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Archive: Certainly on M&A, Nesting Place, Wayward Inn. Others please request.

Pairing/Category: Q/O; the kitchen sink: angst, POV, romance, hurt/comfort, bdsm, you name it.

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Explicit sex between two hot guys. If it's not your cup of tea, leave the pot for the rest of us.

Disclaimer: The characters are George Lucas's, bless him for having such a fevered imagination, even if it's not as fevered as mine. Don't sue. I even went to the charity re-release!

Notes: Another piece of the Warrior's Heart series, long-promised and finally delivered. Apologies for the tease, folks. This story nearly killed me.

Official story order as follows:
"Rightful Owner" PG-13
"Crime and Punishment" NC-17
"Ecstasies" NC-17
"The Anger Exercises" NC-17
"The Geometry of Desire" NC-17
"But For Grace" NC-17
"Give and Take" NC-17
"Meditations" NC-17
"Master & Apprentice" NC-17
"Nomenclature" NC-17
"The Fear Exercises" NC-17
"Silk" NC-17
"A Simple Twist of Fate (Not a Songfic)" PG (to come)
"Emancipation" NC-17 (to come)

The series spans about five years of time before, up to, and slightly after TPM, where it takes a sharp left at a certain pivotal moment into AU, because I believe George made a terrible mistake. There are some large gaps, timewise, which I'll probably fill in now and then. If anybody else wants to play here, feel free. It's a big sandbox and I'm happy to share my toys, as long as I get to take 'em home at the end of the day. (I wish!) Just let me know what you're up to with them (wouldn't want them to get into trouble, now, would we?).

Deep and sincere thanks (again) to Kath Moonshine for criticism of the best kind, and for a very careful and useful beta. Thanks also to Devo for sending me poems and encouragement and being patient with me--and to Destina, Gloriana and innumerable other listsibs, also for encouragement and support. Any mistakes are mine own.

Thoughts in italics (or */*); telepathy in //.

Summary: Qui-Gon gets a little too possessive and sets out to teach himself and his padawan a lesson.

Feedback: The more I gets, the more I writes, so if you like what you read, please feed the writer. Constructive criticism welcome. Flames get you the big finger and a mind whammy. Warning: Proportion of writing to feedback may increase exponentially, unless I go up in flames shortly. E-mail only, please.

The Fear Exercises
I. Ghosts and Possessions

Such a slight moiety
for so much strength.

It must be wire
spun out invisibly
and bonded at the molecules
that holds you together,
strung like sinews between
bone and bone.
Those bones must be a sapling's wood
the way they bend
with each storm, and
your muscles the swift current
of floods
to so easily move
this old boulder and stones.
Your heart, I know, is a comet--
not that blind lump of ice,
but something brilliant and
flaring in my sun,
arcing fiery across our sky
for me to chase vainly, never capture
and fail to hold.

How could something written centuries ago by a race like the Verpine, with their insectoid hive minds, capture so well what he felt himself at this moment? It never failed to astonish Qui-Gon Jinn how completely universal the experience of love was, translated or not. No matter how closely he held Obi-Wan in the flesh, his lover's spirit was utterly his own, utterly free. Only when both of them were one with the Force would they be joined so completely--something he both craved and hoped was yet a long time off. Maddening, and yet exactly how it should be.

Yet they had had that taste of union in the garden, and with every part of him, he longed to know it again--a wish impossible to fulfill with his lover, while he was yet an apprentice. And the longer Obi-Wan remained his apprentice, the more his own man he became--as was the way of things, if the master did his job correctly, until in the end, they stepped away from one another so completely that they might never again see eye to eye on many things. Obi-Wan would not again be his in this way unless it were the voluntary submission of a grown man and knight. Maddening, indeed.

He looked up from archaic pages smelling of age and dead love into the hot, blue, living fire of his padawan's eyes, the words still turning over in his mind like fine wine across the palate. Before he had time to laugh at himself for reading mawkish poetry like an old lovesick fool, his own heart caught fire in the sudden volatility of those words cast against his lover's beckoning gaze, like a flammable liquid on licking flames. Who was this boy, this man-child, who could stir such a conflagration from ashes long dead in him? Obi-Wan dropped his stylus and tablet on the table and came to him, kneeling before him like an acolyte supplicating his god. Qui-Gon uncrossed his legs and reached for his padawan's braid, exerting a steady tug on it until Obi-Wan followed it between his now-spread knees.

"Padawan," Qui-Gon murmured, leaning forward and capturing Obi-Wan's mouth, his tongue slipping in to savor the still-new taste. "Lover."

"Qui-Gon. Lover," he replied, voice low and smokey, but with a hint of amusement.

"Come to bed."

"As you wish . . . My Master." Obi-Wan said, bowing. The gesture was deep and respectful, but Obi-Wan's tone of voice was something much closer to mocking irreverence--one emotion with which he'd not yet imbued that word. It also brought him dangerously close to the rising bulge in Qui-Gon's trousers, a position he took advantage of by blowing gently through the thin fabric, mouth barely brushing his lover's now-twitching cock, making Qui-Gon jump. Upright again, he looked up at his master from under his lashes, the faintest of smiles touching his lips, flirting and taunting at the same time.

Obi-Wan's ability to be devastatingly cutting with little more than a word or look had earned him a reputation as a wit among his fellow apprentices. As his master, Qui-Gon had only ever seen it directed at Obi-Wan's peers, or in private at mutual acquaintances. Having that wit turned on him, however teasingly, abruptly and irrationally angered Qui-Gon. How dare he? His own apprentice--

They rose together, Obi-Wan's mirth-filled eyes never leaving his master's, almost sneering at him it seemed, as he gracefully rocked back on his heels and stood up only a handsbreadth away from Qui-Gon's taller and broader frame. Less than a step away. Worlds away. Unreachable. Untouchable. Ungovernable. *Not yours!* Mocking.

Unendurable.

It was too much like-- He stopped himself, the thought too painful to finish.

Before his apprentice could turn for the bedroom, Qui-Gon clasped his shoulders with hard hands and pressed a punishing kiss to his mouth, opening his lips with a demanding tongue, sweeping it across his palate, sliding over every surface, battling Obi-Wan's tongue to surrender as he claimed the territory for his own. When his apprentice reached for him, breathless, and would have clasped his lover, Qui-Gon slid his hands down below the younger man's elbows and held his arms captive against his apprentice's sides, reconnoitering the newly conquered domain. Feeling the heat rising between them, he stepped back finally, breathing hard, and raked Obi- Wan with his own smoldering look.

"Take them off," he ordered. "Here. Now."

"Yes, My Master," Obi-Wan panted, not at all vanquished but, contrarily, enjoying himself, loving these moments when Qui-Gon caught fire for him. He crossed his arms and grasped the bottom of his loose shirt, revealing bit by bit the sensuous arcs of back and chest, and skin turned golden by a week of relative indolence as he slowly peeled the shirt off over his head, hips swinging left to right like a tortuous pendulum, and dropped it to the floor in a blatant, taunting burlesque. "Like what you see?" he purred.

"Don't talk," Qui-Gon growled, watching him. "Just take them off."

Obi-Wan lifted one corner of his mouth in the smile he knew drove Qui-Gon mad and loosened the tie on his already low-slung sleep pants, easing them s-l-o-w-l-y over his rising erection and letting them slither to the floor over flushed and expectant skin. He stepped out of the pool of fabric and nudged it aside, standing smugly before his master, eyeing his reaction with knowing amusement.

Qui-Gon looked him up and down from under hooded eyes then prowled around him as though examining a work of art for flaws, one hand trailing along his waist, over slim hipbones and sculpted musculature, until he stood behind his apprentice. He pressed himself against the younger man's bare flesh, hands sliding up his chest, still fully clothed himself, but his own arousal grinding urgently against him through the thin fabric of his loose garments.

Feeling his master's hardened cock against him, Obi-Wan groaned and reached back for him, wanting him. Now.

"Stand still," Qui-Gon hissed, clamping his arms against his sides. "Don't move." With a detached sensuousness, like an indifferent housepet scratching itself against a wall, he ground his cock against the hard round globes of Obi-Wan's ass while his calloused fingers dug into his hips to hold him still.

Obi-Wan moaned softly, panting.

"Shut up," his master snarled in a thoroughly unrecognizable voice, yanking his head back by the tail. "Not a noise out of you or I'll gag you. Understand, little one?"

Less amused but no less aroused, Obi-Wan nodded and swallowed heavily, his breath coming quick and short. He knew this man and yet he didn't. This was neither his lover nor his Jedi master, but the man who, for three weeks of a hellish covert mission, had been his owner, who had slapped and hit and humiliated him with frightful ease under the guise of discipline and ownership. This man was worse even than the master who had put him through the anger exercises: casually cruel, impersonal, distant, punishing.

That was the first time Obi-Wan had seen this side of his master. Since then, he'd peered out from Qui-Gon's eyes at odd moments, sometimes during a particularly intense orgasm, when Qui-Gon's usual soft groan became an imperative "Mine!" Since their night in the gardens and the near-bonding that had happened there and more often since Obi-Wan had pushed the boundaries of their relationship on Li'ir, this possessive side of his master had become more dominant. The character of their relationship had, in fact, shifted drastically since that night. Obi- Wan's "Yes, Master," had taken on an entirely new meaning.

Those impersonal hands moved everywhere: over his shoulders, around his waist, over the back of his neck, down his spine, and Qui-Gon's hot mouth followed. It was humiliating yet somehow also very erotic, this almost dispassionate touch, even more perfunctory than when his master's hands corrected his position in training, as though Obi-Wan were something inanimate this man were thinking of buying, yet with a sense of possessiveness moving them that made Obi-Wan want to obey, made him feel more desired than he'd ever felt with another lover. He was Qui- Gon's creature, in every sense of the word.

Tonight, however, the game had a different tenor, one Obi-Wan was not certain he liked. Qui- Gon seemed almost angry with him, and there was a slight whiff of the Dark Side to his possessiveness, as he explored his lover's body. He seemed to be taking it all a little too seriously, and was closed off from Obi-Wan in a way he hadn't ever been before, as he bit Obi- Wan's shoulder hard, then laved the bruised and broken flesh with his tongue. He nipped and licked his way up to the back of his apprentice's neck then down across his shoulder blade and down his ribs, his teeth leaving marks, his mouth leaving bruises as he sucked blood to the surface of skin, marking his lover. His hands squeezed Obi-Wan's ass hard enough to bruise, raked the creased V of flesh from his hips to his groin, flowed over the insides of his thighs, down his knees and calves and trailed fire and ice back up his legs, stroked over every part of him but his aching cock, until he was panting and trembling, until Qui-Gon was trembling too.

"On your knees," his master growled.

"Make me," Obi-Wan growled back, imitating him, equal parts defiance, playfulness, and desire.

Obi-Wan suddenly found his head skewed at a painful angle as Qui-Gon yanked him hard by his tail until he had to follow the momentum down or injure himself. His knees hit the floor hard, the impact jolting through him as they scraped against the carpet. Qui-Gon pulled his head back then and stood over him. "You will do as I say, Padawan!" his master hissed. "Now, you know what to do, don't you?" Obi-Wan said nothing, too stunned to react. "Don't you!" Qui-Gon demanded, shaking him.

Obi-Wan watched his own hands rise, trembling, to open the fastenings of his master's pants, hardly believing this was happening, not sure whether he was aroused or afraid.

"Get on with it," Qui-Gon snarled.

The anger in his master's voice answered the question. He didn't know what was going on here, who Qui-Gon thought he was, but it had gone far enough. "No, Qui-Gon. I don't know what you think you're doing, but it's not fun anymore. Let go," Obi-Wan insisted, pulling away. His master grabbed his arms and started to pull him up, with no intention of letting go. Reflexively, Obi- Wan's training kicked in and he slithered out of Qui-Gon's grasp as he would have if they were sparring, then twisted and stepped out of reach, holding out a cautionary hand, crouched to fend him off. The look in Qui-Gon's eyes was a little wild, like nothing Obi-Wan had seen before.

"That's enough I said. What's got into you?" He heard his own voice shaking and suddenly realized how truly frightened he was. Of his own lover. His own master.

Apparently Qui-Gon realized it too, because his eyes cleared and his face went ashen. "Obi-Wan, I--" He turned away, slamming his shields down, leaving Obi-Wan locked out, confused and hurting.

One fear dissolved into another and anger followed it. "Qui-Gon! Damn you! Who was that? What did you think you were doing? You can't lock me out like that!" Obi-Wan came up behind him and closed his hand on Qui-Gon's arm, tugging him around again. What he saw in his master's face made him let go again.

"I'm sorry, my love. I'm sorry," was all Qui-Gon could say, sounding choked. Without looking back, he turned again, took his cloak and walked out.

Obi-Wan didn't try to stop him.

The gardens were quiet and dark at this hour but Qui-Gon found his way unerringly to the spot where Leth Astl had killed herself less than a week before, the same spot where he and Obi-Wan had made tender and ceremonious love shortly after to purify it, where he had woken empty and doubting the next morning. That, perhaps, had been the beginning of this episode. He wondered which essence he would find there now, whether there was anything left of the beauty and wonder and peace he and his lover had shared there, or if what he had just done had negated it all.

He sank to his knees, wrapping his cloak closely around him, knowing he should spend the rest of the night meditating, digging out all the darkness in his soul that had driven him to such possessiveness and its attendant cruelty, but he had no stomach for opening himself up and laying his wounds bare to the night air or the morning sun again. It had already undone him once in front of Obi-Wan, left him sobbing like a child to be reassured by his own apprentice. Nor could he concentrate in this mood. He felt agitated and off-balance, unbalanced, just this side of mad, in fact. *Possessed,* he thought. Obi-Wan's frightened words came back to him: *"What's got into you? Who was that?"* He didn't know. He didn't recognize himself.

All he did know was that suddenly he had looked at his lover, his padawan, and wanted to own him, mark him, possess him, subsume him and his will. Hurt him so he would not forget to whom he belonged, whom he should obey. Whom he should fear.

Madness. There was nothing of the Jedi or the Light they served in that. There was nothing of love in it.

And he loved Obi-Wan. He knew he was hopelessly in love with his apprentice, and that the feeling was returned, he had no doubt. Obi-Wan had not only told him but showed him, again and again, and the relief and joy in his eyes that first time were unmistakable. There was no need for any of this possessiveness. Obi-Wan had given himself, given of himself, without reserve.

That the Council did not approve bothered him not at all. They had good reason not to, as Leth Astl had shown just weeks before, but Qui-Gon had told himself they were both up to this challenge, that they loved each other enough, were both sensible enough and wise enough to keep their friendship, as well as their training bond and relationship, intact, deepened even, if not unchanged.

But it had been his decision to risk everything, not Obi-Wan's, not entirely, even though his apprentice was certainly of an age to decide such matters for himself, and Qui-Gon bore the primary responsibility for their success or failure. He alone had allowed this new aspect of their relationship to develop when he could have quashed it in its early stages, but at the time it seemed unnecessary, even cruel. He had known there were risks; but then, there was risk in every relationship. Xanatos had shown him that. Xanatos, and Mace, and others. He just hadn't expected the worst of the trouble to come from himself. Now he had to admit that he had craved Obi-Wan's attentions, had been flattered by his desire, had, in fact, needed it. And he had not expected the depth of feeling Obi-Wan would awaken in him.

The boy--the man--made him feel whole. Not complete, for he had already been a complete person, independent, self-reliant, self-sufficient, competent, well-respected, happy with his own company, content to be celibate and when not, to take lovers. But not whole. No matter how deeply connected to the Living Force he was, and that was his gift as a Jedi, there were still pieces missing that every Jedi missed: homes, families, children, parents--their own history. Obi- Wan filled so many of those gaps in a way none of his lovers or apprentices had, even Xanatos, who had been most like a son, if never lover. Even Mace, who had been both lover and brother.

In retrospect, it seemed laughably obvious how he had come to this. Obi-Wan had come to him at a time when he most needed not just another apprentice, but balm for his soul. His confidence badly shaken by the loss of a promising padawan to the Dark Side, Qui-Gon, grieving and emotionally battered, would have nothing of another. Though the Council and Master Yoda had urged him for over a year to take a new padawan, Qui-Gon seemed to find them all wanting. Obi- Wan, at nearly the age of 13, facing assignment to the Agricultural Corps and the end of his dreams of being a Jedi Knight, had been determined that rebellious Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn would be *his* master and somehow had made it so, winning him over him with his courage, brashness, intelligence, and determination to do what he knew in his heart was right. Their meeting and parallel paths had not been chance. No such meetings were.

Still, their mission on Melida/Daan had nearly undone everything they had built in the early stages of their partnership, and it had taken no little time to repair the damage and rebuild the trust. Though he knew Obi-Wan did not have it in him to turn to the Dark Side as Xanatos had, Qui-Gon had every reason to fear his apprentice's independence of mind and heart.

Regardless, seven years later, their affection for one another had deepened to love, something Qui-Gon had not expected to feel for anyone so late in his life, certainly not this kind of love, mixed up as it was with the affectionate approval a teacher shows a promising student, the thoughtful encouragement and guidance a mentor shows an apprentice, and the kind of love a foster-father shows his ward. The catalyst of lust had somehow found its way into the mix, changing it to, well, what it was now: desire and love and admiration and friendship and . . . need. Desperate need. Obi-Wan was like cool water for his thirsty soul. He had no doubt that the Force had guided the boy to him, to heal him.

Obviously, he had deluded himself, thinking the process complete. There were wounds there still.

But to view his relationship with Obi-Wan--their love--in that way only was mere selfishness and self-absorption. Yet that was what he was doing. That, too, was a path to the Dark Side. Obi-Wan was not merely an instrument to be used by him, but another living being with his own needs and desires that he looked to Qui-Gon to fill. He realized now he had done very little for his lover in the short time they had been such, though Obi-Wan, with his generous heart and relative inexperience, would not have agreed. The first few days they had spent as lovers, barely leaving their quarters--barely leaving their bed--Qui-Gon had used him shamelessly, but it was only Obi- Wan's own desire to give to him that made him realize it.

*Are you so empty, old man, that you need this young one to fill you again?*

The thought sickened him; the answer more so. He covered his face with his hands, but there was no hiding from himself with the mirror turned inward.

*I can't bear to lose another,* Qui-Gon realized. *Especially not this one. I'm trying too hard to hold on to him, and he is not mine to hold.* "Make me," Obi-Wan had said, playing along, but it was Xanatos and not Obi-Wan he heard. Xanatos the ever-defiant. Xanatos the rebel. Xanatos, who had betrayed him. And he had determined there would be no such disobedience from this one. He would not lose this one, too. He could not.

And if fear were no basis for any relationship, such a bottomless need was not much better.

"Has its own Dark Side, love does. Tried to warn you, both Mace and I did, Qui-Gon."

Obi-Wan's master sighed and shook his head, dropping his hands to his lap. "I might have known you would find me, My Master," he said quietly, as Yoda hobbled up to stand beside him. With Qui-Gon on his knees, they were nearly eye to eye, which served to remind him what a hilarious pair they had looked when Qui-Gon had begun to grow. A better illustration of Master Yoda's favorite aphorism could not be found, then or now. Here was towering Qui-Gon Jinn cut down to size again before his tiny master.

"And why is that, think you, hmmm?" Yoda went on, clearly reading his former apprentice's thoughts.

"Because, My Master, your padawan--though grey now--has not grown at all wise."

"Loves too passionately, does he," Yoda said gently. "Always this was so. Sees the Force in all things, does he, but not all things in the Force. His own judgement too often he trusts."

"My Master, if you've come to remind me how glad I was to have passed my trials so young under your tutelage, you've succeeded," Qui-Gon said with wry affection.

"Impudent still are you, Qui-Gon," Yoda snapped, thwacking his former apprentice hard across the backside with his gimer stick, but not without equal affection. "Not for nothing my last apprentice were you. Wore me out did you."

Qui-Gon winced and bowed until his forehead touched the cool ground. "Yes, My Master. Thank you, My Master. I am sorry, My Master."

The little Jedi Master echoed his former apprentice's earlier sigh. "Sit up, Qui-Gon. Speak to you with your face in the dirt, I cannot." Qui-Gon obeyed, folding his hands into his lap and letting the sleeves of his robe fall around them, feeling as ashamed as he ever had when called to task at a much younger age by his master. "Perhaps to the top of the Temple take you again I should. Remind you of your weaknesses it might. Too long since you last went there, it is, hmmm?"

Qui-Gon shuddered involuntarily. "Yes, My Master. No doubt."

"Taken your padawan, have you?"

"No, My Master. Obi-Wan has no fear of heights."

"More reason yours he should see. Tomorrow take him you will."

"Yes, My Master."

"Tonight sit meditation you will, Qui-Gon. Think on your responsibilities to your padawan and on the sources of your own fears and what they teach you." The little Jedi Master said severely and settled himself on a low stone that seemed made for the purpose. "Sit with you will I."

Qui-Gon bowed again, moved by his former master's concern. "Thank you, My Master. But I should speak first with Obi-Wan. Apologize, at least."

"Concern yourself so you need not at present. Find his own comfort, will Obi-Wan. More sensible than his master is he. Quiet your mind, Qui-Gon. To yourself attend. Then to your padawan with an untroubled heart attend may you."

"Yes, My Master," he answered, trusting Yoda's word, for once, feeling relieved and comforted by his presence. It was long past time he should have learned this lesson. He settled himself more comfortably into a long-term meditation posture and began to clear his mind.

Obi-Wan watched his master's stiff, retreating back with both anger and an acute sense of misery. The anger faded rapidly. When the door shut behind his master, leaving them on opposite sides of it, he stood there numbly, wondering if Qui-Gon had just walked out of his life for good. Would he go to the Council now, ask them to find a new master for him and disappear? It wouldn't be unlike his master to completely take things out of his hands and do whatever he thought was right for his apprentice, without consulting him at all. And there would be nothing he could do to stop it.

For a moment, he was convinced that was what was going to happen. Then he realized he had no idea of what had just gone on between them in the first place, and no idea at all how Qui-Gon felt about it, so thoroughly shut out had he been. Slowly, he pulled on the bottom half of his sleeping clothes again and padded into the fresher. In the mirror he saw the bruises already forming on his shoulder, arms, and ribs in the shape of his master's mouth and fingers, lividly purple against his new tan. A small trickle of blood ran from the first he'd inflicted. Obi-Wan touched it, wincing at the sting, his fingers coming away with a thin wash of red outlining his fingerprints. Suddenly he was angry again.

How dare Qui-Gon? What did he think he was doing? He remembered the impersonality with which his master had touched him, how like the touch of the slaver it had felt, how humiliating it was, and that angered him more. Treating him like some *thing,* some thing he *owned.* He'd felt that in Qui-Gon's touch before, but it had always changed, become warm and loving if he waited long enough. But not tonight. Something had possessed Qui-Gon tonight and not let go of him, some hunger Obi-Wan had never seen before.

At first, it had actually been fun. He loved Qui-Gon's passion and saw it so seldom, even in bed. His master was a careful lover, skillful, considerate, gentle, warm, inventive, and--controlled. Qui-Gon's watchword. Every Jedi's watchword. It wasn't Qui-Gon's passion that had alarmed him, or even the need to possess; there were times when he felt that same desire for his lover, body and soul, that bordered almost on greed. It was the cold ruthlessness of it in Qui-Gon that was terrifying. Obi-Wan had been handled the same way by a slaver in the Rim Territories not long enough ago; he'd endured it unflinchingly by imagining it was Qui-Gon's hands touching him in that way, with nothing but ownership and lust guiding them. But he hadn't imagined the same utterly removed coldness in Qui-Gon. As a game it was one thing, but the same inhuman treatment from his lover was unbearably humiliating, the reality foul beside the fantasy. He had half a mind to go in pursuit of his master and force him to tell him what he'd been thinking, what he thought gave him the right to treat his apprentice that way, let alone his lover. And whatever it was, it was no excuse. Qui-Gon was a Jedi master who had trained three apprentices . . .

One of whom had betrayed him.

Oh. *Oh.* It seemed very simple and very obvious, suddenly. He wondered how old Xanatos had been when he had turned his back on the Jedi and his master. Qui-Gon had seldom spoken of it in the years since he had first told the story to Obi-Wan, before he became the Jedi Master's apprentice, but Xanatos had always been there between them like a ghostly third presence in their relationship, especially when Obi-Wan fell short of Qui-Gon's expectations somehow. He'd become the unmentionable failure, like the disreputable relative no one spoke of. Qui-Gon had purged himself of the anger he felt at Xanatos' betrayal, but the hurt had never healed. Nor had he conquered his fear that it might happen again.

Now, so much had changed between them. Obi-Wan had not only begun to find his own way to the Force, but also to question his master and buck against his leadership. In other circumstances, this was a natural progression of their relationship, not so much a loss of control as a letting go of it, a loosening of reins. To Qui-Gon, it could just as easily seem like a rejection of his authority. Becoming lovers had only strained their previous connection further, making the boundaries less distinct, their roles less clear. Qui-Gon obviously felt he was losing control of his apprentice.

Obi-Wan remembered his master's choked apology and apparent horror at his own actions, remembered Qui-Gon's hands shaking, the anguish in his voice.

*He knows less than I do what got into him and he's frightened.* It was an appalling thought, that his master should be afraid, but the realization that Qui-Gon's instinctual reaction to that fear had been to run away while his was to pin his master to the wall and face it almost made him smile. Fight or flight. Who would look at them and think Obi-Wan was the fighter and his master the one to flee? Qui-Gon was a cautious man for all his size, patient, slow to anger--not only, Obi-Wan suspected, because it was a path to the Dark Side, but because he was also so implacable when moved to it--always striving for balance and calm in his actions. Obi-Wan was just beginning to realize how badly this change in their partnership had upset his master's internal equilibrium. By contrast, Obi-Wan himself had always been impulsive and still was, much to his master's dismay, and so found the inevitable mood swings and insecurity of the early stages of a love affair more familiar. Such emotions, Obi-Wan suspected, were long strangers to Qui-Gon.

Obi-Wan washed the blood from his shoulder and rubbed antiseptic into the punctures and tears. Force knew they'd already exchanged enough germs, certainly, but bites were bites, he thought. The bruises were going to hurt if he didn't heal them, something he could do in a light trance in a short time, but he decided it was probably better that his lover see what physical damage he'd done.

If he came back.

No point in thinking that, Obi-Wan told himself, no point in anticipating any sort of disaster. Their new course had been fairly smooth so far, and this, he felt sure, was merely the first real turbulence they'd run into. They were in largely uncharted territory and navigating it, they were bound to find rough spots. How they were handled would make or break them as lovers and as a master/padawan pair, and he knew his master had no desire to see them separated, any more than Obi-Wan himself did. Qui-Gon would be back. He'd gone off to think by himself, probably to meditate, and he would come back when he was ready. Then they would have a talk. *Would they.*

The adrenalin washing out of his system and his own emotional turmoil left him much more tired than he'd normally be at this hour. He washed up and crept into their bed, feeling a little lost, alone in its vastness, hoping has master would come back soon. He fell asleep wondering where Qui-Gon was and what he was doing.

*Qui-Gon was falling, wind whipping his long hair into a serpent's nest around his face, clothes flapping in the wind--and hopeless, bone-freezing fear in his heart. There was no place he had fallen from, no ground he was falling to, he was simply falling, unable to stop himself, and terrified as no one had ever seen him, too terrified even to cry out. Paralyzed, mind blank, heart pounding, breath trapped in his chest--*

Obi-Wan woke from the dream gasping, sitting up in the dark in their still-empty bed, and reached out instinctually through their bond for his master's presence. He found it almost immediately, not far away, and not terrified at all, but more peaceful than he'd been in tenths. Without touching that presence he withdrew, leaving his master to his peace and himself, and slipped back into sleep, reassured.

When he woke again, it was to a light touch on his cheek, the stroke of fingers along his shoulder and down his back where he'd flung the sheet away in sleep. Brilliant dawn light filled their sunrise-facing room, just as Qui-Gon loved and his padawan tolerated in exchange for the luxury of sleeping with him. He lay still and let the fingers explore, coming to rest on one after another of the bruises. Soft lips and the brush and tickle of beard followed as each bruise and the spaces between were kissed, his master's touch and manipulation of the Force doing what he had chosen not to the night before. He sighed under the warmth of the healing and the comfort of his lover's skin against his own.

"I'm so sorry, my love," Qui-Gon murmured against his neck, breath ruffling the strands of loosened tail, one hand stroking his back. "I should never have hurt you like this."

"No, you shouldn't have," Obi-Wan agreed, unable to keep the anger entirely out of his voice. He could almost feel Qui-Gon wince as he pulled away, but he was wearing his impassive Jedi Master expression when Obi-Wan rolled over and sat up. His apprentice wanted to shake him. "But you did, and you've done it before. It's got to stop."

"Yes, it does," he agreed, fingering Obi-Wan's braid. "Come, Padawan. Get dressed. I've something to show you."

"Qui-Gon, we need to talk--"

"Yes, we do. But first I have something to show you, Padawan. Get dressed," he repeated, in his best Jedi-Master-brooking-no-padawan-backtalk tone of voice. Frustrated, said padawan hesitated a moment, looking into his master's clouded and troubled eyes. Qui-Gon reached out and stroked his cheek. "Trust me, Obi-Wan. Just once more," he said quietly, become the lover again, not pleading but humbled and repentant.

Obi-Wan nodded and did as his master and lover asked, not sure which one had won him over.

When he was dressed, Qui-Gon led him out of their quarters and upward to the higher floors of the Temple. Obi-Wan thought at first that they might be heading for the Council Chamber and felt his heart drop. Then they stopped one floor below and entered another glass-encircled room much like the chamber above, but this one open to anyone who cared to take in the view. As much as Jedi by nature preferred gardens and wilderness, there was no denying that the view of Coruscant's dead surface from this room was breathtaking. The world-city spread out before and around them, from horizon to horizon, interlacing lines of air traffic forming a moving latticework of shadows across the metal and stone buildings, subtly altering the colors and mood of the structures below. And it wasn't really a dead world. More than many others, perhaps, it teemed with life, human and otherwise. Its only fault, Obi-Wan realized, was that it lacked the balance of natural living systems, not their energy.

Qui-Gon walked onto the balcony outside, drawing his apprentice with him. What happened next happened both in slow motion and in split seconds.

In a graceful leap Qui-Gon vaulted the railing, landing precisely on the thin ledge outside it, then- -much to his padawan's astonishment--turned around and leaned over it again, one hand white- knuckled around the railing, and pulled Obi-Wan to him by his tunic with the other. "A kiss," he said, only a very little humor in his voice, "before dying," and let his lips fall hungrily on his padawan's.

Then, smiling a little, Qui-Gon leaned back and let go of the railing.

"NO!" Obi-Wan screamed, reaching for him, too late.

Sixty-five seconds is a long time to contemplate death, Qui-Gon reflected.

At approximately four meters per second, factoring in Coruscant's specific gravity, it would take seventy-five seconds and a whisker to reach the base of the Temple, where the impact would pulverize his bones and liquify his organs and, perhaps, send him into oneness with the Force.

Wind whistled in his ears, his hair streamed around him, clothes flapped in the rushing air, windows and balconies flashed by. Above, a large transport cast a shadow over him for a moment and disappeared. The sun rose a little higher in Coruscant's sky.

He did this on the verge of sleep sometimes, as everyone did. Invariably, it woke him crying out in a cold sweat instead of just jerking him awake momentarily in reflex. Of all things, this was something he should fear the least. The Force was with him, in him, surrounding him. He could call upon it at any time to cushion his fall, break it, halt it entirely. He could, if he chose, reach out and grasp a balcony railing with the Force and halt his descent right now without injury. He had done so time and time again, in the course of missions, without thinking, knowing beyond thinking that the ability was his to use.

Unless he surrendered to fear.

He was still falling, and had forgotten to count. That meant he would need to see the ground. His heart thudded in his ears like a mad drummer. He'd forgotten how to breathe, too. He fought the paralysis gripping him, still knowing that watching the ground coming up at him would only make it worse. He'd done that once. Master Yoda had made him do it, years ago when he'd been a padawan learner under the little Jedi Master. He'd nearly pissed himself then, watching the green earth of garden come up at him with amazing velocity. He probably would piss himself for certain this time. He'd stopped doing this the moment he'd become a knight, and it had become a weakness he had never cured. In all the many times he had done this at Master Yoda's insistence, he had never once been able to stop his own fall. His fear was too great. So it had been far too long since he'd done it. Far too long.

And he'd been falling far too long. Surely it was more than 65 seconds by now. If he didn't turn over soon and look or reach out with the Force, or take some action--if-if-if . . .his mind stuttered in the beginnings of blind panic. He sucked in a deep breath and made himself relax. *Fool,* he told himself. *Great bloody fool. Save yourself.*

He turned in mid-air as gracefully as he'd vaulted the railing, discovered he hadn't fallen far at all, stared at the perfect circle of blue pond growing larger in its perfect square of green garden, shuddered, and closed his eyes. He couldn't watch. He had to, but he couldn't open his eyes, limbs suddenly rigid. *Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Stupid meaningless phrase . . .* He felt a scream crawling up his throat, choked it down. *Fear leads to anger, fear leads to--oh gods, oh godsohgodsoh--* He opened his eyes again.

The ground had stopped racing toward him. Obi-Wan--as Qui-Gon had known he would--had let him fall only so far and caught him with the Force.

"What in all the Sith hells did you think you were doing?" Obi-Wan shouted at him. "You scared the living shit out of me."

"Language, Padawan," Qui-Gon gasped, weaving and giddy in Obi-Wan's grasp.

"Language be damned!" he exploded.

The two of them stood now on the grass on the edge of the small pool Qui-Gon had been aiming for, where Obi-Wan--who had followed him over the balcony railing and caught them both--had then set them down. Qui-Gon's apprentice was livid, trembling with anger--the direct product of fear, his master would have been quick to point out had he not been shaking so hard himself from the first element of the equation. Reeling with vertigo, still afraid he might actually soil himself, he gave up any attempt to appear composed. Obi-Wan caught him as his knees buckled, eased him down onto them, and held him upright by his arms. "'Trust me,' he says," Obi-Wan snarled into his face, his own contorted with rage, "and jumps off a fucking ledge right in front of me. 'Trust me'!"

"I trusted you, Padawan," Qui-Gon said wearily. He hated it that his voice shook, that his hands shook, that his legs shook, even as he was standing--well, kneeling--on solid ground.

Obi-Wan looked at him, incredulous at first, then outraged before the light went on, finally settling into relieved and chagrined amusement. "Gods damn you, Qui-Gon," he muttered, taking a deep breath, slowly calming himself. "I should have dropped you into the pool. That would teach you. You and your bloody lessons."

"I'm glad to see you resisted the impulse, Padawan."

"I never knew," Obi-Wan said, shaking his head.

"That I was terrified of heights?" Qui-Gon wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his tunic and took several deep breaths, feeling a fool, as he always did after this particular exercise. It never got better, which was why he hadn't done it in years. "Always. I can't remember when I wasn't."

"Did you fall? When you were a child?"

"If I did, I don't remember it. It seems to be a totally irrational fear."

"And yet I've watched you jump--"

"It's the dwelling on it that paralyzes you, Padawan." And he'd done quite a lot of that just now. His stomach roiled rather violently at the reminder. Qui-Gon uttered a truly shocking curse himself, after admonishing his apprentice, and exhaled explosively, leaning over beyond his knees and breathing heavily. *I will not be ill. I will not.* He felt Obi-Wan lay a hand in the center of his back, the warmth of his body and the Force easing the nausea.

//Too much adrenalin to metabolize at once,// his apprentice observed, not in the least tongue in cheek. "Better now?"

