In the time Obi-Wan Kenobi had been living as Ben on Tatooine, he'd quickly fallen into his self-designated role as hermit of the Jundland Wastes. The local people didn't disturb him, and they respected his privacy and reticence when he had to venture into the settlements for any supplies. The Jawas thought his land was haunted, and the Sand People thought it was swarming with krayt dragons. At almost 4 decades, his sandy red hair had started to turn almost blond under the harsh light of the twin suns, and every now and then he thought he saw silver starting to peak out on his head and shot through his beard. But they're the least of the reasons why Obi-Wan didn't want to look at his reflection more than absolutely necessary.
After 2 years, Obi-Wan was used to the quiet of the desert. He's used to the stillness, being able to stretch his senses out for kilometers and hardly encountering anything larger than rodents and lizards.
He was in the middle of checking the vaporizers before retreating into his home for the day, when a very large object went hurtling past overhead, flaming from its fast descent through the atmosphere. Even as he was debating if he should go check, the sonic boom reached him, followed a minute later by another boom of sound, this one accompanied with the tremor of impact.
Blast it all. Obi-Wan could not leave this alone.
Grabbing the quarter staff he'd fashioned out of deadwood not long ago, Obi-Wan hurried the few miles to the obvious crash site, out in the middle of the Wastes. The object was half-buried in a sand dune, and very strangely, resembled a large section of coral reef, completely incongruous to Tatooine's desert environment.
And then he saw the survivor.
Obi-Wan didn't know what was going on, but he knew he couldn't just leave the young man out in the middle of the desert. With a vicious mental curse, he strode toward the stranger, cataloguing as he grew nearer the glassy look in his eyes and the paleness of his lips. If nothing else, he was going to get dehydrated very quickly out here.
He waited until he caught the boy's eye and was sure he had his attention. "We need to get you out of the sun. Can you walk?"
While the young Jedi had grown more resilient during his captivity on Yuuzhan'tar, it was a little too much to ask of his body to hold on after the last string of events — the battle at the Well of the World Brain, the escape, the journey through space, the crash. In fact, he was practically holding himself up through the Force; he didn't want to have to use it in this manner, but he was left with no other choice.
Despite his exhaustion, his instincts flared up as soon as he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a creature making its way through the desert. Towards him. It was definitely a fight or flight moment, and it occurred to him that he would not survive another fight in his current state. He wasn't even sure if he still had his lightsaber, or if it had gotten buried in the sand or in the coralcraft somewhere. Or worse, destroyed.
So he reached out to the approaching creature through the Force, so lightly it was almost imperceptible — and he sensed that it was a man. Yet he couldn't quite make out the stranger's features under the harsh light of Tatooine's suns, nor could he pick up any strong feelings.
Spots beginning to dance in front of his eyes, he was relieved to hear Obi-Wan speak to him in Basic. "Yes, I can." He wobbled a little, but caught and righted himself. "Where to?"
Despite the somewhat dire circumstances, Obi-Wan can't help but place his hands on his hips and give the young man an exasperated look. He thinks it must be genetically coded into all male DNA to make them stubborn idiots when they're young.
"Yes, of course you can." He doesn't even try to hide his skepticism. "Here, come on." With that, Obi-Wan moves forward and takes the young man's arm, wrapping it around his shoulders and then wrapping his own arm around the boy's waist. "It's several miles, and you look like you're about to fall down and eat sand."
'Several miles' makes Jacen smile wryly at his rescuer. Who's he kidding? He can't do several miles, at least not by himself. Still, he does his best to not give Obi-Wan too much trouble, trying to match the older man's steps.
"Where are we?" he asks. He knows of several desert worlds, but his mind's focused on the more important things at the moment. Like survival.
In deference to his weakened state, Obi-Wan tries to keep the pace as slow and even as possible, but he doesn't wish to linger too long in the sun.
"Tatooine," he responds to the boy's question. "If you're a fugitive, the planet has a knack for drawing them here. It's in the Outer Rim, away from the R-- the Empire." It hasn't been long enough yet for him not to stumble over the name of their new government, but he hopes the boy won't notice, or understand the significance.
