Chapter Text
He was dead.
He watched his whole life passing in front of his eyes. He saw his birth, his time as a youngling in the temple, his time as a padawan, his first meeting with Anakin, the death of his master, Geonosis, the Clone Wars, Order 66, Mustafar, which lead to his exile on Tatooine, to protect and watch over Luke, from a safe distance and finally, in the end, he saw his death on the deathstar.
His memories passed fast, and when he watched his life silently from a watcher's perspective, guilt, sadness, and loneliness overcame him. Was he the reason for the downfall of the Jedi? Why hadn't he seen it? His thoughts and feelings surrounded him like a thick never-ending fog that took his air to let him drown in misery.
He felt the pain of his life all at once, and he screamed and cried the whole weight of his pain out. His mind turned blurry. Was he destined to fail? Was his fate infinite sadness?
He felt hopelessness gnawing at him, and with it, the feeling of loneliness grew. He was a prisoner of his own thoughts surrounded by darkness. He tried to calm himself down, which failed miserably. He breathed in. Out. In. Out.
He calmed down after some time and slowly steadied himself. He reached to the force and released more from his feelings and thoughts, from pain and misery second by second into the force. After some time, he felt the darkness vanishing and, after this, again surrounded by the soothing light side of the force, which wrapped itself around him like a warm blanket on a cold night. His mind was still swirling from everything that happened, but he could slowly calm down and bask in the soothing warmth.
After some time, he felt a presence approaching him that shoved a wave of comfort into the force. He leaned into this comfort and looked up to see a familiar person standing in front of him. His master from a long time ago Qui-gon Jinn. Qui-gon looked at him with a reassuring smile and opened his warm-light presence to him.
"I'm sorry, you suffered quite a lot. But it's good to see you again, padawan mine."
Ben gave him a sad smile.
"It's good to see you too, master."
His Master offered him a hand to stand up and he thankfully grabbed it. They both looked each other in the eyes, and Qui-gon contemplated Ben with a calculating gaze.
A short moment of warm silence passed between them till it was broken through Qui-Gon's calm voice. "Would you want to change what happened if you could?"
He gave his Master a confused look. "What?" Qui-gon smiled a faint smile "Would you want to change the past if you could?"
Ben still didn’t get what Qui-gon wanted to say. Of course, he would. He could save the republic, the Jedi order, his family, Anakin...He could save them.
"Yes," Qui-Gon's smile grew. "That's good. I have an opportunity for you to change the past."
He was still confused about his master. "What is this opportunity?"
His master smirked, and gave him a smile, which he had always given him as a padawan when he had had a plan, which had had the excuse that it was the will of the force. His smile faded a bit. He spoke up, and his voice rang with force."You will see Padawan mine it isn't over. May the Force be with you."
And with this, Qui-gon pushed Ben through the force, cosmos of space and time. It isn't over, the Force echoes around Ben. It isn't over.
And with this in mind, did he lose his consciousness…
When Ben came back to consciousness, he didn't know what happened or how much time had passed since he had been pushed through room and time by the force. He felt weird. Everything had passed fast; it had felt like the force was closing in him into its endless waves before from one moment to the other, which could have been an eternity or just an instant, his body and mind were separate from each other, and just then together again when he had landed in this place. Ben breathed out long and took a moment to stabilize himself in the force. He took a while and then opened his eyes.
Where was he? Stewjon the force whispered. His birth planet. Why was he on his birth planet? Protect was the response of the force and Ben pushed this into the back of his mind.
He looked down at himself. His Body glowed in a warm, light blue like his master Qui-Gon had glowed when he had visited him in the desert of Tatooine through his meditations. He wore his jedi robes which he had last worn on Mustafar. He shuddered at the thought of Mustafar but got himself out of it before he could drown in his thoughts. He remarked that his skin wasn't stained from age from the two twin suns of Tatooine. But some old battle scars from the Clone Wars were drawn lightly on his skin as if they were made recently. He let his gaze walk from his own being to his surroundings.
