FicWad

Additional Author's Note: Please keep in mind what lengthy italicized passages generally signify (memories being shared through the Force, etc.).







It is, of course, impossible to get dressed again after all of that without first getting clean. And it is impossible to get clean without a visit to the 'fresher first. But of course, it's impossible to get both him and Anakin into the 'fresher without . . . certain other things happening. (Force, but it feels so unutterably good, just to hold one another and kiss and caress until heat rises again and their bodies are pressing closer and sliding together, Anakin's large, long-fingered, infinitely clever right hand closing just enough to make a channel to guide them together, scorchingly hot, hard flesh pumping against one another in a frenzy of love and explosive sensation, Obi-Wan's back braced against the tiles, mouths locked and tongues dueling in ecstatic dance of spiraling pleasure so that they cry out into one another when the building tide of ecstacy finally breaks and crashes down over them! And so good, to sprawl together, in a tangle of loose limbs under the hot stream of water, afterwards; to climb back up to his feet only to have Anakin kick his legs apart and then slide down his body to kneel between those spread legs and swallow him down, sucking and licking and stroking and humming happily around him all the while, the vibrations from that low rumbling hum turning his joints to water and first spilling him down Anakin's working throat before spilling him down into his arms and sliding them down into the floor again. So good, to close his own hand around Anakin and to watch, intently, as his back arches and his eyes roll back in his head and his mouth opens wide to finally give a hoarse cry of release.)

Needless to say, by the time they are actually able to gather themselves up out of the floor of the 'fresher (yet again), rinse themselves off (once again), get out and get dried off (again) and . . . well . . . in any case, by the time they do finally manage to get dressed again, there is just enough time left for Anakin to start reprogramming various droids with orders regarding his move back into Obi-Wan's suite while Obi-Wan, prompted by yet another unexpected far-sight vision, snags a nearby datapad up out of the clutter of electronics and spare lightsaber parts and the Force knows what covering the entire top of the largest of the two tables in his common room and begins encrypting instructions for their new Padawan. Their actual packing for the mission is left for the droids while Anakin steers Obi-Wan - still caught up within the shifting flow of the far-sight vision and entering information and orders as quickly as he can, in order to keep up with the swift flow of information and changing possibilities - back to Obi-Wan's suite, where he presses him into a chair at the kitchen table, hands him a shuura fruit, firmly orders him to eat that (which Obi-Wan does, idly, if only to empty his hand) while Anakin finds them something more filling to eat, and, after perhaps ten minutes of moving around the kitchen, joins Obi-Wan with two tall glasses of iced tea and two plates piled high with heaping helpings of a swiftly reheated casserole dish dish - which Anakin carefully places at the center of the table, so that it will be within quick reach in case they have enough time to eat an extra helping - that Bant had left for them.

"Eat that before it gets cold, Master. You know how Bant gets, when she thinks her food has gone to waste," Anakin warns him, snatching the datapad out of his hand and replacing it with a fork. "The datapad can wait."

"I was about to put it down, Anakin. I'd just finished," Obi-Wan merely airily informs him, waving the fork at him slightly, already turning his attention to the dish in front of him.

"Good. Dare I ask?"

"Instructions for our Padawan, should certain situations arise, since we will be gone for at least a few days."

"Our Padawan . . . that still sounds so strange," Anakin muses, shaking his head and regarding the datapad for several quiet moments before finally simply shrugging and returning to his hastily prepared meal.

"It was unexpected," Obi-Wan nods understandingly. "However, I'm sure that we will all grow used to it fairly quickly, once we all actually begin to start working together. Unfortunately, regardless of how much Bail may want this now, it will be difficult for him to begin to adjust to his new life without us here to help him, especially since he won't be able to actually cut most of his ties to his previous life until after enough of the crisis surrounding the many radical changes in government - not to mention the question of peace - has been resolved and it has become safe for him to leave Coruscant long enough to return to Alderaan to formally abdicate the throne and pass on his senatorial seat to another. Hopefully, these instructions will help provide him with a much needed sense of support as well as with actual aid in direction. I wish to make this as easy on him as possible," Obi-Wan elaborates, explaining his reasoning in between bites of casserole and carefully skirting the issue of just what precisely might happen while they are away from Coruscant that could possibly be so stressful or confusing or simply outright bad that Bail would actually need such detailed instructions in order to cope.

Frowning a little, recalled to earlier concerns, Anakin finally admits, his words coming out slowly, "I'm not really sure such a thing can be easy, Obi-Wan. The Alderaanian Ascendency Contention was so snarled that it required a Jedi Master to sort everything out again. And Bail and Breha have no heir. I understand Bail Antilles can replace him as Alderaan's senior Senator, but who will they get to replace him as Crown Prince? Breha can't do it: she's only an Organa through marriage. And Celly and Rouge and Tia are only half-sisters of Bail's, aren't they?"

"You are correct about Bail's wife - though I very much doubt that Milady Breha Antilles Organa would be interested in remaining Alderaan's Queen, even were it possible. However, Bail does have one full-blooded sibling still living, in addition to his three much younger half-sisters: a younger sister, who happens to be married to Raymus Antilles - who, as you know, is Captain of the Tantive IV and, as the second youngest child of Bail Antilles, is also the young brother of Bail Organa's wife. The wife of Raymus Antilles and sister of Bail Organa is a young lady by the name of Alaina: I believe you met her, once?" Obi-Wan asks, raising a prompting eyebrow.

"About four years before the war started, you mean, when the Council gave us a sort of mini-vacation by letting us volunteer for escort duty for the nobles and politicians heading back to Alderaan, after the Galactic Games? A tall girl, with eyes as dark as Bail's and honey-colored skin and dark, cinnamon colored hair?" Anakin asks back, not quite frowning. "I thought she was another Antilles."

"You likely thought that because she was already engaged to Raymus Antilles, at the time. She had just turned nineteen, Anakin," Obi-Wan informs him with a smile.

"Nineteen? Really?" Anakin blinks, obviously surprised (he had still be fifteen during that mission, after all). "She looked no older than Ferus."

"Ferus Olin was well over two years older than you, Anakin - much closer to three full standard years," Obi-Wan replies, voice suddenly oddly cool. "I still fail to understand how the Healers could have so badly misjudged that boy's age, when they performed the routine tests required before any decision can be made as to whether or not a potential initiate can be admitted to the crèche. He was admitted on the edge of being thought too old for training, as it was. If the tests had been performed correctly, that boy would have never been admitted to the Order, and much grief and trouble could have been avoided, all around."

