In ANOTHER Universe that Didn't Happen...
A list of twenty things. Girl!Au.
1. Her name is still Obi-Wan Kenobi.
2. Her big brother Owen is the most frustrating and confusing person she has ever known in her young life. He can laugh and giggle and show her where the most interesting bugs like to hide, or he can pull her hair until she screams.
3. Yoda is almost as fun as Owen, and he doesn’t pull her hair. (He does whack grown-ups with his stick, though. Obi-Wan isn’t quite old enough to realize that eventually this might happen to her.)
4. Qui-Gon still doesn’t want her as a Padawan. Qui-Gon still changes his mind.
5. Yoda does consider taking her on himself, though. It’s only after several hours of meditation that he hatches the plan to send her to AgriCorps. (Obi-Wan never knows this.) Sometimes he regrets that plan, and wonders if Dookue really should have been his last apprentice. (Obi-Wan never knows this, either.)
6. After the trip to Bandomeer, Obi-Wan does know that she’s going to work much harder on those weaponless self-defense techniques.
7. Obi-Wan still has feelings for Siri; Siri still has feelings for Obi-Wan.
8. Obi-Wan also has a huge, gigantic crush on Master Windu. It is horrifically awkward, but thankfully nobody but Master Yoda has guessed. She will never, ever tell Qui-Gon.
9. Master Windu once remarked that he found long hair impractical for the rigors on Knighthood. For appearance’s sake, she patiently waits three months before cutting it all off except for the Padawan braid.
10. Qui-Gon often says he simply cannot understand why she vacillates between such strict adherence to the Code and such blatant disregard of normal social convention. (He’s talking about the hair again, she can tell.) Frustrated, Obi-Wan replies that she didn’t know the two were mutually compatible.
11. (It takes him a moment to parse that.)
12. Obi-Wan keeps it short after Master Tholme tells her it will make undercover work more difficult. (She knows where Siri went, and why.) And maybe it’s selfish of her, but she truly doesn’t think she wants the assignments where looking attractive is an appreciable asset. Obi-Wan would rather be seen as a Jedi who happens to have a slightly odd haircut than a girl who happens to be a Jedi.
13. Anakin Skywalker never asks about the hair.
14. After going through her old mission files, he never asks about what happened on Bandomeer, either. (Nothing. Nothing happened.) But she can tell he had wondered, and that… warms her, in a strange way.
15. The fact that this sweet nine-year old kid had seen enough to wonder makes her hurt in a strange way, too.
16. Anakin Skywalker has a huge, gigantic crush on Padme Amidala. (He probably would have told Qui-Gon, if he’d gotten the chance.) Then again, Obi-Wan thinks, looking down at her Padawan and trying to shake herself out of her too-morbid mood, it wasn’t like his feelings toward Padme weren’t patently obvious.
17. Anakin is suspiciously profuse in his apologies to Obi-Wan when he accidentally slams into Master Windu, and Obi-Wan fervently hopes the Force doesn’t believe in irony.
18. It doesn’t; Master Yoda told him.
19. Pleased as she is that Master Yoda and Anakin were able to share a bonding experience, she could happily strangle the GrandMaster right now, especially when the little green troll claims that his actions were prompted by the will of the Force and it was important that Anakin could view her behavior in this situation as a guide.
20. (Well, Knight or not, she’s certainly not going to make a pass at Windu now.)