Chapter Text
Obi-Wan Kenobi sat in the healing halls feeling distinctly out of place.
He was sitting in one of those hard plastic visitor-chairs, which weren’t exactly designed for comfort, and he’d pulled it back away from the bed. Pushed up against the wall, he was nearly in the corner, out of sight and out of mind. He sat still, as still as he could, so as not to be a distraction, but under his long Jedi sleeves he fiddled with his hands.
That fiddling- he’d seen it in his older self. They really shared mannerisms, and sometimes it was truly uncanny.
Ben was on the bed, pushed up to sit against the wall. He was currently hiding his face in Qui-Gon’s shoulder, and though he’d stopped screaming, his shoulders jerked occasionally with full-body sobs he could not quite contain.
In the past hour, they’d witnessed a total breakdown. Ben had been incoherent, uncooperative- he hadn’t lashed out, exactly, at the people trying to help him, but he’d stopped responding to all outside stimulus. Vokara and Qui-Gon had carried him to the Halls, and Obi-Wan had been right there, and he’d noticed that lingering smell in the hallway as Ben was taken away.
After Melidaan, he knew that death-smell like an old friend. Familiar and terrible, the smell of a corpse was distinctive. Once it was in the hallway, it took hours to disperse.
Prove it, Ben had gasped to Qui-Gon the moment he could speak. Prove you’re really here- prove it-
And Qui-Gon had wrapped him up in his arms, dropping his shields. I’m real, Ben. I’m real.
Obi-Wan could feel it through his own bond with his Master. But he didn’t intrude. Some things were private for a reason, even private from one’s other self.
The fact of the matter remained: Ben had vanished. He knew what he’d seen, and he said as much to his Master.
Ben had been there one moment, talking to Obi-Wan, and gone the next. He’d literally disappeared in front of Obi-Wan’s eyes, fading into nothing. When he’d reappeared in the hallway, only moments later, it had been with a scream of pure horror- as if he’d been dropped into hell itself for a single minute, but that one minute was all it took.
I was- back there, Ben had choked out a few minutes later. The Temple- the Jedi- all gone, all of it- they were dead! They were still dead! It was just the same- like I never left-
They hadn’t been able to get anything else from him, yet, but those few words had been enough. What little explanation they had was more than enough to get Obi-Wan’s mind, already imaginative, turning and turning.
The Force worked in mysterious ways. It had brought them a time-traveler, and Obi-Wan had no trouble believing that was possible, even if he was still unsure of Ben’s intentions. But equally, why should that mean the time-travel only went one way? Ben had materialized in front of Qui-Gon a few days ago, literally dropping out of the sky- and why should that mean he could not then de-materialize?
Obi-Wan would wait for the others to figure it out, to talk amongst themselves and come up with their own theories, but what had happened seemed perfectly clear to him.
It seemed like Ben had somehow managed to go back to his own future. And in that future, nothing had changed, even though it must, even though he’d already begun trying to undo what had gone wrong. The Jedi were still dead.
Obi-Wan sat in the chair and twiddled his thumbs and tried not to think about the heavy weight settling over his shoulders.
He’d seen a lot of death already in his short life. Lots of suffering, pain, to the point that he thought he couldn’t possibly see any more. He’d gone into the war on Melidaan a child and had emerged from it a man- but the speed at which he’d been forced to mature made him feel like he’d outgrown his own limbs. It was as if his entire self was malformed, ill-adjusted- he no longer quite fit in with Padawans his own age, preferring the company of adults.
Sometimes Obi-Wan looked in the mirror and scared himself by what he found there. The eyes looking back at him were wolf-eyes, hunted and ghoulish, especially at night when the memories were too close for comfort. He’d grown used to giving orders, being obeyed. Making snap judgements that got people killed when he was wrong. How was he supposed to come back from that into a life where his friends talked about their crushes, about which classes they were hoping to take, about who’s Master said what.
Obi-Wan saw the wolf-eyes in his other self now. Except they were older, emptier, harder. There had been such a blankness in his eyes, an empty dark stare, that it almost hurt Obi-Wan to look at. The malformed pup had grown into a starving, wretched creature of howling grief.
Ben, his older self had chosen as a name. You will endure this.