“Tatooine?” Even in his weakened state, Jacen sounds shocked, although it’s not because he’s noticed that Obi-Wan said Empire instead of New Republic. “But we’d just left Coruscant when the storm—“
There’s a flash of pain as he stumbles and nearly falls, and he draws in a sharp breath. He’s learned to take and handle pain, but it doesn’t mean it’s not getting to him. Despite the situation, however, he tries to pick up his pace, knowing the urgency. It is getting really hot out here.
With a curse that no self-respecting Jedi would ever admit to saying, Obi-Wan takes more of Jacen's weight, using a bit of Force control to make him lighter and move faster. Hopefully he won't notice, or think he's just gone light-headed and his mind is playing tricks on him.
It's always a risk, using the Force around others now, but they're out in the middle of nowhere, and if he doesn't get the young man indoors, cool and hydrated quickly, it won't matter if he realizes who Obi-Wan is or not, because he'll be dead. He doesn't even know what injuries he incurred during the crash.
"Worry about the improbability later, hmm? Right now we must get you inside."
Jacen nods, almost absently, as he's focused on getting to where Obi-Wan says they should be. They seem to be making good progress, however, and for that he's glad, completely unaware of the other's intervention through the Force.
When they finally make it to their destination, he feels like his entire body is on fire; it's only because of the Vong's conditioning that he's not howling in pain. Thankfully, the old Jedi's home provides a much-needed respite from the heat, and he doesn't pass out — at least, not yet.
He can feel the man's strength slowly waning, and Obi-Wan all but hurls them into the cool darkness of his hut, practically carrying Jacen down the few steps that submerge half the house to help retain that coolness.
"Sit," he commands roughly, though he's gentle in easing Jacen onto a padded chair, before hurrying over to his personal water cistern. He's fortunate that he has a large supply, and can readily draw from what he's saving to sell if he needs to, so first Obi-Wan wets a large muslin cloth, barely wringing it out before taking it over and draping it over the boy's head, pressing the cloth down so it touches the back of his neck as well as the sides of his face all the way to his cheeks, leaving only his eyes, nose and mouth exposed.
Then he returns to the cistern and fills a glass full of water, moving back and placing it in Jacen's hand, helping to wrap his fingers around the glass and support its weight; he doesn't trust the young man not to spill it if he lets go. "You need to drink this, but slowly. Small sips, or it will come back up."
These are his immediate concerns for the boy's health. Once this is taken care of, he'll assess him for other injuries.
Obi-Wan’s barely gotten Jacen seated when the younger man allows himself to fall into a healing trance, trusting that he’s safe for the time being. He opens himself up to the Force, letting it fill him, revitalize him; the pain he can still take, but he’s well aware his body’s reaching its limits.
He begins to go still. He feels the cool cloth on his head, and later on the glass of water in his hand. He surfaces from his trance, just enough to do as he’s instructed, sipping the water gratefully.
Then he leans back against the chair and back into the Force’s embrace, drawing from it once more, like drinking water. But he lifts his head a little to look at the older man, curiousity in his eyes. He’s not quite sure — he just might be delirious — but for a moment there it‘s like he could feel his rescuer, burning bright and strong in the Force.
Pausing in his ministrations, a look of apprehension flashes across Obi-Wan's face as he feels-- something from Jacen. Almost... that flare of recognition on Force-user gets from another...
Yes, there it is, and now that Obi-Wan is paying closer attention, he realizes Jacen hasn't fallen unconscious because of heatstroke and injury, he's putting himself into a healing trance. Of course, it's possible he stumbled on the ability by accident, and is untrained in how to use the Force - but it's much more likely that someone has trained him. Which means...
...What, exactly? That not all hope is lost. That he has to make sure Jacen is taken care of. The more full Jedi available when the time comes, the better to take Emperor Palpatine down.
Placing his hand on Jacen's neck, feeling the warmth slowly seeping into the cool wet cloth from the boy's skin, Obi-Wan adds just a little of his own healing - he's never been particularly good at Force healing, but he's passable - and murmurs, "Rest. We'll attend to anything else later."
Jacen doesn’t know how long it’s been when he finally surfaces from his trance, but he’s certain, at least, that he feels much better. He has several cuts and bruises, but that and his other injuries aren’t life-threatening.
