down at an angle to score his neck before sliding between skin and armor along his collarbone.  The pressure was almost pleasant, although the way his beloved cursed in every language he knew, which was more than Jango knew, was significantly less comforting.

“Osi'kyr!” Br. Muurir swore when the last bit of Jango’s upper armor came off.  “Verd’alor, how are you still alive?”

“I’m using the Force to hold his blood in,” Obi-Wan said tartly, tension filling his voice.  “I have basic healer training, Jedi field medicine, basically, but it’s not much beyond stop the bleeding and take his pain.”

“He needs a surgical repair to the external jugular vein, sternomastoid muscle, and common carotid,” Muurir said, only the faintest tint of panic in her voice.  “Can you make it back to the ship with me?”

“Not sure,” Obi-Wan grunted.  “This is taking a lot of focus, walking may get dicey.  Do what you can, I’ll stopgap.”

“Verd’alor, I need consent,” Muurir asked gently.

“Obi’ka mirdala bal draal bal mesh'la,” Jango slurred, words coming slowly and fuzzily. “Ni kar'taylir kaysh ruusaanyc.”

“He might be too far gone to consent if he thinks that of me,” Obi-Wan said with a half-hearted laugh.  

“Maybe, but I’ll take it,” Muurir announced.

After that the world got very fuzzy, past and present and future sliding together in his head.  At times Jango felt the surgery was a memory, a flashback he was reliving at a later date, with Obi-Wan beside him where he should be.  Other times it felt less like he was on the table and more like he was still in the assault on the palace. 

He watched Obi-Wan fight.  He’d seen it before, training sessions with An’ika and katas on his own, and while those made it clear Obi-Wan was a skilled warrior, nothing compared to seeing him in a battle.  

He flowed, like water or a snapping banner in the wind, spending no more than a handful of seconds on any opponent before leaving their bodies behind and moving forward.  Gravity seemed to have no hold on him, as he went over obstacles as much as around them, his motion a wave, charging the enemy ranks like a force of nature.  It was all Jango could do to keep up beside him and pick off attackers out of the range of Obi-Wan’s burning blade.

He’d been so focused on range he’d almost missed the attack, a massive Duros guard charging at his back with a vibropike from a blind corner, barely in view of his HUD.  The fact that Obi-Wan had been in front of Jango didn’t seem to stop him though, as he swirled in an acrobatic leap to put his body between Jango and the blade.  Jango cut off a scream as the pike cut Obi-Wan from shoulder to hip in a brutal diagonal slash, that was followed by a flicker-quick strike from the blue saber that decapitated the Duros.  

When Jango had surged up to cover the Jedi and assess the damage the pike had done, he’d seen it.

Beskar’gam.

Painted the eirn of peace and the teal of healing, with newer paint at the edges in the crimson of family, and a heart of bright red and burning orange, defiance and a lust for life.

It fit him perfectly, the colors and the song of the Beskar in the manda.  It was his, as sure as if it had been forged for him, for all the shape was antiquated and reminiscent of the style Kyr’stad favored once.

Jango had frozen, taken with the beauty of this man, this brilliant warrior with his keen mind and indomitable battle prowess.

Then Obi-Wan had shouted, and Jango had turned, in time to take the blade meant for his spinal cord in the side of his neck.

The world lost meaning and time faded into the polite fiction everyone agreed to live by as Jango drifted.

<X>

Obi-Wan was determined he would not watch Jango die.  Not while he held him.  Not while the Force linked them as Obi-Wan tried desperately to keep the man he loved alive.

In the fear and naked desperation, he could admit that.  He loved Jango Fett.  It may even be attachment, but Obi-Wan couldn’t bring himself to care as he poured Living Force into Jango’s body while the healer stitched together torn flesh.  He was never as attuned to the Living Force as he was to the Unifying, even after his years working with Qui-Gon, and the strain of handling it left him dizzy and vague in the way visions often did.

He blinked, and turned to retch up a thin bile of bacta-infused fluid.  He looked confusedly at the baar’ur.  He was in Shmi’s dining room, wasn’t he?  Not the med bay of the Dral’ne Cuyan.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” the healer said.  Their voice was androgynous through the vocoder of the helmet they wore, and their hands, which were covered in thin healer’s gloves not gauntlets, were human or near.  “We weren’t certain if your Jetii magics would take you the same way the Manda-touched get when they overwork themselves, so to be safe we threw you in bacta.  It’s currently the nineteenth day of the tenth month of 968.  Can you tell me your name and the last planet you were on?”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Tatooine.  I lost seven days?  How, what… did we win?”

“Yes, Mando’ad, we won,” the medic said with a teasing tone even through the vocoder.  “One day to take Mos Espa, another to take Mos Taike and Mos Enta.  Bestine, Arnthout, and Motesta staged their rebellions on the third day although the fighting took longer.  We coordinated assaults with fighters out of the Free Town of Mos Pelgo on Wayfar, Anchorhead, Mos Eisley, and Mos Osnoe on the dawn of the fourth day.  That split the defending forces badly enough that all seven were free by the end of the fifth day.  Allon surrendered as soon as Mos Eisley fell, and is cooperating with us.  Most of the escaping demagolka went to Mos Gamos, to beg the mercy of their gangs, we still need to clear them out.  Mos Nytram had a very quiet sort of revolution while all their Depur were focused on us, and were free as of yesterday.  Mos Shuuta, Mos Ila, and Mos Zabu surrendered this morning.”

Obi-Wan boggled.  That was a comprehensive list of any settlement big enough to be called a city, all under Jango’s command now.  Wait.

“Is Jango… I mean, the Verd’alor, is he alright?”

“Thanks to you he is,” the healer said tartly.  “Hence the bacta.  Muurir said the veins and arteries were knitting together as fast as she could stitch, and by the time Mos Pelgo sent us a negotiator, you wouldn’t know he’d been hit.  You worked a miracle, and with no proper training, so you just pried open the Alor and dumped in your own manda to keep him going.  It was idiotic and you could have died.”

“Par for the course then, I’m afraid,” Obi-Wan sighed.  “Most of my better choices are idiotic and near fatal.  At least this one came with a nap.”

“You’re not going to run screaming from my medbay?” the baar’ur asked warily.

“Not at all, my dear,” Obi-Wan said with as much of a shake as he dared give with his head hurting as it did.  “I’m going to stay right here and take advantage of the chance to rest.  Force knows I won’t have that once I’m back with Ani.”

<X>

Anakin swiftly decided this was the best day EVER, including when he won the Boonta Eve Classic.  His Mom and Obi-Wan and Jango were all getting off the shuttle, and Mandalore was going to protect the good people who lived on Tatooine still and stop the masters and the gangs from hurting anyone.

After he hugged Mom and Obi-Wan - gently, he could still feel the twinges of their pain across the force, hers on her side, Obi-Wan’s on the head - he looked at where Jango was sort of awkwardly holding his arms like he maybe wanted a hug too but felt too shy to ask.  Anakin rolled his eyes and tackled the only member of their landing party not in pain.

“Oof, I take it this is a sign of approval then?” Jango joked, picking Ani up and swinging him around and up to sit on his shoulders.

“Mom’s com call said you killed ALL the Hutts, and all the other slavers too, and freed Tatooine, just like the stories!” Anakin cheered.  He ignored Jango’s attempts to explain that not every Hutt had died by his hand.  He’d been the one to give the Amavikka the army they needed to rise up and take their freedom.  If it hadn’t been for him….  “You’re the best, Jango!”

“I thought Obi-Wan was the best,” Jango asked, turning them towards the gardens, away from where Obi-Wan was gently guiding Mom towards their new apartment, which had two bedrooms and refreshers, not just the one.

“He is.  But maybe you’re even good enough for me to share my Obi-Wan with you,” Anakin announced.  Obi-Wan turned pink and sped his tour for Shmi up, steering her away from the path Jango was taking.  Jango felt… odd, in the Force, hope and pain bundled tightly around love and something sour Anakin didn’t know.

