Changes

By: Quiet as a Ninja -- [email protected]

Rated: PG

Summary: Obi-Wan returns to the temple for the 1^st time in 3 years and finds lot as much as things have stayed the same they have changed as well.

Author’s note: Yes I know this has no plot, but I’m trying to develop characters…that’s my story and I’m sticking with it! Feedback please!

It had been nearly 3 years since Obi-Wan and his master, Qui-Gon Jinn had been back to the Jedi Temple on Courescant. Obi-Wan was now a handsome young man of 16. He was not nearly as tall as his master but had grown substantially since the last time anyone at the temple saw him. His face had matured, giving way to more chiselled features, a strong jaw and deep intense eyes. He pulled back his hood as they approached the docking pad near the temple. As he looked out the viewscreen at the expansive city below he wondered if his friends were still at the temple, Mira, Bant, Cean, and Tar’rs. He had not talked to them in 3 years and was angry with himself for not even thinking about them. The years had gone by quickly. They had been full of adventure that he never would have imagined, but they also consisted of the most boring diplomatic events conceivable. No doubt, his master had been in contact with the council and would have been able to find out about his friends if Obi-Wan asked, but the thought never occurred to him.

"It seems as though we have a welcoming committee," Qui-Gon said to his padawan. Obi-Wan glanced in the direction in which his master was looking and saw three cloaked figures, still indistinguishable because of their distance.

The transport landed at their designated docking bay. As master and padawan descended the ship Obi-Wan looked at the 3 figures, on his right, a tall, athletic looking boy. He pulled back his hood and Obi-Wan saw his glowing iridescent skin. *Cean!* Obi-wan though to himself. The next figure he recognised as that of Jedi council member, Master Mace Windu. The last figure had it’s back turned and was conversing with a droid. Suddenly as if someone told the figure to turn around and pulled back it’s hood. Obi-Wan almost fell over when he saw who it was. *Mira* he smiled. *How old is she now? * he counted in his head, 13, and she had definitely changed a lot from the 9-year-old that he remember. She was tall, almost as tall Master Windu. Her long black hair fell out over her shoulders. He saw her padawan braid among the shiny strands. He looked at her face, still much the same, almond shaped, coal black eyes that sparkled, a proud nose, and lips, those lips he thought to himself, those look different, they were dark pink, full, pouty and absolutely luscious.

"Master Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, welcome back to Courescant," the voice knocked Obi-Wan out of his thoughts. "I’m sure you know padawan Cean, and my Padawan, Mira Solo." He gestured towards each padawan as he spoke. Obi-Wan was rather shocked hearing that Mira was his padawan, he was on the council, and it was not often that jedi council members took on padawans. Qui-Gon seemed as shocked as he was. As if reading their minds Mace said, "I stepped down from my position on the council to take Mira as my padawan, the council did not think it would be fair to some poor master to take her. Indeed she could drive even the most patient of masters mad." He smiled. Mira smirked at his teasing. It had been a long time since Qui-Gon saw his old friend joke like that. His years on the council had made him so serious. "Shall we?" Mace gestured.

"Lets roll," Mira said to the droid which lead them to their speeder. She opened the handle on the manual door. "Ewww, Master, this isn’t the speeder you took the kids to the Arboretum in is it?" She asked touching the seats before she sat.

"It is, why?" he asked sitting down in the front next to the droid.

"Everything is sticky." She replied sitting down in a cautious manner. Cean sat next to her and Obi-Wan on the other side. Obi-Wan wanted to say something to his friends but he couldn’t think of anything to say. Where was he to start? "So Ben, did you forget how to use a communicator?" Mira asked. Obi-Wan couldn’t tell if she were joking or if she was really hurt.

/she’s joking/ Cean said to Obi-Wan in her mind

/shut up. I’m not. Thanks for getting in contact with us so we would know that you weren’t dead/ Mira said. Obi-Wan was beginning to miss these past couple years in the temple. He often forgot that he could use the force like this and forgot how often they used to communicate on this level.

