It was a very well kept secret that Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi was in love with the Dutchess Satine of Mandalore. Well, it's very well kept if you don't count the thousands of Mandalorians, half the younglings in the Jedi Temple and the whole planet of Shili.

-----

He was running; he could not tell why, or where, or what from. But he was running. Suddenly, the pace changed, like he was being weighed down. Glancing down, he saw why. Red beskar covered him, helmet in one hand, blaster in the other.

There was a scream, and everything changed around him. Satine was there, lying dead by a two-sided red lightsaber.

Obi-Wan woke up with a scream; he could vaguely feel a pain in his fist and another scream in the background.

"Force, Obi-Wan! I won't wake you in a nightmare again!" Anakin shouted the words mumbled by the hand cupping his nose.

Obi-Wan's eyes landed on Anakin's crouched form on the floor. Just as he watched, he could see the blood start to drip down the man's arm. "Let's get you to Kix," he sighed as he heaved the fallen Jedi off the floor.

-----

If the walk there was awkward with Anakin dripping blood down himself, then explaining it to the medics was another form of torture.

"So you're telling me, General Kenobi broke your nose, a General that avoids conflict if possible?" Kix asked. You could just see the raised eyebrow behind the helmet. "And you, Mr I don't fight, don't remember socking him around the face?" Kix questioned, turning on Obi-Wan.

"I only remember a nightmare and myself screaming," Obi-Wan shrugged.

"Your bruises should fade, General Kenobi. Your nose should be healed by tomorrow, General Skywalker, but no training until I give the clearance," Kix instructed, glaring slightly at the young Knight.

"Great," Anakin grumbled under his breath before turning on his heels and leaving the room, ignoring the looks he got for having bacta plastered all over his nose.

"I recommend you find something calming to do, General," Kix nodded to Obi-Wan before leaving to attend to another patient.

-----

That's how Obi-Wan found himself meditating in his room. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not get the image out of his head of Satine dying, over and over he watched her die. Sometimes reaching out to him, others so far away that she didn't know he was there.

But the worst was when Maul used his lightsaber to chop the Dutchess the same way he'd cut Maul's legs off then thrown her into his arms, smiling as Obi-Wan held the dying Satine in his hands.

Finally, a different vision filed his mind.

He knew where Maul was.

Picking up his lightsaber, he stood out of his room.

The Jedi Council can wait, Maul needed to go. And he needed to go NOW.

-----

Maul just finished his meal when all the alarms went off around him. "What droid set off an explosion this time," he growled, grabbing his lightsaber.

"I think you'll find I am no droid," he heard snarled behind him.

"Kenobi," Maul grinned as he turned to face the man. His jaw dropped when he saw the Jedi Master.

The man was stood before him, lightsaber blaring next to his side. The standard cream armour and robes the Jedi wore was replaced with a dark grey almost black suit of armour highlighting Obi-Wan's emotion-filled eyes.

The crucial part of the eyes wasn't that they were emotion-filled, but that they weren't blue - at least not entirely. The blue was almost covered in a transparent fiery red, flickering with anger and protectiveness.

But protectiveness for what?

"Surprised?" Obi-Wan smirked, "surely this has been what you've been waiting for?"

"This certainly is a change in the foretold events," Maul smirked back. "I thought I'd have to ram my blade through more people."

Obi-Wan's eyes hardened instantly, filled with the fiery red. "I will not let you kill her!" He snarled.

Maul choked on his breath, "her?!" As much as he thought, he could not think of someone that would ignite this reaction from the otherwise stoic Jedi Master, "who is her?"

"Doesn't matter," Obi-Wan snarled, "all that matters is that you are not going to leave this room alive!"

"Who's caught your eye that I shall kill?" Maul asked as he brought his blade up to block Obi-Wan's swing.

"You don't deserve to know her name," Obi-Wan snarled with a hiss, "you're just a beast waiting for slaughter."