"Really, Ani'ika?  Do you think I have a shot?” Jango asked as he set Anakin down by a fountain.  It was so weird to see water used like this, but pretty.  It could hold his focus for hours.  “Your buir is so kind and smart and I’ve seen him teaching you with the Jeti’kad and he’s so pretty with it… and in an actual fight it’s so much better.”

Anakin rolled his eyes.  “You freed a whole planet because he felt sad about how I grew up.  That’s a heck of a courting offer, you know.  Most people only offered to free Mom, not even me, that’s why she was still single, because the courting offer had to cover freeing both of us.”

“Ah,” Jango said with a wry twist to his mouth that echoed into the Force as well.  “Most of the time I’m accidentally conquering planets because I can’t think of a better way to not have to deal with corrupt governments.  I’m not sure someone as intelligent as Obi-Wan would want someone who keeps making the same mistakes like that.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Anakin lied.  It wasn’t a secret at all, even if Jango leaned in eagerly.  “Buir hates having to play nice with monsters because they happen to be Senators and Chancellors.  When he meets monsters while doing politics for you, he just tells you about them and the monsters go away.  He likes that.  It makes his Force signature go all gooey when you notice problems and fix them, rather than wait for him to fix them.  He also likes it when you feed him.”  

“He forgets sometimes,” Jango said.  

Anakin nodded sympathetically.  “I love him, but Buir is a disaster sometimes.”

<X>

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if one could die of the mix of embarrassment, longing, hope and fear that came of one’s Padawan blatantly attempting to be one’s wingman, but if he couldn’t, the tihaar Myles had brought him would probably finish the job.  He’d given the apartment to Shmi and Anakin for the night, and escaped to the offices rather than face Anakin’s pride over “helping”.  Myles had caught him partway to his desk and dragged him off to a small side room kitted out with a caf dispenser and a locked cabinet full of bottles of different shapes and colors.

“What is this made of?” Obi-Wan asked, savoring a flavor that was neither melon nor pear nor berry, but all of them and somehow reminding him of a tropical location.

“Meiloorun,” Myles answered, pouring him another cup.  “You wanna talk about it?”

“About meilooruns?” Obi-Wan asked, looking at his… second?  Third?  At his empty glass.

“About that thing your kid blurted in front of the Ka’ra and everyone earlier.”

“I would rather discuss meilooruns,” Obi-Wan said with as much dignity as he could muster. He drank another cup of the tihaar, and Myles stole his cup.  Obi-Wan glared at him.

“You’re switching to something less alcoholic,” Myles said sternly, one broad brown finger tapping Obi’s nose.  “That stuff’s 45% and you’ve had five cups.  I’m not sure how you’re still talking, let alone stonewalling me.”

“Jedi constitution,” Obi-Wan said, and took the offered drink from Myles with trepidation.  It was an oily black that seemed to absorb light, and a whiff of it gave him the scents of spices, caff, and blaster fire.  He quirked a brow, but Myles downed his own, so Obi-Wan followed for a surprisingly sweet and spicy flavor like those spiced chocolate cakes Dex used to sell.  Probably still did sell.  He’d have to find a way to let his friends who weren’t Jedi know where he was.

“Now, tell me why the ad’ika’s approval made you look like you’d taken a shot to the head,” Myles ordered.

“Well for one, he’s clearly got issues with attachment, what with the possessive pronouns in there,” Obi stalled.  “Jedi feel everything very intensely, but the intensity brings instability, and we must always strive for balance or we lose our way and hurt those around us.  My scars, the ones from Bandomeer, I got them from someone who once felt about Qui-Gon how Ani feels about me.”

“And if that were the only problem,” Myles said, pouring more viscous black ale, “you’d have sat him down and explained all that, instead of tossing him at his mother and trying to build a fort out of flimsi.”

“There’s no way the Verd’alor would be interested in me,” Obi-Wan groaned, laying his head on the table.  Myles coughed loudly as he misjudged a sip, and Obi-Wan flicked a small touch of Force towards him to ease the cough.  It backlashed hard and he remembered he’d given himself Force Strain by attempting healing skill beyond him.  The only thing that had gone right that night was taking down Watto, and even that had danced the edge of Darkness, the violence unsettling.  No wonder Jango had stared at him.  He was likely horrified.

“What in the manda gives you the idea Jango wouldn’t be interested?” Myles demanded.  “You’re a catch, Ob’ika!”

“I’m far too violent, I actually enjoy the research and cultural study I say I’m doing for political reasons and I know that’s drier than dust to anyone else, and oh, yes, I’m raising a child,” Obi-Wan ticked off on his fingers.  “Meanwhile, he’s a brilliant tactician helping lead, no found, an Empire, which I wouldn’t ordinarily approve of but he’s doing it so ethically.   He’s ruling entirely by the will of the people, which is just… diplomats pray for the chance to even see someone like that once in their lives.  He is far too important to be looking at the likes of me. ”

Myles muttered something in Mando’a that Obi-Wan only barely caught, something about being perfect idiots.  He switched their drinks to a clear ruby colored drink that smelled of citrus and pine.

“Here, behot in the ge’tal gal will help with hangovers tomorrow.”  Myles sighed as Obi-Wan obediently drank the syrupy sweet drink, fruit flavors cut with an astringency that saved it from unpleasantness.  “Obi… Vod, as your friend I need to tell you three things.”

Obi-Wan nodded patiently and started trying to process the alcohol toxins from his system so he could pay attention.

“Firstly, you’re three neuroses in a cloak pretending to be a cooly composed Jedi.”  Obi-Wan glared but couldn’t disagree.  “Secondly, Jango is three neuroses in beskar’gam pretending to be a badass Verd’alor who knows what he’s doing.  You literally couldn’t get more perfectly matched.”

“Not you too,” Obi-Wan groaned.

“And thirdly… Obi?  Violent nerds with adorable feral murder children who love them beyond all logic or good sense are Jango’s type. ”

“I maybe shouldn’t have drank this much while I have a Force Strain,” Obi-Wan said, tucking those words away to deal with later.  Much later.  After he could prevent alcohol poisoning without giving himself a migraine.

Chapter Text

In 947 ARR, Master Yan Dooku got in a fight with his Master.  This was not necessarily a rare occurrence, in that he frequently disagreed with Yoda’s hidebound ways, but it was one of the largest fights they’d had.  Although he tried not to hover over his former Padawans the way his own Master had tried to, he knew Qui-Gon had to be suffering after his second Padawan Fell, especially with the devastating blow he’d dealt to his first in denying their bond ever existed.

He needed a Mind Healer.

By all rights, he should have gotten one.  Temple protocol required mind healing after encountering any darkside user in the field, including the Fall of a partner or Padawan.  It also called for mandatory mind healing after causing a death, no matter how necessary.

But those rules were new, at least as far as a Master 843 years old was concerned, and Yoda was convinced the Old Ways of council within a lineage were best.  So despite not being trained in Mind Healing, and having no great talent for internal applications of the Force, Yoda scheduled himself as Qui-Gon’s mandatory mind healer.

Dooku was incensed that his Padawan would be denied proper medical care, and he made that known in a screaming row that stopped just short of actual heresy.  He was promptly assigned by the council to Sevarcos II, the only inhabitable planet in the Sevarcos system, although inhabitable was a stretch since ‘The World of Endless Wind’ was so rich in spice that spice particles in the air provoked dizziness, nausea, and euphoria.

By the time he returned, Qui-Gon no longer seemed interested in either mind healing or reconciling with Feemor.  Dooku stepped up to protect his lineage, no matter how badly he’d failed Qui-Gon.  He reached out to Feemor, pulled in a favor with some few friends on the Council and got him assigned as Rael’s partner for missions.  Rael, Force bless him, had also tried to convince Qui to see a mind healer, but reported his Padawan brother was paranoid enough about it that opening up emotionally would be nearly impossible.

