Chapter Text
Unsurprisingly, after Satine left, the meeting had been as tedious as any other governmental agenda, Mandalorian culture flavoring the way it was communicated but otherwise just as dull yet fastidious. Territory dispute disguised as commerce disguised as posturing.
As Mand’alor, he had final say in many disagreements, but it was clear they were testing to see how involved he planned to be. If he interjected in every presentation or if he would trust their judgement on certain issues. It was a delicate balance, one for which Obi-Wan found himself ill-prepared.
With his helmet off, his advisors weren’t able to feed him any relevant information, so he was on his own, for better or worse.
It wasn’t until they had fully adjourned, and his buy’ce returned to his head, that he heard any true response.
“What,” Kal immediately hissed in his ear, “was that? We were supposed to help you, or’dinii, and you decide to go dark in the middle of the meeting? Gar di’kutla ra jare’la? Don’t answer that.”
“He’s right,” Vau sounded a little cold and annoyed, “How are you supposed to make the right calls if you don’t have any intel, kid? That could’ve turned into a bloodbath.”
“But it did not,” Obi-Wan knew that he was being curt, and frankly, he didn’t care. They were the ones to put him in this situation, refusing to properly debrief ahead of time, and now they would have to live with the decisions he made as a result.
Even as they dug in and began to pick apart his choices in the meeting.
(Why had he insisted that Mandal Motors could not exclude business on the basis of House, didn’t he know how that would help Vizsla? How could he not have spoken up when Vizsla tried to leverage more territory from Ordo? What made him declare that he wouldn’t hunt Tor down? Was he crazy?)
He didn’t regret fulfilling this duty, regardless.
As they questioned him up and down the corridors back towards the ship, Satine and Qui-Gon stepped out in front of them.
“Mand’alor Fett,” she nodded to him and glanced at the other two, “might I have a word? Privately?”
Kal snorted, “Whatever you need to say, you can—”
Surprisingly, it was Walon that cut him off, pulling the other Mando away as he said, “We’ll give you some space.”
Obi-Wan was grateful, and ducked into the nearest room, which seemed to be someone’s, thankfully empty, office.
It was a relief to remove the helmet again, “That went as well as it could, I believe.”
Satine’s mouth pinched, “It was not my ideal scenario.”
He smiled at her, “But certainly not the worst-case, either.”
Her shoulders sagged as she nodded, all begrudging agreement.
“We can discuss your plans in further detail at a later date, perhaps even through official channels,” he reached out and gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.
She groaned, “Planning my own verd’goten? This will be a waste of precious time that could be better spent on stabilizing trade routes across the system.”
Consolingly, he shrugged, “Yes, but with the proper authority, your impact later will be greater.”
With a sigh, she said, “It only stays that way if Jango continues to back me, for now. At least, without me courting the Republic to leverage those same trade routes against the traditionalist clans. I’d rather not resort to that if we can help it.”
Obi-Wan hummed in acknowledgement, but withheld judgement. He was rather biased towards the Republic, after all. “Speaking of Jango,” he changed subjects, “where did he run off to, earlier? It seems unwise for a padawan to be roaming about.”
Qui-Gon shook his head, “He is currently asleep. Today’s events pushed him further than he anticipated, I believe. So, not at risk for roaming.”
Wringing his hands, he finally looked up at his jaieh properly since they’d been in the same room. “I suppose he’s been better in that regard than I have, historically,” he chuckled sheepishly.
There wasn’t any judgement in Qui-Gon’s eyes, only the same fond amusement as ever. “No, despite appearances, I would not say that he is as inclined to nosiness as, perhaps, some other padawans. Completely uninterested in any of my investigations, I’m afraid.”
“I can’t tell if you mean that as a relief or a disappointment, Master.”
They both laughed as Satine shook her head at them.
Then Obi-Wan sighed, “I’m not sure where to go from here.”
“Daieno bika,” Qui-Gon comforted.
The words didn’t have their usual ripple of affection, without the Force.
His shoulders curled forward as he cringed. “Bika… Imtama’ah foh Jedi’ir,” he murmured. Perhaps it was rude to use a language she didn’t know in front of the Duchess, but it made him feel a little less vulnerable as he admitted it.
“Daiso imlehrii’yth kat nak Jedi’el, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said, solemnly gentle, “Xaimika’ah kai’an ahtehnythak kat Kaitalel, imseka atyth.”
He let his gaze fall, downcast, “Immyyhoji eno nak epal kat Jedi’el Dai’un.”
A hand landed on his shoulder, and he glanced up. His jaieh gave him a soft look, “Xaifazmiiru foh mikeelal, eru?”