"Yes, thank you, Padawan."

"That's what you were doing, all the way down? Dwelling on the fear?"

"Yes." He felt exhausted suddenly and wanted nothing more than to lie down in the sun and sleep, lessons be damned. He took several slow, deep breaths again, trying to recharge himself. "Contemplating the course of my life since we became lovers."

Obi-Wan looked at him blankly.

"That's what it's been like, Padawan, loving you--like falling, always falling. No top, no bottom, always off-balance, terrified."

"Terrified? Of what?" His apprentice sounded hurt.

Qui-Gon touched his face. "Doing the wrong thing. Losing you. I thought it would be--not easy-- but not . . . as it is, either."

"And how is it?" Obi-Wan said quietly. "Why is it so hard?"

Qui-Gon smiled, as though reading his thoughts. "I think you know, Padawan, Love," he replied, running his fingers down Obi-Wan's braid.

"I am not he, Master."

Ten years, a dozen and still Xanatos could come between them. "No, you are not," Qui-Gon agreed. "You have none of his greed or lust for power, none of his resentment, little of his anger. But you have much of his volatility, Padawan, and his intelligence--when you care to use it. And his passion."

"And my Master's."

Qui-Gon smiled. "Perhaps," he said, cupping his lover's cheek, still a tremble in his hand. "And your master must needs learn to bridle his own before he can teach his padawan to do so." Qui- Gon drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, color finally returning to his face. "I've been gi-- I've accepted another mission, Obi-Wan, one I must complete alone. You should use the time taking classes at the university. You've some to finish yet, haven't you?"

"Yes, but--"

"Then do as I say. I'm not certain how long I'll be gone, but it should be long enough for you to get through a quarter. Master Windu has offered to supervise your training and studies--not that I don't think you're capable of functioning quite well in that regard without me."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to protest but Qui-Gon silenced him with a finger pressed to his lips. "I must do this, love. I need to find my still center again. You've raised such a storm in me."

"So you just leave."

"Obi-Wan--"

"You can't keep running from it, you know."

"From what, Padawan?" Qui-Gon's tone went icy.

"I think you know, Master," Obi-Wan replied, echoing his master's earlier words. "You haven't mentioned his name more than a half-dozen times in the last seven years and yet he's the shadow that's hung over everything I've done, everything you've taught me. You didn't want to take me as your padawan because of him and he still influences every decision you make about my training. He's been the lens you see me through. Only now you can't, because you never had with Xanatos what you have with me. You have to learn to see me, your lover, for who and what I am, not what I am in relation to your failed apprentice, the man who betrayed you."

"That's enough, Padawan." Qui-Gon emphasized the last word to indicate that this was, to his mind, no longer an lover's quarrel.

Obi-Wan was having none of it. "No, it's not, Qui-Gon. What you did last night was enough. You were a complete stranger to me. You *frightened* me. Is that what I'm supposed to feel with you? Am I supposed to be afraid of you? Shall I be afraid of the man I love? The man I trust with my life and my future?"

"That's enough, Obi-Wan! You are my padawan first, my lover last. *Last.* Do you understand that?"

Obi-Wan's mouth tightened, becoming a hard line. "I do now. Go, Qui-Gon. Do what you have to do," he said bitterly, dismissing the older man as though he were the master. "Perhaps you'll come back with more sense than you have now." He strode away through the garden.

"Padawan. Obi-Wan, wait," Qui-Gon commanded.

His apprentice stopped but did not turn, the habit of obedience deeply ingrained but now warring with--Qui-Gon wasn't quite sure what he was sensing. He came up behind his apprentice, laying a hand on his shoulder, who started to shrug it off. Anger, then. That's what he was feeling behind shields he had let slip momentarily, perhaps deliberately. Anger and sadness. And a little fear, for both of them, and for what they were and had become, together.

"Obi-Wan. I don't want us to part like this."

"How would you suggest, then?" he said coldly, in a hardly recognizable voice. "Shall we go back to our quarters for a conciliatory fuck? Or shall we do it here?"

Qui-Gon was silent for a moment and stood winding Obi-Wan's braid through his fingers. "Do you want the way I touched you last night to be the way you remember me?"

"Just go, Master. Please."

Qui-Gon stepped back and let go his apprentice's braid. "Very well, Padawan."

No one observing the two of them would have missed the pain in their voices or the identical stiff cast of their shoulders. Master Yoda certainly did not.

Three hours later, Qui-Gon was gone.

II. Solitaire

Wrong. All wrong.

Qui-Gon was leaving--had left--again, this time not just for the night but for an entire quarter. It felt wrong to Obi-Wan that they should be apart. Since Qui-Gon had taken him as his apprentice seven years ago, they had rarely been separated for more than a few days, usually because one of them was in danger. That was part of the reason this felt so wrong: the old patterns of separation haunting him. But it also felt wrong because Qui-Gon was injured, badly, so badly even he did not know the extent of it, and Obi-Wan knew he should be with his master when he was in such pain. They had always taken care of each other.

No, not always, he thought, stopping short. For Obi-Wan there were only 13 years of life before Qui-Gon. His master had spent 48 of his 55 years without Obi-Wan, and taken care of himself quite well. In fact, most of the caretaking had still been on Qui-Gon's side during the early years together Only in the past few years had those abilities and duties evened out.

Even so, this was not the same. Qui-Gon had been carrying this open wound for as long as Obi- Wan had known him, and both of them had failed to see it. Now that it was discovered, it didn't feel right to abandon his master to heal it alone.

But who was abandoning whom?

Obi-Wan pulled his cloak tightly around him, shivering, and sank to his knees. He wished now that he hadn't been so harsh with Qui-Gon. Their lives were too precarious to part this way. Despite what he'd said--or left unsaid--he did not want his last memory of Qui-Gon to be last night's fiasco or this morning's argument. He wanted it to be the touch of Qui-Gon's lips on his shoulder and back, the smell of a night spent outdoors in his hair, the blunt fingers stroking his skin, the words "my love" in his voice.

He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, then sent out a tendril of himself along the Force through their bond, the bond that would find Qui-Gon anywhere, regardless of distance, and found--

Nothing.

Qui-Gon had shut him out.

Obi-Wan felt the same jolt of fear he had when Qui-Gon had let go the railing and begun to fall. Then, he had had only had Leth Astl's death in his mind, thinking--he didn't know what he'd been thinking when he flung himself over the balcony rail after his master and saw him falling helplessly as he had the night before in his dream. The fear coming through their bond from Qui- Gon had been suffocating and paralyzing and it took every bit of focus he had to ignore it, catch them both, and set them down carefully. The look on Qui-Gon's face as he was falling was something Obi-Wan never wanted to see again. It had been, still was, terrifying in itself to see his master so helpless and completely overcome. So out of control.

The way he'd been last night.

*That's how afraid he is?* Obi-Wan wondered. *Is that what he was trying to show me with that stunt? Not just that he could be afraid, but that this is how afraid he actually is? But why shut me out now?* He probed again and could still feel nothing beyond Qui-Gon's presence in the Force, not where he was, what he was thinking, or how he was feeling.

It felt like being blindfolded and set to walk a familiar path that was now an obstacle course. They had grown so much closer in some ways over the past few weeks, their training bond grown so much stronger that the ability to feel the other's presence and rely on the other's perceptions as much as one's own had come to feel like another sense. From the moment their bond had begun to form on Bandomeer, Obi-Wan had known he was going to miss that closeness when it came time for his own knighthood, and had wondered how he would cope with it fading, as such bonds did when masters and former padawans separated. He'd only grown more uneasy of that eventuality as he and Qui-Gon became first close friends and, eventually, lovers. In the past few weeks he had come to hope that when he became Qui-Gon's peer and colleague, something much deeper than this bond would grow between them to replace it.

Instead, now there was nothing. He was no more aware of his master in the Force than he was of any other Jedi in this hive of them. If he were shut out long enough, their bond would fade and eventually disappear as though the two of them had formally separated as master and padawan. Obi-Wan's only compensation was that, in shutting down their bond like this, Qui-Gon was as much alone as he--and that was no comfort at all.

Obi-Wan scrambled to his feet. He knew if he sat here much longer, wallowing in the pain that was beginning to settle around him, he might never get up from his knees again. *It's worse to be the one left,* he decided. At least if one were doing the leaving, one had a goal in mind, a destination. Otherwise, one had nothing but to watch the other leave. His eyes filled and he wiped the tears away with angry disgust. Taking a few deep breaths, he stood for a moment to center himself, not allowing himself the luxury of either pain or anger. "There is no emotion, there is peace," he murmured, opening himself up to the Force, letting it fill him, fill the spaces where Qui-Gon's presence had been. It wasn't enough. But it would have to do.

Obi-Wan walked aimlessly through the gardens for a time, collecting his thoughts, then decided to seek out Master Windu, determined not to lose himself in the morass of conflicting emotions he was feeling. If Qui-Gon were going to be gone for as long as a quarter, he had a great deal to do, so his master would not find him wanting when he came back. One of them, at least, would have done the right thing during this separation.

But he had not got far from the grove where Qui-Gon had left him when he felt a familiar presence in the Force, one shadowed in pain and sadness greater than his own.

"Bruck?" Obi-Wan wasn't sure whether the figure kneeling in meditation beneath the shimmertree was the person he thought it was or not, and he was reluctant to reach out with the Force to make sure. If it were Bruck, he didn't want to do anything that might upset the fragile truce between them. And the last time he'd seen Bruck--just five days before--the other apprentice had been fairly fragile himself, holding his dead master, Leth Astl, in his arms. Having fallen in love with her own padawan and finding that he did not return her feelings, she had killed herself when the Council forcibly separated them. Obi-Wan had been the only one among his peers to go to him that night and stay with him until the Healers took him away.

"Bruck?" he called again, seeing a more familiar profile in the light of the leaves, now that he was closer. The other apprentice turned toward him finally and opened his eyes.

"Kenobi. What are you doing here?" There was no antagonism in his voice, no emotion at all. It was hard to see his features in the shards of sunlight reflecting off the leaves, but his voice and posture--round-shouldered in defeat--were enough to confirm Obi-Wan's worries.

"I was just going back to the Temple and saw you here," he said quietly, stopping a few feet away, close enough to be friendly, far enough to not be too intimate or threatening. "How are you?"

Bruck gave a quick, bitter laugh. "Decided to stop and gloat?"

"Gloat?" It wasn't the reply he'd expected. "Why would I? About what?"

"Why wouldn't you? I made your life a torment when we were younger, got you in trouble within five minutes of seeing you for the first time in seven years. Now it's my turn. Why wouldn't you gloat? I would."

"Perhaps that's the difference between us. I wrote off your teasing years ago, and I made my own trouble with you this time round, regardless of what you tried to do."

"'Teasing.' Is that what you think it was?"

"We were children--"

Bruck got up from his meditation posture and stood just a little too close. Though Obi-Wan had been taller at almost-thirteen, Bruck had the height advantage now, by several centimeters, though not as much as Qui-Gon. The other padawan was also a little broader and heavier, with a fighter's rather than the lithe and muscular gymnast's body Obi-Wan had. Qui-Gon's apprentice stood his ground nonetheless, knowing that if he gave any, Bruck would only see it as a sign of weakness rather than unwillingness to fight, and pursue it.

"I hated you. You never understood that, did you?"

"Why would you? What had I ever done to you?" Obi-Wan was truly mystified.

"Because you were the golden boy, Kenobi. Nothing you did was wrong. You still are."

It was Obi-Wan's turn to laugh then and it had its own tinge of bitterness. "You really didn't know much about me, did you? Did you know I left the order not long after Qui-Gon accepted me as his apprentice?"

"You what?" Bruck gawked.

"I left. I left him, left the order. I took sides in a conflict where I should have been neutral. I very nearly threw away everything I'd worked for my whole life. 'Golden boy,'" he snorted. "Hardly. Every instructor who ever taught me--from the Saber Master to the cook--told me I was impulsive, too quick to anger, stubborn, too emotional, didn't pay attention. The only reason your teasing ever got to me in the first place was because I was terrified you were right--that I wasn't fit for anything but the AgriCorps. Master Jinn thought the same things of me at first. It's only because he changed his mind and took me on--and took me back again--that I've changed at all, if I have. Some days I don't think I have, much. You proved that to me."

"Master Jinn!" Bruck sneered. "You talk about him, everyone talks about him as though he were some sort of god. The Great Master Jinn! Fucking his own padawan. There's a fine thing for a master to be doing."

"It always comes back to that, for you, doesn't it?" Obi-Wan kept his voice level and his expression neutral, but inside he was seething. He fought the anger down to a low boil, but that was all he could manage, even though he half agreed with Bruck at the moment. That was probably why he was angry, in fact.

"Because he does what he likes and gets away with it! Everyone knows it's wrong. It tore Leth apart when she fell in love with me, but not your master. He just took what he wanted--"

"It's a little different with us, Bruck," Obi-Wan said evenly, his anger dissipating. Of course Bruck would see it that way. "I was the one who approached him first, thanks to you. I never knew he felt the same way about me because he took care to not let on. It was only when there wasn't any other option--"

"There's always another option!" Bruck cried, turning away from him and leaning against the bole of the tree. "Please tell me there's always another option," he said more quietly.

Unsure of what to do, Obi-Wan opened up his perceptions to whatever Bruck might be letting through his shields. Though mostly intact, they were seeping pain and guilt like the edges of a wound. He stepped up behind the other apprentice and put one hand in the center of his back, a hand warm with the Force and gentle with sympathy. "She should have found you another master when she knew it was clouding her judgement, Bruck."

"I begged her not to," Bruck confessed in a shaky voice. "I did love her, you know, just not the way she wanted me to. How can you not love your own master, when they give you so much? I just didn't want to sleep with her. It was too much like--"

"Like fucking your sister? Your mother?" Obi-Wan finished in a voice that was almost a whisper. Bruck nodded, face contorting.

Obi-Wan sighed and sat down on a nearby bench. "There's that," he said ruefully. Bruck looked at him oddly. Obi-Wan glanced sideways at the other apprentice. "You think that hasn't crossed my mind? Qui-Gon's old enough to be my father--my grandfather, almost. At least Master Astl was nearer your age. And our masters are the only real parents we've known, most of us."

"Don't tell me you've got cold feet, Kenobi," Bruck said, surprised.

That gave him pause. Angry as he was with Qui-Gon, it was hard to say what he felt at the moment, but he knew that below the anger, very little, if anything, had changed. "No, not really. I love him. I want him. Sometimes I want him so badly my teeth hurt."

"Not your balls?" Bruck grinned.

Obi-Wan laughed. "Yes, those too. But I can't escape the fact that he's 35 years older than I am and that he *acts* like a father often enough." *When he's not acting like a possessive idiot,* he thought. "Sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing, letting it get this far. I'm sure he wonders the same thing."

"Does he really?" Bruck's voice had gone bitter again.

"Yes, he does," Obi-Wan sighed. "Much more often than I like."

"Leth didn't."

"She used you, Bruck. I know you loved her, but she used you."

"I know. I let her."

There was not much to say to that, except platitudes, so Obi-Wan said nothing.

"I feel like I killed her," Bruck said into the silence at last.

"You didn't," Obi-Wan said flatly, horrified and indignant. "Don't let her kill you or your dreams now, Bruck. Have they found you another master?"

"Not yet," Bruck replied, seeming surprised at Obi-Wan's reaction. "They're in short supply at the moment. There are a couple of padawans coming up for their trials in a few weeks, so maybe I'll find one then."

"At least it's not quite as bad as when we were coming up on our thirteenth birthdays, eh?" Obi- Wan said with a rueful smile.

"'We'?" the other padawan said sarcastically.

"Mine's gone off on a mission by himself for a couple of quarters with his own cold feet," Obi- Wan admitted with an airiness he didn't feel. It was almost a relief to say it, and maybe it would help patch things up with Bruck as well. *He's closed our bond,* he wanted to add and couldn't, ashamed of that fact somehow.

"I'm sorry," Bruck responded. Obi-Wan almost believed he was. "Really, Kenobi. I am," the other apprentice insisted. "Being without Leth . . . I've never . . . I can't . . ."

"I know," Obi-Wan agreed. "I miss him already, and he's probably not even aboard his ship yet."

The two apprentices looked at each other sidelong and both started to laugh, Obi-Wan a little sadly, and Bruck a little hysterically.

"Listen to us," Bruck said. "Mooning like a couple of lovesick--"

"Well, we are. More or less."

"So we are," Bruck agreed, wiping his eyes. "What are you doing with yourself while he's gone?"

"Finishing up some classes at the university. You?"

"That's what I should be doing. . . ."

"Come on then. No point wasting time. Let's get on with it." Obi-Wan dragged an astonished but unprotesting Bruck off with him to the university liaison.

The two apprentices parted at the end of the day on friendlier terms than they had ever known. Bruck's misery had opened a well of need in him, while the stigma attached to his master's death effectively kept his other so-called friends away from him, and he seemed willing to let Obi-Wan fill the gap. He thought, after an evening spent in his former tormentor's company, that he might even come to like the other apprentice.

They had talked to the university liaison together, decided on their courses--five for Obi-Wan and two for Bruck--signed into the course rotation schedule, collected their materials and gone to lunch. Afterwards, they had gone to the practice rooms for their own Temple lessons and met up again for dinner, then went off to the library to begin the coursework. Obi-Wan had stayed later than Bruck, getting a head start.

All in all, not a bad day, he thought, heading back to quarters, feeling sleepy. Except that it wasn't over, yet. Master Windu had left a message to see him that Obi-Wan had completely forgotten about, and the senior Council member was, instead, waiting for the apprentice in the rooms he shared with Qui-Gon.

It startled him to see another's form where he had expected none. For a moment, his wishful thinking told him it was his master returned, and then Windu looked up from the datapad on his lap and broke the illusion. It was also startling to see how comfortable Master Windu looked in Qui-Gon's usual chair, and how cold the room was in with him in it, in contrast to his master's presence.

"Padawan Kenobi, do you not attend to your messages? You were to see me today regarding your training while your master is absent."

"My apologies, Master Windu," he replied, bowing. Obi-Wan described the course of the day, ending with, "I thought it best to do what I could to mend the difficulties between Bruck and myself and forgot your message in the midst of it."

"Commendable actions, Padawan, but not an excuse," Windu said with annoyance. "With your master gone, you need to be mindful of your responsibilities."

"Yes, Master. Thank you, Master." Obi-Wan bowed again respectfully.

"Tell me what classes you've signed up for, please," Windu ordered, and listened with a frown as Obi-Wan described the history, political theory, psychology, physics, and literature classes for which he had registered.

"Rather a full load, Padawan. I had hoped to ask you to teach some of the younger ones during the time your master is away, but I doubt you'll have time with your own lessons."

"I can easily drop one or two, Master Windu, but I should point out that I am a bit behind because of my master's busy schedule and thought I should use this time to catch up."

"Wise enough. Leave your course load as it is." Windu gave him a peculiar look. "I am curious about the literature course. Early Alderaani poetry? You're aware it's a favorite of Qui-Gon's." A statement of fact, not a question.

Obi-Wan felt his face flush hotly. "I've been told my familiarity with literature is a bit thin, Master."

"I see." Windu smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Very well, Padawan. Be mindful of your Temple duties as well as your courses. Your training here comes first."

"Yes, Master. Thank you, Master," Obi-Wan responded, glad to see the back of Master Windu.

It wasn't until after the Council member had departed that Obi-Wan realized their quarters had been locked when he left this morning, and that Qui-Gon had apparently never erased his former lover's palm print from the access pad. For some reason, he found that disturbing.

For the first time in tenths Obi-Wan slept alone and in his own bed. It seemed narrow and cold and hard compared to the one he'd so quickly grown used to. Somehow he couldn't face sleeping in what he thought of now as Qui-Gon's bed. Not without him in it, and it seemed at least questionable to Obi-Wan whether he'd be sharing it again with him, even after his master returned. He wasn't yet sure he wanted to.

How strange that felt.

Not that long ago, he would have given almost anything to sleep with his master. When he finally had, Obi-Wan could not quite make himself believe it was true. The first several days they had spent together, barely getting out of bed, had passed in a haze of sex and pheromones that had left him almost catatonic, his brain euphorically numb and his body delightfully sore. At the time, he'd thought it was wonderful. Qui-Gon was a skillful lover and the sheer variety of techniques and sensations had been staggering. He wasn't sure there was a horizontal or vertical surface in their quarters they hadn't made use of, a position they hadn't tried. Desire and need had driven both of them, but not, he thought now, much love.

In retrospect, he found he felt a little used. Qui-Gon had taken far more than he had given, though he had given Obi-Wan all the physical pleasure he could stand. Emotionally, his master had been not so much distant as withholding, present with him in the moment, and very much so, but with his emotions locked down under his control. Although sleeping with Qui-Gon was never boring, it was, more often than he cared to admit, just having sex--fucking--more than making love. That wasn't what he'd hoped for when they became lovers.

While they had grown closer just in resolving the sexual tension between them, the closest they'd been to connecting emotionally during sex was the night they'd made love in the gardens after Leth Astl killed herself. That was the first time Obi-Wan could remember Qui-Gon really opening himself up, and even then he had held something of himself back, had told Obi-Wan he was holding back. Even the first time he'd entered Qui-Gon, the first time they'd climaxed together, his lover had been there and strangely not-there, enjoying it and yet not really letting go, while Obi-Wan had felt as if he were dissolving into the essence of his lover. Qui-Gon was intentionally keeping himself closed, and Obi-Wan wasn't sure why. If they were master and padawan to the world outside, in bed they were equal lovers and owed one another a lover's attention without reserve, no matter what Qui-Gon's opinion on the matter. "My padawan first, my lover last," he had said, and not for the first time.

Maybe this was not all Qui-Gon's fault after all. Maybe his own stubbornness, his refusal to hear his master's words was part of the difficulty they were having. Each time he had overstepped a padawan's boundaries and taken the course of their lovemaking into his own hands, Qui-Gon had turned it into a ritual of dominance, reminding him of his place. Perhaps last night had only been a repeat of the lesson Qui-Gon had tried to teach him while they were on Li'ir. He had thought then that he wanted more of Qui-Gon's passion and fire and gotten more than he'd bargained for, as well as a hard lesson in who, exactly, was the master. Perhaps he'd failed to truly learn it, however, making it more difficult for Qui-Gon, who apparently did want the opportunity to let go.

Obi-Wan didn't know what he thought or felt now. Lying on his back on the narrow bed, he rubbed his shoulder, where there was still a trace of soreness over the bone. When Qui-Gon did give his emotions free rein, Obi-Wan wasn't sure he liked what he saw. Last night his lover had been so controlling--and so out of control--that his familiar master, the person with whom he'd fallen in love, was gone. How could that happen? How could Qui-Gon be transformed that way by something that was supposed to bring out the best in them?

Not for the first time, he wondered what damage had been inflicted on his master that had scarred him so badly. It seemed much more than Xanatos alone could do, though he knew that was a deep and unhealed wound. Obi-Wan wondered if he would ever find out, and if his master would ever heal of it. It was an unpleasant thought to fall asleep on, and he didn't for quite some time, missing the bulk and warmth and familiarity of Qui-Gon's body near his own.

Weeks passed. Immersed in his studies and training, Obi-Wan thought he had managed to successfully distract himself from the pain of his master's absence and distance with work. Partway through his classes, he discovered that he and Rian Binradin, the padawan he and Qui- Gon had rescued from slavers some weeks before, were completing the same literature and physics courses, the latter also shared with Bruck. She remained masterless due to the same shortage that left Bruck at loose ends, and in part, she confessed, because the idea of a new master was still too painful, her own having been murdered by the slavers who captured her. The three of them took to studying and eating together, feeling a certain kinship in their masterless state, even more so when they began to hear themselves referred to among the other padawans as "the untouchables." Obi-Wan thought this grimly true of himself, but grossly unfair to both Bruck and Rian and began seeing less of them, to take some of the taint of his association away.

It was Rian who called him on it, lying in wait for and cornering him in the refectory and demanding an explanation for his sudden avoidance. Although they barely knew one another by the time he and Qui-Gon had brought her back to Coruscant a few months before, they had the beginnings of a friendship now, thrown together as they were by their situations. Obi-Wan discovered now that she wasn't one to pull her punches. She sat across the table from him, brown eyes even darker with annoyance, her blonde hair once again trimmed padawan short, braided and pony-tailed.

"What's with you?" she demanded without preamble. "Have Bruck and I got some kind of disease all of a sudden that you don't want to be seen with us anymore?" Sitting, they were about the same height, but her bones were much finer and she weighed about half Obi-Wan's mass. It didn't seem to occur to her that he might be more intimidating, any more than it did to Yoda.

"You've heard what they're calling us," Obi-Wan replied mildly. "I thought it might be better if I took myself off and deflected it. You and Bruck lost your masters to death. I'm the one who's been--"

"What? Rejected by your master?" Rian snapped impatiently. "I hardly think so, Kenobi. You're very quick to take blame where there is none. Your master's gone off on a mission by himself. It's not that unusual."

"It is when you've been very publicly lovers," Obi-Wan replied quietly. "When it's known you've quarreled."

Rian looked at him curiously. "Are you trying to be a martyr, or is there something you haven't told us?"

Obi-Wan said nothing. He'd told no one Qui-Gon had closed himself off from their bond.

"What is it?" she said, reaching across the table to him in sympathy.

He pulled back instinctively and then looked guilty for it.

"What?" she asked again. "Spit it out. Before it eats you alive."

"You're very certain of who and what I am for someone I've only known a few tens," Obi-Wan flung back at her warmly.

She smiled disarmingly. "I'm a year or two nearer my trials than you, Kenobi. What's wrong? It's obvious something's really bothering you."

He got up from the table with his uneaten dinner. "I've studying to do, Padawan Binradin. I think that's all the explanation I owe you."

Obi-Wan slammed hard into the mat for the fifth time in less than two minutes, wind knocked completely out of him. This time, his sparring partner did not even bother to pin him as he lay gasping, just wedged a foot beneath his ribs and flipped him over onto his back like a fish pulled from the water.

"Shameful, Padawan," the Combat Master rumbled, looking down at him with a scowl. Even coming from the unusually large Devish, this was a disheartening comment. Oghak Muk handed out little praise and when it was given, it tended to be phrased in degrees of deplorability. "Pathetic" was about mid-range on the list of derogatives. "Passable" was the best one could hope for. "Shameful," however, was far down the list, sliding into actual negativity. "Where is your mind today? You fight like one of the eight-years. Worse. They at least pay attention."

Obi-Wan sat up, painfully attempting to catch his breath. "Yes-- My Master-- I will-- concentrate-- and-- focus," he gasped.

"You will go meditate, Padawan Kenobi. I will not have you in this class today. You will hurt yourself or another student. Go. Settle your mind. Come back when you learn to focus like a senior padawan."

"Yes, My Master. Thank you, Master," Obi-Wan mumbled, bowing, feeling blood rush to his face more with embarrassment than gravity.

Master Oghak was right. He had no concentration today, hadn't since Qui-Gon had left. He was unfocused because he hadn't been able to meditate for a week, and tired from constant studying and practice and from sleeping badly alone, whether in his own bed, or in his master's. He had even tried sleeping on the lounge in their common room, thinking it was a neutral place, but that failed as well. There were no neutral places in their quarters anymore. Maybe he should sleep elsewhere, take some temporary quarters until Qui-Gon returned. He wasn't sure he could. It was too much like being a stranger in his own home.

He turned that awful thought over in his mind as he showered and dressed again. Once in the hallway, he found himself rather at a loss. His inability to concentrate precluded going back to his studies, at least for now, and he gave that up as a useless endeavor, deciding to go to the gardens to at least try to meditate and regain his focus.

Before he was far on his way, however, his communicator chittered at him and he found himself summoned before Master Windu again.

He presented himself at the Council member's office and was ushered into the austere sanctum without a wait. The tall black man sat behind a clean-lined comdesk with very little on it, as though he had cleared his agenda and his mind of all distractions merely to speak to Obi-Wan.

"Master Windu." Obi-Wan bowed. "You wished to see me?"

"Yes, Padawan," Windu rumbled, looking him up and down.

Obi-Wan fought the urge to indulge himself in any of a number of fidgety behaviors and instead stood completely still under the scrutiny.

"Choose one of your classes to drop," the Council member said abruptly.

"Master?" Obi-Wan blinked. "Might I ask why?"

"Because you've proven yourself unable to carry the load and attend to your lessons here, Padawan. Both the Saber Master and the Combat Master spoke with me today--"

"With all respect, Master," Obi-Wan interrupted. "I've attended all the requisite practice sessions in Temple."

"Your attendance is not the issue, Padawan. Your performance is. Neither Master Harza nor Master Oghak want you in the practice halls with another apprentice right now. You're to practice your katas and forms alone or with them until further notice. And you will drop a university course. I suggest the physics."

*Not the poetry?* he almost said.

"You're not sleeping well?" Windu continued. If he had caught Obi-Wan's stray, sardonic thought, he let it pass.

Obi-Wan's mouth became a tight line. "No, Master," he admitted reluctantly.

"Meditating doesn't help, I presume."

"No, Master."

"You've lost some weight. Not eating?"

"I'm so busy--"

Windu shook his head. "You're not hungry," he corrected.

"No, Master," Qui-Gon's apprentice acknowledged, caught in his evasion.

"Sit down, Obi-Wan." It was Qui-Gon's friend who spoke to him now, the man his master had entrusted him to in his absence. He did as he was told, taking a seat in front of the desk, but sitting only on the edge of it. "What's troubling you, Padawan?"Mace said, not unkindly. "Is it Qui-Gon's absence? Or the argument you had before he left? Or both?"

Obi-Wan said nothing for a time. He wasn't sure he could actually find the words, or that, if he did, Mace Windu was the person with whom he would choose to share them. He looked away, focusing on a corner of the Council member's desk, not knowing what to say. Mace let the silence pass for some time, then got up and moved to the window, turning partially away from Obi-Wan, becoming a silhouette in the afternoon light.

"I've known your master since we were boys here," Mace said quietly, with a tinge of sadness in his voice. "He was my closest friend for most of my life. You probably know that we were lovers for a time, too, and had our own falling out. We're not as close as we once were, and I miss that-- our friendship as much as, if not more than, I miss being his lover. Has he told you what we fought about?"

"No, Master," Obi-Wan replied, surprised that Master Windu would.

"Theology."

Obi-Wan shook his head, not certain he had heard right. "Pardon, Master?"

Mace turned from the window, and leaned back against the sill, crossing his arms. "That's what it boiled down to, really. If you ask anyone else, they'll say it was over which of us should have gotten this seat on the Council, but they'd be wrong. Your master never cared, and didn't want it in the first place, and did, in fact, decline it when it was offered to him first. I still think he would have been a better choice. He wanted me to have it because he said I was a better bureaucrat. I think he meant it as a compliment." Mace said drily.

"What we argued about was this: Most of the Council are of the opinion that the Force is more than just the manifestation of life caused by midi-chlorians, that it is an actual physical force-- like gravity or magnetism or the strong force that binds the nucleus of atoms together--that we don't yet completely understand any more than we really understand gravity. We can detect it, make use of it, manipulate it, but our knowledge of it is at best superficial. The midi-chlorians give us the ability to focus and manipulate it; the greater the concentration of those, the greater one's abilities. Or so the dogma goes.

"Your master is among the minority who hold quite a different view of it, and that was one of the reasons he was offered the seat. It was also the reason I was offered it."

"Balance," Obi-Wan said.

"Yes. For a time, I believed as Qui-Gon does, that our focus in the Force must be on the lifeforce itself, and all beings sharing it. I still believe that to a large extent, but the longer I sat on the Council, the more I began to see that the Force encompasses everything, not just life, but the inanimate and inert, that it binds us together not just in a symbiont circle of lifeforms, but as a whole--the building *and* its inhabitants, if you will. Through it we see the past and the future and the living present, because all those things are contained in the Force.

"Qui-Gon is and always has been very much focused on the now, the present, the immediate picture. He's acutely attuned to the life around him, more acutely than anyone I have ever known, including Master Yoda. It makes him a passionate man, one whose feelings run very deep and very hot. He is full of life and compassion and love as few people are. But that same gift also blinds him. This is something you must know, with your gift, Obi-Wan. I know you see the future, like Master Yoda. Qui-Gon doesn't. He can't. The only large picture he is able to see is the universe as a teeming mass of life in all its stages."

"Poetry, not physics," Obi-Wan said softly.

"Yes," Mace smiled sadly, "although there is beauty in both and he knows that. During my first year on the Council, I agreed with some of their decisions that Qui-Gon did not. He took me to task. I laid out my reasons for him but it was as if I were speaking another language. He's very stubborn."

Obi-Wan smiled. "I know."

"We both said things we shouldn't have. We both let it go farther than it should have. Neither of us would back down, or apologize. I can be stubborn, too," Mace smiled, a little sadly. "The longer one waits to apologize, the harder it becomes. He was gone often on missions with his apprentice; I was here, wrapped up in Council business. We drifted apart as both lovers and friends. Then he lost Xanatos and I found we had drifted so far apart that I couldn't even reach him. That put an end to whatever amends we might have made with each other."

"And yet he still cares for you. He left me in your care." *He never erased your palmprint from his door.*

"Yes. Do you see what that tells you about him?"

"He never stops loving anyone, does he?" Obi-Wan said in a voice that was almost inaudible.

"No, Padawan. He's incapable of it. He just doesn't know what to do with the hurt people who love each other inflict on one another. It doesn't fit into his world. So he just turns his back on it."

"I don't know what I did," Obi-Wan whispered.

Mace walked across the room and sat next to him, putting one hand on his shoulder. "I don't think you did anything, Padawan. I think it's his own history that's caught up with him, finally. You only precipitated it by loving him, making him love you."

"Then why has he shut me out?" Obi-Wan was amazed by how calm he sounded. He could have been discussing the quality of last night's dinner.

Mace looked startled. "What do you mean, Obi-Wan?"

"He's shut down our bond. I can't find him."

"When did he do this?"

"When he left." Obi-Wan's voice cracked, finally.

Mace inhaled as though to speak, held it for a moment, then shook his head, exhaling again. "I don't know, Padawan. It certainly explains why you're not sleeping or eating. I'm sorry. I didn't realize--" Mace could sense the pain and confusion and anger bleeding through the boy's shields, and could hardly blame him.

Obi-Wan shook his head, his breathing a little ragged, his feelings just barely under control. "It's all right. I'm sure he has a good reason for it. I just wish he'd told me why before he did it."

"I'm sure he does have a good reason for it, Padawan, and that he'll tell you when he gets back." Mace squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, knowing how hollow his comfort was. "In the meanwhile, I do think you should drop one of your classes," he continued, not unkindly. "It was a heavy schedule to begin with, and I know how time-consuming the problem sets for physics are. It's a course better done on its own, or with a much lighter load than you're carrying."

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan acquiesced, still unhappy about it. He knew Master Windu was right, though. Something had to give somewhere before he did.

"And I want you to go down to the Healers before you go home tonight. Tell them you're having trouble sleeping and meditating. See what they can do for you. In fact, I want you to go now."

"Yes, Master."

"One other thing, Obi-Wan, and it's not good news. Qui-Gon may be gone significantly longer than the quarteryear we originally thought. He's run into some . . . difficulty with this mission and it's hard to say how much longer it may stretch out. I may send you out to him, if it goes on much longer, and if it's at all possible."

*If he'll have me,* Obi-Wan thought. Aloud, he said only, "I understand, Master Windu. Thank you," then stood and bowed and went to the door, almost pausing to say something else and then thinking better of it.