To avoid another death-world assignment as Yoda glared sabers at him any time he got near Qui-Gon, Yan took to frequenting the place Qui was now avoiding like the plague, the Initiate Training Halls.  Young Vosa showed promise, and at least for her he could nip the fear of mind healers in the bud, before her meddling Grandmaster could instill whatever hangups he’d given Qui.

They had weekly sessions individually, and shared sessions once a month to assess their interpersonal relationship.

He would do better by her.

<X>

In 956 he had yet another argument with his former Master about Qui-Gon - he hadn’t wanted or needed a Padawan, and although the Kenobi boy was admirable many Masters would have been a better fit.  Forcing them together, warning other Masters away from Kenobi and destroying his self esteem in the process was simply cruel.  Yoda had gone too far by shipping Obi-Wan to Bandomeer just to force him into proximity to Qui-Gon.  Bandomeer wasn’t even where AgriCorps Initiates went, it was a field posting, if he were at all suited to AgriCorps work he would have gone to the CorpsHouse in Pandath, on Taanab, on a completely different hyperlane.  The fact that they returned seeming reasonably well with a braid in Obi-Wan's hair did not excuse the meddling.

He got handed a year's duty as a Watchman for the Slice, dealing with Hutts and Zygerrians.  At least Komari had already expressed interest in Shadow training, and it wasn't too difficult to ask Feemor to find her a mentor while he was gone.  His grandpadawan had gotten his training after Knighthood and wasn't experienced enough to teach her himself, but the Shadows stuck together, an Order within an Order. 

Yan knew she wouldn't be alone.

<X>

When Qui-Gon returned from Melida-Daan without his Padawan, immediately camping out in the Healing Halls beside his former lover, Yan was furious.  He pulled his unruly former Padawan from Tahl's bedside with a tart verbal reprimand for attachment (the real meaning thereof, seeing as Qui-Gon was neglecting all his duties to stay by the side of a woman in a coma) and a harsh yank in the Force that threatened to toss the man to the ground unless he followed.  Yan had enough pity for his grief to pester him through using the sonics, eating a meal, and sleeping for one fitful night before attempting to find out what happened to Obi-Wan.

The answer made his blood boil.

He brought it up before the Council, Qui-Gon's own admission that Obi-Wan had stayed behind because there were children in that war-zone, that the "girl" he'd been attached to was the leader of their faction.  Yoda had been grimly silent, but at least the Council agreed to request the Senate to approve a rescue... for all the good that would do.  Qui-Gon was also ordered back to the mind healers for more mandatory sessions, and Yan had every intention of dragging the man there himself if he had to.

Or he would have, if it weren't for urgent mission orders arriving before his first cup of tea the next day.

The mission was on Galidraan, where, per the reports, a group of Mandalorians were murdering political activists.  The images attached to the report of destroyed homes were heartbreaking enough to fill Yan with a burning anger, but he tried to set it aside, as he did not believe it would serve him.  Determining which emotions were useful and which detrimental had been a long study with his own mind healer, but he succeed more days than not.

“Master, this report stinks,” Komari commented as they looked it over together.  “They want us to go kill people.  Why else would they approve the budget for a ten Knight-or-Master unit?  And Mandalorians are mercenaries, sure, but it seems unlikely anyone who wants political activists dead would hire the Galaxy’s most premiere mercs to do it when one assassin is a lot cheaper.  A Merc company of Mandalorians is 150 thousand credits a day, most assassins will do a single kill for 20 thousand and a blast radius, like a protest, for 50.”

“It worries me you know things like that,” Yan sighed, “but you’re right, something is not right with this.  The unit budget is only a maximum, we don’t actually need to take that many.”

“Let’s invite Master Sy, he doesn’t get out much and he’s good at talking people around.”

<X>

The three of them landed a polite distance from the Mandalorian camp.  At first, tensions were high as the Mandalorians seemed awkward about the sudden appearance of Jedi, guilt seeping into their Force presences as Yan, Sifo-Dyas, and Komari waited, equally awkwardly.

Then about a half hour into being stalled, Sy broke into sudden laughter that caused tears to run down his cheeks.  Yan rushed to support his friend, but at least the vision appeared to be positive, not the choking darkness that usually plagued the other Master.  Komari jumped in, explaining visions and defending them with her overly vibrant Force presence, diving into the same place of passion from which she used Makashi, the same place that had her doing Vaapad with Mace on alternate weeks.

When Sy settled, he smiled widely at Yan.

“I know what happened here,” he said.  “It was a trap, for us, for them, and our shared enemy just died.  A great darkness was averted.”

“Ahh,” Yan said, trying to hide his confusion when the sound of a jetpack landing drew their eyes to someone who was clearly a leader, from the way the Mandalorians drew up tall.

“Myles, help, I did something dumb!” the leader shouted.

“No, you did something wonderful,” Sy corrected, drawing attention back to them.  “By the way, if someone can get me something to draw with, there’s a very distinctive mountain, under which you’ll find more of those who plague you.  They were highly paid to get that Governor you took out to trap us both, one to die and one to fall, and I personally want to take away Sideous’ toys, so if you’d like to go kill them too….”

“Can I come?” Komari asked.  “I didn’t want to fight you, you seem nice, but I need another actual battle before Master Yan can knight me.”

Rolling his eyes at his Padawan’s antics, however helpful they were as he felt the softening of Mandalorians around them, Yan turned to the new arrival.  With his helmet off it was clear this was the young man’s first actual leadership position without supervision.  While Mandalorians may deem their children adults at 13, they surely wouldn’t have veteran leaders who looked 16.

“Greetings.  I am Jedi Master Yan Dooku.  With the issue of the enemy group by the mountain being handled by Master Sifo-Dyas and your terribly competent seeming company--”

Komari squawked until he waved an agreeing hand at her.

“Might I offer my assistance in the matter of the… I believe Sy said Governor?  I am adept at negotiations of all forms, and my experience is at your disposal.”

“Uh, yeah,” the young man said.  “Uh, so the Governor was pretty clearly corrupt and awful and tried to hire us to put down peaceful protests.  When I figured that out I went to tell him we weren’t assassins.”

“Told you!” Komari shouted from where she was talking with some warriors.

“Anyways, he drew a weapon on me and said something about just needing to keep us here long enough, so I shot him.  It’s only good form to shoot back when someone tries to kill you, and he was demagolka anyways.  But now there’s no Governor and I have no idea what to do.  Jas'buir says power vacuums are bad, like really bad.”

“Hmm, there’s usually a line of succession,” Dooku offered.  The boy wrinkled his nose.

“I don’t want another demagolka in power and that sort tends to flock together.  This planet deserves an honest leader, a good person with the skill to properly take care of the people.”

“I will help you find such a person,” Dooku swore.

It took a few weeks to find them, but the new Governor was duly elected by a landslide popular vote and the Force sang with approval.  Yan’s report to the Council began with “for valorous combat, Padawan Komari Vosa has passed her trial of courage and is nominated for Knighthood” and ended with “leaders rule or fall by the will of the people, Jango Fett was only the method by which they enacted that will.” 

<X>

By the time news reached Coruscant about the handful of planets now swearing to the Verd’alor Jango Fett, Dooku had knighted Komari, but she was still a regular visitor in his quarters.  So it was no surprise that she showed up, vibrating with excitement in the Force as she showed him the reports.

“So what do you think?  Pipsqueak Boss Man may have waited a bit to do it again, but now it doesn’t seem like he’s stopping.

“I think if he’s doing this well I should suggest he take a look at my home planet,” Yan replied dryly.  “I am sure he could sort through those idiots faster than me.”

“But shouldn’t we tell the Senate about it?  Since we know what he’s doing?”

“The senate tried to use us to assassinate him,” Dooku reminded her.  “And the Council allowed it.  No, I am going to take the path of quietly enjoying their confusion.  Perhaps not the most becoming behavior of a Jedi, but you know me.  I have never claimed perfection.”

<X>

Eight years later, he regretted that action, as he just barely managed to miss Obi-Wan’s departing ship.  All of this could have been avoided if he’d just shared what he knew of Jango Fett, but instead a fresh knight with a history of being abandoned by the Order had been unceremoniously shipped off as a karking tribute, like a damned vase.  At least he trusted Jango and the Mandalorians to be good to his Grandpadawan.