/Take it easy on him Mira. He’s been off surfing the galaxy. We’ll get our chance soon/ Cean said to Mira. /And when Mira yells at you, you know she really cares/ he said to Obi-Wan, who was beginning to feeling worse, he should have know that too, after all Mira had been his best friend.

/do you suppose he still speaks?/ Mira asked Cean. Cean just smiled and looked at Obi-Wan apologetically. Qui-Gon, who had been listening to the whole conversation and was beginning to think that he should not have kept his padawan away from the temple and other padawans his age for so long.

* * *

The next morning after breakfast Obi-Wan went to the balcony to meet with his Master, Master Yoda and Master Mace. The balcony was essentially a viewing room that overlooked the main gym. Jedi masters and knights gather in the room quarterly to watch padawan hopefuls. Other times it was just used as a viewing room to watch practice. He was running a bit behind because he had stopped to talk to a couple of people he had not seen in a while. When Obi-Wan arrived he found the masters already in conversation.

"She is reckless but brilliant." Mace said.

"Her midi-cloridian count is very high is it not?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Almost as high as Master Yoda’s." Mace replied proudly.

"Excellent fighter she is." Master Yoda commented as he watched her below. Obi-Wan looked down to see whom they were speaking of. He saw Mira and Cean duelling below. She had indeed built the pink lightsaber that she had talked about for years. And she obviously wielded it well.

"Good morning Masters," Obi-Wan said approaching the three. He bowed slightly. The three acknowledged him with nodding their heads. He took a seat next to his master and watched Mira. She didn’t seem to have to work very hard to block Cean’s blows. He could see Cean’s growing frustration. Mira started to fight back to change the pace of the fight. She backed Cean back to the middle of the gym. This move puzzled Obi-Wan. The masters watched intently.

"She does this all the time, trying to draw Cean out of his same pattern of fighting, but it never works." Mace said to Qui-Gon. Mira fell back into the defensive. Cean hacked at her carelessly leaving Mira with many openings to hit him but she never did. She slowly started to mimic Cean’s movements, presenting him with the same openings he did to her. He saw him and struck her on the right side of her torso. Mira dropped her lightsaber. *She’s letting him win* Obi-Wan thought to himself.

"She’s running out of students that can put up a fight against her. She won’t admit it but I think she is beginning to get bored." Mace said he noticed her deliberateness too.

"Patience she possesses, but wane is does." Yoda agreed. Down below them the fighting had stopped.

/You let me win didn’t you?/ Cean asked Mira as he wiped his face.

/No way. You beat me cos I was careless/ .

/You almost had me a lot of times but you didn’t hit me./

/You can only have so many burns,/ she joked. Cean made a face at her. His master summoned him over. Mira looked up at the balcony towards her master. He gestured for her to join them, but Qui-Gon stopped him.

/I’m sending Obi-Wan down/ he said to her in her mind. She nodded. Qui-Gon was confident that his padawan would pose as a challenge, but he didn’t expect him to beat her. Obi-Wan was good, but she was a fierce warrior and obviously more intune with the force than he.

Obi-Wan walked down to the gym and began to warm up. He felt nervous, which was strange for him. He hardly ever felt nervous before a fight. He looked at Mira who was stretching over at the other end of the bench from him. She must have been 5’7" already, and only 13. *She’s going to be taller than me* he thought to himself, he was convinced that 5’9" was his destined height, never mind that he had just turned 16, he just had a feeling he would be short.

/To steal a quote from Master Yoda, ‘size matters not’/ a voice said. Obi-Wan turned to see Mira beside him. He smiled. /are you going to join us for dinner?/ she asked.

"That would be nice." Obi-Wan replied out loud. Mira suddenly looked embarrassed.