“Eyco tariiythel paiwidenru foh daipauru nak Jedi,” Obi-Wan answered easily, if a little confused.
The feeling grew as Qui-Gon tilted his head, “Toneelru jaka imchahkan Dai’ak ve keelel ta pik nev forpai. E zhi enoru ehnap Dai keelir mi’imchahkanal. Kyii, zhi enoru keel nak Jedi. Imdelo eno bika?”
Tears threatened to spill from his eyes as he swallowed around the bittersweet knot in his throat, love and sorrow clogging his vocal chords. “Daieno cheshah kodel,” he rasped.
Large arms pulled him into a familiar embrace, “Eno Dai veshah keelel, mibrei’al. Nevi padenyth kat nevi jedi’el eno veshah keelel, eru. Paikewanah ru paimo’ah nak benan, Padawan kat fehl. Kyii bika, tumi pairu keel veshah kaital ru tumi enoji keel denik talkewananir.”1
Obi-Wan clung to the man tightly for just a moment more. When he let go and stepped back again, Qui-Gon’s eyes shone with pride.
The Padawan bowed, “Vehn ikioru keel fohux nevi padenyth, Jaieh.”2
“Naki padawanir kat Dai’el eno’ah kodaih, ibli taltath,” the Master bowed back.
As they parted ways, Obi-Wan knew in his heart that it would be quite some time before he saw the other again.
Jango jolted awake to the sound of the door sliding open. The spare blaster that lived between his mattress and the wall came to life easily, the warning shot leaving the chamber before the intruder made it past the threshold.
Armored hands came up in surrender, empty, and Jango blinked at the uncanny sight of his own beskar’gam standing in front of him.
Boots sounded behind the door, alarmed at the sound, and a different armored body moved to stand in front of him, gently prising the blaster out of his hand and blocking him from view.
“Naas,” Jango’s voice said from the doorway, “Shi Silas aala laamyc.”
His heart hammered in his ears as the boots moved away and Kenobi, because who else could it be, stepped inside, letting the door whoosh closed behind him.
Then there was only Jango’s controlled heavy breathing and two statues. The Force thrummed with the tension, but he didn’t pick up any emotions behind the muffled white noise of beskar’gam.
Fed up, he pushed the one between him and Kenobi away and stood, finally getting a good look at him without the haze of a holo that only showed the head and shoulders. He didn’t seem all that tense, but his hands were still up.
Jango raised an eyebrow, “At ease, verd’ika. Didn’t even graze you.”
“You’re not the one I’m worried about, in this instance.”
Right, the other one that stepped between them.
He turned, trying to figure out how he’d managed to sleep through them walking in, but froze again when he saw the blaster, pointed in his direction this time.
Voice as cold as durasteel and grip firm, the verd gestured the weapon between Jango and his counterpart body, “Someone better tell me exactly what’s going on here… before I have to call a baar’ur for you both.”
Jango blinked. “Silas?” He glared back at Kenobi, “You didn’t say anything about Silas.”
The jetii scoffed, “Oh, I apologize, when was I supposed to have mentioned him, before or after you berated me for making contact with the Haat’ade in the first place?”
“I don’t know, after, you kriffing—” he cut off with a yelp as an electrodart shocked his foot.
Silas aimed at both of them now, with the pistol and a kom’rk, “I’m not going to ask again.”
Another tense beat while Jango glanced back at Kenobi, who tilted their head in an all yours gesture. He scowled.
When he’d done this with Vau, he’d still been reeling from the change. There’d been a lot of threatening and cursing, and somehow that’d gotten the message across. Probably wouldn’t work as well on Silas even without a weapon drawn.
Didn’t help that looking at the other Mando’ad made something heavy sit on his chest.
“Su cuy’gar, Silas…” he breathed. That hadn’t been what he’d meant to say, he was pretty sure.
The man scoffed. “Finally figure that out, or’dinii? Now, either I’ve lost it completely or you’ve got all the memories that he,” he gestured with the blaster at Kenobi, “is missing. And you obviously know each other. So one of you needs to start answering a few of those questions.”
Kenobi grumbled, “You haven’t asked us anything.”
“Ne’johaa,” Jango hissed at him before taking a deep breath and looking star-ward, “And fine. Ka’ra knows how it all happened, though, so don’t shoot us for no reason.”
Another beat as Jango glared until Silas finally set the blaster aside and crossed his arms, expectant.