“All well, it will be,” Yoda said from where Dooku had finally skidded to a stop after realizing he wouldn’t be able to tell Obi-Wan not to fear, wouldn’t be able to assure him of the kindness and good heart of the man he was being sent to.

“Oh really, Master?” Yan snarled.  “Is it?  I am sure that is a fine comfort to the young man you just KARKING SOLD.   Considering how many times he’s ended up in a slaver’s chains over the course of his Padawanship - and the fact I know Qui-Gon never took him for the mandatory mind healing after those missions - Obi-Wan Kenobi should have been the last person sent on this mission.”

“Bah!” Yoda scoffed, striking out with his gimmer stick.  Yan leapt over it with the ease of old practice.  “Meant to be on Mandalore, Obi-Wan is.  As with Master Jinn, he was meant to be.  Says this, the Force does.”

“If the Force is instructing the Jedi to inflict soul wounds on the young and promising, then perhaps the Force wishes to see the Jedi Order dead or fallen,” Dooku snarled, drawing shocked stares and gasps, focus burning like training sabers striking him from the Force as people turned to watch their fight.

“Then part of this Order you no longer consider yourself, hmm?” Yoda shot back.

“I want no part of what it is becoming, Grandmaster,” Dooku hissed, then turned on his heel and stormed off.

<X>

The filled resignation forms sat on his kitchen counter, next to an acceptance letter to Jenza, taking her up on the offer of Counthood.  There was a lot of flimsiwork involved in a choice like the one in front of him.  He wasn’t sure of his next steps, and the Force was silent when he meditated on it, leading to his pointless stare at the choice in potentia the stacks of flimsi represented.

“My brother is out of bacta,” Komari said.  He hadn’t heard her come in.  Given Rael was still out on a Watchman Patrol, she had to mean Qui.  “He’s got some new kid with him.”

“What?” Yan demanded, turning to face her.  “What the kriff does he think he’s doing?   Does he know about Obi-Wan yet?  He wasn’t even able to knight the boy, and he’s already sniffing around some new child?”

“Thank the Force Obi-Wan is with Fett,” Komari said with feeling.  Her work as a Shadow attuned her to rumors, and to the emotional impact they could have on people.  “He doesn’t need to see that.  Rumor has it that Qui tried to repeat what he did to Fee so he could take the kid on.”

“I don’t know where I failed with him,” Yan sighed, sinking into his chair with the weight of grief for the empathetic young child he’d once loved as a son.  Komari laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“You want me to ask Master Sy over for dinner?  You need a friend right now.”

“Yes please.”  

Yan put the flimsi away so he could prepare a meal for his oldest friend.  He could decide tomorrow what he was doing.

<X>

Tomorrow turned into next week, which turned into next month. He only occasionally saw Qui in the halls, his sorrow and regret and anger at how his Padawan had been turned into this bitter old man who tossed children away like broken toys stabbing at him each time.  It was to his shame that Yan tried stopping by Qui’s quarters, only to knock and wander away after a moment’s failure to answer.

When he received reports of Tatooine falling to a well coordinated Mandalorian strike force, the first since the Senate had sent Obi-Wan to stop such activities, Yan spent a full hour staring at his still unfiled forms before stalking out to try to find peace.

“You’re gonna go do it, and you’re gonna do it today,” Rael said, cornering his former Master in the Room of a Thousand Fountains.  “You know the Force has been poking you to do it.”

“I just don’t know what to say to him,” Yan admitted.  “Your brother and I never got on terribly well even when he was young and mostly listened.  Since he was knighted we’ve only gotten further apart, and I tried to tell myself that not all Padawans remain close to their Masters, but when we lost Xani….”

“I know,” Rael said, wrapping an arm around Yan’s shoulders, steering them through the halls.  “I blame Grandmaster.  He always liked Qui more than he liked me, tried to be like a second master, but that just undercut the changes you made to how you were trained.”

“But how could it get this bad?” Yan asked.  “Not even Yoda’s well-intentioned but poorly thought out meddling should do this.”

“Some people aren’t meant to be parents,” Rael shrugged.  “Which is why you’re doing this now, before he wears down that skittish tooka of a child living in his quarters.”

“Wait what?  The Initiate has already moved in?”

Yan’s panic pushed him past the dread in his gut as he knocked on the door Rael had guided them to.  There was no answer.  Rael knocked, his more forceful.  No answer.

Yan frowned, and entered the last door code he knew for Qui’s quarters, the date Xanatos had become his Padawan.

It slid open with a hiss to reveal a bare apartment.  Qui hadn’t been much of a packrat, ever, but the small collection of houseplants were wilted if not dead, the kitchen cupboards hung open to show bare shelves, and a further inspection revealed that closets in both rooms were stripped entirely bare.

And Qui-Gon was nowhere to be seen.

<X>

Dooku was frantic.  Komari was out on mission, but Rael was a steadfast anchor, suggesting calling in Master Syfo-Dias and Madame Nu, both of whom helped Yan search the Temple.  Sy reached through the force and Jo scoured the Temple’s internal security feed.  They’d just uncovered the night of Qui-Gon’s disappearance, well, his abduction, since the recordings they managed to unscramble from the very credible slicing done to obscure it showed a few grainy shots of figures carrying boxes, bags, and a body.  The images were scrambled even beyond Jo’s skill to reform, leaving the captors a mystery, but with both Qui-Gon and the Initiate that had apparently moved in with him gone, it was worrying.

“Calm yourself, Yan,” Sy said soothingly.  “The Force will provide.”

“As I had to remind my currently missing former Padawan endlessly, the Force provides to those who take reasonable precaution,” Yan snapped, looking again at the clearest image of the clips, a massive, hulking figure with two duffle bags and what was distinctly Obi-Wan’s go-bag.  Yan had been so proud of his Grandpadawan when he noticed the boy kept a pack ready for missions at all times.

Sy smiled cryptically and gestured to where a familiar blonde was running up.

“Feemor, I didn’t realize you were back!” Yan said.  Clearly his Grandpadawan had gotten bad news, probably hearing about Obi-Wan through the no-doubt dire Temple gossip.

“When I was out on Patrol I got coms from Master Qui-Gon,” the Watchman said, a sour set to his lips.  Yan blinked, that seemed, out of character.  “I decided not to deal with them until I got back, so I could safely fall apart after.”

“Sensible,” Yan agreed.  “I take it you’ve just come from that task?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t erase them fast enough to not hear his voice, which… I will need to go see my mind healer, but he was apologizing?  It was weird, he actually sounded regretful.  And there was something about Mandalorians and punishment?”

“I believe we need to take this to the Council,” Yan said, tucking Feemor under his arm as they barged in on the Jedi High Council.  He used every inch of his experience in aggressive posturing for negotiation to bully them silent while Feemor shared his story, filling in only what Jo had uncovered.

The shocked silence was a living thing.

“Obviously, someone must go rescue Master Jinn,” he said before anyone could speak.  “I volunteer.”

“Now wait a minute,” Master Windu said, but Yan was already sweeping dramatically from the room.

Chapter Text

Unknown to the Council or to Dooku, a second ship was preparing to leave for Mandalorian space.  Garen Muln snapped through pre-flight checks with a speed impossible for pilots that couldn’t touch the Force.  Bant Eerin went over her medical supplies in much the same way.  At the gangway, Quinlan Vos was saying one last goodbye to the member of their team that would stay behind.

“Are you sure you want to do this part?” he asked, one gloved hand holding Siri’s tightly.  “Lying is hard, not the words but the feeling of it.  Especially to someone you respect like you respect Master Gallia.”

“I am not afraid of my role, Quin,” she said, blonde head unbowed.  “You’re the one with the infiltration training, they’ll need you on Mandalore.  I’m the one with access to the Council, you need me here.”

“Not sore to be left behind?” he teased.