"I’m sorry, I’m getting in a habit if not speaking out loud. Master always yells at me when I do that, mind you he does it telepathically," she smiled. It had been so long since he had seen that smile, and there were those lips again. This time Obi-Wan was careful and shielded his thoughts. He did remember one thing about her; she liked to pick at his brain any chance she got. They made their way to the centre of the gym and bowed before drawing their lightsabers. Obi-Wan decided to let her strike first, the problem was that it seemed to be her plan to. They were both trying to size each other up. Today was the first time he had seen her fight from that he knew that she was a formidable foe. For Mira, the last time she had seen him fight was 3 years ago, and she was unsure as to what to expect. Finally she attacked; swinging at his side, Obi-Wan blocked her easily. She kept at him trying to strike at him from different angles. She was sizing him up, and drinking in all his defensive moves. She was also backing him into a corner. Obi-Wan was surprised with her strength, she was tall and lanky and without the force she would probably have been a clumsy teenager, but with it she was quick, agile and…beautiful. *Beautiful?* Obi-Wan thought to himself, *where on Courescant did that come from?* he wondered, while lost in that thought Mira tripped him up and he fell hard into the corner, but recovered quickly by rolling out and away from Mira. He decided that it was his turn to attack her. He attacked her holding nothing back, but she held her ground. The switched rolls between attacker and defender for quite a while. Finally Mira began to fall back towards the bench. As they were moving towards the bench Obi-Wan sensed something coming from behind him, and turned to block it with his lightsaber. It was one of the various objects that were left around the gym for just that purpose, to strike opponents while fighting. That distracted him long enough for Mira to take his legs out from under him. His lightsaber flew out of his hand out of arms reach. Mira was about to strike a fatal blow when Obi-Wan rolled out of the way and flipped over her onto the bench.

/I hope you have that set on low!/ he exclaimed. He used to force to reach out for his lightsaber, it flew up into his hand. Mira swung at his legs and he jumped over her once again, but before he landed he was struck from behind with another object, something bigger than before. Once again he lost his lightsaber. He fell flat on his face, close to Mira’s feet. He grabbed her boots and pulled her over as he hit the floor. He toppled over onto her back and her lightsaber shut down, but recovered quickly and somersaulted over Obi-Wan as he got back up. She was actually breaking a sweat, which was nice for once. They both went to click their lightsabers back on but they didn’t work at first, but Obi-Wan’s blue blade flashed back on. Mira’s did not. She quickly threw hers at Obi-Wan’s arm, too quickly for him to react knocking his weapon away from him. She used the force to smash it against the wall. Now they were both without lightsabers. She had really caught him off guard with that move. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if they were to continue, but the boot to the side of his face was a good indication that the fight was to continue. They fought for sometime, striking hard blows to one another. Obi-Wan gave her a hard kick to the side that knocked her over, as he pulled back to defend himself, she bounded up from the ground and planted her boot in his eye socket. He feel back with pain. With is good eye he saw Mira’s legs fly out from under her. She had slipped.

The Masters were quick to come down from the balcony to see to the two injured padawans.

"Oh my Gods, Ben, I’m sorry, my foot slipped. Are you okay?" she asked as she kneeled by him. The back of his eye felt like it was touching his brain, and he couldn’t see much out of it but blurry colours.

"We should get him to the med bay, " Master Qui-Gon said calmly.

* * *

"I’m so so so so sorry!!" Mira couldn’t stop apologising to Obi-Wan. She was only aiming at his forehead, but slipped because she was so dazed from his kick. They sat at the same table they always used to sit at in the cafeteria. Mira sat across from Obi-Wan not eating much, she was staring at his purple swollen eye. Cean was next to her with Tar’rs across from him.

"You should have seen what she did to me. I had this big nasty burn mark on my face for 2 days when she hit me with the lightsaber." Tar’rs said. He was now a tall, muscular 14-year-old.

"I suppose that was an accident too?" Obi-Wan asked with a slight grin. Mira sighed and looked even guiltier. Obi-Wan just chuckled. "So where did Bant go?" he asked.

