"If the archives couldn't find this dart, it shouldn't have been much of a shock that this would happen," I say dejectedly.

Obi-Wan and I have returned to the Temple to dig through the archives on anything about Kamino. Thanks to Dex, we got the coordinates of the planet. But apparently, when we looked it up, it was nowhere to be found.

"Are you having a problem, Master Kenobi?" asks Jocasta Nu, one of the helpers in the archive. She's an older lady, very friendly. I've always had the notion that the older someone looks, it makes them seem wiser. She seems like that case.

"Yes, I'm trying to find a planet system called Kamino. It doesn't seem to show up in any of the archive charts."

"Kamino? It's not a system I'm familiar with...Let me see..." Jocasta Nu leans over Obi-Wans shoulder. "Are you sure you have the right coordinates?"

"According to our information, it should be in this quadrant somewhere...just south of the Rishi Maze," I tell her.

Jocasta Nu frowns, tapping the keyboard. "Are you sure it exists?"

"Absolutely," Obi-Wan and I say together. The three of us study the map hologram.

"There are some inconsistencies here," says Jocasta Nu. "Maybe the planet you're looking for was destroyed."

"Wouldn't that be on record?" I ask.

"It ought to be. Unless it was very recent." She shakes her head. "I hate to say it, but it looks like the system you're searching for doesn't exist."

"That's impossible...perhaps the archives are incomplete."

"The archives are comprehensive and totally secure, my young Jedi. One thing you may be absolutely sure of—if an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist!"

"Well, this is a problem," I murmur as Jocasta Nu leaves us.

"Indeed it is," Obi-Wan agrees.

"What other options do we have? The archives were our best shot."

"We can get someone else's thoughts on the matter."

With Obi-Wan keeping his thoughts ominous and vague, I follow him out of the archives. Walking through the Temple gives me some nostalgia. It reminds me of how I once used to be that eager Padawan learner, shorter than I am now, still with the same curly dark hair.

When I recognize the path we're taking, I have a good guess as to who we're seeing. I pick up on his voice from outside of the room.

"Don't think, feel. Be as one with the Force," says Master Yoda, who's currently teaching twenty younglings. All the youngsters bare helmets. I remember that training, not being able to see scared me. You learn the lesson there: even if you're in the dark, let the Force guide you. "Help you, it will." He notices our presence. "Younglings—younglings! Visitors we have. Welcome them."

All the younglings pull off their helmets, some have bad hair as a result. They all murmur welcomes to us, only addressing Obi-Wan. Since I left the Temple, I never got my Master status that I had strived for. I never even reached the opportunity to upgrade my status to a Jedi Knight. I do regret missing out on that opportunity.

"We're sorry to disturb you, Master," Obi-Wan tells Yoda.

"What help to you, can I be?"

"We're looking for a planet described to us by an old friend. I trust him. But the system doesn't show up on the archive maps."

"An interesting puzzle. Gather round the map reader, younglings. Master Obi-Wan has lost a planet. Find it, we will..."

I stand back as Obi-Wan places the data on the small shaft with the hollow opening up top. The children gather around. The map explodes in the air around us, almost like we're actually standing in the galaxy.

"This is where it ought to be," says Obi-Wan, standing and pointing to a blank part of the map. "But it isn't. Gravity is pulling all the stars in this area inward to this spot. There should be a star here...but there isn't."

"Most interesting. Gravity's silhouette remains, but the star and all its planets have disappeared. How can this be?"

For a while, no one says anything, until one youngling raises their hand.

"Because someone erased it from the archive memory," he squeaks.

"Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is," says Yoda, chuckling. "The Padawan is right. To the center of the pull of gravity go, and find your planet you will."

"But, Master Yoda," says Obi-Wan as he takes the map away, and the shades that were lowered pull up, "who could have erased information from the archives? That's impossible, isn't it?"

Yoda frowns. "Much harder to answer, that question is."

When we leave Master Yoda and the younglings to resume their training, we're left with more questions than answers.

"Thea?"

"Hmm?"

"You're smiling."

"I am?" I dip my head sheepishly. "I envy children, Force sensitive or not. They barely understand how the galaxy works. They don't have responsibilities or worries. They don't stress over the little things." I sigh. "I remember those days in the Temple, Ben."