“Dragon Clan acts as one.  Where one Dragon walks, so walk we all,” she snarled, as fierce as their Initiate Clan namesake.  “I am done letting the Council and the Senate treat our brother like he’s expendable; if they think he doesn’t matter then they think we don’t matter.  We matter.  Obi-Wan matters.  So go get our brother, Quinlan Vos.”

“Dragon Clan acts as one,” Quin agreed.  “Force be with you, Tachi.”

“And with you, Vos.”

<X>  

Obi-Wan was having a lovely day, if he dared think that (the Force had proven adept at introducing headaches whenever he got too optimistic).  He’d woken to a breakfast cooked by Shmi, including some of his favorite tea.  Anakin had been polite enough to let him fully wake up before dragging them out the door so he could go to his mir’baar’ur.  

For all Qui-Gon had made it seem he was saving Obi-Wan from something embarrassing when he took over the mandatory mind healing sessions demanded by protocol, Anakin really enjoyed his sessions, a chance to discuss what he was feeling free of judgement or danger.  Also Br. Loor tended to have toys available to play with while they talked.  Her most recent addition was a build-your-own blaster kit, which fired harmless balls of gel instead of plasma bolts.  Anakin was steadily working through the assembly instructions with more dedication than Obi-Wan had expected.

After dropping Anakin off, he’d headed to the office, where Myles provided a second cup of excellent tea and a wink as he made up an excuse about something he needed to do on the other side of the compound.  Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at the none-too-subtle push, but it didn’t stop him from using the chance to strike up a conversation with Jango, hoping this time his flirting would be received well.  After the late night drinks and conversation, Obi-Wan had dared to hope a bit, and tried to flirt but with mixed results.

“So, someone said something the other day,” he lied.  It had been Arla and it had been ages ago.  “The diatium power cell you ordered for Anakin’s saber wasn’t the first.”

“No?” Jango said, confusion swirling in the Force.  “I got you one, what you had was throwing off the balance of that hilt.  Did… did you not like it?  I can get you a better one if you need it.”

“Oh, no, you don’t need to,” Obi-Wan said, waving his hand.  “It’s wonderful.  Better than the one I had before coming to Mandalore, actually.  Ah, it’s funny though… I hope, anyways.”

Jango frowned at his hesitation, and Obi-Wan rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.  “At the time, I wasn’t sure why you wanted to know what type of power cell I used.  When I saw it on your desk I sort of panicked, and um… took it.”

“I wanted to know so I could get you a better one,” Jango said as though Obi-Wan were being rather thick.  “Why else would I want to know?”

“Ah, well, the crystal is the heart of the saber, as the saber is the heart of the Jedi.  But the power cell is what gives that heart the strength to be more than a shiny, mildly sentient rock.  It is the drive behind the saber.  You are an intelligent man, a good strategist, I’m sure you can see many reasons for wanting to more closely examine a rather intimate secret of a traditional foe.”

“Intimate?” Jango asked, his Force presence warming as he turned implications over in his head, horror flashing briefly alongside denial, proof if any was still needed that Obi-Wan had been entirely off base with his first thought.  “Wait, when you say ‘intimate’, do you mean…”

“I suppose I was rather belated with returning the gift,” Obi-Wan admitted, reaching out his Force presence tentatively.  Jango probably wouldn’t know what he was doing, the gentle handhold of their energy, but Obi-Wan wanted the words to stick, to mean as much as he still couldn’t say.  “I know people have been talking about what I did on Tatooine as a life debt, for pouring my Force reserves into you.  But I had already accepted you - your gift, I mean - into what is to me what your armor is to you.  N’entye, ner Alor, nu ti mhi.  Draar ti mhi.”

Jango flushed, his Force presence flaring and fluttering like a signal flag too fast for Obi-Wan to properly catch the feelings.  He stammered something in Mando’a that was too muffled to catch and beat a hasty retreat.  Obi-Wan let out an extended groan.  He should have known not to be so blatant.  At least this rejection was too clear to be anything else.

Fuck.

He never should have let Myles get his hopes up.

<^>

Quinlan slipped undetected through the halls of the Verd’alor’s palace and yet again reflected that if Republic Intelligence wanted better reports they ought to be subcontracting the Shadows, since this was hardly the horror show of security he’d been prepared for.  Following his creche bond to Obi-Wan, he ducked into an office and promptly shuddered.  Without skin contact he couldn’t see what had happened here, but the place had a psychic impression of lust stronger than some brothels he’d been in.  Obes was draped across a desk, shoulders shaking with an extended sigh of pain.

“Shh,” he whispered, muffling their presence in the Force with a don’t-notice on the door to keep eavesdroppers out.  “Obi, it’s me, Quinlan.”

“Quin?” Obes said, looking up at him with red rimmed eyes that came from only two reasons, excessive staring at datapads and flimsi, and tears.  Which Quinlan thought were really just two forms of the same feeling, but still.

“Don’t worry Obi.  I’m here to rescue you, and your Padawan, and I guess Master Jinn if you absolutely insist.  Garen has the ship ready to take off the second we’re on board, Bantling has medical supplies and the direct com code of the best Mind Healer in the Galaxy, and we are gonna fix this. ”  Obi-Wan blinked at him like his words weren’t processing.  That was a bad sign.  Quinlan moved to do a quick check of his friend, running gloved hands over an unprotesting body.  “Come on, Obes, work with me here.  Where are you injured and did they sexually assault you?”

“Did we WHAT?” screeched a voice at the door.  Quin swore harshly and spun, putting his saber between his broken brother and the two interlopers, a large Mandalorian in black, orange, and blue, and a shorter one in green, red, and gold.

<^>

Myles did not get paid enough for this shit.

He talked down Jango from a panicked ramble about accidentally proposing to Obi-Wan before the man had even trusted him, then shoved his Alor back through the halls to go talk this shit out if Myles had to lock them in a closet together.  The closet plan had actually been discussed, and had a reasonably short code attached to it that he quickly sent his co-conspirators.  Arla and Ani were leaning against the wall by the office when they got there just in case.  Shmi would have too, except this hour was her time with the mir’baar’ur.

Opening the door, however, led to the worst sensation Myles had ever had, as cold slimy dread and disgust slipped down his spine when he saw someone who was not a Mandalorian working Obi-Wan through an after-battle wellness check and asking about… about….

“I’m gonna be sick,” Jango announced as the other Jedi pulled a saber on them in a defensive position.  An’ika, good kid as always, shoved the waste bucket at the Alor as he bent double over it.

“Quin, you can stand down,” Obi-Wan said firmly.

“Nope, not gonna,” the other Jetii, Quin, said firmly.  “That’s the Padawan, right?  Hi kid, I’m your Uncle Quinlan and if you can just get behind me real quick and close your eyes this will be over before you know it.”

“Is he really my ba’vod?” An’ika asked Obi-Wan, who sighed in the way only ori’vod do.

“Sadly, yes.  Introductions.  This is Quinlan Vos, my crechemate, that’s basically vod for our adiik.  He’s a good man but very dramatic.  Quin, that’s Myles, Arla, and Jango.  They have been exceptionally kind to me during this whole thing.”

“Obi, that’s captive’s syndrome talking,” Vos protested and Myles was about to demand an explanation when Anakin crossed his arms and shook his head.

“NUH UH.  The Mandalorians don’t keep slaves,” the boy said firmly.  “They just had a big fight on Tatooine because they found out I used to be a slave.  When the Senate sold Obi-Wan, they freed him right away and then he sent them to get me so I’d be free too.”

“Wait, what, sold?” Myles asked, head spinning.

“It was all in the letter, the one Jango read and ignored?” Obi-Wan pointed out.  Jango wiped his mouth and grinned wryly.

“You mean the one in dense, flowery subtexty Basic that I can’t read because Basic isn’t my first language and this is why I hired you to do all that shit?”

“Oh, I can!” Anakin said proudly, going to rummage in Jango’s desk for the paper.  “Basic isn’t my first language either, it’s my third, but Grandmother Jira says you have to learn how to read your own bond of sale so the Depur can’t lie about how much you need to buy your way out.”