"She is on some diplomatic mission with her Master, they’ve been gone for nearly a week now." Tar’rs replied with his mouth full of food.

"It’s nice having you back Obi-Wan," Cean said. "Do you know how long you will be staying at the temple?"

"I’m not sure, but I think my master wants to me be with other padawans my age for a while. He mentioned something like that last night."

"Good, then you have ample time to tell us what you’ve been up to while you’ve been gone."

"Yea, we’ve all lead pretty sheltered lives here in the temple so far, " Mira agreed. "Master Yoda has become more and more lenient about leaving the temple for other activities lately, I don’t know if it’s because he feels that we are old enough or that he is just lighting up a bit."

"Yea we can go out for things other than errands now, mind you we have to sign out and everything like that and always go out in at least pairs, but still, it’s nice."

"We also have to have the permission of our masters. Some of the lucky ones with masters not as strict as mine get to go out a lot more." Tar’rs said, still eating. Mira pushed her tray towards him, and he began to pick at her food too.

"Yea but we still find a way to get Tar’rs out with us." Cean said. He seemed to be less and less paranoid and scared as he matured.

"So you haven’t been out on missions yet?" Obi-Wan asked curious about temple life. He was aware that his training was a bit different from the other padawans because his Master was more of a lone wolf, but he was finding that his teachings did not differ much for theirs.

"Cean hasn’t gone yet but Tar’rs and I went on a diplomatic mission last month to Darrinia III, and man was that a snore. That is about it. I’m pretty much content with that, I don’t want to be shot at and chased all the time, I’ll have a lot of that in the future and I’ll take all the boring diplomatic missions I can take now."

"Mira’s convinced that we’re all going to be seeing a lot of action when we’re older and trying to get us to savour the peace we’re getting now." Cean said taking Mira’s dessert from her tray. Obi-Wan noticed that she had not eaten and was sensing that she was feeling anxious.

"She talks like an old lady. But knowing her we should take her word for it." Tar’rs said stuffing the last bit of Mira’s food in his mouth.

* * *

Outside the temple the sun was setting over the city landscape, the lights of the city becoming brighter as the darkness descended. The padawans often had free time after dinner. After returning their dinner trays Obi-Wan walked with Mira down the long halls of the temple. He could feel his palms begin to sweat a bit, as stole glances at her. She talked about temple life and what it had been like since he left.

"You look hot." Mira said. Obi-Wan just looked at her shocked. "Do you want to go and take a walk out in the garden to cool down?" she asked. *Oh…hot. Yes.* Obi-Wan nodded, and blushed slightly. They headed towards the large indoor dome that served as the temple’s garden. Even though I was inside, the environmental conditions mimicked that of the outside world. The air was fresh, and the plants plentiful. They walked out along the path of the garden that lead to a clearing that held several picnic tables. Seated at one of them were their masters, Qui-Gon and Mace.

"Good evening Padawans," Mace said. Qui-Gon nodded in their direction.

"Good evening," the two said in unison. Obi-Wan knew that his master could sense his growing anxiety. Maybe he would know why Obi-Wan felt this way. Obi-Wan certainly didn’t. It was strange; he only felt it when he was with Mira. It was beginning to occur to him that he might be attracted to his old friend, but this was not the first time he had a crush on someone, he could usually at least muster up the courage to speak to them. With Mira he was even at a loss for words.

"Master Qui-Gon I heard that you went on a mission to Ariania, and I was wondering if you had a chance to hear their National Opera?" Mira asked him. Mace smiled at his friend.

"That has been Mira’s latest obsession. She has quite a fondness for the galaxy’s music, you two would have a lot to talk about." Mace said.

"No we didn’t get a chance to stop by, you probably heard that the Arianian’s dispute was quite a long and time consuming one. It was a shame."

"Quite," Mira nodded. "I do have some good aria’s on my terminal in my room, I can send some over to your quarters when I get back in." Mira offered.