"It's not the fault of the Healers, Master," Anakin merely insists, his voice very warm and soothingly calm but nevertheless unshakeably certain. "Ferus is unusually gifted in the Force and has always been very good at getting his own way. You said it yourself, remember? And besides, from everything I've heard, he was very small as a child, except for when he was going through growth spurts, during what was thought to be his fifth year and his eleventh year and then from late in his fourteenth year on until the time when he was cast out of the Temple. Ferus was always within range for the normal averages of height and weight for what was thought to be his actual age - at least until after he hit his teens, and then it was simply assumed that he was just going to be very tall, for a human normal. It wasn't until after you started questioning things having to do with him that the Healers performed enough tests to even realize that he was actually a Theelin-Epicanthix-Firrerreo-human mix. Firrerreons and Theelins both physically mature more slowly than humans and most other near-humans. It was his Epicanthix heritage that made him start growing so rapidly, about the time Siri Tachi took him as her Padawan, after - " Anakin's voice falters here slightly (likely due to the fact that Obi-Wan has, in the past, made it quite clear that he believes that it was no accident that cut the life of Nemaria Tennyai - a Chalactan Knight of exceptional strength and promise - so tragically and senselessly short, less than a week shy of her thirty-fifth birthday) " - after Knight Nemaria was killed in that shuttle crash."

"Regardless of what might have been," Obi-Wan merely says in response, voice and face both carefully neutral (a forced neutrality that makes it patently obvious that Obi-Wan has not, in fact, changed him mind about the probable cause of Knight Nemaria's fatal crash, and that his aforementioned opinion regarding the unacceptable sloppiness of the Healers, in the matter of Ferus Olin, has not changed and furthermore is not likely to change - ever), "the the fact remains that while there is indeed a suitable heir to the throne of Alderaan, until things have settled enough for it to be feasible for Bail for leave Coruscant for Alderaan, Bail will remain the de jure Crown Prince, irregardless of the fact that he is now our Padawan learner and, as such, can no longer act as a hereditary ruler - even of a constitutional monarchy. The contents of this datapad will help to hasten that time, when Bail will be able to formally abdicate the throne, as well as to resign his seat on the Senate. And it should also reassure him that he is, indeed, our Padawan, and that we will not be abandoning him here forever."

There are a few heartbeats of silence then, in which Anakin remembers that, even though Knight Nemaria had been just enough older than Obi-Wan that they had never been agemates, the two had been close enough to be more than just mere acquaintances, since Nemaria Tennyai had been an agemate of and good friend with Quinlan Vos. Quinlan had taken her death hard, and Obi-Wan had hurt not only for his friend's sake but for the wasteful tragedy of a promising life cut so needlessly short. Anakin also remembers that, since Knight Nemaria's death had occurred while they were on mission and they had arrived back to the Temple to find a message from her begging for a meeting on "a serious matter that requires an outside opinion" - a message that had also been sent to Quinlan Vos, whose return to the Temple in between missions had been only a day too late to catch Nemaria, to the Kiffar Knight's regret and guilty anguish - Obi-Wan has always been extremely suspicious about the mysterious circumstances surrounding Nemaria's death and even more thoroughly unhappy with the Council's decision not to investigate the death enough to even examine the wreckage of the Temple speeder whose apparent system malfunction claimed Nemaria's life. Determined not to get into yet another argument about whether or not the High Council should have probed Ferus' mind to find out if he had anything to do with Nemaria's death before turning him out of the Temple, Anakin finally asks, "Will Lady Alaina and Raymus adjust well to their new change in stature, do you think? Have you seen anything about them and Alderaan?" his question subtly steering the conversation away from the topic of Ferus Olin.

"Raymus has been helping Bail to build the foundations of what would have become the core of an organized galactic-wide resistance and rebellion, had things turned out other than they had, with Palpatine. Milady Alaina - much like Bail, before the issue of ascendency was resolved in his favor - had been planning on a career in intergalactic law before the Clone Wars began, and so holds several degrees pertinent to the field, in addition to having served two full terms on the legislative High Council of Alderaan, in addition to fulfilling duties required of all hereditary members of the Alderaanian High Court. She's also recently worked with Bail on several issues involving the plight of refugees fleeing from troubles in the Outer Rim Territories and various of the shifting fronts of this interlocking, overlapping hodgepodge of wars. I believe Bail has been grooming her for the junior Senator's seat, in the event that the war would end and things would begin to go back to normal soon. They should do well, together. Raymus will be able to advise her on more wide-ranging matters - including the need for Alderaan to remain an example of everything that a Core World can and should be - and Alaina will be able to bring an intimate understanding of the inner workings of the Alderaanian government to her role as the new Queen. What concerns me," Obi-Wan admits, his brows drawing together in a slight frown, "is that I cannot see Lady Breha in any of the far-sight visions I have been given. I cannot even see her in reaction to Bail's announcement of abdication, in favor of becoming a Padawan learner. It is almost as if she has dropped off the edge of the galaxy."

"Her health is fragile. Perhaps she simply retires, after this?" Anakin offers, frowning slightly at the unlikelihood of his own suggestion but unable to think of anything else to say that would hold up as an even semi-rational explanation.

"If that were so, then I suppose it could explain why I haven't seen her in any of the far-sight visions touching on Alaina's reign . . . but then why haven't I been able to see her in any of the far-sight visions I've received surrounding Bail's abdication?" Obi-Wan merely asks back, the worried furrows in his brow deepening.

"Well . . . I kind of get the feeling that Milady Breha isn't going to be with Bail anymore, after she finds out about all this. Bail seemed fairly certain that Breha would simply let him go, so that he could become a Jedi. I know the New Jedi Bendu Order will allow relationships, both between members and with those who are not members of the Order, but I don't think that Bail wants that with Breha, even if he realizes he could still have her as his wife and also be our Padawan. And I think she would know that. So perhaps she simply withdraws, to spare him pain?" Anakin offers back, voice only a little less hesitant than before.

"I suppose that could be possible," Obi-Wan finally sighs, after several long moments of disbelieving but nevertheless confounded silence. "I just . . . I have a bad feeling that I'm missing something, somehow . . . "

"Try not to worry about it, okay? It is like Masters Qui-Gon and Dooku said, after all. If it's really important that we know what's going on, the Force will find a way to tell us," Anakin soothingly replies. "In the meantime, we have enough things to worry about - like finishing our meal and getting down to the landing deck, in time!"

Shaking his head slightly, a small smile tugging at his lips, Obi-Wan hastily reassures him, "I'm eating, Anakin, truly, I am! I don't wish to call down the wrath of Healer Bant on our heads any more than do you!"