Maul had little to no time to process the words as an onslaught of blows rained down on him. He quickly worked up a sweat on the never-ending rain, being forced further and further into a corner. Finally, when Maul was cornered, Obi-Wan preparing the final blow, he exclaimed in desperation, "what would she think of this?"

A grin-like smirk crossed Obi-Wan's face, "she doesn't have to know, no one does. Only the two of us will know," he purred out before his blade swung down and cleanly sliced the man's head from the body. "Guess only I'll know," he added as a second thought, a laugh bubbling to the surface.

Obi-Wan laughed and laughed until tears streamed down his face, hands holding the floor on shaky knees—until the laughs turned to sobs as the wall finally broke in the beaten man's body, mind and soul.

-----

'Anakin, please, please, come. Stop me!'

Anakin awoke with a start at his master beg. He could not shake the echoing sobs bouncing through the bond.

'I'm coming master; I'll help you!'

'Bring help; I don't want to hurt you! Please.'

Anakin felt his heartache at the desperation flowing through those words.

'You won't hurt me, master.'

'You don't know that. I don't know that.'

The harshness threw Anakin; those words were spoken with a tone he'd rarely heard from Obi-Wan. Something significant had happened, something so drastic, Obi-Wan was almost fearful.

-----

The rescue team was scrambled together in record time. The moment the 501st had seen the state their General was in, they set to work. The moment the 212th knew it was their General, then they joined in.

Anakin was tapping his feet as he held onto the straps on the gunship, his whole body was filled with worry - but he could not tell whether it was his, or his master's as it flowed from their force bond.

-----

"01822, we have two battalions approaching," one droid stated. "What do we do? Shot at them?"

"The horned guys dead," 01822 stated, "the previous republic ship nearly killed us all, 22379. I don't think we can stop that many."

"01822, we still have that human with a circuit malfunction," 22379 stated, "could he be a hostage?"

"His eyes were red," 01822 stated, "programming says don't kill humans with red eyes, they are on our side, they are the ones in command."

"Are their eyes red?" 22379 asked.

"I can not see that from here!" 01822 stated, slapping 22379 with his blaster.

"Do we wait to check?" 22379 asked.

"We could call them to ask?" 33451 offered.

"That'd work," 01822 hummed, before pressing the comms, "identified battalions, state your eye colours."

-----

"Identified battalions, state your eye colours."

"What the kriff do you mean state your eye colour?" Anakin spluttered.

"State your eye colour," the droid started again before muttering, "and I thought you were bad, 22379."

"Eh, we have a range of blue, brown and amber," Anakin answered, shrugging to everyone around him.

There seemed to be some talking in the background before the droid spoke up again, "what is amber?"

"Erm..." Anakin started before whispering, "how do you describe your eyes, Rex?"

"A yellowish/gold and brown," Rex shrugged, "that is how people describe them to me sometimes."

Anakin shrugged before answering to the droid, "yellowish/gold and brown colour."

There seemed to be more muttering in the background and something that sound like a gun hitting a droid in the head before the droid answered, "you are cleared for landing."

Everyone's mouths dropped open. Was this droid malfunctioning?

Anakin stuttered back a, "I-er-thank you?"

"Roger, roger." The droid replied before turning off the comms.

They slowly landed the droid that they were talking with standing on the strip waiting for them, behind him were two other droids. "Where are the amber eyes?" 01822 asked.

They all looked at Rex who shrugged before taking his helmet off.

01822 turned to face him along with 22379 and 33451. "Are you here to collect the malfunctioning human?"

"What malfunctioning human?" Rex asked.

"The one that came earlier," 33451 stated.

"Who came here earlier? How are they malfunctioning?" Rex asked, glancing at the others.

"A human wielding a lightsaber, and their face is leaking," 01822 stated.

22379 then butted in, "horned guy is dead."

"They didn't need to know that!" 01822 hissed, hitting him with his blaster again.

"Roger, roger," 22379 stated.

"No, that was useful to know," Rex stated, trying to keep his amusement off his face - they reminded him of his vod as cadets.

22379 seemed to preen at the Captain's words.