“Sensible,” Arla said with a weakness to her voice Myles had never heard before.

“"So, basically, this says 'You're scary and we don't know anything except that you don't like Jedi, so here's one you can do whatever you want with, no questions asked, please don't kill us," Anakin reported, his face twisted by the disgust and horror only adiik could really pull off.  “Huh.  They really managed to get that close to saying slave without saying it.”

“I honestly thought you knew and were just being polite about not mentioning the whole chattel thing,” Obi-Wan admitted.  

Suddenly a dozen self-deprecating jokes and an avalanche of sarcasm dryer than Tatooine broke over Myles’ memories.  Of course Obi-Wan had been serious about the never ending paperwork being better than expected.  He’d expected… Myles remembered the question Vos had asked, the one that had him shouting in outrage, and he grabbed the bucket Jango had used, ripping his helmet off just in time.

<^>

“You can stay with the ship if you like,” Yan offered.  Feemor had been very kind in offering to pilot, but he didn’t need to see Jinn before Yan had yelled some sense into him.  Fee nodded and Yan synced his wrist unit to the ship’s tracking beacon so he could navigate back even if Feemor had to move the ship.

It was easy to infiltrate the farming set up where he’d followed the long dried and dead channel of a training bond to.  It took more focus to follow the sense of his former Padawan than it did to monitor the Force for signs of someone who might stop him.  As if the Force was telling him nobody would stop him.

He arrived at a building made of glass and steel, inside which bloomed a pure fountain of Living Force.  He stepped inside, unsurprised to see Qui-Gon humming happily as he boosted the root growth on a rack of seedling.

“Hello, Padawan-Mine,” he said softly.  With the speed and agility of an Ataru Master, Qui-Gon leapt up, summoned a hose to his hand and pulled the trigger spraying Yan with water.

“Haar'chak!  Copaani mirshmure'cye?  Slana'pir!  I will not go back,” Qui-Gon growled.  Yan tilted his head, shaking water from his hair.  His Padawan needed to get it all out, and that little outburst was hardly all of it.  “I’m finally kriffing happy, Master.  And I’m actually helping people, doing some karking good in this galaxy.  Nobody here expects me to make politicians get along or, or I don’t know, fight people , they just want me to heal the land and go to the mir’baar’ur and they don’t make me teach anyone except full grown adults who could easily stop me if I accidentally fuck them up and all I’m expected to teach is how to help the land heal.   So GO AWAY. ”

Yan smiled, and his expression seemed to catch Qui off guard.  At the least his former Padawan didn’t resist when Yan wrapped him in a sopping wet hug, not even minding the indignity of it.

“You’re all right, my Padawan, you’re healing so well.  I am so proud of you.  This is everything I ever wanted for you and I am so pleased you’ve found it,” Yan said, brushing a stray lock of hair away from Qui-Gon’s face.  His Padawn looked deeply confused, that confusion spreading to the Force around them and Yan smiled softly.  “I am so sorry, my Padawan, I should never have let my Master keep you from a proper healer.  This should have been yours from the beginning.  We failed you, as an Order, as a family.  I failed you, but you have done so well.  I can see your wounds lessening already, and I have every faith that Fett has done the same for my Grandpadawan.  I will forever regret that the tension between Yoda and I meant I kept getting assigned too far away to really get to know young Obi-Wan, but now that healing has begun, perhaps there is a chance.”

“Wait, Yoda?  Yoda assigned you away so you couldn’t come visit us like you did with Fee and Xani?  I mean, you were never terribly close to them either, but at least you tried.  I assumed you were avoiding us because you thought I was a fuckup who would fuck him up and you didn’t want to be associated with that.”

Yan closed his eyes and mentally added the Jedi Council to the List of Halls of Power he wouldn’t mind Fett repopulating.  Then he released that feeling into the Force as it would do him no good.  Although… “Qui-Gon, if you’re happy and well here, would you mind terribly if I went to go check in on Obi-Wan?  I’m afraid that while the Mandalorians are honorable and would not have harmed him, he did leave Coruscant with the rather unpleasant impression he was sent as chattel, for the Verd’alor to do with as he pleased.  A sacrifice, essentially.  He needs to be reassured that at the least, neither I nor the rest of our Lineage under me believed he would be in danger, or we would have come for him.”

“Wait, Ani was right when he said they sold Obi-Wan?”

<^>

“What is going on here?” Jaster asked mildly.  Two unfamiliar Jedi were eyeing each other over Obi-Wan's head.  Qui-Gon was not on the farm where he was meant to be, instead hanging half off a soaked Jedi currently glaring at Jango, who was showing signs of having cried or vomited recently.  Arla paced behind him like a caged nexu and Myles was curled up on the floor by Obi-Wan’s feet being gently petted by Anakin.

“Mand’alor,” Obi-Wan said with a sigh, “my family.  My vod'e apparently decided to make sure I was okay, and Ba’buir Yan came to check up on Qui-Gon after the Jedi noticed you sent a strike team to kidnap a master and padawan from the temple.”

“I’m sorry,” Jango said, “you were missing your ad!  And he was there too, and it all kind of snowballed.  Ni ceta.  Can you ever forgive me?”

“You owe me so many days of vacation,” Obi-Wan said.

“Paid vacation,” added the Kiffar Jedi hovering over Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

“Quin, we’re Jedi, we don’t get paid,” Obi-Wan said.

“Nonsense, unpaid labor is slavery and we don’t do that,” Jaster said firmly.  “Did nobody show you where your accounts are?  I know I approved a raise for you after the New Mandalorian negotiations.”

“Well I know you don’t do that now,” Obi-Wan said, then sighed again and handed him a letter addressed to Jango.

Jaster read the letter, parsing it’s flowery perfume over total osik slowly.  This… changed things.

“Oh.  Well.  Get cleaned up, ner ad’e.  It seems you have a com call to make to clear up some misunderstandings.”  He glanced down at Myles.  “Is he going to be okay?”

“He should talk to Br. Loor, but I think he’ll be okay,” Anakin reported, patting the large man on the cheek gently.  “Especially once Jango frees all the other Jedi too.  He’s just allergic to Depur being Depur.”

Chapter Text

At a docking port near enough to the Palace of the Verd’alor that Quin could get there and back on foot, one trip to be calculated for the risk Obi-Wan would not be able to walk himself, but not so close as to seem suspicious, Garen triple checked the controls for a fifth time.

“You’re restless,” Bant said, her eyes closed in a light meditation.

“I want to be prepared,” the Knight-Pilot shot back.

“The Force is with us,” Bant assured him.  “Can’t you feel it?  There is a growing Light, something right is happening.  Quin must have found him.”

“I hate that I can’t feel them,” Garen muttered.  “Ah, look alive, Banty, we have company.”

“I’ve got it,” the healer said, standing in a fluid movement that a more human skeletal structure would not have allowed.  She stepped down the short gangplank to level a look at a very tired port worker.  Internally, she diagnosed them with mild exhaustion and slight dehydration, not outside safe levels but something to mind in the future. Sheer force of will kept her from shoving a bottle of water in their hand and ordering them to drink it.

“You, ah, you can’t dock here,” the worker said apologetically.  Their intent was honest and not aggressive, but their Force presence was firm despite the politely deferential tone.  “You also can’t just idle this long… it’s going to kriff up my schedule.”

Bant hardened her eyes in the way that made fidgety Padawans still during tests and put medic-dodging Masters back in their beds.  There was no Force trick to it, despite what Quinlan may believe, just a self knowledge and the Healer’s prerogative to outrank anyone in the service of their mandate.  Bant was here to heal Obi-Wan of whatever had been done to him.  She had to be here to do that.  She would not be moved.

“We will park here as long as we require,” she informed the dock worker.

“No you will not,” said the dock worker in the same tone.  “Ner Vod ordered more bacta for the clinic on the Dral’ne Cuyan, since they ended up having to use a whole tank for Ob’ika’s jare'la shebs.  The ship the bacta’s on needs this pad to land on in the next ten minutes, so you will move or you will be moved.  Medical shipments take priority.”