"Good! Here - have another helping, then," Anakin laughs, reaching out to drop another generous spoonful into first Obi-Wan's plate and then his own. "Best to keep Bant happy, since it'll probably be awhile before we get back to Coruscant. We don't want her worrying unnecessarily, now do we?"

Obi-Wan simply shakes his head while giving voice to what most would consider a long-suffering sigh (though Anakin knows, from the glint in his eyes and the humor and appreciation pulsing along the bond, that it's only a mock sigh) before digging his fork into the mound of food.

Obi-Wan simply shakes his head while giving voice to what most would consider a long-suffering sigh (though Anakin knows, from the glint in his eyes and the humor and appreciation pulsing along the bond, that it's only a mock sigh) before digging his fork into the mound of food.

Not long afterwards, enough food consumed to satisfy Anakin that surely even Bant will be satisfied that they have eaten enough, Obi-Wan retrieves the datapad before gathering up their used dishes to place in the sink (the cleaning droids will see to them, as well as to the rest of the suite, after they have gone) and then covers the remainder of the casserole dish to tuck it away for safekeeping in the freezer while Anakin double-checks to make absolutely sure that everything they should need for this mission has already been packed and carried down to the landing deck, to be loaded on board whichever ship they will be traveling in. Obi-Wan finds himself sitting idle at the kitchen table, then, with approximately half a standard hour until he even needs to begin to worry about it being time to leave the Temple and nothing else to do except wait. He is frowning slightly and checking the chrono, half convinced that he must have misjudged the time, somehow, when Anakin returns to the room with his head ducked down so that his posture all but radiates hesitancy and nervousness, his hands tucked securely out of sight behind his back.

"Anakin? Is there something that you wanted?" Obi-Wan asks, making his voice as gentle and as leading as possible, able to feel an increasing amount of uneasiness and anxiety leaking out along the bond from behind the tightest shielding Anakin has attempted to put in place around his thoughts and emotions for days and concerned that he may have inadvertently done or said something wrong, to make Anakin both feel the need to shield himself so much and yet also feel so much worry that he almost might as well have not bothered trying to shield in the first place.

"There's - there's something I've been wanting to say to you - well, to try to explain to you, really - and I - I wanted to give you something, too. Give it to you properly, I mean. And return something to you, if you decide that you want it," Anakin explains, after a few moment's hesitation, with downcast eyes and enough stammering to convince Obi-Wan that Anakin really is seriously concerned about how he might react to whatever it is that Anakin is trying to bring up. The longer he talks, the more agitated and uncertain he seems to become, his whole face turning an almost violent shade of red, the blush extending down his throat and vanishing into this collar (flushing far more deeply and completely than Obi-Wan can remember seeing him do in a good long while), and a small, fine tremor gradually taking hold of him until he is half simply fidgeting in place and half actually trembling, as though shaking with actual fear. "I - I'm not even sure if it'll mean anything to you, but I've hated keeping silent about it," he adds, looking up at Obi-Wan with an expression of acute misery, "and after all that's happened, I just couldn't justify keeping quiet about it anymore, Master, no matter how afraid I might be that it could upset you or cause you to think badly of me. I just - I really don't want to keep this a secret, any longer," he finally concludes, his head hanging low and voice having grown so small and hesitant and ashamed that only Obi-Wan's better than normal (even for a Jedi) hearing allows him to understand the final few words.

Nonplused by Anakin's obvious agitation, entirely clueless as to what Anakin might be referring to, and therefore rather at a loss as to what to do or say, Obi-Wan finally carefully replies, his voice just as calm and open and loving as he can make it, "Anakin, I thought we had agreed that I was no longer your Master."

"This - this reflects on a time long before that decision, though," Anakin only explains in that same small and shame-filled voice that is almost too quiet to be heard, his head, if anything, somehow managing to bow a little bit lower.

After a few moments of thought, Obi-Wan responds first by flooding the bond with his unquestioning love and then by observing, "Be that as it may, I am still no longer your Master now, love. And in any case, I rather doubt that it is can be so bad as all that, whatever you may think, Anakin," doing his best both to calm Anakin with his open, accepting attitude and to remind him, both with his gentle, reassuring voice and his unshielded heart, that he loves him and will always love him, no matter what.

But Anakin only gives a wild shake of his head and says, in an odd, half-strangled voice that barely sounds like him at all, "You - you may want to change your mind, about that last bit."

"Anakin - "

"Look, before you decide!" Anakin cuts him off with a cry, bringing his hands out from behind his back and thrusting them forward, all but throwing the contents of his hands at Obi-Wan in his haste and desperation to finish whatever it is he is trying to do, before his nerve can utterly fail him.

Obi-Wan, startled, takes the object thrust at him reflexively, catching the all but thrown item in his hands and staring down at it curiously. It is a small item, an oblong shape not much longer in size than one of his hands, from wrist to the tip of his longest finger, perhaps not quite a third again as wide across as the width of his palm at its narrowest point, and about half as deep as it is wide, of a pale ivory color oddly reminiscent of bleached bone but for the high luster of a buffed shine. Looking down at it, Obi-Wan at first notices only that this object is smooth and ever so slightly rounded, as though it has been polished by the action of years of either continuous running water or else unrelenting scouring wind. A slightly closer look, though, reveals that the item is not truly one solid piece, in actuality being made up of what appears to be many variously shaped and sized and obviously hand-carved smaller pieces, all cleverly fitted together like the pieces of a puzzle, made so as to fit so perfectly, so tightly, that nothing holds them together but for the presence of all of the surrounding pieces and the joins between all of those various pieces are perceptible only as a deliberate pattern of all but imperceptibly fine traceries, visible and ever so slightly tangible to Force-heightened senses but otherwise seeming little more than the faintest of patterns, like the grain in a piece of wood. Staring in unabashed astonishment at that almost impossibly fine design and the myriad smaller pieces that make up the object, Obi-Wan realizes, with a start, why that pale, highly glossed material looks so familiar, and almost drops the item in his shock. He is holding in his hands an object of incalculable worth, not just in terms of time and effort but of actual composition, on the planet that gave birth to this beautiful little puzzle box, for each and every one of those hand-carved and fitted pieces is a snippet (some nearly as small as a human child's fingernail; some as large as a human eye; but none any larger across than five centimeters, at the very most) of the ludicrously rare japor ivory wood that can be found only on Tatooine, and that means that Anakin must have spent almost all of his near decade on Tatooine gathering the necessary materials and planning and then creating this little treasure box.

