saddeserthermit | Office Hours, Wednesday

Kanan hadn't held office hours in a while, himself. But at that present moment, he wasn't terribly concerned with that fact. He had actually used the Force to seek out Obi-Wan this time, not entirely able to shunt it aside with the ease that he would have used even a month ago.

If it was going to be there, nagging at him like an anxious puppy, then he might as well put it to some use.

"Master Kenobi?" He gave a little rap on the doorframe with his knuckles. "Have you got a moment for a chat?"

No, Kanan. He clearly came to town to hold office hours in order to be more difficult to find than he was out in the shack in the woods.

Obi-Wan looked up over his cup of tea, faint smile jumping to his expression.

"Kanan," he said, faintly proud of himself for going for that name instead of Dume immediately. "Please. Come in. Sit down."

He gestured at a seat by his desk.

Kanan blinked, just as faintly surprised that the second syllable of that name came out as 'nan' instead of 'leb.' It sounded strange coming from Obi-Wan. And a bit like vindication, somehow, though he couldn't put a finger on the reasons why. So he just smiled, and then came in and took a seat.

"Thank you. I... hope you've been well? I only really understood what had gone on last week after I stopped being a tooka."

The things this place made him say.

Obi-Wan's smile took a turn for the wry. "I was fine," he said. "I merely devoted most of my time to the library last week, attempting to work out what... nonsense was going on outside."

Because that had been some nonsense.

"But peace has been restored, and I don't believe anything particularly traumatizing has occurred." Beat. "You were a tooka?"

"I was a tooka," Kanan muttered. "A Loth-cat, I think. I wasn't exactly worried about particulars at the time."

He'd been more worried about chasing things. And whatever strange things were going on with physics at the time. He'd actually been a pretty stressed cat.

"Hell, I've never even been to Lothal. But, like you said... peace restored, nothing too traumatizing. Which I suppose is a bonus, considering some people are still reeling over the memory loss that happened just before it."

Himself included. Being a cat didn't give much opportunity to process.

"Ah, yes," Obi-Wan said. "The loss of memory."

This... had not thrown him off so much. He'd woken up in the woods and decided himself a peaceful hermit, which was all right.

"Was this a problem for you?"

Kanan hiked one shoulder up in a sort of halfhearted shrug.

"It wasn't so bad, not remembering. There are a lot of things I wouldn't mind forgetting, if I didn't think it could get me killed," he admitted. "It meant I didn't even think to have my usual barriers up, though."

The ones that kept that constant press of the Force at bay. He still didn't quite have it edged out again. It got harder, every time he let it back in.

"And remembering everything again on the Monday..." He frowned. "I suppose I didn't care for that part."

He supposed he didn't care for it enough that he'd tried to get very drunk.

"I suppose we all have some memories we'd rather repress, and regaining them can be a trial," Obi-Wan said.

Not for him. He spent way too much time agonizing over his memories instead. "What was it like, experiencing the Force again with so little... guile?"

Kanan reached up to stroke his beard for a moment, looking thoughtful. Still a little troubled, but... thoughtful.

"I don't remember a time in my life that I didn't know what the Force was," he said, finally. "I couldn't have told you what it was that weekend, just that it was there for me."

He frowned a little.

"Like an old friend. It was a comfort."

The exact opposite of what he'd convinced himself it actually was, over the years.

"That is what it should be," Obi-Wan said quietly.

He wondered just how far Dume had have to have fallen to forget it - even Obi-Wan could not bring it in himself to push the Force aside like this. "A comfort. And a guide. And so many other things."

There was a long pause from Kanan as he considered that answer. And then, finally, he shook his head. Not in disagreement, just in tired bemusement.

"A death sentence," he said, softly. "I was young when the Clones turned on us, and then I was alone. Being rid of it was the only way I could be sure it wouldn't have me, or anybody I got close to, hunted down. The last time I used it, meant to use it, before coming here, I was throwing myself through an airlock into space, trying to get away from them one last time."

He hesitated before adding, "Even then, I trusted it to guide me."

And then he'd shut it out.

"We've spoken about this before," Obi-Wan said, tilting his head. "The Force is not merely one thing. It is a liability, yes. It is a guide, yes. It is a comfort, yes."

He folded his hands into the sleeves of his robe. "To cut it out of your life because of one of these functions is extreme," he said. "One does not cut one's leg off merely because it is an easy target for a vibroblade."

"No, but if your leg has gone necrotic and it's about to take the rest of you with it, even a doctor will suggest taking the extreme course of action," Kanan countered, frowning. "I know it isn't any one thing. I understand that the Force is more complicated than that. At the time, I was just doing what I thought I needed to do in order to live to see another day. And at the time, it worked."