Yes, you will, Obi-Wan thought. You will, because you must. As I must, I suppose. Is the future truly written in stone? Is there nothing we can do? Is my family destined for destruction, and am I destined to watch it happen?
It was a soft kind of melancholy that Obi-Wan felt. A sort of disappointed ah, alright then. The Force had told him, hadn’t it? Infinite sadness, it had said all those years ago in the ice cave on Illum. What a prideful heresy it would be, to doubt the words of the Force itself.
He’d been thinking of Ben as a sort of warning from the Force, before this moment. Or- a hope. Hope that he could escape the destiny hanging over him. Ben would fix things, put it right, make sure Obi-Wan’s future led to a happier life, and if he couldn’t, then Obi-Wan himself would be sure not to make Ben’s mistakes.
Now, he wasn’t so sure. About any of it.
*
“I don’t understand. How did this happen? Were you using the Force?”
“Not in the slightest, Master Che.”
Vokara had her hands on either side of Ben’s head, palms against his temples. As she examined him, looking deep within his mind at his mental wounds, Ben focused on holding onto his sanity.
He’d had his breakdown, but one couldn’t panic forever. Eventually rational thought had returned, although it was hanging by the barest of threads. He had a hand clenched around Qui-Gon’s hand, likely hurting him with the force of his grip. But he needed something to hang onto.
If that happens again, he thought hysterically, I’m dragging Qui-Gon with me. Let’s see the Force try to displace him!
Even so, the terror remained, lapping at the edges of his psyche. There had been no warning, no nothing- had it been a trick? A hallucination? But he’d seen and touched and smelled it, and they had smelled it too- and Obi-Wan had confirmed that Ben had literally disappeared!
The tears continued to drip down his face. They wouldn’t stop, though he’d tried. They oozed from his eyes in a steady stream- the bleeding of a mind-wound.
“I don’t understand,” Vokara muttered again. “I’m looking all over- these wounds are closed. Where is it coming from? Where…”
Ben wiped at his face, and sniffed, and his shoulders hitched again. “Maybe,” his voice was hoarse from screaming. “Maybe I’m just- I can’t get myself together, Vokara, maybe it’s not the Force at all.”
“No, I’m sure these are mind-wounds…even if I can’t find them… Their pattern is too recognizable…who can’t you remember, still? What can’t you remember?”
“Aside from the Padawan?” said Qui-Gon, an eyebrow raised.
“Padawan?” said Vokara with newfound alarm. “You can’t remember your own Padawan?”
There was a pause as Ben stared at her.
“Yes?” he questioned. “I thought…didn’t you know that?”
“No,” she breathed, moving her hands back to his temples. “I- I should have realized, of course, with the braid on your wrist…but I didn’t even see a Master/Padawan bond in your mind aside from the one you have with Qui-Gon. Where…?”
“Didn’t even see one?” Ben repeated, with an incredulous laugh. “Vokara, that bond almost killed me. How could you not-?”
“Wait, let me look. I wouldn’t have missed a bond like that…”
She went silent as she looked inside him, skittering over the top of his mind. In order to let her in Ben had needed to put his shields down, which had been very difficult for him to do, and only Qui-Gon’s repeated assurances that he was real had allowed him to do it even for a moment.
The seconds ticked past, all three of them tense. Qui-Gon, holding on. Ben, shaken, trying to keep his mind open. Vokara, searching.
Then she jerked with surprise, brow furrowed.
“Oh,” she said.
Another pause.
“What? What is it?” said Qui-Gon, leaning forward.
But she didn’t respond, eyes glazing over. Ben could feel her presence in his mind, felt it grab onto something internal, delving deeper and deeper until she disappeared from his awareness.
“Vokara?” said Qui-Gon. “Vokara!”
More silence. She appeared to turn to stone, utterly still. Even her breath had arrested in her chest.
Ben was startled to see this, even more so when her assistants rushed up to help her, surrounding him, pressing their fingers to his Force-points. The sensation of several people entering his mind at once was nearly overwhelming (the urge to snap his shields back up was astronomical), but they were in and out in a matter of moments, neatly severing Vokara’s link with him and pulling her away.
She stumbled back, throwing a hand up to her head. Her breath was shallow, shocked.
“Vokara?” said Qui-Gon again, the worry evident in his voice.
“Yes- I- I’m fine,” she muttered, sinking down into the nearest chair. “I’m fine, I promise. Thank you.”