Suddenly almost afraid to find whatever small item or items Anakin must have squirreled away within such a treasure, Obi-Wan finds himself hesitating, his fingers holding carefully and rigidly in place, having instinctively sought after and found the pressure points on the clever little puzzle box that will allow its cleverly fitted layers upon layers of fitted pieces to crack open upon a given line of pressure, pieces rising and shifting and falling away to let the box slide back a part of its outermost layers without shattering the carefully arrangement of its pieces, letting a part of it fall away and open to reveal its possessions in such a manner as to allow just as easy a fitting back together of its parts and pieces, a jigsaw reforming itself along the same spidering lines of pressure and fault until the puzzle is whole once more. Obi-Wan has seen puzzle boxes similar to this one before, among the prized possessions of a few wealthy and slightly eccentric individuals who value novelty and elegance of composition over sheer practicality of design for their jewelry boxes and cases, and he understands the concept that allows such a seeming impossibility as the opening and closing of such an object. He knows that he can crack the puzzle apart if he were to press just so at just thus and such points on the box. And yet still he hesitates to do it, suddenly unsure if finding out whatever it is that has Anakin so worried is really such a good idea as all that. But the amount of sheer agitation pouring out from Anakin along the bond increases to an almost painful intensity as Obi-Wan continues to simply stand there, unmoving, looking down at the little puzzle box, and in the end that decides him. Whatever it is that Anakin has hidden away in this little jewel box represents a fear great enough on Anakin's part to overwhelm his ability to trust to Obi-Wan's ability to love him, and however much the revelation of that secret may end up hurting Obi-Wan, it can't possibly hurt him any more than it is already hurting Anakin. And so, with a quiet sigh, Obi-Wan gives in and trips the pressure points, carefully cracking the box open.

By the time the pieces finish sliding apart, he has so thoroughly managed to steel himself against something awful that for several long moments Obi-Wan's mind can't make any sense out of the information that his eyes are reporting to him. Eventually, though, his mind acknowledges the sight of a slender coil of braid the color of bright amber, fitted all around with an elaborate but seemingly spider-web delicate tracery of diamond-strung gold, that gem-spangled framework transforming what would have otherwise been a simple keepsake into a surprisingly beautiful, if somewhat unusual, piece of jewelry, a supple necklace coiled in about itself almost as if it were a living creature. He knows whose braid it is: he recognizes the yellow band, at the top, that he had applied to the braid almost immediately after choosing to take that braid's owner as his Padawan learner; he remembers that oddly narrow green band there near the middle of the braid, which he had been forced to fight with the braid's owner to get him to accept and so had eventually arrived at the compromise of a narrower band; and he remembers the contrasting easy acceptance of the regularly sized blue and dark, blood red bands, there at the end, which they had both known had more than been earned by the wearer of them. Yellow the top, signifying a new beginning, the becoming of a Padawan learner. Green, signifying strength in the Living Force. Blue, signifying adeptness in mechanics. And a deep blood red, a darkly saturated color signifying the wearer's status as a pilot of exceptional skill. All things that describe the one who had worn them, Anakin Skywalker, and all markers that had proclaimed his skills to the Temple at large.

The braid is even still bearing the bright bead Obi-Wan had given Anakin for his sixteenth birthday - a carefully hand-carved oblong prism of brilliant blue-green crystal, a peace-offering made to compromise between declaring its wearer's strength in the Living Force and practical aptitude for all things mechanical - riding halfway between that narrow band of green and that wider band of blue, flashing at first green in the light and then blue, as Obi-Wan's hands tremble and the angle of the light striking it changes. The fingers of his left hand twitch, upon seeing that, remembering the feel of that braid, the silken slide of that plait, the slight weight of that gem as it would fit itself naturally against his palm, whenever his fingers would wind themselves about in that braid, and recalling, also, many a playful tug upon that braid during the time it which it had been worn, a period of time totaling just over twelve and a half years. Yes, his hands are familiar with this braid and his mind knows it, as well, almost as intimately as he would know a part of himself, so much so that the dazzling fitting of diamond and gold transforming the braid into necklace seems strange and alien, like a bit of misplaced or borrowed finery. Still, he knows that the braid had been transformed, thus, into a bit of jewelry, odd though the result may still look to his eyes. He is familiar enough with the transformation not to be put off from recognizing the braid. What is next to it, in the box, though . . . what is coiled up around that bright, beatified braid, close and tight as a lover . . . Obi-Wan's eyes and mind simply refuse to make sense out of it, at first, no matter how long or how hard he gazes upon it.

The slender coil is almost half again as long as the Padawan braid of Anakin Skywalker and at first glance would seem to be oddly plain, in contrast. There is a band of yellow, at the top, signifying the choosing of its owner as a Padawan, and a flame-colored oblong bead, perhaps the width of four rather slender fingers below it, the bright scarlet red (in contrast to the deeper and much darker crimson red of the gifted pilot) in this case signifying that the Padawan wearing it has started down the path towards gaining both knowledge and the wisdom necessary to understand how to best use that knowledge in service of both the Order, the galaxy, and the Force. Another four fingers below that bead is a band of bright, almost metallic amber-gold, a symbol proclaiming that its wearer is highly proficient in the use of both a lightsaber and at least two other dissimilar weapons (traditionally, a tool geared more for self-defense and a weapon designed wholly for attack; specifically, the lariat and several different varieties of throwing knives, a skill picked up after a few years of contact with Quinlan Vos and his slightly paranoid, you never know when you might need a low-tech weapon or three mentality, a quality instilled in him by his own somewhat shadow-bound Master). Another four fingers further along, near to the center of the braid, is another hand-carved bead, only this one is opaline rather than crystalline and is predominately a mixture of straightforward, cool periwinkle and of palely blushing, almost ethereal milky lilac that shades in some places towards a dusky rose, the overall effect being that of a color that is close to but not quite a light shade of amethyst - purple being the sign of strength in the Unifying Force, white being the sign of a healer, blue signifying aptitude for mechanics, and the hardly ever seen rose color being the symbol of a Jedi visionary, one with a true aptitude for plumbing the depths of both the possible futures and the forgotten past.