Taking that as his signal, Kenobi sighed and pulled off his buy’ce, and Jango grit his teeth at the sight of his own face. His hair was getting too long and was paired with a beard, neatly trimmed, that he never would have worn willingly. There was a clenching feeling at the bottom of his lungs that gave him the urge to claw at the man until he was out, to try and rip him from the skin that didn’t belong to him. Tamping it down with tightened fists, he breathed out a heavy sigh.
“I suppose that means that I can finally introduce myself properly,” the jetii gave a strained smile that made his body look downright sheepish, “Obi-Wan Kenobi, at your service. Jango and I have appeared to have, ah… swapped places, for some unfathomable reason.”
With his own bucket still on, Silas stood, unmoving. Kenobi jostled Jango’s shoulder.
He shrugged it off and frowned, “Don’t. It’s not like I have anything more to add, he already knows who I am.”
Silas’s voice was still hard. “How long. How long has the jetii been running around as Jango Fett…?” He gripped his kom’rk, “Since Galidraan?”
Kenobi protested behind Jango’s own vehement, “Fuck, no,” before they broke off and stared at each other. Between gritted teeth, he admitted, “Just since Kal caught him. Di’kut here did something stupid in an aarayaim and I got roped into the gods’ punishment for it.”
“I’m not convinced that you’re entirely blameless in this,” Ben said with a sniff.
Jango tried not to throw a fist. He reminded himself that it would only hit his own face. “How? I was halfway across the galaxy.”
“Well, you must have done something for the Force to choose you to correct whatever was unbalanced.”
He snarled and lunged, “I’ll show you unbalanced, you shabla osik’ika.”
It wasn’t even a fight as much as a scramble, while the jet’ika held him at bay with one arm and kriffing laughed as Jango tried to gouge out his eyes. He managed to get a couple of good scratches, too, before Silas cracked and pulled him away from Kenobi by the collar.
Fuck this stupid body and the way it couldn’t be over 150lbs. He was taller than himself! He should not be able to be yanked around so easily.
Once he was visibly calmer, he was set back on his feet, but that didn’t stop him from glowering.
The Mando’ad looked between them, “Shabi’ni, but after all that? I believe you.”
“Oya,” Jango deadpanned while straightening back out the annoying amount of jetii robes.
Ben stepped forward and batted his hands away, reaching for the robes while saying, “Yes, we’re quite grateful that you’ve decided not to shoot us over it.” The jetii easily tugged them into place, all proper with the tabard perfectly aligning with the tunic—a look that Jango hadn’t cared about keeping together.
He jerked away from the fussing with a glare, “You’re lucky that I’m not the one with a blaster.”
Kenobi rolled his eyes, “That would be counterproductive, given the givens.”
Silas snorted, “Right, ‘the givens.’” He shook his head, “So, me’dajun?”
And Ka’ra, as if Jango knew. He glanced to Ben, who just shrugged, “Not a clue. My mission was originally to see a peaceful transfer of power, to escort Satine from Coruscant and ensure her protection so that she did not immediately meet the same fate as Adonai. This, obviously, has fallen far outside the scope of that directive.” They nodded towards him slowly, the cadence of a bow—a gesture that looked wrong to see himself do, “Although I am appreciative that Jango has continued my mandate in my stead.”
He crossed his arms and muttered darkly, “It’s not like a jet’ika can go running around di’kutla in this sector.”
A commiserating noise, “It’s rather difficult to navigate which areas will be hostile.”
So Kenobi had just been oblivious. Great. “‘Lek, you were traveling straight through Vizsla territory, I’m more surprised you weren’t already dead.”
They huffed, “It’s not as if I had many options. When you are being hunted, you tend to run in the direction away from your pursuers.”
Jango gave him a flat look, “And you didn’t think maybe they were herding you that way for a reason?”
Radiating disbelief, he shook his head, “They weren’t all the same group of people, so it isn’t likely that they had that sort of strategy.”
Silas held up his hand to cut in, a little dumbfounded, “If it was clear enough that they were all loyal to Vizsla, why wouldn’t you assume that they had someone coordinating them?”
Ben squinted, “Most of them seemed to be local militia rather than trained commandos.”
He groaned. Why was this confusing for the jetii? “...the aloriitsad commands all military forces under them,” Jango explained slowly, “including any buru'jai verde.”
The expression they made was wide-eyed, and Jango decided that his face wasn’t ever supposed to look so startled. Even with the beard, it made him look too young.
They all stared at each other in awkward silence before Kenobi cleared his throat, “Well, right. The point is that my Master has advised that we all meditate together to get a sense of the issue, but I have doubts that I will be able to secretly meet with any Jedi for the extended length of time required for the endeavor.”