He opens his eyes and quietly takes a look around, not daring to move anything else but his eyes, at least for the moment. He’s in some sort of hut, small but certainly occupied; the chair he’s sitting on is padded, comfortable, and there’s a small table beside him, on top of which is a half-full glass of water. Suddenly reminded of his thirst, he makes himself straighten up in his seat so he could reach for the glass, and when he can’t quite get a hold of it, he uses the Force to pull it towards him just a teensy bit.
Who’s using the Force as a tool now? he thinks, and he could almost hear Anakin mocking him for his hypocrisy.
He drinks greedily — nearly choking on the first attempt — and as he does so, he tries to remember how he’d gotten here, what happened before he’d crawled out of the wreckage of the crash. But still nothing comes to mind.
So he’s marooned on some desert planet. Well, he’s been through worse.
It's been several hours - the twin suns are beginning to set, and the relentless heat is becoming more bearable - so Obi-Wan had gone out to do one last perimeter sweep. When he returns, he discovers Jacen is awake again, and has discovered the water he'd left out.
"I see you're awake. I hope you're feeling better, now."
Moving into the interior of the hut, Obi-Wan unobtrusively keeps his eye on the young man as he moves about, disgarding his brown outer robe, getting himself a glass of water, refilling Jacen's. All of his movements are loose and easy, for all the world looking carefree and not worried in the slightest about the stray he's allowed into his home.
You're becoming as bad as your old Master, he chides himself, only half-amused, picking up strays and tending to them.
Jacen sets the glass down carefully, not quite trusting himself to have enough strength yet, and turns to look at Obi-Wan, nodding gratefully. “Thank you.” And, almost as an afterthought, he adds, with a small smile, “Sir.”
He watches as the older man moves around the hut; he doesn’t have to reach out with the Force to feel how calm and unfazed Obi-Wan is, all things considered. “And I’m sorry for the trouble. I’ll be on my way as soon as I’m able.”
Right, he tells himself, wincing inwardly. As if it’s that easy. With the Yuuzhan Vong war in full force, it’s not going to be easy finding transport. He doesn’t even know where he has to go — because, accepting his death to be inevitable, he didn’t even bother to ask Ganner for his family’s whereabouts when they’d met.
The 'sir' really does amuse him, but Obi-Wan simply shakes his head as he sits in a chair at the table, turned to face the boy. Young man, honestly, but Obi-Wan has felt positively ancient for years now, so anyone under forty automatically gets downgraded to 'boy'.
"While I appreciate the politeness, I'm-- you can call me Ben." Best not to go throwing around the name of a decorated war general, the Negotiator, even if this lad would have no idea who he was. "As for being on your way, I'm not sure you're aware, but your..." he hesitates briefly, "ship, as far as I could tell, is in no condition to fly - it's half-buried in sand at the moment, and even if you could dig it out, I'm sure it would need repairs, and I can guarantee you won't be able to find parts for it in town."
"You're not troubling me, other than giving me the momentary fright of thinking I'd been too late to help." He jokingly pats his russet hair. "I'll be white before I know it, at this rate."
“Ben,” Jacen echoes, looking both confused and amused at the coincidences he’s just realized. He remembers being told that they’re on Tatooine, his Uncle Luke’s homeworld. And now here’s a man named Ben, who shares the same name as his Uncle Luke’s son. Maybe the Force is trying to tell him something?
He gives Obi-Wan a smile, which quickly turns sheepish. “I’m Jacen Solo. Nice to meet you. Um. Sorry again, for crashing into your backyard.” He hesitates for a moment, but he has to ask, so he does. “Did you notice anyone else in the crash site? And did you maybe see... some sort of device, cylindrical, this big?” (He could’ve really just asked if Ben had seen a lightsaber, but how was he to know his rescuer’s a Jedi?)
"The Jundland Wastes are hardly what I'd call a 'backyard,'" Obi-Wan says with a rueful twist of his mouth.
Jacen's description of the object he's missing makes Obi-Wan frown... before it registers that it's a broad, but fitting, description of a lightsaber hilt. "Made of metal, fits nicely in the palm of your hand?" he asks tonelessly, staring at Jacen. "No, I'm afraid I didn't. And where did you get such a thing?"