When his eyes eventually come to that bead and his mind finally adjusts to what it is that he is seeing, Obi-Wan Kenobi's breath will seize painfully in his lungs until the thunder of his heartbeat roars in his ears and his head swims with the dizzying sound as he remembers how, for years after the gifting of that bead, his mind had flatly refused to recognize the significance of those ghostly hints of other colors in amongst the lavender, and how, even when he had finally come to plainly see the obvious tinges of white and blue and rose, it had merely inspired an agony of confusion and hurt in his heart and mind, thinking as he had that his Master had thought him fickle, a wasteful mix of potential but largely unrealized powers, not strong enough or practiced enough in any one area for one predilection to dominate clearly. For the moment, though, Obi-Wan simply continues to stare, unseeing, down at the object that is, impossible though it may seem, his own Padawan braid. For though he does not yet realize it, the second object within the japor puzzle box is indeed his somehow miraculously recovered and preserved severed Padawan braid, as Obi-Wan would immediately know if he could yet truly focus on it. Approximately four fingers below the oddity of that pale opalescent bead is a familiar band of dark blood-red, the color signifying the study and attainment of superior piloting skills. And four fingers below that is yet another bright band of almost metallic burnished amber-gold, the rare awarding of a second golden band signifying a Padawan's attainment of mastery over a second form of lightsaber combat (in addition to the mastery of form one, Shii-Cho, which is taught to and mastered by all younglings, while still in the crèche) as well as mastery of another twinned set of offensive and defensive weapons - Obi-Wan having accidentally defeated his Master in a very public bout of lightsaber sparring by demonstrating not only his thorough understanding of Master Qui-Gon's preferred mode of combat, the acrobatic Ataru, but also of the extremely powerful and powerfully unpredictable form of Juyo, the unfinished seventh form of lightsaber combat which, at that point in time, Mace Windu had still been in the process of finishing and perfecting into his Vaapad; and having, by that time, also demonstrated not only a frightening proficiency in the art of the brewing of poisons and their remedies (a talent half inspired by his long association with the then Padawan Healer-apprentice Bant and half brought about through his continued extensive contact with Quinlan Vos and his increasingly shadowy talents), but also the innate skills of a master strategist, someone skilled enough in the art of planning that this ability is, in essence, a weapon.

Four fingers below that second golden band is yet another oddity, one far more obvious than the milky opalescent bead near the center of the braid. An apparently narrow band of an almost golden cream, bisected by an even narrower band of stark black, followed by an equally narrow band of milky blue-white, an even narrower dividing band of rich, dark chocolate, a less narrow band of a green so pale as to almost appear white, and topped by an oblong smoky amber-brown topaz bead with just a hint of fire at its heart, marks the end of the slender plait, which terminates in a tail of unbraided hair perhaps the width of six thin fingers. Now, while black is a regular color in the coding of abilities and skills demonstrated by the bands and beads permissible for a Padawan's braid - a hue demonstrating both the successful undertaking of a covert mission, one requiring direct subterfuge, disguise, and perhaps even what amounts to outright invisibility for its achievement, and a demonstrated aptitude for just that kind of undercover operation - cream and brown are not such standardized markers. Though there is a general set of color coding loosely adhered to in the robes of Jedi Knights and Masters - lighter hues of tan and cream usually marking out those who are the diplomats, the Watchers and Sentinels of the Order, while darker shades of the same tans and brown generally mark the Order's warriors and declared Guardians; shades of green and white signifying those who are more contemplative than active in their use of the Force, the Consulars and Historians of the Order; shades of blue and white most often being adopted by the Healers of the Order; and a mix of black and either yellow or gold marking both the artificers, those who are the engineers and inventors as well as the keepers of practical knowledge within the Order (as with its researchers and Librarians), as well as those who act as the Order's Investigators, the highly adaptive and sometimes slightly roguish eyes-and-ears of the Order out within the galaxy at large - this color scheme is more a matter of generalization than of actual uniform, and the colors of this identifying scheme do not translate wholesale to the color symbology of the bands and beads permissible for a Padawan's braid.

In this case, though, a very determined (and somewhat roguish and irregular) Master had deemed that his current Padawan was in need of a personally tailored and specifically focused recognition of his skills, one that would also serve as a highly deliberate and outwardly targeted message of both warning and praise to others within the order. Towards this end, that Master had actually created a much wider than normal multi-colored band and bead combination that he had commanded his Padawan add to his braid and, afterwards, firmly (though without ever explaining his reasons for doing so) and simply proclaimed to all who asked (and there had been many, even if this addition to his Padawan braid had only come about a little over a year before he had finally ceased to wear the braid) his Padawan's right to wear that peculiar band and bead combo, which altogether (including the oblong bead, which is roughly the same size as both the fire-colored crystal bead and the strange opaline almost lavender bead) is just over thrice as wide as a normal single band or bead for a Padawan braid would be, almost twice as wide as one of the sometimes twinned end bands would be, in effect so large that it would be wholly impossible for anyone seeing it to not notice its presence, as the smaller, single bands or beads decorating a Padawan's braid are sometimes overlooked at first glance - a fact that had caused its wearer quite a bit of pain and aggravation, though he had stoically striven to silently bear both the open curiosity and teasing (sometimes good-natured but just as often cruel, because of incomprehension and anger) taunts of both his fellow Padawans and the other initiates in the crèche and both the bemused and curious mystification and the often outright disapproval and uncomprehending disdain of the various Knights and Masters of the Order.

Though Qui-Gon had never bothered to explain, any more than he had bothered to explain the central bead on Obi-Wan's braid, with its mix of white and blue and rose and lavender, this irregular and highly personalized mix of colors had actually been meant to proclaim both Obi-Wan's overlooked (by the High Council, which had to actually approve any Padawan's readiness for Knighthood and approve a scheduling of the Trials, before that Padawan's Master could even really speak to said Padawan of that preparedness for Knighthood) readiness for his Trials as well as what Qui-Gon's considered to be Obi-Wan's inherent nature, as a potential full member of the Jedi Order. Cream, with a touch of gold, both for diplomacy and artifice; a dark, earthy shade of brown, for the warrior's arts; a delicate blue so palely colorless as to nearly be white, for the heart and soul of a healer, though not the practiced skills of an actual trained Healer; a fragile, delicate touch of green in white, for one with the mind and skills of a scholar and a predilection towards contemplation, despite the training and skills of a gifted warrior and the instincts of a healer; jet black, for the easy ability of one able to slip among the shadows, dance unscathed and oftentimes entirely unnoticed through their ranks, and return from them laden with information, as if born to the practice of spying and information gathering; and, in the smokey heart of that topaz bead, with its mix of amber, brown, and gold, a hint of the unknown, a ghostly spark of red, warning all with the eyes to see of another unnamed quality, unknown or perhaps simply forgotten among the Jedi, some elusive but ever-present basic characteristic of mutability or adeptness at adapting easily to changing circumstances, whatever need might arise, serving in some way to balance out all of the seemingly contradictory different skills and abilities and predilections so that they were not, in the final weighing, actually inconsistent or mutually opposed to one another at all, instead simply rising to the fore at need and then sliding back into the shadows to complement and complete each other and wait until the next time they might be called upon as necessary skills for survival.