Mace watched him go, not liking the set of the boy's shoulders, or much of anything else he'd seen in the last twenty minutes, or the last eighthyear, for that matter. A few minutes later, Yoda hobbled in through the door to the adjoining office. He and Windu exchanged looks and the little Jedi Master's ears sagged just a fraction.

"He may ruin this one, too, Yoda," Windu muttered.

"Not his fault was Xanatos, Mace," Yoda replied mildly. "Made his own choices did he. So will Kenobi. Their own are the flaws. A good master is Qui-Gon. Patient. Kind. Shirk the hard lessons he does not, even when cause him pain they do."

"You have more faith in him than I do," Mace snorted. "You always have."

The Healers, as Obi-Wan had suspected, could do little for him, nor tell him anything he didn't already know. They urged him to talk to his friends about what he was feeling, make sure he didn't isolate himself, gave him a soporific tea to drink before he went to bed, urged him to meditate. Then they sent him back to his quarters to sleep--or to the gardens to meditate, for the rest of the day, his choice.

As useful as a pat on the back and good luck wishes, he thought sourly. Most of his friends were off with their own masters on missions, and he'd managed to alienate Rian, who might have become a new one he could confide in. He and Bruck, although their truce was holding and slowly changing from detente to what might be a real friendship, were nowhere near friendly enough for him to broach this subject. And Bruck had his own miseries, the nature of which made him naturally less sympathetic to Obi-Wan's. Who was there? Master Windu? Master Yoda? They both had more important things to deal with than a depressed little padawan mooning over his absent master. And really, Rian was right. Qui-Gon was not dead, merely absent. Very absent. No matter.

*Have some spine,* he told himself, *instead of moping around feeling sorry for yourself. That's so pathetic. Stop acting like such a fool.* Determinedly, he opted for the gardens, and gave it up three hours later, defeated by his own mind.

It got worse before it got better.

He finished his classes, somehow, on less sleep than he'd ever managed to have in a consecutive forty-day period, and even managed, somehow, to do well. The same could not be said of his Temple lessons, however, where fatigue told in ways that were harder to compensate for. The Training Masters unanimously put him on the sick-call list and banned him from the practice rooms. The only thing he was allowed to do was the one thing he couldn't, and that was meditate. His mind, when it wasn't a fogbank of exhaustion, was a rodent wheel of worry and self- recrimination. And loneliness.

He had little doubt now that Qui-Gon was gone from his life for good, that even when he did come back from this mysterious and difficult "mission," the first thing he would do was find his apprentice a new master. That he hadn't done so already from the distance of his mission spoke to Obi-Wan only of his master's preoccupation and concentration on the here and now. From experience, he knew that Qui-Gon let the future take care of itself when he was engaged in duty. *Out of sight, out of mind,* he thought bitterly. Equally bitterly, he wondered if his own palm print would remain on the locking program to their quarters, as Windu's had.

He and Rian mended the brief breach in their growing friendship, resuming where they'd left off after Obi-Wan apologized for his prickliness. She had accepted it graciously and there was no further mention made of the incident. Bruck seemed relieved when the three of them began spending time together again, regardless of the whispers of the other padawans. It was something of a relief to Obi-Wan, too, who craved company and dreaded being alone in his quarters more and more. Then Rian found a master and it was down to Bruck and Obi-Wan again, both of whom felt more completely like outcastes than ever. In his worst moments, Obi-Wan caught himself selfishly hoping Bruck would not find a master too before Qui-Gon returned.

Doggedly, Obi-Wan enrolled in another round of university classes, a much lighter load this time of more poetry--which he'd begun to like, much of it fitting his more and more melancholy mood--and the physics class from which he'd withdrawn previously. *At this rate, I'll be through all the bloody course work by the time Qui-Gon's back,* he groused and immersed himself in his studies again. Master Windu kept a watchful eye on him, summoning Obi-Wan to appear in his office several more times, gently admonishing him to take better care of himself, finally speaking to him sternly about the dangers of despair, how it left one open to the Dark Side if one indulged it. Obi-Wan left the Council member's office wondering why he was being blamed for smothering beneath emotions he felt he had no control over.

He held out for almost another quarteryear before his body decided enough was enough and he passed out in the middle of the library one evening, waking up in a medical cubicle with a raging fever, pounding headache, and congested lungs.

When the Healers notified him Kenobi had collapsed and was in their care, Windu was not surprised. It was obvious to everyone the boy was depressed and driving himself into exhaustion to distract himself from his master's absence--or whatever lay between them that had chased Qui- Gon off-planet like a virgin running before the soldiers. He and Yoda had cautioned Qui-Gon's apprentice repeatedly, urged him to say what was on his mind, to no avail, then watched with a sort of grim helplessness as Kenobi drove himself into the ground. So this news did not find him unprepared. He was not, however, prepared for just how ill the young man had made himself. Nor for the presence of Padawan Chun at his bedside.

By the time Mace arrived in the Healer's Hall, Kenobi was well and truly delirious, his fever spiking dangerously high, and Bruck was helping a young healer's apprentice of about the same age remove his clothing and settle him under a hypotherm sheet in an isolation cubicle. Kenobi's face was flushed and damp, eyes dull with fever. He seemed not to recognize anyone and called repeatedly for Qui-Gon--who would not, if their link were still closed, even know his apprentice was ill, Mace thought in a flare of disgust and annoyance. He wasn't sure which of this pair would drive him to distraction first, but he felt badly for the boy, who was in real distress and needed his master. *Damn you, Qui-Gon,* he thought. *We're going to have a little talk when you get back.*

The Master Healer on duty that evening approached, nodded to Mace and passed through the cubicle's sterile field and sent Chun back out through it while he and his apprentice finished making Kenobi as comfortable as possible in the throes of his fever.

"Padawan Chun," Mace said as the other boy shook off the field's tingle. "I'm surprised to see you here."

Bruck looked a little abashed. "I was there when he passed out. We'd been studying together. I knew he was getting sick and tried to get him to come down here, but he wouldn't go. Kept saying it was just a cold, but you could hear the cough was bad."

"Since you were studying together, might I assumed you've made some peace with each other?"

"Yes, Master Windu. The--trouble was my fault to begin with. We've worked it out. Kenobi's been a good friend to me since my master died. I don't know why, but he has. This seemed like the least I could do."

"I'm glad for both of you then, padawan. Stay with him if you like." How like Kenobi. The boy had not only conquered his own anger but become a natural peacemaker, even with his own enemies. He'd been skeptical when Qui-Gon's apprentice had asked permission to find Chun the night his master died, but apparently his instincts had been right and Kenobi's kind heart and diplomatic skills had won in the end. Qui-Gon had trained him well, although there was no doubt much of this was his own personality. He would make a fine master himself, someday--if Qui- Gon didn't ruin him.

"Thank you, Master." Bruck leaned against the wall, waiting with Windu until the Master Healer came back out through the sterile field.

"Master Windu," Healer Fliss, another long-necked Quermian like Yarael Poof, greeted him, head weaving in agitation. "You are responsible for this padawan while his master is absent?"

"Yes, Master Fliss. How is he?"

"Very ill at the moment, but he should be fine in a few days time. We will keep him much longer than that, as he cannot, apparently, take care of himself. This is an infection he should have been able to curb himself, one which he probably should never have gotten to begin with. He is also suffering from exhaustion and seems malnourished. I believe he has spoken to us before of this, but either the remedies we offered were not useful or he refused them. Is there some trouble we should know of? With his master perhaps?"

"He's told you nothing of that?"

"There is no record of it. Perhaps he spoke in confidence to another Healer."

*I doubt it,* Windu thought, throwing a glance at Bruck, who returned it with apprehension. "This information goes nowhere, Padawan Chun. You've heard nothing."

"Yes, Master. Should I step away?"

"No, I believe it's better if you know, if he hasn't already told you." He turned back to the Healer. "His master has closed their training bond down."

"He what?" Bruck blurted in shock. "My apologies, Master, but it explains a lot."

"Yes, it does," the Healer agreed. "Why would he do such a thing? Is Master Jinn unwell?"

"I'm beginning to wonder that myself," Mace said grimly.

For several days, Obi-Wan lay feverish and sick, drifting in and out of lucidity and beset with an alarming cough, wondering why it was strangers and not Qui-Gon giving him sips of juice and water and ice to suck, holding him while he coughed hard enough to turn himself inside out, wiping the sweat from his face, bathing him. When the fever broke, he recognized Master Windu and Bruck and one of the healers' apprentices from his own year tending him, and was grateful to all of them, Bruck especially, for what he thought of as an unexpected and probably undeserved kindness. The Healers kept him for another ten days of enforced recuperation and all he did, in truth, was sleep and eat, without feeling the slightest bit restless. He felt, instead--underneath the exhaustion and what he now recognized as depression--resigned and strangely empty. When the fever had broken, something else within him had seemed to as well. He was done with needing Qui-Gon.

Still feeling shaky, although he was allowed out of his quarters for a few hours a day now, Obi- Wan settled quietly on his knees near the pond where he and Qui-Gon had last spoken. For a time, he merely let his mind drift, making no attempt to clear it, opening himself up to the Force to let it fill and guide him. *I haven't done that enough of late. Too busy with lessons and practice and moping. I need to find my own still center again, without distractions--and without Qui-Gon,* he thought. He let his mind wander more, settling into the familiar quiet breathing of light meditation, hearing the noises of water and life around him in the gardens, letting that soothe and fill him.

He found himself, not surprisingly, remembering the last time he was here, and what had brought him, and the look on Qui-Gon's face as he plummeted toward the ground, frozen in fear. Obi- Wan himself had been over the railing and falling seconds after Qui-Gon. Heights held no such fear for him, nor did any other common phobia. His fellow padawans had long since stopped daring him to perform this or that physical act because he would merely shrug and do it. Not always successfully or without getting hurt. But he would at least try almost anything once, if it didn't seem utterly suicidal even for a Jedi. And if he failed, he would do it again until he succeeded or was certain it was beyond his reach. His tenacity pleased his master, but his fearlessness exasperated Qui-Gon to no end because it made his apprentice reckless, or so he insisted. Obi-Wan was still not sure whether this was true or whether it was Qui-Gon's own weakness speaking, and he was less certain now, having watched his master so completely undone by something every Jedi could save himself from with a simple manipulation of the Force.

And yet, there was truth to Qui-Gon's words that fear, when it was not a path to the Dark Side, was also the brother of prudence and common sense. Instinctive fears had served his kind well in eons of evolution and were not to be discounted lightly even now. The difference was in the level of rationality applied to temper that fear. When fear ruled one, it became the first step into the Dark. Qui-Gon had shown him what it was like to be ruled by it in his fall from the Temple tower, and the night before, when he had succumbed to his fear of--

Of what? Obi-Wan still did not understand what Qui-Gon feared in their relationship. "Doing the wrong thing. Losing you," he had said. *Doing the wrong thing.* Was that his master or his lover speaking? Or was it both, in turn? There was no way of knowing, and speculation was useless. Moreover, it was not Qui-Gon he needed to worry about now, but his own failings and weaknesses.

And what was it he was afraid of? Losing Qui-Gon? It would seem so. And yet, had he not already, when Qui-Gon had shielded himself so tightly that he was unreachable through a bond that had opened between them even before they were master and apprentice? Obi-Wan sat with that thought for a time, searching his feelings, finding sadness now in place of the initial anger, but surprisingly little else. Qui-Gon had done what he had done; there was no changing it. What could not be cured must be endured. As Bruck and Rian had lost masters, so he would lose his own, if not now then in time, when he became a knight himself, or when Qui-Gon died. That loss was inevitable and he would have to learn to cope with it as they had and were doing. It seemed, from the state of his emotions, that he was already beginning to. He missed Qui-Gon--missed his touch, his voice, his love, his lessons--but it no longer felt as though someone had cut his heart out. That in itself was saddening, but at the same time liberating.

So perhaps that was not really his deepest fear after all. He and Qui-Gon and every Jedi lived with danger and the possibility of death with each mission. They learned early to be conscious of but not paralyzed by the fear of that possibility; it was part of the Code. In death, they became an inextricable part of the Force that all their loved ones could touch and draw upon and so were never truly separated. And Qui-Gon was not dead. So what was the fear in his heart then?

And there was fear there, beneath the sadness and old anger. Again, he sat for a time, the susurration of wind and the tinkling of water calming him, pulling him deeper into his center, the Force filling him as it had not since before Qui-Gon's absence. As it often did, time opened before him in his immersion, but he saw not the shifting future, but the past. He saw himself as a much younger padawan--no, not even a padawan yet, still an unchosen initiate--speaking to Qui- Gon in the changing rooms after his exhibition fight with Bruck. "Qui-Gon Jinn, I will be thirteen in four weeks," he watched his younger incarnation say, wondering if he had really sounded so calm. "You are my last chance to be a Jedi Knight." The aloof man who had become his master shook his head. "It is better not to train a boy to become a Knight if he has so much anger. There is the risk he will turn to the Dark Side." Obi-Wan heard now what he had not heard then: the pain in Qui-Gon's voice, a despair of the sort he had just endured himself. Even knowing what caused it, Obi-Wan felt the wounding disappointment, the same howling desolation that rejection had caused him, though he had struggled not to show it. He wondered still if Qui-Gon knew how his words had made that young boy feel, to be condemned before he had a chance to prove himself.

Ah. There it was. Not Qui-Gon himself, for Obi-Wan had always known that loss would come as it did to all, but to lose his approval, his love, while the man yet lived and was still his master-- that was what Obi-Wan feared. He had spent much of the past year trying to avoid that, once he and Qui-Gon had become lovers. More than ever, he wanted to please Qui-Gon, to prove he was worthy to be his padawan and now, his lover. So he had said nothing of his foreboding dreams of death on Graffias, and 36 people had died, including one of his own friends and nearly himself in a disaster he knew perfectly well was going to happen. And yet, because Qui-Gon had said so, he had let himself believe it was nothing but a harmless nightmare. Because Qui-Gon had said so and he had feared contradicting and displeasing his master. Likewise his initial run-in with Bruck: if he had not feared Qui-Gon's rejection and humiliation at his master's hands he would not have kept his growing love for his master a secret for so long, making it a weapon to be used against him.

Now there was this fear that he had been the reason Qui-Gon shut down their bond. He felt his muscles stiffen instinctively with anger, fought to let it go. He had done nothing. Nothing but love Qui-Gon. He would not turn that feeling into something to be ashamed of, would not allow his master to turn it into something to be ashamed of, no matter what old hurts it dredged up for Qui-Gon. He had not been wrong to call his master on his behavior, nor to say the things he had about Xanatos. He would not shoulder that blame, no matter what Qui-Gon's reaction.

He had been wrong before, but this time, the error was Qui-Gon's. Both of them would have to bear the consequences of it.

"Hey, Kenobi." Obi-Wan looked up from toweling off to see Bruck standing in the changing room doorway, fully dressed. "Doing anything tonight?"

As the quarteryears had passed, now almost two full ones since Qui-Gon had departed, his friendship with Bruck had grown. The other apprentice was still a little prickly and easily bruised, but even that was changing as his grief wore off and the two of them got to know one another better. Bruck's sense of humor wasn't too dissimilar to his own, just a bit sharper, and they had discovered they shared a passion for the same kind of music--and the Coruscant clubs it was played in.

"Just problem sets. Why?"

"Good. I thought we could go out. I owe you a few drinks--or intoxicants of your choice."

"For what?" Obi-Wan asked, confused. It wasn't his birthday, though it looked like Qui-Gon might miss that, too, unless he shipped out to join him within the next few tendays, which seemed unlikely.

"You weren't counting? I would have been. Your probation was up last night at midnight. I thought you might want to celebrate, now that you're allowed out without a leash or a curfew again. We could hit a few clubs. On me."

Obi-Wan grinned, heart lightening. It sounded like just what he needed. "Sure."

And it was. Obi-Wan hadn't enjoyed himself so much since long before Qui-Gon had left. He and Bruck had gone to several clubs, danced, flirted with others on the dance floor, drank, inhaled a few things, and got progressively more "amused" as the night went on. By the time they found their way back to the Temple, many hours later, they were laughing uncontrollably, and hushing one another giddily in its quiet hallways. They staggered into Bruck's empty quarters with their arms around each other, muffling intoxicated laughter, bumped their heads on the low lintel, tripped on the threshold, and fell down helplessly in a tangle of legs, laughing aloud for the first time since they'd entered the Temple, Bruck on top of Obi-Wan.

Who suddenly realized it wasn't Bruck's lightsaber grinding into his thigh.

Oh. *Oh.* The intoxicant haze in his brain parted like a fogbank in a wind. He'd been incredibly stupid and amazingly blind in his short life, but this should win him some sort of prize, he thought ruefully. It was just like punching a girl in the arm when you're twelve because you've got a crush on her and it's so *gross* to like girls at that age. *Well,* he thought, *you're training to be a diplomat; how would you handle this situation offworld with someone other than Bruck?*

Obi-Wan leaned up and kissed him. Nothing aggressive, no tongue, just a brush of the lips. Bruck, unsurprisingly, reared back as though he'd been bitten, but didn't, Obi-Wan observed, get up or even roll off him. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, words unslurred but voice shaking.

"What did it feel like?" Obi-Wan replied mildly.

"You *kissed* me!" Bruck sputtered.

"Observant. Shall I do it again?"

The other apprentice loomed over him, breathing harshly, eyes wide and showing whites around the irises, pupils so dilated the icy blue was lost in black. "No," he gasped, and brought his mouth down hard on Obi-Wan's, tongue demanding entrance. There was no finesse in it, no technique, merely need, one Obi-Wan found echoing inside him. Soon they were stripping away each other's clothing, and Bruck's hands and mouth were everywhere. Obi-Wan let him do as he liked, responding to the pleasure as his own body dictated, but did nothing himself until it became clear what Bruck wanted and that he had only a theoretical idea of how to go about it.

"Slow down," he gasped, grabbing Bruck's wrists. "Use a little spit, at least." He brought one captured hand to his mouth, slowly sucked and laved the fingers one by one. "Although a lot is better," he said conversationally, "if you're not using lube." Bruck watched him with rapt fascination. "Slowly at first, or it hurts--unless that's what you intended?"

The other apprentice looked away, the drugged expression of arousal leaving his features, replaced by embarrassment. "No. Look, this isn't going to--" he began, pushing himself up and away.

Obi-Wan grabbed his shoulders, stopping him. "This is what you want, isn't it? You've wanted to do this for a long time, right?"

"I don't want a pity fuck--" he began angrily.

"I'm not offering one," Obi-Wan said quietly. "I could use some comfort, too." He touched Bruck's face, stroked his fingertips over the smooth brown skin and down the other boy's neck, carefully avoiding the long scar running along his jaw. "It's not as if it would be a hardship."

Bruck just looked at him, and Obi-Wan was surprised to see shame and fear and confusion in his face, and to see for the first time what a beautiful face it was despite the negative emotions marring it. "It's all right," he said gently, pulling the other apprentice down on top of him again, stroking up and down his back. "It's all right."

"What about your master?" Bruck said into his shoulder, still tense in his arms.

"Let me worry about that," Obi-Wan said quietly. "If you want this, I'm willing to give it, but only if you're willing to enjoy it. I don't want you walking about guilt-stricken and ashamed afterwards. Understand?" Bruck nodded. "Now, I'm not drunk or drugged and you're not forcing me, and those are my terms. We stop now and both get dressed and walk away, no hard feelings, thanks for the great time--if you're going to regret it."

Bruck levered himself up again, not out of Obi-Wan's arms, but enough so they could look into each other's faces. "Sith, Kenobi, you're going to be one hell of a negotiator if you can do it from this position."

"Trained by a master," Obi-Wan grinned. "Your decision. Take your time."

"Turn over, you bastard," Bruck growled and sank down for another kiss.

It was clumsy and awkward and much rougher than he was used to with Qui-Gon, but not entirely unsatisfactory, and it was what Bruck needed. Perhaps it was what they both needed. Though Bruck was not nearly the size of Qui-Gon, it hurt like hell when he shoved his way inside. Obi-Wan concluded he was less relaxed than he'd thought, despite the things he'd inhaled earlier and his own need. He gritted his teeth and only grunted instead of crying out. Once inside, Bruck thrust into him with something like fury, and Obi-Wan gave himself up to the other apprentice's brutal urgency with a trembling eagerness that surprised him. They came quickly and nearly together, with grunts and gasps and the dull slap of flesh against flesh and loud cries from both of them at the end. Sliding onto the floor, they lay together panting almost in unison, sweat soaked, until Obi-Wan realized how uneven Bruck's breathing had become, and rolled over to find him weeping.

Obi-Wan was afraid, at first, that he'd made the wrong choice, done the wrong thing here with his old enemy. There was definitely something wrong that was making him uneasy and Bruck so frightened, now that the lust had been appeased. He took the other boy into his arms, running warm, firm hands over his skin, murmuring softly, "Peace, friend, peace. It's all right." The Force flowed gently between them until Bruck quieted. Then he realized the source of his uneasiness was not what they had done here, but the rooms themselves. What he felt was the same shadow he'd felt in the garden before he and Qui-Gon had cleansed it. And Bruck had been living with that for near a halfyear, unaware of it in his grief. Obi-Wan brushed the boy's tears away with his thumbs and kissed him with a tenderness that surprised both of them, then got up and pulled him to his feet.

"This way," Bruck corrected, tugging Obi-Wan toward his own room and narrow padawan bed.

"No, this way," Obi-Wan insisted, tugging back in the other direction toward the master's room in the suite, once belonging to Leth Astl.

"I can't--"

"Yes, you can. You should." Obi-Wan nearly dragged him into the room and turned down the covers as Bruck watched uncomfortably. The room had been stripped largely bare of such personal belongings Bruck's master had collected in her short life, leaving it with little more character than any guest room, and a coldness that seemed very obvious now that he'd been alerted to it.

"What are you doing?" Bruck whispered hoarsely, looking at him as though he were desecrating holy ground.

"Did you feel what Qui-Gon and I did in the garden the night your master died?"

Bruck nodded. "I thought that was as close as I'd ever get to having you. It was . . ." he shook his head, not finding the words. "I don't understand how you can do this with me now after having that--"

"That's what we need to do here. She's still in this room to you, isn't she? Still in this bed? And so are you. She's dead, Bruck, and what she did was so wrong that it denied her oneness with the Force--and scarred you. Do you feel the wrongness here? Open yourself up."

He sat on the edge of the bed, watching as Bruck closed his eyes and stretched out his feelings. After a moment, they opened again and he looked at Obi-Wan with confusion. "Why couldn't I feel it before?"

"I think you've been in too much pain, my friend," Obi-Wan replied gently as he pulled the other apprentice to him until he was standing between Obi-Wan's legs. He ran his hands over Bruck's warm, brown skin, his own looking starkly pale against it. "In the other room out there--that was just fucking for fun. We need to make love here. Come on," he said and reached up to Bruck, kissing him, drawing him closer, then back on top of him again, and finally, up on the bed. He rolled them over until Bruck was below him this time, tense and nervous all over again.

"Relax. We're not going to do anything you don't like." Obi-Wan leaned back for a moment, propping himself up with his arms on either side of the other apprentice. "You haven't been with other men much, have you?"

"You're the only one I've ever wanted," Bruck admitted quietly, caressing Obi-Wan's cheek.

"Then let me show you how it's different."

"Not better?" Bruck joked, nervousness coming out in a sickly grin.

"No. Just different," he murmured, nuzzling up under Bruck's chin. "Just as lovely, but different."

After their quick and brutal fuck on the common room floor, Bruck wasn't sure what to expect, and in fact, could hardly believe this was actually happening. It was the truth that he'd never wanted another man before, but he'd wanted Kenobi from the moment they'd literally bumped into each other again a halfyear ago, desire flaring up in him like a nova, prompting him to act like a complete and utter fool. He realized now that he'd probably had a crush on the other apprentice for years, since they were children, which explained their animosity. Flip sides of the same coin, apparently, hate and love, jealousy and desire. Cliches were cliches for a reason. Having gotten to know him, really know him, had only made the longing worse. Now he wondered how he could have hated Kenobi all those years--except that he was everything Bruck was not.

Obi-Wan leaned down and kissed him again, tongue brushing his lips and then darting inside when he opened his mouth under that urging. Bruck had lost all hope of ever being able to have him when Kenobi and his master had become lovers. But here he was, lords, here he was, all of that pale, beautiful body spread over the top of him like icing, ready for licking.

He was surprised how soft Kenobi's lips were, how carefully he kissed. He'd expected it to be rougher somehow. It was anything but. Obi-Wan took his lower lip between his teeth, nipped a little, ran his tongue over the inside of Bruck's mouth, finding the ticklish spot on the roof of his mouth, tasting him, drawing his own tongue out to be suckled and nipped. Bruck felt his heart rate go up a notch.

"Go ahead," Kenobi encouraged softly, fingers skimming his cheek. "Touch me. Just take it slow. It's not a race."

He was almost afraid to and didn't quite know what to do. He hadn't felt so awkward in years. //Touch me the way you'd like to be touched,// Kenobi urged him without breaking their kiss. Bruck let his hands roam, finding his partner's skin amazingly soft and so pale that it made his own skin look that much darker--a beautiful if stark contrast. He stroked down Kenobi's spine, shivered hearing him moan. It wasn't a sound he expected from Qui-Gon Jinn's apprentice. When his fingers reached the small of Kenobi's back, the other padawan arched his hips against his own, grinding their cocks electrically together. He circled his fingers there, wanting to hear that sound again.

"That's nice," Kenobi murmured against his mouth. "Lighter. A little lower."

Bruck obliged as Obi-Wan's mouth moved down his chin, nibbled the end, then along his jaw and up to his ear, lips just brushing the skin. His partner tugged Bruck's earlobe with his teeth, breathed gently into his ear, nuzzled the spot where his padawan braid began. He started a little when Kenobi's tongue flicked out to trace the curves of his ear, then moved down again to the spot just behind his jaw where his scar's thin and jagged line of purple flesh started.

"What's this from?" Jinn's padawan breathed, tracing it first with one finger then his tongue.

Bruck shivered, barely able to think. "Shrapnel. From the revolution on Gihena. Went down to the bone and we were kilometers from medical supplies. Used all our own on the local village's wounded."

"Very sexy," Kenobi murmured, nibbling along it. "You'd be too perfect otherwise." Then there was warm breath on his neck, lips moving down the pulse points to the hollow of his throat. He groaned quietly, surprised at himself.

"Which one was it?" Kenobi said in a throaty voice, kissing his shoulder.

"Which one what?" Bruck gasped, dazed.

"Which one did I break?"

Bruck laughed a little then. "The left one," he said, and inhaled sharply as Kenobi's tongue moved across the ridge of that collarbone and down to his nipple. That pulled a muted cry out of him, made him arch his own hips into Obi-Wan's, their cocks grinding together between them again. Kenobi's mouth stayed busy there for a while, first at one nipple then the other until they were both sensitive pebbled peaks, sending jolts of pleasure right into his groin, and Bruck was writhing and clutching Kenobi's ass. Then he sat up, straddling Bruck's hips.

"Don't stop," Bruck gasped.

"I just want a look," Kenobi said in a voice Bruck hardly recognized, one deeper and more resonant, full of desire. That sent a thrill up his spine, that Kenobi would want him like this. His partner ran his hands up Bruck's chest, back to his nipples, running calloused palms over them. "Your skin's the most beautiful color, Bruck, like something edible." He leaned down and gave it a lick "The nipples are so dark they're almost purple," he observed in wonder, rolling the tips between this thumbs and forefingers and sending pleasant jolts down to his partner's groin. "Beautiful. Beautiful," Kenobi murmured, licking and kissing his way down the other boy's skin, sliding slowly down his body.

The anticipation was killing him and Kenobi seemed to be making the most of it. He paused at Bruck's navel, sucking and licking and teasing the convex nub of flesh with this tongue. Sliding lower on Bruck's legs, he insinuated himself between them, spreading them, running his hands down the inside of his partner's thighs until he was trembling, and then through the crisp white curls at the base of Bruck's cock. "Lovely, lovely," he murmured, inhaling the scent on his fingers. Kenobi stroked a finger across his balls then grasped and hefted them gently until Bruck was writhing, making noises he'd never heard himself make before. By the time Kenobi finally took him in hand, he was shaking as though he had a fever. Slowly, slowly, watching Bruck's face, Kenobi lowered his mouth toward his partner's straining cock.

When he blew across the tip, Bruck arched off the bed, crying out. Kenobi smiled and swallowed him down, pulling up again and gently raking his teeth over the sensitive underside, then swirling his tongue over the crown. Bruck whimpered and buried his fingers in Kenobi's hair, thrusting up into his mouth. "So good--" he gasped.

Then Kenobi drew back, leaving his cock wet and aching, and straddled his hips again, slowly lowering himself onto Bruck's cock, eyes closed, features slack with pleasure. The ring of muscles he had penetrated so easily this time pulsed down hard around Bruck's cock, making him cry out, as Kenobi slid lower, finally resting on Bruck's hips, where he sat for a moment looking as though he were meditating, heavy hands resting on his thighs, face serene. "Give me your hands," he sighed, reaching out after a moment, eyes still closed as he took Bruck's wrists. He was mesmerized, feeling himself enveloped again in that hot, tight passage, watching Kenobi's body arching sensuously as he leaned back, slowly pulling Bruck up and forward and deeper into himself. Obi-Wan shuddered and moaned as Bruck moved inside him. They grasped each other's wrists and Kenobi leaned back far enough to shift his legs out from under himself to either side of Bruck's body, his full weight resting low on the other boy's pelvis as he opened his eyes again. "Lean back," Kenobi told him hoarsely, pupils dilated, leaving only a thin ring of blue-green. "Rock a little. Like this."

This wasn't like being with anyone he'd ever known. It was a wonderful sensation, easy and languid, hot and tight, like nothing--nothing--he'd ever experienced before. They rocked together for what seemed like hours, slowly building a climax that started in the pit of Bruck's stomach and slithered up his spine and through his limbs. Before they reached it, Kenobi whispered, "Let go," and sank back on his hands. Bruck did the same. "Hold still. Wait," he said softly, quivering himself. "Wait." Bruck wasn't sure he could, but somehow did. After a moment, when some of the arousal had dampened, Kenobi ground against him and they started again. It built a little more quickly this time and he could hear it their breathing. Kenobi's face was beautiful, his head thrown back a little, eyes closed, lips parted, pale skin flushed and gleaming. He'd never seen anything so beautiful, and that only made it harder to hold back. He knew he was right on the edge of losing all control, wondered how Kenobi could stand it. Again, before either of them could come, Kenobi stopped them. "Please," Bruck whimpered. "Wait for it," his partner murmured. "Wait. You won't be sorry." Trembling, Bruck stilled himself. "Breathe in. Slowly. Make it a meditation. Be in the moment. Focus." He didn't have to be told where. His partner stretched out one hand, languorously leaning toward him again. "Just one this time." When they'd clasped wrists again, Kenobi rolled them both slowly onto their sides, Obi-Wan's legs clasping him as they curved toward one another, changing the angle again. Both of them were trembling with the need for release and they thrust harder and quicker against and into each other. This time, Kenobi didn't stop them, but took his cock in hand and stroked in time with their thrusts.

Bruck came first, shuddering and heaving up against his partner with a loud, hoarse cry, pleasure roaring through him like a great wave, from his groin and up his spine, through his whole body, breaking inside his skull in a crash. He wanted to watch Kenobi come but was too immersed in his own ecstasy to open his eyes even when he heard his partner cry out and felt his legs stiffen and lock around him, the ring of muscles tightening painfully around his softening cock. Bruck sank down on the bed, completely paralyzed, wondering if he'd ever get his breath back, if he'd ever move again.

"Gods that was nice," Kenobi eventually sighed from the other end of the bed, still a little breathless, legs sprawled over Bruck.

"I don't think 'nice' is the word," Bruck said weakly. "Or 'different.' I'm not even going to ask where you learned that. I don't think I want to know."

"Does make it harder to look people in the eye when you do," Kenobi said archly. Slowly, he pulled away from Bruck, both of them shivering a little at the sensation, then flopped down beside him, groaning, making them both bounce on the bed. Bruck snickered. Kenobi nestled up against him and Bruck slipped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer. For a long while, they lay silently in each other's arms, limbs entwined, slowly stroking one another or kissing or just dozing companionably. Finally, some time toward dawn, Bruck kissed him and whispered, "Fuck me," giving Obi-Wan permission to do the one thing they hadn't yet.

"You're certain?" Kenobi said seriously.

"Yes. We haven't made it right here yet, have we?"

"No. Almost, but--"

"But this is what it takes, isn't it? Giving myself to you?"

"That's for you to say, my friend," Obi-Wan told him, laying a hand against his cheek. Bruck mirrored the gesture, then kissed him again.

"Then yes. Please."

Kenobi returned the kiss and got up. "Be right back."

"Kenobi," Bruck called. The other apprentice turned, questioning. "Haven't you got a nickname shorter than three syllables that doesn't mean 'pale'? 'Obi-Wan' is too much to yell when I come."

Amusement lit Kenobi's eyes, pulled one side of his mouth upward in a lopsided grin. "My birthname is Ben. Will that do?" Bruck nodded, grinning himself.

His partner returned a few minutes later from the fresher with a warm wet cloth and the ubiquitous bottle of massage oil every Jedi seemed to own. He'd obviously cleaned himself up while in the fresher and now did the same for Bruck, wiping the warm cloth over his skin tenderly, making it a caress of skin and genitals. Then he poured a little of the oil on his cupped palm and rubbed his hands together briskly. Bruck started to turn over but Kenobi stopped him. "I want to see your face," he said softly. "Here, lie this way, with your feet on the floor." He stood first between Bruck's spread knees, ran his warm, oiled hands over Bruck's shoulders, kneading, locked them behind his neck and rocked back to loosen his muscles. Slowly, he worked his way down both arms, gently popping the slim fingers of Bruck's hands, so much finer and longer than his own, strong and clever and graceful. From there he moved down Bruck's chest, down his belly to his hips and around to his ass, which was just a little over the edge of the mattress. Bruck tensed a little. "It won't hurt, I promise."

"I know I hurt you--"

"Shhhh. Never mind. As much my fault as yours." He grinned disarmingly, kneeling now between Bruck's legs. "Like rather a lot of other things between us. Besides, you made up for it. Now, relax. Tell me to stop if it does hurt because it doesn't have to. We'll go slow."

The contrast between what they had done on the common room floor and what they did now could be measured in lightyears. Obi-Wan--Ben--stroked down over his cock with a warm, oiled hand, then leaned in and licked and nuzzled his balls, taking first one then the other into his mouth, rolling them with his tongue. Bruck's legs went boneless, flopping wide and trembling. Little astonished noises escaped him. They got louder as his partner stroked the tender and sensitive flesh below them and then lower around that tight opening. Kenobi brought his mouth down to lick the weeping slit in the crown of his cock, and slid an oiled finger inside him before he'd realized it. Bruck gasped, feeling the blood rush frantically between his head and his groin.

"Hurt?" Kenobi asked.

"No!" he gasped. "No! Oh, lords," he groaned. "More."

Another slick finger inside him, the jolt lifting his hips off the bed. "Ben," he gasped, "what--" as Kenobi's fingers moved slowly in and out, gently stretching him, stroking his prostate with little arcs of electricity. Bruck moaned, pushing back against those heavy fingers, wanting them deeper, wanting Kenobi inside him now.

"Wait, wait," his partner said gently, kissing and licking the tip of his cock. "Trust me," he murmured soothingly. "Slow down." Kenobi stopped the motion of his fingers, circled Bruck's cock and pressed his thumb against the underside below the crown and Bruck felt some of the urgency ease. "If the last time was a meditation, this is a ceremony," Kenobi told him, "where we give to each other and build something between us. Don't rush it."