His voice has grown cold, because while Jacen might be strong in the Force, and clearly has had some training... "All the wielders of that weapon are dead." Not precisely true, but close enough. "So either you found it, or you took it, and I'd like to know which it is."
Jacen is a little alarmed at how fast Obi-Wan’s mood shifts after he asks if the other had seen a lightsaber. He didn’t even say the word lightsaber, but Ben knew that’s what he’d meant, anyway.
That alarm turns to dread, however, when he’s essentially told that the Jedi are dead. He slumps back against the chair like he’d been struck in the gut. So they’ve lost? Tatooine doesn’t look to have been reformed by the Yuuzhan Vong, but—
“It’s mine,” he quickly answers, with no second thoughts whatsover, when he’s asked where he’d gotten his weapon. “I made it, during my training at the Jedi Praxeum.”
The answer isn't at all what Obi-Wan is expecting, and it does take a little of the wind out of his sails - but it also bring up more questions. "Jedi Praxeum?" He's familiar with the word, but all the Praxeums were destroyed during Order 66, he'd checked after he'd found the younglings' bodies.
"I'll go look for your lightsaber," he tells Jacen, "but I suggest you hide it, and not speak of it with anyone else. Don't tell them you're a Jedi, don't even use the Force around others, unless you're certain you can sufficiently cloud their mind. The Empire hasn't made its presence known this far in the Outer Rim just yet, but I'm sure they will soon enough."
It was still unclear if Palpatine would leave Tatooine alone, so as not to unhinge the already unstable Darth Vader, or if he would use Tatooine as an example to the other Outer Rim worlds. Obi-Wan hoped there was still enough of a glimmer of Anakin inside the Sith that he would continue to want nothing to do with the backwater planet.
And all of a sudden this Ben starts spouting off terms that Jacen hadn't been sure he'd know -- Jedi, the Force, clouding other people's mind. But one particular phrase makes him blink. "The Empire?" He sits up, looking bewildered. "Do you mean the Imperial Remnant?"
This was all getting incredibly confusing by the minute. The Empire had been overthrown a long time ago, a few years before he'd been born. Tatooine was many, many light-years away from Coruscant. And while the Yuuzhan Vong hunted the Jedi as ferociously as the Empire did, the new order didn't have to go into hiding with the same desperation Obi-Wan was displaying.
Then something occurs to him, and he stares at the older man. Tatooine. The Empire. Ben.
For a moment, Obi-Wan just stares at Jacen; not in confusion, although he's certainly confused, but more just trying to figure out what exactly is going on. Imperial Remnant? "No," Obi-Wan says slowly, "I mean the newly formed Galactic Empire."
On a hunch, he adds, "Formed by the self-titled Emperor Palpatine, formerly Supreme Chancellor."
Jacen's eyes widen; he obviously recognizes the name. But his jaw simultaneously tightens, and he shakes his head. "Palpatine was killed during the Battle of Endor." He purses his lips together for a moment, because his next thought sounds so weird even without saying it out loud.
He exhales slowly. "... Endor was five years before I was born."
His earlier hunch to mention Palpatine, to expand on what the current political climate is, has become a growing suspicion that is merely confirmed when Jacen explains that for him, Palpatine was killed five years prior to his birth.
Reclining on his chair, Obi-Wan crosses an arm over his stomach, supporting the opposite elbow while that hand reaches up to tug absently at his beard. For anyone familiar with him, it's his classic calculating pose, considering all the possibilities and outcomes of any given actions. How had this happened? That it had happened was clear - Jacen is proof that... well, somewhere, there is, or had been, a temporal anomaly. It had always merely been conjecture, as far as Obi-Wan is aware; a mind experiment, batted around by the philosophy and physics students and scholars.
And yet.
Well. Nothing for it now. It is always best, when one is unsure how a situation will ultimately play out, to move forward one step at a time, staying attuned with the Force and waiting for guidance. To that end, Obi-Wan drops both hands to hit his knees with finality, before pushing up out of the chair. "I'll go look for your lightsaber."
He pushes the still mostly-full glass of water toward Jacen. "Drink. Slowly, but finish it. You may not feel it yet, and your healing trance surely helped, but I guarantee you're still dehydrated. I have plenty more, don't worry about quantity."