Due to Qui-Gon's lack of explanation, the gift of this personalized combination of bands and bead, which had been meant as a quiet (if slightly uneasy, given Qui-Gon's own discomfort and lack of trust, regarding certain of those acknowledged abilities and skills) compliment, had, in actuality, caused nothing but trouble and confusion and misery for its recipient. Most Padawan learners will not receive more than four marks of merit, through the awarding of bands and beads, before their Trials. To see a Padawan with five such symbols of worth is almost as remarkable an occurrence as the rare sight of a Padawan with a braid bearing two different bands of gold. To see a Padawan with more than five acknowledgments of recognized ability is to know one of those remarkably talented, toweringly powerful, rare, wise souls who are destined to either one day become one of the legendary champions of the Order among the peoples of the galaxy or else to gain a seat upon the High Council, enormous feats of worth that are sometimes accomplished at one and the same time, though not always (as such Masters as Dooku and Qui-Gon prove). To see a Padawan with not only more than five such awards of merit of but also two separate bands of gold is all but unheard of within the Order. To have a Padawan with seven distinctly separate marks of worth, including both two different bands of gold as well as a seventh mark of talent that actually incorporates two recognizably different types of acknowledgments for ability as well as two different groupings of colored bands and an overall color scheme that is incompatible with the accepted symbolism for specific accomplishments and abilities among Padawan learners, is both so improbable and incomprehensible as to be faintly ludicrous (and, in some case, actually offensive) to a majority of those within the Order.

Though Obi-Wan had taught himself (after a couple of years of constant strife and much unwarranted flak and abuse from his fellows among the other Padawan learners as well as the initiates in the crèche and the various Knights and Masters of the Order) to essentially vanish in the long shadow cast by his Master, the decorations of his Padawan braid had (after his eighteenth birthday and the awarding of first that strange, opaline bead and then the dark blood-red band of a pilot) increasingly made this trick of his much more difficult, as those who actually caught notice of him always inevitably seemed to see his braid, and that kind of notice constantly garnered him far more attention that he would have liked, almost all of it of entirely the wrong sort. (It had been the memory of this unwanted and often ill-humored attention, always lurking in the back of his mind, that had kept Obi-Wan from giving Anakin another mark of merit, though he had more than once been sorely tempted to add a bright golden bead to that amber braid, to acknowledge Anakin's growing facility with weapons, as well as his strong ability with the lightsaber.) He had nearly wept when, not long after the twenty-first anniversary of the date he'd been given as most probable for his birth, he had not only betrayed himself by defeating his Master, in that open practice bout in the arena, but been called out for it and praised by a openly admiring Mace Windu, who had all but publically demanded that Qui-Gon award Obi-Wan with a second band of gold for his skill. He actually had gone to his room and wept, tears of pain and frustration, when, perhaps two-thirds of the year following his twenty-third birthday, Qui-Gon had one day simply presented him with that seventh sign of merit, firmly insisting on the peculiar combination of bands and bead, though he offered no real explanation as to why he was insisting or how he had arrived at that particular combination and Obi-Wan had performed no recent extraordinary (either good or bad) feats that might have actually warranted such a remarkable response from his Master.

It is a stray bit of light, catching with eye-watering brightness on one of the facets of that odd, smokey topaz and reflecting directly into Obi-Wan's eyes, that causes him to suddenly need to blink back tears, now . . . the result of which is that his eyes finally focus on the contents of the jewel box and his mind makes sense of what he is seeing, enough so that he understands that the second, longer, slender Padawan braid - appearing at first to be perhaps half a shade or so darker than wheat when it is not yet quite ripe, a slightly darker, duller, earthier tone than that of antique gold, the hue that wheat normally takes on just as it is ready to be cut, but only deceptively so, as only a moment later is proven when the light catches it, just /so/, and the braid flares to life, in a corona of eye-catching brightness that gleams like purely refined copper ore in the intense heat of a smelting fire, once again proving that the braid is his, for he well remembers the effect of light on small amounts of his hair, when directed along certain angles or even simply present in certain wavelengths - is his own, impossible though it seems. Shock unhinges Obi-Wan's knees, then, and he collapses in a boneless (and oddly graceful) huddle in the floor, his hands shaking so hard that he drops the puzzle box, braids and all, into his lap. For several long moments afterwards, he merely remains there, staring down at the two braids, looking directly at them but in truth seeing beyond them, remembering -

- the heat of the melting pit, on Naboo, beating at him relentlessly, slowing him down as he rushes to Qui-Gon's side, just as soon as the Sith has fallen, to lift his Master's head and shoulders and cradle him, with infinite care and tenderness, in his lap, already prepared to fling himself, the entirety of his power, of his own being, into the fight to preserve breath and reinstate health in his beloved Master's broken body when Qui-Gon suddenly reaches out and forestalls him, telling him out loud that it is too late for that. Opening himself, the fullness of his feeling, the absolutely unhesitating nature of his understanding and his acceptance of the situation, to Obi-Wan along their hitherto mostly Master-Padawan bond to silence his protests against Qui-Gon's gasped declaration that it is already too late for him, Qui-Gon proceeds first to dazzle him with the blinding light of his own love for Obi-Wan and then draw forth his grieving Padawan's heart into a binding promise to train and to care for Anakin Skywalker (the young former slave from Tatooine, already so obviously powerful in the Force that Qui-Gon is honestly certain that he must be the Chosen One of Jedi prophecies) now that Qui-Gon knows that he will not, himself, be able to fulfill his pledge to the boy's mother to see to his welfare and training. Unable to refuse his Master's final request, Obi-Wan helplessly acquiesces, agreeing to Qui-Gon's demand and promising to train Anakin, and, for a wonder, in response, the Master-Padawan bond all but sings of Qui-Gon's love, his Master pouring all of himself, all of his love and his hope for Obi-Wan, out along the training bond, apparently unable to find strength enough to speak of this love aloud, as the life-force ebbs swiftly from his body.