Ben wiped again at his eyes and tried not to think about how she had just gotten lost in his mind. What had happened? Was he dying again?
He put his shields back up immediately, though it took effort. He needed the comfort they provided.
“How could you not know about the Padawan bond?” he questioned.
“I…” said Vokara after several long moments. “It’s a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. Your other bonds, they’re…normal, as far as I can see…they’ve been bleeding, but we closed them, and now they’re healing…”
She shook her head in disbelief. “They were so small, in comparison, that I didn’t see the other one. It’s- these are two different scales. I didn’t see it because I’ve never seen a bond as large as that one. It reaches into your very soul- hell, Ben, it is your soul. It’s like a vine- or a weed- or a set of the largest, thickest chains I’ve ever seen. There are fragments of it everywhere, as if it has been blasted apart…”
“Yes,” whispered Ben, letting that knowledge sink into him. A bond so large it consumed his soul? A single bond?
He remembered the fire and the lava and the screams. Well, that made sense. Though he couldn’t remember who those screams belonged to, he could remember what it felt like to hear them.
It had felt like his soul was ripping itself apart, which, apparently, it was.
“Yes,” he breathed. “We were fighting. He- he ripped it out. I remember that much.”
Vokara stared at him.
“I…thought you knew,” he said weakly.
“Ben, I’m a doctor, and a damn good one at that, but I am not omnipotent. Next time- although there had better not be a next time- please mention these things.”
“Sorry,” said Ben, as more tears slid down his cheeks, and he wiped at them, but, of course, they didn’t stop.
Qui-Gon was staring between the both of them in horrified concern.
“You’re telling me there’s a bond so large that you couldn’t even see it? A single bond? A broken bond?”
“Not broken. Shattered. But yes,” said Vokara.
Qui-Gon looked at Ben, and Ben could see how rapidly he had paled, how much this information had thrown him. Still, his Master tried to lighten the mood. “How is that possible? Did you bond with the Force itself, Ben?”
“I don’t…think so?” said Ben, trying, once again, to remember.
Our bond is weak, he remembered someone saying. We need to strengthen it. Why don’t you want to strengthen it, Obi-Wan? I thought you cared about me.
____, if I give you any more, you will take my entire soul.
Liar. It barely registers on my end. Can’t you make an effort?
Ah, Ben thought to his nameless Padawan. Who were you? Why did I give you so much of myself? Are you, and your bond, connected somehow to all this?
Vokara sighed, frustrated with the lack of answers. “I tried to follow the fragments, see if the wounds from this had closed off on their own. I assumed they did before, since you seemed to be getting better, but whatever has happened today has ripped it all wide open once again. Ben, I followed the broken edges as far as I could. The shattered bond reaches out into the Force. It just seems like... oh, I don’t know.”
She rubbed a hand against her forehead. “All I have are theories. That broken edge trailed off into depths I could not follow. When I tried, I needed to be rescued.”
“How can this be?” said Qui-Gon incredulously. “Have we ever seen something like this before?”
“I don’t know- I need to consult the archives, and probably Jocasta, or maybe even Master Yoda. I’m sorry. I can’t…I can’t recommend a way forward with treatment until we figure out what we’re dealing with. It’s out of my expertise.”
“Thank you,” said Ben, “for trying.”
She patted his arm. “Get some rest. There’s a wound, yes, and honestly it’s quite alarming, but if you were still dying from it you’d already be dead. Cheer up, now.”
It was enough to make him chuckle, a sad, wet kind that had a sob accompanying it. But the mirth was there, for a moment.
“As always, Master, your bedside manners are truly unmatched.”
“That’s right, and don’t you forget it. Alright.” She stood up, clapped her hands. “Qui-Gon, I’ll be in the archives. If the tears stop, he’s free to go home with you, but that’s only because I know exactly where you live and you can call me if anything happens.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Obi-Wan from the corner of the room, jumping up. Ben startled- he’d forgotten his younger self was there. “Two heads are better than one, that sort of thing.”
“As you wish, young Padawan,” said Vokara. “Come, there’s no time to lose.”
The two of them made for the exit.
Ben, for his part, sank back into the pillows. He wiped at his eyes again, unsuccessfully.
Qui-Gon, though he looked disturbed, upset, and plenty shocked, never let go of his hand.