Under The Cover Of Darkness

Chapter Ten

The next time she arrived, Ahsoka brought another two new datapads and another thermos of tea. Obi-Wan was in the middle of reading one of the previous datapads he'd brought in—a light swashbuckler he would never have admitted to Ahsoka he read.

Unfortunately, his grandpadawan could be a nosy imp.

Then again, she was also the only one who'd figured out he wasn't always in control, so perhaps he could withstand her teasing about his reading materials.

"Obi-Wan?" she asked cautiously, assessingly, after the Temple Guard opened the slot, let her push the tea and datapads through, and left.

"For now," he agreed, managing to summon a weary smile. Ahsoka's assessing look continued, though a bit more subdued—evidently, however she'd figured out the entity was lying, she wasn't completely sure quite yet.

To Obi-Wan's significant displeasure, he felt a request wave across his consciousness.

"Ahsoka," he said, keeping his face and tone under very careful control, "the entity wants me to ask whether you'd like to talk to me first or whether you'd like to speak to me first, or...continue your previous conversation with it."

Ahsoka's expression turned sheepish. "Uh, I'd actually like to talk to the entity first and you after, sorry, Master Obi-Wan."

May I?

Oh, how kind of it, to pretend that it needed to ask about anything—

He forced a smile. "Very well."

"We're gonna talk after, though, okay, Master? I have nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon, and if it doesn't let us talk I'm going to run straight to Master Windu."

"Okay." And with that he sent an angry spike of agreement to the entity.

On the upside, the shifts of control in his body were no longer accompanied by nausea and retching, hadn't been since the first time. On the downside, that meant that no one had noticed them, and in fact used the lack of visible reaction to assume they never happened.

"So, Ahsoka," the entity asked, molding Obi-Wan's face into what felt like a friendly smile, "what has your research turned up?"

Ahsoka's eyes narrowed. "Lots of stuff."

"Anything to bear out the validity of my claim?" That, Obi-Wan also dearly wanted to know.

"Well, there's records of both the Sith and the Jedi making Force ghosts. Supposedly the Sith can tie Force ghosts to living beings...but they have to do it themselves. And there's no record of Force ghosts being able to possess people."

"Hmm. Interesting." Obi-Wan's hands folded themselves on his lap.

"So can you prove it?"

"Honestly? I'm not sure."

"Well, if you're a Force ghost, why don't you just fly on out of Master Obi-Wan and prove it to me?"

As far as Obi-Wan was concerned, that sounded like a great plan. And if Luke's attack had been necessary to make this happen, maybe he would even get to remain free... "Sorry," the entity said, still smiling, "I'm afraid that's not in the cards."

"I'm not just gonna believe you on something like this without proof. You're way too questionable a source."

"Then I'm not sure what else I can do, my dear Ahsoka. Are you saying you want to bring our arrangement to an end?"

Ahsoka, while not actually shouting, was approaching levels generally considered unacceptable for indoors. "Yeah, if I have no reason to believe you're not lying to me!"