Thus, even as he speaks of the balance that Anakin will bring to the Force, as the Chosen One, Qui-Gon radiates love and satisfied pride for Obi-Wan, that he has conquered his faults, remembering and holding true to his training, and has won the battle against the Sith even while he, the great and vaunted Jedi Master, had managed only to be so unmindful of his duty that he had nearly succeeded in dooming the whole mission. Shocked at this praise from Qui-Gon (which feels so wholly undeserved), Obi-Wan simply weeps helplessly as he cradles his now swiftly dying Master in his arms, silently swearing to him, along the now wide-open bond, that he has been a far better Master than Obi-Wan has ever deserved and that he had only been able to defeat the Sith because of Qui-Gon's training, even as he promises again, out loud, that he will look after Anakin, all the while mutely begging Qui-Gon to please rest and recover and recant, to live to take that promise back, so that Qui-Gon can be a Master to the young boy he has spoken for and recklessly brought so very far away from all that he has known. As the light dies irrevocably from Qui-Gon's eyes, though, Obi-Wan hears a despairing cry and a rush of running footfalls, and understands that he is going to be called upon to fulfill a part of his promise much earlier than he could have ever expected he would have to, because of course it is Anakin, racing headlong and heedless of the electron gates, into the melting pit, throwing himself at Qui-Gon, instinctively drawing upon the Force to make himself to run faster than any human child so small should ever be able to run - though of course it is not, in the end, quite quick enough to do any great good.

Silently, sorrowfully, driven both by necessity and his promise, Obi-Wan carefully turns and slips away from his Master's body, rising to his feet to catch Anakin as he comes, half falling and half running, into the melting pit, staggering up to where the Jedi Master had fallen only a bare handful of moments after the life has fully fled from Qui-Gon's body, still weeping brokenly himself even as he cradles the frantic and hysterical boy to him. Turning so that he is standing completely upright, with Anakin in his arms, so that the child's face is directed away from the sight of Qui-Gon's body and the boy's legs dangle free of the floor, so that he can't try to turn back around to face that sight again, Obi-Wan instinctively begins to make a running litany of hushing sounds, interspersed with a half-crooned patter of remarks that counter Anakin's claims that this is all somehow his fault and reassure him that there was nothing he could have done to prevent what happened to Qui-Gon. Though Obi-Wan has, until now, taken notice of the child only insofar as Anakin (with his untrained and enormous potential in the Force, at such an age) has represented either a potential threat to his Master, specifically, and the Order, in general, or else yet another source of responsibility that Obi-Wan has been forced to shoulder from time to time, as those who'd promised to see to the boy's needs had, for one reason or another, failed, time and again, to follow through on their vows and all but abandoned the boy (not only leaving him at loose ends but oftentimes actively abandoning him in a moment of need), in this moment Obi-Wan treats Anakin with just as much care and consideration as he imagines he would have needed if, in those first few heady days after he had been acknowledged as Qui-Gon Jinn's bound Padawan learner, fate had chosen to intervene in the personage of a Sith in order to violently and irrevocably steal Qui-Gon away from him again.

He does not try to dismiss the young boy's grief or even truly to lessen it; instead, Obi-Wan turns aside the child's attempts at self-recrimination in order to draw out and share in his grief openly, in that way soothing him with his shared pain, which is easily the equal of Anakin's own. He does not try to keep track of time, instead simply sharing openly, pouring out his own grief, weeping as he cradles the boy against him and Anakin gradually begins to hug him back, his small arms and eventually even his legs coming to wrap themselves securely around Obi-Wan's slight form, clinging to him with a desperate purpose as Anakin continues to sob broken-heartedly but eventually ceases to try to blame himself (at least out loud) for what has happened to Qui-Gon. In this way, Anakin Skywalker gradually comes to cry himself out, until at last he slips into a state of exhaustion so total that the barest whisper of a Force-suggestion from Obi-Wan is sufficient to send him into a profoundly deep slumber. That leaves Obi-Wan with just enough time to collect himself - switching Anakin's laxly sleeping form over to his right arm, shifting him up on his right hip, so that Obi-Wan can free up a hand to wipe off his own face, erasing the tracks of his own tears - steeling himself until all emotion flees away before his iron resolve, and calmly begin the process of dealing with Qui-Gon's death. When three of the Naboo fighter pilots who had witnessed Anakin's destruction of the droid control ship and followed him to try to catch him when he landed, so that they could thank and congratulate him for his victory against the Trade Federation flagship, finally lead Captain Panaka and Padmé Amidala down into the melting pit, Obi-Wan is both dry-eyed and composed enough to be chillily distant.

He has one bad moment, when Padmé Amidala reaches out to him - either to try to take Anakin or to try to enfold them both in a hug, he's never quite sure later on which it might have been - and he automatically draws back and takes a protective stance, shifting Anakin to his other arm so that his right hand can find his Master's lightsaber. Luckily, the unexpected trilling of Captain Panaka's comlink distracts the attention of the five Nabooians at the critical moment, when Obi-Wan's hand reaches the lightsaber, and by the time their attention has shifted back to him, he is simply holding onto Anakin with both of his arms and a forbidding look upon his face that makes Padmé stop reaching for them and instead simply offer, in an achingly earnest voice, "Obi-Wan, Bendu, I swear my handmaidens and I can look after Anakin for you the rest of this day, easily enough. You will need to contact your Order about what has happened here, and it will surely be easier for you to have privacy, while you are doing so. Please. Let me help."

After a few moments of consideration, Obi-Wan gives her a small, icily formal and unforgivingly correct bow of his head, and then carefully detaches the sleeping boy from his hold upon him, handing Anakin over into her reaching arms even while he is still unwinding the length of his Padawan braid from the tiny clutching fist of Anakin's left hand, delicately prying loose each small finger from around the banded and beaded length of his glimmering braid . . .

His eyes now staring sightlessly through that same banded and beaded length of braid, Obi-Wan whispers, his voice so low and strange that he hardly sounds like himself at all, "How did you come to keep this, Anakin? I ordered my Padawan braid burned on the funeral pyre with Qui-Gon. I let you hold it for awhile, after I had given you the beginning of your own Padawan braid and let you cut off my own, but eventually I had to take it away from you, to place it into Padmé Amidala's hands, myself, with the orders that it be put into his hands, on the pyre. What did you do, to get this?"