Trees surrounded the place where he is, and a village was to be seen on the horizon through the light it shone out. The sky was colored in a deep violet, the silent harbinger of the evening drawing to a close and the beginning of the night.
And two people were standing across from him and talking. They weren't standing too far away from Ben but still out of his earshot.
Both of them looked human; one was wearing the traditional brown and beige Jedi robes with his lightsaber on his belt and the other one was wearing simple grey-brown farmer clothes.
The Jedi was calmly speaking to the farmer with a determined gaze, but the farmer had an uninterested look on his face throughout their conversation. The man looked displeased and seemed to be impatiently waiting for something, but the Jedi just ignored it and continued his monolog. Ben stepped forward to hear what they were talking about.
'' …He will have a good life in the Temple." The Jedi just said to reassure the farmer, but the farmer just glared at him for a short time and then snarled back.
'' He's proved to be force-sensitive like you said. I don't care what you do with him, just get him out of here. He has no future here.''
This was Stewjon, a planet which was known to, in ''kind'' words, don't like force-sensitives. They examined their babies to see if they were force-sensitive, and if they were, well… they didn't recognize them as part of their people and abandoned them.
A long time ago when he had been a padawan Ben had found out these things about his home planet and their culture. He had been lost in his thoughts when he found out about it and had started to train harder, to forget the sadness of being abandoned and the frustration he had felt with feeling this unbalanced about it.
His bitterness and sadness about this memory swirled through his mind, but he quickly released this feeling into the force.
A long silence between the two men and the force ghost passed, which was broken by footsteps from a woman who slowly approached them. She came from the direction of the little village and, just like the farmer, she wore some simple grey clothes.
Her gaze was fixed on something in her arms when she walked to them.
The force tugged Ben's gaze down to her arms, and he saw a little baby with ginger blonde hair cradled in her arms.
Which he was himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
A warm feeling formed in his chest when he felt the brightness like his own force's presence shining unshielded at him. This was Obi-Wan Kenobi, but not him. He was Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, General Kenobi, High Councilor, survivor of Order 66, and wizard of the wastes. And this made him Ben Kenobi, formed by a life of pain and sadness.
The baby slept calmly, and when Ben brushed his force signature against the one of Obi-Wan, the little one sleepy shaked his head and grumbled something, which lets Ben coe.
The woman who was holding Obi-Wan now stood by the side of the man. Her gaze was still fixed on the sleepy baby in her arms with a sad expression that lined her face. Her presence radiated with sadness and sorrow in the force.
The little one bubbled something and blinked his eyes open at his mother. The toddler certainly felt the sadness that was radiating from her but couldn't quite understand what it meant. She gave him a sad smile and then looked up to the men around her.
There was a short but deep silence, where Ben sensed the depth of the moment and felt a thick layer of guilt swirling around the mother and the sharp despite to let her son go.
The farmer radiated anger around his presence which hid the fear and uncertainty that he felt which were still sensible around him in spite of the anger.
The silence was broken by a silent voice, which sounded like it could shatter every moment.
''Where will he go?''
The Jedi gave the woman a little smile. ''He will go to the temple on Coruscant into the creche there. He will be with other younglings who have the same abilities. He will learn how to control his powers, and he will be getting help.''
She gave him a sad smile, and her eyes filled with water. She hastily looked down at Obi-Wan again and whispered just faintly to be heard. "I know it will be better. “
The farmer looked to the side the whole time watching their surroundings to not be involved in their conversation. He was far away with his gaze and his mind even farther in the depths of his thoughts. Around him was a turmoil of anger as protection of the other feelings, sadness, sorrow, and the feeling of not knowing how he could do anything against it. Helplessness.
Ben looked at him regretfully and felt a bit of sympathy, bubbling up for the farmer.