Bruck nodded dazedly, surrendering to Kenobi, whose fingers began to move inside him once again. After a time, he withdrew two and slid the tips of three inside. Bruck gasped and arched away. That did hurt. Kenobi sensed it and stayed very still, soothing him, dribbling more oil onto his belly and caressing it in in lazy circles, drizzling more on his fingers and gently pushing inward after a time. Bruck tensed again, but only because it was such a new sensation. Kenobi curled his fingers against his prostate again, making him shiver and moan.

"Now," he said hoarsely. "Now, Ben."

Obi-Wan smiled. "It's so strange to hear you call me that. I like it," he said, pulling his fingers out. He stroked more oil along his cock and pressed the crown of it against Bruck's anus. "Relax." He pressed inward, the muscles stretched but giving reluctantly and Bruck half lifted himself off the bed until Obi-Wan held his hips down. Then the crown was in and Bruck was gasping, muscles clamping tightly.

"More. Deeper," he gasped.

"When you're ready," Obi-Wan said gently. "Give it time." He ran his hands over Bruck's chest and waist and hips again, repeatedly, pulling his energy down into his groin, and pushed inward slowly. It was uncomfortable and a little painful at first and then it was--wonderful. Kenobi picked up his legs behind the knees and wrapped them around his own waist, bringing Bruck's ass tight up against his groin. "Hold tight," he said hoarsely, eyes hooded under the fierce red- gold brows. Then he brought Bruck's hands up to his own chest, and placed his own identically. "Center yourself and reach out to me. Let me in."

They closed their eyes but Kenobi's image was burned onto the inside of Bruck's eyelids: the beautiful pale skin, almost glowing, the grey-blue eyes cloudy with desire, the clever and sensitive mouth, the square chin and its cleft--and suddenly the other apprentice was wide open before him. On the surface was his arousal and desire, mirroring Bruck's, cataloging his own image the same way he had just done in a contrast of colors and features. Beneath that was a genuinely warm affection, friendship, empathy, compassion--even love. That shocked Bruck, that Kenobi could find it in himself to love--

//You? Why not?// his partner wondered. //Every life is precious. Yours. Mine. All of us.//

Shaken, Bruck could only ask, //After everything?//

//You made me grow. You changed my life.//

//I've hurt you so often.//

//Past. All past. Over. Done.// "It's this moment that matters," he said aloud.

Bruck could see it was true for this man who was touching him, was inside him, holding him, giving him something he'd never had before, even from his master. Bruck was everything Kenobi was not; Kenobi was everything he was not. They were both Jedi, but two opposite facets of the great jewel in the order's crown. They were warrior and diplomat, soldier and contemplative, knight and servant. Together, they were both a study in dichotomy and complements of one another. Yet the Force bound them together and gave them each the other's strengths to draw on. Bruck had never seen that before, in all his years as an initiate and padawan. It was something Leth had never been able to show him. And Kenobi could.

But what joined the two of them now was longing, not for each other, but for the wholeness they had lost with their masters. The grief welled up in Bruck, mirrored in Kenobi, and they gave each other the comfort of their bodies and hearts.

Kenobi began to move inside him, hands sliding down to his hips, as Bruck locked his legs around his partner's waist and pulled him closer. If the initial sensation had been wonderful, now it was amazing, soul-rocking, made more so by what they had shared with each other. As they had before, they built the rhythm slowly, reaching out to one another through the Force to forge a connection, until the power gathered around them, filling the room with light. And for just a moment, they were one in that light.

It left them both a little stunned and weepy and erased Leth's shadow from the room and Bruck's heart. For Bruck it seemed the first time he had truly been loved and for Obi-Wan it seemed the first time he could imagine the possibility of a life with love that didn't include Qui-Gon.

They sought out each other's embrace afterwards, clinging to one another at first like frightened children, and then, as the tears subsided in both of them, holding one another like contented and satiated lovers.

"Thank you," Bruck said drowsily, lying against Obi-Wan's chest. "For once, the reality beat the fantasy, hands down."

"Really?" Obi-Wan said in an equally sleepy voice that was still full of amusement. "Or are you just trying to flatter me into another night?"

The other apprentice said nothing for a moment, then sighed. "I guess I was hoping--"

Obi-Wan wrapped Bruck's white braid around his fingers. "I don't know, Bruck. I don't know where things stand right now. I can't promise anything to anyone. Even my master."

"I understand," he said quietly. "But thank you anyway."

Obi-Wan ran his hands over Bruck's shoulders and back, arching up in a stretch. "The pleasure was mine," he murmured, settling down to sleep. "Maybe not entirely, but certainly enough of it."

"Kenobi," Bruck said softly.

"Hmmm?"

"If your master dumps you, let me know, huh?"

"You'll be the first person I tell," he replied and fell asleep.

The flash of contact, when it came, was brief and excruciating and nearly killed him.

He was sparring with Master Harza, finally. Having done solo katas under her watchful eye for many days, she at last deemed him alert and well enough to drill with her, if not with another apprentice. For the first time since Qui-Gon had left, Obi-Wan was beginning to feel whole and in touch with the Force again. He and the Saber Master circled one another warily, testing each other's limits and reactions with caution, until Obi-Wan went on the offensive, trying to drive the smaller woman back out of the sparring ring. She gave a little ground, then ducked in under his longer reach and cut his practice tunic, to let him know she could. She knew his reach was longer than hers and that he would rely on that, used to sparring with a master of his own who had a much, much longer reach. He needed to be reminded reach alone was not enough. She was faster and her saber was always where his was, deflecting him. Frustrated, he opened himself up to the Force and drove at her again, not furiously, as he might have done some time before, but with perfect calm. Slowly, she gave ground again, as his speed began to match hers.

"Very good, Padawan," she said approvingly as she reached the edge of the ring.

He anticipated her next move--there were only so many tactics one could use at this point--so when she launched herself upward, tumbling overhead to reverse their positions, he was ready for her downward stroke, indeed, saw it coming before she had begun the motion. He brought his saber into position, saw her move as he knew she would, and . . . missed blocking her stroke entirely as a wave of agony rolled over him through his training bond, the same bond that had remained a blank, locked door for almost a halfyear. Only Master Harza's speed and agility kept him from losing his head or being impaled as she pulled her stroke and dropped to her feet beside him as he fell to his knees, screaming Qui-Gon's name. Even so, she left a deep, charred furrow of burn over and across one shoulder and down his back. Between that pain and what he was feeling from Qui-Gon, he nearly blacked out, and came back from the brink of it to find himself on all fours, Master Harza beside him, holding him up as he shook and whimpered with the agony of his master's wounds and his own.

It lasted less than a minute, but it was the longest few seconds of his life, and he was violently ill when it was over. More horribly, it wasn't so much that Qui-Gon's shields slammed down again as that he *faded* from Obi-Wan's awareness, as though he were being wrapped in a shroud, and when his presence was gone, it was gone more completely than before, if that were possible. Obi- Wan was left with nothing but the pain of his own wound and the fear that his master was dying or dead.

"No," he heard himself sob. "Master . . . Qui-Gon! No! No . . ."

Some time later, he found himself in a medical cubicle in the Healer's Hall again, not remembering how he got there. He was lying on his side, tunic gone, his neck and shoulder and back numb, the smell of antiseptics and bacta thick in the air. He felt groggy and vaguely sick and strangely distanced from himself, as though he were watching from somewhere outside. He shivered a little and someone behind him pulled a light sheet around his shoulders, stroking his hair kindly.

"Try to sleep, Padawan," he heard a deep voice say.

"Master Windu?" he said faintly.

"Yes, Obi-Wan. Just rest. You'll be fine."

"My master--"

"He's been injured, Padawan. They're on their way home now. They'll be here in a few days."

"So much pain . . ."

"Just sleep, Padawan. You have your own injuries to worry about right now. Your master's being taken care of. You'll be fine." Windu touched his forehead, sending the suggestion deep. Obi- Wan could not fight it. But before he fell into the quiet in his own mind, he had time to note that Master Windu had said nothing of how his master would be.

III. Unfinished Business

The light in the garden is graying when I come up out of my trance to find my master watching me with his wise eyes. The night has been long and my meditations anything but restful, but I've at least come to some useful conclusion about my own actions and feelings. Fatigue makes my limbs leaden and eyes gritty and I have much to do; it will be a long, unpleasant day.

"Thank you for staying, My Master," I say.

"Humph," Yoda snorts, looking cross, but with his ears up as he gets stiffly to his clawed feet. It brings us once again eye to eye and there is a glint in his. "Too old am I to be sitting with padawans all night. Too old are you to be a padawan."

I bow low, forehead to the ground again, half expecting another thwack across my rear with that damned stick. "Yes, My Master."

"Resolved, are you?"

"Yes, My Master," I reply, sitting upright once more, grateful for the absence of a blow. There were any number of them when I was his padawan--and what did I learn?

For all my complaints about him, his presence here last night was a great gift. No one else, not even Mace or Obi-Wan, knows me as well, knows what I am feeling and thinking, what conclusions I will come to. I don't know whether his ability to see the future tells him this, or his long experience with padawans of many species, or whether the bond we forged when I was young, strong as it was, gave me some special place in his little green heart.

"Good. Watched Xanatos for a long time the Council has. Much mischief he generates. Time it is that stopped he was."

"Yes, My Master," I agree. The blame for this is mine, and I will shoulder it without argument.

"A ship we will give you. Take your apprentice will you?"

"No, My Master. I'll go alone."

Yoda's ears droop in disapproval and a frown pinches his mouth. "Go alone you should not, Qui- Gon."

"I will not take Obi-Wan into this," I tell him firmly. There will be no discussion of this. I will not have it. The situation is of my making; I will make it right.

"Do as you must," Yoda sighs, knowing me well enough to sense the uselessness of argument. "But return to us in one piece, you will," he warns. "Not like the last time."

"Yes, My Master." I want a repetition of that as little as he does.

"Waiting your ship will be, when ready you are."

"Thank you, My Master."

Yoda hobbles off with his stick, muttering about his last apprentice's waywardness, and I get to my feet stiffly. My master is not the only one who is too old to spend all night on his knees in the garden. My usual morning katas would limber me up, get my weary circulation going again, but there are amends to be made with Obi-Wan, and another lesson to give him before I go, a lesson he will not appreciate until he is much older and has a padawan of his own.

Sensibly enough, he is sleeping still, when I return to our quarters. As is not at all unusual, he has sprawled across the bed and thrown the covers half off, leaving his back bare in the early sunlight. Bruises mar the light golden flesh.

Carefully, I sit down on the edge of the bed and lean over him, touching the blackened marks gently with my fingers and the Force, watching them heal, feeling both regret and shame. He wakes as I kiss each spot, sighing gently, sleepy and muzzy and beautiful as morning always finds him. How could I do this to someone I love so much?

He is cool and adamant, cautious and untrusting of me, and I cannot fault him, though it sickens me to see it. It is no more than I deserve. Returning here, I was not certain that I would take him to the top of the tower, but seeing his mistrust, I know I must do something to repair this breach. This will not be enough, but perhaps it will be a beginning.

"That's enough, Obi-Wan! You are my padawan first, my lover last. *Last.* Do you understand that?" I hate the sound of my own voice, how harsh it is. But truth is often harsh. Especially this truth.

Obi-Wan's lush mouth tightens, becoming a hard, thin line. "I do now. Go, Qui-Gon. Do what you have to do," he says bitterly, flirting with insubordination, dismissing me as though he were the master. "Perhaps you'll come back with more sense than you have now." He strides away through the garden.

I watch him walk away from me, nausea roiling my stomach, whether from the fall I've just taken or from the tenor of his words, I'm not certain, but the sight of his back and shoulders stiff with anger and hurt frightens me. I've never meant to hurt him, never once in the time I've known him. Yet I have, over and over again, from the very beginning. And I will hurt him yet again before he comes into his knighthood, for that is the nature of our bond, of every master- padawan bond, and of the learning process every apprentice goes through. A Jedi's life is a hard life, a Jedi apprentice's more so. And we have only chosen to make it more difficult by loving one another. He is only now finding that out.

"Padawan. Obi-Wan, wait," I call after him, not as his lover but as his master.

He stops but does not turn, the habit of obedience deeply ingrained but warring with something stronger. I follow him, stop behind him, lay a hand on his shoulder. He starts to shrug it off, thinks better of it and stiffens beneath the touch instead. Anger, then.

"Obi-Wan. I don't want us to part like this." And I don't. He will be angry enough before I finish doing what I must. The garden feels cold to me, though it will be a warm day, and I am still shaking from the adrenalin of my own fear. Let him think it is from fear of losing him, if that is a comfort.

"How would you suggest, then?" Obi-Wan's voice matches the temperature. I half expect to see it come out in a cloud of ice crystals. "Shall we go back to our quarters for a conciliatory fuck? Or shall we do it here?"

Harsh. Harsh truth. And he is right, again. I wind Obi-Wan's braid through my fingers. It is hard to hear words like these from someone you love as I love him, no matter how true or how wise. But there is another factor to consider which he has not. "Do you want the way I touched you last night to be the way you remember me?"

"Just go, Master. Please."

So much misery in those words, though he tries to shove it behind his shields. In that, he is largely successful, but I know my padawan, my lover, and I know the nuances of speech and body language better even than most trained diplomats. I step back and let go his braid. "Very well, Padawan." I turn on my heel and leave him standing next to the pool. I wonder where he will be when I return. If I do.

When I know I am out of sight, I stop for a moment, testing our bond. Obi-Wan is tightly shielded against me, unsurprisingly. I have not managed to make amends and have, in fact, made the situation worse. Perhaps Obi-Wan is right and everything I've done for the last seven years, training him, has been at least in part a reaction against what I did with Xanatos--and they are not the same person. But there are too many similarities for comfort, and that, perhaps, has been one of the things that drove me to this particular course. That, and fear.

Like Xanatos, Obi-Wan comes from an old and powerful family with whom he has not lived in many years and has given up for the deprivation and servitude of a Jedi's life. Like Xanatos, he has a brash and keen intelligence that sometimes leads him astray. Like Xanatos, he has the seeds of a great anger inside him, and less patience than befits a Jedi.

None of these things make him Xanatos.

Obi-Wan is, in fact, quite clearly his own man. His family, one of the ruling class of Dannora, our shared homeworld, has always had Jedi in it and when they gave the boy up to the Temple in his first year, it was with great pride as well as the sadness of separation, not the resentment Crion, Xanatos's father and his world's regent, had felt. The name Obi-Wan carries now--not his birth name, but the name by which everyone at Temple knows him--belonged to the first Jedi in House Kenobi and is the name borne by the first male Jedi in each succeeding generation. During the years of Obi-Wan's childhood, his family remained in contact with him and he maintains a warm relationship with them, especially with his younger brother Owen. Obi-Wan's intelligence, though sometimes unfocused, is indeed as formidable as Xanatos's but bridled by an equally strong personal morality only supplemented by the Jedi Code. And his anger is not directed at those around him, but toward himself and his own failings.

How long ago did he see my constant comparison of them, know I was weighing their abilities and failures against each other? It must have become painfully clear since we've become so much more intimate. How has he endured it without speaking before this?

I've done Obi-Wan a great disservice in this. It is not his task to make up for either his master's fears or his predecessor's failure.

Xanatos and I had been comrades more than master and apprentice by the time he was nearing his trials. I had been looking forward to a comfortable and life-long friendship once we became peers and colleagues, and its loss hurt more than any physical wound I've ever had, more than any loss but Mace's. But it was nothing like losing Obi-Wan would be, who is so much more to me than I have ever imagined anyone could be again.

That is the fear I must face, and conquer, if I am not to lose this one.

I reach out again across our bond, testing it, but Obi-Wan has withdrawn, shut himself off from me in his anger and pain. I had hoped for a last brief touch-- *Fool!* Do what must be done. For both our sakes. Blocking the bond that has existed between us since before we were master and padawan, I leave the gardens for Mace's office.

His door opens to me immediately, as I suspected it would. No doubt Yoda has been here first.

"Come in, Qui-Gon," he says, offering me a seat and tea. I'm grateful for both. "You've been up all night, haven't you?"

I nod and sip the tea. "In the gardens, most of it with Yoda. I don't know how he does it. My bones are too old to be out in the dew all night."

Mace regards me silently, sipping his own tea as he leans against the front of his desk. I can almost hear him thinking that we are both getting old, despite the Force's gifts.

"Yes, it's not like it was when we could stay on our knees for a day and a night, is it?" He smiles wryly.

I can't help smiling in return, feeling a little wistful and sad at the same time. "I was thinking of that just a few days ago, of the night we sat together meditating on passion and serenity. And love. Do you remember?"

Mace looks surprised first and then cautious. "It would be hard not to," he admits. "You taught me a great deal about living in the moment that night. And wore me out. What brought thoughts of that on, if you're inclined to say?"

"I do think of you with affection, Mace, from time to time. I miss what we had, as well. I don't feel the rancor you seem to." I'm not certain why I sound so belligerent, except perhaps that I have been up all night, and that such an old friend will forgive my ill humor if anyone will.

Mace winces and tries to hide it underneath a smile that is more a grimace. "You're incapable of it, Qui-Gon. You're the most forgiving person I know." Then he very obviously changes the subject, before I have more than a moment to wonder at the oddness of the remark. "What's troubling you this morning? What kept you out here all night with Yoda?"

That is something I will not share with Mace, no matter how long or how well we have known each other. "I have a favor to ask you," I say instead, sensing his shields go up. If we did not know each other so well, if there were not still the skeletal remnants of both our childhood and lovers' bonds between us, it would not be obvious at all. Instead, I can almost hear them slamming shut.

There was a time when he would have said, *anything for you, Q.* Instead, he replies, "If it's possible, of course." So much has changed between us since he took up his post on the Council. Rightly so, I suppose. We're no longer the young knights we were. We've grown apart in many ways.

"I don't believe it will be much trouble, or that you'll find anything objectionable in it. You know I'm going after Xanatos?" Mace nods with great gravity. As I suspected, Yoda has been to see him, and it is a mission Mace would approach with much serious consideration. "Obi-Wan is not going with me. I suspect I may be gone for some time, and this will be a good opportunity for him to finish some of his university courses. Would you act in my stead while I'm gone? He'll need little supervision, but I want him to know I'm not--that there is someone he can turn to for advice, if necessary."

"If you're not abandoning him, then why are you leaving him behind?" Mace asks bluntly, catching my slip. "Why would you go into a mission like this by yourself, Qui-Gon? You need someone to watch your back and you know the boy would follow you into hell and out again, if necessary."

I don't know where the anger comes from, whether it's the culmination of all the raw fear I've been churning up in the last halfday, or whether this is something old between us finally coming out, but it rises like stink in a pond and I can't stop it. My heart pounds with it and my voice is icier than Obi-Wan's could ever be. "Is it a new policy of the Council that you, personally, question my decisions about my padawan's training, Master Windu? Or is it a duty you've taken upon yourself? It's a simple request. 'Yes' or 'no' would have sufficed."

It flows around him like water around a rock. It always did, everything I said to him in any argument we've ever had. He says, instead, as any good Councillor would, "I want what's best for both of you, what's best for my friend Qui-Gon and his lover Obi-Wan as well as what's best for one of the Order's most valuable Masters and his very promising apprentice. What's happened, Qui-Gon?" I know his concern is genuine, but I cannot help thinking there's a large degree of meddlesome prying in it as well, and that annoys me.

"After years of silence and coolness I should confide in you, Mace? That we were lovers once does not give you infinite privileges. Nor does the fact that you are on the Council. I wish it were not so, but we have not been friends in years. Not truly."

"You don't trust me." I hear the regret and sadness in his voice but it does nothing to cool my anger. Some part of me thinks this has indeed been a long time coming.

"No. I don't. Not completely. Should I?"

"Yet you would hand over your padawan--your lover--to me for safekeeping while you're gone." He shakes his head. "You're a mass of internal contradictions, Qui-Gon. I wonder if I ever understood you."

I run a hand through my hair, finding it tangled and snarled, like my mood, and sigh. "Perhaps neither of us understood the other, Mace, in the end. I'll ask another." I put my half-finished tea aside and get to my feet, but Mace steps forward and takes my hand, holding it tightly. It's a totally unexpected gesture and sends a shiver of not-unpleasant memory through me.

"Qui-Gon--Q," Mace says quietly. "Let's not keep doing this. It's gone on too long. If we can't be lovers, let's at least be friends." He squeezes my hand.

"I never thought of you as my enemy, Mace," I say coolly. It's the truth, but just barely. I've disagreed with Mace more than anyone else on the Council.

"Maybe not. But you said yourself we haven't been friends. I never wanted my place on the Council to come between us."

"I think that was unavoidable," I tell him stiffly, withdrawing my hand from his grasp. "We hold very different views of its function and purpose." But this is not about the Council. Not really. We both know that.

"Which is why you should have had this seat all along, and not I."

"So I could become like you? Hobbled by tradition and subverted by politics and tamed by public opinion? Would I have been a more acceptable lover then, a better Jedi, cut off from the truth of my own heart?"

The words lie between us like a murder.

*Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.* No one would ever believe at this moment that I am either a highly skilled diplomat or a Jedi Master.

"Q, it was you who let me go, remember?" He says gently. To his credit, there isn't a trace of anger in him. My own anger is still seething in me, tinged now with confusion--and shame. "I never wanted you any other way than how you were, how you still are: always on fire, always driven, and so full of life, my friend. Is that what you were afraid of? That you'd lose yourself in the Council? That's why you refused the seat? Why you broke it off between us? I never did understand."

I sink into the chair again, wondering how we got here, how we came to catalog all the foolish and stupid and selfish mistakes I've made in my life, here in this place at this moment. Perhaps simply because it's time. Obi-Wan is not the only one to whom I should make amends--before it's too late.

"I didn't take the seat because I've never been a bureaucrat, Mace. I've never worked well with my peers--or my betters."

"What few of the latter there are," Mace says dryly. "No, you're a committee of one, and you always have been. I'll grant you that. And I'll bet it's all over your initiate and padawan records: 'Runs with sharp objects. Does not play well with others.'"

"Oh, but I did--play well with others, that is. But I was always the ringleader. Surely you remember."

"Yes, you were," he laughs. "That's what I loved about you. You could get almost anyone to do almost anything. You still can. You were always a leader."

"So. Leaders lead. They don't sit on committees."

Mace nods, resigned. "Yes, I suppose you're right. Still, it's a shame, Q. You'd give Even and Saesee and Oppo pause and beyond, which is more than I can do, especially with Plo on your side, and Yoda. He's the only person I know who's capable of bringing you to your knees. I disappoint your master, you know, in my consensus-building. He thinks I give in too quickly. I'm not the fighter you are, nor the negotiator. And you're better at making hard decisions."

"Like letting you go . . . " It's hard, suddenly, to find my voice.

"Was it the censure vote?" he asks almost diffidently, as though he's afraid to mention it.

"Gods, no! You did what you thought was right, Mace," I tell him, surprised he feels he has to bring that up. "I never expected special treatment from you, or my master. Xan was furious, but I never . . . I would have . . ." Suddenly that incident seems so much to drag up and yet too little to build such a huge wall between us. I can't afford the energy this takes anymore.

"But that was the start of it, wasn't it?"

"I suppose it was," I admit. It was difficult not to resent being punished for actions that, while technically beyond my very limited orders, saved thousands from pain and suffering and eventual death. Even in retrospect, I see no other course of action but what I did, taking events into my own hands instead of being a neutral observer, a course of which Xan heartily approved. The only thing that seems more obvious from this perspective is Xan's enjoyment of the temporary power we held in the uprising we quelled. But it is hard not to resent Mace's support of a decision that not only removed me from active duty but barred me from classrooms as well, as though I were some kind of contaminant that might sully susceptible young minds. Despite that, I secretly enjoyed the year I spent gardening and teaching my own apprentice. The punishment bothered and bored Xan far more than I, and I think he was angry at being guilty by association, though none thought him so, really, and none of his own privileges were curtailed or reduced. Perhaps that was what finally sparked his anger with the Order as well.

"I regret the harsh words between us then, Q," Mace continues, "that I didn't apologize and make things right between us sooner, but I never bore you the ill will you seem to think I did. I know it must have seemed like it. When Xan betrayed you, I really wanted to help--"

I hear the guilt in his voice and it surprises me. Mace has nothing for which to feel guilty. He has seen me in states Obi-Wan can't even imagine his master knows about: staggering drunk and laughing uproariously, blind with passion and crying out louder than my current lover at his most consumed, and mad with grief--raging, weeping, lost, broken. . . . And still he cares for me, somehow. Perhaps because he knows my weaknesses so well--and has shared many of them.

"You did help," I tell him heavily, the memories strong enough to be almost overwhelming, as much on my mind as it has been this night. "As much as anyone could. Only the healers could really help me, Mace."

He leans against the desk again, arms crossed, watching me. "With the physical injuries and the trauma. But you weren't the same afterwards, even when you were allowed back in the field."

"Who would be? It's not like a death. You can't understand what it's like--"

"I understand more than you think," he says quietly. "I had a bond with you once, too."

Another bond I cut, in almost the same way I cut Xanatos free.

"It's worse than a death, isn't it?" he agrees gently. "They're gone, but they're still present in the flesh. You see them, or know they're out there, but you can't truly touch them anymore. I wanted to do something, but you pushed me away. And with Xanatos the fire went out of you and the shields went up, and you went off and did your best to get yourself killed in the line of duty."

There is nothing I can say to that because it's true.

"I was afraid for you, Q. Not the kind of fear we warn our padawans about, but far more than some disinterested councillor's concern. I loved you too long to be merely concerned. I was afraid you'd succeed."

There's little to say to a confession like that, either, except to make another one. "I have done a number of things in my life that I have since regretted, Mace. Hurting you is one of them. There's no excuse for it. But you're right: I wasn't myself then, at least. The other times--"

"The other times were no one's fault, Q, or at the very least the blame must be evenly distributed. We were just too different, in the end, neither of us right or wrong. We just are what we are."

"Thank you, Mace. I think that's more than I deserve for all the mistakes I've made in the last two decades."

His face can be as blank and unreadable as any Jedi's, but it's not now. He looks clearly troubled.

"That doesn't sound like you. What's happened between the night in the gardens when you were certain enough of your course that you told me to mind my own business in front of half the Temple? You've been your old self--better, in fact--since you took Obi-Wan on. The last little while especially. Until now. What's happened, Q?"

This is really why he's on the Council: because he can see all the sides of any situation, and where it fits in the larger scheme of things; because he can win the trust of even the most suspicious simply by listening; because he is who he seems to be, as so many of us are not. And he knows, as well as I do, that the simple formula does not always pertain; sometimes there is no hate in it, merely suffering, and fear of more of it, and anger used to fend it off. Mace has always been a model Jedi, not the near-rogue I am, and everything he does--no matter if I disagree with it--is tempered with compassion.

I tell him. Not everything, though I imagine he guesses much of what I don't say. We were lovers for many years and he knows that side of me better than Obi-Wan does, better than Obi-Wan will until he is knighted. Mace listens quietly, drinking his tea, making encouraging noises when I falter, until he has the gist of it. I don't tell him I've blocked our bond because I know what he'll say, and this is my decision to make; Obi-Wan is my padawan, his training my responsibility.

Mace shakes his head. "He's right, you know."

"Yes. I've let it go for too long."

"I don't like you going alone--"

"I won't take Obi-Wan."

"May I ask why?" he says carefully.

"No."

Mace stares me down for a moment, deciding whether it's his duty to push me, and decides not. "Will you take an old friend? Ayana is on Coruscant with her second padawan."

"If I say no, you'll only tell her and she'll follow me. I know both of you."

"Good. Is there anything more you need, Q?"

"Just that you keep an eye on Obi-Wan."

"Done," he says, as I hoped he would. "May the Force be with you, Qui-Gon." From Mace, more than others, the words are a prayer as much as a blessing, and I find it means a great deal.

It's settled that quickly, if not easily, or completely. Things are still not as they should be, but I leave Mace's office feeling better than when I entered it, and better about our friendship than I have in years. But I have a mission now to focus on, one that will require all my resources. And I wish Obi-Wan were coming with me.

I pack and make my way to the Order's docking bays without seeing him again. No doubt he is about his own business now, not being one to mope about. There are more reserves within him than he realizes; our separation will force him to use them.

True to Mace's word, Ayana and her padawan are waiting for me at the docking bay. She is much as I remember her from her own knighting, but with her hair in the same long braid I sometimes wear. She doesn't look--let's see--she'd be about 45 now; but then, I don't look my age, either, thanks to the Force. Much of her is muscle, but no one would ever mistake her for a man. She's very beautiful, as most of the Khfar Settlers are: sturdy bone structure, beautiful dark skin, stark white hair and violet eyes: a woman I find very attractive now, but did not when she was my padawan. I wonder why. Perhaps because Mace and I were still lovers then. Beside her is a wispy girl of about fourteen with Obi-Wan's pale skin, her curly coppery hair cut in the usual padawan style with a short braid, but looking somehow wilder and, well, fuzzier, her tail jauntier for the curl in it. Already I feel my mood lift.

"Ayana, thank you for coming," I tell her, meaning every word as we exchange hugs. I'm surprisingly relieved not to be going into this alone. "You know where we're going, and why?" She nods, always taciturn, sparing of her words. "Let's board then, and get on with it. I've wasted enough time."

We settle into our respective cabins aboard the small courier crewed by former initiates who found their way to the Pilot's Corps, and meet again in the observation lounge to watch the jump to hyperspace. The accommodations are as ascetic as the Temple's own, on this ship belonging to the Order, but comfortable enough for Jedi. Obi-Wan would have learned his own piloting skills on a ship like this with a Master Pilot. It is something I could not teach him, having no real affinity for machinery. I can fly or drive almost anything, but not with much more than passable competence. Obi-Wan has a true flair for it and will be--already is--an impressive pilot.

Ayana comes up behind me and touches my shoulder, laying her hand there with a familiarity that is comforting, as it is meant to be. I turn to her, managing a smile.

"It's good to see you again, Ayana. How long has it been?"

"Nine years, My Master."

"That long." I shake my head, amazed. "This would be your second padawan then?"

"Yes. Isa Kassir, my master Qui-Gon Jinn."

I bow. "Padawan Kassir. My pleasure. Have you been with Master Ituri long?"

"And mine, Master Jinn," the girl bows deferentially, seeming a little awed. "I've been Master Ituri's padawan for three years."

"You have a very fine master." And she does. Ayana was a quick study and seemed to make herself a knight without much help from me. Boys seem to need more guidance and more discipline, even Obi-Wan. Much of her work now involves espionage, though we are all too circumspect to call it that, and she excels at it, with her ability to cloak herself and misdirect others' attention. She also has a keen ability to see the truth of another's words, something which made her harder to teach than another padawan might have been for a first-time master. I suspect even now that she went along with much of what I told her because she knew it was in her own best interests--and because she trusts me.

"Yes, I'm very lucky, Master Jinn," Isa agrees.

"Isa's a fine padawan learner as well," Ayana adds, stroking the girl's hair fondly. Isa smiles shyly but cannot hide her pleasure in the compliment. "Jory has a padawan of her own now, though it seems strange to think it. It goes so quickly, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes," I agree. "Sometimes not quickly enough."

"I'm sorry, Qui-Gon," she says gently. "Is it still so fresh?"

"Apparently," I reply, hearing the sudden bitterness in my own voice. "Despite the fact that I now have another padawan any sensible master would envy."

"I've heard some very fine things about Padawan Kenobi," she says cautiously. "Tell me about him, after the jump."

I nod and we strap ourselves in for the transition to hyperspace. It's not a discussion I'm looking forward to.

I manage to avoid it, in fact, until after dinner, when Ayana corners me in my own cabin, entering with my reluctant permission, carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses. "I've been saving this for the next time we saw each other," she says with a smile. "I know it's one of your favorites."

It's a kind gesture, just like Ayana, and my sour mood lifts some with it. I take the glasses from her, setting them on the table, and sit on the bunk. She eases out the stopper with a touch of the Force and pours a glass for each of us, settling herself in the only chair. We touch glasses and she watches with amusement as I go through the usual oenophile's ritual as she sips her own without any preliminaries. Despite my efforts, she never developed either the appreciation for or knowledge about wine that I tried to impart to her. She knows enough to get by but, given a choice, much prefers sampling the local ales and bitters. It's a small failing that no one else would count as such.

"You know, Qui-Gon," she tells me with a grin, "I've long harbored a secret vision of you retiring to a small Temple or AgriCorps installation somewhere with a little winery, producing a few highly coveted barrels each year. I always thought you'd make an excellent vintner, and you've acquired the look of a minor vineyard deity, with the beard and the long hair. A few leaves and vines in it would suit you."

Another of Ayana's admirable qualities: her sense of humor. "I can think of worse fates for a broken down old Jedi Master. This is lovely. An excellent year. Thank you, Padawan."

"My pleasure, My Master."

"I wanted to thank you again for coming with me," I add quietly, touching her hand.

"Also my pleasure, Qui-Gon. I'm glad Master Windu asked me. I would probably have come along anyway, if he hadn't, once word got out. I don't think this is the kind of mission anyone should have to go on alone. Bringing home a rogue Jedi is never pleasant. When it's your own former padawan--well . . ."

"I don't expect to be bringing Xanatos home."

"You don't think he'll come?"

"After ten years? Why should he? He's made something of a success of himself, if you can call building a fortune on the suffering and illnesses of others a success, first with Offworld, then with his own biopharmaceuticals company."

"Is that what he's doing now?"

"Yes, with backing from the Corporate Sector. He has a large operation in the Beshqek system with factories and labs on several of the moons and harvesters scouring the system for raw materials. His company produces some very effective and expensive drugs."

"A great deal to own in such a short time."

"Yes. But Xanatos was always ambitious, with the intelligence to match--and the greed, had I been able to see it."

"He was a great loss to the order," Ayana says quietly. "But a greater loss to you, I think."

"Perhaps," I reply carefully. Ayana will not be fooled by any of my studied indifference.

Instead, she ignores it. "But you were going to tell me about your current padawan, Qui-Gon. Does Kenobi share your passion for wine?"

"Unfortunately, no," I smile, or try to. "Obi-Wan doesn't seem to drink at all, or only occasionally when called upon by custom. I think he prefers other intoxicants, though I've never seen him more than a little giddy. He's a very sober young man and was a very earnest boy."

"Your behavior must seem quite shocking to him at times," Ayana laughs mischievously. "It did to me, the first time I heard you tell the full Council they were a bunch of fools. Or that time you helped the nine-years booby-trap the Creche Master's quarters with jingle bugs. And the night I heard you roast Master Windu before he was sworn in as a Councilor. And that time--"

She succeeds in making me laugh again and I hold up a hand to make her stop. "Enough, Padawan. You shame me. I'm afraid Obi-Wan does find me shocking sometimes. We balance each other. You were always ready to go along with whatever mischief I'd planned and Xan--" Suddenly the name sticks in my throat, the nickname I gave him. "Xan was always a little above it. I think he was sometimes rather contemptuous of me, in secret."

"He made that clear when he betrayed you, Qui-Gon. And Kenobi? How does he take your unruliness?"

"He harangues me in private when he thinks I've gone too far, usually with the Council, and joins in when it seems harmless enough to him. And he has his own mischievous side. Of late he's been a bit too worried about displeasing me to be either critic or imp."

"Because you've become lovers? I must say, Master, that surprised even me."

"No more than it surprised us," I admit. "We're still . . . working out the details."

"Why didn't you bring him with you? I was looking forward to meeting him, and Isa certainly was. He's cut quite a swath through the hearts of the younger padawans since he taught the introductory diplomacy course last year."