Bant paled, then nodded.  “Quite right.  What about that one over there?”

She pointed to the pad least likely to be used, a cracked, broken thing with weeds cropping up through it in spite of the dry heat of the planet.  She knew Garen could land there, she’d seen him do worse, but nobody flying in medical supplies would risk it.

"That'll work burc'ya" said the port worker, out loud.  More quietly, outside what she could hear without the Force boosting her senses, they muttered “dini’la jettise.”  Whatever that meant.

They’d just settled down on the abandoned field between a few landspeeders in obvious need of repair when the coms went off.  Quinlan sounded odd, but he didn’t use any of the warning codes he’d drilled them on when he told them to come park on the Verd’alor’s private pad up by the Palace proper.

“How badly injured is Obi-Wan,” Bant demanded, grabbing the com as Garen took off.  Something squawked on the other end of the line.  “Come on, Quin, you’re having us move in that close, do I need a tank prepped? Stretcher?  I may have tapped out my favors with Master Che for a slot with that Mind Healer but I have other favors I can call in, we can still fix this.”

“No, no, Bantling, Obes is… fine, but shit’s fripping weird here.”

“Real fine, or Obi-Wan fine?” Bant asked pointedly.

“Actual fine, Bant,” Obi-Wan said tiredly.  “The verd that’s waiting on the pad is named Aden, black armor, they’re going to guide you in.  There’s trace beskar in almost everything here, including the stone the Palace is made of, so you’ll probably be a little disoriented if you try to come in without a guide.”

“I was fine,” Quinlan shot back.

“The only reason nobody shot you for wandering around was that we all thought it was great Ob’ika had invited a friend over,” said a third voice dryly.

“Wait, Ob’ika is what they call Obi-Wan?” Bant asked.  “OBI-WAN KENOBI YOU BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXPLANATION FOR HAVING BEEN IN A BACTA TANK.”

“Osik,” Obi-Wan said quietly.

<X>

It was weird to Garen how accommodating everyone was of the small invasion-rescue.  I mean sure, three people wasn’t that much, but they were Jedi, three should at least count as a strike team.  Yet, nobody seemed aggressive, even if the matte black armor of their guide was deeply intimidating.

“Hey Aden,” said a new Mando, blood red armor forming a stark backdrop for a gold dragon over the left side of their body.  “Me'bana, vod?”

“Kaysh'e aliit be Ob’ika,” their guard said.

“What about Obi-Wan?” Garen asked.  The new Mando pulled their helmet off, revealing a craggy face and rusty red hair.

“Just telling me that you’re his family.  Welcome.  It’s good you’re here, he’s been needing more aliit.  His ad’ika is great, but children can’t replace vod’e, and he keeps dodging all the verd'e who want to take that role.”

“What do you mean, take that role?” Bant asked.

“I mean adopt him into their clans, obviously.  We’d all love to have a mandokarla verd like that in our families but he’s almost worse about realizing that than he is about Jango.”

“Nayc,” Aden snorted.  “Nothing is worse than that.  Ven’riduur be’Alor utreekov’la.”

“Hey, don’t say that, he’s great at all that stuff Myles used to do,” the dragon-marked one said.  Garen wanted to ask their name but it seemed weird to do so this far into the conversation.

“Kaysh mirsh solus,” Aden insisted.  “Jango couldn’t be more obvious.  He gave the man’s ad a planet.   They’ve been practically living the riduurok and he still thinks our alor is just being friendly.  He’s a very intelligent idiot who happens to be good at politics and utter osik at emotions.”

“You realize you’re insulting the man in front of his clan, right?”

“Meh,” Garen said with a shrug.  “They’re not wrong.  I love him but he’s been bad at emotions since the Melida-Daan mission.  You’ve gotta be really blunt.  And maybe tie him to a chair.”

“I just use paralytic hypos,” Bant weighed in.  “Or sedatives.  He never kriffing sleeps enough and he needs to switch to a lower stimulant tea if he wants to drink that much of it.”

“Good advice.”

<X>

Siri heard her com beep and stepped away from her position in front of the Council Chambers.  Technically as a Senior Council Padawan she didn’t have to take a turn at the desk, but she usually did and Quin had said keeping routine would help hide her other deceptions.

“Tachi,” she answered briskly.  She hoped she knew who was on the other end, but in case, she didn’t open with a demand of a sit-rep.

“Hey Siri,” said a familiar voice.  “I figured I’d cut your worry off early.  I’m fine, actual fine, even Bant says so.”

“I want to marry whoever’s been handling his diet and exercise routine,” the medic said.  “He’s also obviously been sleeping, it’s a karking miracle.”

“Yeah, so turned out the Mando’ade are really nice,” Quinlan added.  “And we’ve been lied to.  Not that it excuses the Council for what they agreed to.  Can you get us a direct line to the Council?  Pretty much everyone in the room except Obes wants to yell at them for it.”

“It worked out fine” Obi-Wan protested.  Then he yelped.  Someone had jabbed his ticklish spot on his ribs.  Good, he deserved it, the self-depreciating little shit.

“I’ll slice you in with a line they can’t hang up on,” Siri said.  “Full visual or just audio?  I know what you took with you won’t do visual over this distance.”

“They have access to the Palace com center,” said an unfamiliar voice that rumbled pleasingly.  “We can do a full holoconference across the galaxy.”

Well… okay then.  She didn’t know exactly what was up, but it was for Obi-Wan, so she’d do it.

<X>

Jango had probably been through every emotion he could have that day.  He’d felt exasperated fondness with Myles transparent attempt to give them alone time, longing love as Obi-Wan awkwardly let him know he hadn’t initially thought the power cell was a gift, and dismay when he realized his cyare (no matter that he couldn’t call Obi-Wan that out loud, he was beloved and that was enough to think it) had suspected him of wanting to know how to destroy the Order that raised the man.  Then growing horror when he realized what he’d done, if lightsabers were to Jedi what beskar’gam was to him, then giving a lightsaber part would be like giving him a piece of armor.  A proposal.  One that had been returned, which burned Jango’s heart with bright searing hope until a thought occurred to him. 

If Obi-Wan hadn’t even trusted Jango at the time, it was almost unforgivable to have done.  He was Verd’alor, he could not afford to be so careless with the power dynamics!

It had only grown worse once Myles insisted he return to face his mistake bravely.  Shame had given way to shock and envy and a gnawing ache of worry at seeing another Jetii checking over Obi-Wan.  The redness of Obi-Wan’s eyes filled him with a need to destroy whatever hurt his dearest one, until he’d parsed what the Jetii was asking about.  Then the feeling had only been disgust and horror and something like a war chant of ‘no, never, that’s impossible’ that only gave way to gratitude when An’ika defended the Mando’ade to the new Jetii.  Not that the child knew what Jango had done, and the shame surged back.  He had no room to feel insulted by the Jetii’s assumption when he had violated the chain of consent so badly.

A bitter frustration stung when he realized that the unreadable letter held some critical information that made his violation all the worse.  If Obi-Wan believed himself a slave… sorrow swept him as he watched the cheerful sunbeam of a child talk so casually of bonds of sale and his ori’vod faced the specter of her past.

Sorrow replaced with rage when the truth of the letter was revealed.  They’d expected him to… they thought Mando’ade monsters, when it was they who were the slaver demagolka.

He rode that rage as his Buir led the strange war-party of Obi-Wan’s Jetii aliit and Jango’s top advisors to the com center and secured them a line to the Jetii’tsad.  A collection of beings as diverse as any Mandalorian squad appeared and the fraying edges of Jango’s control slipped away at his Buir’s nod.

“HOW DARE YOU?” he shouted.  He saw Obi-Wan’s eyes go wide with fear, but his beloved was strong, and held fast, especially when his ba’buir’s hand rested on his shoulder.  Jango should have known the Jetii that was so helpful when he was young was related to Obi-Wan.  Jet'ba'ji Dooku nodded at him to continue.