Even if you knew letting go was the right thing, it would never be without pain. When Anakin had fallen, he had had to accept and let the past go, but it had been hard and painful, and the grief and sorrow had been so overwhelming that he hadn’t been able to think straight in these moments when he had tried to. It had taken him lots of restless days and nights meditating to accept what he had done and what he had let happen.
His heart ached around these memories of loss and love, but before he could lose himself in them, he heard a raspy but determined voice which shook him out of his thoughts. "I-I will go back, I have nothing else to do here. " the farmer said with a short hesitation. For a short moment, a spike of unsureness was to feel from the man, which rashly got overwhelmed with a cold determination.
The woman looked up in confusion and cold anger. "But he is your son!"
A short silence where someone could have cut the tension with a knife.
"Don't you want to say goodbye?” she said with a whisper and her lips were trembling in disbelief.
A little whine shrieked out from Obi-Wan. He shook his head and scrunched his face, feeling the troubled emotions clinging in the force around him.
The anger in the tone of the farmer rose. " No. He goes to the Jedi. He is not my son. "
Another whine came from Obi-Wan, and for the first time since the conversation started, the gaze of the farmer darts to Obi-Wan for a moment. He looked up with a blank expression. The farmer met the eyes of the jedi (who had been extremely quiet over the last minutes) nodded a goodbye to the jedi and turned around to walk away. A cold determination was hanging over him brought by anger, that came from hidden guilt.
For a moment Ben was stunned from shock and got thrown out from a loud whine.
Ben turned to Obi-Wan with concern, who was wailing and screaming from the negative feelings which surrounded him in the force.
He sent the feelings of warm-love-calm through the force and tried to build a shield around Obi-Wan to isolate him from the emotions and feelings of the others around him.
In this process, he felt how the jedi also tried to sooth Obi-Wan, so Ben lightened the shield he put around the force presence of his younger self, to calm him down.
There was a short glimpse of surprise from the jedi when he sensed the shields Ben put around Obi-Wan.
Every Force-sensitive was born with some natural mental shields. But these were mostly like thin ice and easy penetrable, so that most of the moods and feelings around force-sensitive toddlers were sensed and they acted out on them. Even if they didn't understand what was going on, they could feel the tension in the Force and got overwhelmed by the feelings.
That was also one of the most common ways, how families found out that their kid was force-sensitive as well as the reason why most of the parents gave their child away to the Jedi. Because they couldn't handle it.
When Obi-Wan got calm again, the gaze of his mother looked up to the jedi, who smiled back to her kindly. Her gaze hung on the Jedi for a short time maybe searching for a threat or a reason to distrust him, but she didn’t find anything.
Her look shortly went back to her son, who watched her face with shining blue eyes, which tugged a sad smile on her face.
"Please promise me that he is protected with you.“ she said in an absent voice her gaze still darting on her baby.
"He will be." came the answer softly from the Jedi.
"He will be" Ben whispered at his side, even though no one would hear him, he thought.
But then the eyes of Obi-Wan abruptly flickered over to him and these blue eyes watched him intensely as if he was the strangest thing he had ever seen. Well maybe it was, Ben thought and smiled back to his younger self and sent a greeting through the force.
The little one blinked at him but then looked up to his mother, when she pushed some hair off his face.
"May you have a better life than I can ever give you, my little one." She paused, her eyes were filling with tears again and she was choking on her own words. She took a deep breath centering herself, before she continued with a low voice.
" I'm sorry, someday you will maybe understand, that if you love someone, you know when to let go."
A painful moment passed where she just smiled at her son, till she moved forward to the jedi.
She closes her eyes and took a deep breath, before she gave Obi-Wan into the offered arms of the jedi.
Obi-Wan just frowned a bit through the shift of position, but had his eyes closed now.
"Goodbye, Obi-Wan."
"We will take care of him." the jedi, who bowed his head afterwards, promised her.
The mother who now had tears streaming down her face, nodded in acknowledgement, not in the state of saying anything. Obi-Wan still had his eyes shut, not feeling the sadness-pain-sorrow that was radiating through the force, from being shielded by Ben.