"Would you bring your current padawan with you on a mission to execute his predecessor?" She flinches a little at my tone.

"Are you so certain that's what it will come to?"

"You know reading the future is not my gift, Ayana. But I feel it in my heart, in the Force. It would, perhaps, be better this way. It would have been better had I killed him when he first turned. Better still if I had not been so blind to what he would become--"

"Don't." She closes a strong hand on my wrist. "Don't, Qui-Gon. He chose his own path."

"Regardless, there is no reason for him to come back, and nothing to come back to but misery and failure."

"And yet he must be punished. He's responsible for the deaths of many people in the war he started on Telos, and for the misery of many others, from what you've said."

"Yes," I agree wearily. "And I have no more stomach for being the agent of that punishment now than I did ten years ago." I put my glass, half empty, on the table, the wine gone sour in my mouth. "And yet it is my place to finish it. I've waited too long."

"Who can blame you, My Master?" she says quietly. "You loved him, as we all love our padawans, and even if he does come back with you, the punishment is harsh."

So it is. Rogue Jedi are not dealt with gently. In such cases, the Council is usually given jurisdiction to punish its own, and it does so with all the severity and love of any religious order. Had I brought Xanatos back to Coruscant with so much blood on his hands, he would have been stripped of his honor, his lightsaber, his position and rank, tried for his crimes against his world and the Republic, and tried again for his crimes against the order. Found guilty--no doubt with the help of my own testimony, seen, perhaps, as yet another betrayal on my part--he would first have been given the opportunity to return to the Light, and if he were willing, turned over to the Healers to have that steel-edged mind "readjusted." No. *Maimed.* There is no other word for what the rooting out of those traits would have done to him. He would not have been the same man when they finished with him, nor would he ever have been trusted again. I doubt he would ever have been more than an unknighted temple servant or researcher. A waste of such a fine mind.

The alternative for the unrepentant is certain death, in one form or another, at the hands of fellow Jedi, or in this case at the hands of the Telosian authorities, for his betrayal of the order and war crimes and treason against the government of his homeworld.

That I could not then or now find conscionable either alternative is my own weakness.

"My Master," Ayana says softly, touching my hand. "You look tired. We have a long journey ahead of us. Why don't you get some rest? The wine will keep."

I realize my attention has been drifting. But she reminds me that I have been up more than a day's cycle without sleep and my eyes are gritty. "I'm sorry, Ayana. I am tired, and a bit distracted. I think I should meditate for a while. The wine is lovely. Thank you."

She gets to her feet and I rise with her, stepping into her arms. "Sleep well, My Master," she murmurs against my chest, hugging me tightly.

I kiss her forehead. "Thank you, Padawan. Good night."

It was not exactly a lie, which is why Ayana did not sense it. I do try to meditate after she leaves. Instead, I find myself remembering, though I would like nothing better than to forget. I have not, in ten years. The scene is still as vivid in my memory as it ever was:

*We have fought to exhaustion in his father's throne room, a throne he has no right to, for which he is merely regent. The man lies dead now, his son's face maimed and scarred with the seal ring I cut from his hand. The two of us are gasping, staggering, landing only occasional blows, blocking them sloppily. Having sparred together for nearly twelve years, we know each other's moves so well that we can do nothing but fight to a standstill. Both of us are heavily shielded from one another now, though there is little left of our bond. I have severed it, torn it out by the roots days before, leaving both of us crippled. Years later, I wonder how I functioned at all, afterwards.*

*It is a fluke that I manage to disarm him, using the Force to trip him with an uprooted carpet, stunning him with some ornamental object I fling at him. He drops his saber and I hurl it from him with the Force. He seems surprised to find my saber at his throat and is frightened suddenly, as he has not been. Then, when it becomes apparent that I cannot or will not strike him down unarmed, he laughs in short gasps, as winded as I.*

*"Weakling! Fool! You can't kill me, can you?" he taunts.*

*"Must I?" I answer, breath rasping in my chest. "It needn't end this way. Come back with me-- "*

*"To what?" the boy shrieks. "I have nothing left--you've destroyed it."*

*"It's not too late--"*

*"It was too late when you made me your apprentice," he spits. "I've chosen my own path now!"*

*Grief fills me, then and now, grief and rage. I raise the blade of my saber and drive it downward as Xan rolls away from me. Green fire hisses across the boy's back, burning down to bone, filling the air with the stench of burned cloth and burned flesh. He cries out and scrambles gracelessly to his feet and runs, calling his own lightsaber to him. I do not follow.*

*"Walk it, then," I curse, and watch him go.*

I should have driven my saber through the boy's throat, decapitated him with a flick of the wrists. I showed no such hesitation with Crion, the boy's father. Instead, in those slight few seconds it took to raise the blade for a downward stab, I purposely gave my former apprentice the opportunity to escape. It is the first and last time I have ever shirked my duty, and I have not forgotten it, though I wish I could. I am not sure I will not do the same again--though not by conscious choice, this time.

I've suppressed it, but not forgotten it. And as Obi-Wan made clear, this unfinished business has not left me unaffected. It is more than time to conclude it, to purge myself of guilt and grief and anger. If only I can find the courage to do so. Perhaps with Ayana by my side, I will.

I sleep dreamlessly that night, for Jedi do not dream, but my connection with the Living Force that I usually wrap around me like another layer of blankets feels cold and befouled somehow. I wake in mid-watch with an urge to reach out to Obi-Wan across our bond and have to almost physically fight it, so great is the desire to be in contact with the Light. It takes that struggle for me to realize what a source of it this young man has become in my life. Without it, without him, I feel as though I am on short rations, starved and craving some vital nutrient. I miss Obi-Wan already, and we have been apart less than a day's cycle. I know it will only get worse, and wonder how he is faring without me. Part of me--his lover--hopes it is as difficult for him as it is for me; part of me--his master--hopes he misses me less than I miss him, for his sake.

Sleep does not come easily again, but I know I must have it if I am to survive this and return to him, and I want that more than I have wanted anything in a long time. A little Jedi master trick and I sleep again, readjusting my body's clock to ship's time.

Both Ayana and her padawan are up before me and I feel strangely logy when I rise, as though I've slept too long. I have. It is nearly midday, ship's time, I'm astonished to find.

"Isa felt you wake in the night and told me early this morning," Ayana confesses, setting something black and evil-looking in front of me in a mug, along with fruit and juice and bread. "I slipped in and put you under again. You looked like you needed the rest."

It is the kind of thing Obi-Wan might not yet dare do, but about which Master Ituri clearly has no compunction. Nonetheless, I'm grateful, and tell her so.

"You're taking very good care of your decrepit old master, Ayana," I add, sipping the black concoction. It tastes like it should be used to lubricate moving parts, but obviously has some powerful stimulant in it. I feel better after the first few sips.

"Decrepit my arse. Not with that young lover of yours," she snorts, with a bluntness I'd forgotten she possessed. This is the most pleasurable part of having padawans, to my mind: enjoying their company when they outgrow both the need for your guidance and their ingrained deference. I am almost afraid to anticipate it too much with Obi-Wan. "Try that with a little sweetener to cut it," she suggests, seeing the grimace I make and deliberately misinterpreting it.

I take her advice. It helps some. Not much, but some. I still prefer tea. "Isa must be very sensitive."

"Yes, shields or no shields. I should have warned you last night. We're still working on her control. She's been studying with Master Tiin, but we've got a way to go, don't we, Isa?"

The girl blushes and ducks her head. "Yes, Master," she says in an almost inaudible voice, clearly mortified. "I'm sorry, Master Jinn. I didn't mean to pry--"

I pull her braid a little and stroke her curly hair. It's fleecy, almost like a young animal's. "It's all right, Padawan. I'm sure you didn't. It's quite a gift you have. Don't be embarrassed by it. You'll learn to control it in time, especially if you're studying with Master Tiin. In the meanwhile, it's the business of your elders to watch their shields around you, once they've been warned. Do you have to be nearby someone to sense their thoughts?"

"It depends on their shields, Master. With ordinary people, I have to shut them out. I'm always glad to get back to the Temple because it's so much work right now. I probably wouldn't have heard you if you--" Her words skid to a halt and she colors again, looking away. I have to force myself to laugh and set her at ease, wondering what she sensed in me last night. My loneliness for Obi-Wan?

"Never mind, Padawan. You needn't let me in on all your secrets if you won't give away mine."

"No, Master. Of course not."

"Isa, don't you have studying to do?"

"Yes, Master," she agrees with an alacrity borne of acute discomfiture. "Please excuse me, Master Jinn."

"Of course, Padawan," I murmur. "I can see I'll have to bolster my shields around your apprentice, Ayana," I observe and start in on my late breakfast when Isa's gone.

"Qui-Gon, even I can read you right now. Your shields are flimsiplast."

"All that training in diplomacy, wasted on you," I mutter, feeling as cranky as Yoda.

"I'm telling you for your own good, My Master. Someone has to. And I learned that bluntness from listening to you in front of the Council."

"The trouble with padawans is that they grow up to be disrespectful masters themselves. Most of them."

"Most of them," she agrees. "Do you have a plan for confronting the one that didn't, Master?"

Ayana knows me well enough not to be disconcerted when I say I had planned on letting the Force guide my actions in meeting Xanatos. It would make Obi-Wan uneasy, but she has her own strong connection to the Living Force, forged earlier in her training than the one he is only now coming to.

"While we wait, I could use a fresh sparring partner," I conclude.

"Good. Both Isa and I could use the workout. It will be good for her to spar with someone of your size and skill, and good for me, too. Care to take us both on?"

"If you like," I agree, knowing the workout will do me more good than they. Endorphins are excellent mood enhancers. I need all the help I can get, teetering as I am on the edge of a dark grief I thought I had buried.

We pass the journey sharing Isa's training, catching up with one another, conversing, getting to know one another again. Nine years is a long gap in any friendship but not unusual with successful masters and padawans. If Yoda were not at Temple constantly, I suspect we would rarely see each other, gone as often as I am in the field. Mace gave me more of a gift than he suspected--or perhaps he knows that.

Occasionally, Ayana and Isa together trounce me soundly, sparring, which delights Isa. She's a lovely girl, bright and personable once she gets over her awe of me. Apparently I have a formidable reputation among the younger padawans, something I will have to speak to Obi-Wan about, as I fear he's had something to do with enhancing it. Her ability to sense thoughts and bore through shields is truly astonishing, and we work on her own shielding while we have the time, though it is not something I have any special skill in. The master she has is much more skilled than I in those particular areas. As my padawan, I had sent her to study with the Meditation Master to develop her own natural abilities, as she has sent Isa to Master Tiin, and I have sent Obi-Wan to my own master to develop his precognitive abilities.

In their company, my sense of calm grows as the journey progresses, though my sense of wrongness in the Force grows as well. Part of that is missing Obi-Wan's bright presence beside me and part of it has to do with the object of my mission. The nearer we come to Byss, the more distorted the Living Force becomes. Something more than Xanatos is very wrong here. I sense his signature easily, unshielded and unsuspecting, but twisted and dark and very strong. My own shields are as they should be once again, thanks to rest and the distraction of Ayana and her padawan. And I sleep well again, also thanks to them, I suspect.

So I am surprised to wake gasping and shouting a day away from our destination. I sit up in my bunk, breathing heavily, sweating, smelling the stink of my own fear on the sheets, remembering. In the dark I see Xan's face snarling up at me again, sickly green in the light of my saber, eyes wild with rage and fear, horribly transformed from the handsome young man I had been so proud of. I see now what I refused to see then, the darkness consuming him from the inside, his tolerance of me, of all the Jedi, worn thin and finally eroded entirely by greed and anger.

I've seen him only infrequently since then, once on Bandomeer, when I was still too blinded by my own grief to see what potential there was in Obi-Wan, what a mistake it would be to waste that potential in the AgriCorps. Thinking Obi-Wan was already my apprentice, that I had found someone to take his place at my side, he did his best to murder a boy of not quite 13--and was outwitted, not once but twice by that same boy. To think I could have lost Obi-Wan then, as well, before I knew what I had . . .

I could kill Xanatos for that alone, I realize, shuddering.

That is not the Jedi way. That is the Dark Side whispering to me. I know then that I must try to bring him back and let go of my preconceived idea that his death is the only possible resolution. To act under that assumption is to fall to his level. I have little hope it will end any other way, but I must be his executioner only as a last resort. It is the only honorable course, and Obi-Wan would expect no less of me. I must expect no less of myself.

Truly, the padawan teaches the master.

There is a soft knock on my cabin door and when I answer it, I find Isa, not Ayana, as I'd expected. She's holding two mugs of tea and extends one to me with less shyness than she showed when first we met. I suppose it's the sparring that's changed that. It's hard to be shy with someone you're trying to pin to the floor, especially when he's thrice your size.

I take the tea from her and she sits cross-legged on the end of my bed, sipping her own and saying nothing, neither of us really looking at the other. She doesn't bother with any nonsense about not being able to sleep herself, and seems to know I need company, but not to talk. We sit in a companionable silence until we're both done. Then she takes both mugs, wishes me a good night and slips out.

Ayana is lucky to have her.

Less than twenty hours later, we drop out of hyperspace into the Beshqek system. It is swarming with traffic and a nightmarish navigation hazard of moons and asteroids, a reflection of the area's tangled shipping lanes, here in the Deep Core where so many stars impinge on each other's gravity wells. The station is large, comprising at least ten levels of offices, labs, and living quarters sealed in airtight permasteel, with a docking level large enough to accommodate three Corporate Sector freighters and one corvette, and several smaller ships and empty berths in addition to our own ship. Our pilots take us into the docks under the guise of distributors arrived for business negotiations. Once docked, Ayana arranges an appointment for us with one of Xanatos's underlings. It is an appointment we will not keep.

We've docked at the beginning of the station's night cycle, which delays our "business meeting" but gives us the cover of station night to work with. I prefer not to confront Xanatos immediately. He has a habit of building or finding "back doors," and I would like to find them before he has a chance to use them, or reason to think he might need them. Thanks to Ayana and Isa, we pass through the station's bays and corridors unnoticed, the attention and memories of alert guards and curious passers-by diverted or clouded, and we reach the executive levels of the station unremarked. Working with the two of them is different from working with Obi-Wan. Years ago, I had been as certain of Ayana's actions in relation to mine as she is certain of Isa's, but we have been apart too long, and she has grown and changed enough that we are not true partners the way Obi-Wan and I are. I miss that, but I have no time for regrets now.

Xan's signature in the Force is like metal on a raw nerve. His presence has permeated the station, but I feel it growing stronger as we near the upper levels. It is powerful--and dark. My apprentice has grown since he left the order, but not in ways of which I would approve, of which any of us would approve.

So overpowering is his presence to me that it takes Ayana three attempts to get my attention--a potentially fatal blindness. Were it Obi-Wan beside me, our bond fully open, I know I would not be so distracted, so swamped by that darkness. Obi-Wan would hold it back, ground me, but I have chosen to cripple myself on this mission. I see that now. Yoda and Mace were right--again.

Ayana pulls me into an empty service room whose lock she has Forced, Isa guarding the door from the inside. "There's something not quite right here, Qui-Gon," she says in a low voice. "Do you feel it? Or is Xanatos's presence masking it from you?"

I close my eyes, reaching out through the Force into the station itself, expanding my awareness to include all of it. In my mind, it lies before me in a schematic of Force signatures, most of them the ordinary living--pilots, merchants, technicians, mechanics, scientists, executives, laborers and servicers--going about the business of life. Lying over it all like a thick smog is Xanatos, but beneath it, beneath the station, beneath the surface of this little moon is something . . . *wrong.* There is no other word for it. It is not quite the Force signature of the living, not quite the signature of those things I have more difficulty sensing: inorganic matter, mechanisms, objects, droids. Nor is it a blending of the two, some sort of biological construct. Its wrongness lies in absence, in what is missing. Life without *life.* A chill spreads down my spine and is gone.

"What is it, Master?" Ayana asks, sounding sickened, looking to me for reassurance I cannot give her.

"I don't know, but it bears investigation. There are lower levels here . . ." We are in not just a storage or service room, but some sort of small crisis command station with a communications and systems access console. I make my way toward it, but Ayana motions Isa from her post at the door, replacing her, and she slides into the seat before it.

"Give me a moment, Master," the girl says with a confidence I have not heard in her voice before.

"The young always do this better than we, Qui-Gon," Ayana smiles ruefully, lumping herself in with her old master. "I don't know why, but it always seems so."

In truth, it's only a few moments before the screens are flashing and zooming at Isa's command, dropping through the schematics of station levels until they reach the foundations where the life support systems and emergency decompression escape levels are and--

"There's more here," Isa says, almost to herself, little fingers dancing over the touchpads, "but it's encrypted. . . ."

"Can you find the ingress and egress--service channels as well as portals?"

A map of the lowest public level resolves on the screen, regular entrances blinking red, service shafts and grilles blinking yellow. "These two," she points out one portal, one service shaft, "lead downward into nothing. Officially, that's the last level, but that door and that service conduit have to lead somewhere, and they don't lead up from anything. Nobody builds doors to solid rock."

"Significant as this may be, we haven't time for it now. Look for any unusual corridors and lift shafts, any place on the schematics where the construction seems wrong," I tell her, leaning over her chair to watch the screen myself. These will be Xan's back doors and I want to know where as many of them are as possible.

We see it at the same time: a section of one wall in the executive suite that is thicker than need be, wide enough for one person to fit inside it. A repulsor-lift shaft, most likely, although even that is not necessary for one trained as a Jedi. He could levitate himself down-- "How far does it go? Can we follow it through the station, Padawan?"

Once again, the floors flash by under Isa's direction. The shaft ends in the docking bays, as I'd thought it would, in a small hangar that no doubt houses Xan's personal ship. We search for other structural anomalies but this seems to be the only one. He may have other back doors, but this is the only one I can find.

"Where now, Qui-Gon?" Ayana asks.

"Up," I say. "It's time.

"Master Jinn, perhaps I should cover the bottom of the shaft, in case Xanatos eludes--" Isa flushes at the implication of her words. "I mean--"

"No need to be embarrassed, Padawan. It's a wise suggestion. He may very well slip our grasp. Ayana?"

My former padawan nods, approving. She knows her own apprentice's capabilities better than I. "If he does, Isa, you are not to reveal yourself, not to follow, merely note where he goes. Understand?"

"Yes, Master."

"Be careful. Mind your shielding. May the Force be with you."

"And you, my Masters."

Isa slips out the door after listening through the Force to see if the corridor is clear. Ayana speeds her on her way with an affectionate touch to her fleecy head. It's quite clear they care for one another and have a good bond. I'm glad for both of them, but it makes me miss the closeness I have--had--with Obi-Wan, that I hope I will have again, when this is over.

When Isa is out of sight, we slip into the corridor and make our way upward. I dare not open my shields far lest Xanatos sense my presence as I sense his, but the darkness in his soul has imprinted this place and it grows stronger the closer we come to his quarters. I let Ayana take point with her experience in getting into and out of secure buildings without detection. Again, we walk the corridors invisibly, this time detectable only as a smear of heat on an infrared scan, cloaked in the Force.

Ayana stops us several meters from the final blast door that stands between the public and private areas of the station, silently pointing out the all but invisible observation cams and the blaster ports. Beside the blast door is a code pad with a retinal scan. Xanatos has protected his personal domain with care.

//I can bypass the scan pad, but we'll have to hope the cams don't scope infrared as well.// I'm surprised how easily we communicate this way, our old bond facilitating Ayana's natural abilities.

//I'll cover you.//

Either the cams are not heat-sensitive or those watching them are inattentive, but we are not challenged and Ayana quickly bypasses the scans. The blast doors open and we walk through them as though we belong there. I'm surprised there is no guard inside. Xanatos must have a great deal of faith in his security measures. Ayana finds it suspicious as well and is hyperalert, searching with the Force as well as her own senses for backup systems, but we encounter none as we pace through the corridors, and meet no one in the middle of the station's night.

Finally, only one door stands between me and my--and Xanatos.

//He's awake.//

//Yes. Sleepless. Worried.//

//So he should be,// Ayana grins at me.

//Don't underestimate him, Padawan.//

//Yes, My Master,// she replies with no contrition at all. But I know she will be cautious. There is no false bravado in Ayana, no need to win my approval--something Obi-Wan sometimes suffers from--merely a mature and experienced competency.

She trips the lock with little effort, revealing a shadowed room and the glow of light somewhere beyond it. We draw up our hoods and become invisible again.

Silently, we make our way through the darkened rooms. The spaces are large, and, I am certain, luxurious, but besmirched with the Dark Side. Xanatos has not merely left the Order as some do, or stopped actively serving the Light, becoming one of the trillions throughout the galaxy who merely go about their business, oblivious. He has turned to Darkness. The atmosphere here sickens me.

His shadow falls across the open doorway before us. He is pacing, agitated, speaking to someone, though I sense no one with him.

" . . . can't be speeded up . . . delicate process . . . still experimental . . ."

Another voice, cold and harsh though somewhat distant, as though coming through the holonet. " . . . completed by the time I arrive . . . consequences . . ."

As one, we step into the room and throw back our hoods and cloaking. Xan whirls, instantly alert, cutting the transmission, but not before I catch a glimpse of another hooded figure. I don't know what shocks me more: that figure or my padawan's appearance.

The Dark Side is eating him alive. Still a tall and powerful figure, he has aged drastically. His black hair has gone whiter than mine, and his face is lined like an asteroid miner's. He looks a decade older than I, though he is barely 30.

"You!" he hisses, and for a moment, I see terror in his eyes, the same terror I saw when he was pinned beneath the blade of my saber. And I see something I never expected to see: relief. Gratitude. And something more disturbing but still familiar: smug triumph.

Then the three of us blur into motion. From somewhere, Xan produces his lightsaber and we are whirling in a deadly dance of thrust-parry-cut-lunge-leap-kick-repeat, like changes rung on a cluster of bells. He is still very good, still graceful, still in practice. There is a sense of unreal wrongness that I should have both my padawans here in the same room and that one should be fighting with me against the other. Ayana fights beside me with the ease and grace she had when my padawan. Though she falls easily into the supportive role she played then, she has a cool confidence greater than I remember that comes from solo missions and training her own padawans. We mesh easily with one another, instinctively, working through our reawakened bond. Less than ten days together and it is almost as though we never severed it at her knighting.

There is no such bond with Xan. Torn out by the roots, it withered and died between us years ago, though we still remember each other's moves. Immersed in the Force, I sense his before they are made, block them effortlessly. All of us have learned much in the intervening years, tactics and methods and moves the others do not know of or remember, so nothing is like it was, and yet it is eerily like the last time we fought, with elements of the last time Ayana was by my side--and nothing of how Obi-Wan and I fight together. Ayana fights coolly, with a detachment Obi-Wan has not yet learned, to protect me and drive our opponent back, as I fight methodically and with a certain amount of cunning to wear him down and demoralize him. Again, as the last time, Xan fights with a ferocity I've seen in Obi-Wan, but with the intent to kill.

Except that this time he wastes no breath on taunts or jeers. He has, in the intervening years, learned the value of silence Obi-Wan has always known. The only sound around us is the hum and snap and snarl of our clashing sabers and the sussuration of increasingly labored breathing.

Time and again we drive him back from access to his escape route. I want it to end here, in this room, with his surrender or his death, and I know he senses this. For what other purpose would I have come? We fight around and over furniture, through interior doorways, into a hail of Force- hurled objects small and large, and, as we back him into the last room, into the middle of a Force storm in the making. The very air turns thick and dark as smoke in the already shadowed room and a sickly sort of nimbus begins to gather around my fallen apprentice, making his grey hair crackle and spark like ungrounded wires. Ripples of Force lightning begin to coruscate over his body. This is the dark power Xan has traded his youth for. I feel him drawing it to and around and into himself until he is literally bristling with it.

Then he shows me just what he has learned since last we met.

A tendril of lightning snakes out from one of his casually outflung hands and strikes Ayana's shoulder. Neither of us have anticipated such a perversion of the Force, and the strength of it hurls her backward and shorts out her saber. She crumples to the floor and I can feel her struggling to recover from the shock. //. . . all right . . .// she tells me, not seeming so.

And that moment of distraction is all Xan needs. Like Ayana, I am Force-hurled into a wall and Xan darts by us, running with enhanced speed. I pick myself up and follow, likewise, my only advantage now that I know where he is heading. Still, he reaches the drop tube before us and seems to disappear into a wall and I know he has found his back door and used it.

"Go!" Ayana urges, and I do, sensing her behind me, gathering herself more slowly, still shaking off the effects of the shock. I plunge through the hologram wall and into the repulsor tube, sensing Xan a bare few meters ahead of me. We drop at a sickening pace, not quite freefall but closer to it than would be safe for anyone not a Jedi. The tube is narrow for someone of my size, dimly lit, and leaves no room for maneuvering. Another tendril of lightning snaps at the sole of my boots, but the material and my own shields diffuse the energy into a release of heat that is mildly uncomfortable for the brief moment it takes to pass through it as we hurtle downward. Xan declines to waste further efforts seeing this one proves useless.

Instead, he cuts the repulsor's power and we accelerate into freefall. Xan, like Obi-Wan, has been with me to the top of the Temple. Now, I hear him laugh. Once, it was a sound I loved.

We hurtle downward in complete blackness now, gravity pulling us inexorably toward the bottom of this shaft. The space closes in around me and I feel my muscles tensing with an incipient fear of meeting some unsensed obstacle or the floor. My sense of speed and height threaten to overwhelm me. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, telling myself I have all the time in the world, and concentrate on sensing Xan through the Force to distract myself, following his own breakneck descent and trying to anticipate his next move. If I can control my own descent and stop it just a little later than he does and then stop both of us in time--

If. If. If. Another deep breath. Another. Another. Oh gods, not now . . .

We plummet downward and I feel Xan gathering the Force to him, holding back from doing so myself in hopes it will bring me down on top of him. Ayana, farther back but now in the tube with us, forestalls my plan by slowing my descent and her own as Xan does the same. We touch down at the bottom and leap out of the way in a perfectly timed sequence--one, two, three. Ayana has also been to the top of the Temple with me and was not about to take any chances, apparently.

Xan leaps forward a dozen meters with the Force and is through the blast doors of the docking bay before I can catch him up. The doors slam down in my face and I hear the whine of starting engines from beyond them. I plunge my lightsaber into the lock, blowing it and the doors as Ayana appears at my side, but Xan is already aboard his ship by the time we are through and we have to retreat back behind the plasteel plating to avoid the engine backwash and decompression as the bay doors open into vacuum.

We turn and sprint for our own ship, Isa falling in with us from her nearby hiding place.

"Didn't have enough time to disable the engines," she pants, running flat out to keep up with my long stride. "Planted two tracking devices though, one inside, one out."

"Well done, Padawan," Ayana gasps, stretching her own stride to match mine, but clearly coming to the limits of her strength. Xan's blow has weakened and injured her.

"Indeed," I agree, sensing Ayana's pride in her resourceful and bold little padawan. It's well- deserved praise. She's done well for one so young.

I alert our crew to our imminent return, and within moments of our arrival, our ship has disengaged its umbilicals and seal and is departing with the haste of smugglers faced with a fleet of Republic corvettes. Ayana stumbles gracelessly into her chair, then waves away my concern. Strapping in, I try to sense Xan through the meaningless physical distance that separates us. He is heavily shielded now but still cannot fully erase the trace of his presence from the Living Force. It is all I will know of him for some time to come and still it is more than I have of Obi-Wan right now.

Xan heads for the Rim. Our pilot sends us into hyperspace after him with the coordinates sent back by Isa's tracking devices. There is nothing to do now but wait--and tend Ayana's injuries. These are worse than they first appear. The Force lightning has burned a hole in her shoulder, through muscle and bone, that looks like a small-bore blaster wound, and she is shivering from what I at first think is shock but turns out to be a sort of mild seizure that only quiets under an induced healing trance. Isa and I let the med droid pack the wound and spray it with topical bacta and then sit with Ayana afterwards and work on her shoulder together. I can feel there is more damage to her nervous system than either of us can heal. She will need some immersion in a bacta tank before she is entirely well. I suspect she will be able to function when she wakes, for we have a long journey, but not at full capacity.

As any good instructor would, I use the opportunity to teach Isa more about using the Force to heal. She has such a good, strong connection to the Living Force that it would be wrong to waste this opportunity, and it makes her feel better to help her master. Isa learns quickly, and there are soon two of us helping Ayana heal herself. I had forgotten how easy it is to work with a student whose natural talents lie in the realms of the of the Living Force, like my own. And I had forgotten how much I missed it. Teaching both Xan and Obi-Wan was and has been so much more work than was teaching Ayana, but in the hindsight of more experience, I wonder if I neglected some of her training in the Unifying Force.

Stupid thought. Of course not. Even if I did, she has turned out well. More than well. Ayana's career has been both successful and much praised. She has made herself quite a reputation and trained one equally successful padawan. If she were all the legacy I had, I would be well satisfied.

But I have Xan, as well.

"Master Jinn?" Isa breaks my train of thought. "My master will be all right, won't she?"

I must have had quite an expression on my face, for poor Isa looks terrified.

"What do your feelings tell you, Padawan?" I ask her gently. She closes her eyes and concentrates, the worry smoothing out of her features. "She will, won't she?" she says a little later, reassured by her own strong sense of the Force.

"Yes, between the two of us. She'll be fine. You've done very well, Padawan, all around."

"Thank you, Master Jinn," she says with a shyness I had thought she had lost in recent days. Clearly, my praise means a great deal to her. I wonder what nonsense Ayana has told her about me. Or is it only that I am so stingy with compliments that they become a valuable commodity? Suddenly, I feel very unsure of myself, as I have not since Xan betrayed me and I began to question everything I had ever done. Apparently, I have still not reached peace with my failure, for Xan to make me feel this way still.

Isa touches my hand. "Please, Master Jinn," she says, looking up at me with tears in her eyes. "Don't." And I realize I've been broadcasting, or at least that I've let my heavier shields down in her presence. "I hate seeing you so sad. And it won't help my master. She's been so worried about you."

I stroke her fuzzy head with its nimbus of wild curls and tighten my shields. "I brood too much sometimes, Isa. I'm sorry. Are you all right, little one?"

She nods, but looks as though she needs some comfort too. I've forgotten how difficult it is to see one's master ill. Obi-Wan would react no differently, even at his age. I let her snuggle in next to me, and hold her, letting her add her own Force healing to what I've been giving Ayana. She soon joins her master in sleep and I tuck them in together, sitting with them through the night, meditating and dozing.

By the time we reach Dschubba, Ayana is more or less fit for duty once again. I know her shoulder is stiff by the way she uses it and she tires easily, but it is the best we can expect without a bacta tank. Isa has been coddling her, much to Ayana's annoyance, bringing her tea, helping her dress--or trying to. My former padawan has as much patience with illness and injury as I do. Perhaps she learned that from me.

Our destination surprises me and raises the ghosts of bad memories. The last time I was here, less than a halfyear before, Obi-Wan and I were not only ending a hard mission but teetering on the edge of becoming lovers. I don't believe he knows how obvious his desire was during that mission, nor how hard it was for me not to use him as my cover would have allowed--the very reason I had fought against the roles the Council assigned us. There were moments when I took advantage of the role and hated myself later for enjoying them as much as I did, moments I know were both painful and equally enjoyable for Obi-Wan. In too many ways, that mission set the pattern for our relationship.

So perhaps it is fitting we should revisit this world now, since part of the reason I am here is that very relationship. Ironic that my last apprentice should lead me here. Then again, perhaps not, since Xan has apparently influenced so much of my relationship with Obi-Wan.

The bad memories only get worse when Xan's trail leads us to the slaver's quarter, and from thence to Khamor MalDurzi, the slaver dealing in Force sensitives whom Obi-Wan and I had deprived of half his stock, barely escaping the slave market unscathed ourselves. MalDurzi, however, will not be dealing in slaves again. By the time we find him, Xan has liberated his head from his misshapen body with a stroke of his saber. His business and living quarters have been ransacked, employees dead or gone, stock . . . disappeared. Whether they too have been liberated or sold or killed is unclear. Too much violence and death overlay the area to sort out individual acts or follow clear trails. The only unmistakable presence I can still sense is Xan's. His darkness stains the already violent deaths here with evil.

We too search MalDurzi's premises--if the dark warrens can be glorified with even that neutral term--turning Isa loose on his files and making the physical search ourselves. The empty cells below his "showroom" have a psychic stink to them that is almost physically nauseating and the walls and floors are stained with fluids I don't care to know more about. Ayana and I can both taste the remnants of despair and fear here, but there are no clues to what Xan was doing here.

Isa, however, has managed to reconstruct some of MalDurzi's files that were damaged by what I presume was Xan's or his own destroyer program. Nothing stands out except a bill of lading for a shipment to the Corporate Sector. The parcel was small, too small to contain anything living, but shipped in a stasis box, which jibes not at all with its destination: a mining station deep inside Corporate Sector territory. The anomaly of a slaver with a bill of lading is itself enough to make me suspicious and I ask Isa if there are more of them. Within another few hours she has found the remnants of several more, each of them for equally small stasis boxes, shipped to various facilities or factories within the Corporate Sector.

Ayana and I search the ransacked rooms again more carefully for something that might fit in a stasis box that small and find nothing. But another examination of the cells reveals a cache of microprobes that rightly belong in a medical facility, and two of the stasis boxes, both empty. I take them with me when we return to our ship, for no other reason than that it seems the right thing to do. I am following Xan blindly and must let the Force guide my actions.

Bad news awaits us when we return to our ship. Our pilot is receiving two conflicting signals from the tracking devices, one stationary, the other already in hyperspace.

"He's found one of the tracking devices," Isa grumbles, annoyed with Xan's cleverness.

"Only one, Padawan," Ayana soothes, "probably the one on the hull. It's easiest to find and easiest to disengage. I know you hid the one inside well. Let's go see where he's dumped it and retrieve it."

A short while later, the two of them return with the misleading tracking device--the one Isa planted on the hull of Xan's ship--and we follow the coordinates from the second one into hyperspace again. My spine tingles when our pilot reveals the destination is deep within the Corporate Sector, near where one of MalDurzi's packages went.

Technically, we will be trespassing in Corporate Sector space. Neither the Republic nor the Order have jursidictional treaties giving the Jedi any powers within Corporate Sector space. We still operate there, or Jedi in Ayana's line of work do, but it would be awkward for Jedi Ambassador Jinn to be caught there on some covert mission, even chasing one of the Order's reprobate fallen, as we are. No matter. Xan is here, and I will not lose him this time.

Our ship goes cloaked and invisible as we had, walking through Xan's station. We spend another long period of time in hyperspace and this proves to be the pattern for some time: days or tenths in hyperspace punctuated by a covert landing and a pursuit across some spaceport or installation docking facility into the surrounding city or station, following the trail of death and mayhem Xan leaves in his wake. The single connecting factor throughout our hunt is the discovery of the string of small but well-equipped laboratories we find, each of them apparently engaged in the business of culturing cells of some kind. Xan sweeps through these labs like a vengeful spirit, killing the technicians, destroying equipment and records and cultures. The Council follows our progress with the reports we make each time we leave the scene of Xan's mischief.

There is a thoroughness to the work that belies the chaos he leaves behind. What first looks like a savage and thoughtless rampage becomes systematic and selective destructiveness when investigated more closely. Only in one do we find samples of the cultures which have not been destroyed and by then I am beginning to wonder if Xan has not left them purposely. We track him easily from place to place, thanks to the second device Isa planted which Xan has either not found--though he must suspect by now that it exists, so closely and easily have we trailed him--or has declined to remove and disable. Even so, he is always just a step ahead of us. His shields are good and hold throughout the chase, giving me no overt information as to what he's doing or where he's going. But his trail is easy to follow through the Force, and toward the end, it seems almost as though he is leaving us clues in the wreckage.