"That would be greatly appreciated," Qui-Gon said, he actually looked forward to it.

When the two padawans finally did get away from their masters they walked in silence for several moments. Obi-Wan finally felt Mira’s presence in his mind. She was prodding him but not actually reading anything in his mind. Just teasing. She had obviously learned to control her bad habit of probing everyone.

/It’s nice to see you again/ Obi-Wan said to her.

"Even if it’s only with one eye?" she asked looking at his wound. Obi-Wan laughed and nodded. Normally the swelling would have gotten worse, but Obi-Wan used his jedi healing powers to help keep the swelling down, but he concentrated most on keeping the pain in check. The walk deeper into the garden where there were thicker trees, the last light of dusk provided for poor lighting conditions but they continued into the small forest. Obi-Wan could not take his eyes off of her, he couldn’t believe how different she looked. Of course he must have looked different to, but she had grown so much. "Are you going to continue staring at me with your one eye?" Mira asked in a jovial manner.

"Sorry, you just look so different."

"Yes, taller and ganglier." She joked. She reached for his padawan braid, "this is getting long." She said tugging at it. They were silent for a moment. Obi-Wan contemplated kissing her but backed off. He had never kissed a girl before, which probably seemed pretty bad for a 16-year-old boy, but the past 3 years had gone by so quickly, he hardly had any time for himself, let alone girls. Mira finally broke the silence. "I’m sorry."

"For what?"

"For acting so cold and indifferent today at the docking bay."

"I didn’t expect anything different."

"Really?"

"Really. I’ve been away for 3 years and never once called or wrote, I knew you would be angry."

"I wasn’t angry. A little jealous, and a little annoyed, but not angry. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been up to these years."

"I’m the one who should be sorry."

"Part of me wanted to run up to you and hug you, but another part of me told me to stay put, keep my composure and act as I should act. I feel like I have to fit into this role that has been place before me, and I don’t want to. At least not yet."

"Role? What do you mean?" Obi-Wan asked as they walked deeper into the wooded area.

"Well Master Mace obviously stepped down from his place on the council to train me for some reason. I hear them talking sometimes and they feel that I would be a good council member one day, when I’m well and trained, and maybe even fit for Master Yoda’s role. Now you tell me those aren’t big robes to fill."

"Not literally, but that is expecting a lot."

"They try to hide those thoughts from me, but I heard them. I hear a lot of things I’d rather not." Mira said looking out on the clearing that they came to. Sometimes being so strong in the force was more of a burden than a gift she thought. She looked so young, but she understood things beyond her years. Obi-Wan felt bad for her sometimes. She was very strong in the force, but had problems handling it.

He moved closer to her, he could almost feel her calling for him to come closer. Once again the thoughts of kissing Mira stirred in Obi-Wan’s head. He wished that he could read her, but her mind was closed off. She merely stared off towards the direction of the sun that had just set.

Mira could feel Obi-Wan’s eyes on her. She had never felt more awkward and uncomfortable in her changing body than she did now. Everything was changing, including her relationship with her best friend. She could hardly believe that she was beginning to develop a crush on Ben, of all people! Mira turned to met his gaze, and as if some force was pulling them together, they moved closer and closer until Obi-Wan’s lips gently touched hers, it was an awkward meeting and they both pulled away for a moment before touching lips again. Her lips were soft and sweet. Obi-Wan’s arms wrapped around her body, pulling her closer as they kissed. Mira felt his warm lips meet hers for the third time, this time it felt as if an electric shock had been sent though her body and she pulled away from Obi-Wan abruptly. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came. Obi-Wan was instantly worried, had he done something wrong? Had he hurt her? Scared her? Offended her? He didn’t know, but desperately wanted answers. The only one he got was the slight smirk that had spread on Mira’s face. She looked at him demurely and turned to walk back towards the temple.

/See you tomorrow Ben/ She said and disappeared back into the forest.