Obi-Wan frowns slightly. He knows of my past, he's the only one that I've ever told. The rest of the Jedi, my old Master included, all they did was speculate my past from what little details I gave and what they pieced together about me. Thinking about it, I can't wonder why I was able to tell him yet not spill my past out to the woman who was training me.

When I told Obi-Wan, I made sure he never spoke about it to anyone. So far, it seems like he's kept to his word.

~*~

"It's time someone knew," I told Obi-Wan. "I feel like someone has to."

"And that someone is me?"

"We're friends." I offered him an uneasy smile. "I know you'll listen and not judge." I bit down on my lip.

"What about Master Uri?"

"I'd like to tell her, someday. It just doesn't feel like the right time. She tries to coax me out, and I appreciate her attempts. She doesn't push when I don't give her an answer. I don't think she'll judge..."

"Again, I ask, that someone to tell is me?" Though Obi-Wan said this jokingly, it didn't lighten my spirit.

"How much have you heard about me before this?"

"Not much. Since no one but you truly knows your past...all it seems to be is speculation."

"That's not the answer I was looking for."

"What did you expect, Thea? Supposedly, I'll be the only one other than you to know this."

"Okay, then, let me rephrase: What do you speculate about my past? I know it's got people curious." Sometimes the attention from mere acquaintances unnerved me. I couldn't read minds, so I couldn't begin to guess where their theories went.

"Well, it doesn't take a Master to know that you had a dark past. Dark energy...it came from you, even though you tried to make it become something else. What happened to you, Thea?"

"A lot," I said quietly. We stood outside of the Temple, admiring the sunset over the planet. "Nobody knows what really happened, except for those who were part of the past. My father is a deadbeat, I've never met him." I rubbed my hands together. "When I was old enough, Mom let me venture out into the markets. I was abducted, swept off of Tatooine.

"I couldn't tell you where I was after that. A man—who seemed far from being a man—with horns and red and black face-paint was the one who took me from my home planet. I had expected to die. But then...I met him. A Sith Lord. He called himself Darth Sidious."

"You met him in person?"

I chuckled. "No, only via hologram. He hid most of his face with his hood, and I couldn't tell you who he was by his voice." I shuddered. "They muttered nonsense, claiming that I was this so-called 'Chosen One'. They told me about the prophecy, about the Force. At the time, I knew I was Force-sensitive, but I didn't necessarily know what it was. I could make people do things that I wanted them to do, I could move things without touching them. I hid my...talents from my mother when I first discovered them. I was afraid of what she would've thought of me.

"It was through Darth Sidious that I learned about the Sith, and how the Jedi were enemies. He'd made me believe that Jedi were the bad guys. I trained with his apprentice, Darth Maul, for a while."

"I'd heard rumors about you, when you were found on the Temple steps," Obi-Wan said thoughtfully. "That you were...injured."

I nodded slowly. "I trained for a while, until they realized that it was possible that I wasn't the 'Chosen One' as they had assumed that I was. They didn't believe in keeping me alive, because what was I to them? The Sith only have two: a master and an apprentice. I learned that the hard way. I'd like to think that they would've made an exception for me had I been who they thought I was.

"Darth Sidious ordered Maul to execute me, but I had caught on. I barely made it out with my life."

"And they haven't come for you since?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" I joked. "The Sith wouldn't dare to try and come kill one Jedi, not when there's only two of them." I licked my lips. "They had my rights and wrongs backwards. They manipulated me at the right age so I wouldn't know the difference." I put my head in my hands.

"Well, you know the right difference now," Obi-Wan told me encouragingly.

"You mustn't tell the Council, or anyone else," I whisper-panicked. "Swear to me that you won't."

"You have my word. I promise."

In his blue eyes, I could see, and sense, that he was sincere. I never had to worry about him betraying me, he had too good of a soul.

~*~

"I had a lot of acquaintances, but you were the only real friend that I had then," I note to Obi-Wan fondly. Saying "friend" hurts me inside. At one point in time, neither of us thought of the other like that. We were in a difficult time then.

I wonder if he still thinks about that, even after all these years. Seeing him after a decade, just being near him again brings comfort, and slight discomfort. It's a conflicting feeling.

**I'm sure most of you had speculated Thea's past. How accurate we're all? Maybe it was a bit too obvious, or you guy are just that good a guessing.

Do I sense a ship starting to form here??**