There was a 'but,' there. There always was. He didn't voice it, that fear that cutting it away had saved him then, but was costing him something now. Instead, he went at it a bit sideways.

"I was only a Padawan, Master Kenobi. Whatever the Force is to you... it wasn't that, to me. It could have been. I was even on my way to really understanding the relationship I was meant to have with it, myself. But I was no Knight."

"I would say 'necrosis of the Force' is rather a strong and false equivalence," Obi-Wan said, because far be it from him not to argue about the details. "No matter."

It was perilously hard suddenly to maintain his grasp on Dume's cover, and he once again found himself swallowing back the name. "You were no Knight, but you made the choice to open yourself to it," he said. "It is not a decision one goes back on easily. Or fully. Regardless of one's understanding."

As Dume had already found.

"It posed a danger to you once. It is attempting to offer you comfort, now. Would you turn that away?"

Kanan could have just argued that 'vibroblade to the leg' was something of a false equivalence, as well. The Force wasn't putting itself in danger, after all. And nobody with vibroblades was running around killing people just because they had legs. But Obi-Wan's next question pulled at his mind, tugged him away from the urge to argue and into other thoughts entirely.

"I... don't know," he said, frowning. "For once in my life, I don't think it's the biggest problem I have, here. But if I accept it now, what do I do if I ever get to go home?"

"You find ways to hide it without hiding from it," Obi-Wan said. "You have a unique chance here to practice - to further your education and master your skills without danger of being found out."

He nudged his cup of tea across the desk. "You are not a youngling any longer."

Kanan tried not to look too much like the antsy kid he felt a little bit like all over again. He'd put a lot of hard work into hiding that kid from the world, and from himself. But there was still a fidget, if not a squirm, before he reached for the tea.

"No," he agreed. "I'm not. I had to grow up too quickly for that."

And then, before he could talk himself out of it, before he could let the unease in his guts worry him to the point where he thanked Obi-Wan for his time and fled to the relative safety of his apartment, he pulled in a breath and asked, "Would you teach me?"

The first thought that shot through Obi-Wan was Anakin; and so he hesitated, visible but for a moment, before he answered.

"Of course," he said. "Though you will have to tell me how far your training with Master Billaba had already come by the time that... certain events occurred."

Kanan caught that momentary hesitation. It was difficult to miss for somebody who had been as paranoid as he had been for so long. He frowned faintly, though didn't prod at it. Especially not once Obi-Wan agreed to it.

And then he asked about his training, and Kanan exhaled in a soft huff of something that was almost a laugh. A very wry, tired sort of laugh.

"Not far," he admitted, his voice dropping to a near whisper as he spoke. "She took me as her Padawan, I got my crystal and built my lightsaber, and then we went to war. We had good talks, and she kept my training up enough to get us through, but it was always minimal. There wasn't much time to train properly on Kardoa," because he'd been shot and spent a good chunk of the downtime afterwards in a bacta tank, "or Mygeeto, or Kaller. The first night we set aside for any real amount of actual training after we became involved in the war, that was the night they turned on us."

"I'm sorry."

The full extent of just how unprepared Dume had been, Obi-Wan... had not been aware of. "Have you, by any chance, spoken to Ahsoka?" he asked quietly.

Because he did not particularly want to give away who or what Ahsoka was if Kanan didn't know, but...

"No," Kanan sighed. "I haven't. I don't know if she suspects who I was, considering how much older I am compared to what I should be by her standards. But I recognize her well enough."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I should. I know. But opening up isn't something I'm very good at, and coming up with a reason to take her aside after class without being obvious about why hasn't happened yet."

Then again, she'd pretty blatantly used the Force while fighting that rancor sim he'd cooked up. He was still trying to figure out if she wasn't actually hiding it, or if she was banking on people thinking that all Togruta could move like that.

"Perhaps you should," Obi-Wan said.

He sighed, nudging the thick upper robe off his shoulders. "She grew up as you did," he said. "The Clone Wars began when she was made Anakin's Padawan. And much like you, she learned to harness the Force in combat above all other applications."

Kanan nodded, pursing his lips a little in thought.

"I suppose I could take her aside after class one of these days. It isn't as though this semester I'm teaching anything so blatant as a course on keeping out of notice."

Kind of the opposite, actually.

"A wise decision," Obi-Wan said wryly.

He may not have been talking about the 'speaking to Ahsoka' part, no.

"I feared this once," he added. "A generation of Jedi raised on war... history has taught us that is rarely a good thing."

"Well, for what it's worth, I have no interest in going back to war." Kanan's brow was furrowed as he spoke, but his eyes were down, turned toward the tea sitting between them. "The last one left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth."

Total mystery as to why. Really.

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