In the time when Obi-Wan's thoughts have been in the past, millions of miles away from the here and now, Anakin has gotten down on his knees before him, penitently sitting back on his heels, with his head bowed shamefully low. Obi-Wan would hardly have to raise his eyes up at all, in order to see Anakin kneeling down before him, and yet he does not bother to lift his gaze from the two Padawan braids in the puzzle box in his lap, not even seeming to notice either the weight of Aankin's desperate, searching gaze or the increasing feeling of terror along the bond, as Anakin continues to wait for some sign of acknowledgment and Obi-Wan fails to give it, for the moment simply too caught up in his own painful memories to notice Anakin's increasing anguish. At last, after waiting several more agonizing moments for a sign that never comes, Anakin's shoulders slump in defeat and he whispers back, brokenly, miserably, "I - I couldn't just let it be burned. Your beautiful braid - Master, it just didn't deserve to be destroyed! It felt - just wrong/, somehow, to let it burn. And I - I - I just /couldn't. I couldn't let it happen," he explains, his fearful but still hopefully searching gaze trained fixedly on Obi-Wan, hoping against hope for a sign that Obi-Wan understands, that he might even, possibly, forgive him for this, someday.

"Not why, Anakin. How?" Obi-Wan merely asks in return, his almost absent-minded attempt to redirect Anakin's thoughts and words only serving to wring a low sound of inchoate misery out of Anakin. Not seeming to notice, Obi-Wan only presses him again, after a several long moments of silence, "Anakin? I need to know, please. How did you do this?"

Anakin seems to collapse slowly in on himself at that, and when he finally answers he is all but crying with his misery, gasping as though he's been punched in the stomach and unable at first to produce anything louder than an almost inaudible whisper as he says, "You - you're really mad at me for this, aren't you? Master, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Master, please, please, please, don't be mad at me for this forever! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to do anything wrong. I wasn't trying to disobey. I just - it really did seem wrong, to let it burn like that. Master - the way you'd explained it to me, just a little earlier, the actual significance of the braid - a Padawan braid is just so important, it means so much, and to let yours just be burned up, to let it be destroyed like that, when you'd been growing it for so long and it was a sign of your dedication and loyalty to Master Qui-Gon - I just couldn't. Master, I couldn't/, honestly, I tried, but it just felt wrong and I /couldn't just let it burn like that!" Anakin actually is crying as he finally finishes his desperate rambling (and more than a little disjointed) attempt at an explanation, the words tumbling out of him with increasing rapidity and fervor and volume, as though they have been bottled up inside him somewhere for years, waiting for release, pressure building up behind them until finally, now that they have begun to break loose, there is so much drive behind the torrent of them that they can no longer be stopped. A fear of Obi-Wan's anger over his saving of the braid has had well over thirteen years to build up within Anakin (the act of saving the braid and then not admitting so to Obi-Wan immediately representing, in a real way, Anakin's first truly duplicitous and even dishonest act within their bonding as first Master and Padawan and then partners in the Force), and unfortunately Obi-Wan's shocked inattention and near-silence regarding Anakin's reasons first for essentially stealing the braid, in order to rescue it, and then not telling anyone else about it strikes Anakin of the kind of wholly deceptive quietude that normally indicates an emotion close to actual fury in Obi-Wan. Fortunately, the sound of his sobbing - the hurt, muffled sound of a terrified child trying very hard to be quiet but not quite succeeding because he is already half-certain that he's finally done something so unforgivable that the action will end up destroying both his world and his life - finally breaks through Obi-Wan's shock, the incompletely stifled noise of a strangled half-sob making him start visibly and finally look up at Anakin's huddled and obviously miserable form.

Obviously caught off guard by what he is only now seeing, Obi-Wan begins to declare, "Stars' end, Anakin, I'm not angry with you - " but his startled words only seem to make Anakin even more desperately frightened, as first one and then another and another loud, wracking sob tears loose from him. Eyes widening in shock and alarm, Obi-Wan exclaims, "Anakin, please, don't! Honestly, I am not angry with you, love! I would never have asked you how you'd done it, if I were angry with you," he continues, in as reasonable and reassuring a voice as possible. But Anakin, apparently, is beyond hearing him, his sobs growing louder, wilder, and more frequent, now, and finally, with a small sigh, Obi-Wan gathers in a touch of the Force and declares, in an unyielding and commanding voice, "Anakin Skywalker, listen to me now, please." When Anakin is looking up at him and Obi-Wan knows, despite the tears that are still welling up and silently trickling down his flushed and painfully drawn face, that he is indeed both listening and hearing him, he continues, firmly declaring, "I am not angry with you, love. Point of fact, I am as far from being angry with you as you could possibly imagine. You simply caught me entirely off my guard. I never could have imagined that you could have managed to do something as wonderful as this, Anakin. You don't know how often I've regretted that decision, about burning my braid with Qui-Gon. A Padawan's braid is not only a living symbol of the binding promise and loyalty between a Padawan and a Master, it is the sign of that Padawan's commitment to the Jedi Order. I thought that without Qui-Gon Jinn there to perform the actual ceremony of cutting the braid - therefore cutting my last remaining tie to the uncertainties of the past, severing that last visible connection to childish fears and ambitions alike - the braid and its severance no longer had any meaning. I thought that since Master Yoda had, in his wisdom, declared that losing Qui-Gon in a battle that I had gone on to win was my Knighthood Trial, that it meant that I should leave behind all that I had that I could that he had owned a part in, including the Padawan braid that I had earned only because he had chosen me. I . . . not thinking very clearly, at the time. When we returned to the Temple to find the boxes Master Dooku had left for us . . . Anakin, I don't know if you saw, but one of those boxes had both Master Dooku's and Master Qui-Gon's cut Padawan braids in them, and I wanted so badly, when I saw them, to be able to add my own braid, to that collection . . . I wanted so much to be able to leave them all for you, when my time came . . . " Obi-Wan's eyes slip shut for a moment, at that, as if in pain, before he looks back into Anakin's tearful eyes and gives him a smile that is so blazingly bright and happy and so full of love that Anakin soon finds himself first rapidly blinking, to stave off his tears, and then smiling back at Obi-Wan, though perhaps a trifle hesitantly. "This is a wonderful gift, Anakin. This is a gift beyond measure. That is why I kept asking you how in the stars you managed it. I truly wish to know how you did this. I know that I took my braid out of your hands when I turned you back over to Padmé Amidala and her handmaidens, so that you could to go bed for the evening, and I know that I gave the braid to Padmé, with instructions to place it in my Master's hands. I could swear that I saw my Padawan braid wound about Qui-Gon Jinn's hands upon his funeral pyre, as he was burning. What in the name of the Force did you /do/, Anakin, to be able to save this without anyone being the wiser?"

With a slightly tremulous smile, Anakin shyly offers Obi-Wan his right hand, in response, asking him, "Would you like to see?"

"Force, yes. Please," Obi-Wan fervently swears in return, holding up his hand in turn and waiting for Anakin to decide.

With another, slightly stronger smile, Anakin reaches across the distance still remaining between them and takes Obi-Wan's offered hand.

***