Well. Doesn't that clear up things. But Jacen just nods, because there really isn't much he can do about it. This man, whoever he really was -- if he's who Jacen suspects him to be -- might just be as stumped about the whole... time travel thing.
"Thank you," he says again. It would be a comfort to have his lightsaber back, if anything. And if he's stuck in the middle of the Empire's glory days... having a lightsaber lying around would be a very bad idea.
Following Obi-Wan's instructions, he settles back into the chair with the glass of water, drinking from it as he thinks about the peculiar situation he's found himself in. He tries to recall what he's been told about Tatooine: that it was his grandfather's homeworld, that it was where his uncle was hidden away during the days of Palpatine's rule, that it would be where his uncle and father would eventually meet...
After a brief pause, Obi-Wan reaches out and pats Jacen's shoulder as he passes him. "We'll figure this out," he promises, before leaving the hut.
The first sun has set, and without an incapacitated companion, Ben makes good time back to the crash site. No signs of scavengers yet; the Sandpeople are a highly superstitious lot, and don't much like change, so the earthquake the crash created will probably keep them away for a day or longer, at least, and even more before their wariness is overcome by curiosity. And since the ship doesn't look like metal, the Jawas would have little interest in it for a while, at least.
Still, it never hurts to be prepared. Carefully, Ben begins shifting the sand with the Force in certain strategic places that are the most likely entrance points for scavengers, creating sinkholes that won't kill them (hopefully), but will certainly detain and deter them.
It takes effort, and time, and heavy concentration to shift the sand in such a way to create pockets of air without the whole thing collapsing, and by the time he's finished, Ben is sweating, despite being in relative shade.
Closing his eyes, he focuses on the sense he'd gotten from Jacen during his healing trance. There's nothing at first, but Obi-Wan is patient, the quiet noises of the crepuscular creatures becoming active, and the feel of small life signatures in the Force are soothing to him.
Eventually, he senses it; a tiny pinprick of an echo of Jacen's signature, shining brightly not too far from him. Keeping it firmly in the front of his mind's eye, Ben unhurriedly gets up and moves toward it. It's just inside a tear in the ship's hull, presumably how Jacen got out.
As soon as Obi-Wan picks up the lightsaber, he almost has to bite his lip at the swell of emotion that overtakes him. If Jacen is correct, if he is from the future, no matter how distant, then here is proof that the Jedi are not extinct. There is a small glimmer of hope with Luke, with Leia, but this is definitive, and it is something Obi-Wan hadn't realized he'd needed so desperately until he's confronted with it.
Returning to his humble dwelling, Ben holds out his lightsaber to Jacen almost reverently. "It's fine craftsmanship," he tells him sincerely.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no no more apprentices he always screws them up :P
After 2 years, Obi-Wan was used to the quiet of the desert. He's used to the stillness, being able to stretch his senses out for kilometers and hardly encountering anything larger than rodents and lizards.
He was in the middle of checking the vaporizers before retreating into his home for the day, when a very large object went hurtling past overhead, flaming from its fast descent through the atmosphere. Even as he was debating if he should go check, the sonic boom reached him, followed a minute later by another boom of sound, this one accompanied with the tremor of impact.
Blast it all. Obi-Wan could not leave this alone.
Grabbing the quarter staff he'd fashioned out of deadwood not long ago, Obi-Wan hurried the few miles to the obvious crash site, out in the middle of the Wastes. The object was half-buried in a sand dune, and very strangely, resembled a large section of coral reef, completely incongruous to Tatooine's desert environment.
And then he saw the survivor.
Obi-Wan didn't know what was going on, but he knew he couldn't just leave the young man out in the middle of the desert. With a vicious mental curse, he strode toward the stranger, cataloguing as he grew nearer the glassy look in his eyes and the paleness of his lips. If nothing else, he was going to get dehydrated very quickly out here.
He waited until he caught the boy's eye and was sure he had his attention. "We need to get you out of the sun. Can you walk?"
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Despite his exhaustion, his instincts flared up as soon as he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a creature making its way through the desert. Towards him. It was definitely a fight or flight moment, and it occurred to him that he would not survive another fight in his current state. He wasn't even sure if he still had his lightsaber, or if it had gotten buried in the sand or in the coralcraft somewhere. Or worse, destroyed.