He tried not to mentally trip over his voice saying the word ‘master,’ and bit back a surprised snarl when Silas moved unexpectedly, taking off his helmet. Jango couldn’t help but stare. His vod looked tired. More worn, without any baby fat to soften his face the way it used to.
“You don’t plan to tell Kal.” It wasn’t a question.
“Orhaatayc,” Jango snapped. “I’m not getting roped into any ‘missions.’ It’s already terrible enough being stuck like this,” he gestured to his current body.
“I’m choosing not to take offense to that,” the owner of it rolled their eyes.
“Naas’baat,” he said in a bored tone, ignoring the insulted noise they made. “I am so kriffing sick of being ka’ra-touched, and I’m not dealing with anything else until this nightmare is over.”
Silas raised his eyebrows, “I’m guessing that you mean that literally, with the vomit we left behind in the refresher earlier.”
“The what? Are you ill? Why didn’t you start with that?” Ben pushed back into his space, yanking off a gauntlet to check his temperature with a hand to Jango’s forehead.
He didn’t realize how cold he felt until the touch seemed to seep into his skin, warm like a blanket but not burning. Still, he flinched back. Despite the warmth, the brush had the Force humming in a way that made his head ache. The best he could describe it was the sound of an out-of-tune bes’bev, or the feeling of being just a little slow when your traat’aliit was supposed to nyni tome’nara.
The other two looked at him with tilted heads, the jet’ika frowning with concern. He waved them off and put a hand to his forehead with a grumbled, “Force osik.”
Kenobi made an aborted motion towards him again, then sighed. Rubbing a hand down his face, he turned and said, “I realize that all of this will need further discussion, but could you excuse us, Silas?”
Jango was surprised to taste the nauseous burst of anger-fear-protective that rolled off of the oriramikad, even as he stared at Ben with a stony face. Then it was gone, and Silas nodded. “I won’t go far,” he warned as he made his way out.
Once the door closed, Jango exhaled sharply and sank back into the bunk and closed his eyes.
Obi-Wan shifted in his boots, uncertain how to proceed. With a dull pang, he realized that a part of him had been hoping that whatever trial the Force was giving him would resolve itself when he and Jango finally met in person. Obviously that was a foolish wish on his part, but even so, he had no frame of reference, no plan. His Master hadn’t provided any answer, Jango had no further insight, and the future was completely uncertain.
He looked down at his, Jango’s, hands, one gloved, one not. They would never be as familiar as his own.
Perhaps Qui-Gon would never understand the terror and the grief that came from losing the Force as a constant companion, but he was right in any case.
Obi-Wan was a Jedi. It was woven into him, down to the very core of his being. Force-sensitive or not.
The assurance was a comfort, but it did not guide him towards his next steps.
Instead, Jango had the Force and, as untrained and unbalanced as he was, it was only bringing him harm. Obi-Wan looked back up at his body, longing to be his full self again, even if that meant he would be clammy and rumpled.
What a mess. “Do you even know how to plait?” he felt himself ask, eyes catching on his askew padawan braid.
Jango grunted but didn’t move from where he lay on the bunk, arm over his eyes.
There was a brief moment, as he leaned closer to fix the error in his hair, where a sense of vertigo washed over him as the body he occupied sent signal after signal that there was a fight to be had and that his very survival depended on it. This, of course, was jarring to his mind, as it instinctively interpreted the familiar body as looking in a mirror, and the idea that there was a different person inside of it, and therefore needed boundaries, had not fully registered to it.
The utter dissonance of the messages he received in proximity to Jango staggered him.
It occurred to him that the other man might be feeling something similar, if in opposite directions, with a mind convinced of a threat but a body that refused to tense. But no, with the way Fett hadn’t hesitated to try and attack him earlier, no matter how feeble the attempt, his mind likely recognized its proper vessel in the same way Obi-Wan’s did: a warped mirror, but safe.
From under the arm shielding him, the other man groaned, “Stop thinking so loud, by the Ka’ra.”
It hadn’t even crossed his mind that, without the Force, he would not have his own natural shields. Panic and dread gnawed at his insides as he tried to clear his mind for Jango’s sake, but he couldn’t escape the awareness of where his missing sense should be. It only compounded the stone settled in his stomach.
With a noise of disgust, Jango sat up from the bed, scooped up his buy’ce, and shoved it on Obi-Wan’s head, none too gently. Then he sighed in relief, “I don’t know how you can stand being around anyone without beskar, it’s exhausting. They just fling their feelings everywhere, all the time. I think if I’d been born with this, I’d decide to live on my ship, alone, forever.”