“How dare you treat one of your own like this?” Jango demanded, but didn’t give them a chance to answer.  “He is a person, not some bantha to trade at market!  Even setting aside the insult to the honor of all Mando’ade inherent in the idea we would want to torture someone, how kriffing dare you treat a warrior of his skill and virtue with such utter lack of care?”

“In their defense,” Anakin added in the cheerfully helpful tone that foretold some horrifying revelation, “it’s not easy to say no to your own Master.”

“I managed,” Jet'ba'ji Dooku said dryly.  “Master Yoda knows all too well my feelings on his decisions regarding my Grandpadawan.”

“Not what I meant,” Anakin said with a scrunched nose.  “I mean Depur - Owner Master, not Ba’ji’buir Master.  They may be Palace-slaves and half chain-blind, but that doesn’t make them not slaves too.”

Jango took a breath and tried to let that knowledge settle on him.

“By the way, that Mandalorian ‘takeover’ of Tatooine the Senate was so concerned about?” Vos cut in with a sharp tone.  “Evidently that came about due to the Verd’alor learning Anakin here was a recently freed slave from said planet.  Both Knight Kenobi and Padawan Skywalker are very well regarded among the Mando’ade.”

Someone, probably the Kel Dor, but it was hard to tell with the anti-ox mask, made a horrified sound.

“Regardless of the UTTER idiocy of allowing one of your own to believe he’d been thrown out like some shuk'la….” Jango took a breath, and Arla put her hand on his shoulder, steadying him.  “You still didn’t treat him with the respect he deserved.  From what he’s shared of his past, you’ve never treated him like he should be.  How you could be so blind as to overlook how intelligent and brave he is, I will never understand.”

Someone made a choked sound, but Jango ignored it as warmth flooded his body with love for the mandokarla Jedi who’d brightened his life and made a place in Jango’s heart.

“Even without telling me your sins I know you’ve not shown him the care he deserves, because that is the ONLY way someone as skilled and honorable as Obi-Wan Kenobi could doubt his own worth.  He resolved a decades long conflict within our people and uncovered a traitor in his first month here, and still thought he wasn’t good enough for your or’dinii’la Order.  He’s gentle with his ad, but still skilled in teaching him.”

“It’s easy when my student is so gifted,” Obi-Wan interrupted softly.

“And yet you don’t let him develop a swelled head,” Jango shot back.  Turning back to the Council on the com he waved at Obi-Wan.  “See?  He’s everything good and wonderful in this galaxy, honorable and selfless and competent as all kriff and tenacious and mandokarla bal mesh'la bal mirdala bal dral bal ruusaanyc bal kotep.  Kaysh jatnese be te jatnese.”

“Um, Obi is the only Jedi who speaks Mando’a,” Obi-Wan’s baar’ur vod said.  Jango blushed at his slip.  Basic was hard to keep in his head when he got passion under his skin.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi is amazing and the best of all of either of us,” Jango translated firmly.  “And if you idiots don’t want to show him that, then I will happily spend the rest of my days by his side reminding him of it anytime he needs it.  You sent me a Jedi to do whatever I want with?  Fine, but what I want is to give him the love you were too stupid to show him.”

Obi-Wan made a broken sound and Jango forgot the Jetii’tsad in favor of focusing his full attention on the man at his side.  Something strange and desperate was trying to fight past Obi-Wan’s careful mask, and Jango wanted to be able to tell him to take the mask off, to let him in.  He wanted nothing more than to hold Obi-Wan close to him, now and always.  He was exhausted and drained after the day he’d had, so he didn’t fight down the feelings to deal with later.  He let himself feel them all, eyes locked on Obi-Wan as the mask slipped off slowly to show shocked relief and something warm and simmering that Jango dared not name desire.

“I thought you didn’t want me,” Obi-Wan confessed quietly.  “When you left, I thought….”

“Nu draar, Ob’ika,” Jango said, half a whisper.  He continued in Mando’a for the ease of fluency, glad his love spoke his native language.  “I never wanted to pressure you… I know well enough the trap of an imbalanced relationship.  If you send me away I will go without protest, but I will never stop wanting you.  I just hope you can forgive me.”

“N’entye, ner Alor,” Obi-Wan said, placing gentle hands on either side of Jango’s face and the words ripped through Jango with a wave of understanding of what Obi-Wan had been trying to say.  “I meant it.  I’ve known since Tatooine, I love you.  And if that makes me a bad Jedi then kark it.  Ni copaani ner aliit bal ner riduur.”

Jango’s brain stalled as Obi-Wan fit himself into Jango’s arms like he was meant to be there.  It was automatic to hold him close, even as his mind circled that one word.  “Riduur?”

Myles slapped the back of his head sharply.  “You two have been living the vows you haven’t said for how long now?  But now that we’ve finally got that cleared up, what’s the plan about the whole slavery thing the kid mentioned?”

“Jedi, slaves are not,” said a small wrinkled figure.

“The Padawan called us chain-blind,” the Kel Dor said thoughtfully.  “And we fit the description.  Have we not for many years struggled with our inability to act on the Force’s will when the Force points us counter to the desire of the Senate?  Are we not bound by the chains of our service not to the Galaxy but to one governing body?  We would not have struggled with their orders so, if we had been permitted to send Shadows into Mandalorian space to bring back the truth.  But even then, we still obeyed those orders.  We betrayed one of our own children because it was commanded by a single man, and is that not what you would call a slave?”

“Who was that, by the way?” Myles asked sharply.  “Who ordered Obi-Wan shipped off?  Asking for a friend.”

“Is the friend me or Sheila?” Arla asked quietly.  “Because I have a new scope and someone threatened my riduur'be'vod.”

“It was Chancellor Palpatine and he’s super creepy,” Anakin declared.  “He acts all nice and friendly but he’s Depur and he’s creepy about it.”

“He called to speak to you once,” Qui-Gon Jinn said suddenly from his place under Jet'ba'ji Dooku’s arm.  “I was distracted at the time, but it is odd he would call to talk to a child.”

“More than once,” Anakin said.  “The sleemo tried a lot before you got out of the Healer’s.  I didn’t answer.  I’m not an idiot, I know not to trust a Depur who tries to send away people who protect you.”

“That is… disturbing,” Jaster said.  Jango snorted at his Buir’s understatement.

“This? This is how I feel right before I bring home a new planet,” he pointed out, watching Buir’s face as realization broke over it.  “If a demagolka leads, everyone suffers.  Removing the demagolka and putting someone sensible in their place usually fixes the suffering, and people feel gratitude when suffering ends, which is why they keep swearing to Mandalore.”

“They swear to you, ner ad, not Mandalore,” Jaster said automatically.  “But I finally see the logic.”

Jango looked back at the Council, all of whom now looked deeply uncomfortable with the revelations.  “So, are you going to look into that or am I cleaning the Republic’s house for them?”

“We will deliberate,” said the wrinkled one.

“We’ll take care of it,” snapped the Korun man.  The Kel Dor nodded in agreement, along with a few others.  “We should have taken care of it a long time ago.  There’s a shatterpoint the size of a small moon on that man, and I don’t think it’s a good thing.”

“May the Force be with you, Masters,” Obi-Wan said from his place in the circle of Jango’s arms.

“And with you, Knight Kenobi,” said a Cerean man.  “And many happy returns on your marriage.  You should go celebrate that.  We will see to the matter of a Chancellor too fond of slavery and small boys.”

<X>

In 956 AR, the Galaxy began a slow shift.  By 960 AR that change was expanding rapidly enough to notice.  By 968 AR, the shift had solidified into an Empire founded on ideas of freedom, fairness, and family.  Threatened by this bastion of Light, a Sith Lord made a panicked choice to try destroying one enemy with another.  This choice would be his undoing, which made the growing Light all the more firmly entrenched.  

Although he was deeply involved in the whole affair, one Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi hardly noticed the change in the Force.  He was far too busy making out for lost time with his riduur, the Warlord Jango Fett.