After countless re-writes, here's the epilogue to Parenthood. Short as it is, I hope you all enjoy it.

Hopefully the chapter's editing won't get messed up this time. Again, apologies for the awful mix up with chapter two.

Epilogue

Over the following months as the Jikaian civil war finally ended, it became clear that the Anjeru Academy was indeed behind the violent hostilities. It was also revealed that their anti-Jedi propaganda had convinced almost ninety percent of the student body that the Order had to be eradicated from the galaxy.

The Senate, despite the tiny minority who had campaigned for stricter control over the Jedi Order, closed the military school down for good and gave all of its financing to Jikai's reconstruction. Many of the Academy's students were rounded up for interrogation but only few were prosecuted. The one who took the hardest punishment was of course, the student known as "Boss". His real name, it seemed, was lost - a fact he was smugly content with. He had survived the shock of losing both his hands and, as a part of his punishment, had been refused his request to have cybernetic replacements fitted. For his hijacking and killings, incidents that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had had to give evidence of in court, the Boss had earned himself lifetime imprisonment on a distant detention planet. None of the other sentences, served to a mixture of students, alumni and staff, had been so harsh.

The process of clearing up the Academy's affair took many months and even when it was declared officially wrapped up, secret investigations were continued by Senate officials. The Jedi had also undertaken their own investigation, looking into where the Academy's graduates had moved on to and what activities they had been involved with. Qui-Gon had requested to be part of the massive task but due to numerous exams Obi-Wan had to take before his sixteenth birthday, Qui-Gon's investigations had been limited to traces of activities on Coruscant and its nearest neighbouring planets.

During those months, Obi-Wan had found it hard not to visit the Crèche and check up on Aebii. At first he used the trips as study breaks, but eventually he admitted that he simply enjoyed spending time in there. His inability to stay away meant he was often called in to help settle the baby girl when she was being particularly troublesome. Teething was an especially upsetting time, but Obi-Wan patiently sat with her and helped her through the worst of it. Aebii was definitely growing, and Master Yumi was only too willing to let Obi-Wan be a continuing presence in her life.

“One day, I’ll come in here and I just won’t recognise you,” Obi-Wan said as he watched Aebii take her first steps. “You’ll be all grown up, and you’ll be telling me I’m old.”

Time inevitably moved on, and first steps became first words, first lessons, first friends and first successes. And just as surely as Aebii began to move on with her life as a Jedi, so too did Obi-Wan's as his journey to Knighthood saw him out of his teens and into his twenties. He spent increasing amounts of time away from the Temple with his Master on missions and offworld training sessions, but he always did his best to visit Aebii when his path took him back to Coruscant.

Trouble was no stranger to the passage of time, and Obi-Wan's life, five years later, crossed over with Aebii's once again in a way neither could have ever expected...

...but that, dear reader, is a story best left for another day.

The End

I may be back...

Thanks for making this little comeback so much fun everyone :D