That made Obi-Wan chuckle. “One of the main benefits of living with other Force-sensitives is, in fact, that shielding is the norm, thereby making such measures unnecessary,” he said wryly. Then he pushed past his current body’s instinctive discomfort and nudged Jango with an elbow, “Now, let me see the hair. I do have a reputation to uphold, after all.”
It earned him an eyeroll, but Jango still turned his head so that he could access what was less of a braid, at this point, and more of a snarl.
Detangling it in silence, Obi-Wan focused on gently teasing every knot from the strands rather than mulling too much more over their predicament. Obviously Jango wasn’t well enough for that at the moment.
He began plaiting, an action that had been meditative and instinctive for him usually, and fumbled the motion, slightly thicker fingers leaving the twist more loose than he would like, nearly dropping his beads as he added them in their proper places.
Neither spoke, even as he finished, a heavy silence hanging over them both.
Jango broke it, “We can’t be stuck like this. There has to be something we can do.”
Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows behind the helmet, “Eager to return to being Mand’alor, are we?”
A scoff, as the other man rolled back over and glared. “I almost had him,” Jango snarled without any heat, “Before this osik, I had it all figured out. I was doing my people a favor and avenging them, no matter what it took.”
“Apologies for interrupting your plans for murder,” he rolled his eyes.
Another huff, but this one somehow more scornful, “Is a duel murder? I would have been honorable enough, or died trying.”
Privately, Obi-Wan mused that, for someone who had survived so much, Jango seemed awfully careless with his own life. Perhaps that was the point. Where did it become too much?
Still, if Jango wanted to be reckless, as that was his right, he would have to wait until the man was in his own body again. Obi-Wan didn’t want to imagine what might happen if one of them perished before returning to their proper places.
The Jedi hummed, leaving the subject of vengeance behind, “I don’t suppose you know of any instances our sort of situation might have occurred before?”
Jango shot him a flat look, “Outside of gehat’ik?”
“I had hoped…” he sighed and shook his head, “I suppose we will need to at least check the Archives.”
The other man’s expression was skeptical.
Right. As Mand’alor, Obi-Wan wouldn’t have access to the Jedi Archives. And Jango wouldn’t either until the mission ended and Qui-Gon could return. This wasn’t something one could look up unrestricted on a holo, after all. They would need his Master’s access.
Which, of course, meant keeping up this charade for a little while longer. Though, unless they could figure out how to change, they had very little choice in the matter.
Silas stayed silent as they snuck Jango back to where Kryze and Jinn were bunking for the night in the guest rooms. Not that either of them really knew what to say.
For his own part, Jango still felt wrung out. He wasn’t ready for any more heavy conversation.
Still, when they made it to the room, he waved Silas inside instead of letting them shuffle awkwardly in the doorway. When his vod stiffened suddenly, it took him another second to figure out why.
Jinn was meditating in the small sitting area, so Jango toed at his knee to at least let him know they had company. Belatedly, he sent a poke with the Force, too.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure when he’d stopped considering Jinn an immediate threat more often than not, but he realized it now, seeing Silas’s reaction to a jetii.
Without opening his eyes, Jinn greeted, “Welcome back, padawan. I see you’ve brought company.”
“Silas. Jinn. K’urcye jate.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Silas the Mandalorian.”
It took the Mando’ad a second to blink, “…Sure.” He turned back to Jango, “You room with a jetii?”
Jango glared, “People start asking questions when a jet’ika is too far from their bajur.”
“Right.”
The silence after that was stifling until Jango sighed and pointed Silas at a chair, which he took warily. Jinn was unmoved, clearly settling back into his meditation.
With an agitated flop, Jango, folded himself across from the old jetii. He could feel Silas watching them, but Jinn’s brisk presence ruffled at him for attention, asking if Jango was ready to meditate as well. Usually the next step in this song and dance was that Jango would brush the man off and sink into his own meditation, checking his shields over and sharpening his anger into something that didn’t consume him.
With the fraying shields and the exhaustion, Jango didn’t have the energy to slap Jinn away. Part of him snarled at the thought of letting the presence get too close, but the feeling never came. Jinn kept his distance, undisturbed by the way Jango broadcast his suspicion.
Still air, like sunlight poking through trees.
The man telegraphed his breaths, and Jango easily fell into following them.
He felt drained, but Jinn breathed with him and Silas shifted awkwardly in his beskar and the planet’s rhythm drummed slowly in his bones.
And Jango didn’t feel better, but he didn’t feel worse. He didn’t feel alone.