"Can you take us to the malfunctioning human?" Anakin butted in.

"Why, are you going to kill him?" 33451 hissed.

"We are going to help him," Rex soothed.

"I like him better than the horned guy," 33451 stated.

"I thought we were going to lose a leg," 22379 muttered.

"Follow us," 01822 stated as he started to lead them towards the human.

-----

Everyone felt their throats dry as they heard the heart-wrenching sobs coming from the shape in the corner.

"Obi-Wan?" Anakin called out softly as he approached.

"What is the malfunction called?" 01822 asked.

"Crying," Rex stated, "an expression of emotion, either sad or happy. For this instance, it's sad."

"What's emotion?" 33451 asked.

"Emotion is individual coding in their brain, the motherboard, that controls what they do in different situations - actions which they often would not do," Rex explained, thinking over what the droids might understand, "for instance, you would trust your fellow droids to assist in taking down the enemy, and you are loyal to your commander. Those are emotions; they make you do things, like how you will just listen to the orders."

"But that is our programming," 22379 stated, confused.

"Exactly, it's in your programming, your coding, just like how it's the humans coding," Rex stated, watching as it suddenly clicked in the three droids.

Ahsoka felt her lips twitch at the struggles Rex was going through. Both at what words to say and an internal battle that these droids were the enemy still. They were acting like Rex's brothers; she could see it, the others could see it. They were acting like shinies wanting to learn - and Rex was starting to fall into the role of Captain and teacher.

"Obi-Wan, it's ok," Anakin whispered.

"What's that other human doing approaching him?" 22379 asked.

"He's helping him," Rex stated.

"Helping him with a malfunction?"

"No, emotions are not malfunctions," Rex stated, "what are your names?"

"01822."

"22379."

"33457."

"Don't you have name names?" Ahsoka asked.

"No, those are our designations," 33457 stated.

"Well, my designation is CT-27-5555 or ARC-5555, but I was also given the name Fives by my brothers and me," Fives stated.

"Can we have names?" 22379 asked.

"I don't see why not," Cody butted in.

"What name would you give me?" 22379 asked.

"How about Ge'tal?" Fives offered, "it means red, like the colour of your stripes."

22379 looked down at his stipes before nodding. "I like that," Ge'tal stated.

Rex looked over the rest of the droids that somehow managed to look waiting with their metal faces, "how about Alor for you, 01822? It means leader."

"That sounds good," Alor stated.

"What about me?" 33457 asked, "I was just used to guard the knowledge centre."

"Well, that's your name then, Cabur, guardian," Ahsoka said, "you got the important job of guarding these two now."

"Guys, I might need your assistance," Anakin called over to them.

Turning to look, they saw that Obi-Wan had shuffled himself away from Anakin, leaving the decapitated body of Maul in plain sight.

"It's ok, master, we're here, we are all here," Ahsoka whispered as they all crouched by Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan sighed, shivering before slowly turning to look them in the eye, flinching at the looks they shot him.

It took all their concentration and effort not to gasp or let their mouths drop. Or even more away or reach for their weapons. The Jedi Master's eyes were dancing with a red flame - almost covering all the blue beneath.

That's when they took in the rest of the man's appearance. Instead of the usual cream robes, he was in a dark grey armour.

"I couldn't let him kill her," Obi-Wan whimpered, tucking his head into his knees as sobs started to shake through his body again.

Anakin wrapped himself around Obi-Wan, nodding as Ahsoka, Cody and Rex did the same. He rested his head on the hair of Obi-Wan's head. "Don't worry, he can not get Satine now," he soothed.

The three droids looked at each other before they also crouched down and tried to wrap themselves around Obi-Wan. They startled when they felt the man chuckle slightly.

"What was that?" Ge'tal asked, jumping slightly. "Was it a malfunction?"

"No," Obi-Wan smiled, "it was a chuckle, an expression of the emotion happiness."

"Happiness," Cabur stated, rolling it around on his voice box, "I like the sound of that."

"So do we," echoed everyone in the room.

2300