So he reached out to the approaching creature through the Force, so lightly it was almost imperceptible — and he sensed that it was a man. Yet he couldn't quite make out the stranger's features under the harsh light of Tatooine's suns, nor could he pick up any strong feelings.
Spots beginning to dance in front of his eyes, he was relieved to hear Obi-Wan speak to him in Basic. "Yes, I can." He wobbled a little, but caught and righted himself. "Where to?"
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"Yes, of course you can." He doesn't even try to hide his skepticism. "Here, come on." With that, Obi-Wan moves forward and takes the young man's arm, wrapping it around his shoulders and then wrapping his own arm around the boy's waist. "It's several miles, and you look like you're about to fall down and eat sand."
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Or it's a Skywalker thing.'Several miles' makes Jacen smile wryly at his rescuer. Who's he kidding? He can't do several miles, at least not by himself. Still, he does his best to not give Obi-Wan too much trouble, trying to match the older man's steps.
"Where are we?" he asks. He knows of several desert worlds, but his mind's focused on the more important things at the moment. Like survival.
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"Tatooine," he responds to the boy's question. "If you're a fugitive, the planet has a knack for drawing them here. It's in the Outer Rim, away from the R-- the Empire." It hasn't been long enough yet for him not to stumble over the name of their new government, but he hopes the boy won't notice, or understand the significance.
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There’s a flash of pain as he stumbles and nearly falls, and he draws in a sharp breath. He’s learned to take and handle pain, but it doesn’t mean it’s not getting to him. Despite the situation, however, he tries to pick up his pace, knowing the urgency. It is getting really hot out here.
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It's always a risk, using the Force around others now, but they're out in the middle of nowhere, and if he doesn't get the young man indoors, cool and hydrated quickly, it won't matter if he realizes who Obi-Wan is or not, because he'll be dead. He doesn't even know what injuries he incurred during the crash.
"Worry about the improbability later, hmm? Right now we must get you inside."
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When they finally make it to their destination, he feels like his entire body is on fire; it's only because of the Vong's conditioning that he's not howling in pain. Thankfully, the old Jedi's home provides a much-needed respite from the heat, and he doesn't pass out — at least, not yet.
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"Sit," he commands roughly, though he's gentle in easing Jacen onto a padded chair, before hurrying over to his personal water cistern. He's fortunate that he has a large supply, and can readily draw from what he's saving to sell if he needs to, so first Obi-Wan wets a large muslin cloth, barely wringing it out before taking it over and draping it over the boy's head, pressing the cloth down so it touches the back of his neck as well as the sides of his face all the way to his cheeks, leaving only his eyes, nose and mouth exposed.
Then he returns to the cistern and fills a glass full of water, moving back and placing it in Jacen's hand, helping to wrap his fingers around the glass and support its weight; he doesn't trust the young man not to spill it if he lets go. "You need to drink this, but slowly. Small sips, or it will come back up."
These are his immediate concerns for the boy's health. Once this is taken care of, he'll assess him for other injuries.
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He begins to go still. He feels the cool cloth on his head, and later on the glass of water in his hand. He surfaces from his trance, just enough to do as he’s instructed, sipping the water gratefully.
Then he leans back against the chair and back into the Force’s embrace, drawing from it once more, like drinking water. But he lifts his head a little to look at the older man, curiousity in his eyes. He’s not quite sure — he just might be delirious — but for a moment there it‘s like he could feel his rescuer, burning bright and strong in the Force.
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Yes, there it is, and now that Obi-Wan is paying closer attention, he realizes Jacen hasn't fallen unconscious because of heatstroke and injury, he's putting himself into a healing trance. Of course, it's possible he stumbled on the ability by accident, and is untrained in how to use the Force - but it's much more likely that someone has trained him. Which means...
...What, exactly? That not all hope is lost. That he has to make sure Jacen is taken care of. The more full Jedi available when the time comes, the better to take Emperor Palpatine down.
Placing his hand on Jacen's neck, feeling the warmth slowly seeping into the cool wet cloth from the boy's skin, Obi-Wan adds just a little of his own healing - he's never been particularly good at Force healing, but he's passable - and murmurs, "Rest. We'll attend to anything else later."