When he leaves the Corporate Sector and turns back to his station on Byss's moon, I know that is indeed what he has been doing. The question is, why? Is he setting us an ambush? If so, why this long, merry chase? I remember the brief flash of relief and gratitude in his face and wonder what it meant. I wonder more about the sense of triumph he displayed just afterwards.

There is neither the need for nor the possibility of hiding our real purpose in coming back to the station, and our pilot reveals us as Jedi in pursuit of a fugitive, demanding clearance in the name of the Order and the Republic. We're given it, reluctantly, and Xan's security guards meet us at the docking bay. I send Ayana out to deal with and distract them and she agrees, insisting that I take Isa with me and warning me to do nothing until she follows. Isa and I slip by them cloaked while Ayana argues protocol and jurisdiction, so we are delayed very little and head across the docking platforms for the site of the door-to-nowhere Isa discovered during our first visit.

Approaching it, I feel Xan's shields go down like a blow. For a moment, I am almost swamped by the darkness. Underneath it, inside it, are emotions I had not expected--regret, grief, sorrow-- echoing my own. He has gone to ground here, in the caverns below the station and his unshielding is an obvious invitation, all but broadcasting "come and get me." It feels less like a challenge than a surrender. Perhaps it is.

Even I am surprised to find that Xan has left his secret facilities unguarded and, indeed, wide open. Whatever hologram was hiding the entrance to the undercaverns has been shut off and the blastdoors are unlocked, security cams and scans dark. Nevertheless, Isa and I wait for Ayana, and the three of us go cautiously down the long tunnel and subsequent dropshaft. The latter is much wider than the one from his suite, wide enough to move equipment through. Both passages are well-lit and lined, nerve-wrackingly, with blaster ports that would lock us in a deadly crossfire if activated. We move down them back to back, facing outward with our sabers ignited, but although the ports track us, we are not fired upon.

At the bottom of the dropshaft is another shorter tunnel, this one opening out after another open blastdoor into a large, well-lit laboratory facility of perhaps 1,000 square meters. The air smells of chemicals and blood. Lining one wall is a row of cubicles containing laboratory benches with the usual equipment, some recognizable--com equipment, centrifuges, two electron microscopes, an autoclave, racks of glassware, sinks, a hood--some not. Lining the other is a standard medical bay. But it is the ten cylindrical, upright plexi tanks in the middle of the floor that draw our attention, not just visually, but through the Force. They would not be out of place in a medical facility, filled with bacta, and there is at least some bacta in the solution inside these, giving them their blood-tinge. But these are not for healing the wounded, and though they are occupied-- "filled" would be a better word--there is no person inside. Nothing sentient in any way, nothing with anything but the most rudimentary existence. Inside are the shapes of humans, their husks, but nothing more. They respire, their hearts beat, their organs function, their conscious brains lie dormant, but they are not truly alive. This is the source of the wrongness we first felt here, the Life-without-*life.*

"Cloning tanks," Ayana hisses. Isa whimpers beside her, her sensitive connection with the Living Force no doubt assaulted like mine by the utter abomination confronting us.

"Yes." Xan's voice confirms.

So we end where we began and the pieces of information collected during our chase come together in the undercaverns here. This time, Xan is waiting for us, unarmed and unshielded. He walks out of the tunnel at the far end of the cavern, where he has been waiting for us. Ayana and Isa flank me on either side, recognizing that this encounter must be on my terms. It is the first opportunity I have to truly look at my former apprentice. The face that had seemed like a mask when we fought is indeed his own, lined and ruined as though the fires of his corruption had melted his flesh from within. He looks weary, the broad shoulders slumped, gait without the spring or saunter I remember. And again, I see gratitude in his raw, red-rimmed eyes. His voice, however, has lost none of the familiar imperiousness.

"Leave us," he says to Ayana and Isa. "Can I not speak to my own master alone one last time without your interference?"

"Qui-Gon has not been your master for many years, Xanatos," Ayana replies coolly. "You did not deserve him when he was and you deserve no such courtesy now."

"Peace, Ayana. Let us speak. Give us a little time," I tell her.

She looks at me, clearly unhappy, lips pressed together. Isa mirrors her expression. "Enough for private words, but not out of my sight, Qui-Gon," she agrees reluctantly, at last. "Isa."

The two of them step back not more than 5 meters, barely out of earshot, Xan warily watching them go.

"No one will strike you down when your back is turned," I tell him.

He turns back to me, smirking, sarcastic. "No. Only when I'm ready."

"Is that what it's come to?"

"Did you have any doubt it would end any other way?" Bitterness now.

"Then why come back here? Why not keep running? You must have known we were tracking you."

"Of course I did," he snaps. "I'm not a complete fool." For a moment he looks both sad and uncertain. It catches me off guard, and for a moment I feel pity. I must not. "Or perhaps I am. Perhaps you were right all along, Qui-Gon. You and the Jedi." He smiles, skin that should be young and smooth bunching in papery wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. It is sickening to see him this way, prematurely aged. It is a death's-head I see, not the arrogant young man he should be. "You should appreciate this irony, that it's my overconfidence that's brought me to this point. The fault you always warned me about. I thought I could outwit him, you see, but he's much more powerful than I am. More powerful than I suspected."

"The hooded man."

"Ah, you saw him then. I wasn't quick enough cutting the transmission."

"No. Who is he?"

"I don't know." He seems almost innocently bemused, if it were possible for Xan to still be innocent. I wonder if he ever was. "I thought at first he was another like myself, some fallen Jedi, failed apprentice or discarded initiate, but more powerful, wealthier. Someone who would be a good ally. Now, I'm not so certain. I don't think the order would have let someone so powerful get away--or remain hidden as he has. He works mostly through intermediaries. The few times we've spoken it's been by holonet--a signal I've never been able to trace--and, as you saw, he's hooded, his features obscured and voice filtered. He seems very powerful, not just in the Force, but politically, with great resources at his command, and very . . . loyal . . . servants." Xan looks back at me. "I'm afraid of him."

He's not lying or exaggerating and that surprises me. Xan has never truly feared anyone or anything, not even me when we fought. He's known the brief spike of adrenalin-fueled fight-or- flight reactions, but for him to truly fear someone, to admit it, and to me . . .

"He's trapped you."

"Yes," he admits. "The way I thought you and the Jedi had. He gave me what I wanted. But there's no betraying him, and no escape, anymore than there was from you, I suppose. His operation here has been most successful and he'll be coming to put his own servants in place soon. We were in the midst of negotiations when you interrupted us. I managed, in the meanwhile, to hold him off, to make him think I've been here all along, preparing. But he'll be coming soon, and I've reached the end of my usefulness to him. He'll dispose of me then. I know that's what he's been planning. He can't afford not to. I know too much and I'm just powerful enough to threaten his plans, if not actually threaten him.

"And now you're here," he says. I'm not sure what emotion is in that statement. Perhaps he's not either. "I'd heard the Jedi had sent you and Kenobi to investigate the slavers. That had my master very worried for a time, especially that it was you two. He seems to have a very high opinion of you, Qui-Gon. I wonder how he knows of you? And you frightened that freak MalDurzi so much he was still shitting himself over it when I went after him."

"And why did you go after him? Why destroy all your feeder labs?"

"I knew you'd realize what I was doing," he says approvingly. "But you don't know all of it. You see what I've become, what I'm becoming," he says, reading the distaste on my face. "I've paid a high price for my power, for the luxuries I own, for my wealth. You think I've done this for myself. When I agreed to set up the facility, I had that in mind. I took the funds thinking it would benefit me as well. I've spent a great deal of time studying the old transmigration techniques, the ones only the adepts learn at the Temple. I can do it, Qui-Gon. Does that frighten you?" The tone is familiarly malicious now.

"You were always the brightest of the Temple's students, Xan," I reply with a detached calm I barely feel. In truth, it does frighten me, though I will not show him, that he should have learned to remove his Force essence to another shell. It makes what he has done here all the more horrible. The thought of him or another servant of the Dark Side endlessly cloning himself makes me almost physically ill. If that's what's going on here, then by alerting us he has done us a service that might almost redeem his other actions.

"'Xanatos,'" he corrects, snarling, suddenly angry. "My name is Xanatos. I'm no longer your apprentice to answer to your pet names."

"No. No apprentice of mine would create such abominations," I agree sadly.

"And yet I am more your creature than even I knew, Qui-Gon. This," he gestures toward the tanks and their grotesque contents, "this sickens even me. Isn't that odd? I've learned the techniques to make use of it and find I can't stomach the thought." Again, he looks bemused.

"So you destroy it. Why now?"

"Because I know why you're here, Qui-Gon Jinn." He sounds tired now, beaten and weary. "And I'm glad."

"Come back with me," I say softly.

He shakes his head. "No. I still have my pride. We'll end it here."

"Then help us, before I do what I must. Tell me when your master is due to arrive."

"Ah, I've piqued your interest now, haven't I?" He smiles with that familiar slyness and for just a moment I see the young man I knew before his falling.

"Did you expect anything less? You've destroyed his labs but he won't, from the sound of it, let that stop him."

"So you would? Of course you would. It's your duty, isn't it?" Xan snarls. "If not you, then your good little apprentice there, or hers, or the one you left behind. You're all so damn self-righteous, so sure of yourselves and how right you are. Oh, spare me the litany, Qui-Gon!" he snaps, seeing me shift. But I have no intention of saying anything. I've heard this before and there's no reply to be made. "It's the will of the Force, you'd tell me. Was it the will of the Force that you take me from my father and deprive me of my rightful place at his side, of my own legacy? Do you still think that?" I can feel the Darkness gathering around us with Xan's anger and hear Ayana shift uneasily behind us, sensing it also.

"Perhaps not, Xan. I've never liked the way we acquire our apprentices, but I'm in the minority in the Order. And your father could have refused--"

"Refuse the privilege of having a Jedi in the family? Refuse the reflected glory?" Xan scoffs. "Not likely. Oh, no, not my father! All those years, he watched my progress, urging me to learn everything I could from you and the Order, to excel, to be the best, to make him proud of me. All that time, he was just waiting for me to come home again to use me. Use me! His own son."

Xan pauses, fists clenching.

"It took me some time to realize what a favor you did me, killing the bastard," he growls. "You were right to do so. He was a cancer. Like father, like son."

His bitterness almost chokes me. I remember what he was, what he could have been.

"I wasn't blind, was I?" The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

He smiles then, without guile, without arrogance, sarcasm, irony, or slyness. Open. Warm. Sweet. "A little. Your fault, My Master, is that you never expect ill of anyone, and when you find it, the only reaction it evokes in you is pity."

"Is that a fault?"

"For a warrior, perhaps. For a teacher, no. For a father, not at all. I should have been what you saw in me. Maybe it is right to take us so young and isolate us, surrounding us with the Force and all that cloying love, shielding us from corruption by our relatives. If only you had."

Perhaps he's right about me, because all I do feel is pity now. Ayana's words come back to me and I repeat them. "You made your own choices, Xan. You chose this path."

His face changes again, Darkness filling him. "You'll get no absolution from me, old man. You made me what I am."

For a moment, I hear Obi-Wan's voice saying the same thing to me, less than a year ago. The difference between them has never seemed more clear to me. In that recognition, the guilt I've carried for ten years disappears like the ephemeral thing it was. It's my turn to smile, and it clearly disconcerts my former apprentice.

"No, Xan. No more than I made Ayana what she is, or than Yoda made me. But I thank you for teaching me that. You've done me a kinder turn than you could know."

"That's the last favor I'll do you, then, Master." The word is a curse in his mouth now. He turns and aims some small communicator device into the tunnel behind him. Somewhere in its darkness a beeper goes off and a mechanical voice says "ten minute warning," and begins a countdown.

"What's happening?" Ayana demands fiercely, rushing toward us, sensing danger.

Xan settles onto his knees before me, but there is only a stiff anger in his pose, no serenity, no peace. Perhaps there is resignation. "Think of this as my atonement, Qui-Gon. In a little less than ten minutes, these caverns will be my pyre. I suggest that unless you plan to be immolated with me, you and Master Ituri and her little padawan be aboard your ship and away by then. Do what you've come to do and go." He raises his head a little, looking into my eyes.

I did not expect this from him and I do not trust him. "Ayana?"

"He's telling the truth, Qui-Gon," Ayana assures me, somewhat grudgingly.

"She knows it too," Xan says, nodding to Isa, looking at her with something that could be mistaken for gratitude. Or even kindness. Ayana's little padawan cannot see for tears.

"Hurry," Xan hisses.

Both of us know there is nothing left to say, except the ritual words. I make sure I look into his eyes as I do, honoring his act of contrition.

"I beg your forgiveness for what I am about to do."

"You'll have none from me. Get on with it, you old fool," he snarls, cornered and fearful at the last.

"I forgive you your betrayals, Xanatos. May the Force receive you, My Padawan."

I do not shield myself, as he has not, but there is no physical pain. I make sure there is none, though I cannot ease Xan's fear. In a quick sweep, my blade separates his head from his body and I feel him passing into the Force, not as those who are at one with it, but in his own restless and uneasy way. And then he is gone, like a hole in water. It tears another hole in my heart, but this one, I know, will heal, in time. Even in this pain, there is a measure of peace.

Ayana tugs at my arm and I realize I have gone to my knees beside Xan's body, that I'm weeping, too, like Isa, knees weak, chest tight, grief constricting my breath. I have done my duty. Never has it been so bitter.

"Qui-Gon! Hurry!"

Ayana drags me to my feet, pulls me stumbling along behind her like the overgrown and clumsy padawan I once was. With effort, I find some semblance of calm and, grabbing Isa, race through the tunnels and dropshaft. None of the blastdoors will close behind us, though I waste time trying, sending Isa and Ayana on ahead. If the explosion is large enough, containing it may in fact be the worst thing we could do for the stability of the station. At any rate, the best we can do is clear the hanger bay.

Ayana has already alerted the station security forces and by the time I race out of the final blastdoor and into the docking bays, ships are disengaging from the airlocks and standing off a safe distance. Ours is the last ship still docked, and only the airlock is still engaged. We race for it across the flat and mostly unobstructed permacrete of the hangar apron.

By now, we have very little time. //Run!// I tell Ayana, who is about 100 meters ahead of me and half that ahead of her own padawan, since I have lost ground trying to close the blast doors. Enhancing my speed and strength with the Force, I grab Isa around the waist and leap ahead.

The explosion and fireball blasting out of the hidden tunnel and across the hangar bay propel us a long way closer to the ship. The concussion sends us skidding and tumbling and I do my best to cushion Isa, if not my own fall. When we stop, I manage to roll over, shielding her an instant before the fireball roars over us with its impossible heat. Our cloaks are fire retardant but this flash is hot enough to melt plexsteel. I smell burning cloth, roll again to smother sparks and flame, then try to get to my feet and find I cannot. One leg buckles under me as I try to rise and pain arcs in a bright red net across my face and head, grounding at the base of my skull. My vision flares and goes dark.

I come to wondering if my head is exploding, if my back is on fire, if Isa and Ayana are all right. Dizzy and nauseated and shivering, I vomit as someone holds my head and wipes my mouth and someone else strips away my clothing. The smell of burned flesh and hair and cloth gags me. Nothing has ever hurt like this. Nothing. I can't stop it, don't know where to begin. Voices murmur around me though only isolated words or phrases come through: *shock . . . painkillers . . . needs surgery . . . no bacta tank. . . .*

A tendril of the Force reaches me, spreads across my shields like water--*so thirsty*--probing for entrance. *Mustn't let--*

"Qui-Gon, listen to me. Let me help you," Ayana's voice comes through the haze of pain like a beacon through fog. "Let your shields down. Let me in so I can take some of the pain."

*Shields . . . not my shields. No . . .* I hear someone cry out painfully, screaming, screaming.

"Qui-Gon!" //Master!// Ayana's voice, inside and out. Not Obi-Wan's. Where is he?

"Obi-Wan . . ." A low guttural moan from somewhere as the screaming falls silent.

"Master, let me try."

"Do what you have to Isa. No matter how he fights you."

Small fingers on my temples, holding my head still as the rest of my body thrashes, trying to outmaneuver the pain. Then there is this *presence,* large and calming and sweet, pressing against me. //Let me in, Master. Let me help.// Obi-Wan. It sounds like--no, it's not. //No!// But it is stronger than I am now, and batters past my defenses, demolishing walls gone suddenly brittle. Someone gasps and I hear a thump. "Master!" The hands leave my temples briefly and the presence fades, leaving my shields in ruins.

"Help him, Isa. Hurry. Do what you must. Help him. Don't worry about me. Caught me off guard is all. Help him. Hurry."

The hands return as others tend my body. The sweet presence in my mind wraps me closely now, swathing me against the pain with a bright, serene peace. Dimly, I feel myself relax as the agony recedes, replaced by a great exhaustion. //Sleep, Master,// a kind voice tells me. //Just sleep. We'll be home soon. You'll be fine. The pain's gone. Sleep.//

Sight and sound and touch and smell fade and I sink into that proffered peace, not knowing whether it is sleep or death.

IV. Exorcism

Obi-Wan woke in the dark in an unfamiliar bed with someone unfamiliar at his back, tensed for a moment and then realized it was Bruck. *That's right.* He'd come back to Bruck's quarters after the Healers had released him, not wanting to sleep in Qui-Gon's bed either alone or with someone else. He reached out again over what had been their bond, testing it, still finding nothing, not even Qui-Gon's presence. *He can't be dead. Master Windu or Master Yoda would have told me. They would know.* But the bond was broken between them now and that made him feel sick. He had not been so utterly alone since Qui-Gon had first rejected him as a child.

The other boy stirred, gently traced the still tender and healing burn down his back, touched his shoulder and drew him back against himself. Obi-Wan nestled against Bruck gratefully, more his own size than Qui-Gon's but here when he needed the contact and comfort. Strong brown arms slid around his waist, warm lips kissed the back of his neck.

"Go back to sleep, Ben," Bruck said drowsily. "It's early yet and you need the rest. There's nothing you can do right now. The ship's not due in until tomorrow."

*Tomorrow.* When his life would change yet again, whether Qui-Gon were alive or dead.

"He's not dead," Bruck told him, sensing his fear. "You'd know."

"How? I've more of a bond with you now than I do with him," Obi-Wan replied in a quietly bitter voice, then regretted his words. It was a cruel thing to say to one lover about another, or to a padawan without a master.

Uncharacteristically, Bruck let it pass without comment. "You'd know. You can't just erase that connection. At the very least, Master Yoda would know. Your master was his padawan." Bruck pointed out, propping himself up behind Obi-Wan and running a hand down his friend's shoulder and arm. "You'd feel him differently in the Force, but he'd be there. When Leth died, I could feel her passing, changing, and for a long time afterwards as a kind of--I don't know--almost like a film between me and the rest of the world, until you cleared it away. I know she's really gone now because there's not even an absence, or a hole. He still feels gone to you, doesn't he?"

Obi-Wan nodded, breath catching in his chest.

"Master Windu said there were other Jedi on the mission. Qui-Gon's probably being shielded somehow from his own pain, and drugged, if he's hurt badly." Bruck kissed his shoulder. "I know that's not much comfort. I know you're afraid the bond's gone for good, aren't you?"

It was too much to hear it said aloud. Pain and fear he hadn't known were there burst out of him in a kind of high keening that ended in a smothered sob, mortifying him. Bruck pulled him close and rocked him as a halfyear of uncertainty and pent-up emotion flowed through him, tears coursing down his face in a flash flood. Bruck held him hard as he shook and choked. The strength of his own grief frightened him, but the other boy took it calmly. "I know, I know," Bruck murmured. "Let it out. Let go. I've got you."

"I can't," Obi-Wan gasped, struggling for control. "I can't. It won't stop if I do."

"Sure it will, you idiot," Bruck said reasonably. "You think you'll cry for the rest of your life? You think it'll kill you? I already know what a hardass you are, Kenobi. Literally. You don't have to prove anything to me."

Despite himself, Obi-Wan laughed, as Bruck had intended. There were warm lips on his shoulder again and the crying jag wound itself down without further fuss. He hadn't meant to, but he fell asleep again with Bruck warm at his back, a newly familiar comfort.

He was there, too, when Obi-Wan stood on the landing platform with his hands tucked into his sleeves, waiting for his Master's transport to arrive from the Order's docks. This high up, there was quite a wind, and Obi-Wan was glad he had worn his heavier cloak. Even with it wrapped closely about him, he was cold, but he suspected that much of it was nerves. Bruck had tried to pull him back into the shelter of the emergency landing pad where the healers waited, but Obi- Wan insisted on staying where he was, to be the first to meet them. He hoped it would be soon, before he lost both his composure and his breakfast.

Thankfully, the transport was precisely on time, as things usually were on Coruscant.

The younger half of a master/padawan pair was first off, partially blocking Obi-Wan's view with her load of three travel packs. Behind her was another Jedi, clearly not Qui-Gon, walking beside a repulsor pallet--guided by a med droid--that held a large frame that could only be Obi-Wan's master. Even this close, Obi-Wan still felt nothing of their bond, which told him it was truly broken. The other master, a younger woman with dark skin and strikingly light hair, her coloring much like Bruck's, was holding one of Qui-Gon's hands, her body language screaming tension and anxiety. Her expression was grave and her padawan, who appeared some years younger than Obi-Wan, looked worried and upset, but watched him curiously. Obi-Wan went toward them, Bruck following.

"Padawan Kenobi?" the other master called, seeing both boys approaching.

"Yes. How is he?" Obi-Wan answered, stopping beside the pallet, dropping his gaze from her face to his master's and just . . . gawking . . . stupidly, in shock.

Obi-Wan would not have recognized Qui-Gon but for his size and the familiar hooked nose and cobalt eyes, though the latter were vague and glazed. Qui-Gon's beard and mustache were gone, his hair unevenly hacked far shorter than normal, revealing a swath of burned flesh that started at the back of his neck and disappeared behind his shoulder. The skin on the left side of his face was raw and still a little bloody beneath the antiseptic sealant. Worse, there was something wrong with the bones beneath it. One cheek was sunken, and both eyes blackened. Obi-Wan hated to touch him anywhere for fear of hurting him more and hated at the same time to withhold what comfort he could offer. He barely kept himself from blurting something alarming.

Qui-Gon made some inarticulate noise, head lolling, clearly in pain and fighting the respirator tube.

"Master--" Obi-Wan whispered, touching his hair, frightened, not knowing what to do. Reaching out with the Force, he sensed the congestion in his master's lungs, the screaming nerve endings underlying raw and burned skin and broken bones, the shock just kept at bay. But their bond remained severed. He wanted to send his strength through it, to at least deaden the pain, but could not get through. //Let me help, Master. Let me in.//

Nothing. No sense of his presence, no thoughts, no feelings, no pain. Nothing. Less than they'd had on Bandomeer.

The healers pushed past him gently with their paraphernalia and skilled and kind hands and took Qui-Gon away, the other master and her padawan behind them as they headed for the lift. For a moment, Obi-Wan stood watching them, too stunned to move. Bruck touched his elbow, pulled him gently along until he trotted to catch them up and walked beside them, feeling as though he were in shock himself, oblivious now to anything but his master. In a brief moment of lucidity, Qui-Gon reached out for him when he reappeared, clasping one hand weakly in his. He couldn't speak through the respirator but Obi-Wan had no trouble seeing the apology in his eyes. "It's all right, Master. We'll talk later. When you're well."

One of the healers touched Qui-Gon's forehead, sending him into a painless sleep. Obi-Wan watched his face relax, the lines of agony smoothing out, eyelids fluttering, chest rising and falling mechanically with the respirator. "Qui . . ." he heard someone moan, felt a touch on his back and then Bruck slipping an arm around his waist, holding him. "Oh, gods," he whispered.

Later, he barely remembered the trip to the Healers Halls. All of it--the ride in the lift, the walk down the halls, Qui-Gon being swathed in a sterile field while his wounds and injuries were attended to, then being lifted into the bacta--seemed like one long, evil nightmare from which he could not wake. He heard voices murmuring around him, knew Bruck and Qui-Gon's former padawan and her padawan were there, but his master absorbed all his attention. Over and over he reached out the way he had on Bandomeer, trying to connect with his master and failing. It was the most frustrating and terrifying experience he'd ever had in his life.

Finally, as Qui-Gon was being immersed in the bacta, he felt the tentative touch of a small hand on his elbow and turned to find the little padawan who'd come down the ramp with all the packs standing beside him.

"I'm sorry," she said mournfully. "I know what you're trying to do and it won't work. I had to break it."

"What?" he replied blankly.

"Your bond," she went on, looking more and more miserable. "I had to break it. Master Jinn was broadcasting--you must have felt it. The pain and shock could have killed both of you, and maybe my master as well. I had to make him sleep, but first I had to make him let go of you and breaking your bond was the only way I could think of to do it."

"You what?" Obi-Wan's world reeled. He had to lean back against the wall to stay upright, and was dimly aware of Bruck coming to him, holding him up. What she was saying didn't make sense. It wasn't possible to just sever a bond like that, not from the outside. At the same time, there was a tide of relief in him that it hadn't been Qui-Gon's doing.

"I'm sorry," she said again, her distress more acute with Obi-Wan's reaction. "I'm not very good at this yet. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't mean to hurt you or Master Jinn. Really." She looked at him for a moment, expecting some words of reassurance or forgiveness but Obi-Wan only gaped at her in shock. It was only when she went to her knees and touched her forehead to the floor that he managed to pull himself together. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she said, voice muffled but full of misery. "I've wronged you and I never meant to, Padawan Kenobi. Please forgive me."

He shook off Bruck's hands and knelt beside her, touching her back. "Padawan--" he looked up at Ayana, searching for the girl's name. "Kassir," Ayana told him, looking on in sympathy. "Padawan Kassir," he went on, laying his hand on her back. Isa sat up slowly, but wouldn't look at him. "Please," he said with as much gentleness as he could manage, "it's all right. Just tell me what you did."

"He was shielding so heavily I couldn't get through to make him sleep, and he was in so much pain. With the head injury, we couldn't sedate him, so I had to get behind his shields and then break your bond--all his bonds--to stop him from broadcasting. He wouldn't let go of you and I couldn't make him sleep. . . ."

"All of them?" Obi-Wan shuddered.

"Yes," Ayana confirmed. "I can't sense him any more, and I doubt Master Yoda can either."

As though that were a cue, the wizened little green Jedi Master appeared in the doorway, Mace Windu flanking him. "No," he confirmed sadly. "Sense him I cannot."

"So he's all alone in there?" A horrible thought. He wondered if Qui-Gon had ever been so totally alone before. Not in years, if ever, he felt certain. Not, at the very least, since he had first bonded with Master Yoda at the age of six. Almost fifty years.

Isa nodded. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I know there must have been another way, but I--"

"You did the best you could," Obi-Wan murmured. "You did what you thought was right. Thank you for helping him." He said the words almost automatically, because they were expected, realized that wasn't good enough and with a real effort of will, turned his full attention on the little padawan beside him. "Thank you," he said again with more sincerity. "You kept him from suffering, and I owe you a great debt for that, Padawan Kassir. Please don't feel badly about what you did. We--we'll repair it somehow, I'm sure." But he wasn't sure of anything right now, least of all that they'd ever be able to rebuild their bond--or that they should.

Warm, gentle fingers stroked his cheek, his strangely bare chin and jaw, his lips, touched his hair, lifted away the sheet and replaced it carefully, then entwined with his own upturned fingers loosely but with a sense of possession. He was lying on his side, limbs leaden, unable to pull himself entirely free of the muck of drugged unconsciousness, to come awake instantaneously as he usually did. Obi-Wan woke this way, eyes heavy and languorous, awareness coming into them gradually as he left his Force dreams where he walked the future and the past. Qui-Gon loved watching that, watching his lover and apprentice come every morning to the present as though it were a new and wondrous place, loved his first smile in the morning. He felt a greater weight come to rest on his hand and somehow opened his eyes. Blinking to clear them, he saw a familiar head of red-gold hair--somewhat longer than it should have been--bent over his forearm, his padawan's forehead resting on the hand holding his own.

For a moment, he didn't know where he was or remember what had happened. The warm yellow of the walls and sunny windows filled with plants tipped him off: Healer's Hall at Temple. Working backward, he slowly reconstructed the string of events that had led him here, remembering with a chill Xanatos's death. At the moment, he was too tired, too sleepy to force himself to truly care. The thing was done. He would attend to the consequences later. The weight left his hand, though the fingers remained entwined there, and he opened his eyes again to look into the cloudy green-grey of Obi-Wan's. They were filled with anxiety and pain, the flesh below them bruised with lack of sleep, his face thinner and drawn.

"H'lo . . . Love," he said hoarsely, finding, to his chagrin, that his mouth would do as he wished only with concentration and then with some slurring. His face and neck felt stiff, his tongue thick.

"Do I know you, Ser?" his padawan smiled back, then leaned over and kissed his forehead, barely a touch of his lips against Qui-Gon's skin. He wanted more. Something was missing, but in his drugged confusion, he couldn't say what. "How do you feel, Master?"

"Na-ked."

Obi-Wan, he was relieved to see, laughed aloud. There was a tinge of relief and worry and sadness in it, but it was genuine laughter.

"I'd hardly know you," he acknowledged. "You're a different person."

"Same per-son, dif'rent skin." It was such an effort to talk. So much needed to be said.

"Same skin," Obi-Wan said, stroking his left cheek to prove the point. The dermis there was tender, but his padawan's touch was gentle and comforting. "Just newer. Softer."

"'Haps so," Qui-Gon agreed. "How short--?"

Obi-Wan smiled. "Your hair? Your vanity is showing, Master. Not so much. Ten centimeters or so. I'll trim it more neatly when you're feeling better. It's quite strange to see you without the beard and mustache, though. I rather like it. You look younger."

"Not." He coughed a little. He felt old, so old. And strangely alone, even with his padawan sitting beside him.

Obi-Wan held a straw to his lips, gave him a sip of water. "No," his lover said softly. "But I'd prefer it if you got significantly older."

His throat felt raw as he swallowed. "That near?" he asked, surprised. He remembered the pain, but only dimly, hadn't realized he had been near death.

"Near enough, with shock and the lack of a bacta tank. And the head injury. If Master Ituri's padawan hadn't put you under, that might have done you more harm than the second and third degree burns."

"Isa's ver' s-strong."

"Yes. And your padawan's trained her well. Must be *some* testament to your teaching abilities," Obi-Wan replied, raising an eyebrow, one corner of his mouth lifting in that beautiful, infuriating, sardonic smile. There was bitterness behind it though, a bitterness he should be able to sense and couldn't, though he had no shields. Perhaps Obi-Wan's were in place. He was too tired to explore the notion.

Instead, he reached up, the skin on his shoulder and back protesting, touched Obi-Wan's face, cupped his cheek in one shaking hand. Obi-Wan held it there, kissed the palm. "As you are, Pa- da-wan," Qui-Gon said quietly, with great pride filling his voice, as much as he could put there now. Perhaps it was enough, for Obi-Wan's face lit from within and some of the bitterness faded.

"Thank you, My Master. Sleep now, Qui-Gon. We'll talk more later." Obi-Wan touched his forehead, sent him under as easily as he had done so many times for his apprentice.

"How is he?" Bruck asked, levering himself away from the wall as Obi-Wan came out of his master's room in the Healers' Hall.

Obi-Wan rubbed his eyes. It seemed like days since he'd slept himself, though Qui-Gon had only been out of the bacta for a few hours and the healers hadn't let him stay in the room for the three days he'd been in the tank. Bruck had insisted Obi-Wan stay with him while his master was healing, and made certain he'd slept and eaten as well. Thinking about it now he was a little disgusted with his continuing inability to take care of himself.

It must have showed on his face, or Bruck was picking up his thoughts through his non-existent shields, because the other boy tugged on his braid and said, "Hey, don't be so tough on yourself, hardass. None of us would be any different in your situation. No one wants to see their master hurt like this."

"It just feels like nothing's changed, Bruck. I thought I'd gotten it out of my system, that I didn't need him anymore. . . ."

"Don't be stupid. Of course you need him. You love him, Ben. Did you really think you'd stop just because he was gone for a halfyear?"

"He blocked our bond--" Obi-Wan began with sudden, contained fury.

"Yeah, and left you behind to teach you some kind of lesson. Now you're torqued with him. And maybe you've got a right to be. I'd say you do. But that doesn't change the fact that you love him, does it? What, did you two never have an argument before?"

"No. Not really. Not like this." Obi-Wan shook his head. "Maybe once," he amended, remembering the time on Graffias not so long ago when he had spat something horrible in Qui- Gon's face and walked out in a rage.

Bruck rolled his eyes. "Perfect Padawan Kenobi. Little gods, Ben, how do you walk around with that stick so far up your ass? Leth and I used to fight all the time, especially as I got older. For a while, we hardly agreed on anything. I was always on short privileges or doing extra katas or exercises with her. Were you born old?"

Obi-Wan smiled sheepishly. "That's what Qui says."

"How is he?" Bruck repeated, squeezing his shoulder.

"Sleeping again. And weak, yet. He's having some trouble speaking, too, as the Healers warned he might."

"There was some brain damage, then?" Bruck looked genuinely concerned.

"Apparently," Obi-Wan replied, head hurting in sympathy. "It doesn't seem too bad right now. But it might be too early to tell."

"Ever the optimist." The other boy elbowed him gently. "Nobody said it was going to be permanent, did they?"

"Probably not," Obi-Wan smiled sheepishly again.

"So quit wallowing. Come on. You need some food in you."

"I should stay--"

"He'll sleep for a while yet. You can come back. But you need to eat. He needs you too, especially right now, which means you have to take care of yourself. So put it in gear, Perfect Padawan, and let's go get some dinner."

Obi-Wan was glad to see that the aphasia faded relatively quickly, as both the bacta and healing Force did their work. He stayed with his master during the day, studying quietly while Qui-Gon slept, or lending his own healing energy to the Healers'. Qui-Gon woke once in the process and nudged him out of the healing trance they'd shared most of the day, only to chide him. "Don' spend y-yourself, Pad-awan. C'n heal on my own." Obi-Wan merely smiled and waited until he was sleeping again to return to it.

By the third day Qui-Gon was lucid long enough to realize that it was more than his apprentice's shielding that was making Obi-Wan unreachable through their bond. Worried, he tested the others, first his quiescent training bonds with Yoda and Ayana and then the ragged remnants of his bond with Mace, finding nothing but the frayed and tender broken ends. While not as painful or traumatic as his uprooted and discarded bond with Xanatos, the loss filled him with sadness and a great loneliness, even with Obi-Wan sitting beside him. His young lover had never seemed so far away.

Worse, they did not speak of it, or Obi-Wan would not let him. "When you're well," he insisted. "Not now. We'll deal with it later." Qui-Gon acquiesced with bad grace, too tired to fight, and cranky because of it. *As bad as Ayana,* he thought, when Isa, laughing with him, reported how mad her master was about spending a day of her own in the bacta to heal the residual damage from Xanatos's Force lightning.

In less than a tenth, Qui-Gon was back on his feet, though still prone to tire quickly. Obi-Wan returned to his classes and training, and Qui-Gon to a lighter load of his usual duties and responsibilities. On the surface, everything seemed fine. Obi-Wan was scrupulously polite and endlessly helpful, taking very good care of his master. Qui-Gon, still a little rocky physically, let him. Neither of them mentioned their now-dead bond, though both knew they would soon have to. Nothing in their relationship could move forward without at least addressing it; they remained in stasis, and uneasy with themselves and each other for it.