The jedi smiled at Obi-Wans mother for a last time and then turned around to head to the ship. Ben followed the jedi, with his eyes fixed on Obi-Wan, and then looked back one last time to see his mother from another life standing there to watch the depart of her son into a life without her. The feelings of sorrow, doubtfulness and pain flickered around her in the force.
"Don't worry, I will be there for him"
Ben assured her even if she couldn't hear him and sent reassurance-calm-warmth to sooth her presence. He felt relieved for himself to know that his mother had cared about him and a weight in his mind was taken from him, that he hadn't known to be there.
And with this in mind trailed his focus back to Obi-Wan, who had started to shift in the arms of the jedi, feeling he was getting farther away from his mother.
They embark on the ship and in this time the jedi tried to calm Obi-Wan down in pushing calm-warm-secure to him, which Ben let slide through the shields. It took a few minutes cradling and warm reassurance, till Obi-Wan got calmer and then the jedi started to speak with playful glee.
" I don't think I introduced myself how impolite?"
"I am Feemor Gard, jedi knight. "
Ben was stunned for a moment. The person that had found him was his padawan-brother in another universe? He had never met Feemor in his last life, he had heard that he got a temple guard after he found out that Qui-gon had repudiated Feemor after the fall of Xanatos.So he died plausibly in Order 66...
Ben shook himself out of his thoughts and concentrated to watch what happens in the here and now, where Feemor laid Obi-Wan down on some spread blankets. First Obi-Wan was reluctant being out of someone’s arms, but then he calmly settled into them, with some waves of warmth, love and security from both Feemor and Ben. Feemor pushed some hair out of Obi-Wans face and spoke in a soft voice.
" We still have to come off this planet, little one. So I will go to the cockpit to start the fly to Coruscant. I will be right back." He ruffled Obi-Wans hair, before he went into the cockpit.
Obi-Wan pouted when Feemor left, which let Ben smile.
For a short time he looks after Feemor but then he fixed his expression on Ben again, who had stood in the back to not disturb them.
Obi-Wan blinked for a moment and looked at his older force ghost self with an expecting gaze from curiosity. Some moments passed till the little one smiled and tried to grab Bens blue shining being with a little pleading cry. Ben chuckled and moved forward to Obi-Wan ,with the force in his mind ringing and telling him the rightfulness of this moment. He moved forward and when he stood before Obi-Wan, the force pushed Ben forward and brung their hand together. And when both Obi-wans touched the hands of each other a bright light explodes from them in the force.
Bens body filled with light and warmth and both of them were wrapped in the force, singing with joy, glee and with a bit of excitement. In this moment of touch instantly a strong connection bloomed between them. They formed a bond. A bond which was deep rooted, strong as if it would have been there for many years. And it started shining brightly between their minds.
A cry of excitement came from Obi-Wan and through it he tried to greet Ben with shoving happiness and glee at him, a bit clumsy, through their new bond. Ben smiled, sending back fondness and love as a reassurance, which let the little one giggle.
He smiled a fond smile at his younger self and pet Obi-Wans’ head in affection.
The ship took up and they jumped into hyperspace. Obi-Wan shivered and radiated fear, through their bond, to feel the living around him dim in hyperspace for the first time.
Ben wrapped his warm presence around Obi-Wan, against the cold of hyperspace and pushed calm-love-warm down their bond. After some time Obi-Wan was calm again. He was tired but was still too unsettled to sleep, so Ben pushed a sleep suggestion into Obi-Wan’s mind. At first Obi-Wan tried to push the incoming sleepiness away but then cracked under the pressure.
"I'm sorry little one, but you had a long day, and you need to rest." Ben whispered to him. Obi-Wan grumbled something, that let Ben smile.
"Sleep well, my little one I will be there for you and guard your sleep tonight."
And with this a calm agreement rang from the force.