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He opens his eyes and quietly takes a look around, not daring to move anything else but his eyes, at least for the moment. He’s in some sort of hut, small but certainly occupied; the chair he’s sitting on is padded, comfortable, and there’s a small table beside him, on top of which is a half-full glass of water. Suddenly reminded of his thirst, he makes himself straighten up in his seat so he could reach for the glass, and when he can’t quite get a hold of it, he uses the Force to pull it towards him just a teensy bit.
Who’s using the Force as a tool now? he thinks, and he could almost hear Anakin mocking him for his hypocrisy.
He drinks greedily — nearly choking on the first attempt — and as he does so, he tries to remember how he’d gotten here, what happened before he’d crawled out of the wreckage of the crash. But still nothing comes to mind.
So he’s marooned on some desert planet. Well, he’s been through worse.
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"I see you're awake. I hope you're feeling better, now."
Moving into the interior of the hut, Obi-Wan unobtrusively keeps his eye on the young man as he moves about, disgarding his brown outer robe, getting himself a glass of water, refilling Jacen's. All of his movements are loose and easy, for all the world looking carefree and not worried in the slightest about the stray he's allowed into his home.
You're becoming as bad as your old Master, he chides himself, only half-amused, picking up strays and tending to them.
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He watches as the older man moves around the hut; he doesn’t have to reach out with the Force to feel how calm and unfazed Obi-Wan is, all things considered. “And I’m sorry for the trouble. I’ll be on my way as soon as I’m able.”
Right, he tells himself, wincing inwardly. As if it’s that easy. With the Yuuzhan Vong war in full force, it’s not going to be easy finding transport. He doesn’t even know where he has to go — because, accepting his death to be inevitable, he didn’t even bother to ask Ganner for his family’s whereabouts when they’d met.
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"While I appreciate the politeness, I'm-- you can call me Ben." Best not to go throwing around the name of a decorated war general, the Negotiator, even if this lad would have no idea who he was. "As for being on your way, I'm not sure you're aware, but your..." he hesitates briefly, "ship, as far as I could tell, is in no condition to fly - it's half-buried in sand at the moment, and even if you could dig it out, I'm sure it would need repairs, and I can guarantee you won't be able to find parts for it in town."
"You're not troubling me, other than giving me the momentary fright of thinking I'd been too late to help." He jokingly pats his russet hair. "I'll be white before I know it, at this rate."
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He gives Obi-Wan a smile, which quickly turns sheepish. “I’m Jacen Solo. Nice to meet you. Um. Sorry again, for crashing into your backyard.” He hesitates for a moment, but he has to ask, so he does. “Did you notice anyone else in the crash site? And did you maybe see... some sort of device, cylindrical, this big?” (He could’ve really just asked if Ben had seen a lightsaber, but how was he to know his rescuer’s a Jedi?)
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Jacen's description of the object he's missing makes Obi-Wan frown... before it registers that it's a broad, but fitting, description of a lightsaber hilt. "Made of metal, fits nicely in the palm of your hand?" he asks tonelessly, staring at Jacen. "No, I'm afraid I didn't. And where did you get such a thing?"
His voice has grown cold, because while Jacen might be strong in the Force, and clearly has had some training... "All the wielders of that weapon are dead." Not precisely true, but close enough. "So either you found it, or you took it, and I'd like to know which it is."
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That alarm turns to dread, however, when he’s essentially told that the Jedi are dead. He slumps back against the chair like he’d been struck in the gut. So they’ve lost? Tatooine doesn’t look to have been reformed by the Yuuzhan Vong, but—
“It’s mine,” he quickly answers, with no second thoughts whatsover, when he’s asked where he’d gotten his weapon. “I made it, during my training at the Jedi Praxeum.”
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"I'll go look for your lightsaber," he tells Jacen, "but I suggest you hide it, and not speak of it with anyone else. Don't tell them you're a Jedi, don't even use the Force around others, unless you're certain you can sufficiently cloud their mind. The Empire hasn't made its presence known this far in the Outer Rim just yet, but I'm sure they will soon enough."