Nor were they sleeping together. Obi-Wan had returned to his old room under the pretext that Qui-Gon didn't need a restless padawan stealing his covers and kicking his shins in the night while he healed. In truth, he couldn't imagine sharing his master's bed with their relationship as it was. Neither slept well for it, but preferred to pretend they did, at least for the moment.

And it was so strange, Obi-Wan thought, being in the same room with him, being near him and not knowing what his master was at least feeling if not thinking. He felt almost physically dislocated in space, unable to orient himself, as though some part of him had been amputated, and wondered if Qui-Gon felt the same or worse, for the absence of his own bonds. For his own peace of mind he had asked the healers if it were even possible to reestablish their bond and been assured that it was, and that the others would probably follow when this most active one was renewed. He still was not certain that was what he wanted.

He was a little surprised to discover how angry he was with his master, now that Qui-Gon was mostly recovered. Though he was careful to be respectful and polite, he couldn't keep a certain frostiness out of his tone no matter how he tried. Qui-Gon ignored it, though Obi-Wan was certain the man noticed. There was not even a raised eyebrow in response. The lack of reaction almost made Obi-Wan want to do something to provoke one. Occasionally, he barely restrained himself.

Qui-Gon, for his part, could not remember ever feeling so isolated. Were it not for his innate connection with the Living Force, and through it all the Jedi around him, he had no doubt he would have sunk into the same state of despair that followed his initial break with Xanatos. The breaking of that bond had been much more violent and more thorough than Isa's similar action. This time, the severed bonds felt like stretched and snapped cables, rather than something entirely uprooted that had torn up the soil around it. It would take some work to repair them, but repaired they could be. But, oh, he missed Obi-Wan's bright presence in his heart in a way he hadn't when the bond had merely been closed between them, and he missed the faint but solid awareness of Ayana's quiescent bond, the reassuring presence of his own master. He even missed the skeletal remnants of his bond with Mace, who had not come to see him since he had regained consciousness.

In the meanwhile, there was Xan's death to consider as well, a loss that had left him strangely at peace as though he had wept out all his grief in the moment it happened or had it burned from him like the layers of skin he had lost. The awful desolation he'd felt at the execution was strangely absent now, reduced to the dull ache of an absence long resigned to. Perhaps Isa had somehow removed that pain from him as well, in her rough surgery. He would have to ask--and thank her, for he felt freer than he had since Xan's turning.

He caught himself studying Obi-Wan anew, wondering how he could ever have thought he and Xan were the least alike. It was easier to do now that they had no bond. In some ways, he thought, it was actually a blessing to be allowed to come to their relationship all over again, to allow himself to rediscover--this time without his own pain getting in the way--what had drawn him to Obi-Wan to begin with.

Even taking into account the anger that fairly blazed off the young man now, there was much to love: his solicitude and consideration, his innate politeness and thoughtfulness that all functioned despite his anger; his inherently kind nature; his dedication; his seriousness that made him seem so much older and more mature than he was; the dry sense of humor that nothing, apparently, could repress; the enthusiasm and eagerness of his age. How had Qui-Gon missed this all the first time around? Only now that the burden of Xanatos's failure was lifted from his own shoulders did he realize how much it had weighed him down. Despite the injuries, despite the severed bond, he felt reborn. Now there was his relationship with Obi-Wan to mend.

Within a few days of returning to his quarters for good, Qui-Gon was called before the Council, as he had expected to be. It was not a meeting to which he looked forward, as he suspected he was in for a raking over the coals by at least a few of its members. Obi-Wan seemed to pick up on his unease.

"Is everything all right, Master? Should I come with you?" he inquired, holding Qui-Gon's newly polished boots and kneeling to help him put them on.

"No, Padawan. And you needn't help me dress, either. I'm quite recovered."

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan replied stiffly, getting to his feet again, obviously hurt and letting his anger show because of it.

"That wasn't meant as a rebuke, Padawan," Qui-Gon said gently, pausing in the tucking-in of his sash and giving Obi-Wan his full attention. "You've taken very good care of me and I know it hasn't been easy. We haven't spoken as we need to. I need to see the Council first, and they've requested I come alone. We'll talk when I get back. I imagine you have a great deal to say to me."

Obi-Wan's head came up and he looked his master full in the face, almost challengingly. Qui- Gon repressed a shudder. The last time he had seen that look had been on Xanatos's face. But that ghost was laid now, he reminded himself. This was Obi-Wan--"Perfect Padawan" he had recently heard Bruck Chun call him, not half-jokingly.

"Yes. I do," his apprentice replied with a calm self-confidence Qui-Gon had not seen before. "I'll be waiting for you. Here."

"Very well," Qui-Gon nodded, finished dressing, and made his way to the councilroom.

The meeting was surprisingly brief, for he had little to add to Ayana's and Isa's previous report, except for the scraps of information that Xanatos had revealed to him regarding the powerful backer of his cloning operations. Qui-Gon dutifully reported it all and recounted verbatim their final conversation. "He is one with the Force now. I felt his passing."

Yoda nodded, shrewd blue eyes watching his former padawan. "And how feel you now, Qui- Gon?"

"At peace, My Master. It was time. Xan knew it, too."

"Though forgive you he did not?"

"It was only pride and fear that kept him from saying so." The words surprised him as much as anyone else. He hadn't realized he knew this until Yoda had asked. But the gratitude in Xan's eyes had been unmistakable. And no one had compelled Xan to so thoroughly destroy the cloning labs himself; Qui-Gon knew those acts for what they were: an offering of atonement.

"He could have given you more time to get out," Mace grumbled.

"And risk having us disarm his explosives? No. And some small part of him probably hoped I might be injured. He was not completely repentant, by any means."

Plo shook his head, hissing through the breath mask. "Only your padawan could be so complicated, Qui-Gon. I am sorry it had to end so."

"Thank you, my friend."

"And how are you feeling physically, Master Jinn? Recovered?" Adi asked, concern evident in her voice.

"Yes, thank you. But I would request another two tenths off the active field roster to recover my full strength--and to give me time to repair the bond with my padawan."

"Of course. The Healers have already recommended it," Saesee assured him. "If you require any assistance, Master Jinn, I would be happy to help."

"Thank you, Master Tiin. I shall keep your offer in mind. My Masters?"

They dismissed him and Qui-Gon left the council room, though he had not gone far when Mace caught up to him. "Walk with me, Q," he said, and there was an edge to his friend's voice that told Qui-Gon he had not escaped the tongue-lashing after all. They turned for Mace's office and walked there in a less than comfortable silence, the councilor ushering him inside and privacy- locking the door behind them. Qui-Gon waited patiently in the middle of the floor, hands tucked into his sleeves while Mace seated himself behind his desk.

"Oh, sit down you old rogue," he snapped. "I've known you too long to be intimidated by how tall you are. This isn't a pissing contest."

"What is it then?" Qui-Gon responded with his usual infuriating mildness.

"You're lucky it's not a good, swift kick where you sit for treating your padawan the way you did. Do you mind telling me what you were trying to teach Obi-Wan by shutting off your bond and why you didn't mention it when you asked me to look after him?"

"What would you have said if I'd told you?"

"That you were doing the wrong thing."

"And then we would have argued and I would have been delayed and done what I had already decided to do despite the argument and all we would have done is waste time."

"What did you hope to accomplish, Q? And sit down, I said. We're going to be here awhile. You might as well not tax yourself."

Qui-Gon complied, suppressing a sigh, and braced himself for Mace's lecture, though he felt he could probably recite it himself without Windu saying a word.

"Do you know what went on while you were gone?" the councillor continued.

"No. I assumed Obi-Wan would tell me, but he's not been very forthcoming yet."

"Well, allow me to enlighten you." Which Mace proceeded to do, ending with, "Obi-Wan acted very much like you did when Xanatos turned, except that he wasn't actively trying to get himself killed. Is that the effect you were reaching for? 'As the master, so the padawan'? If you were damping the bond, you should have at least told him. Especially after that kind of an argument."

Qui-Gon found himself flushing, something he'd not done in Mace's presence in a long time, at least not from discomfiture. He could well imagine Obi-Wan being deeply hurt by his actions-- didn't have to imagine it at all, for it was evidenced in the weight he'd lost, the hollow eyes, and his coolness.

"How many padawans have you had, Mace?"

"This is not about my--"

Qui-Gon held up a hand. "Humor me, please."

"The one, Depa, as you well know. Why?" Mace snapped.

"The thing you discover when you've had more than one is that each one is very different. What works for one doesn't work for another. One needs only your trust and direction to be disciplined, like Ayana. Another needs the occasional harsh and sometimes physical punishment to let him know you're no one's fool, least of all, his. That was Xan. The third needs kindness and encouragement and much more love than the others to excel. That's Obi-Wan. They each have their weaknesses, as well. Obi-Wan's is his need for acceptance. He's lost some of his independence of thought and action since we've become lovers. He's become more afraid of losing my approval than when he was simply my apprentice." Mace shot his friend an I-told-you- so look but didn't voice the thought. "He needs to learn that he can survive without me as either his master or his lover because in a very short time, I won't be there to tell him he's done well, and that's the thing he fears the most. I would rather he learn that lesson now, when I am still here, than learn it the hard way, when I am gone."

"A harsh way to teach him that," Mace grumbled.

"Better than when I'm dead." Qui-Gon snapped. "I've seen your report on his progress the last halfyear. Despite his depression and illness, he did well, and he got back on his feet and went back to work, with a vengeance. That's the lesson he needed to learn. Is there another way to teach it? The boy's only a year or so away from starting to solo. I don't want him thinking 'What would Master Qui-Gon want me to do?' when he's out in the field alone. That won't keep him alive. And by the Hundred Little Gods, Mace, I want him to *live!"*

There was a rather deafening silence into which his last word rang, and Qui-Gon found he was shaking, whether with fury or fatigue he wasn't certain. Mace watched him with guarded, expressionless eyes as Qui-Gon scrubbed at the stubble of regrowing beard.

"And it was a lesson as much for me as for Obi-Wan," he finished.

"And what were you in such dire need of learning, you old fool?" Mace asked tartly, but with some fondness.

"That I cannot make my apprentice anything but what he is."

Mace opened his mouth with a retort then shut it again, saying nothing and clearly unhappy about doing so. Finally, he growled, "Go away. Force knows I can't change you, either, Qui-Gon. But I still think you owe your padawan an apology."

Mace was probably right. But it wasn't the harshness of this lesson Qui-Gon was sorry for. He said nothing, merely rose and bowed and made his way back to his quarters, where Obi-Wan was waiting, as promised.

The young man was meditating when Qui-Gon came in, kneeling silently in his favorite place near the bookshelves, where--when he opened his eyes--he could see both the view from the balcony and the display of rocks and stones Qui-Gon had given him for his past birthdays. Tonight he had one in his hand, as he sometimes did when finding his center was difficult. Qui- Gon hung up his cloak, removed his boots, and knelt facing his padawan, so close they were nearly knee to knee.

For a moment, Qui-Gon studied his apprentice's drawn features. If all were as it should be, he would be able to tell how deeply Obi-Wan was engrossed in his meditation, and how useful he was finding it, but with their bond broken, there were no indicators other than sight and inference. He seemed peaceful enough, his breathing slow and even, features composed, body relaxed--and yet Qui-Gon did not think he was having a very successful time of it.

He could see the stone in Obi-Wan's hand was not the one he chose when having difficulty meditating. Usually he held the first one he had been given by his master, the one that Qui-Gon's own master had given him when he was a boy, the one that sang with the Force like a living thing, the minerals in it refracting and doubling and focusing any Force energy around it. The one Obi-Wan held now was larger, the size of a fist and so not comfortably held, rough and unpolished granite recently split off from some larger piece. Obi-Wan's thumb moved slowly over one side of it and Qui-Gon knew he was stroking the image of the vine that had been carved there, its roots appearing to split open a natural crack in the surface while its tendrils appeared to hold the whole together. This was the newest stone, the one he had had made some time ago, just after they'd become lovers, and given to Obi-Wan only two days before, Qui-Gon having not been present for his birthday this year. The gift had elicited Obi-Wan's by now almost-ritual response--"Thank you, Master. I shall cherish it."--and little else, not even a sardonic lift of his eyebrow.

Qui-Gon closed his hand over Obi-Wan's and the gift it held. The eyes the young man opened and fixed on him were nearly emerald green tonight--a rare occurrence and indicative of his padawan's mood.

"I know you wished to speak with me, Obi-Wan," he began quietly, "but I would like to say something first. May I?"

Qui-Gon's request confused his apprentice. Masters did not ask their padawans for permission to speak. They said what they liked, when they liked, and the apprentice shut up and paid attention.

"Oh. Yes. Of course, Master," he stammered, and knew then that Qui-Gon had done it to throw him off, confuse his carefully constructed opening gambit. The ploy made him angry and he worked up several possible sarcastic comments while anticipating Qui-Gon's words.

"I've missed you, love," his master said after a little pause. "I want you to know that."

Qui-Gon's simple declaration shoved Obi-Wan's retort right back down his throat. He swallowed it painfully with an audible gulp. Qui-Gon took the stone from his lover's hand and set it aside, then held that hand in his own and ran his other fingers over his padawan's skin, thoroughly absorbed in the texture.

"If you missed me so much, then why did you shut me out?" Obi-Wan blurted, pulling away. "You didn't have to make it harder than it already was."

"Yes, I did, love. For our own good."

"'Our'?" The sarcasm was a bit thicker than he'd intended.

"Yes." Qui-Gon said and fell silent, watching Obi-Wan's face.

A number of emotions passed over it--confusion, a flash of anger, anxiety, uncertainty, and finally, resignation--before he spoke again. "Another lesson, Master?" he asked resentfully.

"Just so, my padawan," Qui-Gon replied and again fell silent.

Determined not to play into Qui-Gon's hands again, Obi-Wan waited and then said, only after some minutes of silence had passed, "Am I to guess what the lesson is, or am I to fold my hands and wait until you choose to fully expound upon it, Master?"

Qui-Gon smiled. "I'd nearly forgotten how sharp your tongue is, Padawan. I can't imagine how."

"I beg your pardon, Master," Obi-Wan said stiffly. "I believe that *is* what started all this." His master was unsurprised to see he looked not at all apologetic.

The older Jedi shook his head. "No, Padawan. If anyone started this, I did. That is why I said it had to be this way for both of us. You were not the only one who needed to learn something from this separation."

"I'm not sure I've learnt anything at all from it," he retorted, the anger he'd been storing up starting to seethe to the surface again.

Qui-Gon reached out and touched the bruised flesh beneath his apprentice's eyes, stroked his thumbs over the cheekbones that had become more prominent in his absence.

"You learned what you're truly afraid of, my love. So did I."

"Of losing you. I knew that already," he retorted.

"No, Padawan. Not really," Qui-Gon shook his head. "You've always known that could happen at any moment of any day, that it will happen eventually."

"It nearly happened this time."

"But it didn't. Let go of it. That fear wasn't what kept you awake, was it?"

"No," Obi-Wan said shortly. "What kept me awake was wondering what in all the Sith hells I'd done for you to cut yourself off from me without any explanation."

"And what did you think you'd done?"

"I didn't know. Been myself, perhaps. Told you the truth," he snapped.

"You did at that. And you were yourself," Qui-Gon agreed. "But I wasn't punishing you, Obi- Wan."

"No? And how should I have known the difference between what felt like punishment and what you meant to be a lesson?"

"Have I ever punished you without telling you what it was for?"

"Not as your padawan. But that's not all I am to you now. Or is it?"

"Have I changed my mind about loving you? No. And I would not be more arbitrary to my lover than to my apprentice. I hope you would know that."

"I'm not sure what I know about you right now, Master," Obi-Wan replied, suddenly feeling very tired and very sad. The conversation hadn't gone the way he'd planned. It hadn't been a reasonable airing of his grievances, a demand for an explanation of Qui-Gon's behavior, a release of his anger--none of those things. Instead, it had made him feel like a resentful child who'd been made to stand in the corner for something he hadn't done, which only made it harder to say what he had done. At some point, he was going to have to tell Qui-Gon he had slept with Bruck--

"Did Mace tell you how long we were lovers?" Qui-Gon asked him, putting him completely off guard again.

"What? No. What's that got to do with--"

"Since we were boys, nearly," Qui-Gon went on. "The first time we slept together, I think we were, oh, seventeen, perhaps. The last time we did, we were both 40. In between, we both had other liaisons, affairs of convenience, but we were together unreservedly for 23 years. We might still be together, as much as Jedi ever are, if not for our own pride and stubbornness and stupidity--and your existence. Did you really think I would just abandon you, Obi-Wan? You're my apprentice, my padawan and all that word encompasses. My friend. My lover. I've missed you more than you can imagine. Did you think I could just stop loving you and throw you away, no matter what you said, or did? Especially when you'd done nothing?"

Obi-Wan was silent for a time, but also a little less sullen when he answered. "You left Master Windu's palm print on the door," he said at last. "Did you leave Xanatos's too?"

"No, love, because he was dangerous, and he hated me. I'm not yet so great a fool as to invite that kind of trouble. But yours will always be there, along with Mace's. I know what kind of man you are. I only needed to remind myself, as you needed to be reminded. It was a harsh lesson, but one we both needed to learn."

Qui-Gon drew in a deep breath and let it out to calm himself. Obi-Wan had never seen his master look ashamed before, but he did now. "Neither the things I did to you the night before I left, nor the way I've been with you since we became lovers have been right. I've failed you both as your lover and as your master--worst of all, that night, when I wanted you to know you were mine--*my* padawan. My property. My territory. My possession. Mine to do with as I chose. Mine to make and mold."

Obi-Wan's master leaned forward and took Obi-Wan's hand again; this time, his padawan did not withdraw it. "And you are not, my love," he murmured. "I do not own you. You are my responsibility, as my padawan, but I do not own you. You have given yourself and your affections to me, as my lover, but I do not own you." He ran a finger across Obi-Wan's lips, down his chin and throat, spread his hand over his lover's chest. "This body and the spirit that moves it belongs to you, to give or withhold, Padawan, to me or anyone else you choose. I had no right to try to take you as I did or to use you as I have. I am sorry, Obi-Wan. Forgive me."

It was nearly impossible for Obi-Wan to keep what he was feeling from his face. How to tell Qui-Gon that it wasn't the possessiveness but the cool detachment, the objectification of his body, that had frightened him? The distinction was so fine he was not sure he understood it himself. He had wanted to be claimed and owned that night, but not treated like something to be used at will without regard. Could Qui-Gon not see that?

No. Of course not. He would not see it if he could not bring himself to trust. That's what was missing between them. Xanatos had nearly destroyed Qui-Gon's ability to do so, and he had done more damage to his master's thin skin on Melida/Daan. And now there was what he had done with Bruck, though he could not make himself see it as another betrayal. At any rate, being so combative wasn't going to help either of them. If there was a disadvantage to having a lover 35 years older than oneself, Obi-Wan thought sourly, it was that he had had so much more time to collect injuries and a history of his own.

Qui-Gon watched his apprentice struggling with several emotions at once, and with trying to keep them from his features, largely unsuccessfully. He was saddened, but not surprised, when anger settled there. The surprise arrived a moment later, when Obi-Wan spoke.

"What did he do to you?" his padawan said in a low, barely controlled voice, his eyes flashing with a fierce protectiveness. "What did Xanatos tell you to make you this way?"

Qui-Gon looked away, amazed at Obi-Wan's perceptiveness, and a little afraid of it. "I won't repeat it," he answered. "Leave it in the past, Padawan."

"Is it truly in the past, Master?"

"Yes, love. He's dead now. Perhaps not one with the Force, but gone."

So, that's what the secretive mission had been. After all this, Obi-Wan was unsurprised. What else could have caused both of them such anguish but Xanatos?

This time it was Obi-Wan who reached out, cupping his master's face between his hands, the new beard shorter but still like rough silk against his palms. "He told you he'd never loved you, didn't he? Not even as his master."

Qui-Gon expected the pain to come flooding in again with the reminder, and closed his eyes against it. Surprisingly, it didn't. It wasn't entirely gone, but it had become nothing more than an ache, the way Obi-Wan's decision to leave him on Melida/Daan had, the way his parting with Mace had. All of it, it seemed, had finally been relegated to the past, where it belonged. Still, all he could do was nod in reply to Obi-Wan's question.

Now Obi-Wan wasn't sure who he was angrier with, Xanatos or his master. "He didn't deserve you," the younger man growled. "Tell me what happened. You've never spoken of it, what happened after Xanatos turned."

"Probably because I've lost much of that time," Qui-Gon said quietly. Again, he was caught in silence, eyes distantly focused on his own past, sadness filling him. "Mace could tell you more than I; he . . . he got me through the meeting with the Council when I returned, where Councilor Tiin had to try to pick what happened out of my mangled memories," he said at last. "Breaking the bond between us injured me somehow. I remember very little of what happened after that, how we managed to quash the war Xanatos started, or even how I got back to Coruscant. I wasn't well for some time afterwards. The Healers were even afraid I'd never be able to form any sort of bond again. Yoda and Ayana had to reactivate our bonds while I was in the bacta tank."

"And yet ours was broken without ill effects." He could hear the hurt in Obi-Wan's words again.

Qui-Gon shook his head. "Not the way I severed the one with Xanatos. I think I must have literally torn his out with the Force, as though uprooting something with my bare hands. There was physical damage from what I did. It doesn't feel the same this time. I never wanted to break our training bond. I hadn't even intended to block it for as long as I did. You know that, don't you?"

"No, Master." Obi-Wan spoke calmly, but there was grief in his voice now, as well. "I didn't know. How could I, when you were so distant and cold and harsh before you left? I didn't even know why you'd gone, or where. I thought that when you came back you would probably find another master for me, that everything had gone wrong between us and you'd changed your mind and decided we couldn't be both lovers and a training pair. I wasn't even sure we'd still be a training pair, let alone lovers, when you came back. If you did. I was beginning to suspect I'd seen the last of you and that you'd simply tell Master Windu to find me another master and then just disappear permanently."

Qui-Gon closed his eyes and rubbed his fingertips heavily against his aching forehead. "I'm sorry you think so little of my ability to face my responsibilities," he said finally, hand dropping away. He opened his eyes again and looked into Obi-Wan's. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. It took me ten years to clean up the mess I left with Xanatos. All I can say is I would not do such a thing. If I thought it best that we part, I would tell you, face to face. I would find you a new master myself and give you over personally, no matter how it hurt me to do so. And it would hurt. Please believe that. But if I thought it were for the best, I would do it. And I would do it as it should be done."

Obi-Wan looked away.

"Is that what you want?" Qui-Gon said after a time. "Shall I find you another master?" He felt sick at the thought. How had he failed so badly again?

The silence that fell between them was thick with anger and hurt and unspoken recriminations. How had they come to this, Qui-Gon wondered. Nothing had gone as he'd thought it would and purging Xanatos from his heart had seemingly changed nothing. Had he hurt Obi-Wan so much that the damage was irreparable? Perhaps he had. Mace was right. He at least owed his apprentice an apology. A real one.

Qui-Gon placed his hands on the floor and bowed, as deeply as he had that night a halfyear ago in the gardens to this own master. "I have wronged you, my padawan. I beg your forgiveness." He pressed his forehead to the floor and stayed there, like some grossly transgressing apprentice.

Obi-Wan was instantly horrified. "Don't. Don't, Qui-Gon. Please," he said a little frantically, pulling his master upright again, holding his shoulders. "Please don't. I don't want that. I don't want you groveling. It's not right. It's, you--you're my master," Obi-Wan sputtered. "It's just not right!"

"What would you have me do, then?" he said wearily.

Obi-Wan said nothing and looked away again, not knowing what to say, or how to tell his master about Bruck. He only knew this was not the time and that it must be done, and soon.

"Perhaps it would be better--" Qui-Gon began, feeling his heart constrict at his apprentice's silence.

"No!" Obi-Wan cried. "No! Do you really think I want that? That I would want to leave you? I just--I don't know how to make it right between us. I only know what I don't want, and that's another master. I want you." He ground at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "What do we do, My Master? There's nothing left. . . ."

"Yes, there is, Padawan. Can't you feel it? The bond is still there. It just needs mending."

"No, I can't feel it. That's what I'm trying to tell you--"

"Hush, love," Qui-Gon touched his lips. "It's there. Shall I show you?"

Hesitantly, Obi-Wan nodded. He was surprised when Qui-Gon took his hand and laid it, not against his forehead, but over his heart, then mirrored the gesture. //You've been looking in the wrong place for it, My Padawan. All bonds are made through the Living Force and it has little to do with the mind. Feel it now?//

Under his palm, Qui-Gon's heart beat strong and easy, minutely rocking his body into Obi-Wan's hand. It wasn't long before the rhythm was echoed in his own heart, his own breath, their bodies linked as their minds were not.

//Trust your feelings, Padawan.//

For a moment, there was a brief pulse of pain between them, pain and love and fear, that seemed to bind them together. But even as they reached for it, the bond slipped their grasp, guttered, and faded. The two of them opened their eyes and to see twin wells of identical hurt reflected back at them. His apprentice hid his face in his hands.

Obi-Wan seemed parsecs away from him now, too distant to reach, too hurt to reach out himself. Devastated, Qui-Gon slumped back on his heels. Gods, maybe Mace had been right and he'd gone too far. There seemed no way to rectify it if he had; the Jedi had no prescription, no ceremonies, no rituals for restoring broken bonds, only for creating them new and severing them. Well, that was not the only source to look to. Force knew their own home planet had enough ritual for any three civilizations.

Qui-Gon reached over and pulled his apprentice's hands from his face. "Obi-Wan, there is a way for us to rebuild this," he said. "One our ancestors knew. But it will not be easy, for either of us."

Obi-Wan turned the lights down until the only glow in the room was the faint illumination of late afternoon and the flame of the oil lamp dancing on the small table beside their meditation mats. Then he knelt on his mat, watching as Qui-Gon laid out the last of the objects the rite required. His master knelt across from him on his own mat with a beautiful lacquered box of green and gold that he set beside the table, and from which he lifted, one by one, several brushes, a glass bottle of deep blue ink, a jar of powdered color, and finally, the blades themselves.

This wasn't a ritual with which Obi-Wan had been familiar before last night. Though they came from the same home world, he knew far less about its culture than his master did, which was odd, considering Qui-Gon was estranged from his own family and he had a warm relationship with his. But on his few visits to see them, they had had better things to do than teach him custom and protocol. Qui-Gon, coming from a family even more deeply bound by it than his own, had learned it the hard way shortly after his own knighting when he had been sent--summoned, in fact--to his home to officially denounce his claims to inheritance rights. He had spent a quarter there, ritually ignored by his family, to whom he was a stranger, spoken to only by the servants and droids and retainers whose duty it was to school him in his House's history and rituals so that he might be fully aware of what he was being "asked" to give up. He had learned his calligraphy there, and steeped himself in his world's culture, and was probably, in some ways, more deeply Dannoran than one who had grown up there.

Qui-Gon touched a cone of incense to the lamp's flame and placed it in a holder. As the air began to fill with the scent of trees and spice, Qui-Gon bowed deeply to his padawan. Obi-Wan returned it. When they rose again, Qui-Gon took a scroll of paper from a plain leather case and unrolled it on the floor between them, weighting it with four of the stones he had given his apprentice.

Obi-Wan had been thirteen for only a few tenths when they last sat this way, Qui-Gon formally acknowledging the bond that had grown between them. Obi-Wan had watched as his new master had written out the Master and Padawan's Oaths in careful, black brush strokes on heavy white paper, dried them with a sprinkling of sand, and signed his own name to the bottom of the document in green and gold ink in the elaborate characters of High Danjii and, more prosaically, in Basic. With a far less practiced hand, Obi-Wan had appended his name in blue. That was the first time. They had each appended their signatures a second time when Qui-Gon had formally taken Obi-Wan back as his apprentice after their parting on Melida/Daan. Two sets of signatures were unprecedented enough; seldom was an apprentice allowed to return to his master after such a break in their relationship, but at least there had still been a bond between them then. And now there would be a third set.

The scroll lay unrolled between them, as bright as the day it was carefully rolled up and put away, but there was no bond, nothing to acknowledge except the hurt that had grown in that absence. Obi-Wan had sworn to Qui-Gon his utter loyalty and obedience as his master had sworn to him to instruct him and care for his well-being. Both had gone beyond the bare requirements of the oaths in loving one another and only Obi-Wan had broken its technicalities in a youthful mistake, and yet both felt its sundering now as a testament to their failure to keep those oaths in a way neither ever had before.

"Do you understand what we're doing here, My Padawan?"

"Yes, My Master," Obi-Wan answered, face expressionless.

They had discussed how the bond might be renewed--and whether it should be--until late into the previous night, and settled on this: an archaic ceremony from their homeworld's past in which a warlord tattooed his mark of ownership into his warriors' flesh. Their version would differ from the original ritual in that Obi-Wan would instead carve the Danjii characters for passion and serenity into his master's shoulders, leaving raised welts instead of tattoos, reminding him, he said, of his duties to his padawan and lover. Like the tattooing it would be done without anesthetics or releasing the pain to the Force. Obi-Wan had not agreed entirely with Qui-Gon's method, but could find no solid objection to his theory that the first bond had forged itself in need and danger and had been broken in pain and could, perhaps, be reforged the same way.

They had parted ways again, late last night, each to his own bed, and then Obi-Wan had spent the following morning practicing his calligraphy. In the early afternoon, Qui-Gon had taught him how to use the vibroblades and had him practice on thick-rind fruits. When his master was satisfied with his competency, they had sat down to meditate until it was time. Afterwards, they would each sign the scroll again.

Now, with night falling, leaving their rooms in twilit shadow, Qui-Gon removed his outer and undertunic and turned away from his apprentice with his back to the light. In the soft glow of the oil lamps, the older Jedi's skin was a relief map of previous missions and the injuries collected during them. *So many,* Obi-Wan thought, running one hand lightly over scars from energy weapons; badly healed cuts from shrapnel, projectiles and falls; and now the wide swath of burned and still-tender skin that ran like spilled acid from his shoulder down to his waist. Obi- Wan knelt behind him in his own best tunic, taking up the brush and carefully drawing the Danjii character for passion on his master's left shoulder. The ink was a deep blue and would stain the skin for a long time, so Obi-Wan was very mindful of the task. His calligraphy was not so fine or elaborate as Qui-Gon's but had its own simple beauty against the pale skin. The older Jedi shivered a little under the tickle of the brush. Carefully, Obi-Wan drew the character for serenity on his other shoulder. When he was done, he kissed the column of spine between them and sat back.

"I don't like doing this, My Master. You've so many scars already, and this one's so fresh." He touched the newly healed burns again with gentle fingertips, making Qui-Gon flinch away slightly. "Must I? Is there no other way?"

"We've discussed this, Padawan. We're doing what I think best."

"Yes, My Master," Obi-Wan replied unhappily.

They fell silent, waiting for the ink to dry thoroughly before Obi-Wan sprayed antiseptic over the fresh marks. Then it was time. He took up the fine vibroblade and felt it stir to life at his touch, like some bloodthirsty little animal. Qui-Gon's skin had gone cold beneath his fingers as he pulled blood away from the area in preparation for the removal of several layers of skin. "When you're ready, Padawan," he said calmly.

Obi-Wan paused with the blade just above Qui-Gon's skin, feeling vaguely queasy and very wrong. "I can't do this, Master," he said, putting the blade down again. His voice was soft but full of new-found conviction. "I can't hurt you this way. I won't."

"If you cannot bear it as ceremony, then think of it as punishment, My Padawan."

"Worse," he replied grimly. "Would you punish me this way?"

"I would not need to, Obi-Wan. You are my responsibility and I would never let you take an action that required such drastic punishment. That, my young apprentice, is the privilege of masters and renegades. In retrospect, I'm not certain Mace wasn't right calling me an old rogue."

"And this is your atonement?"

"Is it not enough?"

Obi-Wan leaned forward and laid his cheek against Qui-Gon's back between the two painted characters. "Too much," he whispered. "Far too much."

"No, My Padawan," Qui-Gon corrected. "I fear it is far too little."

"Perhaps not for your padawan, but more than enough for your lover." Obi-Wan's arms slipped around him, hands coming to rest against his bare chest.

"I wondered whether I still had one," Qui-Gon said heavily.

"And I," Obi-Wan choked, then drew a deep breath and leaned back again. "Qui, turn around," he said, sounding grim and determined. "Please. There should be no secrets between us, and I've something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you last night, if I'd been able to find a way and a time for it."

Qui-Gon turned and faced his apprentice, features expressionless as only a Jedi Master's could be. Obi-Wan drew a deep breath, bowed, and pressed his forehead to the floor. "I've wronged you, My Master," he said, his voice a little muffled against the mat but clear and strong. "I've been disloyal to you by sleeping with another."

Qui-Gon felt his heart jolt for just a moment then return to its usual rhythm.

"With whom?" He managed to sound much more detached than he felt.

"Padawan Bruck Chun, My Master," Obi-Wan answered with his face still to the floor.

"With Bruck Chun?" Qui-Gon couldn't keep the surprise from his voice. "The same young man whose collarbone you broke not so long ago?" He urged Obi-Wan back onto his heels again, needing to see his face, to see what this meant to his apprentice, to the young man who'd been his lover, whom he hoped would be again.

"Yes, My Master." Obi-Wan's expression was as fathomless as his own, but his body was tensed for punishment of whatever sort Qui-Gon decided he deserved.

"Tell me. All of it," he said quietly, feeling--what? He didn't know.

Obi-Wan was amazingly composed, describing his growing friendship with the other young man as though giving a progress report on his studies or a routine mission. The only difference was that he could not meet Qui-Gon's eyes. His account was neither too detailed nor prurient but it lacked emotional content as well, and that was what Qui-Gon wanted most to know.

"Why did you sleep with him, Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon inquired, feeling a strange sense of dislocation, of his own wrongness, hearing himself ask such a thing.

"It, it seemed the thing to do, at the time, My Master." Obi-Wan at least had the grace to color at his answer.

"Yes, but why? What were you seeking?"

The younger man didn't answer right away, but neither did he try to evade the question. One thing Qui-Gon could always count on with his apprentice was a brutal self-honesty."I thought this might be the root of the problems between us--that Bruck had been afraid of wanting me and that this might seal the peace that had grown between us." Obi-Wan said at last, sounding both troubled and grave. "It was also a way of acknowledging his apology and thanking him for the company that evening and for the kindness of helping take care of me when I was ill. And I--" He faltered, looking up at Qui-Gon and then away again, visibly shamed. "I wanted the comfort."

"I see," Qui-Gon said faintly, looking away, still trying to determine how he felt. Numb, at the moment, apparently. He did not feel gutted as he had when Obi-Wan had left him on Melida/Daan, nor when Xanatos had turned on him. He felt, instead, relieved, and did not understand why. He and Mace had slept with others when they were lovers without hurting each other, but not until they were both knights and understood that any kind of permanent claim on each other was impossible. But he and Obi-Wan still had some time to be exclusive together, before his padawan's knighting. Qui-Gon searched his feelings and the Force, and could feel only rightness and peace. It was not quite the outcome to this exercise that he had expected, but it was certainly not the wrong one.

"I never wanted to hurt you, My Master," Obi-Wan said into Qui-Gon's continuing silence.

"Did you think it would not?" His voice should have been sharp with pain, but it wasn't. It was merely a neutral question, a question any teacher might ask.

"No. I knew on some level that it would. But that wasn't the purpose."

Qui-Gon reached out to run his fingers down his padawan's braid. A short stub barely reaching below his ear when Qui-Gon had plaited it for the first time, it had grown nearly to his waist in their years together. The hair was silken under his fingers, the color of gold reflecting firelight. "I never intended to hurt you either, Obi-Wan, by shielding against our bond. I never meant it to be broken this way. And yet it was broken and I did hurt you, terribly."