It was still unclear if Palpatine would leave Tatooine alone, so as not to unhinge the already unstable Darth Vader, or if he would use Tatooine as an example to the other Outer Rim worlds. Obi-Wan hoped there was still enough of a glimmer of Anakin inside the Sith that he would continue to want nothing to do with the backwater planet.
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This was all getting incredibly confusing by the minute. The Empire had been overthrown a long time ago, a few years before he'd been born. Tatooine was many, many light-years away from Coruscant. And while the Yuuzhan Vong hunted the Jedi as ferociously as the Empire did, the new order didn't have to go into hiding with the same desperation Obi-Wan was displaying.
Then something occurs to him, and he stares at the older man. Tatooine. The Empire. Ben.
Could it be?
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On a hunch, he adds, "Formed by the self-titled Emperor Palpatine, formerly Supreme Chancellor."
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He exhales slowly. "... Endor was five years before I was born."
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Reclining on his chair, Obi-Wan crosses an arm over his stomach, supporting the opposite elbow while that hand reaches up to tug absently at his beard. For anyone familiar with him, it's his classic calculating pose, considering all the possibilities and outcomes of any given actions. How had this happened? That it had happened was clear - Jacen is proof that... well, somewhere, there is, or had been, a temporal anomaly. It had always merely been conjecture, as far as Obi-Wan is aware; a mind experiment, batted around by the philosophy and physics students and scholars.
And yet.
Well. Nothing for it now. It is always best, when one is unsure how a situation will ultimately play out, to move forward one step at a time, staying attuned with the Force and waiting for guidance. To that end, Obi-Wan drops both hands to hit his knees with finality, before pushing up out of the chair. "I'll go look for your lightsaber."
He pushes the still mostly-full glass of water toward Jacen. "Drink. Slowly, but finish it. You may not feel it yet, and your healing trance surely helped, but I guarantee you're still dehydrated. I have plenty more, don't worry about quantity."
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"Thank you," he says again. It would be a comfort to have his lightsaber back, if anything. And if he's stuck in the middle of the Empire's glory days... having a lightsaber lying around would be a very bad idea.
Following Obi-Wan's instructions, he settles back into the chair with the glass of water, drinking from it as he thinks about the peculiar situation he's found himself in. He tries to recall what he's been told about Tatooine: that it was his grandfather's homeworld, that it was where his uncle was hidden away during the days of Palpatine's rule, that it would be where his uncle and father would eventually meet...
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The first sun has set, and without an incapacitated companion, Ben makes good time back to the crash site. No signs of scavengers yet; the Sandpeople are a highly superstitious lot, and don't much like change, so the earthquake the crash created will probably keep them away for a day or longer, at least, and even more before their wariness is overcome by curiosity. And since the ship doesn't look like metal, the Jawas would have little interest in it for a while, at least.
Still, it never hurts to be prepared. Carefully, Ben begins shifting the sand with the Force in certain strategic places that are the most likely entrance points for scavengers, creating sinkholes that won't kill them (hopefully), but will certainly detain and deter them.
It takes effort, and time, and heavy concentration to shift the sand in such a way to create pockets of air without the whole thing collapsing, and by the time he's finished, Ben is sweating, despite being in relative shade.
Closing his eyes, he focuses on the sense he'd gotten from Jacen during his healing trance. There's nothing at first, but Obi-Wan is patient, the quiet noises of the crepuscular creatures becoming active, and the feel of small life signatures in the Force are soothing to him.
Eventually, he senses it; a tiny pinprick of an echo of Jacen's signature, shining brightly not too far from him. Keeping it firmly in the front of his mind's eye, Ben unhurriedly gets up and moves toward it. It's just inside a tear in the ship's hull, presumably how Jacen got out.
As soon as Obi-Wan picks up the lightsaber, he almost has to bite his lip at the swell of emotion that overtakes him. If Jacen is correct, if he is from the future, no matter how distant, then here is proof that the Jedi are not extinct. There is a small glimmer of hope with Luke, with Leia, but this is definitive, and it is something Obi-Wan hadn't realized he'd needed so desperately until he's confronted with it.
Returning to his humble dwelling, Ben holds out his lightsaber to Jacen almost reverently. "It's fine craftsmanship," he tells him sincerely.
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