"You did what you thought best, My Master," Obi-Wan countered. "You were teaching me to face what I feared most. As you did. I understand that now."

"And you did what you thought best at the time. You achieved the results you were looking for. You've become friends, and lovers, with a former enemy," he concluded. "An admirable accomplishment."

"No, not lovers. Not exactly," Obi-Wan said slowly.

"You feel nothing for him?"

"Not--"

"Search your feelings, Obi-Wan. Be true to them, whatever the price," Qui-Gon cautioned, his own heart suddenly thumping painfully.

"Not what I feel for you," his apprentice insisted earnestly. "I care for him. I don't think I love him. Not the way I love you. I don't think I can love anyone but you that way."

"Does Bruck know this?"

"Yes. I told him I couldn't promise him anything. We . . . negotiated."

Qui-Gon dropped the braid and sat back on his heels, looking into his padawan's eyes. "What do you want now, Obi-Wan?"

"Master?" He seemed not to understand the question.

"Would you continue as we were? Do we cease being lovers? Do we cease being master and apprentice? Would you prefer another master, another lover?"

"Master! We discussed this last night--"

"Yes, Obi-Wan, and you were less than completely honest with me then."

The younger man jerked back as though flinching from a blow and bit his lip, looking away. "You're right, of course, My Master. I wasn't honest. Forgive me. I lacked the courage then." He turned his gaze back to Qui-Gon's, meeting it squarely. "That doesn't change the truthfulness of what I said last night, however. My feelings are no different. I want no other master. I desire no other lover. If you will still have me."

Qui-Gon's heart jumped again, this time for a completely different reason. He knew what he felt now, knew he had only been bracing himself against the last unbearable blow he could imagine, that Obi-Wan might reject him, however much he might deserve it. Now, he reached out to his padawan and lover, cupping the younger man's face between his hands, drawing him near, leaning forward to meet him.

"Padawan or lover, I would have no other," he whispered, pressing his mouth to the warmth and softness of Obi-Wan's. It came alive beneath that touch, opening, tongue darting out to pierce his own and take possession of the territory he had thought lost. Qui-Gon soon turned the invasion back upon his lover, tasting and exploring. The kiss went back and forth between them, and they devoured one another like beggars set before a feast until both were breathless, but still hungry for more.

Obi-Wan leaned back finally and looked over at the table beside them holding Qui-Gon's brushes and blades. "I've hurt you enough. I won't do this. I won't punish you, Qui-Gon." He looked up suddenly into his master's eyes, as though the thought had just struck him. "Do it to me instead. Mark me. Remind me who I belong to."

"You belong to yourself, Padawan. I am the one who needs to remember that."

"Then let it be my body that reminds you. You'll see it each time we make love."

Qui-Gon kept his face carefully neutral, considering the idea, uncertain of its efficacy, not liking the implications of it, either. Choosing to do such a thing to himself was one thing; marking his padawan so was yet again another, whether the pain were used to rebuild their bond or not. There would be hell to pay with the Council for it, at the very least.

"It was my need that built our bond the first time, Master. Let it be my need again," Obi-Wan pleaded.

"It's a painful process, Padawan. My control is better than yours."

"Then I shall learn something tonight, as well. Think of it as a training exercise. Besides," one side of Obi-Wan's mouth lifted in the sly half-smile Qui-Gon loved, "you're the better calligrapher. And you know what you're doing with the blades. Better art than maiming."

"You're absolutely certain?"

"Yes."

"Once we start there will be no stopping," Qui-Gon warned.

"I understand, My Master," Obi-Wan said with perfect serenity, having obviously made up his mind.

Qui-Gon hesitated only a short moment. "Very well, Padawan. Turn around."

His master helped Obi-Wan remove his undertunic, laying it aside as though it were something precious. Then he began to kiss his way down Obi-Wan's spine until he reached the last patch of bare skin above his pants. "I love you," he whispered, so quietly that Obi-Wan almost did not hear him, "more than you can possibly imagine." He sat up and ran his large hands over his lover's back--completely unscarred, unlike his own--from shoulders to waist in a soothing caress until the tension began to flow out of Obi-Wan in an almost visible wave. When he was done, his apprentice sat at ease before him, his back straight but not stiff or tense.

Qui-Gon picked up his brush and began.

"I, Qui-Gon Jinn, Jedi Master Third Degree, do take as my padawan learner Ben-Zhao Lars, also known as Obi-Wan Kenobi, ninetieth initiate of House Kenobi . . ."

Qui-Gon recited the words of the Master's Oath with all the gravity befitting the seriousness of the vows, pacing their cadence to the stroke of the brush across Obi-Wan's back until it was almost poetry. The first time those words had been said, Obi-Wan had felt his master's affection and respect in both their growing bond and the inflection of the words themselves, and had wrapped himself in the warmth he heard there. Now there was something deeper than just affection and stronger than respect, and a warmth they had not had the first time the bond had begun to flow between them. Obi-Wan sensed Qui-Gon reaching out to him and flung his shields wide, releasing his fears and the hurt they had done each other into the Force, feeling a great burden lifting from his heart as he did so. He heard Qui-Gon sigh gently and felt him do the same.

The drawing of the characters took longer than Obi-Wan anticipated, or perhaps it only seemed longer. At least he hadn't remembered his own handiwork taking so long. But Qui-Gon was, indeed, the better calligrapher and more elaborate than was usual. Where most Danjii calligraphers favored the stark simplicity that Obi-Wan had learned, Qui-Gon preferred to embellish his work so each character became a work of art in itself. He knew that whatever else it was, the marks Qui-Gon left on him would be beautiful.

The oath was not long, but Qui-Gon made it last until the final brushstroke had been made on his skin. He blew across Obi-Wan's skin to help dry the ink, then rubbed his arms to warm the gooseflesh it raised. The contact of Qui-Gon's hands was electric, arcing through his nerves to ground in his groin.

"Oh, gods, Qui--touch me," Obi-Wan moaned, suddenly barely able to form thoughts. His entire body became an erogenous zone under Qui-Gon's hands.

"With pleasure, my love," his master's voice, graveled with desire, rumbled in his ear. Qui-Gon's fingers raked up over his ribs, found his nipples and circled them, teasing, until Obi-Wan was arching against those maddening hands, seeking them. Teeth nipped along the top of his shoulder, not enough to bruise or mark, but playfully, as calloused thumbs finally chafed his nipples until they were hard, sensitive nubs and Obi-Wan was panting.

"Touch me . . ." Obi-Wan begged again, on fire. "Make it right."

Qui-Gon rocked them both upright onto their knees and moved behind him, his hands flowing down the slim, muscular torso to the top of Obi-Wan's pants, unfastening them, and slid inside until the thumbs hooked over the waistband. With a smooth motion they were around his knees then magically under them and slithering over his calves and ankles and being whisked off his feet. His cock sprang free and arched eagerly against his stomach, throbbing, fluid already leaking from it in a steady stream, so ready was he. Qui-Gon's hand found him, closed around him, his thumb caressing the crown, sliding beneath his foreskin, slicking him with his own pre- cum. He felt the bond flare up again between them, faint and sputtering like a fire in the rain, and heard himself groan like the mortally wounded, Qui-Gon echoing it. "So long. Too long." One kind of need had built their bond the first time; another would rebuild it now.

"Too long," Qui-Gon agreed, licking his ear, breath hot against him. "Tell me what you want, My Padawan," he murmured, holding Obi-Wan to him and pinching one nipple, still-clothed hips rotating against his bare ass, Qui-Gon's arousal obvious beneath the cloth. They moved in a sinuous, silent dance, punctuated only by Obi-Wan's sharp panting for several moments before he found his voice again.

"Want you, My Master," he gasped, hands reaching back to pull Qui-Gon tighter against him. "I want to know I belong to you. Always."

Qui-Gon rolled his hips into Obi-Wan's one more time, then pressed him once more into the ritual bow, hands at either side of his head, forehead to the floor, hips just above his heels. "Stay there, My Padawan. Wait for me."

"Yes, My Master," Obi-Wan panted, his heart pounding, pounding, breath short in his lungs.

It seemed an interminable time before Qui-Gon returned, their slowly growing bond fragile enough yet that even a small distance weakened it. "Hurry, My Master," Obi-Wan pleaded.

"A moment only, My Padawan," Qui-Gon replied, equally naked, and knelt not behind but before him, knees spread wide on either side of him. "Move in a little closer, as you would if--Ah, yes," Qui-Gon hissed as Obi-Wan's mouth closed eagerly over the crown of his stiff cock. "Wait, love, wait," he murmured, placing Obi-Wan's arms on either side of his thighs and moving his head away. "Just lay your cheek there for a moment. You need to know what this feels like before we begin." Qui-Gon took up the vibroblade again and it whirred very near Obi-Wan's ear, making him shiver. "Concentrate on drawing the blood out of the capillaries here," his master said, defining an elliptical area between his apprentice's shoulders. "Brace yourself against my legs. Tell me when you're ready, Padawan."

A few minutes later, Obi-Wan rubbed his cheek against Qui-Gon's thigh and said quietly, "I'm ready, My Master."

"Relax into it," Qui-Gon instructed, feathering the blade down one of the shorter strokes in the character at the top of his spine. Obi-Wan hissed but didn't move as the air came down on the raw wound like acid. The word "excruciating" came to mind almost immediately, followed quickly by any number of synonyms.

"Can you bear it, Padawan?" his master asked, lifting the blade away.

"Yes, My Master," Obi-Wan panted, his voice clear and strong.

"Can you take me in your mouth, can you pleasure me, and still bear it?"

Obi-Wan half lifted himself from Qui-Gon's lap and looked up at him with widened, astonished eyes, pain almost forgotten.

"There's no shame if you say no, Padawan. Better to be truthful than wrong," he said with a crooked smile.

"Oh, My Master," Obi-Wan whispered, stunned at this unexpected display of Qui-Gon's trust in him. "Oh, yes. I can bear it. Yes. Yes." And that talented mouth closed over him, tongue probing beneath his foreskin, swirling over the crown as Obi-Wan took Qui-Gon's cock in hand and braced his forearms on his master's legs.

It was all Qui-Gon could do not to give himself up to the jolts of pleasure that were swiftly building towards climax in him.

"Don't move, Padawan," he murmured, drawing a deep breath, the blade springing to life in his hand again. He stroked the cool skin as Obi-Wan's tongue worked his cock, drawing the blade across the painted strokes. He felt Obi-Wan panting around his cock briefly and then his lips closed again and started to suck, lazily at first and then with more force as the blade continued to flay the skin on his back. "Oh, love," he murmured, lifting the blade away and closing his eyes briefly. Enveloped in that wet heat, Obi-Wan's tongue and lips and teeth playing him--it was almost too much. His apprentice seemed to sense it and stopped until Qui-Gon gained his center and the blade touched Obi-Wan's skin again. Pain flowered in both of them, then ecstasy, shifting quickly from one to the other until they seemed indistinguishable.

Each concentrated on the other and, as they did so, their bond wove together again, strand by strand, until Qui-Gon was more aware of the pain on his back and Obi-Wan of the bright, turgid arousal in his groin. Qui-Gon worked carefully, attending to the fine strokes and details of the character, shaping it precisely as it had been drawn on Obi-Wan's skin, feeling every movement of the blade as a wash of agony mingled with the exquisite heat and pressure and delicate touches in his groin, while his apprentice found the most sensitive spots on his cock and worked his tongue and lips there, only his mouth moving, nibbling, sucking, licking as his own cock quivered and streamed with each lash of the blade against his pale skin.

"Brace yourself," Qui-Gon said finally, shutting off the blade "This will hurt worse." He sprayed a fine mist of antiseptic across the raw wounds and nearly bucked as Obi-Wan took him deeply in and swallowed. For a moment, he felt a painful ecstasy that pushed him near the brink, knew Obi-Wan felt the same.

Gently, he lifted Obi-Wan away before either of them could come and let his apprentice lie across his lap as he dusted the fine, deep blue powder over the sterilized wounds, then lay his hands just above them, sending a gentle wash of the Force into them and healing them. The keloids rose in fine-edged welts from Obi-Wan's pale back, the angry red swelling of the wounds fading and subsiding as they healed. Qui-Gon blotted his back, brushed the remaining powder back into its container, and wiped the skin. Obi-Wan sighed and sank against him. Their bond throbbed like another wound between them, a little painful and not quite healed, but undeniably stronger.

His apprentice lay panting across his legs, face sheened in sweat. Qui-Gon stroked his hair. He was painfully hard, achingly aroused and wanted nothing more than to plunge into his lover's body.

"All right, love?" he asked instead.

Obi-Wan nodded, drawing in a deep breath. "Which one was that?"

"Serenity."

"Appropriately enough. I want you inside me this time," Obi-Wan said fiercely. Qui-Gon's cock twitched in response to the tone. "I want to feel you fucking me while you carve the character for passion into my body."

"Oh gods love," Qui-Gon whispered, wondering if he could do it. Wondering how he could not.

"Please, Qui. Make it right," Obi-Wan begged.

"Very well, love."

Obi-Wan sat back on his knees as Qui-Gon moved behind him then urged him downward again into the ritual posture. His master's hands closed over his ass, stroking and kneading, then urged his hips upward into a sharper angle. Blunt thumbs spread his cheeks, opened him, and then a hot tongue licked over the underside of his balls, up his perineum, and over the puckered muscle above it. Obi-Wan gasped and writhed, pushing back against the velvet chafe of Qui-Gon's new beard and the small, hard, wet muscle piercing him, wriggling inside him. Qui-Gon licked and laved and circled and probed, making him moan and beg. He was breathing so hard that his vision was red around the edges and his limbs trembled.

"Please, Master, please, please, Oh, gods, Qui-Gon, please, now, hurry, oh, please, want you inside me, please . . ." he babbled, ribs heaving.

In response, the tongue retreated and a slick finger drove inside him without warning. Obi-Wan cried out and bucked back against it, hard. Qui-Gon's other hand stroked down the furrow of his backbone, part of it now overlaid with the blue characters, one raised and one flat, and circled in the small of his back while his prostate was fingered deftly, sending bursts of pleasure through his groin and up his spine.

"More!" Obi-Wan cried. "More! All of you."

He felt Qui-Gon move up closer behind him, powerful thighs spreading him, knees brushing his balls, Qui-Gon's slickened cock sliding first against the cleft of his ass, then between his legs and along his perineum, rubbing there, nudging his balls. "Please," he whimpered. "Please. Want you inside."

Two slick fingers stroked his opening, probed inside for a moment, stretching, and withdrew, and then the head of Qui-Gon's cock was resting against him, pushing gently inward, opening the tightness more easily than either expected. Obi-Wan moaned and flailed back against that hard shaft as it sank into him. There was no pain, no burning, only a deep sense of rightness and fulfillment that made him sob with relief. Qui-Gon held his hips and eased inside him gently and slowly, where Obi-Wan would have impaled himself in a single hard thrust.

When Qui-Gon was fully sheathed in him, they stopped for a moment, Obi-Wan quivering and gasping, Qui-Gon holding him still and gentling him as he would a high-strung animal. His master put his hands on Obi-Wan's shoulders and rubbed his thumbs over the nape of his neck very gently then leaned forward and kissed it. "We'll make it right again, my heart. Are you ready?"

"Yes, My Master," Obi-Wan panted, catching one of Qui-Gon's hands and kissing the calloused palm.

Qui-Gon stroked his fingers down Obi-Wan's braid when the hand was released. "Recite the Oath slowly. You must hold yourself perfectly still." Again, he heard the blade whir to hungry life.

"Yes, My Master. I, Obi-Wan Kenobi, born Ben-Zhao Lars, ninetieth Jedi Initiate of House Kenobi, accept Qui-Gon Jinn as my mas--" The blade touched his skin again. "Master--" he went on with a gasp, almost as though it were an exclamation. It was the last time he faltered in the recitation. He concentrated instead, on the Oath itself, the vows of obedience and loyalty unto death, on feeling the meaning of the words and of the consequences of giving that unquestioning fealty to the man who was hurting him so at this very moment, whose cock filled him and gave him such pleasure. Both the pain and the pleasure gave a new weight to those words that they had not had when he was thirteen and so grossly inexperienced from his sheltered life in the Temple. He had paid for those words in the last seven years with blood and exhaustion, with brief moments of fear and longer ones of self-doubt, with the loss of his heart and his innocence.

And he had gained so much more in return.

He felt Qui-Gon reaching out to him again and fought his way past the pain and into the pleasure to meet him. A wave of warmth and love washed over him and the pain seemed to lessen, becoming a pleasant agony, an excruciating ecstasy. As he continued reciting the oath, Qui-Gon acknowledged each promise silently with affirmation and acceptance, opening his shields and rebuilding the remaining severed links between them, moving slowly inside him between each stroke of the blade. Obi-Wan met him, proffering his own emotions and needs, weaving the strands of thought and feeling his master offered into what he intended to be a new, unbreakable bond between them.

He had thought the pain would be unbearable but, mingled as it was with the joy of having Qui- Gon's cock in him, arousing him at the same time, it seemed much less now, and he thought he had suffered worse with injuries in the field and on the training floor. He finished reciting the oath just before Qui-Gon finished the last stroke on the last character. It was so good to feel his master's presence in his mind and heart again.

Qui-Gon sprayed the antiseptic across his raw back, then grasped his hips and thrust into him, hard, once, twice, three times as the cool mist fell across his back and turned within the instant to fire. He heard himself cry out as the pain and ecstasy blended into one another and became indistinguishable.

"Shhh, love," Qui-Gon soothed, stroking large, warm hands up his back and down his arms, avoiding the wounds. "It's almost over. Just hold still for a bit longer, can you?"

Obi-Wan took several deep breaths before answering, embracing the pain then letting it go into the Force, feeling it fade as he did so. "Yes, Master. I--I'm fine." Tension drained out of his shoulders and belly and places he hadn't been aware it had settled.

"Very good, Padawan." Milder stinging followed, along with the somewhat itchy sensation of fine particles raining across his skin, before he felt his master bring the Force to bear on the open wounds again. As they healed beneath Qui-Gon's hands, Obi-Wan felt their bond fusing further, emotions and thoughts flowing more openly between them than they had in a halfyear. It was still not complete, but he was once again acutely aware of Qui-Gon's presence--the scent of his skin, the touch of his hands, the soft sussuration of his breath and whisper of his hair, and of his love streaming through their bond.

A few minutes later, his master wiped his back down with a soft, damp cloth and stroked his hands between his shoulders, where there was now nothing more than the tingling of the Force and a sort of phantom ache to mark the wounds. Blunt fingers traced the lines of the characters with a feather-light touch and Obi-Wan shivered under them, wanting to feel them other places on his body. Their renewed bond pulsed warmly between them, full of relief and love and desire.

"Master--" Obi-Wan said hoarsely.

"Yes, my love?" Qui-Gon replied gently, lips blazing a trail of warmth across the top of his shoulders and over the nape of neck. His hot tongue licked over the newly raised welts; Obi-Wan tasted his own sweat and the copper of blood through their reforged bond. It was almost unbearably erotic.

Qui-Gon pulled the younger man out of his bow and up against him so that Obi-Wan sat astride his lap, impaled there, shaking and whining with a desperation that both excited and saddened his master. So much need and so much love in this bundle of Living Force. So much fear of loss. "Shhhh, my love," he soothed. "Hush."

"More, Qui!" Obi-Wan cried.

"Hush, love. I'm right here." He rocked up a little inside his lover to remind Obi-Wan of his presence and the younger man arched against him, throwing his head back against Qui-Gon's shoulder with a guttural moan, hands scrabbling in his hair, clenching there, pulling him down until their mouths met and locked. Obi-Wan's tongue thrust between his lips like a fuel-soaked torch into fire, igniting the coals of desire he was nurturing into hot, bright lust that threatened to scorch them both. He broke the kiss with a gasp, loosened Obi-Wan's fingers from his hair and held the younger man to him hard, heart pounding.

"Slowly, slowly, my love, if we're to rebuild this bond to last. Heat it slowly and quench it quickly."

Qui-Gon entwined his lover's hand with his own around Obi-Wan's cock and trapped the other against the younger man's chest with his own larger hand, reaching out with the Force to sooth and gentle his eager, trembling lover. His cock enveloped by the tight, hot silk of his lover's body, Qui-Gon wondered not for the first time at Obi-Wan's trust in him, to be so open and vulnerable with him still after all he had put the younger man through. He seemed to want nothing more than to give himself, let his body be used, and to take pleasure in the using. Such a gift. Qui-Gon doubted both his worthiness of it and ability to repay it. He could only take it and cherish it.

Stroking his thumbs over the hands entwined with his own, he made sure they stayed perfectly still, kneeling with Obi-Wan over his lap, straddling his thighs. "Breathe into it, my love," he said quietly, joy filling him, reaching out to Obi-Wan with it.

His senses were wide open now, as he felt Obi-Wan's were, each of them heightened to a level that was almost uncomfortable, if not exactly painful, the bond annealing between them. Their musk in the air was a heady scent, mingling with the incense still burning in its holder. The oil lamp cast only a soft glow around them, filling the room with shadows, but the colors of the rug, the spray of flowers against one wall, the ceremonial scroll on another seemed just as vivid to Qui-Gon as if it were bright daylight. He could hear the faint noise of Coruscant's life pulsing around them, the soft panting of his partner's breath, and Obi-Wan's heart beating with his own, feel it rocking them together as the younger man calmed himself.

Qui-Gon stroked his thumb over the weeping crown of Obi-Wan's hard cock, drawing a gasp from his partner. "Qui . . ." A moan.

"Serenity, Obi-Wan. Passion at one end, serenity at the other. Bring them both together in the moment."

Qui-Gon felt his lover sigh gently, frustrated but willing to follow his lead, and rubbed his cheek between Obi-Wan's shoulders, over the new marks, contentment filling him. In a few moments, their breathing synchronized, that and their heartbeats becoming their only movements. A kind of heightened peace and clarity settled over both of them as they closed their eyes, seeing one another through the flames of desire, Qui-Gon teaching Obi-Wan the patience of the smolder and the slow burn.

They sat that way for a long time on the meditation mat, hours, it seemed, the room growing dark around them but for the lamplight, Qui-Gon occasionally rocking up into his lover, kissing his neck or shoulder, Obi-Wan leaning back and forcing him deeper, twisting to taste his mouth, their hands together slowly stroking and squeezing the younger man's cock. Obi-Wan moved Qui-Gon's other hand over his heart, so Qui-Gon's fingers lightly stroked his nipple. After a time, the trembling in Obi-Wan's body stilled, until only his heartbeat and erection betrayed his arousal. He sank back against Qui-Gon, resting against his shoulder, breathing deeply and slowly as though in meditation, the cadence matching his master's. When their hearts began to beat together, Qui-Gon knew it was time.

He opened up his senses, let Obi-Wan feel what he was feeling, and thrust up hard into the younger man, holding Obi-Wan against him, driving himself deeper, forcing a gasp from both of them. Obi-Wan ground against him and kissed up along his jaw, opening himself and his perceptions up like an offering.

By unspoken agreement they began to rock together, falling into rhythm as they had fallen into breathing together. Hands moved together on Obi-Wan's cock, other hands tightened their grip on each other, clasping wrists, holding their shifting, sweat-slick bodies together as one. Gradually, the pace built and their breathing became a harsh series of gasps, still together, building to cries as they moved, writhed against each other. The tension seemed almost unbearable, building higher thrust by thrust, creeping like a slow fuse through arms and legs and torsos, up the spine from the groin, the flame almost visible between them. Obi-Wan felt scorched, raw with the need for release, but never closer to Qui-Gon than at this moment, their bond a living, shining thing between them.

They came together, shouting each other's names, arced and rigid at the apex of a lunge, reaching, shaking and gasping like two drowning men, quenched yet still hot and pliant. It seemed to go on for hours, that moment of exquisite sensation stretching into a lifetime of pleasure as they pumped out their seed together, Qui-Gon into his lover, Obi-Wan into their joined hands, as though Qui-Gon were coming through him. Obi-Wan thought it would never end, but it did, and they sank down together again, spooned side by side on the meditation mat, still breathing together, but more harshly now. Even that gradually slowed and separated as the rhythm broke apart and they were only themselves once more. Qui-Gon rubbed his semen-sticky hand into the skin of Obi-Wan's hip and his lover reached back to do the same but found it caught and moved to his own belly until he was redolent with the scent of his own cum.

After a moment, Obi-Wan turned and nestled into Qui-Gon's arms, inhaling the mingled scents of sweat and semen and his master's skin with sleepy pleasure, feeling the full bond pulsing between them. He was whole again. They were whole.

Qui-Gon tipped his chin up and kissed him, tongue lapping his lips, sliding between them, hands gliding over his shoulders. He found himself rolled onto his back, Qui-Gon sliding down his body, stopping to lick him clean. It was an exquisite sensation, that smooth, hot tongue gliding in long, slow sweeps over his hip and stomach, delving into his navel, curling around his cock, sliding between his foreskin and the crown to find every last bit of his essence. He stretched and sighed beneath it until Qui-Gon turned him again and licked his own cum from the stretched opening and came back to kiss him again, bringing him the mingled tastes of their sex, their seed, and his own mouth, while his fingers combed through the stiffened nest of curls around his shaft.

"We're not done yet," he murmured, letting go Obi-Wan's mouth and beginning to stroke him again. He felt himself thicken and harden in Qui-Gon's hand.

"I hope not," he replied, pulling his lover down into the kiss again. //I've waited too long for that to be all.//

//Greedy.//

//For you, always.//

He was rolled onto his back again, Qui-Gon on top of him, tongue filling his mouth with the taste of their lovemaking, stroking over his own, exploring as though it were an entirely new experience. Then he was moving down Obi-Wan's body again, kissing and nipping and tasting, rubbing cheeks and chin against his skin until it tingled, nuzzling his now-erect cock and so- sensitive balls. That wonderful tongue licked over his shaft again and then without warning he was engulfed, taken in to the root and just as quickly released, leaving him wet and startled, hips jerking in surprise.

Qui-Gon straddled him then, and took Obi-Wan's cock in hand, guiding it against his own opening, lowering himself onto it until his weight rested equally on his own legs and his lover's pelvis, eyes closed, hands resting on his thighs, and Obi-Wan was filling him, enveloped in soft, tight heat. He could not help but think of himself and Bruck not so long ago--not long enough ago, came the bitter addendum.

"Don't, love," Qui-Gon murmured, opening his eyes, sensing his regret and moiled emotions through their healed bond. Obi-Wan looked away, or tried to, but Qui-Gon held his face, stroked his eyebrows, leaned down and kissed him. "I don't blame you. I've never asked that you not take other lovers. I assumed you would, some time. You're a young man and I'm not. That you've slept with others--"

"Just Bruck. Never anyone else. Not since we started to."

"Just Bruck then. That exclusivity is more than I feel I could ask of you."

"Would you sleep with someone else then?" he said bitterly. "Is that what you mean?"

"No. There is no one else I want but you," Qui-Gon said simply, leaning down to plant a kiss over his heart. "But I've had a number of other lovers already, and time enough to make that choice."

"Then--"

Qui-Gon put his fingers to Obi-Wan's lips. "Enough, my love. Enough. It doesn't matter. You've made your apologies; I know you mean them. But I'm glad you have another your own age who loves you. I won't live forever and it eases my heart to know you won't be alone when I'm gone. Is that enough?" he asked, finding it truly was for himself. Because for all the hurt he had given Obi-Wan, not once had his young lover demanded so much as an apology. How could he ask for more himself? Their separation had been far more trying than he had ever intended, and its outcome far more uncertain. He found he could not blame Obi-Wan for wanting, needing comfort in the darkness into which he had unwittingly plunged them both. He had wanted it himself, and found none, until now. But what he had found now was more than enough for an old man.

Obi-Wan wavered for a moment, some part of him expecting--wanting--to be punished still . . . then realizing that it was not the punishment or recriminations that provided the lesson. It was the fear of those things itself. Few punishments were as bad as fear of them made them seem. This, perhaps, was what Qui-Gon had really intended him to learn by taking him to the top of the tower and making him watch his master fall, by leaving him without explanation and cutting him off. Like Qui-Gon standing on the ledge, he was still afraid of the eventuality of loss and the possibility of his master's disapproval. Those fears would probably never leave him. But they both had stepped off the ledge, fallen, and survived. Not gracefully and not well, but they had both somehow staggered to their feet and gone on. Nothing was the same again, after that. And it only made this moment sweeter, more poignant. Who knew how long they had with each other? Why waste it being afraid?

Moving slowly over him, Obi-Wan's cock sliding easily into him, filling him as no one else could, Qui-Gon watched the younger man's face as he began to let go of his self-recrimination and give himself up to the moment. He was so beautiful in that unguarded state, head thrown back and eyes slitted and glittering beneath the long gold lashes, the hard arc of his throat exposed and vulnerable, the heavy powerful hands gliding over his thighs with each movement, urging him on. "Qui," he moaned softly, "Love you. Love you so much."

And that simple fact changed everything, Qui-Gon thought. Gods, they had hurt each other so much and so horribly during their years together, and still Obi-Wan gave to him. He had thought the pain Xanatos had caused him was beyond endurance, but when Obi-Wan had turned his back on the Jedi only a few months into his apprenticeship on Melida/Daan, Qui-Gon had felt utterly eviscerated, certain he would never trust another again, especially not this boy who had proven so faithless. And yet Obi-Wan had won him over again. And the Force had steered them inexorably together. Finally, he had simply given himself up to the fear of being hurt again, and let come what may.

Still, he continued to marvel that he had fallen so completely in love after that; marveled that Obi-Wan could not just forgive him for his cool aloofness and many rejections but come to love him as well, and just as completely; marveled that the past stayed in the past behind them, once forgiven. It wasn't that the pain was forgotten, but that it became unimportant, like background noise: occasionally containing something useful, mostly to be ignored. Most of this transformation, he knew was due to Obi-Wan's own nature, the wells of love and trust within him that seemed almost bottomless.

"What a gift you are, my love," Qui-Gon murmured, leaning back, sinking deeper onto his lover's shaft, wanting as much of him as possible inside. His hands stroked his lover's pale and silken skin, making the solid musculature beneath it quiver. "A gift I don't deserve."

Obi-Wan reached up to him, cupping his cheek in one hand, thumb tracing his lips, then moving down his chin and throat, shoulders and arms. "I could never give you enough," he replied, taking Qui-Gon's hands as his master leaned back and pulled him upright. "I owe you so much."

Again, they rocked together in the lamplight, and gave each other what they could, more than either realized.

EPILOGUE

*Eighteen days later:*

"Ben!" Bruck called to him from down the hall, as Obi-Wan was coming out of the practice salles, hair still wet from the showers. Obi-Wan stopped and waited for the other boy to catch him up.

They had seen each other often since Qui-Gon's recovery. His master had, in fact, taken on some of the responsibilities of Bruck's training, so the two of them sparred and worked out often together, under Qui-Gon's watchful eye, or in variations of two on one.

Bruck had also been the first person to see the new scars, and the only one of his peers who hadn't been either disgusted and disapproving, or pruriently fascinated when they became general knowledge. The first time in the locker room, he'd touched them tenderly, tracing his finger over them, knowing without asking where they'd come from, what they meant.

"Must've hurt," he said.

"Yes."

"Your idea or his?"

"Both. Mutually agreed upon."

"Did it work?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm glad then, Ben. That's what matters."

And there was no more said about it. They didn't mention sleeping together again, either of them.

They had, however, had dinner together, the three of them, after Obi-Wan and his master had mended their bond. Throughout the meal, Bruck had not been the least bit uncomfortable, but Obi-Wan had spent it squirming in agony and unable to decide why, especially since the conversation had had nothing to do with him at all. It had, in fact, been a discussion mostly of Bruck's studies and interests, and the surprising places they overlapped with Qui-Gon's. There'd been a long and--from Obi-Wan's point of view--tedious comparison of wines, for instance, followed by a quite interesting discussion of recent archaeological findings in one of Coruscant's deeper digs, and a far more outrageous debate of the best ways to win at sabacc using the Force. A demonstration of the latter topic followed that lasted far into the night. Obi-Wan, disgusted, had bid the two of them good evening at second hour, leaving Qui-Gon brooding and in the hole to Bruck for a substantial if purely illusionary sum, and Bruck with a grin wide enough to drive a transport through.

He was wearing the same one now. As he had been that night, Bruck seemed to be a roaring good mood, fairly bouncing down the hallway like an initiate who'd had too many sweets.

"Well, what is it?" Obi-Wan asked indulgently before his friend exploded.

"I've got a new master!"

Obi-Wan felt something in him flinch protectively, but struggled past it to share his friend's joy and relief. "That's great, Bruck. Who is it?"

"Andreth Rallin. He's Lannik, a friend of Councillor Piell's, apparently. They've fought together." Bruck laughed. "We'll look a little like your master and his must have looked."

"Gods, yes," Obi-Wan grinned, "you're twice his size already. That's great, Bruck," he repeated. "Sounds like a good match. Have you bonded yet?"

"We're working on it. Needless to say, I don't think we'll go to quite the length you and your master did."

"Needless to say," Obi-Wan agreed, smirking.

"You know, it's Qui-Gon that set this up, had us meet in the first place. He seemed to think we'd hit it off."

"Did you?"

"Yes, though it surprised me. Master Rallin's nothing like Leth. But it feels right."

"It's the will of the Force, then. I'm glad for you. You've waited long enough."

"One thing, though," Bruck said hesitantly. "We're shipping out in five days, to the Rim, to follow up on the slavers you two stirred up."

"We'll be gone before that. Tomorrow morning, to Ando. Some territorial fishing rights dispute that's threatening to erupt into a little war. I was just coming to find you."

"Oh."

Bruck thumped back against the wall, crossed his arms and looked at the floor. Obi-Wan shifted his duffle uneasily and looked away. Both were silent for a short time, having too much to say and no way to convey it. Finally Bruck looked up again, sighing, and pushed himself away from the wall.

"Nothing we can do about it."

"No," Obi-Wan agreed.

"I'll miss you, Ben."

Obi-Wan watched Bruck's hand rise and fall back again without ever really touching him. He said nothing. Instead, he dropped his duffle and pulled Bruck into his arms. Surprised, it took the other boy a moment to return it, but he did, arms slipping around Obi-Wan's waist and tightening. They stood in the hallway holding each other for some time, temples resting against each other, curious passers-by walking around them but declining to disturb them.

Finally, Bruck leaned back, murmured, "One more, just for memory," and kissed him. It wasn't as hungry as Obi-Wan expected it to be but it wasn't chaste either, falling instead somewhere in between friendship and desire. He let it go on as long as Bruck wanted it to, gave back what he was given, but no more. They pulled back a little later, breathless, to find themselves surrounded by a small audience of younger padawans, who burst into applause then turned and fled, laughing, as the two young men made as though to chase them down the hall.

"Will you come over tonight?"

"I can't. I've got a mission briefing. I might be able to have dinner though."

Bruck nodded, resigned. "I'll take what I can get."

The words stung both of them and Bruck tried to apologize immediately. Obi-Wan hushed him with a finger to his lips. "Don't. I know it hurts. If it helps, I don't feel that great about leaving you, either. We haven't any choice though."

"No, and I knew we wouldn't. I'm sorry, Ben. I'll miss you," he said again.

"I'll miss you, too. That's the best we can do." Obi-Wan leaned in and kissed him again, tenderly. "I'll try to be in the refectory by early watch, but don't wait for me," he said, picking up his duffle and walking away.

It seemed like good advice all around, but Bruck wasn't sure he would ever be able to follow it.

#END#